Articles

I’m on the board of directors of a local community service organization. Last week at our regular board meeting we were chatting before the meeting started. The chat turned out to be more interesting than the meeting itself.

John Cali

Besides being on the board of directors, I also write and publish the organization’s newsletter. But I’ve been so busy lately I’ve missed a few publishing deadlines. So the other board members wondered why, out loud, and rightly so.

I told them I’d been very busy with my work.… Read more

An old friend of many years and I recently started walking on weekends up in the foothills south of our town. It’s a break from our busy schedules, a chance to catch up with each other and to relax in the natural splendor of northwestern Wyoming’s rugged Rocky Mountains.

John Cali

In the foothills you can see nearly the whole valley below, from the gently rounded Big Horn Mountains on the east to the raw rugged peaks of the Absaroka Mountains on the west.… Read more

One of the Washington Post’s headlines yesterday read “U.S. Downturn Dragging World Into Recession.” How does that headline make you feel? Insecure perhaps? Scared?

John Cali

BTW, in keeping with Spirit’s frequent advice about not reading “bad” news, I didn’t read the article. But the headline intrigued me.

Most of my life I was a “security freak.” I wanted absolute certainty in my life. In an effort to achieve that I planned everything out in advance. I had a ridiculously detailed written 1-year plan, a 5-year plan, a 10-year plan, and far beyond.… Read more

I know that’s a strange title for a newsletter article. But those of you who’ve been with us a while know I can come up with even stranger titles than that one.

John Cali

Last week I was at a meeting of a community service organization I belong to. One of our speakers gave a short talk on health. The first thing he said was “Have you checked your blood pressure lately?” Hence the title of this article.

The speaker launched into his talk with a brief history of his personal physical health.… Read more

Sam and Sara: A Story of Healing

Sam and Sara (not their real names) are a delightful couple I know here in Wyoming. They have a remarkable story of healing. But it’s probably not what you’d expect in such a story.

John Cali

I first met Sam and Sara some years ago up in the foothills south of town while I was out jogging. They were strolling along, hand-in-hand, obviously deeply in love. It intrigued me to see a couple that age holding hands.… Read more

Life, Death, and Plane Crashes

Last week, on a cold foggy night in Buffalo, New York, Continental Flight 3407 suddenly spiraled down into a fiery crash five miles from its destination.

John Cali

The plane, for those of you who might not know, crashed on its final approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport about 10:20 that dark foggy night in Buffalo. Fifty people died, including all passengers and crew members, plus one man on the ground.

The sad events in Buffalo had a particularly poignant personal meaning for me.… Read more

With Valentine’s Day approaching, I thought love would make a good topic for this week’s newsletter.

John Cali

What is love?

Regardless of how you define it, it obviously can take many forms. One of which we celebrate every February 14 — romantic love.

But today we’re going to expand our definition beyond romance. My favorite definition of love is one Spirit gave me many years ago:

“The choice to see the divinity in all beings.”

(NOTE: Spirit’s message today is a bit longer than usual and, to me at least, a bit sterner.)… Read more

Last week after we published our Money podcast, we received a fair amount of feedback. With one exception, it was all positive. In the exception, the letter writer talked about limiting beliefs. So we’ve decided to do this week’s article on that very subject.

John Cali

Here are the comments from the person talking about limiting beliefs:

“In today’s podcast it is said that creating wealth is as ‘simple’ as giving up limiting beliefs, but come on: this IS the crux of the problem!!

Last week an old and dear friend from my childhood died. I celebrated.

John Cali

I realize that may sound cold and callous to some folks, perhaps even to some of you reading this. But I actually did celebrate after my sister told me of my friend’s death.

To explain, let me go back to days long past.

I’ve known Joe most of my life, over fifty years now. Though he was much older than me, when I became an adult we grew very close.… Read more

As a former Roman Catholic from a large Italian family, still mostly Catholic, I read with great interest a recent Washington Post article on the Vatican.

John Cali

The Vatican recently decided to go public with one of its most secret tribunals, the 800-year-old Apostolic Penitentiary. This tribunal handles cases of sin the church considers so grave only the pope can grant absolution.

It seems Catholics the world over, including mainly Catholic Italy, the Vatican’s home turf, are increasingly ignoring the sacrament of penance.… Read more

Late last Saturday afternoon I was driving out to my brother’s ranch to have dinner and spend the evening with him, his wife, and some close friends.

It was a beautiful early winter day with a clear blue sky, a few puffy white clouds, and freshly fallen snow sparkling in the rugged mountains all around.

John Cali

It’s over an hour-long, 40-mile drive on a narrow winding mountain road from Cody, Wyoming (USA) where I live. To me it’s one of the most beautiful roads on the planet.… Read more

As I’ve mentioned before in this newsletter, I no longer make New Year’s resolutions, or set goals for the next 12 months. However, this past holiday season, I’ve been “taking inventory” of my life. Especially the last several years.

Those years, as we all know, have heralded many changes and challenges, some pretty scary. 2009 promises to be no different.

