New Prose

This is what I have to say to you. Choose not to be emotionally derailed by your lengthy to-do list or any external circumstances. Do what you can in the time you have left without rushing through tasks or losing your center. Keeping your sense of humor is a key, as is the willingness to laugh even when your anxiety is mounting. Affirm that just as you are in this moment, you are enough. Of course there will be challenges. Meet them head on, with confidence, knowing that somehow everything will work out. It's much more important to stay connected to your source than to finish everything on your list to your high standards.

Trust yourself. Trust the moment you find yourself in. Trust the bigger picture and the connection you maintain with the mystery. Remember that whatever you need is already within you or will come to you at just the right time. This is not wishful thinking -- it's the truth -- and truth will not abandon you. So take a deep breath when things get frantic and choose to relax instead of getting overwhelmed. You can do this!

This is what I have to say to you. Tired, grouchy, and uninspired are just passing moods. Include them in the whole of you, but remember they have no bearing on who and what you really are. Keep returning to what's true right here and now. And in a pinch, do something really different today, preferably an act that benefits others.

The impenetrable secrets of the universe lead us humans on what could be viewed as a wild goose chase, or might be seen as a heroes journey. Who are we really and what are we doing here? What is God and how do we relate to the divine? We each have to find our own answers or accept that there are none.

For me, everything keeps circling back to love -- the big love -- the love that brought the cosmos into being, the love that streams into me whenever I grow quiet and turn my attention inside. I can't tell you what it is or where it comes from, but I know love exists and that I'm a tiny part of that vast and wondrous generosity. I meditate in order to sit inside love and drink it in. As imperfectly as I embody love, still it gives my life a center and focus, a locus of infinite possibility in the midst of seeming chaos.

Once I realized love is always with me, it seemed the biggest secret had revealed itself and now it's a question of how I choose to live, knowing what I know. That's what my journey looks like now. I'm a willing explorer of the love field, an ambassador for the invisible current of love that flows through all of us. I give thanks for the whole shebang, and offer myself to love.

This is what I have to say to you. Peace is not the absence of anything, but the full embrace of all that is. It's not easy to embrace what you don't like, but that's what you can learn in this dark time. Whatever is happening, don't turn away. Feel what it's like to recoil, close down, resist. And then slowly, with patience and love, open again to what is. Practice is essential. Self-acceptance is necessary. This lesson is a part of your journey you can't skip over. It's a required course, not an elective, but trust me on this -- there is no possibility of failure. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

January 1, 2026

As I walked through the woods this morning, I noticed a thought that quickly became quite insistent. “I want to be a beacon.” I tried to shrug it off. Sure. Right. Be a beacon. But the thought wouldn’t be put aside. It kept coming back. So eventually I asked myself what it means to be a beacon. This is what I wrote in answer to that question:

To be a beacon means summoning my capacity to find light. It means shining when the moment feels hopeless but I know in my bones that it’s not. It means gathering up all the disparate parts of my psyche that I formerly exiled, and loving each one right now. To be a beacon means sitting with uncomfortable feelings and not pushing them away. It requires a willingness to laugh at myself and ask for help when my old, established pattern is to do it alone. It means connecting with the love field so I can be nurtured from inside. It means releasing the closet optimist from her hiding place and watching as she strikes a match and lights a single candle. The shadows outside are threatening and dark, but that one steady flame makes a difference.

To be a beacon doesn’t mean never stumbling, but it does mean getting up, dusting myself off, taking to heart the lessons of the trees who bow and bend but then come fully upright again. I don’t have to know how to keep that small flame lit while storms rage all around it. I just need to stay open and receive what each moment shares with me.

There are answers and instructions out there when I drop my defenses and listen. To be a beacon means finding the sweet spot between contentment and continuing to evolve. It means believing there’s meaning in the seeming madness of these times, even if I can’t see it, much less articulate a reason to feel hope. I don’t know if I can do this. Failure is in the very air I breathe. But I want to be a beacon with a yearning that nearly makes me weep.

My intention, setting forth, is to keep the candle lit, to raise it high so not only I can see it, but others might too. It could take a whole lifetime of experience to do this – all the focus I’ve learned through the years – but it’s what calls to me this morning, and I am saying yes. I’m shouting, writing, inscribing “yes” on the doors of my heart and flinging them wide. Yes to light and yes to life. This feels like the most meaningful offering I have left to give.

Here are your instructions for the day:

Stay open to love, open to divine presence, open to wonder, open to surprises. Do this through your intention and by paying attention to the moment as it unfolds. Do this through gratitude and by remembering that the love field is always accessible, no matter the setting or circumstance. This can be a day you grit your teeth and endure, or it can be a step on your path of awakening. It's your choice. Now go forth in gladness and grace.

I ask that which listens to my prayers, “What would you have me know or do or be?

Be what you are already, only do it without apology. Be awake, creative, and unafraid to speak or write or love from the fullness of your being. Be generous and open, a spacious listening for truth. Know that the embrace of the whole includes you, includes everyone and everything because we all share in one divine and unifying presence beyond time or mind or understanding. As for doing, trust that you will know your next step before you have to take it. This isn’t so much a time for producing as living in love and gratitude and wonder. There are no wrong turns on the path you are walking. From this point on, all roads lead home.

This is what I have to say to you. Draw the healing sustenance of love up from your source. Do this with breath. Do this through the invisible roots of your being. Do this with prayer, awareness, imagination, and any other means at your disposal. Love moves easily from there to here, moves like water or air, filling the vessel of your bodymind in the briefest of instants. Sit with this love for a while and let it quiet what is anxious, heal what needs healing, illumine the dark spaces, and take away your fear. Rest in love as long as you need. There is no timetable where love is concerned. Love is here. Love is now. Love is your name for the divine. The source of love is infinite and that is what you draw from – infinite compassion, light, and wisdom. When you call upon love, other divine qualities come too: peace, generosity, patience, and faith. Love’s grace flows through you today. Your only task is to receive it and be grateful.

Everything that comes into my life is another opportunity to love. Every injustice, every slight, each time my shadow rises to the light – another chance to know the whole. When I react with fear or outrage or end up with a migraine, instead of pushing it away, I pray to embrace, receive, and integrate it all. Let me experience the love field as the infinite reality it is – always and everywhere a source to tap into and the foundational truth in which I live. And even when I fail at loving, grant me the grace to embrace each aspect of my being with mercy and compassion. For what else can this life be but a profound lesson in humility interspersed with innumerable occasions to choose love? I choose love in this moment trusting that my choice opens a space for more love to come into this world. That give and take, that sacred relationship with love is what I’m here to learn.

"I am standing at the edge of…" is a prompt from the writer Laura Davis. It took me on quite the journey this morning!

I am standing at the edge of a moment I can embrace or push away. It's a moment of not knowing what the future holds, a moment that could easily topple into hopelessness. The country is heading toward autocracy, cruelty, racism, hatred, censorship, and male egos run amok. But it's my moment as much as it is theirs and if I say yes to it -- to the whole catastrophe and splendor of it -- I'm also saying yes to the whole of me, yes to the mystery, yes to the One who created and sustains it all.

I am standing at the edge of infinite love. It's so accessible, this love. Everywhere I turn, inside or outside, it freely offers itself and asks nothing in return. Now I'm no longer at the edge, but in the middle of that love. The sense of being held is overpowering. If there is any certainty in this world, it is that the divine, indwelling isness can be found within each one of us.

I'm standing at the edge of ecstasy and also deep sadness, knowing what is possible for every being on this planet and how far away most of us remain from the plain and simple truth. And so I pray and allow the love to strengthen me for whatever might come next. I feel my resolve growing to accept what life offers me with gratitude. I am determined to keep my own lamp lit and shining.

I am standing at the edge of my awareness where I feel it stretching, expanding, refusing to stay small. When I let go of witnessing and just BE the bare awareness, the beauty of the moment stuns me. And then I know there is no edge -- it's all center, every breath, every sacred centimeter -- nothing separate.

