Category: seasons

ripening into harvest’s fullness

Our bodysouls are always doing their best to move toward their fullest, wholeness in any moment.

Even when we get pneumonia unexpectedly, when our bodies have pain we don’t understand, when we feel exhausted…

In the Diamond Approach, we call this the optimization of Being–Being is always moving to evolve, to be as fully expressed as possible through us, through these fragile, earthly, human bodysouls.

We can choose how much to participate in this flow, in this optimization, by how we live our lives.

Call it life force, kundalini, chi, ki, spirit, shakti, or prana,
it is the unimpeded circulation of energy that gives us
health and satisfaction…Life [Being] is generous;
it wants to flow through us amply and freely.
~ Maurine & Roche, in Meditation Secrets for Women, p. 91

So, how do we allow and cooperate with this natural, ample, free-flowing movement of life?

It’s about more than physical movement. Yes, finding enjoyable movement that strengthens, aligns, and creates flexibility and resilience in your physical body is important.

And, it’s about more than what and how we eat, though being aware that EVERYTHING you put in your mouth becomes your bodysoul–your tissues, bones, blood, emotions, and thoughts–might help you to choose food that supports your wholeness.

It also includes your psycho-spiritual practices–how you are in relationship with your bodysoul: sensations, emotions, thoughts, and soul.

  • Full expression of the pulsing movement of life includes listening to and responding to the body’s sensations.
  • Free-flowing optimization means paying attention to and working with ALL emotions to undo blocked energy (stuck patterns) from your history and personality.
  • Natural, free circulation means mindfulness of the monkey mind and learning not to believe everything you think.
  • And all of this affects the wholeness and ripening of your soul.

The secret is to cooperate with the process and provide
the right environment. Staying physically and emotionally
fluid is key, and awareness is the magic ingredient.
~ Maurine & Roche, Meditation Secrets for Women, p. 92

And it includes being curious and open to exploring our edges so we don’t simply stay in our comfortable, cozy nest where we don’t need to challenge our way of being, but rather ripen into our fullest harvest of wholeness.

The way I’ve been doing this recently is by
exploring my voice!

Even though I’ve always sung and have learned to love my pretty, pure tone, in the last few years, it’s become clear how attached I’ve been to singing in this one way. My voice–sung and spoken–has been another way of keeping me in a familiar, comfortable way of being, in my Enneagram type One personality.

In January 2017, I started exploring how to reclaim more of my voice–originally due to a really difficult situation I was going through (read more). I didn’t know that I would be challenging my tried and true way of singing, too! This journey continues to be an amazing one, opening me to not only fuller range in my singing and speaking, but also in my whole bodysoul.

Because I’ve been loving the work so much, I’m training to include Full Voice Coaching as part of my coaching work–so I can share this beautiful, life-transforming, ripening-into-fullness work with others.

the time of interim

Autumn Equinox, Saturday the 22nd at 8:54 pm CT.

We are in a time of interim.

Between Summer and Fall.

Summer’s waning light. Fall’s bright, crisp color not yet arriving.

You are in this time of interim
where everything seems withheld.*

I am here again. This time with learning how to listen more deeply with my body as I continue to learn the lessons pneumonia brought this summer.

Dave and I are here, too, with our planned move to Port Townsend, Washington next year, and all the things to take care of, understand, and prepare for.

Clients and friends are here.

  • Finding a new way to be living with alcoholism.
  • Recommitting to a path of practice when busy life keeps overwhelming.
  • Searching for a way to break up old patterns that just keep pulling back to “happy” oblivion.


The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.

This is a difficult place to be.

Our bodysouls know there is another way, and yet “the way forward is still concealed.”

In each moment, we must choose, without seeing the way forward, to stay devotedly, steadfastly turned toward our new life.

We must drop deeper than egomind, into an alive body and heart, connecting to the intelligence of life living in / through / as us.

Even though the old has not yet died away and the egomind will constantly try to pull us back into our old ways, we choose to practice presence–to come back to the Truth of this moment.

There are so many paths for getting under the chattering monkey mind and for cultivating presence: meditation, conscious movement, Course in Miracles, the Diamond Approach, the Work of Byron Katie, The Embodied Presence Process, Circlework, women’s work, the Enneagram, voice work, yoga, zikr, mantra, dance, prayer–to only name a few that have graced my path!

It’s all about coming into Presence NOW, under the mind chatter, to whatever needs to be experienced in the moment–often revealed quite unexpectedly in body and/or heart.

