#We’re All in This Together

These images are Process Journey Images – 24 Days to Solstice with Cat Caracelo. The Name of My Journey is To Live in Grace. This is Day 6. This private journey inward takes place with the existing circumstances of Covid-19, changing our way of life and another killing in our black community by a law officer. No Justice – No Peace is where we live today.

My 24 Day Art Journey will also take place in the NOW — within and without. This is a very real time where we all have a chance for a break-through; there is enough compassion, there is enough desire, there is, above all, enough NEED for each of us to have the courage to change what needs to change.

There are many of us who are struggling for more ways to connect, to make meaningful a life lived from soul desire to make a difference — a big difference. And the light from those willing to do the things that hurt, do the things that help, employ the grace of the Holy Spirit for the fire-y guidance that shows forth upon all humans to live as they are created, children of God in all races and creeds. Pray that we do that. Pray that we learn. Pray that we are willing. Pray that we listen. Pray that we care and in that compassion add a little light to a world darkened by hate, violence, and bigotry.

Pray that we admit it HAS to change. We must find our way from chaos to community. We must find more and wonderful ways we can connect. There are enough people in the world that truly want this to happen. Pray that this happens so very soon.

 

Our DNA brings us to this point and in this chaos, we must find the peaceful and just way of moving forward. #We’re in this TOGETHER. There are not many paths, there is ONE path – TOGETHER….but how many WAYS can we find TOGETHER? We all must try.

Read Full Post »

A Total Eclipse of the Heart

 

When I studied SpringForest QiGong with Master Chunyi Linn, he gave us a very beautiful meditative and healing verse to repeat:

“I am in the Universe.
The Universe is in my body.
The Universe and I combine together.”

 

So there are many spiritual and faith traditions and ancient learning that come from long ago that teach us to know there is union between all. I and the Universe are One. In God, there is only One. In God, I live and move and have my being. The Universe lives, moves and breathes as ONE.
I just recently caught up with the fact that there is a solar eclipse today on November 13. I was looking forward to this date for another reason.

In December 2011, I, with Sara Houseman, presented three workshops based on the writings and work of Barbara Marx Hubbard at Unity of Kalamazoo, Michigan.  The purpose of the meetings were to simply acquaint others with the life and the work and the grand vision Barbara Marx Hubbard had for Conscious Evolution.

She, too, in her pursuit of the “pulse of Evolution” came to the conclusion that there is only One and our earthly time is spent within that One. She has studied the history of Evolution and says whenever crisis and chaos appeared in the chain of evolution, that the species has always moved forward. That has been true, she says, since the time that the first single cell needed to grow into two cells to survive. It did so, and it did it again and again changing species along the evolutionary timeline to today.

With the global pandemic of  the Corona Virus – Covid – 19 racing across the globe, claiming thousands of lives in it’s wake, and in a way we never thought possible disrupting our lives, work, family interaction, school and business closings, and social isolation, we are at another crisis point of evolution.

Marx Hubbard calls these current times a “chaos point.” Things are broken. There are many things systems-wide that need change. The way we communicate and lead needs changing, in order to grow past the chaos today into what she calls a “Universal Being” — a species we homo sapiens are all capable of being.

But first, we need to become more familiar with our heart. Indeed, we must learn to breathe through our heart. We hear the beat of our heart, and without our heart, there is no breath. This is the exact muscle, we need not only strengthen for fitness, but for our very life, itself.

All outward appearances point to this being the type of change — Universal change — that she foretold in 2011. A global happening which required a global response. A response that was heart-led.

And as we await the eventual physical cure of this with a vaccine, the American health system is overrun, food suppliers are over-worked, first-line responders are over-taxed, children are confused with the changes and not being able to go to school, and businesses hope that in the long run, they do not lose their business, and people are generally stressed to keep on time with their bill paying, while they protect their families as best they can.

Amid these catatrophic changes, the human heart is out in front beating just for the present moment with love. Also concern and attention to who needs help and how to give it. This is the prediction of the Universal Homo Sapien being born right in this troubled and unprecidented time. Our hearts are beating as one. Our eyes are tuned to the needs of others. Even when groups cannot come together, the actions of one are spreading out over and over into this world of need. The common question is How Can I Help? What Can I Do?

HeartMath Institute, under the direction of Doc and Sarah Childre has studied the workings of the heart and the effect it has on ourselves and others. We are encouraged to “lead with our heart”, to become aware of heart resonance, which beats with the pulse of the Universe – with all that is.

