Author: Katy Taylor

I am a regular person, like you. I am an earth lover, a seeker, a singer, a gardener, a partner and friend. I have attended a lot of trainings and continue to do my work to grow and deepen and become a more loving person. If you're interested, you can read more about me on the About page.

waves welcome me

Friend, our closeness is this.
Anywhere you put your foot
Feel me in the firmness under you.
~ Rumi

On vacation at Mar de Jade (Mexico) two weeks ago, my morning meditation was being on the beach with the rising tide of waves.

Usually, I was the first one down to walk on the sand, at the intersection of land and sea, contemplating ocean, contemplating waves.

I didn’t do a formal sit. The ocean called me.

I slowly wandered and stood facing the ocean, letting the waves take me. Waves filling up, coming to fullness, to readiness, then spilling over to give, to surrender, to gift the land with their essence, their “waveness.”

Breathing with the waves, taking them in with eyes, heart, body, bodysoul, in awe, in beauty, in wonder.

Touched by the unseen shaping guiding their rhythm and form, a circular flow of rising and forming and breaking and ebbing–a yang giving way to yin–a giving way to giving again. A cycle of giving and receiving, of generativity and rest, of expansion and contraction.

A circle of wholeness, of life.

Foreign territory to me, a land-dweller who grew up in the country, far from the ocean.

I felt a deep, interior call to be with her immensity, her power, her being.

Every morning for about an hour, I would join the confluence of land and sea, waiting for the rising tide to come and splash my feet, my legs, my clothes.

One morning, when Dave joined me, he said the waves were greeting me. Yes, I smiled, it feels like this.

I was being welcomed by ocean waves–Good morning, Katy–let me touch and taste and kiss and splash you in greeting. Thank you for being with me.

I walked and stood in the waves, feeling their wetness, their saltiness, their tickly touch, their caress, and their pull out to sea while my feet were buried in wet sand, holding me on land, and singing my human greeting to them:

Waves, waves, waves, ocean waves,
Great Mother’s waves, welcome me.
Touch and be touched, meet and greet,
welcome the mystery.
Human and wave, matter and sea,
life, love, and me.

Back in Minnesota, I’m not barefoot all day, not feeling the touch of waves and sand so immediately.

But I am feeling the touch of this bioregion–the greeting of Spring–in the earlier light kissing my face as I awake, in the scent of wet earth after the melting of snow, in the warming touch of air on my body, in increasing liquid birdsong.

In the firmness of life continuing to hold me and support me here in this precious eairth.*

How about you?

How are you greeting and being greeted this season?

How do you feel the firmness of life, or what Rumi calls “the Friend,” under your feet, supporting you?

* earth and air as one being = eairth

Happy Spring Equinox 2019!

Spring Equinox is Thursday March 20th at 4:59 pm Central Time.

The earth has received the embrace of the sun
and we shall soon see the results of that love.
Every seed has awakened
and so has all the animal life.
It is through this mysterious power that
we, too, have our being.
~ Sitting Bull

This year, I am celebrating Spring Equinox away from the land I live in–in Mexico on vacation!

When we left Minnesota last week, all of a sudden, Spring rains had begun, melting our 2 feet of snow and creating a treacherous, icy landscape, with very real threats of flooding.

The embrace of the sun is being received by the atmosphere, creating rain instead of more snow. The trees are receiving this information and sending it down to their roots, and the buds are counting the hours of daylight until it’s time to pop. This love between sun and earth is beginning to awaken seeds and animals.

How can you let this mysterious power of being awaken you?

This is a question I have taken with me to Mexico.

In the meantime, I offer you practices and rituals from past blogposts so you can align yourself with this great turning of the seasons.

Choose something to support what you need right now in your life to allow this mysterious power to awaken (in) you:

How will you let this mysterious power of being awaken (in) you?

nurturing & greeting rituals

Image by SofieZborilova on Pixabay

Imagine coming into the presence of a baby. (Or, if it’s easier, a baby animal.)

Eyes round and open, she is awake and alert, expressions flitting across her face.

Would you ignore this luminous presence?

Or would you take in her precious being with an attuned, loving, perhaps even grateful greeting? Perhaps some sweet words, a higher-pitched, maybe even cooing, voice, a soothing tone…

In so doing, you acknowledge that her presence affects you. That she is here and you are here. That you are connected with her. In a way that feels nourishing and contactful to both of you.

