Category: seasons

the living quality of each moment

Don’t seek perfection.
Instead, be in touch with
the living quality of each moment.

~ advice from Pema Chodron

Try it right now. Open your senses—eyes, ears, nose, taste, touch, balance—and allow the living moment to touch you.

Take it inside you and allow your inner self to be touched. Let life make an impression on you.

What do you notice? How are you affected by this living moment?

Open your awareness to sensations, feelings, thoughts, inner soul-touch…

Can you allow this impression to actually reach you?

Can you allow what is outside of what-you-define-as-you to enter into your inner being?

Or are the walls of your ego too strong to let it in?

It used to be really hard for me to be touched in this way, but I didn’t know it until I realized how much more I could sense/feel as I gradually opened.

Now I recognize that I felt a bit cut off, a bit dry, a bit untouched… but that felt normal…

My Enneagram type One ego did not see the value of letting things in. I wanted to feel in control of myself and my surroundings, and to stay on task, not be distracted by outer information. If I let too much in, that wouldn’t be possible.

Ego

An inner psychic organizing structure that helps us to feel a safe and solid sense of self.

Eco

Greek from oikos = home/household. The same root from which economy (household management) and ecology (the study of home/household) come.

Ecology

The study of our home/household.

We usually limit ecology to the study of physical organisms in the environment out there. But what if we expanded our sense of self, creating more porous ego boundaries, so that our sense of home were not just this safe, inner sense of self, but a much wider self, one that includes that which is outside of us as well? 

What if the sunlight, the water trickling over the rocks, the hummingbirds that just got into a fight over the sugar water, AND the barking dogs were all allowed to enter and touch and in-form our sense of self?

What if, instead of resisting this touch—oh, I’m too busy to stop and feel the sunlight, or I don’t want to feel how the barking dogs bother me—we actually let it in and flowed with these impressions? What if these impressions are an important part of the ecology, our physical interaction as organisms with the environment, with our home?

What if our home included the forest, the ocean, the animals, and mountains?

What if we could know ourselves not just as a separate self, a separate ego, but as a self who is part of Self? An ego that is part of a much larger eco? A human who is a living expression of Eairth?

What I’m finding, as I dip
my toes into this running water,
is a deeper connection,
a deeper sense of home,
a deeper sense of perfection.

My relationships with others are easier, more fluid, with less expectation of how they or I should be.

My sense of being home in myself and the world, even in the midst of most of our household still in boxes and camping out in my parents’ guest room, is clear and flexible.

And my experience of perfection has changed dramatically! As an Enneagram One, I have always struggled with thinking there is always some perfect way for things to be, and I just needed to figure it out and then do it and/or get others to do it, too.

Not so, I learn ever more deeply as I spiral into what I am calling “true perfection.”

True perfection is about completeness and wholeness (which is why I call my business Nourishing Wholeness).

True perfection is this living moment experienced right now, exactly as it is, without any need to make it better.

It is what the Buddhists call “the suchness of the moment”—this, here, now, just so. And this. And this…

It is NOT an ideal to chase or attain. It is always found right here when we land in the living quality of the moment right now.

This move to the country, to closer contact with natural surroundings and more-than-human beings is helping me to soften the boundaries of my ego and allow a broader sense of eco, of home.

It’s gotten me out from behind the computer screen and engaged with hands-on living life that needs tending, nourishing, and participating.

I feel more whole weeding, preparing food, helping my parents, connecting with my family, unpacking boxes, petting the dogs, relating with the new forest and ocean environs than ever.

I feel more real even as I feed
and protect my individual
ego self much less!

For our moving trip, I drew the Medicine Card for Turtle.

Turtle is the oldest symbol for our planet Earth and the symbol of the Great Mother energy. Turtle reminds us to slow down and to let Eairth support us, “to flow harmoniously with [our] situation and to place [our] feet firmly on the ground in a power stance” (Medicine Cards, by Jamie Sams and David Carson, p. 78).

If we find our ground in life, not only in our small, inner egoic sense of self, then we can be firmly planted in life and allow life to flow harmoniously and flexibly in and through us, feeling its touch.

From this place, the quality of the living moment sustains us and connects us to our true home, to all beings, in Eairth.

Happy New Moon and Lammas
from our new home in Port Townsend, Washington!

fern-cropped-1200x-753x400-1

Freedom to Rise like Trees

Painted by Laurie Evans

From all quarters, life on this precious Eairth is desperately calling for the rising of the rooted Feminine—in both women and men.

Eairth* and all her creatures are gasping for breath.

We lose between 1 and 300 species every day (low to high estimates), and it is widely thought that we humans are causing the sixth great extinction, presently underway.

Our Eairth home is warming and her interconnected life systems are responding by creating chaotic and destructive weather patterns which make it less hospitable for all life, humans included.