“We soften our focus, remain alert, and drop deep into ourselves.” (Anne Hillman in Awakening the Energies of Love, p. 295)

We make a conscious choice to shift our attention.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

Can we let the coming of Fall–of beautiful and then falling leaves, nature’s interim–support us in not knowing how?

Can we simply do our practices and face forward toward the unknown newness we yearn for in our bodysouls and trust the process?

Can we faithfully endure so that our hearts are prepared for our “arrival in the new dawn”?

How are you abiding in your interim?

What is supporting you?

* Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from John O’Donohue’s blessing For the Interim Time, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.

the feast in everything

The heart at rest sees a feast in everything. ~ Hindu Proverb

Do you see the feast in this video?

Cherry blossoms releasing from the tree in the wind.

A flower blessing.

An unexpected shower of beauty.

A fragrant and soft caress.

Or perhaps you experience the other side?

The tree losing its blossoms.

The loss of beauty.

The petals sticking to face, hair, patio furniture…

When the heart is at rest,
the mind, too, can be at rest,
and open our perception
to the truth of what is.

Now you’re probably expecting me to say it’s better to see the lovely things related to the loss of the blossoms, but I’ve had to learn the hard way that

all of it is true.

When we focus on only one side—the “blessing” or the “curse”—we miss the preciousness of the moment.

We miss the fullness of life, right here, right now.

We miss being at rest with what is.

What if we just stopped struggling? 

The rest of the words to that song by Kaitie Ty Warren include: “What if I let it go?” “Can I surrender?”

What would happen if we stopped struggling with what life brings us? What if we met it just as it is, felt any pain, and opened to the beauty and blessing, too?

What might change in your life?

Whenever you need a shift, watch that video, sing those words, ask that question, and see what arises… (you can learn the whole, beautiful song, “Surrender,” here.)

Weed or Wild Nourishment?

I’ve spent a lot of time pulling weeds.

Starting with the most common ones—Creeping Charlie taking over the whole backyard when I first moved in with Dave, grass growing in garden beds, plantain, dandelions, and here in Minnesota, those purple bellflowers that seem to spread everywhere…

Other weeds that have caught my attention include all the ways my Enneagram type One personality judges that I (or others) need weeding. Over the years, I’ve dug out my messy emotions, pulled up my gut instincts, rooted out my raw and uncontrollable sexuality, and excavated all the wild impulses that might lead me astray.

“Got a dirty eye, see a dirty world.”
~ Mark Nepo, in The Book of Awakening

I think we all have dirty eyes—in the sense that our vision is clouded from seeing life as it is. Perhaps it’s Enneagram type that clouds, or maybe it’s family upbringing, or maybe it’s trauma, or our culture or religion…and most likely a combination of all of the above.

This clouding keeps us stuck in one way of seeing.

Plant—Weed.
Healthy—Unhealthy.
Clean—Messy.
Civilized—Wild.
Heaven—Earth.

But what if that plant, instead of being a weed, is Wild Nourishment?

Over the years, as I started realizing there was such a thing as wild nourishment…

I dug up the dandelion from my yard, ate some, and transplanted the rest into its own bed in my backyard. I enjoy eating it all summer, but especially when it’s tender in the spring (now!).

I pulled out the plantain and dried it for use in tea and herbal salves. (Internally for indigestion, externally for skin ailments.)

The grass spreading into flower and veggie gardens I still weed out—and the Creeping Charlie, too!

I gave up on weeding out the purple bellflowers—I still manage them in some places, but in others, I let them be a lovely, green ground cover, and on our front stairs, their purple bell flower welcomes people to our home. (Dave’s youngest helped me get this—I was madly ripping them out one summer when he said how he missed the greenery and flowers on the bare concrete stairs, and I realized I did, too. It has saved me a lot of work over the years!)

And my own inner weeding?

I am finding the gifts of wild nourishment of my fuller self—

How my unedited emotions, my instinctual-knowing, my juicy sexuality, and my spontaneous impulses don’t lead me astray, but nourish and bring more wholeness to my life.

I feel more alive, more embodied, more present on this earth when I embrace all of me in this way.

How about you?

Are there ways you see through dirty eyes and try to weed out parts of yourself that are unacceptable? Or the world around you? How could those parts you are pulling out be important to your growth into the fully alive human being you are?

return to the most human

Return to the Most Human by May Sarton
Return to the most human,
nothing less will nourish the torn spirit,
the bewildered heart,
the angry mind:
and from the ultimate duress,
pierced with the breath of anguish,
speak of love.

Return, return to the deep sources,
nothing less will teach the stiff hands a new way to serve,
to carve into our lives the forms of tenderness
and still that ancient necessary pain preserve.

