When the reality of impermanence and change in life hits you, it can feel sad, even terrifying. Seeing your children grow up before your eyes. The end of a love relationship. Losing your job, fearing you might never get "back on track." The death of someone close. Some freeze with fear when faced with how impermanent everything is, especially the things we're attached to and define us. Others can't redirect what they were aiming for, with damaging consequences.

Of course, people know in their heads that everything in life is impermanent. Yet it's difficult to incorporate that awareness, flow with change, yet retain energy and well-being. Impermanence doesn't penetrate so easily because what you fear losing when it confronts you is largely external -- beliefs, values, "needs," and all that defines who you are. The culture conditions us into defining ourselves by such external criteria. That creates a false, surface ego.  read more »

Image credit: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat was killing all those honeybees in recent years? New research shows a link between an increase in the death of bees and insecticides, specifically the chemicals used to coat corn seeds.

The study, titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds,” was published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder.

Colony collapse disorder, or the mass die-off of honeybees, has stumped researchers up to now. This new research may provide information that could lead to even more answers.  read more »

What did Lincoln have in common with many men and women today? Lincoln adopted a yoga lifestyle! He dubbed himself “a mystic,” and behaved in a way that corresponds with the teachings of yoga and meditation. Lincoln shared many attitudes with millions today who embrace a spiritual way of life.

Richard Salva, a yoga and meditation expert and author of 'Soul Journey: From Lincoln To Lindbergh', who has done an in-depth, eight-year study of the life of Lincoln, gives you an entirely new view of America’s greatest president. He has uncovered more than 200 connections between the life and words of Abraham Lincoln and the deeper teachings of yoga. Here're are a few:  read more »

''You are Life passing through your body, passing through your mind, passing through your soul. Once you find that out, not with logic, not with the intellect, but because you can feel that Life - you find out that you are the force that makes the flowers open and close, that makes the hummingbird fly from flower to flower. You find out that you are in every tree, and you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life.''

Diane: Don Miguel, I understand that you were born into a family of healers - your mother was a curandera and your grandfather a nagual. How did you come to take up the Toltec ways?  read more »

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

- George Orwell

In the aftermath of September 11, there was a big push to create a national surveillance system in the name of national security. Cameras were installed at traffic lights, ostensibly to catch people running red lights and stop signs, but those cameras came with a nifty side benefit: they recorded everyone within reach of the lens in their comings and goings. Cameras were installed at street corners, ostensibly to provide security against crime, but again, you were recorded wherever you went. Bank machines all come with security cameras, and those added to the ever-broadening web of national surveillance. Finally, almost every cell phone now comes with software that, so long as the thing is turned on, can track your every step by triangulating your position via GPS and the cell towers your phone signal bounces off of.  read more »