What if this were the way we lived our lives?

In contact with each other, with the earth, with the other-than-human beings, and with the rhythm of our lives, all the time?

What would change?

I know I would feel more open, more grateful, more awake, more alive… more present.

From what I understand, our indigenous ancestors lived in this way—in deep contact with themselves, each other, and the earth—and from this deep experience of kinship, in deep gratitude.

Our Native American brothers and sisters, indigenous to North America, continue to carry this relationship of kinship, of respect and gratitude into our modern times. They remind us of what is possible.

As you know, I’m all about practicing presence!

It’s my tagline, afterall: “practice presence for life.” And I’ve written a whole e-book about small, doable rituals you can incorporate into your daily life to feel more present.

But I think there is something else I’m exploring here.

It is what all my presence practice rituals are pointing toward. Like the Buddhist story of the finger pointing to the moon, we don’t want to get fixated on the finger, but to focus our gaze on the moon.

All my presence rituals are meant to support a dropping into this deeper contactful presence.

So, what is presence, anyway?

Right now, I am experiencing it as a full-bodied, full-souled contact with myself and “the other.”

And when I feel it, I feel grateful. Presence and gratitude go hand in hand.

Since many of us don’t often get the chance to interact with a baby—human or animal—how about practicing with an alive being you connect with daily?

    • A partner or child
    • A pet or plant
    • Some other being outside—the snow (a good choice this winter in MN!), the sun, the moon, a tree, or a mountain?

Find a specific living being—human or otherwise—and let that being teach you how to be fully present. (You might also find some of my other presence practices/rituals help prepare you for this. Poetry is one of my favorites, so here’s one:)

Praying by Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Here are a few suggestions* for getting started:

    • Open all your senses to this being—sight, sound, taste, scent, touch. And keep returning to your senses when your mind sidetracks you back into thoughts. Take this being in as fully as you can.
    • Receive how their presence affects your whole bodysoul—body, heart, mind, soul. You might experience it as pleasant or unpleasant. Continue to drop thought and come back to body and heart, in particular.
    • Make some sound—words or otherwise—to express your experience. It might be joyful or sweet, or you might feel sad or angry or confused. Express whatever it is with sound.
    • Notice how you feel nurtured having greeted this being.
    • Take some time to receive any greeting in return.
    • Then thank the being for this contact that brings you here, in touch with yourself and the living web of relationship all around you. Use words or sounds or movement or gestures and keep coming back to your body and heart.

Let’s close with a nurturing and greeting ritual:

Place your hands in prayer position in front of your heart with me.

As we bow our heads to our hearts….

We are bowing to ourselves for practicing.

We are bowing to each other for practicing together.

We are bowing to the earth as the ground of our practice.

Namaste.

Notes:
* After writing this, I realized how influenced I was by the recent work I have been practicing. You can find a similar practice in Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin.

I also want to credit the phrase “nurturing and greeting rituals” as originally from Erik Erickson as “daily rituals of nurturance and greeting,” which I found in Dolores LaChapelle’s book Sacred Land, Sacred Sex, Rapture of the Deep. She uses it not only in the realm of humans, but to include all of the natural world. (p. 170+)

to love

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings
in such a way as to complete and fulfill them,
for it alone takes them and joins them
by what is deepest in themselves.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We are part of everything we see—
this is the love that keeps moving us back
into wholeness when divided.
To love by admitting our connection
to everything is how we stay well.
~ Mark Nepo

We spent last week on a retreat in the strangely and wildly beautiful Sonoran desert pictured above. I had no idea how many living beings I would encounter in the desert!

I was struck, over and over again, how what looked like inhospitable earth—rocky, dry, severely lacking the the lush green carpet I am familiar with as an Easterner living in the MidWest—could not only endure, but encourage such hospitality!

Every day, we participated in practices to connect us with our earthly selves, in particular, our wild, indigenous nature and deep instinctive, and imaginative soul. These included yoga, dancing, dreamwork, ceremony, council, and long wanders on the land.

teddybear cholla--500x

We gathered together, united in our love for this precious eairth.* Our practicing was to come into deeper communion with eairth and the other-than-human beings living in the desert, as well as to see the ways we get lost and forget this primal connection, this original love.

There is no wasted energy in the desert. As a cactus passes from life into death, it slowly allows its outer skin to fall away or decompose to create nourishment for the next being to grow. The generosity and nobility of each being releasing its life to the next joins them in an unending cycle of death and birth, and, dare I say it?, Love.