This is what I have to say to you. Saying yes when the whole world seems to be caught in a paroxysm of negativity is especially important. Say yes to God, yes to openness, yes to love, and yes to being generous. Say yes to joy, yes to the journey, yes to being fully present. Say yes to dissolving boundaries when you can and holding to firm boundaries when necessary. Say yes to the essence of each person being called to shine forth. Say yes to what’s deathless and invisible, but not unknowable. Say yes to goodness and yes to grace. Say yes to working with others on behalf of the greater good. Say yes to resting in infinite love. Say yes to nature in all her wild magnificence. Say yes to your place in the whole. Say yes to your role, as best you can discern it. Say yes to the truth of this very moment. Say yes to the power of blessing and the blessing of power. Say yes to the breath that sustains you and to letting go when it’s time. When the call comes for service that you know is yours to do, say yes and trust you will somehow be supported. If you resist with positivity instead of outrage, your strength will continue to increase. Yes is your secret password and the road to real release.

Now, I’m no expert on love, but I have experienced divine love enough times to say with certainty that it is infinite, unconditional, and inside each one of us whether we are believers or not.

Love is alive. It is often silent, but sometimes it shouts. It is worth listening to love with the inner ears of contemplation. At its strongest, there’s a circularity to love where giving and receiving flow into each other like inbreath and outbreath. What starts the flow is openness. What impedes it is self-judgment, defendedness, or a belief in our inherent unworthiness. Worthy or unworthy is completely beyond the point. If we’re alive, divine love is with us, in us, the essence and foundation of us. It imbues everything we know with light. Take any sensory experience, and love is at the heart of it.

The first seed that sprouts in the love field is peace and the second is generosity. Ease of being, even in the midst of pain or fear is a close third. Learning to return to love and rest there should be the first skill we teach each other. And here’s the greatest secret of all: at death, divine love is what we dissolve into like sugar into tea. Love returns to its source, form surrendering back into the formless. Could there be a more perfect consummation to the great love affair we’re in the midst of?

This is what I have to say to you. Be an antenna for divine messages. To do this, you need to empty yourself of any personal agenda and stay awake to what the moment holds. Listening and openness are key. The Mystery reveals its secrets in its own way and time. Your task is to be focused and ready to receive. Ask what you need to know and wait quietly. If a message arrives, whether it is familiar or surprising, take it in with gratitude. Write it down and try to live it as best you can.

Today’s message: Love is an inherently transformational energy. Resting in love means that you will be changed from the inside out in ways you can’t predict. Give yourself fully to this process. There’s a subtle alchemy of love at work within you. Let it play out by not resisting or defending. You will know what to do next when the time is right. For now, rest in love and see where it takes you.

Grow still now, dear one. Do not fret over details or get activated by what’s going on outside. Turn inward, where it’s quiet and the love field shines. Rest in that oasis. Like a lamp in the darkness or a deep well of sweet water in the desert, the love field offers replenishment and light. Listen closely, for guidance comes in many forms.

Simply be in the presence of the mystery. There’s nothing to do, no need to prove yourself or remove obstacles. Nothing stands between you and infinite, unconditional love. Receive it fully, with a grateful heart. Be at peace in love’s embrace. Love is the secret saving grace at the heart of every moment. It’s what heals, what allows you to move through fear to what’s beyond. Commune with this love knowing it is always with you. That there is something shining, good, and divinely inspired inside you is undeniable. Sit in that light and know it as your essence. Sit in that love and let it work its transformative magic.

It took the whole, broad sweep of your life, every single experience with nothing pushed aside to reach this moment of renewal, this overflow of love and wonder. Breathe it in – love and unity, love and creativity, love and freedom from a past that’s lost the power to shackle or silence you.

Your offering to the world, if you wish to make one, is to continue connecting and communing with the love field on a daily basis. Rest there as often as you can. If words appear to describe your experience, write them down. Share them to whatever extent makes sense to you. It’s your embodied experience of love that matters now.

This is what I have to say to you. Constant cruelty, self-interest, and disregard for societal norms are Donald Trump’s way of imposing his authoritarian will. Instead of wringing your hands, use them to be creative and generous. Instead of going silent, let your words, your poems, your prayers speak loudly. Ground yourself in love and go forward from there. You will get guidance, sustenance, and courage in abundance. If all you can do today is one small act of kindness, do it with love, and trust that more acts will follow. Instead of sinking into despair, rise up and live as if bringing a bit more light into this world matters, because it does.

In the two weeks since the solar eclipse, the moon has gone from new to full. The earth has spun on its axis fifteen times. Rick and I have traveled from Essex Junction, Vermont where we viewed the eclipse with my brother and sister-in-law, to Massachusetts where we visited friends who’d also witnessed the eclipse, and then back to our home in Virginia. Every day since, I’ve pondered why this experience was so impactful. Why does it haunt the edges of my awareness like a ghost, unwilling to move on? Why would a little over three minutes of totality feel like it has the potential to change my life, leaving me struggling to discern the meaning hidden in the alignment of moon and sun, the message encoded in the emotions whose echoes still wash through me?

Before tackling those questions, first let me set the scene. My brother Peter’s backyard is surrounded by trees tall enough to block the sky. So we walked up the street to a large, open field next to an elementary school that was closed for eclipse day. Scattered across the field, and in one big clump near the playground, were clusters of kids and their parents. The event had a holiday feel to it. Frisbees and balls were being tossed. Moms and dads watched their children swing and slide and run impromptu races. Dogs barked, people laughed, and everyone had their eclipse glasses on or within easy reach.

There were high cirrus clouds at the time, but they posed no obstacle to our viewing. A meteorologist in Vermont had calculated there was only a 20% chance of being able to see the eclipse, given the state’s propensity for clouds and rain in April. Yet there we were, with the sun fully visible through the thin clouds, with a ringside seat to a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Only when the moon had covered all but a snippet of sun did everyone become attentive to what was happening in the sky. Frisbees fell to the ground, the noise stopped, and all eyes gazed upward.

The moment I go back to in my mind most often was when the sliver of sun shrank to the tiniest shard and then blinked out completely. With eclipse glasses on, the world went completely dark, and when I took the protective glasses off, I gasped at the sight before me. The first thing I noticed was the black disk of the moon, and behind it, the sun’s wide and bright corona, reaching out into space. Venus glowed like a jewel off to the right, and another star or planet popped into view too, over to the left. What I thought to be a molten orange solar flare bulged at around 7 o’clock on the coronal circle. The sight was magnificent and beautiful. It defied easy description, and moved me like no other image I can remember.

I blinked back tears, not sure what emotion caused them, though I’d say awe was the primary feeling. Never having witnessed a total solar eclipse before, the moment was unique, and a host of impressions chased each other through my mind. The first was amazement at the perfection required for this event to happen at all – the circumference of the moon exactly sized to block the sun but not so big as to occlude the corona. The chances of that have to be miniscule. But there I was, staring at the dark circle of moon surrounded by the sun’s radiant halo. Then there was the fact that the corona is always out there. We just can’t see it because the sun puts out too much light. That raised the question of what else I fail to see. What else is right before me, but invisible due to compromised vision of either my inner or outer eyes?

And lurking in the background of the entire three minutes of totality was a strong sense of being part of something so vast and cosmic as to dwarf the mind entirely. It was humbling to feel my smallness and yet also reassuring to sense that I was somehow an essential piece of this infinite drama. My witnessing of this celestial event mattered in some way I couldn’t put into words, but knew with certainty. I wasn’t an intruder on this scene. I belonged right where I was, on the open field of that elementary school in a small New England state, in a country that’s the world’s longest-running experiment in democracy, on a planet in a solar system in the arm of a spiral galaxy hurtling through space. I wasn’t just a passive bystander admiring the sun’s bold corona. I was actively taking joy in God’s great creation. And by adding my wonder, joy, and love into the experience, I became a living part of it. It wouldn’t have been the same without me, and all of us amazed gawkers, watching a rare spectacle unfolding in the sky.

