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Simple Musings and Offerings

There are lots of things percolating in me right now. I almost feel as though if I dare to speak them too soon I will lose my grasp. So I am allowing them a little more time. I am working on a post about dreams to respond to Cathleen‘s comment and Me‘s comment to previous posts of mine which I will be able to finish tomorrow. I have also been thinking a lot about the Liturgy of the Hours lately. Then I just read Jorge’s post about The Liturgy of the Toddler and just loved it. I don’t even have children, but if

November 14, 2006

December Gathering and Pilgrimage Opportunity

Please mark your calendars for our December Monthly Gathering: (click on the link for more details about time and place) Tapping Our Dream Wisdom: Come share a dream or learn from the dreams of others, all are welcome to explore the intrigue of our nighttime visions. Why do we dream, what might our dreams be opening us to? The dreams of our ancestors moved them to action and invited them into peace. Jeremy Taylor, a renowned dream work facilitator, advocates that all dreams come for health and healing, as such, this is your invitation to crack open the mystery, challenge

November 13, 2006

Sleep is the Prayer of the Body

Sleep is the prayer of the body shrouding itself in holy surrender. It is an act of supplication, with its secret longing for the things embodied in luminous darkness. What happens in that moment of great release into the total eclipse of night when the body descends into the cradle of dreaming? Does the breath suddenly become slow? Does the heart become still, barely perceptible, in its faithful work? Or do they labor more heavily to make space in the body for the rhythmic eruptions of story and symbol that beg me to awaken to a bigger life? This is

November 12, 2006

Standing in Place

There is a lot weighing on my heart this week, a conflict with a dear friend continues, one of my fellow oblates is in the end stages of pancreatic cancer, and my mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s is slowly worsening. I feel so very tender. I received a couple of wonderful emails from readers who shared with me how much it meant to them that I wrote my post last week about feeling all too human and needing to let what I wrote be enough. I was touched by reflecting on the gift we offer each other in our shared vulnerability and permission to be

November 8, 2006

Seeking Balance / Honoring the Masculine

I have been aware for a long time that many of the spirituality and arts programs I am involved in tend to draw mostly women to them. Our Awakening the Creative Spirit program this year is 12 wonderful women (last year we had two great men participate out of 13 participants). Our Monthly Gatherings which average 15-20 tend to usually be all women. I thought this was perhaps due to the combination of spirituality and the arts. I was very surprised when I started teaching at the School of Theology and Ministry this fall that out of my 29 students, only 4 are

November 6, 2006

The Gifts of Greenness

Rain has been drizzling and dousing and pouring in fits and starts these last several days here in Seattle. As winter draws nearer I witness the subtle slow waves of velvety moss that spread up tree trunks and across sidewalks. I heard a saying on NPR, that in the Northwest if moss isn’t growing on your North side, you are moving too fast. I shared this once with the driver of an airport shuttle as we made our way through blankets of thick rain. “You can tell an outsider made that up,” he responded, “because around here moss grows on all

November 6, 2006

Go read these. . .

. . .Monastic Mumblings has the funniest post on “How People of Faith Read a Stop Sign” — definitely good for a hearty laugh. . . and the author David James Duncan has a great article on writing advice (that I found over at Kristin’s blog) where he claims having fun became for him the key to the door of the literary kingdom. Enjoy!

November 3, 2006

Enough

Dear ones, I am feeling very tired. I have been pushing to get the draft done of our lectio divina book (which it finally is, now for editing!), I teach all day tomorrow and Saturday the Awakening program I love (but always exhausting), and I am having some conflicts with a good friend which is emotionally draining. So I am feeling my humanness especially right now and trying to listen deeply and gently to myself in the midst all that is stirring in me. I am aware of my longings for Sabbath, for time to just play and be with my husband,

November 2, 2006

Marigold Path Grid Blog: Saint Duke

One of the ways I understand Saints are as those people who have been honored for embracing their flowering, for allowing themselves to bud and blossom and burst forth fully into the world. These last few months, I have been contemplating the idea of what it would mean to extend my image of the Communion of Saints to include not only the ones I love who have gone before me, but other members of creation as well. Animals don’t refuse their own flowering, they are simply what God created them to be. This image has arisen for me especially in response to

November 1, 2006

GridBlog Invitation

So I don’t know if any of you have this problem, but in my daily life I often have conversations in my imagination and then forget whether I said things out loud. My poor husband always looks a little worried about me when I start a sentence with “I am not sure if I actually said this to you or just imagined I did, but. . .” So the same thing happened with this wonderful GridBlog idea. I read about it at Kristin’s blog a week or so ago who heard about it from Bob at The Corner (click on this link

October 31, 2006

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Simple Musings and Offerings

December Gathering and Pilgrimage Opportunity

Sleep is the Prayer of the Body

Standing in Place

Seeking Balance / Honoring the Masculine

The Gifts of Greenness

Go read these. . .

Enough

Marigold Path Grid Blog: Saint Duke

GridBlog Invitation

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