The issue is beauty, wisdom, love. If there is a better time for this than now, I'd like to know. This year has been a grinder for pretty much everyone we know. Some days, what we value the most can seem very far away, hidden.

As we stand on the cusp between what has gone before, and what is before us, known as 2012, I am hard-pressed to imagine a greater opportunity.

To "carpe diem," to seize the moment without a stifling hold, however, requires mustering all the clarity of mind, courage and genuineness of heart that can be garnered, particularly when you feel, at times, your shoulders are not big enough for what is asked of you by life. Nevertheless, regardless of the weight you've been carrying, now is the time to release worry, frustration, anger. It does not solve a thing. Yes, this means letting go ...

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You know the drill. The holidays are here. Regardless what others are doing, you've got your work cut out for you. OK, so I'm not including those who say they are "above it all" and have mastered the holiday ritual, all without a bead of sweat on their brow. Good for them. But here in this tiny corner of the world, from this spot before my hearth, I am talking to those of you who wonder, really do wonder, "What's it all about, Alfie?" as the song put it, long ago, for the few of us who still remember.

Yes, you know what the holidays have meant for you in the past. Your family has had its own set of traditions and triumphs, rituals and disasters. At our house, there was the year my uncle Uno unwittingly turned off the oven while cleaning up the kitchen, a ...

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Consider this. What if, in the midst of whatever you are doing right now, this second, the "highest authority" were to "speak" to you? Regardless how you name the "highest," be it God, the Creator, the Field, Buddha, wisdom, your neocortex, the Wakan, the Tao, Sophia, Kwan Yin, the Guadalupe, She, the "two-million-year-old man," spirit, ethics -- it does not matter for purposes of this question. Underneath the naming of the thing, what matters is that we remember we are the same in our human being-ness, all struggling, all rejoicing on good moments, thankful on others, and doing the best we can, given what we know and have practiced.

If we can, then, get past this "naming thing," for it has been at source of multiple wars and suffering, let's say that your phone were ringing and it was the most holy and highest on the other end. Imagine it ...

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If truth be told, I wasn't going to write this. But, as "way moves on to way," as the poet said, I did. Got the whole thing polished. Went to hit "send" and instead managed to hit "delete." Oh, dear! Ever been there? Ironic, too, since the story I was telling myself was that you would be too busy to read it, with all the turkey chores to attend, or the tofu to chop, and I would be too taxed to write.

And then, in the midst of this inner diatribe, something else, much stronger than resistance, took over. I could not imagine failing to let you know personally, from me to you, the following. For those who have been here, by my side, since the onset of my time at this writing desk, in what's now called the "Healthy Living" section of The Huffington Post, some four ...

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She was distraught. You did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to sense it. Scratching around her blue plate with the tines of her fork, it was clear that something was on her mind. Up to this moment, she'd been relishing her butternut ravioli with gusto, savoring every morsel in the candlelight of the celebratory dinner. It was not hard to know this as so, with all her "ooohs and ahhhhs." But then, but then, something came onto her virtual radar screen that stopped her in her tracks, sending her into an unknown labyrinthe. Without the benefit of latitude and longitude, it was not possible to track where she'd gone, even though her body was still in its chair.

You know me. I had to ask. What was it that had interrupted her so abruptly, halting delight that was delighting us all? Calling her back with the question ...

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It is one thing to be at peace when you live alongside Walden, but quite another when unexpectedly, you've landed in Metropolis. Or, is it? It is one thing to find calm at the feet of the masters, in far and distant romantic lands, yet quite another to find such rarified air in the midst of a protracted traffic jam in the evening commute. Or, is it?

Only weeks ago one woman fell asleep each night under a canopy of silver sparkling stars and moonlight shining through the forest outside her window, where neighborhood frogs loved to join in chorus. Most every morning, she awoke before dawn to the gold of a rising sun illuminating the left margin of every evergreen, oak and blade of grass in sight. That was then, this is now. One, or make that two, small moving vans later, that pastoral scene is a thing ...

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Sure, it sounds like a good idea to "love your enemy" as one master teacher did his best to model. But, when "the rubber meets the road," what does this mean? Loving those who love you is one thing. Sometimes, especially on a "bad hair day," doing a decent job loving anyone is quite the task.

The National Scene

Despite rhetoric about caring for one another, there is disturbing evidence that talking the talk is not walking the walk. To name two: When candidate Rick Perry said he never lost sleep during well over 200 executions in the state of Texas, the audience applauded. When Ron Paul was asked, in the recent debate, whether a young man in a life and death situation should receive help if he could not afford it, Paul said no. Not even if it meant the young man's death, said Ron Paul. Without eros ...

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