Grief, Gratitude, & Lanterns

Grandmother Pinon’s Bark Hearts

Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve. Rabbi Earl A. Grollman

One of the most exciting and energizing forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. John O’Donohue

Gratitude is a match to light lanterns on the path of life.

I’ve experienced a week riding diverse and sometimes challenging waves in the ocean of life. I feel blessed to be in this place, this life at this tumultuous time on the planet. Blessed to live somewhat isolated from the horrors of war. Grateful to be at choice in my daily activities rather than being in survival mode, whether on the hamster wheel of commitments or uprooted by violence or extreme weather events. Grateful to be relatively safe and secure while knowing that too can change in an instant.

I’m blessed that the tumultuous waves in the ocean of my life offer up opportunities for deeper reflection, exploring questions with wonder not with the necessity that requires an answer. Grateful that the adventurer in me is excited by these new landscapes and inner terrains and that I experience the luxury of riding these waves, whether they be waves of grief or waves of joy.

I rode both this week, waking one morning to deep grief that carried me into the darkness of current world conditions. I felt deep sadness for all beings who reside in the paths of violence and upheaval in their many forms. I shed tears, crying deeply for all. I grieved over my country which seems to be operating far from the principles and values declared in its founding documents, aware of the many grievances I hold about the choices of our leaders and the injustices of our systems.

I grieved over agricultural practices at home and abroad that destroy the soil and poison ‘we the people’ and our planet home. Grief and grievances.

I wept for friends faced with serious health problems and other challenges. And I rode waves of grief for Zadie Byrd’s declining health and the reality that this sweet canine may be near to begin making her path to the rainbow bridge.

Choosing to ride the waves rather than to exit the ocean allowed the grief to move through me and to inform me rather than to take up residence and negatively impact my health. Riding the waves with gratitude rather than resistance opened new territory for exploration, reminding me what I value in life and by what values I aim to live. I opened to deepening my faith and my trust as consciousness (mine, yours, and ours) shifts and the Universe continues to unfold.

Out of the waves of grief questions rose. Questions that feed curiosity and wonder. Questions that may or may not be answered. Questions that hold the potential to light my way. As if to remind me that the ocean is a vast array of waves, by week’s end waves of possibility and joy began to roll in bringing curiosity, wonder, light, new possibilities, and yes, more questions.

I sense this is the nature of the times we are in and the events that are being experienced, individually and collectively. Riding the waves of life with gratitude and some sense that there is order and purpose that often isn’t visible may be path to building our capacity to navigate all that is unknown and uncertain in our world.

Grab your lanterns and your boards. Let’s ride!

Home of the Faeries in the Woods Out Back

LIFE is My Valentine - LOVE is My Message!

Heart Rock in the Labyrinth

My prayer this Valentine’s Day is that we fall deeply in love with ALL Life...

With love the pivot of change emerges, the lever stretches long enough to move the world, the arc of the universe bends toward justice, the spirit of humanity soars, and the flood of life revives. Rivera Sun Love: A Feast Beyond Valentine’s Day (read it here).

A few mornings back I wrote in my journal Life is my valentine! I was thinking about peace activism and reflecting on a conversation I’d watched engaging three “radical Palestinian and Israeli peace activists”. I was struck by many things, but most of all one activist’s fervent call that we fall in love with all Life. (click here to listen)

I thought about the insanity of war. I wondered when will we say ‘Enough!’ and end the madness? There is NO question to which war is the answer.

My prayer this Valentine’s Day is that we fall deeply in love with Life, so deeply that at last we say ‘NO!’ To war. To violence. To hatred. To our degradation of the soil and water that are the very sources of Life. To injustice. To cruelty. To all that does not honor Life.

AND that each step we take and each choice we make from this day forward honors that deep love. Honors Life. For that is the necessary pivot that will guide us to co-create a world where all Life thrives.

I invite you to read Rivera’s essay filled with juicy food for thought and to listen to the peace activists’ conversation. I’m curious to know what her wisdom moves and evokes in you. And this Valentine’s Day I feel called into the woods to listen to the Life to be nurtured there.

Love in the Woods Out Back

Snow At Last!

Ahh … Winter … Snow at Last!

