It seems some of us are the eternal Gypsy. While some of us find the deep, long term commitment compelling, healing, and the place to be.  But what is true is that we are all here to learn about love.  What is love? In M. Scott Peck’s classic work, he states that love is the will to extend oneself for one’s own, or another’s, spiritual growth.  I was talking last night about intimacy. That ability to see, hear, feel and be seen. In the Spiritual ID course, we always have flowers in the center altar. We were in a conversation about an intimacy with the world. With life itself. And how this happens when we take the moments – have the opportunity to say Hello to all that is living in us and around us, to feel the life of the flowers and how their spirit touches us, informs us with their aliveness, encompasses and holds us. What we love, we treasure – that doesn’t mean we don’t have our full range of emotions and expectations. Maybe ...

This time of year, Nature tells us there is much to celebrate and I wonder what we can celebrate from our past year.  What did I learn about my life, myself, my loves, my mistakes, my relatives, & what I want from life? What blessings did I receive? What blessings did I extend?  In the world, it is the time of coming to center, going into the night, the deep time of gestation, reflection, rest. Listening to the self, to life, and for the stirrings of the coming year.  In some traditions, they have a purposeful time of rest. The Hopi people practice something called Soyal.  They recommend that we can follow the natural cycles. This is one of them. So we can blend with nature and celebrate life.  In our community we will begin our process of Soyal from January 8-24th. The rest of the year, there is always lots of dancing, planting, harvesting, and gestating. So in preparation for our rest, after all our celebrations of the season:  Use good and wholesom...

My beloved friends and I gather together to write. We do this every week, for years upon years and we meet, share food and create together. This I do not take for granted, this, a blessing beyond all gifts. This constancy, consistency, and commitment that sustains us through all losses & gains – Patrick O’Neill quotes an Irish saying “Friendship is the love that heals all loss.” To remember this while the land is changing, blazing, erupting, and shaking My beloved friend Araceli said today, “The earth is in a birthing process and it’s painful and difficult in the middle of these changes to recognize that something new is being born.” I remember Angeles saying- “We are a love-starved culture, and love is the greatest healing power we have.” And so, last night as we were writing, my friend’s granddaughter came home. And she inspired this, because she has just found her first love. What an important subject. There is so much to ...

  What is the power of our connection?  There is a power that is greater than we are that makes all that we see and breathe and hear, that gave us the capacity to think, to make gestures and steps that have meaning, that connect us to the greater world.  Where do I want my next step to land me? Where do I want to be in 3 steps, gestures or actions? It begins with what I am thinking.  I notice often we have to say to ourselves, “What am I thinking?,” when we are doing or saying something that doesn’t align with who we are. This is when we can stop, drop & pray and if we don’t pray, we can intend or affirm a new direction.  “I am clear, loving, creative. I put positive energy in the world and positive energy greets me everywhere I go. I trust myself to choose wisely….”  We can also say a prayer more like “Creator, I am not thinking clearly and ask for new thoughts.” This could be a time to stop, drop...

“To change one’s life—Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions, no excuses.” -William James       Keep experiencing life. How Am I experiencing life? Showing up, allowing my eye, my heart, and my hands to engage with what has heart and meaning. What I cherish, care for, and love, and what cherishes me.   We are under the spell of the great hurry; that somehow if we can do more in a condensed period of time we will be free…. later.   Today an osprey is free, and all morning has been sounding over the small cove where I live. The sound is striking the drum of the ear with a wonder that causes one to move, to stand, to pause, to look outside. The work of the osprey is simple. And over many years of visitations I find I have yet to see a pair. But today they came on the radiant currents, landing, speaking one another’s language….and their stillness, togetherness, and conversation pauses all other notions in the world. I am with them. They ...

The Hopi people say everyone has always wanted to love a seed. I have found nothing more satisfying than that tender push upward of new life. In the spring I notice these cycles, and pose to my heart some queries. How am I aware of the new seeds pushing outward? What are the seeds I am planting in my thoughts, my gestures? How am I experiencing the world? How is my atmosphere experiencing me? What am I thinking, saying, feeling? It’s of importance to Nature what we are giving and what’s being given… Every moment is a nurturance, a new opportunity to experience life on life’s terms. To receive the blessing of everything inside, all the learning, turning over, changing me. Infusing our present moment with the wisdom of experience. What have I experienced? What wisdom is opening to me now? If I don’t like my experience, what can I offer to life to create a different outcome in my own engagement with life? How can I plant seeds that come to harvest? How do I a...

Tonight I found a snail on the pavement and picked him up.  It took some effort. He had been nearly crushed and his shell lay next to him in pieces – most of it scattered somewhere I couldn’t see, and I felt this heart break as I thought, ‘there is nothing more important than doing the right thing by him.’ This relative who is sensitive to the environment, so sensitive in fact he will only live in an environment that can support life. I thought nothing but ‘find some green leaves’ and wondered as I saw his silver trail, ‘what’s the right thing to do?’ I decided earth burial and placed him under the hawthorn tree…. in front of the marina cabana.  A small garden protected by soft new leaves, I placed the two remaining slivers of shell. I thought  a moment after ‘perhaps I should have kept them, these two precious, dark shell fragments’ – then I thought, ‘no – best to return them to the earth.R...

Feeling-attitudes-optimism “How am I going to be an optimist about this?” is the question indie pop band Bastille poses. It’s a good question An everyday….. moment to moment question. I appreciate what Patrick O’Neill says when he talks about optimism. He states, “It means to be optimum and that the optimistic people are the ones that make it through where others don’t.” It reminds me of our capacity to do the right thing. To empower what is going well and what is working. We also, while having this positive attitude, get to look at what is not working- and address, process, and resolve things together when it’s time. How can we offer our greatest healing gift which is love? Sometimes this is quite a process. Having a positive attitude does not eclipse other feelings. It is a deep knowing that all of who we are can be present. We Honor that feelings reside together and know we have everything we need to face what comes. And what comes…..is a lot ...