Love unites, completes,
and fulfills them, joining them
as outward emanations
of eairth’s love,
as we humans also are.

fallen cholla feeding other beings--1200x

On this Valentine’s Day, I invite you
to engage in presence practice
on behalf of eairth.

Something that joins you to this deepest uniting, wholeness-creating power of Love that eairth and all her beings so generously express, even as we pollute and ravish her/them.

    • Thank the water as you use it—for washing, drinking, flushing, cleaning—the wood as you burn it, the food as you prepare and eat it, the gas, oil, and electricity as you heat and light with it. This is being present with and appreciating in the moment, the gifts of eairth.
    • Sing to eairth, her creatures, and her other-than-human (and human) beings.
    • Engage in a ceremony to acknowledge and honor your commitment to being in deeper relationship with eairth’s love.
    • Or try a practice we did on retreat: Take a praise walk and appreciate, bless, and praise all the other-than-human beings you encounter (plants, trees, animals, rocks, snow, sunlight, rain, fog …).

What are some other practices
you can engage in to live
your deepest Love today?

* eairth = earth and air as one

Remembering

Remember by Joy Harjo

from She Had Some Horses

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

yes, yes, yes

The sky holds our precious nourishment—air that is inspiration.

The moon recently made her mysterious beauty known with the lunar eclipse on January 20th.

The sun accompanies us every day, rebirthing our world—you might try greeting her in the morning and saying farewell at night.

Your mother and father, regardless of all they did and did not do, created you and brought you into this amazing, interconnected, and life-giving planet earth.

the earth. the earth. the earth.

This whole poem is about the earth.

What is your relationship with the skin that you are?

The plants, trees, and animals that live with us and give us life.

Have you talked with them recently?

The elements—earth, wind, fire, water—all the elements within you, creating you, living you.

How are you guided by them, birthed by them?

“The ageless intercourse between the body
and the earth—this co-evolution—
has shaped the tissues and organs
of our very earthly organism…”
~ David Abrams in Becoming Animal, p. 73

In our human-animal nature–

We are alive poems.

We are alive patterns.

We are alive eairth* in human form.

How are you living
this great poem?

Serene Alchemist of the Wild

Serene Alchemist of the Wild, she whispers into the circle of women at Women’s Temple, looking straight at me. Yes, the women nod, it’s my temple name.

These women don’t know me. We have just spent about an hour dancing and practicing in circle together, but we don’t know each other outside of this. Or do we?

I left Women’s Temple that night wondering about this name. It seemed so mysterious, yet so fitting. So big, yet so presumptuous.

I wrote it on the top of the full-length mirror in my room in red white board marker. I read it from time to time.

Now, 4-5 years later, I am claiming this name as my phrase to live into for this New Year of 2019.

Serene Alchemist of the Wild

I have not always been a serene alchemist of the wild, but rather a lion tamer, a domesticator, a perfecter, a fixer, a manager of all things wild. It has been my job, especially as a Self-Pres type One, to make things proper and right and good. Wild was not that.

Wildness had no choice but to go underground.

It was OK for those trees out there to be wild, and those squirrels racing around, and those rabbits that try to get into my garden, and nature lavishly abundant in the countryside, but not me and not things around me and not anything that I could get my hands on, that I could fence in or fence out…

And serene I was not. I was serious. I was stern. I was carefully contained. I was—yes, truthfully—at times rigid. I was often frustrated that so much wildness was taking over and needed managing, that so much was “not right.” And I needed to fix it.

practice makes perfect

I did transform things. I have always had a knack for improving things, for making beauty, for creating order and goodness out of the raw materials at hand. But the transforming was often fueled with distress and frustration within me and had that effect on anyone in my trajectory…

And there was often not much fluidity, but more forcefulness, pushing against the river to try to get it to flow better… I had ideals, perfect ideas in my mind of how things SHOULD be, and I tried to reach them and to make things and people around me live up to them as well.

Quite unconsciously, I had bought into the “habit of dominion” (from Nora Murphy’s book White Birch, Red Hawthorn). The patriarchal culture I was born into that values using people, animals, things, and nature (a thing) to get, first and foremost, our superior human “needs” met also taught me how to express my type One tendencies. I learned early on how to be an active doer in the world, a subject, not an object, that acts on other human and non-human objects to satisfy my separate “improving” and “righting” self.

