-
May the Earth Heal Me
Dear Creator God, Thank you for creating me as one teeny tiny speck upon the magnificence that is this earth. Thank you for flowers, trees, grasses, dirt, bodies of water, mountains, creatures — large and small, of land and sea — even insects. Thank you for the sun, the moon, the stars, the billions of galaxies. Thank you for the awe-inspiring grandeur that is this created world. Help me, dear God of all of life, to always live in wonder at this amazing place we call home. Please help me to be a steward of the land, to observe, pray with and for, learn and grow from the earth. Please mold me into the you, you want me to be. Please direct me to my greatest teachers here and show me my place within creation. Please move me to heal with the earth. And…
-
Energetic Boundaries
I honestly didn’t even know there was such a thing as energetic boundaries until I recognized the need for them in my body. This training program in which I’m currently enrolled is pushing me in ways I’ve never been pushed before, or I’m a lot more in tune and have the ability to notice more easily. Essentially the feeling is that of all (or most) of my energy leaving me and entering into the other, typically during conversation. As the other person speaks, I’m drawn into their words, feelings and situation. Sometimes it causes me angst; other times higher emotions, but always I am IN the experience — no separation between them and me. I’m in the process of catching and working with it in the moment, a task that has been difficult in the past. In fact, there are lots of parts of…
-
We Have Forgotten
We have forgotten how to be human. We have forgotten what it means to be human. We have forgotten ourselves and what it feels like to be human. We have forgotten each other and the natural world. Now that I’m about a year into my nervous system regulating journey, and many years in spiritual devotion, life — real life — is coming back online. (And to be honest, I think the only time it was ever online for me prior to this was when I was a baby, when I was pre-verbal. I suspect this to be the case with most of us, unless our parents were fully realized while raising us.) I keep having revelations about life, and what I see is that nothing is real in the state of the world these days. Capitalism, the patriarchy and Western civilization, in general, have…
-
The Insistence of our Own Demands
“… what interferes with our living a contemplative life is not the busy, noisy, confused demanding, harassing world in which we must earn our living and care for our families. We like to blame this environment, but that is not really the source of the disquiet. Even if we could go to the country, have nothing much to do and no threats to our comfort, we would take our own noisiness with us. We would make problems out of trivialities–as happens in contemplative monasteries where the opportunities for distress have (by the standards of the rest of the world) been considerably diminished. Let us recognize where our problem is truly lodged and then confidently release it. We can be peaceful, even in the midst of the demands of contemporary life, because what is really pressuring us is the insistence of our own demands. Once…
-
Simply Being Alive
Oh Divine Light who moves us, loves us, sustains us, We thank you for life. Thank you for the rain, the sun, the wind, the snow. Thank you for the grass, the trees, the rocks, the dirt, the sand. Thank you, God, for the deer, the turkey, the chipmunks, the squirrels, the rabbit. Thank you for all beings, human, non-human, big and small. Thank you for these beautiful beings that snore at my feet, who show me your love every single day. Thank you for the graduation of darkness into golden morning light. Thank you for beingness, consciousness, life. May we always live in gratitude for these simple pleasures. Dear God, why do we know but continually forget? Why do we go to our heads more than our hearts? Can you help us remember? May we ever, deep-in-our-bones know that in you we live…
-
Dear Holy All
. . . Or Holy Awe, Divine Existence, Maker and Keeper of Truth, Exquisite Love, My heart is troubled as I write these words. I feel fragile. I feel deep sadness. I feel a sense of responsibility for those who didn’t/don’t have a voice, those who were/are oppressed. I don’t feel weak but I do feel uncertain. I continually search my heart for the next right step, but nothing is clear. There is so much to do. I want to make a difference but the path before me is dark and obscure. I know that you did not give me a spirit of timidity, but one of quiet power. I come to you this day asking for divine inner vision, clarity, strength, as I search the depths of my heart, as I discern the work you’re asking me to live into. As a person…
-
Visio Divina
Many have heard about and maybe even practiced Lectio Divina, but have you heard of Visio Divina? If you’re more drawn to images than words, it might be the perfect contemplative practice for you. It is simply a way of praying and being attentive to God. “Visio divina, holy seeing, is a way to pray with the eyes,” Adele Ahlberg Calhoun: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Practices that Transform Us. How to do the practice: God is always present to us. God is within. But we often forget. All Divina practices (Lectio, Visio, Audio, Terra) are excellent, simple ways of spending time with God. Messages locked away in our subconscious come through more easily during contemplative practice. Focus on breath. Relax. Take it all in. And let your mind wander toward what it will, without judging, controlling or fixing. (Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash)
-
Divine Joy
I love it when a new way of thinking presents itself, and as a person with borderline-manic-analytical-thinking tendencies, poetry and creative expression really lands for me, especially related to the natural world and our humanity. And last week, this excerpt arrived in my in-box: “The Divine Joy. Did you ever consider that maybe the “Big Bang” was a Big laugh? Or a Big Shout of Joy? That the Trinity could not take it any more—that is the joy of being, the joy of existence, the joy that is the joie d’vivere, the celebration of a universe where “existence itself is the miracle.” (Rilke). Or—even more likely because scientists tell us there was no sound at all when the universe began–a big, quiet smile of mischievousness when the Creator came up with the crazy idea to birth a universe (and put homo sapiens into it)?…
-
Overcoming Accidie
Last week, I wrote about accidie. Today I’d like to offer a few resources I found for overcoming working through it. We can’t let boredom and frustration separate us from what must be done. Our task is to be faithful to the demands of daily life with an honest, open heart. (1) “Being faithful in our regular times of prayer, study, office tasks, cleaning the house, changing diapers, and other works that we may be called to do each day can seem dry and discouraging. Yet it is precisely in these quotidian tasks of life that a remedy for acedia is found. The discipline of reforming our outer activity can be a means, with God’s grace, to inner transformation.” (2) To me, this sounds a lot like a call to be in the present moment, with fervor, grace and humility. And it’s not easy in our…
-
Deep Trust
Dear God of Infinite Faces, Help me to have a deep trust in myself, in the ground of my being, in the You who rests inside of me. Please help me to be bold in this heart-knowing and allow that boldness to resist the negative mind-chatter that seeks to dominate my thoughts and actions, my very way of being in the world. Please also grace me with awe and wonder at the mystery and transient nature of life. May I be bold in the deep knowing of myself while also remaining humble in the unknowing and uncertainty at the heart of creation’s divine dance. May I live into my unique personhood and callings, feeling you from deep within and allowing that sense to form powerful words and actions—of reverence, awe and love—knowing language frames the way we think, stirs us, and gives voice to…
