Leaning Into Mystery
This coming week, I invite in ease. I have been playing with how to balance the desire for integrity with wanting to avoid pushing or forcing, so this week I am willing to have things be easy, even if I don't know how that could happen. Read more
This coming week, I invite in ease. I have been playing with how to balance the desire for integrity with wanting to avoid pushing or forcing, so this week I am willing to have things be easy, even if I don't know how that could happen. Read more
Practicing away from the altar increases integration and helps us hold on to our values when they come into conflict with those that surround us. It strengthens our sense of connection. When we are loving an activity, it helps us love it more completely, and when we are resisting, it gives us a way to choose engagement instead of flailing. Read more
Thorn Coyle writes, "We court desire by choosing to do so. Whether it feels elusive or strong, we can find and follow the threat that binds our hearts to desire. Sit with it at your altar. Take desire out dancing. Listen more carefully to what your soul wants and needs, knowing that, in doing so, you court not only your personal desire but the desire your soul has for the Mystery that first divided itself for love." Read more
This coming week, I invite in the possibility of finding a third way. Over the last few years, I've been practicing being a steward of my own time and energy, which means a lot of decisions to do this or that. Now I'm in a place where there are lots of awesome, exciting projects available, and that excitement feeds me as surely as the rest I've learned to cultivate. So this week, I am ready to find a way of thinking that doesn't hold exciting projects and enough rest in opposition. Read more
One simple way to engage this practice is just to look for something to say thank you for at each time. I don’t believe that forced gratitude is good for us, so I’d suggest staying away from the things you think you ought to be grateful for and instead acknowledging things you are able to appreciate in the moment you’re practicing. Tiny things are good choices: these soft sheets, this steaming cup of coffee. Big things are another one that’s often easy to connect to: gratitude for being alive, for friends or family, for shelter, warmth, and food. Read more
The interesting thing about the relationship between failure and practice is that if you're determined to develop the latter, you will inevitably encounter the former. But here's the other interesting thing: failure is actually the fastest way to grow your practice! Being paralyzed by a fear of failing is the only sure way to stunt whatever progress you're trying to make. Read more
This week, I invite in sovereignty. We are each sovereign: although we live in connection, we are ultimately our own authorities. When I practice sovereignty, I stay centered in myself and my web of connection and take full responsibility for myself without taking on other people's stuff. Yes, please. Read more
Somehow, hearing this from outside of myself made it suddenly easy to believe, and this changed my relationship to rest, aloneness, and downtime. They’re still things I struggle to find a balance of in my life, but they’re no longer things I resist needing. Moral of the story: we all need the things we need, and thinking that we don’t or shouldn’t or would be better people if only we didn’t doesn’t turn out to help much. Read more
Practice is a way of steering. In practice, we carry out and connect to our intentions, ourselves, our world. As we regularly affirm those connections and intentions, they become more present in our lives. (This, of course, is a double-edged sword: to what do you regularly give ten minutes of your undivided attention? Your job? Your loved ones? How about your body, the news on television, Facebook? Your gods?) Read more
Update from last week: Last week, I invited in the superpower of letting go, and that was helpful! I let go of worrying about my travel plans, of things that I just couldn’t fit in, and of some of my ideas about how things had to work last week, and in every case, it ended up adding ease and delight. I’m keeping this one! Read more
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