My yearning to know the source of all this magnificence was mixed right into the wonder of the moment. Call it God, the Infinite, or All That Is, something had brought this whole wide array into being. Struck by the beauty I beheld, I wanted to stay awake to the presence vibrating inside me like a tuning fork. My friend Kathy Kuser put it this way when describing an experience of photographing desert flowers: “I was a body-mind in a love affair with divinity and its creation.” Something in what she said rang true to me for the eclipse too.

There was another lesson from the eclipse that lodged itself deep in my heart as well. Each of us commented after the event how remarkable it was that even the tiniest sliver of sun lit up the scene before us and required eclipse glasses to protect our eyes. The smallest smidgen of sunlight changed night back into day in an unquestionable way. The metaphor seems obvious when applied to my inner life. The feeblest ray of light inside me changes everything. Just a bit of optimism, faith, or trust can illumine my interior landscape and allow me to move forward. I don’t have to be blazingly positive, hopeful, or happy. One flicker of light is enough to open to something more, so it makes sense to be on the lookout for embers, to stir my psyche searching for a single, smoldering coal, and then blow on it until I see a flame. Even when the sun was only 25% back to normal, the day looked bright and sunny. I carry that learning with me now. One ray of light is enough, and I’m grateful to the eclipse for making this obvious.

And why does any of this matter? Why not just relegate the memory to a place where it might get trotted out now and again when someone mentions eclipses? The reason it matters to me is this: I saw possibility in that eclipse. If all those celestial bodies could line up just so, might I not be able to do the seemingly impossible too? Could I stay awake not only in those brief moments of totality but in the humdrum, potentially boring experiences of my everyday life? And I saw a kind of benevolence in the event as well. The sun disappeared entirely. And then it came back unscathed. Light turned into dark, and light returned. Isn’t that the hero’s journey in its simplest form? Light to dark to light again. I’ve seen myself take that journey so many times in my life, moving from depression to neutrality to joy. Shifting from self-judgment to self-acceptance and even love.

I also think it matters to add my appreciation for wild nature into the whole. It matters to increase the love quotient in the world. It makes a difference to leave my jaded persona behind and jump with both feet into wonder for an afternoon. I doubt that a person in the throes of love and wonder would choose to start a war.

The same grass on which we’d sat so comfortably before totality, teemed with mosquitoes when the sun reappeared. They had apparently woken up during the brief darkness and now buzzed insistently around our heads. We swatted them aside for a while, watching the sun’s return, but eventually folded up our blankets and headed for home. I noticed on the walk back that I felt more kindly disposed toward everyone I saw. We had all shared in those three minutes of totality. We all looked just a little stunned and wide-eyed. We happened upon a friend of one of Peter’s neighbors, who ran over to the fence with a colander to show us how the holes projected the three-quarter sun onto the sidewalk with such remarkable precision – dozens of tiny partial suns peeping back at us from the concrete. I understood and shared in his post-totality giddiness.

I put my eclipse glasses on a final time before we walked into the house to start supper. There it was, the sun with a chunk still out of it, on its way back to what we consider normal once again. In that moment, I sensed that I had a choice. I could let this experience touch me fully, and let it continue to work on me in the background over time, or I could shove it aside in favor of the known, the everyday, the usual ways I saw myself and my world. I opted for the former, and I have to say that the eclipse is still very much with me. I hope it sticks around for a long while.

If the love field had a voice, it might say this:

You don’t have to reach. You don’t need to make herculean efforts. You don’t have to prove yourself. Love is right here if you but open to receive it. All the inner debates about whether you are worthy, whether you have done enough to earn love – let all of that fall away. Love is right here, presenting in the most tender way, saying “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” It’s personal and warm, this love. It’s embracing and safe, and never, ever conditioned upon how you act or what you’ve accomplished. There isn’t a soul on this planet deemed undeserving of love. Think of it – not one!

Love is the sun as the moon begins to eclipse it. Love is the black disk obscuring the sun at totality. Love is the wide corona and the solar flares. Love is the return of daylight and the buzzing of mosquitoes. Maybe you catch my drift that love is everywhere and always. It is transcendent and it is imminent. It is with you, in you, inviting, delighting, grace-filled, luminous, and utterly beyond comprehension, but not beyond the ability to experience. So give yourself to it, this ever-present love. Settle inside it as it rests inside you. You will never be the same once you let love have its way with you, and that is good. And remember that love isn’t always serious. Love laughs often and with gusto. Love invites you into merriment and delight. I suggest you accept that invitation right now.

On a cold January evening, my husband Rick and I were taking some time to stretch in our bedroom before our daily yoga nidra practice. The room was lit only by multicolor Christmas lights that framed the two large windows. Chanting music played softly in the background. Outside, the wind howled. I paused suddenly, in mid-stretch, transported back 35 years to the Main Chapel in Kripalu’s ashram heyday. Dimly lit by candles and a few overhead lights on their lowest setting, the cavernous room felt cozy and embracing as wind gusts slammed into the building and whistled through the cracks.

This was a visceral flashback, a felt-sense, full-bodied experience. Here are some of the impressions that linger with me still:

At the front of the Chapel, the mosaic of Saint Ignatius is illumined by tall candles on the altar. Shadows play across the face of the Jesuit saint with uplifted arms in this chapel where Jesuits once worshipped. In front of the mosaic, a large framed portrait of Swami Kripalu, clothed in an orange robe, looks out into the crowded room. Light and shadow make the smile on his lips come to life as the chant increases in tempo and volume.

Rick and I are clad in white clothes as are all the Kripalu residents. We are dancing to live chanting music being sung and played up front as we await the arrival of Kripalu’s guru, Yogi Amrit Desai. The portrait of Swami Kripalu I’ve been staring at is Yogi Desai’s guru, and though I had never met him in person, I feel a sense of deep kinship with him and with that painting. Even as I continue to chant and dance, I lose myself in his smile.

Shivanand is leading the chant. Nilima plays the harmonium and leads the response. A large cadre of drummers stands off to one side, providing a rhythm section I can not only hear but feel through my feet and in the pit of my belly. A wind gust blows one of the windows open in the brick wall high above our heads. A young man, one of the white-garbed residents, grabs a long pole with a hook on the end and manages to snag the catch and secure the window again. The whole room cheers in response.

It is Saturday night on a weekend when there are several large programs taking place. As a result, there are lots of guests in the Main Chapel. Some of them wear white, but many are in jeans and colorful flannel shirts. Like us, they are awaiting the arrival of the guru, and many have gotten caught up in the energy of the chanting. Several guests dance wildly in the back of the room.

Rick and I are relatively new residents. We moved in the previous winter, willingly taking vows of poverty in exchange for an opportunity to serve and sit at the feet of Yogi Desai, who we have taken as our guru. In this flashback, we are still squarely in what I think of as the “honeymoon stage” of our residency when we’ve not yet begun to question anything about the community or its leader. We’re just happy to be here. And on this night, I feel waves of gratitude flow through me for the unusual opportunity to live in a residential community like this one, where yoga takes center stage even though all of us work six-and-a-half days a week, unpaid, on behalf of the program center. I want nothing more than to dedicate my efforts to an endeavor that is greater than myself, and Kripalu feels like the perfect place to do this.

In this community, which is celibate outside of marriage, the single men, or brothers as we call them, sit on the left-hand side of the hall. Single women, or sisters, sit on the right. The married couples, Rick and I among them, sit in the middle, creating an unofficial buffer between the sexes.

The chant reaches a fever pitch. Despite the frigid conditions outside, the Chapel is warm with dancing bodies. The drummers are sweating. I am exactly where I want to be in this moment. I catch Rick’s eye and we exchange a quick smile before we lose ourselves again in dancing and singing.