This separation of us and our superior needs from the rest of life is how, on a small but infinitely multiplying scale, we continue our habit of dominion—over those less economically stable than us, over native peoples, over nature and the earth. How we glean the goods, the profit, the resources we “need” at the expense of human and non-human “others.”

In my small case, for example, I assumed that the separate me knew better how things “should” be—better than my husband or even the plants growing outside. And I imposed my ideas on them, not taking theirs seriously, if taking them into account at all.

How do you continue the “habit of dominion” to get what you,
as a separate self, think you need
(quiet, praise, love, safety, etc.)?

Cut to now. A new time. A time of transition and wonder and freshness.

Winter Solstice and Christmas herald the rebirth of light. The New Year creates a fresh start, recommitment to a new vision of living and promise of a huge relocation to Washington state with my husband, literally a new life opening up.

And a new relationship to what I now recognize as my soul’s calling—

Serene Alchemist of the Wild

It is stunning to me to view my life through this lens—to see how my spiritual practice, my re-training as an interfaith minister, laughter yoga leader, holistic coach, yoga and women’s work teacher… how all of this has been part of the unfolding of this deeper soul’s calling.

I am much more serene.

Like the trees that bend and bow in storms or ice, that let rain wash over them and funnel it down to their roots, I am coming to a much deeper sense of calm, of contentment, of easeful equanimity amidst the “Sturm und Drang” of life.

“In the Virtue of Serenity, there is no feeling
of effort or of striving. We are soothed and soothing.
We flow from one experience into the next,
feeling calm and balanced,
regardless of the ups and downs of life.”
(Understanding the Enneagram, Riso & Hudson, p. 64)

And Serenity is the Virtue for type One (those women didn’t know I was a One)—it is the specific grace of the heart that my One soul learns as all that fixing energy dissolves, allowing me to be at peace and at home in life exactly as it is, unfolding now, and now, and now…

“The Alchemist takes our pain and turns it into compassion
for ourselves and for each other… the Alchemist spins
our fear into love and our pain into prayer.”
(Sweat Your Prayers, Gabrielle Roth, p. 189, 190)

The Alchemist trans-forms, shapeshifts the seeming dross, pain, fear and dis-ease of life into shining, precious gold, fierce, radiant beauty, and deep, rich Love—within ourselves and through us within those with whom we share the journey.

Them’s big shoes to fill!!

But we don’t do this alone—it is not a separate “I” that trans-forms me or you. It is God/dess within, True Nature within that shapeshifts and spins our lives into a healing prayer.

We orient to this continual “optimization of being” with our lives—by what we take in through our senses, consciously and unconsciously. Just like an Oak tree receives nourishment through sun, rain, soil, micro-organisms, and its connections to other plant and tree-life to grow into its unique form as White, Red, Black, Pin, or Burr Oak (the familiar species here in Minnesota), so do we receive constant nourishment from outside and inside. From our relationships with people, animals, sun, moon, stars, trees, animals, plants, birds, and non-human others as well as our inner relationship with ourself and God/dess, to become, to trans-form and shapeshift into Who we are.

Serene Alchemist of the Wild

Which brings me to the WILD!!

instinctual body

The dynamic, instinctual, primal life pulse within us all that keeps us as human animals alive on this planet—that cannot be separated from our wild soul’s calling to BE who we are—wild child and all. That spark of the Divine that lives within and as all of nature, including humans and wants to express and grow and heal and BE you and me.

This wild life force participates in the ever-dynamic flow of Being that optimizes naturally by coming into relationship with all that is around it. It comes into a shape within which it is held without being trapped, which gives it form, like the banks give form to the flowing river as well as respond to its flow.

This shaping is not perfecting or domesticating, but a natural response to participating in relationship, a dynamic responding to life. There is a trusting of the wild pulsation, the impulse within which gives birth to a new form, a new shape, a new unfoldment.

I finally understand how necessary it is to give each part of me a home—to welcome all the wildness in. The too big parts, the critical parts, the angry parts, the grieving parts, the fearful parts, the wounded parts, the over-indulging parts—all our wildness must be welcomed home within.

No part excluded. All Welcomed. Accepted. Loved. Seen. Understood. With compassion, gentleness, kindness, and Love.