The official snowfall reading of 13.6 inches, makes for the most snow our area has seen in one storm in over 8 years, which is a long time indeed, and was well overdue. It was also the first snowfall in 2 years where more than 10.0" fell in one storm. Finally, this was the 9th heaviest snowfall for our area since 2002. Keno – our local weather meister

No wonder I’d forgotten what’s needed when deep snow falls. It’s been quite a while. And, if you’ve been with me for a bit, you know I’ve longed for it, especially this year. Now, finally, the ground is covered in a white blanket, as it should be in winter. Happy Gaia! Happy me!

As this deep snow called me inward, my desire for a clear, safe path for Zadie Byrd and me as well as my car to reach the road called me out. So, shovel I did, feeling deep gratitude for the moisture and the beauty, while my body nudged, ‘be careful … don’t overdo it …’. I l listened, shoveling a bit then resting. Shoveling some more, resting again. A few areas that I normally shovel were left undone, a choice that’s big for me.

Feeling weary with the work complete, I answered the call to turn my attention within. My weariness evoked questions of sustaining life here as the years go by and the body’s abilities shift. I felt the questions deep inside. A few tears fell and the roads of judgement (You should be able to do more … Blah, blah, blah.) and fear (What if I can’t sustain life in this place I love?) beckoned me to their path. (Hey let’s have a pity and worry party …)

No! I declined, remembering the roads of letting go, of trust, of gratitude, of care. That’s the place within where I want to live!

The questions remain as explorations to engage. Not as problems to be solved or answers to figure out, but as opportunities. To embrace the unknown. To trust life and creation. To live fully and enjoy every moment in this beautiful, sacred place. To recognize when I need support and ask for it. To walk in gratitude, no matter what.

Inside. Outside … the dance with Life!

Early Morning Western Sky in the San Luis Valley

Empty AND Full

Tashi Gomang Stupa overlooking the San Luis Valley

The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe. Albert Einstein

… prayers that we will remember who we are, the truth of our being, and that our being here, now will contribute to creating, sustaining, and maintaining the universe as a friendly place.

This blog day morning finds me empty of words, especially words with some modicum of wisdom to share. At the same time, I’m full. Filled with gratitude and an interesting flow in life. And I’m full of compassion, trust, heartache, joy, sadness, love, anger, and occasionally a pinch of angst. The soup of life with all its spices.

What words will come? When? I wonder as mind wanders exploring this sense of emptiness …

In the knowing that I am a mere fractal in the cosmos, one with all that is, ALL life, I feel a void in my connection with those living in what have become zones of horror – around the globe and right here at home. A void that is not empty of compassion, care, sadness, but rather the emptiness of feeling impotent in the face of such horrors. Heart aching for all that separates us from one another, from our wholeness. Our holiness.

And yet I am full. Filled in knowing that every breath I take with the vibration of love is an energetic contribution to the greater whole and to remembering that holiness. I’m full of life, of possibility, of seeds gestating as they await their time to sprout. I’m filled with joy as companion to the sadness, with curiosity that accompanies knowing, with care for self, for others, for all life.

I feel these extremes and polarities as I observe the world and even as I observe self. Empty and full. Emptying and filling. Fallow, sacred ground attuned to winter, yet feeling a toe in the water of spring.

Deep within, I trust that life is unfolding as it should in a universe that is kind as my heart aches for the suffering of all victims and perpetrators and for my own unconscious role as perpetrator. And I am prayerFULL that we will remember who we are, the truth of our being, and that our being here, now will contribute to creating, sustaining, and maintaining the universe as a friendly place.

May it be so!

Khenpo Karthar Stupa

REST: Pure and (Mostly) Simple

Thinker - Contemplation in the Woods Out Back

As the seasons become less recognizable and more nuanced, it feels even more crucial to follow their lead and adhere to their lessons while we still can. It’s less about remembering the weather and more about the flow, the pattern, and the creative tempo. Noticing the intricacy of the seasons wherever you live is akin to tapping into a well of details, subject matter, and lessons that might otherwise go overlooked. Jacqueline Suskin (A Year In Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression)

How could our world be if we allowed the ground of our lives to experience the fallowness of fields at rest in winter?

Yes, we’re almost a full month into this 24th year of the century. The date, 1-24, feels auspicious as I finally settle in to write much later in the day than is my usual routine. This is the first of 12 24th days of this 24th year.

