Tag Archives: spirituality

The Cathedral and the Well

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(Act One)  The setting is a desert which, like all deserts, has to be crossed. In the middle of this desert is a well, fed by an underground spring of fresh, loud, rushing water. This particular well is fortunately located just at the point where thirsty pilgrims need refreshment if they are to survive and continue on their way. So in those days news got about that it was relatively safe to cross the desert as long as you listened for the sound of the spring and stopped to drink from the well. Generations of pilgrims were able to cross the desert and head into the wilderness — which is where God’s people were usually traveling.

(Act Two)  Many years later news spread of a building in the middle of the desert, a cathedral of great beauty. Throughout the years pilgrims, when they passed, had dropped stones (some fancier than others) to mark the location of the wellspring, an improvement which they hoped would show their respect for the well. Soon a cathedral stands in the middle of this desert, one stone buttressing another. Pilgrims stop, look up, and admire the cathedral from a distance. Yet most of them are close to death from thirst when they approach. They can neither hear the sounds of rushing water nor see the well, now covered by stones.

(Act Three)  Centuries later, in the same desert, one very thirsty pilgrim dares to approach the cathedral, now overgrown by weeds after years of neglect. She (most late medieval pilgrims were women) notices that a stone is loose. Pulling it out, so that she might replace it correctly, she hears the sound of rushing waters! She rediscovers the well and invites her companions to drink of its life-giving waters. Soon news spreads of the cathedral and of the well. The cathedral was imperfectly built, always standing in need of repair; the well, which stood in its midst, is free-flowing. Future generations of pilgrims, sighting the familiar landmark of the cathedral, draw close to the well, drink of its springs, and live to cross the desert.

If this parable of thirst, courage, and spiritual renewal speaks to you, here are some possible ways to interact with it.

1. Ponder where in your life the living water flowing from your Source into your soul has perhaps become blocked. Are you requiring certainty before you move? Are you taking literally what was meant metaphorically? Are you resisting the next step on your journey because you feel afraid? Are you trusting external authority at the expense of your own experience?

2. Use the story as your text for Lectio Divina.

3. Put yourself in the story. Be the thirsty pilgrim crossing the arid desert and approaching the cathedral. Be the thirsty pilgrim pulling aside the loose stone and hearing the sound of water. Hold the stone in your hands. Drink deeply of the cool, living water. What do you hear and feel?

4. If you’d like to chat about what this story may be saying to you, contact me for a free no-obligation consultation call.

Friends, may we drink deeply of the free-flowing, life-giving water of Love.

~Barb

Photo by Rubén Bagüés on Unsplash

*Parable source: Fredrica Harris Thompsett in We Are Theologians

Going Wild

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This is an inconvenient time for going wild. I have responsibilities. And it’s cold outside. …..

I watch my hand that holds the hammer that pounds me into a shape that fits the proper hole. I pound and pound myself, but I don’t quite fit. I squeeze a bulge in here, shave off a sharp edge there, and pound and pound and pound. I try to whittle myself down to nothing so I can disappear. Bop bop bop on my head hits the hammer. Square peg in round hole. Redwood into toothpick. I cut the inconvenient pieces off – limbed so I can slide smoothly into the mill.

Limbs are where the wild things live – where birds make their nests.

Limbs are an impediment to masts and poles. I will wield the ax for you. Let me cut off my limbs to make myself suitable for industry. I will make myself straight and rigid and useful to you powers. Let me read your mind and do what you want before you ask it, so you are blameless.

Behold the limbless handmaid of the Lord.

I will stop pounding myself into a hole that will never ever fit. I will regrow my limbs and branches so the wild things have a place to live. I will nourish my roots and reach out for others’ roots, too.

I am no longer espaliered.

I am a redwood. I am an old ponderosa.

I am a woman following a carnivorous cat across a narrow ridgeling, an arête, on a dark night, with only my senses to guide me, to follow her – I can smell her, I can feel her warmth, I can taste her scent, I can hear her breathing and the soft sound of her paws hitting the ground with each step, and I catch a glimpse of her every now and then, in the starshine. Her eyes glow when she turns to make sure I’m following her.