“I see you,” say the African Bushmen as they greet each other, responding with “I am here.” (The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo, p. 428)

From this place of full acceptance of our wildness, the individual spark of the Divine within can continue its journey of expression in this world.

Who knows how that wildness will shapeshift and trans-form when it is held in Love, not forced to be other than it is?

Who knows how the passion and juicy life-force energy will radiate in our lives when we are not trying to change it, shut it down, tame it?

Serene Alchemist of the Wild

Serene Alchemist--crpd-1200x

I accept you as my soul’s calling for 2019.

I am willing to grow with, unfold in, shapeshift and trans-form into who this soul invitation calls me to be.

How about you?

How is your soul calling you as we enter into 2019?

How will you live into your soul’s invitation?

the longest night


Winter Solstice is just about here.

Friday, December 21st, at 4:23 pm Central Time.

This is not a human-formed celebration, but an earth event, a turning of the earth wheel that happens once each year. As we are inhabitants of this earth, earth standing on two feet, this longest night of the year is happening not just to us, but within us, in rhythm with us—we are in rhythm with the Winter Solstice.

“…everything is potentially a sacred text through which God can speak to us.”
~ Christine Valters Paintner, in her book Lectio Divina, p. 20

By acknowledging this darkest night of the year, viewing it as a sacred text, we can participate consciously in the turning of the year, in the unfolding mystery of nature through which God speaks to us.

We can participate consciously in the sanctifying of time, the sacredness of this natural earth rhythm, this holy turning of the year through which God/True Nature expresses:

  • in the darkest depths of night
  • in the stark, cold of winter,
  • in the birth of the new light.

What might this look like?

Our ancestors experienced a sense of “original participation” as Owen Barfield called it, or, “participation mystique” as other authors have named it.

It is the experience that we are not separate from nature, but of nature, one with nature. The darkening earth, the cold, the birth of the light are all mysteries of our own being, not just something happening to the earth around us.

Mysteries happening to us, in us, through us. As God speaks to us, in us, and through us.

To enter into this embodied experience of Winter Solstice, you might ask:

  • What is alive in my darkest depths? What is deep down, inside me that feels dark or perhaps even endarkened?
  • What in me is cold, perhaps hibernating or perhaps needing warming?
  • What wants to come to light in me? What spark might I tend and allow to grow into a flame and life-sustaining embers?

I invite you to create your own ritual to honor this turning of the year, something as simple as considering the questions above. And I would love to hear your answers! Please post in the comments below.

living fully!

“For what makes you come alive can keep you alive,
whether you are paid well for it or not.”
~ The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo, p. 399

I’m just back from my last training session to become a Full Voice Coach!

What a rich and beautiful time, being with others so fully committed to bringing more wholeness, aliveness, and freedom into the world!!

On the journey of learning to live my life more fully, I’ve found I needed to repeatedly inquire into what was keeping me from living fully.

Why don’t I give myself more time to play, to rest, to get outside, to hang out with friends, to dance, to sing? Even though I love these things?

Your list may be different from mine, but I bet you have things that make your life feel more rich and full of meaning that you don’t prioritize either. What are yours?

Barbara McAfee, our fearless leader, models what living fully can look like. She fills her life with things that make her come alive, and, in brilliantly following her passions, has created a life in which she can earn her living doing them!

At the end of our final training session on Wednesday morning, we were talking about our time together—about what really worked and what we might have missed in our process of becoming Full Voice Coaches. We got to talking about more and more goodness we could add in on top of what was already SO well sequenced. Knowing they didn’t want to make the training longer, I mentioned that I’d never participated in a training where we had the whole afternoon off every day!

I was really struck by Barbara’s response.

She passionately talked about how necessary it was to have a break—to integrate, to walk outside, to rest, to connect with our fellow trainees and our aliveness, to live a FULL life, even when training…

I am freshly re-committing myself to this.

How can I choose to live my life fully RIGHT NOW?

Even though I have to cram a lot of hours in this week to make up for being at the training… Even though there is ALWAYS more to do…

How about you?

Even in the midst of the busy holiday season. How can you live your life more fully?

Here’s one fun way—it’s 4.5 minutes and worth every single one (and you get extra credit if you can identify the 5 Elements of the Full Voice Approach!).

Keep your eyes open—I’m going to be offering Full Voice Coaching, individual sessions and groups in the New Year!

