this week i’ve been spinning threads of story related to home, inspired by last week’s celebration of birth.

in the weeks leading up to hosting the celebration, i went through a thorough and deep spring cleaning. drawers, closets, shelves all received attention as i followed the impulse to shed. my daughter returning home from college and this party on the horizon seemed to align perfectly with what felt like my own cycle of growth and together, this all called for a cellular rearranging. it was serious; it was deep. i took something like twenty bags of donations to goodwill.

marie kondo’s tidying wisdom echoed as i carefully touched items throughout my home, choosing with intention what stayed and what went. i felt like i was breathing life into my home.

and into my self. because with each choice, i was becoming. a newer version of me coming into being.

as the day of celebration drew closer, the relationship with my home–this place— became more and more vibrant. it was as if i could feel her arms wrapped around me/us, a deep sense of being held and protected washing over me as i carefully remembered all that had led to this moment.

i remember once hearing toni morrison say that place is more than a backdrop to story; place is an essential actor.

curiosity grew around this place that i’ve/we’ve called home for the past six years. this plot of land on the corner of highland and madonna, in a river town that still feels distant. a place that has increasingly known both as chosen and choosing. i know that we are here–precisely in this place, in this time–with purpose.

there’s many layers to this.

first, we chose this place to centralize our family. in the years before moving here, we were spread too thin, scattered. at that time, the five of us were in five different schools, in five different school systems across the city. it was too much; we needed to simplify. we came here, where our family began–in the place where our first child was born. a place we knew we’d be outsiders, a place that felt familiar and strange. we came back to Kentucky.

we chose this particular place, on the corner of this street because a family had loved and lived and died in it over forty+ years. ripening it. breaking it in. preparing it.

we chose this place because it felt right.

partly, because of Gaia, the giant Cypress in the front. and Oak in the back, along with Lilac. and Gingko and Evergreens on the side. our home is surrounded by these trees, in this place that feels deeply exact–particular to/for us.

i know and love these tree beings. the kind of knowing that is generated in heart and belly and comes from relationship, communication. my recent peak in curiosity about this place compelled a different knowing and so i did a bit of research, turning to Ted Andrews’ Nature-Speak for information on these tree-kin. here’s a bit of what i discovered:

Cypress (keynote: find comfort in the home; new understanding of a crisis): the cypress is one of the wetlands and swamps, of places that lead to the underworld or infernal kingdoms. Going through a swamp means facing one’s fears, sacrificing for a greater cause. The cypress encourages us to explore the sacrifices that we are making within our life and guides us to a greater awareness that sacrifice does not always involve pain and suffering, especially when that sacrifice is made for something or someone we love. Its presence as a sign can stir the primal feminine energies, the creative forces that are static in our life. Cypress will help us manifest opportunities for healing. It helps us in understanding our crises, and it awakens the comfort of home and mother. (p263).

Oak (keynote: strength and endurance win out; open to new spirit forces): the oak tree was sacred to the Celts and Druids. it is aligned with primal male force, a powerful symbol of male energy, the yang or electircal aspect of the universe or individual. The Oak has strong ties to the realm of nature spirits…provides the energies to open the doorway to the inner realms and their mysteries in meditation, magic, and in real life. Acorns symbolize fertility and the manifestation of creativity…Oak trees provide strength…Now is the time to demonstrate your own strength and endure. The energy will be there to do so and as a result new confidence and new spirit forces will open to you. (p281-282).

Lilac (keynote: balance the spirit and intellect; contact with spirit is imminent): The Lilac will align and balance all of the chakra centers of the body. It awakens mental clarity for one wishing to activate the kundalini in a balanced manner and spiritualizes the intellect. Lilac draws protective spirits into one’s life; it has a strong tie to the nature spirits as they use the lilac’s vibrations to raise their own consciousness. The flower is fragrant and powerful and help harmonize your life and activate greater clairvoyance. The message of the lilac is usually very clear: this is a time to balance spiritual activities with intellectual activities. Spirit is close and willing to work with you. Now is the time to open and develop trust in your spirit guides. (p276)

Gingko: the gingko is the sole survivor of a family of trees that was around when dinosaurs walked the earth (190 million years ago). During the Ice Age, glaciers wiped out all gingkoes except in China. It is considered a living fossil with the ability to survive millions of years of change and even the soot and grime of modern cities. (p.246). It is considered a sacred tree and a symbol of resilience, health and longevity. A cultural icon, it is also associated with hope and fertility.

each one of these kin has offered specific medicine to my homegrowing during this season of my/our life. there is no question.

homegrowing. this is a new term that comes as i write this and as it comes, it feels so true. i love the idea of homegrowing. it resonates as precisely the endeavor i’ve/we’ve been up to…since the beginning of time?