I am regrowing myself. I am undebecoming.

Deep kindness. Compassionate heart.

Put down the hammer and the axe.

Let go. Free fall. Trust.

Allow yourself to be who you are.

Completely here.

I am giving birth to myself. I am gestating myself. I am both mother and child. I am womb and embryo. It’s not rational, yet it’s completely true.

We are not a fiber farm. We are not a monocultured industrial forest. We are old growth. We are complex and we harbor secrets. Sasquatch lives here. We have stories upon stories. Our usefulness is not immediately apparent. Small numbers of unusual organisms live only in us. We are interwoven and interdependent. We contain entire ecosystems in our crowns. Marbled Murrelets nest in our upper limbs, bathed in the fog from the Pacific. Treelings sprout from leaf duff six feet deep a thousand feet up.

We are the old ones. The living ones.

You fear our fertile, fecund, wild darkness.  We are at your mercy.

I am a seed on the wind.

I am an embryo in my own womb.

What’s necessary for growing a baby? Nourishment. Rest. Love. Patience. Strength. Peace. Vigilance and fierce protection.

Prepare.

You are deeply loved.

Growing is your job.

Be who you are. Exform yourself into the world.

Photo credit: jed Holdorph

Give Yourself Gentle Fences

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Choose to put some gentle fences in your pasture … Be in integrity with yourself. ~Sarah B. Seidelmann

Choose to build some gentle fences in your pasture. Choose to give yourself the gift of good grass and clear cold water. Keep yourself out of the weedy patches and away from traffic. Your life is tenuous – this ligament between body and soul is flesh and bone, easily fractured.

Give yourself gentle fences. Because you love your soul, your spirit, give yourself structure and safety. Your spirit is captive to your mind. Teach your mind to be kind.

What would gentle fences look like for you?

Would gentle fences look like saying “Yes” to a yearning? Would they look like committing to a dream? Would they look like saying “No” to someone? Would they look like more white space in your calendar?

Would gentle fences look like carving out time for what feeds you, consistently and intentionally?

Would they look like noticing when you’re not kind to yourself, and learning a different way?

Would gentle fences look like noticing what you do that takes you away from your priorities, and choosing not to do that anymore?

Here are some gentle fences I’m building. I’m committing to consistently writing. I’m putting boundaries around my creative time. I’m not consuming media that leaves me feeling pummeled, and I’m taking a walk instead. I’m examining my habits in light of my priorities and making changes.

I’d love to hear what gentle fence you’re building for yourself in the comments.

Want to talk further? Contact me and we’ll set up a time.

(Sarah is a physician turned shamanic healer. Check her out here.)

Photo by Richard Austin on Unsplash

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Barb Morris Camino de SantiagoTHIS IS A SCENE FROM MY CAMINO NOVEL-IN-PROCESS. PLEASE SEE THE FIRST EXCERPT, “THE MESSIES,” WHICH INTRODUCES THE NOVEL AND WHY I’M POSTING THIS WRITING IN ITS RAW STATE.

So here our three travelers are, Hope on the floor and Martha and her mom on a soft couch covered with an Indian throw, safe and warm in the arms of the Hospital of the Soul. Hope is happily eating sugar cookies off of prettily-flowered china and chattering away. She licks her fingers with gusto and relish, licking the sugar and crumbs off, then swiping the crumbs off her plate with her finger. Hope is content, and so is Martha as she watches Hope’s contentment. She’s aware in a corner of her mind how truly bizarre this is – sitting in the warm living room of a house in Spain called the Hospital del Alma with her dead mother and her little daughter who until just a few hours ago was curled up in a chest freezer nestled in her chest, naturally, right beside her heart.

Martha realizes that her heart has been keeping Hope alive all these years, and the Hospital of the Soul is the perfect place for the three of them to be.