Return to the most human,
nothing less will teach the angry spirit,
the bewildered heart;
the torn mind,
to accept the whole of its duress,
and pierced with anguish…
at last, act for love.

Winter and Spring,

Lent and Easter,

the Hero’s and Heroine’s Journeys,

the Bodhisattvas, who, once enlightened, choose to stay on earth to accompany us,

the under- and over-world travel of shamans and goddesses throughout time…

This paradox of season and cycle, of rhythmic journey has meaning.

We are again and again invited
to return to the most human—
both in our deep-diving
and in our high-flying.

We go down, we go in, we go through.

We stay. We keep vigil. We are held.

We are shown the way—sometimes
only one step at a time.

The way of being human includes all of this.

Darkness. The torn spirit. The bewildered heart. The angry mind.

Light. The rejoicing spirit. The grateful heart. The blissful mind.

The Unknown-ness. The Mystery. The I-don’t-know-how-ness.

For only in this most human place,

lovingly abiding with our darkness,

can the body be a chalice
connecting earth and heaven,
 so that we can at last arise and act for love.

Smile into Spring

Smile.

Yes, right now, just try it on your face.

Notice how you feel right now.

For me it’s instantly softer, more joyous, more at ease. Right. Now.

As we teach in Laughter Yoga, just the simple act of intentional smiling and laughter sparks the feel-good neuro-transmitters in the brain. You immediately feel more connected, happy, and pleasured.

Who doesn’t want more of that?

Spring Equinox is here today,
Tuesday March 20th, 2018
at 11:15 am CT.

Especially in the northern climes, like Minnesota where I live, spring helps us smile again!

On Sunday, I hosted a Tea & Poetry Gathering. Just hearing the spring-themed poems that welcomed “rushing rain,” “wild spring,” “this earth is our heaven,” “buds bursting on the trees,” “the encouragement of light,” the “frolic,” and the invitation to the heart to “rave on” helped my bodysoul “step into spring.”

Spring always invites us to start fresh, to begin again, to welcome the new green life awakening deep within.

Why not use this natural, seasonal impulse to re-fresh and re-source our lives instead of waiting for a crisis to do it for us?

We can re-orient in so many different ways. Today, I offer just a few:

  • Try my new gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free Breakfast Muffins recipe for a simple, healthy start to your day.
  • Try on the Smiling Practice below, that you can do anytime in your day, to choose new, fresh, yummy life!

Smiling Practice

“Sometimes your joy is the source
of your smile, and sometimes your smile
is the source of your joy.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

For more awareness, close your eyes, but this can be done with them open or closed.

Let a smile start on your lips–draw the corners of your lips up toward your ears slowly. Notice how, if you let it, the smile naturally broadens and widens, taking up more of your face. Feel how it resets and refreshes your brain. Take a few breaths here, sensing your body.

Now smile into your heart–start at the center of your chest and imagine the smile spreading out from there, up toward your breasts (or pecs) and all the way to your shoulders, filling your chest with this joyful, easeful energy. Breathe in and out, sensing and feeling.

Now smile into your belly–from your pubic bone, let the smile widen out and up toward your hip bones. Imagine bathing all of your lower belly organs in this goodness and well-being. Breathe, feel, and sense…

Breathe into all three Centers–Belly, Heart, and Head, starting in the center–pubic bone, center of chest, lips–and let the breath spread the smile in each Center, filling you up with yumminess. On the inbreath, breathe the smile into being, on the outbreath, release any efforting. Stay here, smiling, breathing, sensing, and feeling as long as you choose, and then bring this sweet moment of awakening to your true nature back into your day.

Happy Lenten Valentine’s Day!

I wonder when this happened last–Valentine’s Day falling on the first day of Lent!

The holiday that encourages voluptuous appetites, hedonistic pleasure, and over-the-top expressions of love.

AND the marking of 40 days in the desert wilderness–days of fasting, fastidious moral behavior, and going without.

What a beautiful paradox!!

Both of these extremes express
a yearning of the heart.

A yearning to find our way to our True Home–
to the Awakened Heart.

We can find our way in great pleasure and in great abstinence. Without indulging in either.

Sister Joan Chittister reminds us what Lent is really about:

“Lent is about becoming, doing, and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.”

“The fullness of life” is Love.

We are invited today–on Lenten Valentine’s Day–to become, do, or change what is necessary to open to more Love.

Maybe that’s through flowers and chocolate and saying “I love you” to yourself and/or another.

Maybe it’s through daily prayer and removing [you name it] from your life.

You get to decide!