“beginning of time” feels right insofar as it the endeavor feels beyond time and space. tyson yunkaporte’s wisdom around the circular nature of indigenous story comes to mind here: that there is no fixed beginning, middle, and end. that in reality, time is fluid and cyclical, folding in and over and through.

this place carries with it stories that weave with the now; stories that both shape and are shaped.

land holds history that is directly connected to the past and to the future. when brought to awareness, there is a sense of connection to the Big Story. i know that this place chose us as much as we chose this place.

my brain is inspired by my heart and belly here and so again, i’ve been doing a bit of research about this particular place. two threads i’m holding now, from history:

just a few hundred yards away from this place was the legendary Indian battle of which 500-600 graves of warriors were discovered. according to Indian legend, in 1749, a Cherokee chief betrayed a medicine man highly regarded by the Shawnee and Miami tribes, which led to the fierceness of the fight. their remains were found, where they gave their lives in honor of that medicine.

the state’s first white woman, Mary Draper Ingles, came to the area as captive of the Shawnee Indians; she later escaped from Big Bone Lick to the Ohio River and made her way back home to Virginia, some 500+ miles. alone, with one other woman.

there’s mystery in how these stories (including the unfolding of mine/ours) connect and how they relate…and, of course, they do. in part, because of this place.

living these days feels like a constantly refocusing zoom lens that focuses in on the particular and then back out to the cosmos. in, on each moment and choice before me, positioning me with enormous and essential value, and then back out to the Big Story where i am simply a grain of sand.

at times like these, such a lens of consciousness supports life. it allows me to include more and more of reality–the good, the bad, the horrific–in my experience of humaning. returning to tyson yunkaporte again, he defines trauma is harm without meaning. when we get that all has meaning–even when we don’t fully understand it–the hardest, most painful things can become incorporated into our self, our stories as essential threads in our homegrowing.

our six years in relationship with this place has generated love, life, and death.

i am/we are

homegrowing/homegrown. 

from this place, with this knowing, every encounter is purposeful and with meaning. everything and everybody belongs.

written 5.22.22

Today is my birthday. I am 48 years old. There is that.

And, this day represents so much more–some of which I know; some of which I don’t. And for that, I am grateful.

I am grateful to be alive. Grateful to be incarnate, now.

I know that today marks my birth forty-eight years ago. In Evansville, Indiana, the first child to Elizabeth and Tom, granddaughter to Wendell and Margaret, Charles and Alyne. It also marks yet another birth of self–a new/ancient version of me that over time, reveals her Self in ever new ways. There have been many re-births over the course of my life. Today feels different. Like truth that has been unfolding since before the beginning of time.

I believe we are born with purpose. I believe that all life is purposeful. Part of the journey in discovering the purpose requires us to forget–like the splinter in the eye that generates enough irritation/tension/trauma to get our attention. To wake us up. To return us home to ourselves, choice after choice after choice. Because love requires choice. And with every choice we make, there comes power, responsibility, freedom. Each choice carries with it a single grain of sand and slowly–choice after choice after choice–there grows a place within us that becomes home.

There is a cost to this choosing. There is loss of beliefs; the loss of old stories that have kept us feeling safe and secure and comfortable; the loss of relationships; the loss of jobs and positions and roles; the loss of forms that no longer fit. It is not easy. It is not meant to be. This is the path of transformation.

This is life. This is love.

To support our forgetting, we are told that belonging is fitting in; that our value is based on others’ approval; that pain is a problem to be solved; that comfort is preferred to discomfort; that uncertainty and surrender are weak; that independence is a thing; that death is the end of life. We must choose otherwise. Perpetually.

At age 48, I know life. I know death. I know birth. I know love. I know freedom.