 I wonder if others can see all three of us, or if I just look crazy and alone from the outside. But I choose to believe the evidence of my senses – here these two are. Hope is eating cookies. My mom is next to me, drinking chamomile tea with honey. I feel warmth from the wood stove. I can see and hear María outside building a mosaic in the patio’s east wall. A pine tree I don’t know the name of overhangs the glass ceiling of this room.

 I am simply grateful to be here.

I love this space. I love the earthiness and the colors and the constant surprise. I love the hospitality of it – not a Parker House hospitality, but a hospitality of the heart and home. This is a place on the Camino designed for one purpose only – refuge for peregrinas’ souls. A Hospital of the Soul. I love the complete lack of expectations and judgment. “Come in and sit.” That’s all. Warmth, nourishment, comfort, welcome. All it needs is cats.

And at that moment Martha see kittens in the back, on the patio, and the place is complete. She could sit here forever.

This magical child who’s evidently not an apparition will need some clothes. Are those rubber-toed red sneakers adequate to the task of walking at least a little every day? They’re from a time when support in kids’ shoes was nonexistent. Martha hears herself worrying about Hope’s shoes, because she has no idea what she’s going to say to Maria at dinner when she asks for their story.

Here’s all she knows: she retired from her teaching job, a job she loved for many years and was good at, because it was time. Class sizes were growing, the kids were getting harder to reach, and she had less time and creativity because of mandated curriculum and tests every other week, it seemed. So it was time. She would have done a few more years, but then the district sweetened the retirement deal for older teachers and she jumped ship.

My kids didn’t need me, I’d seen The Way and done a little research, and I knew I needed a Thing to Do right after retirement. An intentional journey wanted to happen and the Camino met that need – cheap, flexible, set up for solitary walkers. A week after I turned in my school keys I was on a plane to Madrid, then a train to León, a bus to Pamplona, and another bus to SJPP*.

Everything had been pretty normal for the context of doing this crazy thing of walking 500 miles to Santiago, for the first week or so. Little stuff had started happening around then. She’d found herself taking unplanned side excursions and detours, sitting by the side of the track for a few hours, walking by herself a lot. These things just seemed to happen. But once on the Meseta, they’d come fast and furious, getting odder and odder all the time. The voice in the Templar church. The cougar who talked. The jar of messies. She was beginning to get used to it. Retrieving her daughter from a freezer in her chest and having her mom come along to help thaw her out was only the latest. It was also, she knew, of a completely different order of magnitude of crazy. These two seemed to be real people. Her mom she could explain, sort of. This little girl dressed in clothes from the 1960s, not so much. What will they tell Maria, she wondered.

Just then Hope got up, wiped her hands on her 1960s trousers, and climbed into Martha’s lap. She put her arms around her mom’s neck, said in a muffled voice, “Thank you for unfreezing me,” and fell asleep. Martha glanced at her mom and found her mom looking at her. They shook their heads, smiled, and returned to silent fire-watching. El Hospital del Alma, indeed.

Eventually they heard the back door opening and María making noise in the kitchen. “I’ll go see what I can do,” said her mom. She heard her mom ask in Spanish how she could help. María evidently found her something to do, since the next sound she heard was voices and occasional laughter. The sounds of wine glasses being filled, along with cooking noises and smells, came from the kitchen. Her mom came to her with a glass of Riojan wine.

Martha reached out a hand to take it, saying, “Mom, I’m so glad you’re here with me. I don’t understand it, but I’m glad. I think I might be crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, sweetie. You’re wondering how long I’ll be here, right?”

“Thanks, Mom. Of course I am. And I’m also trying to just be here now and enjoy this gift. Since I’m not crazy.”

Her mom smiled and returned to the kitchen. Martha sat, a daughter she didn’t have this morning on her lap, and drank her wine. I’ll take it, she thought. I’ll take it. I won’t get to keep it, I sure as hell don’t understand it, but I’ll take it. I’ll enjoy every minute I get with these two, and I won’t mourn them before they’re gone.

