Personally Read and Curated Picks
From Illumination’s curated collections 82 and 83
Tonight I read a total of 32 stories from ILLUMINATION’s Curated Collection #82 and Curated Collection #83. I have selected ten of those stories to feature here and beyond listing them, I provide teasers in various forms to encourage you to read them.
Chad Gates’s essay, Can We Resolve the Never-Ending Tension Between Science and Religion, really resonated with me. Chad starts out the essay by pointing out:
The central conflict between science and religion didn’t start with either science or religion. It started with scientists and religionists.
Their dogged insistence on being right, or righteous, has fueled one of humanity’s longest-running debates. Each is inclined to minimize, deride and dismiss the other as they continue to reinforce their own perspectives.
Chad goes on to explore the tensions between the camps and then points out:
To deny one and focus solely on the other invites disaster. Everything that sustains us, that gives us life, and makes us better is a combination of multiple things….Ideally, we would want to unify their two perspectives to better move through life.
So, is this possible? Read the essay and the comments and then join the conversation by meaningfully engaging with Chad and other commenters.
Jules’s (note this is not my friend mizmindful — this is the first time I have read this writer) Should You Give Your Ex a Second Chance? greatly impressed me. This is not your typical relationship advice article. I commented therein:
As you can see from my highlights, I believe you give a lot of sound advice here. I commend you for avoiding labels (like narcissists which I recognized in your red flags and who almost never if ever change, particularly if they are full-blown NPD) and focusing on the substance of the issues and that you do not tell the reader what they should do but rather you framed the questions very well [to help the readers decide for themselves when faced with the dilemma].
Whether you, a friend or a family member now or in the future may need to make this decision, you should read Jules’s article.
Staying with the topic of love, Ali’s poem, Four Letter Word, is unique, which is not often said about love poems. Don’t just take my word for it — here are a few of the glowing comments, these from Larissa Capella, Trista Signe Ainsworth, and Neera Handa Dr, respectively:
This is incredibly beautiful! I loved everything about this poem and was certainly tempted to highlight everything! This four letter word has a lot more meaning than we can ever understand and you have described it in such a way that made me want to read your piece more than once
Wow!! What a captivating, loving poem, Ali! You are so very talented. Thank you for sharing this piece of your heart with us! :) Love it!
LOVE yes, every letter has a message, hidden, and you have found this combination to be a declaration of interest, I want to know you, love you and to become you! Beautiful, soft and lovely love poem!
Of Leonard Tillerman’s Goodbye Grandpa, Some things just never disappear, Shereen Bingham commented:
This is wonderful!! It’s such a sweet, touching, tender story and a beautiful memory of your grandpa and your relationship with him. Your own character as a child is sweet and you expressed your grandpa as a very lovable character, a gruff old man with a soft, caring heart. And the ending — I think you developed it perfectly, making it surprising but not a shock or tragedy. I really love this story.
I loved how Leonard also used such a beautiful story to convey his grandfather’s writing advice to all of us. Please read the story, enjoy it, and learn.
In Fight or Flight? How about Neither? Jodie Helm delivers the latest emotionally and spiritually intelligent words from the archangels that she channels, which Jodie then summarizes and analyzes as follows:
if we’re going to solve the world’s problems and make it a better, safer place to live, we’re going to have to do what the Archangels say about working together and thinking logically regarding all sides of the problems we face. They’re also right about how globally connected, not to mention spiritually connected, the world has become. Any major events make themselves known everywhere, not just because we have easy access to information, but because of the domino effect that’s become inevitable.
Please read Jodie’s story and absorb what the archangels and she have to say.
In her essay, How I Found Explanations for Unexplained Phenomena and Learned to Change Predictions, Christina Sponias explains she accomplished this by becoming an expert in dream interpretation using the methods championed by Carl Jung. Her essay also discusses psychosomatic medicine:
Psychosomatic medicine is a science that studies the effects of social and psychological factors on the body’s organic processes and on people’s well-being. This medicine works based on the verification that diseases are not just biological phenomena, but are the result of the integration between the body, the mind, and the social environment.
Our publication owner, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, commented:
I enjoyed this insightful story that resonated with me as it aligns with my observations and perspectives on science and spirituality.
Please read Christina’s essay. If you want to read a specific example of her dream interpretations, she recently published Synchronicity: Why Did My Mom And I Have A Similar Nightmare On The Same Night? in my publication, ChannSpirations and Coincidences. If coincidences interest you, I published this essay there yesterday, Mirror Coincidences, A discussion of the phenomena with examples including one I synchronously read about on Medium today and the writer did not see it for what it was, about which Dr Mehmet Yildiz commented:
I liked the insights from prominent literature on synchronicity which broaden our mind. Thank you for sharing your perspectives on this important and interesting concept invisibly exist in our lives
Author, D. Denise Dianaty’s NO… Everyone is NOT entitled to their own opinions, is a breath of fresh air:
In our American culture, we somehow decided that our First Amendment rights of free speech mean every opinion is valid and cannot, therefore, be wrong. Our culture has made opinions incontrovertible and given opinions the power to refute medicine, science, compassion, understanding, and any and all factual knowledge. Government policy is being made, predicated not on real evidence or science, but upon opinions
This one intrigued me from the title and subtitle. In her Validating Our Pain — A Better Road to Gratitude, For those who are disillusioned with the gratitude movement, Poppy starts the essay with:
I don’t know about you guys but I can’t quite handle another article, meditation, or Instagram post telling me to cultivate gratitude nor can I handle another text or phone call where someone is asking me what I am grateful for or what is good in my life, as a way of ‘uplifting me’. There has got to be another road to gratitude that doesn’t result in me wanting to bang my head against a wall in protest.
That sure pulled me into the rest of the essay (as I hope it will for you), about which I commented:
Yes. One shouldn’t instruct gratitude but as you say, listen to and empathize with the sufferer and hope it emerges.
There are a plethora of articles about purpose. I had a feeling that Bella Martin’s Not Everything You Do Needs to Have a Higher Purpose would be different and worth reading and she did not disappoint.
How many of us rush from chore to chore, goal to goal, without enjoying any activity to the fullest because our minds are always elsewhere? Wouldn’t life be better if some of our personal endeavors came without an end game or underlying pressure to perform?
…
Sometimes I wonder if in our search for purpose, we miss out on what we’re supposed to be doing all along, pursuing and appreciating beauty. When you look for it, you’ll see it’s everywhere: in nature, in people, in you.
Do give this a read.
Brooklyn Muse’s poem, Remember Living…, presents similar themes of finding joys in life from simpler things. As the great reader and writer LM commented:
You musings took me down my own memory road of spending hours at a playground park sliding down metal slides in summer heat and getting tossed off merry-go-rounds at high speeds and toilet-papering trees…
I commented:
I enjoyed this poem of living life through its simple pleasures; and practicing gratitude and being aware and present — that is how I define mindfulness — people tend to only think about it as a meditation practice — one does not have to meditate to be mindful.
I believe you all will enjoy the poem too.
If readers enjoyed some of my recommendations, you may enjoy these recommendations I published yesterday in ILLUMINATION:
Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think of this collection in a manner that shows that you have read the stories.
In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