A flurry of activity at the front of the room signals that the guru is about to enter. Someone blows a long note on a conch shell. The chant abruptly ceases. A door opens, and in walks Yogi Desai in a floor-length white robe with a long string of mala beads around his neck. His hands are in prayer position in front of his heart and he appears to float rather than walk over to the altar where he bows before the portrait of his guru. The whole room chants with him. “Bolo shri, sadaguru…” I catch a whiff of incense, or maybe it’s the guru’s scent, wafting back on an invisible current of air.

Yogi Desai settles himself in his big, upholstered chair and fusses with a microphone that he clips to the front of his robe. The crowd, seated on cushions on the carpeted floor, slowly settles into stillness. The guru closes his eyes and I close mine. There’s a sense of expectancy in the air as we await the guru’s words. It is several years before I will learn that many of his most pithy phrases and some of the themes around which he builds his seemingly extemporaneous talks come from Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, the guru of Rolls Royce fame. But in the flashback, I’m all ears as Yogi Desai chants Om three times and begins to speak.

It almost doesn’t matter what he says. That night in my memory isn’t about the talk. It’s about the sense of belonging, the camaraderie I feel with the people sitting around me, the remarkable experience of being with a group of like-minded and like-hearted souls all trying to follow the yamas and niyamas (yoga’s guiding moral precepts) and reach for the highest that yoga has to offer.

Around me on the floor, leaning forward to hear the guru’s talk or simply sitting with closed eyes, are more than 300 Kripalu residents. I feel a real bond with these people. We have opted into an unconventional life that feels right to us, despite the practical protestations of parents and others out there in “the world.” We have embarked on a shared endeavor that only a handful of people outside of this room can understand.

Knowing this is a flashback, I look around the Main Chapel again, savoring the sense of togetherness, aware that several years hence, Yogi Desai will be asked to leave after revelations surfaced of sexual improprieties with a number of women disciples. These same residents who are now listening closely to what the guru is saying will smash his big chair into splinters in anger over his betrayal. Framed photos of the guru will overflow from the big metal dumpster in the parking lot. Some of the people around me will actively try to take down the organization in the wake of the guru’s departure. Others will scatter like seeds in a great Kripalu diaspora that spreads former Kripalu residents throughout the country and the world. Some residents will stay on, lacking job prospects or another place to go. A few will stay because they actively want to support a new iteration of Kripalu, a post-guru yoga program center where people can make a good livelihood while still living out their yogic ideals.

But on the evening I see in my imagination, all of that is still in the future. The me who sits in front of the guru that night feels nothing but appreciation for the place and the circumstances in which she finds herself. The crowded room feels like home and the inner dissonance to come isn’t even a thought form in her inner world.

As I leave the memory behind and bring myself back to our bedroom in 2024, a warm sense of purposefulness, contentment, connection, and belonging comes with me. It lingers like a whiff of incense before it slowly fades.

Rick and I left the ashram ten months before the guru’s downfall. It’s too long a tale to go into here, but our departure had to do with the guru’s financial dealings and our realization that the idealistic views we held about Amrit Desai weren’t grounded in reality. Once that genie was out of the bottle, there was no stuffing it back inside. We couldn’t unknow what we knew, so we left and moved to Virginia, jumpstarting our lives near Roanoke.

Looking back at all this from my vantage point in 2024, I don’t regret any of it. The years in the ashram were formative and precious. They helped to shape who I am today. I still long for the sense of belonging and community I felt back then. It was unique – something not easily replicated in busy lives or today’s fractured society. But even if I can’t recapture what I felt in 1990, I’m glad I had the experience of being part of a great experiment and worthy group endeavor I truly believed in. We – all of us together during the ashram’s pinnacle of success – created a small, alternative universe, a hothouse for personal and spiritual growth. That it didn’t last isn’t surprising. That it contributed so much to my current life is worthy of deep appreciation. And when an occasional flashback offers me an opportunity to savor once again what we created – I don’t pass up the chance.

I’m grateful for rain in a season of drought, for clean air to breathe, and a beautiful, secluded place in which to live. I’m grateful for the ability to grow quiet, turn inside, and often be surprised at what I find. I’m grateful for the birds outside on the feeders, for their cheerful energy and their many melodies. I’m grateful for words and phrases, stanzas and paragraphs, and how words seem to arrive from somewhere beyond the mind to grace my page with meaning and delight. I’m grateful for my few good friends and how they lend listening, perspective, and love to my life. I’m grateful for my husband Richard, and a marriage that grows richer as we age. I’m grateful for books to read, art to make, for weaving and all my creative endeavors. I’m grateful for a relationship with the divine that sustains and nurtures, and sometimes downright amazes. I’m grateful for the time I’ve been given to review and learn from my life. I’m grateful to pause, reflect, and give thanks for the abundance and goodness I enjoy, and that there’s a national holiday dedicated to this purpose. My grateful heart is overflowing.

Throughout my high school years, there were two young men named Steve Williams in my class. Stephen B. Williams was blond, clean cut, ran track, and was on the soccer and wrestling teams. Steven J. Williams had dark hair and eyes that were deep pools of inscrutable mystery. There was an air of intrigue and rebellion that accompanied his long sideburns, beard, and bad boy attitude. His high school yearbook entry listed his nickname as “Che,” and there were no activities or honors after his name. I thought of the two of them as polar opposites: Stephen Light and Steven Dark. While Stephen Light was courteous, cute, and smart, he was absolutely not my type. Steven Dark, on the other hand, fascinated me from the first time I laid eyes on him.

Most of us had been in classes together since elementary school, but Stephen Dark appeared on the scene in 10th grade. Had he gone to Catholic school until them? Had he moved into the school district that summer? I can’t remember. But I do recall our mutual attraction junior year. The first time he invited me to his house, my mother dropped me off at a stunning split-level right on the water in the best part of Amityville. I could tell my mother was impressed. Steven opened the door in ripped jeans, a faded maroon tee shirt, and a smile that was somewhere between hopeful and bored. In the background, I heard music – exquisite vocal harmonies. The year was 1969, and this was my first introduction to Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I was instantly smitten, both with the music and with Steven.

He didn’t say much that first evening, but I learned that his mother had died several years before. His father had too quickly married a woman named Gloria who Steven clearly despised. He had a 16-year-old’s cold disdain for his father who he said had started dating Gloria while Steven’s mother was in the hospital, dying. He hinted that his father had something to do with the Sherwin Williams paint company, but offered no details. His father drove me home that night, to our tiny Cape Cod on the other side of town.

Steven seemed unaffected by our relative differences in wealth and class. He got an old, used Mustang that year, and often came to visit our small house, where we hung out in my attic bedroom, making out while listening to Judy Collins and Joan Baez, The first time he unexpectedly slid his tongue in my mouth during what I assumed would be a chaste kiss, I pushed him off me and asked him to leave. He looked at me with a mix of pity, hurt, and anger and said I had a lot to learn.

Our most common “dates” that year were drives to the ocean beaches a half-hour from home. Jones Beach was the closest, and the place we went most often, but sometimes we’d drive the extra distance to Robert Moses State Park to sit near the breakers, or seek shelter from the wind in the dunes. It wasn’t uncommon for the two of us to say almost nothing as we watched the sun set, holding each other close to stay warm. Steven was often moody and distant, even when we were physically close. I never felt like I knew or understood him. While ours wasn’t an easy relationship, we were both seeking connection, approval, and a port in the storm of our teenaged confusion. I considered myself “in love,” whatever that meant to a 16-year-old with oversized expectations. I was intensely attracted to Steven, but also wary. “Good girls don’t do it,” had been drummed into me for as long as I could remember.

I sensed that Steven was grieving his mother’s death and nursing the grudge he held against his father. He began spending more and more time in the home of the Hollister’s, a counter-culture family who had a big sailboat, lived right on the water, and allowed Steven to crash in a spare bedroom. They had two kids near our age who went to private school. They were a hippie family, where the parents smoked dope with their teenage kids. The house was a hangout for a fascinating parade of people – activists who had participated in the civil rights movement in the early sixties, writers, socialists. I learned that Mrs. Hollister had been previously married to the author L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Steven took me out sailing on the Hollister’s boat and was an excellent sailor – a skill I did not share. He teased me about living so close to the Great South Bay but never learning my way around a sailboat.