Our human family is forgetting not only our connection to Eairth, but to each other with the rise of more and more nationalistic movements across the world.

And meanwhile, we continue business as usual, as if the worn-out industrial-growth society could ignore the problem and continue consuming more and more…

We pour more money into unsustainable practices, trying to get the last bit of fossil fuel out of Eairth with complete disregard for Gaia’s life systems** that are being broken in the process.

We pour more money into genetically engineering seeds and animals and genes as if we could do better that Gaia that has been evolving and supporting us for 4.5 billion years…

We need to wake up and
let the rooted Feminine
consciousness rise up and
inform our lives,
our actions, and our world
before it is too late,

before we lose the freedom we celebrate on July 4th—especially the freedom to be alive
on this precious planet.

The beautiful image at the top of this blogpost, painted by my dear friend Laurie Evans, can give us an image to hold before us, to live with.

Can you feel how rooted she is? Rooted in tree and freely branching, leafing, flowering into life.

Before growing tall, tree roots take time to grow deep—up to 200 feet deep—into the earth. There they receive nourishment and stability from the depths, from deep sources of water and minerals and stone.

What deep sources of nourishment do you have, to fill your well, to root you in your deepest Essence?

The Feminine embodied consciousness knows the value of turning within, of the nourishment of inner life.

When we are deeply rooted inside, we discern Truth and are not swayed by the opinions of others. We choose healthfully for all life. We value our spiritual practices as a way of sustaining connection to soul including the anima mundi, or, world soul.

Tree roots also spread wide—at their widest, three times the width of their crowns (and mature crowns spread up 590 feet wide, so you do the math!). In his astonishing book, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben describes how this wide root network is the primary way trees communicate with and feed each other.

And even more beautiful, trees communicate through symbiotic relationships with special types of funghi that grow on their roots! The funghi receive sugars the trees produce from photosynthesis and give back water and minerals, as well as communication networks that Peter refers to “the wood-wide web.” They can transmit messages to other trees along these root network systems—about danger and sickness, and the need for nourishment.

What wide root networks do you have, that you feed and that feed you? Our interconnections with others are necessary on the path of awakening. We need to support each other—to be warned of danger ahead or when we lose our way, to be reminded of the need for true nourishment…

The Feminine is relational.

When rooted in our Feminine nature, we do not over-give or lose ourselves. We do not stay too long in relationship. We do not forget ourselves and wind up exhausted and burned out. We stay connected and know that each person brings a gift to the table.

Tree nature has intricate, indigenous lifeways that guide natural tree growth. What we could call tree instincts respond as needed in the moment without question—sending sap, messages, and energy. Their instinctual tree-wisdom arises to meet life, with utter faith that their response is in alignment with Gaia’s rhythms.

How do you trust your instinctual, indigenous nature? We humans have life-intelligence inherited from our animal ancestors. This native wisdom helps us stay rooted and alive as part of the interconnected web of life. It tells us when we are hungry, in danger, in need of bonding or of the shelter of a friend.

Rooted in the Feminine, we trust our instinctual intelligence to guide us.

We know ourselves as embodied—as earthly, incarnate, with a body that needs tending, a heart that needs loving, and a mind that needs opening. The Feminine knows the value of the body and does not try to transcend it and the greater body of Eairth, but to live more fully embodied, more fully incarnate, here, in this life, exactly as it is right now.

Trees know how to not only root, but how to branch and leaf and flower and fruit and seed!! Their circulatory system pumps sap nourishment from the sun through the leaves down to the roots, and from storage in the roots, back up when it is needed. A healthy sap-system supports not only inner, but outer growth. Mature trees release their seed, give away the fruits of their growth—in flower, fruit, or seed—so that their essence can live on even after they release their standing forms to the earth.

How are you called out, once your well is sufficiently filled, to branch, to leaf, to blossom? What have you been developing deep within yourself that calls for expression, that wants to be given away as a gift for others? It needn’t be big to be of service—we’re not all meant to be Michelle or Barak Obama, Joanna Macy or Brian Swimme! But we are all called to be ourselves and of service to the world. Maybe it’s random acts of kindness, or a listening ear, or maybe you’re called to protest or form a PTA or help save a river.

As John O’Donohue says in Eternal Echos, “The wisdom of the tree balances the path inwards with the pathway outwards” (p. 149). When we are deeply rooted in our inward path, the pathway outward is a natural outcome. The rooted and rising Feminine is not about just doing our spiritual practices!! Yes, that’s crucial to keep the root well-nourished, but we are also called to give birth—to blossom and give of our fruit.

The Feminine within us all feels the call to embody our Truth—to birth it in our daily lives and to be of service to Eairth, to others, to the world…

As I was writing this blogpost, a big, welcome storm blew through. I was sitting on the front porch in the early morning watching the graying sky on the horizon, feeling the wind gaining strength, blowing my hair and clothes. When the storm landed, the trees started dancing with the wind—not just their leaves and branches, but their trunks, too. Being deeply rooted, deeply belonging to Eairth, trees have faith in their foundation and solidity.