I celebrated the birth of the book yesterday in my home with friends and family and those who have gone before and with those who will come. We planted flowers and blessed this place, pulled out the family china, used the cut-glass punch bowl for homemade lemonade, messed up the kitchen, drank Black Girl Magic champagne, danced to Barry Manilow, hung decorations in unpredictable (and very strange!) places, laughed and cried, played ping-pong and X-box, sat in circle, shared sacred stories, touched on hard truths, sat in reverence to the sacred, welcomed it all, awed at the rain and then the hail, laughed that the police were called on our riotous gathering, made deviled eggs and cucumber salad and fried chicken and homemade cookies, planted flowers and blessed this place, and reveled together…

as life continues to birth me/us

into who I/we are becoming

in this ever-unfolding story.

And as a Post-Script, glad to share this sermon from my dear friend, Rev. Phyllis Spiegel who preached today on Unfolding, with connections and witness to the celebration yesterday. What a gift!

And, a poem:

5.20.2022
There are days 
that bring you to your knees, wailing
at the unimaginable beauty of life. 
The purpose of each moment, each mistake, each triumph.
Every choice, every story, every body. 
And everything else but the power of this very moment 
falls away
leaving present only
the immediate and the eternal 
raw humility and emboldened power
humanity and divinity 
joined as one in the spiral of love. 

This was one of those days. 

The TV is running in the background–another episode of The Office
And i am by the river in New Richmond, with enflamed Sky
Praying to Mother and to Libbie and to the river otter
With gratitude for the grief and joy in setting Sun
Where the beginning, middle and end 
Are one.

yesterday was my daughter’s college graduation. it was one of those days that involves plans. big plans.

and, it was friday the 13th.

the day announced herself when kate ditched walking across the stage, receiving her empty diploma holder and hearing her named called

and choose instead a special celebration lunch with family which went…let’s just say, not as we imagined it.

it was a full day of this–finding the beauty in the unexpected and the undesired.

and as i sat on my back patio last night to write and be with my full mama heart, a bird pooped on me. i mean, it was ridiculous. and the perfect ritual to bless the day-beyond-imagination.

then, this bit of writing poured out of me:

Bittersweet

Today‘s big plans laughed at us
Mocking our arrogance
And offered instead a series of unlikely events
Each an off ramp to the unimaginable
Where love consumes all  
and nothing is left to waste

Not even the shit. 

Love consumed all. On Friday the 13th and everyday. My baby is now a college graduate and we celebrated her becoming with more love than I could have ever imagined, much less planned.

Yesterday, the day my son turned eighteen. As I celebrated the meaning of motherhood + mothering, there was breaking news of Roe v Wade standing on the precipice of being overturned by the Supreme Court. Nothing new in the story of reproductive rights in this nation, nothing surprising…and still a gut punch. 

Western Christianity has twisted and perverted the story of who we are as humans for over two thousand years. I want to (re)claim these stories, reclaim ourselves. I do not want to pass these decayed stories down to my/our children and my/our grandchildren.

The patterns of domination can be traced from and through the Genesis creation myths. Returning to them promises wisdom and new/ancient insight around what it means to be alive and what it means to create + bring to life.

Denying the selfhood of a woman with sole concern on what her body might birth is synonymous to how humans (mis)treat Mother Earth. We occupy the stance of takers, forgetting that life and love is mutual. Choice is central to mutuality and right relationship.  

Robin Wall Kimmerer names the Honorable Harvest as a principle that invites mutuality, right relationship. She offers a set of guidelines as a way to practice Honorable Harvest in daily life. It resonates with me today as I wonder how we might shift to a world rooted in right relationship: 

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you,
so that you may take care of them. 
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. 
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer. 
Never take the first. Never take the last. 
Take only what you need. 
Take only that which is given. 
Never take more than half. Leave some for others. 
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. 
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. 
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given. 
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken. 
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever. 