It was at the Hollister’s house, after one of our excursions on the Bay, that Steven first offered me a joint. I declined. He didn’t push the issue, but looked surprised. I had an innate and strong sense that drugs of any kind, even marijuana, were not a good idea for me. My mental state always felt fragile and the idea of being even a little out of control scared me. With each visit to the Hollister’s, Steven offered me a changing array of pot and hashish. I continued to say no, even though he sometimes made fun of me.

The summer between our junior and senior years, Steven invited me to a party at the home of a mutual friend. He picked me up in the Mustang, and after we arrived, he made the rounds of the kids standing in clusters in the back yard before disappearing into the house. I had a few brief conversations, but felt awkward, a stranger in a strange land. When Steven reappeared nearly an hour later, he informed me he had dropped acid and asked if I wanted to join him. I did not. He drifted off into the crowd. It slowly dawned on me that everyone else at the party was tripping. Feeling as if I stuck out like a sore thumb, I reached for my paper cup of Pepsi and was stung by a yellow jacket crawling up the side of the cup. I found some ice cubes to hold on the sting, and tried hard not to cry from the pain and a sense of emotional abandonment. As the ice melted and my hand began to swell, I went inside, found a phone in the kitchen, called home, and asked my father to pick me up.

I felt out of place as more and more of my peers experimented with drugs, although I continued to be clear that getting high or tripping was not a good idea for me. Steven tried to make up with me after the party by taking me to a nice restaurant overlooking the Bay the following weekend, bringing a corsage for me to wear as we ate our eggplant parmesan. But the party had interrupted my fascination with Steven, and allowed me to see his neediness and bravado in a new light. We never actually “broke up,” but we never successfully repaired our relationship either. We attended a few more dances together, took several more walks along the ocean, and he brought me to the Hollister’s house for New Year’s Eve the following winter. We marked the beginning of 1970 by sitting in their deserted house (the family was partying elsewhere), mostly in silence, watching the Christmas lights strung on the mast of their sailboat bob up and down on the tide. Although we sat close on the couch, there was a palpable sadness between us, a shared though unacknowledged knowing that we were done as a couple.

Had I ever really loved Steven? It was my first adult attraction, the first time I’d daydreamed about someone, wondering if our relationship might have a future, But Steven never really let me into his inner world, and I was too confused to let him into mine. We talked politics and activism, but not about feelings, fears, or hopes. I began dating other guys. Steven moved on too, writing in my yearbook at the end of our senior year, “No regrets, but it felt so strange to walk away alone.”

Many times during the year we were together, I’d asked Steven what his middle name was. Because there were two Steve Williams, their initials were often included when teachers called on them in class. Steven J. and Stephen B. What did the J. stand for? Steven never told me, replying that it stood for Jeezus (that’s how he spelled it). My mother referred to him as Steven Jeezus, not to his face of course, but when I headed off to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. in the fall of 1970, I assumed I’d seen the last of Steven Jeezus. Only a few weeks into my first college semester, Steven showed up unannounced at the front door of my dormitory, certain I’d be thrilled to see him. I wasn’t. My women’s dorm did not allow men to stay overnight. He urged me to break the rules, but I had a roommate and was none too pleased at this in-the-flesh reminder of a painful past I preferred to forget. I summoned up my courage and asked him to leave.

Steven was enterprising, sexy, and charismatic. He took up with a Dickinson senior named Donna who lived off campus and was part of the very small and radical SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) chapter at Dickinson. Steven ended up staying in her apartment for several weeks. When we ran into each other on campus, I was polite, but definitely not interested. It was awkward having him around, but I had new friends, a reading list as long as my arm, and a desire to leave my Long Island past behind and make a fresh start. My mother and father drove into town for parents’ weekend in mid-October. When they left on Sunday, they spotted Steven with his thumb out, standing on the entry ramp to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They picked him up and drove him back to Amityville.

Steven showed up one more time in my life. It was 1982, not long after I’d left my first husband and was living alone in a small apartment in Carlisle. Steven and I had spoken occasionally by phone over the years and at that point in my life, I was lonely and so was he. Steven was living communally in a Catholic Worker house in Washington, DC, working with the poor and homeless, and he overflowed with stories about Dorothy Day and her radical Catholic activism. He took the bus to Carlisle and we spent a weekend getting reacquainted, wondering if the timing was finally right for us as a couple, and if we had enough in common to try again. I went with him to Saturday evening mass, feeling very much out of my element in a Catholic church. The night after the service, we ended up in a wrestling match on my mattress. He wanted to make love, and I didn’t. I banished him to the couch. He complied, but only after a few cutting remarks aimed in my direction.

We spent an uneasy Sunday trying unsuccessfully to re-establish rapport. Early Monday morning, I drove him back to northern Virginia where I had a law library conference beginning at 10 AM. Dropping him off at the Arlington Metro station, I joined a queue of cars with one spouse seeing the other off to take the subway into work, Getting into the spirit of our surroundings, Steven leaned across the car, kissed me on the lips, and chirped, “Bye, honey! Have a good day!” He sprinted to the entrance of the Metro, where he turned and waved before disappearing down the escalator. That’s the last time we saw each other.

Steven and I exchanged a few letters after that. He married at some point and had two kids before the marriage broke up and his ex-wife got custody. He’d always loved sailing and was pursuing a lifelong dream of crewing on big sailboats between Maine and Florida. He adored his kids but didn’t see them as often as he wished because he was spending weeks at a time on one sailboat or another. I let him know I was happily married, and we eventually lost touch.

It’s now more than 40 years since we were last together, and 53 since we graduated from high school. Thanks to his refusal to tell me his real middle name, looking him up online has proven futile. There are too many men named Steven J. Williams out there. With 38 years of marriage under my belt, I have no romantic interest in Steven, but I would like to know how the rest of his life turned out. Whether it was first love, first lust, or first real heartbreak, Steven stands out in my memory – those dark, sad eyes, the slightly taunting smile that always left me wondering what he really thought of me. Steven, if you ever read this, I sincerely hope you’ve had a good life.

Part Two

As I read back over this tale of teenage angst and romance, I became aware of a silent subtext that went unaddressed in my initial writing because I knew nothing about it at the time I was with Steven. Only in my sixties did I realize that I’d been sexually molested as a young child. The memory of that event had been so successfully locked away in my unconscious that it didn’t surface for decades after my last encounter with Steven. That early trauma made my relationship with him even more volatile than it would have been simply as a result of adolescent hormones and social awkwardness.

Looking back on my teens, I had no idea why sex was such a charged issue. Why did I react with something akin to panic when Steven’s tongue forced its way into my mouth? Why did I push him off me with strength I didn’t even know I possessed and tell him in no uncertain terms to leave? I wasn’t trying to be a good girl. The trauma I’d repressed so completely reared up to keep me from being violated again. I was as confused as Steven by the intensity of my reaction.

And when it came to drugs, I watched as friends smoked pot and let the drug loosen their inhibitions. Something deep but insistent told me I couldn’t afford to do that. I needed to always be on alert, in my “right mind,” and hypervigilant to a danger I couldn’t define. I didn’t smoke pot until my sophomore year of college, and then only once as an undergraduate, because I didn’t like feeling out of control.

Reading over what I wrote, I realized that I never considered Stephen B. Williams, (Stephen Light) as a potential boyfriend because I believed I would only be of interest to the misfits of the world. After all, I was a misfit myself, always feeling “other,” not belonging to the in crowd or hanging out with the cool kids. My parents thought they were doing me a favor by reading the pop psychology book, I’m Okay, You’re Okay and coming away with a new label for me. I was their “not-okay child.” Take that label into a teen social scene and the results were predictable. As a wounded kid, I steered clear of the boys like Stephen Light, who were well-adjusted and self-confident, and sought out other wounded souls. Steven Dark was chief among them.