What will you practice?

with roots, we rise

magnificent trees, their root structure spreading
horizontally twice their height.

icebergs, 90% of their mass underwater.

deep sleep, providing the substrate for your body
to integrate, heal, and grow.

real, nourishing food, feeding your cells, cre
ating your bodies, emotions, and thoughts.

movement, pumping blood and air,
forming flesh and bone.

inner practice, deepening your connection
to your whole bodysoul.

These are the roots you need
to rise up and live your life.

Winter is the time to nourish your roots:

Listen to a grounding meditation to deepen your inner roots.

Try my Parsnip-Burdock Breakfast Bowl to feed your belly roots.

Join me at Wild Church!

New Year, New Light, New Practices!

Remember with me for a moment what it was like for our ancestors, for some of us, even as close as our great-great grandparents…

 

As the Autumn passed, the days grew darker and darker.

After the harvest celebrations and the fields gone fallow, people cozied up together, sharing the warmth and the light of fire as the darkness grew deeper every day. They structured their lives around the light, sleeping when it was dark, up to 12 hours or more per night.

At the peak of darkness, when it seemed like its reign would never lose its grip, the people started to notice that, slowly but surely, the days were beginning to grow lighter again. They ventured out earlier and stayed out later…

The return of the light meant the return of life–of days warming, of plants starting to grow again, of animals mating and giving birth…

 

It’s no wonder that this season, regardless of which

religious celebration you participate in, is all about

waiting for and celebrating the return of the light.

 

This natural seasonal rhythm is built into our genes, passed down through thousands of years of biological, ancestral memory.

 

We celebrate that there is always a new spark of light–birthed right in the middle of the darkest of days. 

 

We celebrate that there is always an end to the depth of darkness.

 

We celebrate that there is always the light that returns again, bringing with it new growth and new life.

 

What new sparks of light within do you want to tend?

 

What new ways is your soul asking you to grow–to

open, to melt, to become more whole in the New Year?

 

Before we can nurture the new light, we have to first get clear on what we want–we must dream, vision, and imagine the life we want to live!

 

That’s what this dark time is meant for.

 

We sleep, we rest, we become more receptive to the life, the light that wants to live through us with practice, introspection, contemplation, meditation, prayer…

 

I have a perfect practice opportunity for you, one
that will support your sacred dreaming and visioning time.

 

Create space in your life through presence practices.

 

Feel more centered, more soulful, more connected.

 

Reconnect with your daily actions and make them into sacred ritual.

 

 

I’d LOVE to practice with you as a sacred beginning

to the New Year of more Light!

making life meaningful

“We are often tired and imbalanced not because we are doing too much, but because we are doing too little of what is most real and meaningful.”
~ Marianne Williamson

 

Moving into the holidays, we do get tired and imbalanced.

 

Most often, we ARE doing too much—

  • Working hard to earn the money we need to not only survive, but to buy gifts for our loved ones,
  • Making time for more connections with those we care about,
  • Decorating and creating a home environment that will help us shift into the mood for the holy-days…

 

And even though all of this is true, what if the problem were not really the “too much,” but the fact that we are not engaging with what is “most real and meaningful”?

 

The poet David Whyte tells a story that illustrates this in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea. He was working for a cause he loved, doing work he was good at, and feeling driven to work hard and make a difference in the world. But he was burned out, exhausted, and feeling disconnected from himself all the time. Reading poetry together, a friend gently commented that he was not exhausted from overwork, but from not living a wholehearted life. In his case, he was ignoring the inner call to step into his vocation as a poet. The harder he worked, even though it was for a good cause, the less time he made for what had meaning to him, what was most real.

 

What is most real and meaningful for you
during the holy-days?

How can you live a more wholehearted life right now?

 

My life and work are about meeting life exactly as it is and finding ways to be more present and mindful right in the midst of it all, in the thick of it.

 

Here are some simple ways you can practice presence in the life you are living right now, so that you can feel more meaning, more enjoyment, and more depth:

 

Another focus of attention to help you feel more meaning and purpose in your life is to mindfully engage with rituals that create a sacred container for your life.

These might be seasonal rituals, like the Holidays—perhaps you attend services, decorate your home, or celebrate the waning and waxing of the light. (If you’re in St. Paul, please join me for a Winter Solstice Celebration on December 21st.)

Or they could be practices you consciously engage with to create a sense of the sacred in each day, like you can find in my free Welcoming the Sacred E-Book.

 

If you’d like to practice in community, I’ve created a free, online 5-day Practice Presence for Life Journey for you! Join me to get on the right foot in the New Year and set yourself up with meaningful practices to help you live a more wholehearted life, every day.