If you want to a practical and experiential way to explore how you can live more fully, you might want to consider a session. We start with making sound as a way in, and the aliveness, freedom, and wholeness you find there tends to trickle into your whole life! (And you don’t have to be a singer, but singers will benefit, too!)

p.s. You might be wondering what’s with the dwarves… They live in a boulevard garden in a nearby neighborhood, and I think they look like they are living their lives fully! They are talking, smoking, healing, playing instruments, walking, hanging out, foraging, resting, welcoming, boating. 🙂

Tea & Be

Tea after water when I first awake.

Tea as a meditation.

Tea on a walk through the neighborhood.

Tea while I work.

Tea in the afternoon with a creativity break.

Tea shared with friends.

Tea in the evening before bed.

I wrote this post on the airplane on my way to visit my sister’s family in Alaska, accompanied by… tea! I always bring an empty thermos or travel mug and my own tea and get hot water once I’m through security.

Why this love affair with tea?

Considering the Camellia Sinensis plant–black tea, green, white, oolong, and more–tea offers a well-balanced mix of relaxed alertness.

The caffeine is about 1/3 less than in coffee, and it contains an amino acid, L-Theanine, that promotes relaxation. It’s the only nourishing hot drink I know of that can help your nervous system wake up and become more alert while relaxing you at the same time!

Tea’s warm liquid soothes your throat and nervous system and can be flavored to suit your taste. It invites you to slow down, to savor, to appreciate–even in the midst of a busy or stressful day.

Tea’s many forms accompany me through my life–black in the morning, green or white in the afternoon, and herbal tisane in the evening.

What other hot drink can shape-shift to match the needs of your day and balance your nervous system quite so well?

Watch my calendar for
opportunities to practice with tea!

what do you want to re-member?

What have you inherited?

With All Hallow’s Eve, the Day of the Dead, and All Soul’s Day almost here, it’s a good time to consider our ancestors.

We have inherited so much that we often forget how indebted we are to those who came before us…

Your genes hold the physical coding of your mother and father’s lineage passed down to you.

  • Perhaps you have your grandfather’s nose or your great-grandmother’s smile?
  • Or you inherited a sensitive or healthy immune system…
  • I got my mom’s mom’s jaw and my sister got hers from my dad’s mom.

Household items–furniture, dishware and more–are passed down.

  • Perhaps your grandmother kept love letters from her fiance–your grandfather-to-be–in that slender bedside table drawer.
  • Or canned peaches in those beautiful blue canning jars.
  • I’m grateful to be drinking tea from some of my nana’s teacups.

Family attitudes are also woven into who we are today–whether we’ve taken them on or fashioned our identity as a rebellion against them.

  • Perhaps there was a strong emphasis on honesty–maybe even in a hurtful way–so you can’t forgive yourself for not telling the complete truth even at an unhelpful time.
  • Or maybe going to church was important and now you rebel against it or feel guilty when you don’t attend.
  • Or maybe, like in my family, hard work was valued and you have a difficult time not overworking…

Ways of managing the often challenging path of being alive are also passed down–some more, and some less skillful…

  • Perhaps you learned from your ancestors to take the edge off with a daily drink or two…
  • Or you learned that a quiet walk in the woods was oddly comforting.
  • Or that eating sweet treats could soothe your need for connection/love.
  • Or, from my parents, that sitting quietly together in the morning by the fire restored a sense of connection.

All of our ancestors strove to survive and thrive.

Amazingly, they did, and they passed their genes, their attitudes, their coping behaviors, and their stuff down to us.

We are here.

We are the result of their surviving, of their whole lives–their attempts to love, to live, to create a good life.

And we have choice as to how we interact with our inheritance.

What and how do we want to live now?

What do we want to re-member?

Because we are literally re-membering–practicing in our bodies what they practiced–when we continue to do what they did.

  • Do you want to re-member hurting someone with your words?
  • Do you want to re-member an unrealistic ideal of what it is to be a good hardworking person?
  • Do you want to re-member habits that are not skillful?
  • Or would you rather re-member the goodness of your ancestors when you see their likeness in the mirror?
  • Or the love of your grandparents?
  • Or the moments of connection?

Whatever we choose, we can honor our ancestors for their perfectly imperfect lives which created the reality of our being alive this Halloween, Day of the Dead, and All Soul’s.

We can take the time to honor their gift of our life.

Dave and I are keeping it simple–we will be getting some photos out, lighting a candle, and spending some time remembering our ancestors together.