Take God out of the Box

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Spiritual Development, Leave a Comment on Take God out of the Box

It is difficult for me to explain what I mean when I say the word God. It started in my teens, when I began to study the world’s religions, and I continue to stumble over my words when I share my thoughts about the Divine with my children. I envy those who can articulate, with…

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You Can’t Fix it: Parenting Wisdom From my Mother

By: A. Arcuri
Parenting, Personal Development, , , Leave a Comment on You Can’t Fix it: Parenting Wisdom From my Mother

Recently, my daughter developed an anxiety-induced vomiting routine.  She was waking up every morning and throwing up first thing.  This happened every day for a few weeks and as it went on and on and on, I became more and more worried and increasingly angry, my go-to emotion. My husband and I began a series…

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Do You Need a Spiritual Friend?

By: A. Arcuri
Spiritual DevelopmentLeave a Comment on Do You Need a Spiritual Friend?

Although I have a circle of wonderful life-long friends, we generally don’t discuss our spirituality.  And when we do discuss spirituality, we sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye or hold the topic in the same high esteem as others (me) do.  Spirituality is a vulnerable subject, so it’s hard to let our guards down and reveal what…

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Religion: What’s the Point?

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Personal Development, Spiritual Development, Leave a Comment on Religion: What’s the Point?

I live in one of the least religious cities in America, Portland, Oregon. We are progressive freethinkers who are generally a “spiritual but not religious” people.  Yet this religiously independent attitude, one that I am guilty of as well, keeps us spiritually stunted.  Karen Armstrong, one of our great contemporary religious scholars, has convinced me…

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6 Guidelines for Mindful Eating

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Mindfulness, Spiritual Practices, , 2 Comments on 6 Guidelines for Mindful Eating

The holiday season in the US is a season of feasting.  We simultaneously feel entitled to eat more cookies in December than we ate during the entire year while also feeling guilty for our overindulgence, which inevitably leads to the surge of gym memberships come January.   This complex winter holiday pattern isn’t solely a cultural…

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How to do Religion

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Spiritual Development, , Leave a Comment on How to do Religion

Religious scholar and author Karen Armstrong, gives me hope for a modern religious renaissance. She describes in her book, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts how we have lost touch with the brain’s right hemisphere, which is the side of the brain that thinks in myth, metaphors, and symbols. The explosion of technology…

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5 Things that Anne of Green Gables Taught me About Being a Person

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Personal DevelopmentLeave a Comment on 5 Things that Anne of Green Gables Taught me About Being a Person

After reading Anne of Green Gables to my ten-year old daughter, I continued on my own and have now found myself in the third book of the Anne series written by L.M Montgomery.  I read these books as a teenager, and I am remembering again why they’re my favorite book series of all time.  I…

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Sadness and Grief: The Work of Fall Time and Why it’s Especially Important in 2020

By: A. Arcuri
Spiritual Practices, , Leave a Comment on Sadness and Grief: The Work of Fall Time and Why it’s Especially Important in 2020

2020 according to my eighty five-year-old granddad is the “worst year I’ve ever had to live through.” That about sums it up for me as well.  It’s been a downpour of challenges, and what I’ve noticed in myself, as we move into the fall time, is that all the grief and sadness about the tragedies…

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My Ladies Night Needs More “Wild Woman”

By: A. Arcuri
Book Wisdom, Divine Feminine, Leave a Comment on My Ladies Night Needs More “Wild Woman”

The conversations became louder and more intimate as the wine continued to flow into the third hour of our ladies retreat happy hour.  We had spent the day bonding, hundreds of feet above the forest canopy, zip-lining at 25 mph from tree to tree.  We hiked the dewy Washington woods, bathing in the smells of…

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