Supper starts with a salad of baby greens and peas, because it’s June in Spain and Maria’s garden has just started producing. The flowers and tomatoes will come later, in a month or so. Chicken and rice, and quejada for dessert. Hope has been pulled up to the table on a stool, and she’s digging into her chicken, cut up for her by María, and her rice. She eats the peas with her fingers, eschewing the lettuce. It’s her first real meal in decades – she’s been kept alive by Martha’s heart but she’s hungry for real food.

This meal is delicious. “Gracias, María. Es delicioso,” Martha says. María responds, “Y gracias para ustedes. I am happy you are here.” Hope keeps shoveling it in, humming happily. Then she looks up and says to Maria, “I’ve been frozen next to my mommy’s heart for a long time. Today she found me and unfroze me, and here I am!”

Her mom added, “And I was walking along and saw Martie sitting on a rock in a field of poppies, this one on her lap, and I thought they might need help so I went to see what was up. As I got closer I could see that I knew them. Then I saw that they were Martha and Hope, both of whom I was surprised to see. Martie because I’m dead and she’s alive, and Hope because I hadn’t seen her since she was a little girl.”

Okay then, thinks Martha. She won’t be any help explaining this to me, or anyone else. Maybe when you’re dead you just take weird shit for granted.

María simply nodded and took another bite. “There were angels all round you three,” she said. “You were glowing when you entered my house. It’s called El Hospital del Alma for a reason.”

*SJPP is Camino shorthand for St. Jean Pied de Port, a small, charming Basque French town that’s served as the Camino gateway over the Pyrenees into Spain for a millennia or more.

Camino Fiction by Barb Morris

The Emergence of Hope, Part Two (Camino Fiction)

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Barb Morris Camino de SantiagoTHIS IS A SCENE FROM MY CAMINO NOVEL-IN-PROCESS. PLEASE SEE THE FIRST EXCERPT, “THE MESSIES,” WHICH INTRODUCES THE NOVEL AND WHY I’M POSTING THIS WRITING IN ITS RAW STATE.

Martha is sitting in a field of poppies with a frozen child in her lap. She notices that although poppies are soporific in stories, on the Camino she hears them say “Wake up!” She croons to the child, strokes her, puts her cheek to the little girl’s cold face, listens to the Meseta wind and watches the poppies sway, for what seems like hours. Softly holding this frozen girl – waiting for signs of life.

She sees peregrinos walking in the distance – they’re far enough away that she can’t tell them apart – occasionally one will notice her and wave. She waves back so they know she’s okay. A woman leaves the road and walks through the poppies toward them. Martha watches the expressions cross the woman’s face as she gets nearer. She sees surprise, concern, comprehension, and finally immense kindness.

“Hola,” she says. “How can I help?” They recognize each other’s American-ness by all the nonverbal cues – North Face and Osprey, smiles and eye contact.

“She’s frozen. I’m thawing her.”

“You must be tired. Let me take a turn.” Martha realizes that, yes, she is indeed tired. The woman takes her towel from her backpack and spreads it on the ground, then sits on it and reaches her arms to Martha. Martha gently hands her the curled up girl child.

The woman asks, “Where did you find her?”

“In my chest,” says Martha.

“Ah,” says the woman, and she looks at Martha with deep brown eyes. “I understand.”

Martha knows those eyes. She’s looking into her mother’s eyes. As their eyes fill with tears, the girl child stirs. Martha reaches out a hand to the girl’s face. It’s warm, and she catches a tear softly falling down the girl’s cheek. Thawing is happening rapidly now – the little girl is breathing and stretching and making little noises as she wakes up – Martha sees that this child is younger than she thought – maybe 4 or 5 – red rubber toed sneakers, little jeans, a pink shirt, fine brown hair cut like a bowl on her head like the Beatles used to have – and deep brown eyes looking up at her and her mom.

“Hello, sweetheart,” says Martha.

