Dedicated to my friend and teacher Carioca Freitas in celebration of his 61st Birthday! Thank you for teaching by example and being a source of inspiration to so many. Viva PoimPoim! Walking the path of spirit, choosing to embrace our darkness and light as we transform and heal, is a lifelong journey. It is a mysterious voyage into unknown realms of consciousness. It is the story of our evolution and the slow progression into self-love. Once we start walking, there is no turning back. With every step, a wider view appears before our eyes. A deeper sense of understanding of who...

The real power within religion is the poetic invitation for personal interpretation. The word religion, in its original Latin root means re-ligari, or re-connect. The form, the structure and even the faith are secondary. Religion in its essence is an invitation to re-member, re-connect and return to our roots. Not as a nation, a race or a tribe gathered behind an ideology but as a living, breathing organism, connected at its source, children of life itself. In the east, one of the many names given to the religious experience is Dharma, which means nothing more than the essence of things....

There has always been confusion around the spiritual, the religious and the mystical. Three currents flowing down the same river. Three rivers leading to the same ocean. The mind attempts to contradict, to evaluate one more than the other. Yet, if try to approach this inquiry with a non-judgmental perspective we’ll see that though paradoxical, all three compliment and somewhat depend on each other. The simplest approach would be to see all three as different styles of playing music. The spiritualist is a solo multi-instrumentalist. Someone who can masterfully play a few different instruments – a guitar, a flute and...