A quick search online offers up a variety of positives for the number 24: deep connection with family and relationships; harmony, balance, and good fortune; a strong sense of responsibility, compassion, and nurturing nature; empathic. But I digress …

Rest. Rest. Rest. Winter is the season of rest. Nature rests in winter and this year I’m exploring how to more closely align my life with the season, a season with almost two months ahead of us before we burst into spring. So say our calendars even if our bodies have long since forgotten.

This year I’m asking my body to listen and to remember. I’m exploring and experimenting with the question of what deep rest means to me and, since this body wasn’t built for the deep rest of bear’s hibernation, what it can look like as I engage in the activities of maintaining life and interacting in the world.

I’m learning and discovering that sleep and stillness, while important, are only elements of rest. With intention and mindfulness of how I’m BEing I can invoke a state of rest as I walk in the woods out back and even as I move about engaging the daily ‘to do’ activities of life maintenance. I’m discovering that how I’m BEing as I move about determines whether the activity is restorative and restful or drains energy. Simple mindfulness and choice can call forth rest in the midst of movement.

The flow of each day varies, seemingly in response to the intention of deep rest and operating with few plans, appointments, or commitments other than to the rest itself. Morning time habits and routines, generally slow, are much slower, elongating time between waking and the morning walk or breaking fast. Slower too is the pace of and attention to activity as I hold this intention for rest and self-care, seeming to call forth a deeper level of awareness and care in almost all that I do.

It gives me pause to wonder and dream. Wonder how our world might be if we listened to the voice of Nature and Her rhythms. Wonder how our world could be if we allowed the ground of our lives to experience the fallowness of fields at rest in winter? Wonder what we might discover if we learned to truly rest and reflect? Dream that the Winter Solstice is a celebration welcoming the season of rest and return to the true meaning of the season’s holy days, honoring that which is true for one another? Dream what could be possible if we rested together, laying down our weapons of war and of words?

To BE quiet. To listen.

What might we hear from the deep voice of our souls? Might we find ways to unwind the wound-up wounds that divide us? Could we heal? Would we dare be such a threat to the corporatocracy of wars (those of weapons and those of words) that thrives on sustaining our unrest, our dis-ease?

This time of rest and pulling back from the world calls forth such musing. Not to find ‘the’ answers, but to wonder and to call forth possibility and to imagine the creation of a world where harmony prevails. Harmony with self. Harmony with others. Harmony with home, Mother Earth. Harmony with the flow of the cosmos. Harmony within. Harmony without.

Rest. Pure rest. Could it be a simple solution to the chaos and discord of our world?

Mountains at Rest in the Clouds

Challenged to Walk My Talk

Dragons Dancing in the Morning Light

The most important work of our time may well be to maintain a high frequency grounded in love as walk through the seemingly mundane tasks and choices of life. Worry, angst, criticism, and fear are low frequency energies that block our access to intention, vision, and creating our world anew.

As the polar vortex seemed to pass our region by (quite disorienting to wake to a balmy 24 degrees and discover that it’s minus 5 just a short 50 miles away and beyond across much of the country), a convergence of seemingly unrelated events in relatively quick succession conspired to invite me to walk my talk.

Yesterday morning gazing into the fire I’d just built in the wood stove, watching the flames dance and observing to see if I needed to make adjustments, I thought of fiery extremes – from a match to light a candle or ignite the tinder starting this contained fire that warm hearth, home, and heart to uncontrolled wildfires changing forever the landscape and all life in its path. The later bringing death and destruction and ultimately rebirth and regeneration.

THIS is the divine perfection of a greater whole that calls forth Life’s cycles. THIS is the power that sources Life. THIS is CREATION.

Then I thought of planetary influences, each with their own extremes of expression. Fiery Mars and its continuum from the wise, compassionate will of the benevolent warrior in heart-based action on behalf of Life to its shadow, the angry warrior who kills on command – command of another or the command of a fearful mind separate from and threatened by any ‘other’ who dares be different from the self he knows and those around who mirror that self, having forgotten the wiser Self that is but a cell in the greater whole.

