The things I need to flourish are simple: sunshine and the moon, raindrops and wind, long walks through woods and along shorelines, time alone every day with a prayer book, my pen and the sacred, laughter in the company of others, time to do my work without apology, time outside every day with my eyes open and my phone inside, heart-listening and soul-tending in the center of my own life.
Cast yourself down at the feet of mystery. Fling your heart wide and let all your dreams cascade out onto the welcoming earth. Match your breath with the heartbeat beneath you. Let everything you no longer need, seep away. Discover life is simpler than you thought. Let go of worry, release your fear. Feel tension roll away like an slow ebbing tide. Rise, scoured, and stripped bare, soft and renewed. Gather up those dream fragments that sparkle around you, but only those that still beat to your rhythm and that sing your song. Nestle them back beneath your breastbone, keep them safe and warm and breathing as they prepare to fly.
Take a walk. Find a pretty rock. Don’t take it. Go home. Keep your promise.
This is an excerpt from my essay forthcoming this week at Feminism and Religion, reflections on colonization, war, and who invented jelly.
I will be taking a break from posting here for a couple of weeks to focus on finishing things up in the shop as we prepare for our winter holiday break. December's free practice update for #30DaysofGoddess will be ready for you this weekend--a new video + printable sampler pack of prayercards and resources.
May you know the warmth of connection and the hearth of community. May you breathe in great breaths of gratitude and breathe out great breaths of peace.
A chill is in the air and Winter’s Queen has spread her grey cloak across the land, has stilled the leaves and frosted the hills, has quieted the scurrying and placed her fingers firmly on the pause. In this waiting place, hushed and chilled, we remember how precious the light of renewal, how essential the warmth of connection. Let us, too, lay aside what is unnecessary and draw close to one another once more, rekindling the fire of community, offering one another what nourishment we can. Let us enter a time of deep restoration with intention. Let us listen to the call of contemplation that twinkles in these dusky hours of replenishment and renewal. Let us pause and wait with grace.
Today, I sought the pines and stones once more. Descending into the steep gully to look for sweet water easing its way from the depths to trickle across ancient stones. I found both comfort and delight in sitting by a tiny pool, looking into the water, allowing myself to be held and restored. I anointed my forehead, face, and shoulders with cool drops from this smallest of possible waterways, both unnamed and essential, and then opened my palms to the sky to invite the rain. I sat with swaying sycamore, elm, and ash trees listening to the music they made with leaf and wind. I found a turkey feather in the leaves beside the water, soft and fluffy and tipped with an iridescent greenish shine I listened to my heart. I offered up both hope and dreams upon this altar of stone and sky.
It was mist this morning that lured me away, straight out of bed and into the trees to see the glow lifting from the valley and sliding through the rising sun, particles of water vapor drifting sideways through the air so that it looks like the woods are breathing. I almost think I hear the fairies of the land whispering as the rays of sunshine lay down enchanted paths between tree trunks, unmapped lines of discovery that are only revealed with the light is just so and a crow zips silently by carrying something mysterious in its beak. I see why we are warned about the mist, pathways that are shrouded and uncertain. After all, if you step into the mist how will you know what to buy or what to feel bad about. How can anyone capture and sell your attention if you’ve reclaimed it and let it settle into the mist instead of into a screen. If you are focused instead of fractured, if you are no longer listening to how it has to be, or what to think, or where to look, or what to buy, perhaps it is you who becomes dangerous, free as you now are to slip away into the mist, into the real and pulsing world, breath from cedar trunks rising up to meet you where you are.
Anthony Gresham
Last year I made Pfeffernusse cookies instead of date bars. They were good, but I really missed the date bars. I placed one in the crotch of the per...
Anthony Gresham
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straight out of bed and into the trees
