“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” —Joseph Campbell These summer mornings I love waking up during the pre-dawn moments before the “robin concertmaster” sounds the first pitch of the morning symphony waking up a sleeping world. She announces…
The spiritual practice of living a nonviolent life poses tremendous challenge today in a world where it seems pent up anger, bitterness, dualism and resentment erupt into rage and disrespect for life. To counter such violence, how can we even begin to live nonviolence, to talk about nonviolence and to respond from an inner, grounded…
Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from…
“If we reach common ground, and can understand what everybody’s going through, we can really affect change. And make sure that everyone is treated equally and has the same freedom.” —Colin Kaepernick One day, as I walked the land at Prairiewoods, I saw the tree photographed above. Note how it stands in a place of…
A couple of years ago I had two special people in two separate conversations suggest the book Braiding Sweetgrass to me. Sister Nancy suggested it one day when we were talking about books and then not long after that my friend Sara happened to be at Prairiewoods with that very book in her hand. She’d…
Last week, when the rain came, I found myself awash in its energy while also dry-of-foot. I walked through the gardens and trails at Prairiewoods and found the message I needed in that moment. Donning my waterproof boots, straw hat and little blue umbrella, I held presence with the rushing stream, the dripping canopy, and…
Near Stonehenge, the recent discovery of subterranean Neolithic shafts forming a two-kilometer wide ring up to ten meters across and five meters deep around the “super henge” at Durrington Walls has caused quite an archeological stir. The structures have been carbon dated to about 2500 B.C.E. Research on Stonehenge itself has been the focus of…
I am familiar with the practice of pilgrimage, having been a pilgrim to the Holy Land and to Rome and Assisi. Pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place, that requires an interior journey as much as an outer one. The Celtic practice of peregrinatio is similar in that it also calls me to sacred…
As we continue to reflect on the peaceful world that our hearts know is possible, people across the global are realizing that we need to be more conscious about our thoughts, statements, behaviors, biases, prejudices, judgments of self and others. This short TEDxGenova talk, “Own Your Behaviors, Master Your Communication, Determine Your Success,” presented by…
A Blessing Prayer in Difficult Times by John O’Donohue May you know tender shelter and healing blessing when you are called to stand in the place of pain. May the places of darkness within you be surprised by light. May you be granted the wisdom to avoid false resistance and when suffering knocks on the…