*October 31st marks one of the High Holidays in the widely-used Pagan Wheel of the Year – Samhain. Out of all our holidays, I’d say this one gets the most press. Our celebration of the end of the growing season coincides with all that is spooky in the larger culture. This time of endings in…
Category: Mysticism
I am currently developing some video offerings. These classes are donation based and are free to all my Patreon supporters. Here’s the first class! Building a Sustainable Daily Spiritual Practice Balancing the needs of our schedules against our desire for greater spiritual connection can be challenging. Sometimes even finding 5 minutes to ourselves seems impossible….
One of the types of Ancestors I personally venerate are Ancestors of the Order – humans who followed a similar life path to my own. In my case, these are the priestx classes of many cultures: the people who chose to place themselves in service to Spirit, the journey of human souls, and the creation…
This short meditation was offered for the August 23rd service streaming service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. Full text below: I don’t remember where I first heard it, but somehow I learned the phrase ‘if you want to know where a culture will be in 20 years, look at where the counterculture…
When I consider potential titles for an autobiography, ‘Crying in Savasana’ is definitely in my top five. It seems like so many watershed life experiences have landed during a yoga practice or in the reflective/integrative period afterward. In 2011, one such moment landed like a ton of bricks. I was at a retreat and the…
I live in the mid-Atlantic, a region blessed with a long growing season. It is high summer here. Hot days and abundant sunlight drew the first round of life from the dark earth. Afternoon thunderstorms watered tender, twining greens. The spring seeds grew and flourished, and the first harvest has now been gathered: radishes, peas,…
This sermon was for the July 19th, 2020, service for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. Text below. I can always tell when a writer doesn’t actually spend much time outside. I’ve read so many stories where the forest is described as quiet. Even in the middle of winter, quiet is not a thing that…
The prolonged stress of physical distancing, a looming pandemic, a tumbling economy, and long-overdue conversations about and attempts to redress the racist systems in American culture has a lot of us feeling off balance. I recently had to start making some larger lifestyle adjustments simply because my ‘normal’ methods of supporting my own mental health…
What do you find in the Underworld? Take off your crown. This cold gold burden neither heals nor helps, lifts nor loves. Set down authority, command, and hierarchy. See it for what it is. Release the privilege of rule to the soil. What do you find in the Underworld? Lay down your jewels. They do…
In what should be a surprise to absolutely no one, I was a theater kid. My life in high school revolved around two big productions every year: a drama in the fall and a musical in the spring. My theater classmates and I sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and countless hours for each of our shows. …