Spirituality

A Prayer For Our Suffering World

On August 18, 2020 / Spirituality / 37 Comments

204 I live in a rural sanctuary, but who can forget the pain of the world—the environmental, pandemic, and political threats, racism, families separated, and people dying alone? Who can forget that many won’t help others stay

Walking Meditation: A Calming Practice for Stressful Times

On June 9, 2020 / Political Action, Spirituality / 25 Comments

273 In the American Brahman Bookstore in Ithaca, NY in the late 1960s, a group drawn to the store and teacher learned meditation sitting on lumpy mismatched cushions. At home, Vic and I committed to sitting in

Praise in Disheartening Days

On April 28, 2020 / Nature, Spirituality / 34 Comments

196 During this quarantine without life’s usual distractions, anxiety follows me like my puppy. I’m safe, but the Earth trembles. I smother one flaming fear by reminding myself I’m OK. Then another flares. When my husband was

We’ll Find a New Way of Living, We’ll Find a Way of Forgiving

On March 31, 2020 / My Land and Home, Spirituality / 32 Comments

237 I dropped into a Deep Well of Grief this morning. I grieved for dreams shattered, especially for younger people, for dying humans everywhere, for a struggling world and suffering planet. Then I did what I do

Now Our Minds Are One: An Iroquois Prayer of Gratitude

On November 26, 2019 / My Land and Home, Spirituality / 15 Comments

293 This ancient prayer of Thanksgiving comes from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. The prayer is used to give thanks, bless gatherings, and greet the day. I plan to read it at a Thanksgiving gathering this year and

Let Everything Happen to You

On July 9, 2019 / Psychology and Mythology, Spirituality / 24 Comments

780 Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing,” The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, 1905 (trans.

12 Monarch Miracles of 2018

On December 25, 2018 / Nature, Spirituality / 23 Comments

Monarch butterflies arrived in the Finger Lakes in mid June to sip thistle and milkweed nectar, mate, and lay eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves. As I searched

Ease Suffering for Everyone, Including Ourselves

On June 26, 2018 / Bereavement and End of Life, Nature, Spirituality / 40 Comments

My phone buzzes. The screen reads “restricted number.” Probably an advertiser, but it could be my mother-in-law’s Hospicare nurse, so I pick up. “Hi Elaine, it’s Ray.” Ah, the Hospicare nurse. “Virginia has an infection on her

How to Create a Sacred Grief Ritual Many Years after a Loss

On May 29, 2018 / Bereavement and End of Life, Spirituality / 27 Comments

“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” ~ Rainer Maria

The Black Madonna Wore Pink: Marion Woodman, 1988

On July 11, 2017 / Psychology and Mythology, Spirituality / 20 Comments

752 I felt compelled to go. I wasn’t sure why. A friend had invited me to a weekend workshop on the Black Madonna led by Jungian analyst and writer Marion Woodman. In 1988, I had a few