So much of what Steven and I dealt with in our relationship – our inability to communicate, our protracted silences, the depression and despair we shared – all of it sprang from our past traumas. In my case, I wasn’t even aware that anything problematic had happened to me. We were doomed by our cluelessness, by a lack of language to talk about feelings, and by an incapacity to recognize our own wounds.

It has been an interesting exercise to look back on my first love from the hindsight offered now, seeing the ways the early sexual trauma shaped my actions. If someone had asked me at the time if anything bad had happened to me as a kid, I would have pointed to the time I was put on the wrong bus in first grade and ended up miles from home, the only kid who hadn’t been dropped off. I might have mentioned wetting the bed until I was twelve. But sexual abuse? I had no idea. It’s a gift to see the past with a little more clarity, to have the clouds of unknowing part even just a bit.

I thank my friend Grace for writing about her own first love in an essay so compelling it prompted me to write this one. It is small steps like this that loosen the grip of trauma and leave me a little freer. I wish the same for Steven, wherever he may be.

Danna Spitzform Faulds

September 24, 2023

This is what I have to say to you. What’s next is allowing accepting, connecting, reflecting, and abiding in peace with every aspect of your being. What’s next is doing what’s yours to do until there is no doing left. The rest has never been in your control and certainly isn’t now, so why concern yourself with it? Instead, live in openness and wonder, letting love teach you what you need to know. Ask what’s on your mind whenever you feel the need for guidance and I will do my best to reply. Today is a good day to shine.

My husband Rick and I bike rail-trails as often as we can. There is a particularly fine, paved trail system in the vicinity of Franklin, Pennsylvania that we recently spent three days exploring. On our last day, needing an easy ride, we biked the trail between Franklin and Oil City, a seven-mile stretch along the Allegheny River that has, in the past, offered us views of great blue herons, merganser ducks, river turtles on rocks, and groundhogs scurrying off the path as we approached.

We noticed a new bench in a recently cleared area not far from Oil City, and stopped to investigate, finding an attractive sidewalk with four compass points showing us which direction we were facing. Making our way to the end of the sidewalk, we read this inscription on the back of the bench: “In memory of Suzette Nellis, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, A Life Well Lived.” As I read the words, the sound of wind chimes rose and fell with the breeze. The tones were deep and resonant, adding a contemplative note to the space that surprised me.

Even more surprising was the fact that although both Rick and I clearly heard the chimes, we couldn’t find them. There were no chimes near the bench, and none visible in the trees along the river. There were no houses in the vicinity, and the opposite shore of the river was too far away for sound to carry. Perplexed, we left the sidewalk and walked across packed dirt, newly cleared of brush, toward the trees at the river’s edge. Still no wind chimes. Finally, Rick looked up and pointed – “There they are!” he exclaimed. A huge set of wind chimes hung far overhead, from a big branch. It would have taken a cherry-picker to hang those chimes so high, but the effect was mesmerizing.

We sat down on the bench and thanked Suzette Nellis and her family for such a comfortable seat, graced by the sound of the river and the ethereal tones of the wind chimes. I said a quick prayer for Suzette’s soul, imagining a local woman who had died of cancer or a stroke. The place was clearly in process. It looked like plantings might be added, and maybe gravel would eventually surround the walkway. A stone pedestal was in place that might one day hold a marker or memorial. But even in its unfinished state, the space felt so special that I made a conscious effort to remember Suzette’s name so I could look up her obituary when we got back to the car. I thought we might be able to write her family a note saying how much we, as bikers from out of town, appreciated the memorial they created.

It felt like a visceral punch in the gut to learn that Suzette Nellis was murdered as she walked on the trail this past March. Her body was found near the current memorial. A suspect had been arrested in April and charged with murder, rape, kidnapping, and aggravated assault. I was stunned. The juxtaposition of that lovely spot and its wind-chime accompaniment with the brutality of Suzette’s rape and murder was hard to take in.

As I read through the online articles, it became apparent that Suzette loved the trail and walked a mile of it nearly every day she could. She was a founding member of a prayer chain in her church, and she often used her daily walks to pray for people on the chain. The trail was a place that brought her closer to nature’s beauty and closer to God’s presence. Nothing can make sense of a 76-year old woman being brutally attacked as she walked and prayed on a March afternoon. But her family and community quickly rallied around the idea of creating a meditative and beautiful space in Suzette’s honor. Rick and I had been the unwitting beneficiaries of their plan coming to fruition.

As a survivor of childhood sexual trauma, Suzette’s death feels personal to me. I know what it is like to be overpowered, to be unable to fight off an attacker, to have a man so negate my personhood that I’ve lived with the psychological consequences for a lifetime. Despite all I’ve done to heal, Suzette’s story haunts me. Violence against girls and women haunts me. The randomness and cruelty of the world haunts me. The fact that there is no safety in this relative world haunts me. And yet, what a beautiful place that trail is, with the Allegheny River flowing strong beside it. What a wonder it is to let each moment of beauty and grief touch and change me, inviting me not into cynicism or fear but a full-bodied embrace of whatever life remains to me. I thank Suzette and her family for the reminder of life’s fragility and preciousness. I thank the wind chimes for carrying my prayers on high.

So here’s the thing, the remarkable thing; That which has no name, though I could label it the presence of God, is right here. I’m not kidding. It’s right here all the time. It’s here in my overactive mind and here in peace and quiet. I sit inside it as I meditate and it’s inside me while I’m picking green beans in the garden. It is tangible and intangible, the most important thing imaginable and so subtle that it’s easy to miss. It’s absolutely impersonal and as personal as a kiss. What a privilege to live with the mystery as a constant companion – except when I get distracted and forget that the shining is right here. It welcomes me the moment I remember, not with words, but warmth, not with fireworks, but silent, centered love. It’s a wondrous thing that truth is this accessible. It doesn’t take a priest’s intercession or perfection, just openness and the desire to know the whole – the light, the dark, and everything of which I am a part.

This is what I have to day to you. It is no hyperbole to say the inner mysteries can be penetrated today by simply saying yes and staying open. In this moment, choose to know what you know and be what you are already. Here’s the first step. Breathe in love and breathe out doubt. When all your doubt has been exhaled, rest in the faith that remains. This isn’t blind faith or faith in some dogma or creed. It’s the certainty, deep in your being, that you are loved for who you are without the need to change or prove yourself worthy. What a blessed relief from the mind’s refrain that you must be different somehow, better, the new improved version of yourself. No! Just as you are right now, love surrounds and fills you. Receive it. Believe it. Love is what you are and always will be. That’s the mystery at the heart of everything. Love, shining like Venus in the evening sky. Love with no preconditions.

Awake to creative stirrings; awake to a dream image of a gorgeous autumn tree bursting into flames; awake to the desire to pray and draw close to the divine; awake to the notion that since I don’t drink alcohol, wine can turn into water instead of the reverse; awake to happy wren song; awake to a playful sense of mischief and wanting a good belly laugh; awake to settling, listening, welcoming, opening, allowing; awake to arriving and a sense of being home; awake to the nobility of trees; awake to sitting in the mystery with no agenda; awake to quiet, peace, and no need to do anything; awake to inner space and everything it has taken for me to reach this place. Grateful, grateful, grateful.