This is weird, she thinks. I’m sitting in a field of Spanish poppies with my mom, who’s been dead for twenty years, and a little girl I found in a freezer in my chest. Okay, then. Smiling, she lies down in the sun in the poppies, looks at her mom cradling the smiling child, and closes her eyes. She feels the rocks beneath her and knows she’s getting dirty and damp, and she doesn’t care. It’s totally worth it to feel the Earth along her entire body. Ground below; air and sky above. Poppies all around. She reaches out her hand to the woman sitting next to her, places it on the woman’s nylon-clad leg, and relaxes. As she falls asleep she wonders – will they be here when I wake up?

They are. They are deeper in the poppies, holding hands, the little girl bending to smell each flower and laughing as they sway in the breeze. The sun was halfway between noon and the horizon. Martha is hungry. She sits there watching the two dear creatures, listening to her daughter’s tinkling laughter that sounded like a creek in the summer and her mother’s low murmurs in response.

That’s surprising, she thought. That’s who she is to me. Martha stands up, brushes the dirt off her legs with a swish, and says, “Hey, you two. Let’s go find supper and a bed.”

They turn and start toward her. Her daughter lets go of the older woman’s hand and runs toward Martha. “Mommy! (That settles that, thought Martha.) You’re awake! Grandma and I were looking at the pretty flowers. She says they’re poppies! Let’s go to that town over there!”

She pointed her little finger toward the town they could see beyond the trees – a large church and monastery at the base of a terraced hill with a ruined castle plopped on top. Who does that? wonders Martha. Who’s designing these quintessential Camino vistas?

She shoulders her backpack and takes her daughter’s hand. Her mom folds up her towel, wipes off Martha’s pants with it to get the last of the dirt, stows it in her backpack and puts it on, straps on her poles, and heads through the poppies back to the road.  There are just a few pilgrims still walking as Martha and her girl follow the older woman to the road, holding hands.

Martha understands that her Way just got a lot more complicated. And more companionable.

I don’t know how long I’ll have my mom with me, and my daughter probably isn’t real either, she thought. This is so interesting, and I’ll ride this wave as long as it lasts.

An hour later they walk up the cobbled street through the old gate into Castrojeriz. Martha and her mom have taken turns carrying their little girl, whose name it turns out is Esperanza, almost always called “Hope,” most of the way. As she explained, “I’m tired. After all, I a little girl, and I just woke up after being frozen for a really long time.” Martha suspects she also wanted to feel her mothers’ arms around her, holding her, singing to her, telling her how glad they were that she woke up.

It was like that, that this one, now three, arrived at the door of El Hospital del Alma. And how it is that they are the fortunate pilgrims who find themselves sitting in front of a warm wood stove, drinking chamomile tea with honey, eating cookies and chocolate-covered strawberries off flowered china plates, asking the hospitalera where to stay, and are invited to stay in her one guest room that just happens to be empty that night.

“I will cook for you dinner,” says María, “and you will tell to me your story.”

Camino fiction

Walk. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. (Camino Fiction)

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Barb Morris Camino de SantiagoTHIS IS A SCENE FROM MY CAMINO NOVEL-IN-PROCESS. PLEASE SEE THE FIRST EXCERPT, “THE MESSIES,” WHICH INTRODUCES THE NOVEL AND WHY I’M POSTING THIS WRITING IN ITS RAW STATE.

The next town is coming closer. Martha doesn’t want to be with people tonight. She wants to sit with this place in her soul. Enter it and not be distracted. Not have to interact. She understands now those peregrinos who have passed her, unspeaking, earbuds in, no eye contact. They were simply finding solitude.

The gravel Camino becomes a cobbled street as Martha enters the town. She looks for an albergue with a bench and flowers out front – it’s her rule to look for flowers. Three doors up on the right – geraniums – Las Aquedas. The door is open. The hospitalero* is seated behind a rickety blue table covered with paper, his guest register open on top of the pile.

“Hola, señor. ¿Tiene una cama?”

He looks up, taking her in kindly. “Sí, señora. Tengo una cama para usted. Bienvenídos. Pasaporte y credential*, por favor.”