They have a measured Science with convincing data, that our hearts produce an electro-magnetic field of about eight feet extending from the center of our being. When filled with heartfelt peace, acceptance and resonance, this field CHANGES the interaction and the space it is holding – for the good.

Long ago, we heard the story of “one little candle” at a time being able to light up the whole world. The same is true with heart resonance. It is a practice that benefits us physically (it is more than just being calm, it is a frequency that the Oneness in which we exist recognizes and beats in harmony with us).

I will write another blog on the actual practice of Heart Coherence and how you can easily put it in practice and accomplish immediate results with it.
An old tune comes to mind. (by Dusty Springfield or Rusty?)
“Once upon a time I was falling for you
Now I’m only falling apart.
Nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart.”

In the movement of Birth 2012, we wanted to get beyond the feeling there is nothing we can do to fix the things in the world that are now falling apart. We believed we could do something, within ourselves by recognizing our soul Essence, our Oneness, and joining what Marx Hubbard calls “our genius” with another or others and then — see what wants to be born within us in the new year as a new world.

Now, in 2020, eight years later and one year past her death at the age of 89  on April 10, 2019, the woman who is credited with “the birthing of the human” over the long, long time of evolution, would see for herself the appearance of joining “our genius with one another as scientists, business leaders, entrepreneurs and   philanthropists and common citizens indeed “join genius” to make forever choice of evolution to MOVE FORWARD, and birth a new reality. Most serious commentators agree, life will no longer be what it was, something new is coming, but we are working in a time unknown for that something NEW to be GOOD for us and our neighbor.

 

In times of crisis and chaos, we have ALWAYS moved forward. We can move forward into the world, leading with our hearts, within the spheres of family, church, community, and even bigger stages. It all depends on what “is waiting to be born” in us.

A new moon….a solar ECLIPSE…..a TOTAL eclipse of my heart.

Namaste.

Read Full Post »

Is Something New Awakening in You?

Barbara Marx Hubbard and a whole lot of other people (Humanity’s Team) think a new species is being born onto Earth. A wiser, more peaceful way of living in a world that works for all. A new species called Homo Universalis.

I studied one year with Hubbard, in which she explained the natural evolution of the cosmos to the point we are at today. That was back five years ago and the things the teachers described happening in our world in the near future, have between 2012 and 2017 certainly happened almost to a tee in the way they were forecast.

This is not a downer. It is a WAKE-er-upper. Humanity needs to be aware of things that are not working anymore and work together to create new ways of being together on this earth.

This short video does explain how she came to think this way and to continue to work for the awakening and evolution of humanity.

 

https://awakeningnewspecies.com/video-1/?inf_contact_key=a0da3efc1db9f95d0fd23e0c13705883bfffd97f3e81f08ddb33927763621239

 

Again, this is a pretty accurate graphic of what the Homo Universalis “creature” will look like.

 

I think I am becoming this.

Read Full Post »

Today’s Gift from the Labyrinth

I complicate things as soon as I get back inside but I do retain the gifts offered by my labyrinth walk this morning. I have been resisting walking and movement lately. I don’t know why. My inner critic ramps up her demands and judgments, but I dig ins with many ways of refusal So today, I decided to combine two of my practices of the quiet and walk our backyard labyrinth while I was saying my Sunday rosary. Sunday’s rosary is dedicated to the goodness and protection of Amy, my youngest grandchild. Each daughter, and their husband and my three grandchildren receive the blessings of Mary and the rosary on their designated weekday. Upon entering the labyrinth, I am in my second decade of the rosary and I notice very bright fresh yellow and white miniature daisies greeting me. Just one patch It is enough to lighten my mood and willingness to step further along the path. They remind me of the fun times I have with Amy and how proud she was to fix our breakfast yesterday of egg salad, of which she proclaimed she is the best at making. I like the self-confidence and image she has of herself at the tender age of seven.  All of this is gift to me. Soon the circular pattern of the paver bricks lead the way both to the center of the labyrinth and to the calming peace of acceptance of being right where I am on the path.  No hurry. No worry. Just a breathing time for my soul.

The labyrinth Tom and I created a few years ago is daily present for my sight. And even when I gaze upon it from my kitchen window, it reminds me of gratefulness and I don’t know how this happens. It just does. It reminds me of a Oneness, which I might not even be feeling at the time I look upon it, but that is its constant message to me. And grace.

