The V-Word

"Sex is… perfectly natural. It's something that's pleasurable. It's enjoyable and it enhances a relationship. So why don't we learn as much as we can about it and become comfortable with ourselves as sexual human beings because we are all sexual?" -Sue Johanson There is something deep and primal about the intimate sounds that come from sex. Whether you are with a new partner or with someone you've been with for a...

When All That’s Left Is Love

by Rabbi Allen S. Maller
When I die
If you need to weep
Cry for someone
Walking the street beside you.
You can love me most by letting
Hands touch hands, and Souls touch souls.
You can love me most by
Sharing your Simchas (goodness) and
Multiplying your Mitzvot (acts of kindness).
You can love me most by
Letting me live in your eyes
And not on your mind.
And when you...

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.” -Brian Tracy

 

I witness the generation gap widening at home every day, regardless of my relentless efforts to get my teenagers to communicate. They still mostly pick up the phone when I call, because that was the...

There are a couple of immutable rules to living a love-filled life, which demand respect and compliance. Although they are simple, they are hard to recognize, as our misunderstanding of them is often built into our identities through early emotional wounds. It is easy to become self righteous about what we believe about love and easier still to never understand that the action of love is the...

“I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its circuitous ways.”  -Carl Jung

It does no good to wonder about whether you are normal sexually, yet still this is the first and primary question that plagues millions of people and probably provokes them into believing in the heteronormative qualitiesof sexuality,...

Immortality comes through love. This is what I just recently learned at the passing of my own father’s life. It had been close to 40 years since I felt love towards him. His wounded heart only knew one language- anger, and over the years it hardened into a bitterness that made it unsafe to love him. But now that he is gone, I am struck often, and forcefully, with tears of missing him, the father...

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Tomorrow starts my tenth Natural Products Expo West show, and yesterday, as I was setting up my booth space I was overcome with both the sweet memories of the decade past and the recognition of the vast shift that has happened to this industry. I started out with...

I was born a middle child between an elder sister and younger brother. We were never close, and now that my father has died, I am able to see not only my relationship with my father more clearly, but also with my siblings, as well. It was a dear friend who shared with me a poem called “Elder Sister,” which described all the ways that she, as the first one, had to break through the barriers and...

“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”  -Rumi

 

Everyone knows the power of makeup sex to sand down the remaining rough edges and offer a soothing balm of acceptance after painful breaks in relationships. Yet, rarely do we consider sexual intimacy as the transformative healing force in dealing with the overwhelming grief that comes with death. It hadn’t really occurred to me...