Martha shrugs off her backpack and digs out her American passport and pilgrim credential. The hospitalero writes her name, passport number, and nationality in his register. Solemnly he inks his albergue stamp, presses the stamp carefully into her credential, and dates the stamp. In this way, she’ll prove her journey to the volunteers at the pilgrim office in Santiago to receive her compostela* at the end of this ridiculous walk. “¿Cuanto cuesta la cama?,” she belatedly asks.

“Seven euro,” he answers, in English. “If you want breakfast it will be ten.”

“Breakfast, please. Grácias, señor.” She hands him a €10 note, picks up her backpack, and goes to find an unclaimed bed. As late as she is, it’ll almost certainly be a top bunk. Which makes the inevitable peeing in the middle of the night an unwanted adventure, but so far so good. She hasn’t killed herself yet. All the bunks along the walls are claimed, top AND bottom. This albergue, like many others, has crammed more beds in to take advantage of the increased pilgrim traffic since Americans and Koreans have discovered the Camino.

Damn Martin Sheen*, she thinks, not for the last time. And, also, bless him, Lord. That, too. I’m here because of him. And so are all these other people. She spots a bottom bunk smack in the middle of the big room full of bunk beds – almost all with backpacks propped beside them and a few clothes – shirts, pants, socks – strewn on them. Most hospitaleros frown on pilgrims putting backpacks on the beds. She’s not sure why.

Some of the beds have clotheslines strung in front, with towels draped on them for a little privacy. She puts down her backpack, sits on the bed, and carefully takes off her shoes and socks. Then, slowly, she removes the betadine-soaked gauze from Max to see how he’s grown. He’s thriving. Tonight, she thinks, it’s time to try the needle and thread. Enough is enough. Crocs on, she gathers her albergue clothes, towel, washcloth, and Dr. Bronner’s lavender castile soap (the all-purpose Camino cleaner), being careful to remember her ziploc-bagged passport, credential, cash, and credit cards, and goes in search of the showers.

Would these be co-ed?, she wonders. Would the hot water last? Would there even be water pressure? How long will it take her to figure out the controls? Would there be a way to keep her clothes and valuables dry? Would the lights go out mid-shower? Would there be a door, even? There wasn’t, always. So many unknowns, every night. And every night, it seems, she learns another thing she’s taken for granted that is evidently up for grabs in a Spanish albergue.

After the blessedly warm shower, she washes her other pair of underwear, her socks, and her t-shirt. Everything else could wait a few more days. Out comes the all-purpose Dr. Bronner’s lavender castile soap again – lavendar to repel bed bugs, an occasional problem on the Camino. Some peregrinos wash their clothes in the shower, also frowned upon by hospitaleros and other pilgrims.

Supper, as she promised herself, she eats alone.

The next day, as usual, she’s one of the first ones out the albergue door. Even though she paid for breakfast the night before, she’s left at the crack of dawn. Not before the crack of dawn, like some potentially annoying peregrinos who strap on their headlamps when it’s still dark and rustle their belongings into their packs and creep, they think quietly, out the albergue while the stars are still out. She’s not that driven.

But she relishes the half hour or so before sunrise – the brightest stars are still shining, and there are only a few other pilgrims as the sky lightens and she walks through a mostly quiet village – the only sounds the crunch of her shoes, the tap of her poles, early birdsong, and roosters waking up. She loves this time, she’s discovered, when rural Spain smells like wood smoke and sheep shit. She’ll stop for breakfast – toast and café con leche – at the next village. For now, it’s just good to walk. Hospitalero coffee is never as good as the café con leche she’ll get in the bars. And somehow the toast isn’t as good either.

What is it about Spanish toast anyway? Who knew a 60-year-old American woman could walk for miles fueled only by toast?! Surprising – she who spent decades as a carbophobe. She sort of lives for Spanish bread. With jam and lots of butter, at breakfast. And a chocolate croissant for a snack. And tortilla. Ensalada mixta* for second lunch or for dinner, because it’s the only vegetables she’ll get all day. Fresh-squeezed orange juice she’ll discover later.