Now, as I walk, I pray. Random thoughts pass through and like in the practice of Centering Prayer, I hold on to none of them. I just notice them and let them pass. This leads to further stillness. Some kind of knowingness arises within as I walk that I am at a loss of words to explain. But then I don’t need to explain this. I only need to walk it. I know I am on my way to the center.  The center represents that elusive thing I seem to “grab for” in my daily life….some kind of certainty, some kind of acceptance.

On the labyrinth this peace comes as I notice the blades of grass, as I listen to the birds, as I feel both the heat of the sun and the breeze, however slight on this day when the temperature and humidity are rising. What drops away?  The plans for the day, a lot of the complexity of what seems to be my makeup — both a blessing and a bit of a curse….they begin to get left behind, perhaps to return once this labyrinth journey is complete, perhaps not if I am lucky.

West Bend WI labyrinth I have not walked.

I  have a personal story connected to the labyrinth, having discovered it through Lauren Artress’s book, Walking a Sacred Path. I had no clue that somehow that labyrinth path would lead me to training with her and walking labyrinths in many marvelous places including Chartres France, facilitating retreats, walking with groups, walking alone, and at last partnering with Tom to build our own backyard labyrinth.

I think most of my walking experiences are somewhat commonplace. I rarely feel any profound “breakthrough” dramatic experiences while I am on the labyrinth, but I have witnessed it happening to others.  Journaling after a walk is a revealing time when you may not know how the flow of your pen or pencil is going to inform you. Perhaps an image flows onto the paper that you feel you are only co-creating with.  A simple walk to the center and then back out again.  Being present with the present.

Is it easier to listen on the labyrinth than it is in the rest of your life. One writer, Travis Scholl in his book Walking the Labyrinth, says that “underneath the surface….is a stillness…between everyday’s noise and walking it is finding the voice speaking in whispers underneath the whirlwinds of sound ” (in our lives).

I think that is true for me.  I see a tiny toad (or is it a frog, I don’t know) on the path on the way out.

As soon as I return to the house, I find the noise again…. in my head….in my peace turning to impatience….get my camera, take a photo of the daisies, find Ted Steven’s Animal Speak and see what he says about the meaning of frog,  finish two decades the rosary, blog,  fix left over pizza for lunch, continue your workshop preparation, oh yeah, write two thank you cards, and for goodness sake play with Zentangle today….noise, noise, noise.

Maybe I’ll take an evening walk on the labyrinth tonight and see how this day went.

Read Full Post »

Gathered Memories of My Own Named Person

I have just begun working on my timeline, one of our first assignments in my new E-Course with Christina Baldwin on Restorying Your Life. I think I have a lot of work to do because so far I’ve only made it UP TO the event of my birth on January 2, 1943.  It seems like I’ve reflected upon and traced my timeline back to Infinity, itself. The first four sections of “little Sue’s” timeline are Infinity, Big Bang, Evolution to Homo Sapiens, and Ancestors.  Then my Human Timeline begins as conception in April of 1942.

Talk about “reframing and restorying”. This is going to be exciting.

The major reframe of my story has already emerged (and I have 29 days to go) as: I came from God and Infinity. My birth mother gave me expression as human on Earth, bringing me forth from Infinity and God, where she, herself, returned shortly after my birth. Her expression of this event (being pregnant with me) was given to me by her best friend so many years later. She had told her friend, upon knowing she was pregnant with me, “Now I know the purpose of my life.”

This is not the first time I have worked with this story. My spiritual and writing mentors and guides tell me, and I think correctly, the first story that needs to be written is the mother story. I have many facets of this story down in words, for there are truly many facets and secret silences around my birth and heritage. I am going to welcome the tools I will be given in this course to open up this story more than ever before and let its graces fall upon my life today.

Now I share Joyce Rupp’s poem of birth with you — Every word is a word of truth for me; I have asked permission from her before to reprint her in my work and received a surprising personal note back from her that it is ok to do so for my writing purposes.  And I will share her website with you. I see she has a book, published in 2002 Cosmic Dance, where she knows what I am just discovering, that we are truly made of the stuff of stars, and we date back that far, so I feel very comfortable and confirmed in the timeline for me that appeared on my paper this morning.

http://www.joycerupp.com/

In her book (one of her many, many books), Joyce Rupp, in the tradition of the Wisdom Writers, opens the path to the inward journey to a deep awareness of Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom.  She is a member of the Servants of Mary, a free-lance writer and retreat director. And a most prolific writer, to which she remains true.

The words in bold text in this poem speak to me and of me deeply; the truth of these words resonates warmly deep, deep in my heart of all knowing; all the words wrap around me and flow through my soul, but the words in bold text are places in the poem to which I will return in silent meditation.