Capturing these thoughts in my journal, I wrote, ‘why do we feed this cancer with hate and fear that divides, chooses sides, and grows, just as we feel our minds and bodies thoughts and foods that feed disease within?’ And then, a quick prayer: Bring us back to wisdom, to our greater knowing that we are ONE.

Suddenly mind began to pop like popcorn in a hot pan. A flurry of ideas moved through me, visions of how I want the world to be for our grandchildren and generations beyond them and mostly focused on politics, governance, and the basis on which we make choices. I felt uplifted and inspired and a sense that ‘we can do this!’

I felt plopped square in the middle of the deep knowing that the most important work of our time may well be to maintain a high frequency grounded in love as walk through the seemingly mundane tasks and choices of life. Worry, angst, criticism, and fear are low frequency energies that block our access to intention, vision, and creating our world anew.

As the day unfolded, unknowing co-conspirators, including my canine companion Zadie Byrd presented the choice and the challenge to walk that talk. As if on a mission, Zades began this uncoordinated, yet easily flowing parade with an admonition to ‘not be too serious in my care for her and in my attention to the world’. Speaking through a friend who’s an animal communicator, she asked that I not engage in negativity and that we “move forward”. Doggie wisdom for sure!

A flash of Alfred E. Neuman’s “What, me worry?” ran through me. Yet as the day’s parade marched on, I was invited to own that, yes, I do. And to recognize that the worry isn’t serving me, Zades, or the multiple fields of which I’m a part. Indeed, that worry is simply creating more of the same – reasons to worry, to feel angst, and even to drop into fear.

The tricky thing is that my worry is subtle and sometimes cloaks itself in care so that I won’t recognize it. Concern for a member of my community currently experiencing challenges or Zades’ health, for example. Angst about the current political divides and rancor in political rhetoric. And what about AI, the economy, etc. etc.?

As the parade marched on, an email from a long-time colleague and friend landed in my in-box, announcing her new podcast, Terrified Nation: Can We Save It? – a title that from almost any other source would have garnered a quick peck of the delete button. But I know this person to be a visionary. She has been working in the political realm for decades to bridge divides and several months back launched American Futures, a challenge to define what we imagine for our future (click here to explore and share your vision!)

As I listened to the first introductory podcast episodes (and I encourage you to do so here), I realized how this subtle, sneaky worry detracts me from maintaining a clear intention and vision of how I want life to be. After years of practice and applying what I know about how life works, I can still get caught up in the fear-mongering fray.

But, thanks to a band of unknowing co-conspirators to wake me up to the subtlety, I’m committed to focus my energy on what I envision for self, for Zades, for home and hearth, for community, for planet, and beyond. This is my brand of ‘woke’!

Vigilance and vision are required to walk my talk. A vigilant visionary I aim to be!

Sunset over the San Juans

Trusting My Soul

Sun and Clouds — New Years Eve Morning

Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do. John O’Donohue (Interview by Mary NurrieStearns on https://personaltransformation.com/)

Trusting my soul. Ahhh … that feels so very rich, right, nourishing. Aligned with my highest aim. Shooting for the stars, not as a goal to accomplish, but to remember that I came from stardust (as did we all) and my soul knows the wisdom of this cosmic connection. The connection that maps the geography of my destiny.

How do I know when I’m trusting my soul? I wonder, and …

Compassion. I’ve been sitting with you, contemplating your nature for a bit. Compassion – ‘with passion’. Passion from the soul which feels, perhaps fills, the heart of my being.

So, compassion, you are of the heart, and that heart must throw off the shackles of numbness that hold illusions of protection.

Protection. From what? From whom? Being numb is no protection at all! Indeed, in my numbness I cannot see the world, another, or even myself and behold the beauty that is Life. And I cannot see the suffering, the pain, the degradation … Wake up!

To feel compassion is to care. Self-compassion is self-care. Daring to dwell deep in the heart and care for the heart of the matter. The matter of Life. All Life. Sacred Life.

These words, these thoughts seem jumbled as if they are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box to guide me. What pieces are missing?

What, if any, action flows from compassion? What is mine to do, to act upon? The question burns. Our culture demands action, doing. Surely it is not enough to simply feel the pain of another’s suffering. Or of Mother Earth being trampled and abused as a resource until we use her up. Or of callous killing in the guise of being secure.

But how will my soul answer?