John Cali

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I spent a good part of the recent holidays examining my life.… Read more

John Cali

Well, it’s that time of year when many folks around the world are preparing to hail the dawn of a new year. This is an exciting time to be alive. I believe 2005 will bring many changes and much growth for all of us. (We published this article December 30, 2004.)

For most of my life, I faithfully made my annual list of new year’s resolutions in December. And then about mid-January, my list had faded into the dark recesses of frustration and forgetfulness.… Read more

Do you worry a lot? Many people do, especially in the ever-changing, challenging climate of our planet today.

John Cali

The list of things we worry about is huge: disease, war, relationships, fuel prices, food prices, the economy, terrorism, our families, our jobs, our bodies, what people think of us. The dreary litany could go on forever.

The mass consciousness encourages us to worry because it believes life sucks, and then we die.

Many of you know Emmanuel, the wonderful spirit guide channeled by Pat Rodegast.… Read more

As anyone who’s raised a child or been around children knows, kids laugh a lot. Far more than adults.

John Cali

A statistic I saw recently said adults laugh an average of 15 times a day. Children laugh 400 times a day. That’s not a typo — kids laugh four hundred times a day! Life is still fun for them.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been around little children. But a recent letter from a dear friend of many years back in Virginia reminded me of the days when my son was growing up.… Read more

As many of you know, two days from now the USA celebrates its yearly Thanksgiving holiday, on Thursday, November 27.

John Cali

The USA does not have a monopoly on Thanksgiving. Many cultures down through the centuries all over the planet have celebrated their own ways of giving thanks.

There are varying views of the origins and roots of the many thanksgiving celebrations. Some have religious overtones. Some are purely secular. But one thing is clear: It’s all about being grateful for our blessings.… Read more

With the holiday season approaching, I find my thoughts drifting back to my faraway family and old-time friends. And to my many warm memories of long-ago holiday celebrations.

John Cali

“Home” for me had always been the small farm town in rural western New York State where I grew up. Even though in my younger years I moved around a lot — all over the USA and the world — that was always my home.

I never felt “at home” anywhere except my hometown.… Read more

We don’t often do this, but I thought on this 11^th day of the 11^th month it might be appropriate to re-publish our first article of 2008.

If you don’t remember our January 2008 article, Eve of Destruction, this might be a good time to review it, given the recent crises shaking the foundations of our society.

That January 2008 article’s focus was environmental issues. But Spirit’s response could easily apply to all the other issues and crises facing our world today.… Read more

Our newsletter readers occasionally tell me they admire my strong connection to Spirit. As if I’m special or unique.

John Cali

My response is always to say my connection is no stronger than their own. We all have that connection. We are all special and unique.

The problem, as Spirit often says, is we’ve lost our conscious awareness of our connection. The connection did not go away. Only our awareness of it did.

So it’s just a matter of remembering what we already know.… Read more

Spirit is always saying if you can stay in joy most of the time, everything “wrong” with your life will “right” itself. For example, if you’re having problems with your spouse or lover, if you’re having financial or health problems, etc.

Of course, I always say the same thing to people when they come to me for advice. But a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to practice what I preach.

John Cali

I’m in excellent physical shape, and I regularly jog, do yoga, weight-lifting, etc.… Read more

I was standing in line at our little post office last week, and I couldn’t help but hear a conversation between one of the postal clerks and a customer. It was a friendly conversation between the two. But there was a dark undercurrent in their lighthearted chatter.

John Cali

Spirit and I discussed expectations in an earlier newsletter article, also titled Expectations. But the post office conversation reminded me of how pervasive and debilitating that “dark undercurrent” is.

The customer was paying cash for some stamps, and she came up a penny short.… Read more

The other day I was talking with one of my neighbors. He’s single, middle-aged, and never been married. He was bemoaning the fact Wyoming has more single men than women. If you’re a single man looking for a single woman, Wyoming is, statistically, one of the worst places you could live.

John Cali

My neighbor wanted a woman in his life and was seriously considering moving out of Wyoming back to his home state of California. He figured the statistics were more in his favor back there.… Read more

You’re undoubtedly aware of all the financial disasters happening on Wall Street, the banking and insurance company failures, etc. And, of course, there are the recent hurricanes, and all the physical and financial havoc they brought to the southern US and the oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico.

Are you feeling threatened by all this? Are the US and global economies in a dreadful downward spiral, dooming us all to an unhappy end?

John Cali

In one of his recent newsletters, Alan Cohen, with whom many of you are familiar, talked about billionaire Ted Turner.… Read more

In all the years I’ve been channelling Spirit, I don’t ever remember us talking publicly about UFOs. But several weeks ago, David Thomas, a long-time friend of Spirit’s and mine, asked if Spirit could say something about the predicted UFO appearance on October 14, 2008. That’s just a month from now.

John Cali

I wasn’t interested in UFOs until I met Ann Miller, the publisher of The Star Beacon newsletter, about 20 years ago. When David Thomas, the director of the newly released spiritual cinema movie, Tuning In, asked me if I’d ask Spirit to talk about the predicted October 14 UFO sighting, I said I would, even though we’d never talked about the subject before.… Read more