This poem expresses so joyfully for me the true magnificence of the nature of all of our births. This is what I want to remember in my dying hours.

Gathered together am I
from a history-held mystery,
a bundle of memories am I.

Caught from smiles and heartaches
of faces and places past cherished,
given in love from the heart of life.

From kisses and lovemaking,
from caring and growing,
from vibrancy and vitality,
the gathered memories of my own named person
have been gifted into existence.

Surprises from seeds and secrets,
gifts from unknown voices and events;
here am I, so ordinary, so unique.
here am I, so simple, so complex.
knowing that the seed of myself
has the touch of gathered memories;
gleaned from the ages of another time,
seed and sperm seeking, making known.

a birthed bundle surprised into life
light filling the center of a new spirit;
the blessing of eternity passed on:
urgency always to seek the face of God,
first gatherer of all good memories.
(c) Joyce Rupp

 

Read Full Post »

WHAM-tastic!

Three years ago, I named my Intention Mandala for 2010-2011

My Year of Free-falling into Spirit

and the words of Tom Petty’s refrain verses, Free Falling, have been the backdrop of my life since that time.

And I’m free, free falling
Yeah I’m free, free falling

Now, after my weekend with my WWAM sisters at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs New York,  I am no longer free-falling. (Women Writers and Artist Matrix).

I’ve been shot out of a cannon to the stars and I have not re-entered this atmosphere yet.

I have words and I have no words yet. I will return to Napkinwriter with words and images very soon to explain the unexplainable. Or at the very least, shed light upon the magnificence of the experience.

“What is seen was made from things that are not visible.”
Hebrews 11:3

Meanwhile, you might catch a glimpse of me playing among  the cosmic comets.

Read Full Post »

From A Distance

Lyrics by Bette Midler

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
and the eagle takes to flight.

From a distance, there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
It’s the voice of hope, it’s the voice of peace,
it’s the voice of every man.

From a distance we all have enough,
and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,
no hungry mouths to feed.

From a distance we are instruments
marching in a common band.
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace.
They’re the songs of every man.
God is watching us. God is watching us.
God is watching us from a distance.

From a distance you look like my friend,
even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
what all this fighting is for.

From a distance there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
And it’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves,
it’s the heart of every man.

It’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves.
This is the song of every man.
And God is watching us, God is watching us,
God is watching us from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, God is watching.
God is watching us from a distance.

On Earth Day 2013 I lift my heart, my voice, my hope, my actions and my love for my Cradle Earth home. I will live and acknowledge my deep, deep gratitude for her rivers and valleys, her mountains and lowlands, her islands and mainlands, her rivers and oceans, her flowing trees and flowering flora, her sunrises and sunsets, her gentle winds and rainbows. I will honor her storms and furies, her force of Mother Nature and I will listen to all messages given and try to follow any direction noticed.

I will walk my Earth home, with eyes of appreciation, feet of peace, intensified hearing, scrumptious taste of her harvest, and scents of presence all around me.

“The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind…And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:12

Read Full Post »

12-12-12

I woke up this morning and had to put my sun glasses on! By that you can see I slept in past sunrise. However, in our early morning errand out, it was so bright and crisp out that I immediately searched for my sunglasses. It is still that way at almost 4 pm in the afternoon.

So it seems to me this IS a day of more LIGHT coming into our world. And I say “Welcome.”

My world this past week has been very filled with light.

Last night, we finished the third of three workshops on Birth 2012 at Unity of Kalamazoo. Each workshop was two weeks apart, and each workshop grew in attendance! Every night we had short astounding cosmic videos that gave us a glimpse of awe and grace of the very creation of our Universe. Each week, we participated in a beautiful circle meditation in our inner Sacred Chambers,

Each week we practiced heart resonance and coherence within our own bodies and sent it out to our family and friends, calling their names into the circle. Each week, we pondered the absolute and complete magnificence of our Mother Earth, symbolized by my garage-sale $10 globe with a somewhat rustic Equator line. Each week, we closed with an affirmation individually to be a “holder of light” and a “path of peace” walking upon this earth in this year and in the coming 2013.

Birth 2012 Creator – Barbara Marx Hubbard turns 83 on 12-22-12

We look forward to our Party Celebration at Unity of Kalamazoo for Birth 2012 on Saturday, Dec. 22. This is the day Barbara Marx Hubbard has mobilized and led many “hubs” of evolutionary consciousness individuals to come together and celebrate the light, the higher choices and consciousness, the essence of goodness within each one and all. Thousands upon thousands will be celebrating and bringing forth the “birth” of Newness — letting go of the old — the only thing that is dying is what no longer serves us and the good of the world.  Rejoice!

