Aligning with Grace

What will you give birth to in this new year of 2024? Many people like to begin the new year with a word that exemplifies what they want to focus on, give birth to, and embody in the coming year. This year, the word "Hope" chose me. Perhaps it did, because it is so needed in our world right now. I certainly need it this year. You can always pick a word for yourself - one that you want to work on or experience more of. Or a word can come to you spontaneously. Mine came in so many ways - it was insistent - demanding my attention. I couldn't avoid it. It showed up in everything I seemed to read. It does not have to be one word. It can certainly be more than one, but I find that even with a couple of words, one of them tends to be the predominant one. If this speaks to, it is a simple yet wonderful practice to anchor in the coming year and refer to from time to time. You might want to journal on it periodically to see where you might currently be in your life and decide wheth...

1.10.17. In numerology and metaphysics this sequence of numbers adds up to "one." The energy of "1" is the energy of new beginnings. This year, 2017 - also adds up to the number one. Again, the energy of new beginnings... Look around. Read the news. It is enough to scare you back into a cave. Your outlook could be bleak. Or not. You can believe the world is ending. Or it is beginning. It is your choice how you choose to see things. And how you choose to react. I am choosing to believe in new beginnings. I am choosing to heed the invitation of the energy of one, because this sequence of numbers is very near and dear to my heart for personal reasons. I am ready for new beginnings which invite new choices and changes. Are you? You must decide. How you will look at this year. And at the events around you. You must decide. We always have the choice to grow. Or not. So decide. Be open to new beginnings. Begin again. You always can. The mome...

This New Year is calling me to greater Silence... I awaken several times this week, as the first rays of dawn trickle into my bedroom - slyly coaxing me to rouse - beckoning me to meditation and quiet contemplation, and to the recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, in solidarity with monastic communities everywhere... I move about this day - in total Silence... Everything I seem to stumble upon in my reading brings me back to the importance and necessity of Silence in this point and time... From those first rays of dawn to the first inkling of twilight - my day progresses - with its many domestic duties gently unfolding and spilling into each other, in total and simple Silence... I speak not a word, to anyone - save for my prayers, internally voiced, which I lay at the feet of the Divine... It is truly delicious for me in every way! Yes, I feel a call to greater Silence, to Quiet, to drawing more deeply Inward, and to spending less time online with its many distracti...

There are times when we are ready to turn the page... Or, turn a corner. There are simply times when change is inevitable... There are moments in our lives when we are driven to release all that holds us back. it is truly a time when we feel compelled to toss out the old, to make space for the new. There are times when a new life beckons. We hear it whispering in our ear. At first quietly, and then more loudly... This is one of those moments... I have literally finished with a major purge in my home, and I feel a lightness of being and a surge of creativity that has eluded me for a very long time. It is almost hard to keep up with myself and the thoughts that are running through my mind - literally a mile a minute! And so I have also decided to make more healthy choices in my life as well - in terms of what I eat and drink, and this weekend held a "Farewell Party" for a number of items! I arose into a new dawn. I went for a walk, meditated this morning, and th...

This week, for the first time in almost three years, I went back into the river... Yes, this same river that for several years, beginning in '08, first invited me in, and then beckoned... And so, I obediently responded to its calling, bought a kayak, and without any experience, launched myself off from the shore into a Great Unknown, relinquishing all control over where it would take me - both inwardly and outwardly... For the next few years, in stillness and silence, the River taught me all I needed to know. It yielded up its secrets, as I was companioned by blue herons and the bass fish that occasionally jumped out of the water to give me the once over... I forded into the waters and mists in the fog, performed penitential rituals during the High Holy Days, and chanted mantras in various sacred languages, over and over again. And in my ear the River whispered over and over again - "Let it go. Do not fight the current. Just flow"... and many more such sayings. I ...