Imagining what it means to be truly pro-life and pro-choice, respecting the life of all…thanks to Mother Earth for showing the way.

last night i listened to Brene´ Brown and Fr. Richard Rohr on her podcast, Unlocking Us. Fr. Richard’s point about our understanding of God as vulnerable–in addition to almighty–struck a chord.

today, i worked with a team on a zine focused on the Genesis creation story. the theme is around “who is my neighbor?” and we’ve decided to look at this creation story to consider what it teaches us about being part of creation, and being in relationship. returning to origin stories offer insight and wisdom into both the truth of who we are and how these truths decay and rot and can ultimately lead us astray. and then, back again.

John Phillip Newell’s The Book of Creation is serving as both a source of inspiration and a framework, moving day by day through the creation story. Newell’s Celtic wisdom offers a lens through which to encounter the story. it’s juicy.

as i was working on this (beginning with Day One: The Light of God), i noticed constriction when i came across this passage:

“The Celtic poet Kenneth White, known for his earth-related writings, or what he calls ‘geopoetics’, speaks of the ‘whiteness’ that is at the core of reality. It is a whiteness written in creation ‘like birch bark’, he says, or ‘like wave crest’. It glistens in the life of the earth and sea and skies. We may lose sight of it, or cut ourselves off from it, to the extent that we cease to believe that it is there, yet the light continues to shine. It is the ‘fire-body’ from which all life proceeds.”

holding whiteness in such a divine way elicited strong emotions, bumping against whiteness as has been handed down thanks to white supremacy. the reading felt clean, with no implications of supremacy or domination…it felt true. and…i had to sit with it. it was so different. i was suspect. and trusting. at once.

the text goes on–as if sensing exactly what was happening in my body:

“The light of the first day is an invisible ‘fiery power’, says Eriugena. From that inaccessible light of God all life comes forth, whether that be the morning light of the burning sun, the yellow brilliance of a sunflower growing from the dark ground or the glow of a starfish emerging in the depths of the sea. It is the light within all life, or, as George MacLeod says, the ‘Sun behind all suns’. Our eyes cannot see it, nor can human thought nor imagination grasp it. Contemplating the light that is at the heart of life takes us ‘beyond signs’, says White: into the light that is not the sun. Here, we are led towards what Eriugena calls the ‘darkness’ or unknowableness of God’s light.”

darkness.

whiteness and darkness, together, as the light.

it goes on to speak of the “Divine Dark” and to nuance Western traditions around “light”.

this brought to mind a quote from John O’Donohue that i discovered some years ago:

“We desperately need a new and gentle light where the soul can shelter and reveal its ancient belonging. We need a light that has retained its kinship with the darkness. For we are the sons and the daughters of the darkness and the light.” –John O’Donohue

expanding the understanding of God’s Light–the first utterance of the divine in life–to include light/darkness is to embrace our own humanity/divinity; visibility/invisibility; knowing/unknowing. it is to include it all in our experience of Life.

and there, is an invitation to relax into our Self. just as we are, now. with the faith there is no where else to be, no one else to be, ever.

according to carl jung, the greater we increase the light, the greater we increase the shadow.

i wish i could phone-a-friend and dial up carl. i wanna conversation about this. about the dance between light and dark, between our liberation and our slavery.

when there is liberation, her sister slavery follows suit. an invitation to practice, an effort to counter-balance. will we fall back into old patterns, the old stories? or, will we remain steadfast in our new evolved version?

it’s a choice.

today, after a glorious Easter weekend full of new life and birth, there’s been opportunities to choose again: who will i be, now? and now? and now?

i ain’t surprised. and still…today was a doozy.

first, on what was turning out to be a grey and wintery day (with snow!), i got a call from my tax guy. we owed. BIG time.

this threatened to mess with months/years of growing into new relationship with money, work, and my own fiscal responsibility. to be more specific, my work the past months has been unpaid and i’ve recently launched a business. this has stretched and grown my family in our beliefs around abundance and resource and economies.

it’s times like this, when BAM! we get to put these beliefs to the test. and…as these things go, the day just kept rolling…one little test after another.

and on the day after Easter! just when i was riding like a cowgirl in my high horse. feelin’ so good and so accomplished and so evolved.

because i was/i am. and so, today came to root me. shake me. gift me…would i choose to receive it?

i did. i softened into the day. i rolled with it and drank soup and took a nap and listened to the rain and did my taxes and listened to trevor hall and did phone a friend! and emailed and cleaned and got still and did what i needed to do to stay rooted.

