My guest post is up over on The Wild Hunt; it’s on how the Pagan community can respond to the issue of child sexual abuse within our community. For those who may not know, I was a psychotherapist for about twenty years, and my main focus was survivors of childhood sexual abuse.  The focus of the Wild Hunt piece is on understanding the dynamics of childhood sexual abuse, and how to build in greater safety and responsiveness in our communities... Read more

Meeting for worship was quite an experience for me today. Of course, Judy Harrow‘s death was on my mind. I felt a poignancy to giving two Quaker elders their ride to meeting today–I was so conscious that what I cannot do for one elder, I am comforted to be able to do for another, so that even carpooling felt like an act of remembrance. Then, as I sat down, and just as I felt myself give way to sadness, one... Read more

I wonder, sometimes, how much of my spiritual life is owing to the physical arrangement of books in the Wilbraham Public Library when I was small. I learned to read early; I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to read.  And in the beginning, I’m sure read what every young child reads: picture books picked out by my parents. The Wilbraham Free Library But my memories of books begin in the Wilbraham Public Library–not the spacious brick... Read more

I love where I live;  since moving to our new home four years ago, I’ve been able to build a relationship with a piece of land for the first time since I was a child.  It’s everything a dirt-worshipping Pagan could ask for.  I have a garden, and I grow much of my own food, and that is as much a spiritual delight as a taste treat.  And I have woods again as neighbors: glacial boulders, white pines and black... Read more

About two months ago, I began to wrestle with feelings of anxiety, depression, and a sense of alienation from my Quaker meeting.  Very distressingly to me, I began to have these feelings in worship, both while in attendance at my meeting and in my Quaker practice at home during the week. I began to feel unable to sense the Presence whose warmth has marked most, if not all, of my time in worship.  And I began to feel a terrible... Read more