• being human,  breath,  embodiment,  learning

    The HSP Dilemma

    I went to dinner last night with a group of girls, four who are close friends and three I didn’t know well. I knew before I went that it would be a challenge for me because of my HSP (highly sensitive person) tendencies, but I wanted to go. I wanted to spend time with beautiful friends celebrating the holiday season. Upon arrival, I met two of the women unknown to me and we sat at the bar waiting for the others. I engaged in casual conversation with one of the women I didn’t know; she was lovely, but … But here’s the thing … as the evening went on, I grew more and more tired and angst began to fill me. The energy of the room became palpable. My surroundings grew louder. I began to feel my uncomfortability intensely in my body. I scrutinized…

  • being human,  breath,  embodiment,  learning,  reading

    Life’s Longing for Itself

    “Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth…..” Khalil Gibran

  • being human,  embodied liturgies,  embodiment,  learning,  musings,  writing

    Embodying the God Within

    I reflect often about life … why I do certain things, why I am drawn to particular actions and repelled by others, and I’ve realized through the years that when I over-question, it stops the flow. Sure, it helps to get at meaning, but excess is just that. In all things. I wonder if our world of excess plays into these tendencies within us … like increases like. These noticings have helped me to lean into embodiment when it happens … letting things be, posturing my body toward ‘just being’ instead of overthinking. And this leads to the journey that God has been taking me on all along … Throwing myself into the practice of yoga at a vulnerable time in my twenties, becoming a yoga teacher in my thirties, pivoting out of a set trajectory involving yoga in my late forties, finding contemplative…

  • being human,  embodied liturgies,  embodiment,  learning,  musings,  writing

    Keeping Our Eyes on God

    I have tried to read the Bible on so many occasions I’ve lost count. I even listened to the Bible In A Year podcast for most of the year a few years back; it was a helpful resource, doing it that way, but it didn’t stick. Simply ‘sitting down to read the scripture’ is a tough task. Strategy helps. A few years ago, I learned of several methods for studying the Bible as well as a meditative tool called Lectio Divina. I am more drawn to the latter, as I find God speaking to me in silent reflective contemplation, but studying scripture is also helpful when we put it in the context of the life we’re living today. During my time in the Living School, we read many spiritual texts, including very old ones … not as ancient as the writings in the Bible…