i’ve learned to take each moment of liberation and love and belonging and wholeness and to store them like seeds deep within myself, as touchstones. they are now mountains-turning islands. when days like today come, i return home and remember who i am.

there’s that saying that there are only two things are certain: taxes and death. but i know for a fact that ain’t all.

i know that shadows only come with light.

grateful for my shadows because only through intimacy with them, can i encounter my light.

this holy week, my heart and mind has been on passion.

in Wisdom Jesus cynthia bourgeault writes of how Jesus’ sacramental life offers guidance in the journey of transformation. the Passion is one of these sacraments, including his suffering: the betrayal, arrest, persecution, and crucifixion.

so, i’ve been sitting with the sacrament of passion, wondering how it shows up in my life and what it has to teach me about liberation.

there’s been some reckoning with the term passion, noticing how far our common usage is from its original meaning of suffering. today, it’s mostly used to refer to as pleasure or excitement, with little to no reference to suffering or sacrifice.

this shift has left me wondering about what is missed when the role of suffering is excluded from transformation? in other words, what does suffering have to do with the way of love?

this was all stirring in me as i prepared for a facilitation on tuesday so i first turned to Jesus’ Farewell Discourses for inspiration. here, in John 13-17, he gathered the disciples for final instruction before his passion. he prepared them for what was coming. they didn’t really get it, which i find to be reassuring and revealing.

confusion is real in this journey. and why we need guides along the way…but that’s a post for another day.

anyway, there are three of these final instructions that i find are particularly helpful in understanding passion: Jesus the True Vine (John 15:1-17); The World’s Hatred (John 15: 18-John 16); and Sorrow Will Turn to Joy (John 16:16-24) (NSRV translation).

from Jesus the True Vine: “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” (John 15:2). and “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11).

from The World’s Hatred: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the word would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world–therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18). “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You are also to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15: 26-27).

and from Sorrow Will Turn Into Joy: “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” (John 16: 20-22).

my translation: life shows us from the very beginning of the reality of growing pains. and, we still forget. grief empties us and allows the spaciousness for new.

in his final guidance to his disciples, Jesus teaches that as we grow into the truth of who we are, we will naturally bump against socio-cultural conditioning; we’ll no longer fit into the boxes we’ve learned to fit into; we’ll outgrow relationships and jobs and positions and roles and beliefs. this growth will bring anger, grief, fear, and hatred. both internally (thanks, ego) and externally. and jesus tells us: it’s okay. this is why i’ve walked this path as i have…to show you the way. and then he goes on to say that he’s sending the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Truth) to them/us so that they/we might also be compelled to tell the truth; they/we have witnessed the way so they/we are now responsible for that knowing/witness.

our connection with the Divine en-courages truth to Self, which brings forth both pain and joy. as we stand in the humble truth of who we are, our hearts are shattered and enflamed. this world–our human conditions–allows for this passion and through that passion, our liberation. it is our choice. and many will choose otherwise.

the implications of our choice ripple from the individual to the family to the community to the nation; they cross generations from the beginning of time to time eternal. if we do not move through the suffering and allow it to transform us, then we will be stuck in that suffering; it will possess us and will spill out from us onto others.

James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree points to the very real tragedy that results. he equates the lynching tree with the cross and lays out the absolute Christian silence on the history of lynching in this nation. for him, the silence is evidence of the radical teachings of Jesus: even among those who proclaim to follow the life and teachings of Jesus, there has still been a willful denial to live these teachings to the degree that these same “Christians” re-enact the crucifixion of their own God.

he writes:

“The lynched black victim experienced the same fate as the crucified Christ and thus became the most potent symbol for understanding the true meaning of the salvation achieved through “God on the cross.” Nietsche was right: Christianity is a religion of slaves. God became a slave in Jesus and thereby liberated slaves from being determined by their social condition… 

The real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst. Faith that emerged out of the scandal of the cross is not a faith of intellectuals or elite of any sort. This is the faith of abused and scandalized people–the losers and the down and out. It was this faith that gave blacks the strength and courage to hope, “to keep on keeping on,” struggling against the odds, with what Paul Tillich called, “The courage to be.” …”

if we could get that freedom is not found by being a winner! or by fitting in or making nice. it’s not found in making others’ comfortable or by having all the answers. it is found when we listen to and act in our own truth.