When I retired from my part-time job editing program descriptions for Kripalu Center in August, 2018, I relished the ability to go biking mid-week or thread my loom any time I wanted. But I didn’t really let go of my work-for-pay mentality all at once. In fact, I went from working for Kripalu to putting together my seventh book of poetry and getting the book to the printer. Then I started writing a memoir, and although that was an on-again, off-again project with many interruptions, it occupied a good bit of disk space in my psyche for years. I experimented with visual artwork and did more weaving. In short, I simply shifted my go-go work ethic over to new projects without slowing down much at all. The pandemic brought a new awareness of unhurried time. With nowhere to go and no one visiting, days felt oddly spacious. Sometime in the first year of the pandemic, I took off my wrist watch, put it on my bedside table, and never put it back on. Time felt more fluid, and days less rigid. The battery in my watch ran out and I never replaced it. Sure, I had my smartphone to remind me of the time, and we have a chiming clock at home that sounded every quarter hour so I knew that time was passing, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t living strictly by the clock’s demands. To create a day based on what I wanted to do rather than what I had to do felt like the height of luxury to me. There were certainly chores that had to be accomplished and meals that needed to be prepped and cooked, but even there, I felt more leeway than before. Was it really a big deal if the lawn got cut today as opposed to tomorrow? And while I aimed to eat by 7:30 in the evening, wasn’t 7:45 just fine most days? Little by little, I began to slow down. And as I slowed down, it felt to me that time speeded up. Days zipped by without giving me a chance to get to the many things that interested me. Weeks flew past and it was suddenly Friday again, when it seemed I’d just finished Monday. I think of the stage I’m in now as “savoring.” I’ve slowed down enough to truly savor the experience I’m having in the moment. I might be filling a bird feeder or watering the vegetable garden. I could be pulling weeds from our gravel driveway or speaking to a friend on the phone. Maybe I’m just gazing out the sliding glass door at the woodpecker on the suet feeder. Sometimes even a mundane chore like making the bed or folding laundry feels like a delight. When I am not in a hurry, when I don’t have things that absolutely have to be done by a specific time, savoring feels like the natural result. With savoring comes a heightened awareness of divine presence. Or maybe I’m just able to remember more often now that something much bigger than me is at play here, and if I pay attention, I might catch a glimpse, get a taste or hint of that greater consciousness. This makes days feel blessed and special even when I’m doing the most ordinary things. I am curious what will come next in the unfolding gift that is retirement. Is there a stage beyond savoring? Is there an even more mindful way to go through my day? Is there a new chapter I haven’t even imagined up to now? I’ll keep you posted.

This is what I have to say to you. Put your expectations, assumptions, imaginings, and judgments aside. Simply be right here in this unfolding moment. What if you just rest in what is, instead of trying to bend reality so it fits your picture of a perfect meditation? What if it’s just your awareness, opening and closing, letting presence in or pushing it away? What if there’s no need to do anything at all – not even pray? What if this is the day you stop seeking long enough to realize you’ve never been lost. Let yourself be found, right here, in all your glorious imperfection. Sacred inhalation. Holy exhalation. What if there is nothing left to do but breathe in God and breathe out God? Nothing but this breath as love grows and light shows itself to be your own heart. You will end your meditation on the cushion, but this presence never ends. It’s with you always and forever.

Right here, there is solace, strength, spaciousness, and safety. There is openness and the opportunity to be free of anything that isn’t divinity. Right now, love pulses like a heartbeat within you. Love. Love. Love. Even silence transmits love.

I say this to all who carry guilt, remorse, regret, or any of a million weighty shames. Place your burdens on the altar of the earth, release them to the open sky, or toss them in the fire. Give up the old ways you’ve held yourself back, kept yourself small, or found it impossible to bring forth the light within you. You were born to shine, not hide in darkness. You exist to share your gifts, not turn your back on joy.

You may have many burdens or you may have only one. Begin with releasing something here, right now. Big or small – it doesn’t matter. Let go of something that keeps you from being fully alive and vitally immersed in the task of growing whole. Inside you is a shining star waiting to be seen and freed. That inner glow, that God spark at the core is aching to come forth. May this be the day of your release.

This is what I have to say to you. Just settle. Everything you need to be at peace is right here. Yes, your mind is agitated. Yes, your emotions are all over the map. Yes, your body hurts. All of that is true, but so is the thread of presence that runs right through the center of you. Follow that thread back to its source and right there at the intersection of seen and unseen, you’ll find peace.

This isn’t a nice story told to soothe you. This is how the universe works. Presence is everywhere. So is chaos, anxiety, and fear. Choose what you tune into. Choose where you rest your attention. I tell you peace and ease are right here for the experiencing. Love is your essence, even now.

Open up and out. Open in and through. What you most desire is already within you. Know it for yourself by opening, experiencing, and receiving. Amen.

This is what I have to say to you. Oh, that holy moment of unknowing when the pen is poised above the page. Don’t rush to fill the void. Instead, feel your openness. Words will come and pour themselves onto paper, but there’s something sacred about simply being receptive, like a radio telescope before the signal is received.

Imagine a message forming out there, or in there, words assembling into phrases and sentences. Imagine that exactly what you need to hear comes clear. Here. Write this down: Trust your life today. There are no mistakes. Whatever issues you are wrestling with are actually gifts – lessons tailored just for you, a perfect fit for what you need. Feel what you feel and also remember that feelings and emotions aren’t all of you. Dare to be your whole and wildly creative self today. That’s it for now, though you are free to check in later to see if there is more.

The shape the psyche takes in childhood is affected by so many factors – parental reactions and maturity, surely, and the societal surround – but also how the child perceives her place in the bigger scheme. Is she safe or is she threatened? Can she be herself, or is a masquerade required to survive? And when it does not go well early on, can she find a path of transformation and walk it through the seasons of her life? If that path is real, if it beckons, if it keeps leading into unknown territory, then it’s never too late to learn a new way of being in the world.

I can say this with certainty, because at the ripe age of 62, I embarked on a journey that didn’t just shift my perspective, it made space for more light, love, acceptance, and inner peace. It opened doors and waited for me to find the courage to walk through them. The journey changed everything – and it continues to this day.

Two evenings ago, I heard a story on NPR about Venus and Jupiter appearing close in the western sky. My husband and I threw on our coats and walked outside. The two planets looked like jewels, a stunning sight in a star-strewn night. Something about their conjunction struck a chord of awe in me. Even after the planets had dipped below the horizon and we were back inside, I felt more alive and present. I’d been gifted a precious sight – a moment of astronomical wonder – and it nudged me out of my humdrum routine into a deeper appreciation of nature’s beauty.

The next day we walked along the Maury River, a half-hour south of our house. We went to see if the bloodroot were out, those bright white wildflowers that herald the coming of spring in our part of Virginia. There were only a few fully open, with many more in bud. We reveled at a profusion of them on a south-facing hillside. But what really caught my attention was a tantalizing and unfamiliar scent wafting across the trail. I sniffed my way to the source – tiny white flowers on brushy shrubs. Clueless about this plant, I opened the Seek app on my phone which identified them as winter honeysuckle. I felt a shiver of awe. If heaven has a scent, it just might be winter honeysuckle. Having a name for the flowers satisfied my curious mind and allowed me to simply appreciate the miniscule blossoms. The plants might be invasive, but they made the day memorable, reminding me that something entirely new can come into my life at any moment, if I’m open to it.

A little further along the trail we came upon an old homesite covered with hundreds of nodding daffodils. A ruined set of stone steps marked the location of a long-gone house. I could see how the daffodils lined what would have been its two sides and imagined someone a hundred years ago lovingly planting the bulbs, hoping that someday they would multiply into a sight like this. I said a quick inner thanks to the planter for giving me this sea of yellow trumpets. Mare awe at the thread connecting this moment of golden loveliness to that long ago bulb planter, spurred on by the hope inherent in spring flowers.

And finally this morning, I stepped onto the quarter-mile trail through the woods that links our yard to the main road just as it began to rain. I paused for a moment, deciding whether or not to continue, when from the woods came a birdcall I’ve come to know – the ack-ack-ack of a nesting Cooper’s hawk. This is the third spring in a row I’ve been serenaded by the Cooper’s hawks who raise their young among the tall white pines adjoining our home. Another quiver of awe. “They’re back!” I thought, excited at the prospect of watching the fledgling hawks learn to hunt, turning from inept flyers to lethal predators in a matter of weeks. I am grateful they chose to let me know they’re here.