What IS mine to do in ending these cycles of violence? What needs to awaken in me?

I shudder a bit, and, with a gulp, ask Muse, “Is this jumble what is to be shared today?”

“Trust your soul,” comes the reply, likely with a wink and, perhaps, a nod.

Soul suggests there is a bit more. In opening to deeper compassion and honesty about the world, I must not let that world drag me into its morass. Mine is to discover the geography of my destiny and then to trust the map. My map, drawn in communion with the cosmos, and present in my soul. Mine is to know that my, indeed our, greatest task is to BE above the fray, even when events bring that fray to our doorstep.

Beyond the world’s chaos my soul envisions the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. My task, soul seems to say, is to hold that vision in the darkest of times, especially for those who are suffering or in survival mode and those whose misery leads them to foment discord and more. To lift them up in my heart and see them, indeed all of us, IN that more beautiful world. To behold love as the standard by which humanity will thrive and to hold myself to that standard. The puzzle pieces begin to fall into place …

A Colorado Blue Sky Day!

Beannacht - A New Years Blessing

Snowy Peaks to End the Year

This first blog day of the new year finds me curious about the year ahead, what will unfold in me, for me, and what will unfold in our tumultuous world. I’m exploring within just what ‘reweaving wholeness’ (last week’s blog topic and the focus of 2024’s 7 Days of Rest) means personally and collectively in a world where so much is dissolving.

What will we face this year? How will we face it and who will we be as we do so?

Searching for a quote to launch the year, I found a beautiful John O’Donohue poem, Beannacht – A Blessing, written for his mother Josie. After reading and listening to O’Donohue read the short poem (you can find his reading here) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvS2LYbZLQ I felt such resonance that I’m sharing it in lieu of writing a longer post.

As he so often does, O’Donohue expresses and calls forth awareness of a deep knowing in my heart. May our walk through all that 2024 brings be as graceful as his words.

Beannacht – A Blessing

 On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

 And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

 When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

 May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

 And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

Crestone Peak

Weaving Wholeness into Life

There may be bumps and shadows in the road ahead …

… we seed the New Year with a global field of intention and healing, honoring our collective calling to wholeness. Each day we journey through primordial portals of remembrance, guiding our dreaming and becoming. (7 Days of Rest & Reweaving Wholeness - click here from info)

 As the clock ticks away the final 4 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 19 seconds of 2023 I find myself looking more forward than back. What will I weave into the fabric of this new cycle?

 I think of the elements in my Solstice prayer.

 – Oneness, discernment, compassion, deep listening, maturity, child-like wonder, peace – with curiosity and commitment to weave each into how I want through life in this cycle.

 As was the case at the end of 2022, many – perhaps most – await the turning of the clock to 2024 with bated breath, wishing to bid adieu to another tumultuous year. We want to turn the page. We long to dive deeply into the fresh start that began with the Solstice promise of our personal newness and culminates as we replace our 2023 calendars with new pages of promise and possibility that the coming year has the potential to bring forth.

 It is, as always, up to us – individually and collectively – to bring promise, possibility, and potential to fruition. What will we weave into life this year? How will we bring the diverse threads of the intrinsic nature and indispensable quality of ourselves fully into Life? How might our world be if we enter the new with that as our intention?

 As sure as the Sun’s light is returning day by day here in the northern hemisphere, we will have opportunities to do just that in the hours, days, weeks, and months ahead. What if we trusted the opportunities to come forth at just the right divine time rather than pushing to ‘make’ them happen?

 Although like 2022, this year held much tragedy and darkness, lights of love continued to shine in dark corners needing our attention and care.  May lights of love shine brightly on our weaving in all the days ahead. May we tap into the countless sources of light available beyond the chaos of the mainstream and its ways. May we receive whatever light we need as we add our unique rays to loving constellations of light and life and weave wholeness into the fabric of our lives – individually and collectively.

 While the onset of a new year signals the end of the holiday season in our culture, Winter has only just begun. The dark, the cold invites me inward (more snow would help the cause!). The season that began a mere seven days ago has a 12-week run before giving way to Spring. Yet our cultural habit is to greet the new year with our plans and to spring into action with goals and commitments to DO more as soon as the new year dawns.