i’m reminded of jesus in the garden of gethsamene. he’s talked the talk to the disciples and now it’s time for him to walk the walk. according to luke, he actually sweats blood as he reckons with the reality of his own teachings. meanwhile, the disciples are asleep. (revealing metaphor, no?!). ultimately, he surrenders to the truth and makes what i call the “choiceless choice”; his suffering subsides and peace comes in.

passion: to say yes to the fire within us and in doing so, allow all that comes from it’s burning, faithful to that burn. drawing close to its warmth.

grateful for all the firekeepers on this very Good Friday. for en-couraging my fire and for lighting our world. let us be the light in the darkness.

a communal poem from tonight’s closing ceremony of the 40 Day Journey to Remembering Soul and Spirit. with a heart full of gratitude.

I used to put others before myself and now I’m making myself a priority.

I used to feel unworthy of deep connection and now I wait for alignment knowing the Divine knows better.

I used to take my blessings for granted. Now I awake grateful.

I used to allow fear and anxiety to control me and now I see it for what it is: a distraction to my Higher Self.

I used to be plus size and now I’m a regular.

I used to tethered and now I’m going to live untethered.

I used to want the silence and now I want the music and the laughter and the joy.

I used to not trust my years of living/lived experience and now I trust to lean into the wisdom that I’ve been blessed with.

I used to be attached to some of the positional power. Now, I feel free.

I used to claim my organization; now, I claim home.

I used to be a student and now I am a teacher. 

I used to be a teacher and now I am a student. 

I used to be a reflection and now I am source. 

I used to be lost and now I am found. 

I used to untethered and now I am rooted.

I used to be an ember and now I am a flame.

I used to be a stream and now I am an ocean.

I used to be a pebble and now I am a mountain.

I used to be mother earth’s worshipper. Now, I am her daughter. 

I used to be nature’s curator. Now, I am nature. 

I used to be afraid all of the time, but not I am learning to offer that to Spirit … to see where fear might also be an invitation.

I used to act from that fear, but now I am learning to move through it to love.

I used to think I needed to do and be big in the world, now I realize I already am, by the miracle of my birth.

I used to over analyze, judge, want or need the other to be different, now I see the work is within me.

I used to see the world as out there, now I see the world as in here.

I used to over consume and now I find surrender and find ease in the silence.

I used to hide and stay small, now I offer myself as a conduit to move through me.

I used to think I could do it alone, now I realize that I need you.

I used to think the Kingdom of God was out there; now I know it is in here. 

there’s no going back. these were the words spoken from a woman in circle reckoning with the reality of life. they came as she shared the story of catching a glimpse of her aging body in the mirror of a dressing room as she tried on a swim suit–her body’s image revealing the changes that have come with living.

tears came on the wings of the words that followed: there’s no going back.

Octavia Butler’s phrase, “God is change” immediately came to mind. to be human–to be alive–is to participate in this change. the dance of participation has a particular and changing rhythm that involves mutuality and relationship. there’s movement.

and to be a participant in life is to appreciate all that has come before–the things done and left undone. all has purpose.

thanks to imperial consciousness and inverted stories from westernized religion and culture, there are deeply entrenched stories of fall and redemption. we (humans) are cast as inherently bad, incapable of saving ourselves from sin so that Jesus came to save us. these stories of redemption are lies and are symptoms of pain not transformed, that have festered in the wounds generating shame/blame/guilt.

there is no course-correction needed. it is all necessary because it all brings us to this moment of choice.

there is no going back.

no need. no reason. it has all served and grown and moved us.

pain offers an intimate encounter with divine love. as we encounter this love, we get to choose: who are we, now? who do we want to be? do we consent to participating in the outpouring of love? consent connects us to a universal and eternal story, drawing us into active participation in the story of the cosmos.

and, we get to choose.

shortly following the circle, the woman wondered on Facebook if she’d experienced a “breakthrough” in that moment. in her accepting the pain of the reality that there is no going back.

in the preparation for holy week, i’m grateful for those who continue to show me the path of transformation: that our human suffering allows the experience of divine love, life, and liberation.

and the reminder of the power of choice.