I am off for a few days here to immerse myself in the ocean of dreaming.   I am beginning their dream leader training in the “Jungian Mystical Christian tradition.”  I love that combination of words in their description and am very excited and eager for what this opens up within me.  In the meantime below are some other […]

Posted in Resources, Lent | 12 Comments »

 
As I walked into the woods on my Ash Wednesday retreat last week I was dazzled by droplets of water shimmering all around me.  Here I was entering the Lenten desert and everything in creation sang to me of viriditas, or the greening power of God.  Life was exploding forth before me in this damp forest, the […]

Posted in Photos, Lent | 17 Comments »

Song For the Salmon
For too many days now I have not written of the sea,
nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
we find between the islands
For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn
I […]

Posted in Photos, Poetry, Lent | 6 Comments »

There’s a really deep well inside me.
And in it dwells God.
Sometimes I am there, too.
But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath.
Then (God) must be dug out again.

-Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life
Lent is often associated with the desert, for good reason.  The desert figures prominently in the scriptures […]

Posted in Photos, Lent | 9 Comments »

Today we leave ordinary time to enter into the journey of Lent through the desert. The desert is that uncharted terrain beyond the edges of our seemingly secure and structured world, where things begin to crack.
We begin this desert journey marked with ashes, the sign of our mortality. There is wisdom in these ashes. If […]

Posted in Grief, Lent | 15 Comments »

NOTE added 2/22: All the books have now been requested by folks and are on their way in the mail today!  Thanks to everyone who participated.  I love the image of this great circle of resources flowing freely between us. 
 
Shrovetide began yesterday and are these last three days before Lent begins ending with Mardi Gras.  It […]

Posted in Fun | 13 Comments »

A New Moon teaches gradualness 
and deliberation and how one gives birth 
to oneself slowly. Patience with small details 
makes perfect a large work, like the universe. 
What nine months of attention does for an embryo 
forty early mornings will do 
for your gradually growing wholeness. 

-Rumi
Tonight is the New Moon and Wednesday begins the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I am feeling especially reflective this weekend, listening for what my spirit needs during this holy season ahead.  What will those forty early mornings do for my gradually growing wholeness?  What possibilities lie dormant in the seeds that are just awakening beneath the ground […]

Posted in Poetry, Nature and Creativity, Lent | 3 Comments »

I wrote a few days ago about discovering the theologian Andrew Linzey in an article I was reading.  I was so thrilled to discover someone writing seriously about the place of animals in Christian tradition and spiritual practice that I ordered three of his books:
Animal Gospel, Animal Theology, and Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care
The last […]

Posted in Nature and Creativity, Mystics and Saints | 10 Comments »

Please Note: I added some more Lenten Resources in the post below, please keep the ideas coming for books to read or practices to take on. 
     
The ultimate Mystery of being, the ultimate Truth, is Love. This is the essential structure of reality. When Dante spoke of the ‘love which moves the sun and the other […]

Posted in Poetry | 7 Comments »

The beginning of Lent is coming up a week from Wednesday.  I love the seasons of Lent and Advent because they invite us to a deeper level of reflection, a retreat in the midst of everyday life.  The 40 days of Lent comes from the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert in preparation for his life of […]

Posted in Lent | 9 Comments »