Buffeted by stormy winds, trees stay flexible and participate with the storm. Not resisting—simply responding to the wind, they become its dance partner.

How flexible are you when the storm hits? (Because it always will!) Are you able to sway with the wind and trust your nourished, deep and wide roots?

The Feminine knows the value of fluidity, of responding to life flexibly.

She is not stuck in fixed opinions and beliefs, but knows that everything life brings is worth interacting with, worth considering. She feels deeply, responds, and flows with the winds of life.

Trees root in one place for their whole lives. Because of this, they know the value of patience, of endurance, of trusting time. Storms come and go, predators cause damage and may even cut them down. But they persevere, even in death, knowing that right here is where they belong.

How do you find belonging in these times of disrupted families, ever-growing screen-time, and lack of Eairth connection?

The Feminine knows how to make home, to create the shelter of belonging wherever we are—

in the city or country, in a house or tent, with yourself or with others. This is the part of us that knows how to belong to ourself, to others, and to Eairth. And in that belonging is the safety and shelter of home.

Like trees, rooting,
we freely rise.

Nourish your roots, trust your instinctual intelligence, be of service, be flexible, and create a shelter of belonging for all Eairth, for all life.

Together, with the rooted and rising Feminine in each of us, we express our freedom, and heal our relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with Eairth.

The trees do everything totally.
They don’t hold back.
They fruit completely.
They stretch to the sun completely.
They give their all. They drop their leaves completely.
They disappear into the ground
and root themselves down completely.
They’re total. They’re total permission.
If you want to learn how to live, learn from trees.
~ Clare Dubois, Founder of TreeSisters

What do you need to learn
from the rising Feminine
nature of trees in
this season of your life?

* Eairth = earth and air together, our planet home, first heard from Thomas Berry (I think!)

** Gaia = the self-regulating living system of our planet

Savoring Eairth’s Gift of Summer

Listen to Wren singing her song.

The People
Today we have gathered and we see
that the cycles of life continue.
We have been given the duty to live
in balance and harmony with each other
and all living things.
So now, we bring our minds together as one
as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.
Now our minds are one.
~ from the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address:
Greetings to the Natural World 

Summer Solstice,
the threshold of Summer,
the outer sign of an inner
developing, an inner
maturing into fullness.

At 10:54 am CT on Friday, June 21, we in the Northern Hemisphere enter into the days of lush growth, of rampant blossoming, of warmth and celebration.

We are held in this natural cycle of life that Eairth and her seasons continually unfold, a cycle that invites us to us back into balance and harmony with ourselves, with each other, and with all living things.

The wren that has been singing to me daily this week is living out her natural cycle—she has been nest building and tending, and sharing the abundance of the beginning summer in her beautiful song. Take a listen above if you have not already!

And isn’t it interesting that at Summer Solstice, at the peak of the longest days of light and the generous greening of Eairth, we also turn the corner towards Winter Solstice? Every day past the Summer Solstice will get a little shorter and each night a bit longer until we reach the longest night on December 21.

Summer correlates energetically
with the Full Moon (this past Monday)—
the fullness of energy,
the following of desire,
living large, embracing our passion…

And we know, just like the cycle of the moon, already beginning to wane, that summer is also balanced with winter—expansion with contraction, light with dark, activity with rest—always balancing and harmonizing in the natural cycles of life…

What would it be like to live into our fullness, to follow our desire, knowing that it is deeply rooted in the dark, fertile nourishment of Eairth?

To only follow desire so long as it is tethered always to Source, like an umbilicus connecting us with the nourishment of the Mother?

The Native American Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address continues by first honoring the Earth as our Mother:

The Earth Mother
We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth,
for she gives us all that we need for life.
She supports our feet as we walk about upon her.
It gives us joy that she continues to care for us
as she has from the beginning of time.
To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.

Feeling the ground of support of the Mother under our feet, receiving the gifts of her bounty—fertile soil, food, water, air, birdsong, animals, mountains, trees, plants, rivers, oceans… Without these we would not be alive!

Summer is the perfect time to appreciate these gifts—
to savor the abundance
of Eairth and of our lives.

Moving too fast and doing too much—habits I easily fall into—keep us from savoring. And it’s usually a sign that we’ve forgotten the deep rootedness and moment-by-moment belonging to Eairth, skating along on the surface, not experiencing our daily life as a gift.

One of the ways I’ve been savoring recently is through all the sweet friend dates we’ve been having before we move (in a little over 2 weeks!).

