After much search and research… and reading and weighing… the first Causes for Healing winner has been chosen! The winner is… Stand With Haiti.

This medically oriented non-profit has an over 20-year history of being on the ground in Haiti, through Parnters in Health, delivering crucial health care and medical supplies. Stand With Haiti is Boston-based Partners in Health’s most recent campaign that specifically supports Haitian survivors of January’s massive earthquake.

Stand for Haiti’s Web site is a dedicated page of blog-style feeds with instant updates from staff. Here supporters can find out what’s happening right now and, most importantly, learn about critical needs–such as surgical supplies, medications, blankets, satellite phones, and surgical teams.

To build support and awareness about their relief efforts, Stand for Haiti teamed with MTV and a few other influential aid organizations to produce Hope for Haiti Now concert airing Friday, January 22, 2010.

The global telethon will feature performances by Wyclef Jean, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira, and Sting in New York City; Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift and a group performance by Keith Urban, Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow in Los Angeles; and Coldplay, and a group performance by Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z, and Rihanna in a newly added London location. Money raised from the event will be split evenly among various relief, recovery, and development organizations—including PIH (for SWH), the Red Cross, Yele Haiti, and others.

Today, amid the outpouring of aid to Haitian earthquake survivors, the power of healing and helping those in need crystallized in a heartbeat. Generous acts are incredible ‘hapi heart’ inducers — and that’s because they are chock-full of meaning.

In fact, one of the most satisfying and joyful experiences us humans have is giving to those in need — or to anyone, really. Just the act of being generous unleashes a geyser of feel-good serotonin in our brain, which translates to a sense of heart-pumping purpose. While we don’t wish calamity on any fellow human, being able to help someone out who is truly unable to help him/herself,  is good for the soul.

There may be no big revelations here, but an epiphany nonetheless came barreling through: with the hundreds, if not thousands (probably more) of causes around the globe conspiring to heal and protect, why not commence a project that takes a close look at some of those organizations and the people who bring them to life?

So… I officially announce the launch of Hapiheart’s ‘Causes for Healing Project.’ What will take place over the next year is a survey of social, sustainability, humanitarian, disaster relief and healing related projects, movements and initiatives that span our planet. I’ll try to focus on one a week, commenting on what they do, how they do it and what makes them effective at healing the world, its people, and our biggest social, environmental and spiritual challenges.

Last year’s economic downturn brought dark times to many of us. Let’s concentrate on hope this year, and how we can all work together to build a happy and healthy vibration on this tender earth.

Funny how much time we spend awaiting the next good thing. We add up hours planning trips to Hawaii, preparing fancy dinners, and trimming Christmas trees just so. These moments of prepping futures are like raindrops in the wind. They are lush and wet, vital with energy, yet as soon as destiny arrives, they flail and fall into the great mystery of timelessness.

There is a lot of talk these days about happiness. What does it look like. Where does it live. Who’s got it and how can I get some more. Scientific research now graphs a clear line between quality of life, health and happiness. It turns out that enjoying good, positive, even challenging relationships boosts our capacity for pleasure. In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert combines science and case studies to show how a healthy social life can equal a healthy inner and outer one, too. The book’s a best seller, of course. Not only that, it was recently turned into a documentary and featured on PBS’ This Emotional Life.

Top that with popular blog and book The Happiness Project and the now classic tour de force Eat, Pray, Love, and our collective hunger for awakening rears its head. These books are externalizations of a shared internal quest for joy and meaning. We all have the Joy — deep down or riding the surface — but somewhere along the way, for many of us, it slips between our fingers.

Popular psychology and spiritual thought are full of step-by-step ways to get happy. In all things, we want a recipe for joy and contentment. While not ‘desiring’ per se, anything in particular, except perhaps the pleasure of not desiring anything at all, Buddhism offers a path called the Middle Way. In his book, The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama answers questions that remind us Westerners that the way to all good things is within us. It is the Source. It’s not about traveling the world to find it — although some find it this way. It is about going deep and cultivating connection with our divine essence.

Over sixty years ago, Viktor Frankl portrayed happiness as the art of survival amid terror. His historic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, models the undaunted power of the human spirit, and how, by changing our thinking, we can change our reality. Frankl may have been waiting for something good to happen — his freedom and the end of war. But he was waiting by taking each moment as a breath of new life and finding magic and beauty in the ugliest of places.

When you’ve got multiple balls in the air, not to mention clouds of economic gloom to contend with, staying positive can be a real challenge.

I know this struggle first hand. As an artist, Reiki healer, writer, event planner, consultant and volunteer, I often feel torn between getting it all done and stopping to smell the roses.  And I am not alone.  Read more >

I’ll admit to it. In reading my new book, ‘The Hearts of Horses,’ by Molly Gloss, her language is inspiring me just a young frost’s nib. I am reminded of a dozen years ago when language and me were conspiring together like soul mates do, rather than the little conquests that preen my portfolio of late.

Gloss’s book, and the other I just finished, ‘People of the Book,’ by Aussie expat Geraldine Brooks, rekindles a lost poetry for words. I guess art has a way of surfacing when our breathing slows and our presence situates itself in the earth’s fertile vastness and hears, after years of missing it, the nautical beat of our ephemeral pulse.

So now I burn to touch a horse’s snout. From the distant, open expanse of the West, a freedom song beams my way, like a fire dance echoing in the mind. I am there, as quickly as I close my eyes and dream. My horse, shall we call her Ellie, bends down and nudges my shoulder, asking for sweet talk. I answer with a stroke and pat along her broad, strong neck. Soon, we’ll head out together and chase the sun.

