Aligning with Grace

We have welcomed 2017. In numerology - 2017 has the energy of "1" which is symbolic of new beginnings. In this new year, I visualize letting go of the old as a garment which simply floats away. A garment I have outgrown and no longer have use for. As I rang in the New Year, letting go of the old and its many shocks, I listened to a teaching by Kryon, who extolled his listeners to make of 2017 an altar of joy! Whatever you give energy to will increase, so focus on the energies you want you invite in this coming year, and let go of those that no longer serve you. "I spread my arms wide into the future,  for the best is yet to come!" ~ Anthony de Mello, SJ In this spirit, I want to share with you a couple of brief quotations I came across that I draw inspiration from. May they be a source of this for you as well! "Greater than the destructive force of hate,  is the compassionate power of love.  Whatever you say or do to others, let it be wi...

"By means of all created things, without exception, the Divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact, we live steeped in its burning layers." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Chardin was a Jesuit scientist - a brilliant paleontologist, geologist, and philosopher, whose works were at times banned. His insights and reflections were well before its time and helped pave the way for more recent philosophical, theological, and scientific discourse. He was silenced by the Church, and yet he did not lose his faith. He was born in 1881, and died in April of 1955, just a few months before I was born. These words came to me precisely at a time when I have been reflecting on how the very essence of our beings seems to be comprised of layers. All the significant issues in our lives are similarly constructed of layers, and somehow we must revisit them again and again and again... This poem came to me yesterday, an...

On the eve - of Christmas Eve , I arise at dawn and greet the morning down by the river which is now totally frozen over, for the first time in years. I sit in the biting cold and howling wind and offer prayers, my heart racked by conflicting and deep emotions as I prepare for the birth of God's son, in the shadow of a beloved friend's death... Inspirations and ideas come for a memorial service I will soon lead, for this wonderful yogini, who touched so many lives in my local yoga community... I make my way home to the stillness and quiet, to sit and meditate some more, mindful that this Season of Advent is almost over, and in a matter of hours, it will gracefully yield into the Season of Christmas ... Spontaneously, I feel compelled to go get coffee from McDonald's . For a long time this was an almost daily ritual for me, on my way to the river, at a time that was difficult in my life, but it is something I have not done now for a while... I arrive and am greeted by the b...