Normally, the most time I might have spent would have been 1-2 dates/week; but now, sometimes we have up to 4 dates in a week!! When I look at my calendar, my habitual self thinks it’s crazy…

But, in reality, we’ve both been really conscious about savoring these in-person connections that we will be leaving behind as we settle in a new land. Instead of feeling distracted or depleted from too many dates and too much to do, by staying connected with our deeper rootedness and relaxing in the field of connection between us, we feel abundant and full of gratitude for these connections!

Another way I practice savoring is sitting on the front porch in the morning, looking out at the dancing river birch, the green lushness of ferns, pachysandra, and hosta circling it, marinating in sun and birdsong. And when walking through the neighborhood, I open all of my senses to savor the profusion of summer beauty that Eairth is opening into right now. (Find more savoring practices.)

Open to this moment. Live it.
Belong to it.

Summer is a gift given by our Mother, Eairth, right now.

Live in harmony, enter the cycle of abundance and celebration, of savoring and en-joying, knowing that this cycle will give way to the next, a new season, a new rhythm of life.

And like our indigenous brothers and sisters, two-legged, four-legged, winged, standing, sitting, lying, and flowing ones, give thanks for the generosity of Eairth, who continues to give us all that we need for life.

trusting uncertainty

I trust what this body knows
breathing in, breathing out
the way home.

I trust the ground, which I can stand upon–
the earth that rises to meet my feet
and gives gently beneath my weight.

And I trust that ground which I cannot stand upon–
the falling away that everything returns to.

~ Oren Sofer

This week and last I am doing my final round of substitute yoga teaching at my local studio–the last because, in a month, we’ll be moving to the Pacific NorthWest!

I always try to align my yoga teaching with the cycle of the moon. In this way, our practice is about more than being flexible, or strong, or having better balance, but also about listening to and aligning with deeper, natural cosmic processes that we are part of, whether we bring our conscious awareness to them or not…

The first week of subbing was the week of the waning moon–the peak of energy at full moon past, falling toward new moon. We practiced feeling the ground with our body and breath, and inhaling this grounded energy up through the body, we also allowed it to rise to meet us, rising us up to connect with sky energy.

Throughout the practice, we continually returned to this rooted and rising awareness, connecting earth and sky in our bodies.

This week of subbing, it’s New Moon week (June 3rd)–the week of rest, and preparing the ground for new seeds to grow.

Our practice is focusing on trusting the ground that rises up to meet our bodies and not as actively rising up to the sky. We move more slowly, we spend more time on the ground, we spend more time returning and resting.

This is also the stage
Dave and I are in with
our huge moving project.

The peak was a few weeks back when we loaded the truck, working with on- and off-schedule contractors to get our house ready to be staged while we were away, driving half of our Minnesota home to our new home in Washington State.

Since then, we’ve been coming down, back to ground.

Staying connected to breath and ground sustained us (among other things), and now we can consciously follow, as much as we can, the call to return to deeper ground.

We return to life-sustaining rhythms of longer morning practice time, to embodiment practices that remind us of the body’s natural intelligence, to cooking more wholesome and healing meals that nourish and sustain our animal bodies…

And, over and over again, we practice

“trust[ing] that ground which
[we] cannot stand upon–
the falling away
that everything returns to.”

For us, this means continually seeing how we so humanly reach for habits to shield ourselves from the uncertainty, the unpredictability of the process.

Over and over again, we find ourselves grasping at ways to make life more predictable instead of living in the openness of not knowing–the not-knowing of how the appraisal will go, the not-knowing of how the final loading and moving will go, the not-knowing of how we will find our belonging in a new community and a new land.

Buddhist monk Pema Chodron says it this way:

“We become habituated to reaching for something to ease the edginess of the moment. Thus we become less and less able to reside with even the most fleeting uneasiness or discomfort.” (from Comfortable with Uncertainty, p.55)

Out of well-practiced habit, we reach for certainty!

    • In the pleasure we know we’ll get from the perfect dark chocolate (me) or the perfect ale (Dave);
    • In the safety we feel if we create a false sense of control by over-thinking and over-planning the way we think our move should go,
    • In the comfort of weaving our old stories back together again–I’m just a One who needs a certain level of organization… or I’m just a Six who can’t stand this level of unpredictability… 


When we catch these avoidance strategies, we practice, yet again, “trust[ing] that ground which [we] cannot stand upon–the falling away that everything returns to.”

That doesn’t mean we completely drop all our helpful coping habits–we’re fully human; so, sometimes, yes; sometimes, no…

But we engage them with awareness and less unconscious belief that they provide the ground of certainty.

For we know that the true certainty,
the true ground is being able to stand
(and move and sit and rest)
with whatever life is bringing–
with the unknowing, with the uncertainty,
and with the unpredictablity.

Here, in touch with this ground–the ground of being–we find an open, spacious freedom to respond openly and freshly to whatever happens. In each moment, we can choose to return to rest in this. Over and over again.

How do you work with uncertainty?

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?

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.

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.