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Reflections

Category: Lent Easter

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Easter Blessings

Beyond bunnies, baskets, chocolate, and jelly beans, Easter calls us to the profound practice of resurrection of the body. Resurrection is about entering the fire of our passion and letting it burn brightly.  It is about what enlivens us and makes us feel vital.  It is about feeling the full weight and lightness of our physical being.  What would it mean for you to open yourself fully to the sacred breath moving through and sustaining you moment by moment?  How might you let your dreams and passion be resurrected this season?

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Holy Saturday: The Space Between

My latest Seasons of the Soul column at Patheos: Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human Or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight Has made my eyes so soft, My voice so tender, My need of God Absolutely clear. ~ Hafiz Holy Week invites us into a world full of betrayal, abandonment, mockery, violence, and ultimately death. The Triduum, those three sacred days which constitute one unfolding liturgy, call us to experience communion, loss, and the border spaces of unknowing. Holy Saturday is

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Death and Dancing in the Desert

I recently went out to the desert for a week of retreat.  Last Christmas I had a pulmonary embolism while in Vienna.  Coming so close to the reality of my own death demanded more reflection, more time to be present to what this experience was opening up in my heart.  I knew the desert was the place of fierceness calling to me. In my first few days I found myself deeply drawn to images of death.  In New Mexico there are these wonderful figures everywhere of skeletons dressed in various clothing.  They are in celebration of Day of the Dead

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Visual Meditation: Oasis in the Desert

I am heading off to the desert for a time of Lenten retreat and leave you with some rainy day images from the Kubota Japanese Garden here in Seattle.  The desert mothers and fathers will be my companions for this journey.  My heart is ready to move into silence to listen for a deeper voice.  I’ll let you know some of what I discover upon my return.  (Click here for a visual meditation on tulips.)

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Ash Wednesday: Practice Truth-Telling

Ash Wednesday marks a threshold when 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 you have ever been near death or had a loved one die, you know the clarity that an awareness of our bodily limits can bring. How suddenly what is most important in life rises to the surface. This is

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Sabbath Time and Abbey Dreaming

I have been taking some Sabbath time recently, scaling back on a number of projects and clearing space for healing and integration.  It has been a gift to savor longer stretches of time for journaling, prayer, and reflection as well as my practices of yoga and walking each day.  The photo is of our new dog Amma Winter at her favorite place – the dog park.  While our previous dogs didn’t care much for other dogs, Winter loves to play and watching her romp, swim, and run has stretched my heart even wider with joy. As always happens when I slow down

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Practicing Resurrection through the Elements

Our Easter Season E-Course is underway and it is a joy to guide others through the practice of praying with water, wind, earth, and fire as vessels for awareness of the ways God moves through the world. This first week’s focus is on wind.  Click the links below for some blog posts written by participants: Mind Sieve and Diamonds in the Sky With Lucy both offer their beautiful poetic reflections on the gift of wind. Laurel at The Rose Window shares her thoughtful reflections as she begins this time of retreat. ___________________________________ David Crumm at Read the Spirit shares these

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