This simple act of communing with animals is part of what makes us human. We are like chameleons of nature, seeing through to the souls of creatures with whom we coexist–if we’re looking with ancestor wisdom. Horses may not comprehend our inner struggle, but when we make eye contact with them, a relationship is born. Perhaps it’s empathy that makes it so.

As for horses, part of the wonder for me is their sheer power–a strength and fortitude that elevates them to something magical, beyond this world. Mix with that a grace of movement, personalities on par with dogs and people, intrepid speed and daring and you’ve got an archetype that easily makes history.

At any time, horse captivates the imagination. Especially now, during a period some are naming the ‘Great Recession,’ horse beckons to us. Call on the horse to inspire your natural power and return to wild freedom. Remember, the horse, as all animals, does not judge. She simply acts how her spirit and nature impel her to, moving ever-forward. As we bond with her essence, rather than ‘break’ her bronco side, we discover that together we channel our dreams into little miracles and the world is richer for it.

An overabundance of anything can drain us. Try this on: constant news saturated by doomsday forecasts and anything that will spin your eyes in fear… lasting for, say, a couple years straight? Thus spoke national media. Exhausted?

I don’t normally write in expletives. Many pin me with the label ‘optimist.’ Still, enough is enough. So here goes.

Stop the fucking negativo, media jerks! End this self-absorbed, self-interested, self-obsessed, greed-inured, jerking off rants about how the bottom of our tidy little paradise is falling out. Get over it. Move on. Do not click ’send.’

Then make way for happy. Heard of her? She everyone’s alter ego, even yours. No, she is not deluded. She is clued in — so clued in she knows that being happy is where it’s at. Joy is all the rage for the enlightened, she would say. She is ready for fun, playful, hip and creative forays into life’s deeper essence. She’s no dimwit. And, make no mistake: she’s not your new sex toy (although she certainly is a mischievous cat).

She is, simply, happy. She is the ‘new sexy’ replacing that other vampy, plastic, drug vixen parading as a good time. When she smiles, the world watches. Her aura is contagious: others (even you, you’ll find yourself) want what she’s got and will walk miles in pursuit of it. She’s for real, square on the money, and no pushover. Try cheating at cards with this hip chick and you’ll be on your tail-ista and out the door-ista in two shakes flat.

With Happy, value has meaning. She no longer uses credit because ‘it’s delusional,’ I can hear her saying. As for stocks, investing in real human relationships, hard work, earth greenery, beautification of our waters, and community thoroughfares are her wise alternative. If stocks support such ideals, she’s all for ‘em, as long as the girl or guy running the shop can look her in the eye and go two rounds at badminton.

Mind this world: it’s time to embrace your own Happy. Time’s a-wasting. There is one less tomorrow than there was yesterday. Enjoy what you’ve got and cultivate what you love. Make way for joy. Be joyful you’re here. There are so many people who care about you. Don’t let them down. If you could do one thing today that feels right, what is it? Now, go ahead and do it.

Laughing Buddha nature - relish it

Sounds of Silence

Sometimes thoughts hammer and rush in my head, like the sound of a neighbor’s never-ending house renovation. Or the persistent scratch of a wind-swept branch tickling the window. Then I think of the ocean, my kind of ocean for such days — calm, still, placid, luminous — and the words melt into their sea of silence.

Today’s world is full of distractions… and pain… and misunderstandings. Many of us use words as a defense against the ‘gap’, the space between illusion and what’s real. For many of us, words are a welcome respite to an even less comfortable reality: quiet. Words, words, words are here on this screen, on the radio, on TV, in books, magazines, databases, and in ancient tomes. Sometimes, no words will do just fine.

Since I equate ‘peace’ with a healthy mix of quiet and action, I like to introduce calm on a regular basis. It’s how I re-calibrate the inner and outer sanctums — otherwise society’s insatiable want of dissonance will cast its disharmony. Harmonizing when you feel disturbed, out of balance, stressed, vapid, or just amped out… is essential to staying healthy.

Take action by stopping

When the news and email buzz won’t stop… when you feel like one more word from the ghetto wire will blow your mortal fusebox — just stop. Listen to nothingness. Meditate. Get a massage. Visit the spa. Drive to the beach. Lie on the chaise and dream. Make some art. Swim in someone’s arms. Dance the holy dharma funk. Be.

As you are ‘being,’ you may feel more fully yourself after awhile. You may find that all the space you created in your own heart has also created more room for others. You may find that you feel happier and that connecting with those closest to you feels even better.

Here’s a simple song, in case you ever lose track of your own silence… from the classic duo, Simon & Garfunkel. Enjoy.

Healing Dolphin Style

A Warrior’s Heart

There’s one thing to be clear about: pain is part of life. Joy and bliss are always available to us, but struggle comes with being born. As Pema Chodron reminds us in many of her wonderful teachings on Buddhist philosophy, pain is best experienced with an open heart.

As we break down our barriers (thrown up to ward off pain), we let in the entirety of our experience — the good and the bad. We no longer try so hard, and get so stressed out, resisting anything that could possibly cause us pain. The result is mindful embrace of the stress agent and a warrior’s attitude of acceptance.

So, you get the irony. The longer we fight the hard stuff, the longer we actually create it — through repression, thickening walls, and abrasiveness. As we let go of this junk, a peacefulness ensues. We relax as we confront. That sounds yummy to me!

This is healthy action IN ACTION. The insight is a plus. It’s the warrior’s heart.