We will have music, song, be dancing, enjoy art, and connection with many other party-goers.

The light is so bright just thinking about it, and it is now, not far off after months of planning. Living in light and love. What could be better for our world!

My world has also been filled with the light of family, home and musical entertainment by our daughters and grandchildren. So much to be thankful for. The ultimate prayer is that of just two words.  THANK YOU.

Being able to plant this flag in front of our very own home on Cardinal Hills Trail gives me about as much thrill as seeing the American flag put on the moon.

We put some greenery and sparkle up this year. I especially cherish the door wreath made by the nuns at Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont. We may add a little more dazzle next year.

Marshall Music School Private Students, Devon and Andrew Warriner
in concert

Marshall Community School Instructor, Kathleen Warriner

and we will be attending Kathleen’s Tekonsha school choir and band concert tonight.

LIGHT A CANDLE FOR PEACE!
Amy Mitchell with her Montessori School classmates prior to performance.

Andrew at our family table at Marshall’s famed Schuler’s Restaurant

A delicious meal served as we enjoyed Devon in the Marshall Singers Christmas Choir

Cousin love and admiration!

Devon and Tyler

It was my dress up night!

John McQuiston II notes in his pocket-sized book, Always We Begin Again,  that there is increased recognition in medical science that the human mind contributes to, and in some sense creates, the universe in which it lives. He contends that the Rule of St. Benedict teaches that if we are intentional and careful in how we spend the hours of each irreplaceable day and live in a balanced and thankful way, we will create from our experiences the best possible life.

So, always we begin again — a new era of cosmic existence!

LET THERE BE LIGHT.

Read Full Post »

A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Oh Great Mystery
Sun, Moon, Earth, Sky and Sea
You are within me
and all around me.

As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun. This can happen only at new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses only part of the Sun is obscured. If the Moon were in a circular orbit close enough to the Earth and in the same orbital plane, there would be total solar eclipses every single month.

A total  solar eclipse  will take place on 13–14 November 2012 (UTC), beginning in local time on November 14 west of the  International Date Line over northern Australia, and ending on November 13 east of the date line off the western South American coast.

Tom and I are preparing to renew our travel passports in hopes of new travels opening up to us in the next ten years. Australia is one of the “wanna go” places. It’s on my intention list, which replaces my bucket list.

When I studied SpringForest QiGong with Master Chunyi Linn, he gave us a very beautiful meditative and healing verse to repeat:

“I am in the Universe.
The Universe is in my body.
The Universe and I combine together.”

So there are many spiritual and faith traditions and ancient learning that come from long ago that teach us to know there is union between all. I and the Universe are One. In God, there is only One. In God, I live and move and have my being. The Universe lives, moves and breathes as ONE.

I just recently caught up with the fact that there is a solar eclipse today on November 13. I was looking forward to this date for another reason.

Tonight, the first of three workshops based on the writings and work of Barbara Marx Hubbard  is takine place at Unity of Kalamazoo. Sara Houseman and I are the co-facilitators of it. The purpose of tonight’s meeting is to simply acquaint others with the life and the work and the grand vision Hubbard has for Conscious Evolution.

She, too, in her pursuit of the “pulse of Evolution” has come to the conclusion that there is only One and our earthly time is spent within that One. She has studied the history of Evolution and says whenever crisis and chaos appeared in the chain of evolution, that the species has always moved forward. That has been true, she says, since the time that the first single cell needed to grow into two cells to survive. It did so, and it did it again and again changing species along the evolutionary timeline to today.

Barbara calls these current times a “chaos point.” Things are broken. There are many things systems-wide that need change. The way we communicate and lead needs changing, in order to grow past the chaos today into what she calls a “Universal Being” — a species we homo sapiens are all capable of being.

But first, we need to become more familiar with our heart. Indeed, we must learn to breathe through our heart. We hear the beat of our heart, and without our heart, there is no breath. This is the exact muscle, we need not only strengthen for fitness, but for our very life, itself.

HeartMath Institute, under the direction of Doc and Sarah Childre has studied the workings of the heart and the effect it has on ourselves and others. We are encouraged to “lead with our heart”, to become aware of heart resonance, which beats with the pulse of the Universe – with all that is.