 What if we took more time for rest and renewal as Nature does in the season of cold? What if we put our attention on nurturing our deep, true essence? What if we followed Nature’s lead, snuggling into ourselves to commune with the sacred and to gather all that is necessary to burst forth in Spring? While certainly there is life and livelihood to maintain, jobs to go to, businesses to tend, political action to be voiced, stories to be told, I wonder how the world might be if we began the calendar year in greater alignment with Nature? Mother Nature? Our Nature?

 In some way, I feel as if the new has already begun, with my curiosity and reflections focused forward not back to what is done. As I reflect on saying ‘Goodbye’ to the time gone by, my year end reflections include bundles of gratitude for what I’ve learned and discovered, how I’ve grown and changed. I experience these as subtle and internal shifts that have generated more smiles, more friendliness, more contentment and joy.

 What do you bring to your year-end reflections?

 As 2023 ends, many will breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally over along with a breath of hope for better days in the year ahead.  The world we live in is chaotic and uncertain. It IS! Those who put attention on that world forgetting that it is the world we live IN, NOT the world we are OF may look ahead with dread or fear.

 That need not be.

 Within each of us is a seed of understanding who we truly are. Nurturing that seed grows our faith in our capacity to be resilient in the face of the world’s chaos. This seed of faith is within us all. It is not faith in anything outside of us. Rather it is faith in who we are, each as an individual, integral part of an intelligent Universe. It is a reminder that life is so much more than we experience and observe in our daily routines. In this year ahead, may we each tap into our essence, our spiritual strength and weave it into the fabric of life.

 As you ring in 2024, I invite you to remember how important your presence and your ray of light is at this moment on the planet and to nourish your capacity to weave in each of the 365 days ahead by joining the global, online gathering 7 Days of Rest and Reweaving Wholeness, January 1-7.

 As they did at year end 2021 and 2022, the event’s introductory words draw me in with their reminder of the power of intention and clarity and the potent possibility that alignment and collective action call forth:

 7 Days of Rest, January 1-7, is an annual, open co-creative event dedicated to the healing and replenishment of the planet and all its inhabitants. All are invited to enjoy the rich array of offerings, including wisdom teachings, meditations, music, inspirations and more, that are generously offered by the global community. … we seed the New Year with a global field of intention and healing, honoring our collective calling to wholeness. Each day we journey through primordial portals of remembrance, guiding our dreaming and becoming. As we commune with these essences of Life, we remember our ancestral roots, our original untamed nature, and the ancient knowing of ourselves as infinitely diverse expressions of One Source. Together, we reweave our unique threads of light in integrity and harmony with the fabric of our living universe.

 The website is chock full of nourishing offerings each day. I’m looking forward to deep exploration of each of the daily themes. I hope that you’ll join me in whatever way best fits your essence, your schedule, your life, and your intentions for the year ahead.

 To Weaving Wholeness and Happiness in the New Year! 

Beauty Ahead!

My Solstice Prayer 2023

Snow!

The beauty of Winter Solstice is courage in itself. It is the courage to know that to be new is not necessarily going to be accepted by those expecting the commonplace. … a new you is ready … that will carry you through the new cycle. … Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the awareness within you, the new person within you. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

As I ease into the quiet of Solstice Eve and Solstice Day, I begin to contemplate what of the old needs to fall away, and I start to imagine who might I be in this new cycle. As I sit in the early morning quiet, my prayer for this sacred day when Heaven and Nature sing in harmony and for the cycle ahead begins to emerge…

May I let go of whatever stories of separation remain a part of me so that I can live more fully into the truth of Oneness.

May my critical eye be only a tool for discernment, not judgements of others.

May I grow in my capacity to act from compassion, calling forth compassion first, releasing judgement and doubt, and recognizing where compassion is needed.

May I listen deeply to my heart, to others, to Nature, and to guidance from Spirit.

May I have the maturity to live in the kind of peaceful world that I desire.

May I let go of childish ways and embrace all life with child-like wonder.

May I know peace and may I BE peace in my walk through our chaotic world.

May you find moments of peace in the midst of the world’s noise and busyness to release the old and step into your creation of the new. I appreciate these wise words from Max Ehrmann, penned in 1927, which seems so relevant almost 100 years later (listen here).

Nestled in the Snow …