I don’t remember where I first heard the phrase “in order to create a new reality, we must first be able to imagine it.” That phrase is especially true when the reality around us is challenging. As I am writing this, we’re in a Code Red air day due to smoke from the fires in…
Category: Mysticism
This short sermon was offered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick on Sunday, April 23rd. When I’m in emotional pain, I seek the outdoors. I grew up here in Frederick, which means that throughout the region I have special places I go to find solace – certain boulders at Cunningham Falls, the far edge…
We inherit a lot of perspectives from our parent culture. Some of these are obvious, and we begin the work of deconstructing them pretty quickly. I began hacking at the “girls can’t be strong” trope almost as soon as I could walk. As a result, I’ve made good progress on pulling that particular weed out…
Our will – the function of the brain that makes us do things, even stuff we don’t really want to do, can best be viewed as a kind of mental muscle. We have a finite quantity of it when we start the day; using it causes our reserve of willpower to deplete. This is why…
My practice of life as well as witchcraft is oriented toward the physical senses – I naturally gravitate toward an embodied way of being in the world. I want to feel experiences on my skin, in the movement of my limbs, in the taste on my tongue, in the sounds that I hear, in the…
The return of spring is so joyous here in Western Maryland. It seems like the dawn chorus of birds gets a little louder every day as the warm sunlight convinces more spring flowers to open. With grateful hearts, we welcome back the growing season. We begin dusting off our hiking shoes and gardening gloves; we…
I will never forget the first time I heard the music from the Pure Moods album in the early 90s. I was a tweeny and my parents brought home a copy of the CD. I clearly remember dancing around the living room while listening to it. I needed to move my body in order to…
Many years ago, I was introduced to the idea of selecting a single word for each calendar year to act as an intention, touchstone, and big-picture goal. The beauty of a single word intention is that the simplicity means multiple ways of connecting are possible. For example, my word for 2020 was ‘Manifest.’ An interesting…