They have a measured Science with convincing data, that our hearts produce an electro-magnetic field of about eight feet extending from the center of our being. When filled with heartfelt peace, acceptance and resonance, this field CHANGES the interaction and the space it is holding – for the good.

Long ago, we heard the story of “one little candle”  at a time being able to light up the whole world. The same is true with heart resonance. It is a practice that benefits us physically (it is more than just being calm, it is a frequency that the Oneness in which we exist recognizes and beats in harmony with us).

I will write another blog on the actual practice of Heart Coherence and how you can easily put it in practice and accomplish immediate results with it.

An old tune comes to mind. (by Dusty Springfield or Rusty?)
“Once upon a time I was falling for you
Now I’m only falling apart.
Nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart.”

In the movement of Birth 2012, we want to get beyond the feeling there is nothing we can do to fix the things in the world that are now falling apart. We believe we can do something, within ourselves by recognizing our soul Essence, our Oneness, and joining what Barbara calls “our genius” with another or others and  then — see what wants to be born within us in the new year as a new world.

In times of crisis and chaos, we have ALWAYS moved forward. We can move forward into the world, leading with our hearts, within the spheres of family, church, community, and even bigger stages. It all depends on what “is waiting to be born” in us.

A new moon….a solar ECLIPSE…..a TOTAL eclipse of my heart. Namaste.

Read Full Post »

A Song Just for You

Yesterday, God sang to me. This is exactly how it happened.

I’ve been getting a lot of signs and messages lately to be aware of and increase my joy in daily living. And I have to say, with a rather simple lifestyle, that wondrous quality of joy is, indeed, showing up more as a regular resident of my day. I am quite grateful for that.

To lose one’s sense of joy is quite sad and I have walked days on the Earth with at least a greatly diminished capacity for joy. Being in fear is one of joy’s first evictors.

Here is how one of my signs arrived. I pulled Matthew Fox’s book, “Creativity” off the shelf for some randomly selected reading of his wondrous text. I opened the book to page 169, where I read the heading on the page: “Open Oneself to Joy.” These syncroniscities happen to me all the time as I guide my life more through my intuitive self.

Before I read that page though I had poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and sat out on my deck as the sun was slipping down toward the horizon. Michigan weather, after a dry torrid spell, had recreated itself into a pleasant, blue-sky sunny light breezy environment. I felt joy in the soft sensations on my skin, the sights and sounds of the fair breeze wind in the trees, the white fluff in the richly colored blue sky and the bird flight patterns and happy chirping sounds of their songs in the backyard.

I felt joyful.

Then I joined in the joy and sang a song of raise and praise to the birds. It is a song we sing for special intentions at our Monday night prayer group meetings.  This time I sang: “I praise you birds, I raise you birds, in the name of Love.” I repeated this several times over, letting my voice sift out to the trees at the end of our backyard.

Then I was quiet for several moments of enjoying the goodness of creation.

This quiet was entered into by two birds that flew a straight path from a tree limb onto the wooden deck railing exactly in front of me. They faced me directly. Then they sang a short little duet together, chirping quite exhubertantly.

Then as quickly as they came, they flew off. They didn’t even stop for a snack at the bird feeder. I was amazed….and I thanked them for their visit.

Matthew Fox says, “To know joy, we must know the heart. We must live where the heart lives. There is no other path to real joy. ”

He also believes that learning is one of the most spiritual, ecstatic, mystical and prayerful experiences available to us all. He is interested in learning the new creation story from science and cosmology.  I found out, to my own surprise, that I was too when I studied evolution and spirituality with Barbara Marx Hubbard this summer.

Fox quotes Thomas Aquinas, 13th Century Dominican theologian, that “by dwelling on creatures, the mind is inflamed to love the Divine goodness”…and that we “love and know God in the mirror of God’s creatures.”

So Fox wonders why we tend to ignore the value of creation in our lives.”Divine Wisdom first appears in the creation of things,” says Aquinas. Fox points out then, that creation becomes our doorway (direct) to Divine Wisdom.

He encourages us not to take it for granted. Not to ignore it. He says to begin to inflame the mind again to love the Divine goodness or blessing inherent in all creation.

My heart was filled last night in the experience on the patio. In fact, my heart was quite full in the silent enjoyment of creation around me before the arrival of the birds and their song.

The feeling I have about my life is that I am living from the heart. I am also paying attention to the creatures. Their presence and gift certainly inflamed me past the sense of fullness.

It was an exciting, creative moment in time.

And in return, I received a gift of God  singing through the birds!

Read Full Post »