I want to travel, Martha thought. I want to live in Spain for awhile. I want to really BE here. Maybe a volunteer hospitalera? I promise myself I will not let myself be tethered. I will not let myself be caged. What’s an Airbnb in Madrid in July and August? Or Glasgow? Or Belfast?  Or London? Or Galway? It’s so easy to get tied down. No No No.

Her mind panics. How would I support myself? How would I live?

And then there it is. The Voice. Writing and art, Martha. Writing and art, poppy seed. Writing and art and living REALLY cheaply. What do I need, after all? Clothes (a few), a place to sleep, food to eat, a way to keep clean, a way to make a living (computer and art supplies?)… I don’t need so much. I don’t need a car. I don’t need a wardrobe. I’d LIKE a little dirt.

All of this as she walked the first couple of miles of the fifteen she had planned for the day. She already knew it was going to be one of those Camino days full of voices – days that were coming more and more frequently. Shirley McLain’s* got nothin’ on me, she thought.

We make choices that lock us in before we know any better, she saw. We believe the lies about achievement and career and A to B to C in proper order. We believe the lies about rules and earning love through compliance and being useful to others. I just want to be WILD. I just want to be free for a change. That’s what I want. That’s all I want. 

And immediately the fear and the doubts creep in. As she walks she can feel them. They’re a constriction around her heart. I’ve never even written so much as a short story, she thinks. And what about helping people? Aren’t I supposed to help people?? I’ve never sold a painting. I’m going to make a LIVING at this?! What the FUCK am I thinking?!

Then below the panic, below the fear, the ground, she heard the Voice say, “Artist.”

You are my artist. You are one of my artists. You are one of my poets and painters and storytellers. You have the heart for this work. You’ve been a teacher. Thank you, my dear. Those kids needed you, and I’m grateful. Now it’s time for something new and deeper and unknown. Teaching was the freest path you could take when you believed the lie that you had to earn MY love and your worth.

I don’t know how to do this, she answered. Also, who ARE you?

You know who I am. The Earth Voice continues. When you feel afraid, it’s because you’re believing something that’s not true – like there’s a right way and a wrong way, you have to look competent, you have to be right, you have to get it right. There is no such thing as right.

Martha thinks: But how will I do this without a plan?

Earth answers: Here’s the plan, dearest: there is no plan. We don’t need no stinkin’ plan. (The Voice is evidently a fan of classic movies.) You show up and create – let out all that stuff inside you – bottled up and wanting to move through you – and that’s the plan.

Martha answers, This is crazy. This is batshit. You know that, right? 

Then, after a few minutes of walking, she whispers, Can I really DO this?

What would happen if you didn’t, my love? replied Earth. My strong beautiful artist, I love you so much. You are SO strong. There’s no statute of limitations on creativity, dearest. There’s no statute of limitations on being who you are.

*CAMINO PLACES, NAMES, AND THINGS WHICH WILL NEED TO BE DEFINED, OR PERHAPS I’LL INCLUDE A CAMINO LEXICON.

 

These Halcyon Solstice Days

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CandlesThere is an old Greek myth about ‘halcyon days’. The idea springs from a story about the halcyon (from the kingfisher family), about which Aristotle has this to say:

‘The halcyon breeds at the season of the winter solstice. Accordingly, when this season is marked with calm weather, the name of “halcyon days” is given to the seven days preceding, as to as many following, the solstice … The halcyon is said to take seven days for building her nest, and the other seven for laying and hatching her eggs.’

These words are from Celtic psychologist and storyteller Dr Sharon Blackie. (Read her post here.)

Sharon goes on to describe her Solstice practice of sharing stories for these dark days – seven days before December 21st and seven days after, when Earth begins her slow turn to the light. I’m adopting her idea for personal use. These cold dark days are fecund days for the human soul – days for deep discernment. I intend to honor them by setting aside intentional time each day to listen to the Earth, to the Holy, to my soul. I wonder what will emerge. Will you join me?