What links these moments of awe like pearls on a string? The obvious answer is nature, in all her wondrous expressions. But they are also joined by receptivity, by an openness to experience, by having enough space inside me that I can notice and appreciate the world around me instead of being beaten down by worries and inner voices pointing out my many flaws. At the age of seventy, I no longer feel forced to raise defenses against some enemy, real or imagined. I can receive what life offers up and let it touch me to my core, that inner source of awe. More and more, I give myself permission to be changed by what is both precious and mundane – by twinkling planets in the night sky, by blossoms and scents, by the presence of a hawk that will undoubtedly kill some of the songbirds I love and feed. It’s all of a piece, this awestruck life, and the whole cloth that nature weaves is indescribably moving to me. I pray to remain receptive, attuned, willing to notice the gifts that life so generously gives, aware that a simple moment of inner receptivity can reawaken me to how special life is.

There is a way and you will find it. There is a way and it will be made clear to you. Stay open. Resist the Siren song of despair. There is a way through pain that culminates in joy. There is a way that winds through dark places but doesn't stay there. The way may dip beneath the surface of the earth for a time, traversing bleak tunnels and damp chambers with no light. Remember you can shape-shift. Remember you can fly. Remember you were not born to be weighted down by suffering but to know divine presence and delight. There is a way and you are on it. Trust the direction that calls to you. The way is awake within you. The way, the truth, and the light are the trinity of divine revelation. Receive them and be changed. Dare to surrender again and again. The way is a beacon you cannot ignore.

What does it take to shine with inner light? It takes finding the spark of the divine inside my heart and inviting it to grow brighter. It takes believing that connection exists – cherishing it, focusing on the energy and love that flows in from the unseen. It takes practice and the willingness to come back to inner truth when my mind gets caught in thought loops. It takes remembering that light is my birthright and shining is possible for every human, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in. It takes saying yes again and again to who and what I really am. It takes courage and vulnerability to let what’s inside shine forth. It takes living my whole life as if that inner presence is the most important truth in my existence – because it is. It takes putting aside doubt, self-judgment, and despair to be an open channel for the divine to use for her own purposes.

This is what I have to say to you. Try this on for size. What if you truly trusted your Self? Think about the ramifications of that choice. It means trusting that you - just as you are - will be sufficient to meet every challenge that comes to you in life. It means you don't have to be anxious, worried, or fearful because you will always be enough. You can count on yourself not to disappear when times get tough. You can overcome everything that shaped you and choose to be a loving and creative woman, connected to the source within. Trust your connection. Trust that all is well, because you know that to be true. Trust life in all its intricate permutations. Trust yourself as I do.

This is what I have to say to you. On the eve of Thanksgiving, I remind you that gratitude opens a door through which blessings continually pour. When you are consciously appreciative of the gifts in your life, even more gifts appear as if by magic. It’s more magnetism than magic, actually, as gratitude has an attractant quality that draws blessings in its direction. When you are glad and grateful, it’s as if you send a resounding “yes” out into the universe, which returns the “yes” a thousand-fold. Keep your gratitude channels open today and stay awake to what comes your way as a result.

I think it comes down to accepting the whole weird, wonderful, warped and wild package that is me. When I stop trying to change myself, trying to get everything right, I actually like the quirky and creative one who peeks out from behind a barely open closet door.

“It’s safe to come out,” I tell her. “It’s safe to be your unfolding and outrageous Self. It’s okay that your life looks different from other people’s. Your eccentricities are what they are. Why not celebrate your sensitivities, welcome your unique strengths and weaknesses. Dare to be who you really are.”

She’s smiling now, and pushes the door open a little wider. “It’s all good,” I say. “The shoulds and the shouldn’ts, the mights, can’ts, and maybes. It’s safe to come out and play today. There’s no end to growing, learning, knowing, evolving, praying, and saying what’s true.” She’s clearly listening, and she slowly steps outside the closet, into the light.

She is me at three or four, shy but curious. “Just as you are, I love you,” I say. “Everything about you matters to me.” She looks a little dazed. She walks over and hugs me. The child I was and the woman I’ve become are one and the same at last. There’s nothing to do now but dance.

This is what I have to say to you. Harvest the wisdom of your years and enjoy the fruits of all your life experiences. It isn't about tooting your own horn, but simply taking in what life has brought you. It is a time for gratitude and full expression, of unabashed silliness and unshackled joy. In these upcoming days, know your Self as you never have before. Inside the vastness of God, choose not to shrink or hide. This is your time to shine.

This is what I have to say to you. Whatever is left to be expressed in you – art or love, writing or wonder, doing or being, giving or receiving, praying or meditating – let it come into the world in the days and weeks ahead. If ever you had a green light to be your whole, creative soul, now is the time. Let turning seventy be your ticket into joy and full expression. Let this be the freest you’ve ever allowed yourself to be. This is your year to shine.

This is what I have to say to you. Greet me in the morning with your joy. Greet me at mid-day with peace in your heart even though you are fully engaged in a rich and satisfying life. Greet me with ease in the evening when the doing of the day is done. Bid me good night with love as you slip inside the realm of dreams. Know that I am with you always. Find me when you meditate and pray, but realize that I am also in the sudden flash of hawk wings and the slow turn of trees toward fall. Find me in starlight and that spacious, open inner place when you let go and trust that I am the truest knowing of your soul. You are mine and I am yours. So it has been forever and so will it always be. Amen.

Here are your instructions for the day. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. Assume everything will work out in the best possible way. I know you incline toward anxiety, so counteract that inclination with love. What if, all day, you live in love? Whenever you catch yourself growing anxious, come back to love. Let the shining presence within you be the dominant feature of your inner landscape. This is a new chapter of your life in which you really can be yourself and bring what you know in your heart into action in your day. After all, if divine presence is always with you, doesn’t that change everything?

There's nothing like a hot flash to bring me right back to material reality. Heat and sweat and that prickly sensation rising up my spine... Another opportunity to know God.

This is what I have to say to you. When words fall away, trust that something better than words is about to make your acquaintance. Call it love, call it truth, call it God, call it energy pouring in from Source. What comes when you are silent, will never disappoint.

July 27, 2022

This is what I have to say to you. Open the portal that leads from here to there – not that the divine can’t slip inside through a thousand cracks in your defenses anyway – but let your invitation to God be conscious. Make contact with the inexpressible, and once you’ve done that, receive the light and love and grace that continuously flow into you from the unseen and the infinite. Sit within this mystery. Be an open channel for the immeasurable to fill you up and spill over into the world. This requires a willingness to drop mental filters and take down emotional walls, but you already know how to do this somewhere in the center of your soul. Simply be the whole of your experience, allowing the mystery to expand you past your boundaries. Let it be a joyous journey, a wonder-filled experiment. And when your meditation time is up, bring as much of that divine presence into your daily life as you can. There really are no limits to your intimacy with God except the ones you place on your relationship. Amen.

I think “Let love in” is the best instruction I can receive or give. I resolve to let love in today in whatever way I can. I’m not naïve. I see the war dragging on in Ukraine. I see inflation making it harder for families to put food on the table. I see climate change wreaking havoc and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And yet, and still, the moment I turn inside, love is there to meet me – full blown, no-holds-barred, unconditional love, the love of All That Is for its totality. Because I exist, I am loved, and so are you, but it takes a shift of consciousness to know this. It takes dropping below thoughts, feelings, judgments, and fears to land here, in the enormity of love. I try to soak it in and share it where I can. And I try to remind myself it’s here, this ocean of love, when it seems the forces of darkness are winning.

I have only one word to offer you today and that is forward. Forward through a changing landscape. Forward no matter your mood. Pause until your next step is clear and then take it with no hesitation. If your choice is between enthusiasm and curiosity or dullness and despair, is there really a choice? Dare to go forward even when the ocean of fear is speaking its dire warnings in your ear. Go forward despite obstacles. This is a time for forward momentum and not giving up.

Forward is a direction, an intention, a belief in your own capabilities and a refusal to be paralyzed by fear. Forward is as much a state of mind as action. Go forward into this day knowing you can do what’s yours to do, successfully and even with a little joy. Amen.

I will turn 70 this fall, but in the days since the draft Supreme Court opinion was leaked, I have spent a lot of time with my 19-year-old self. It was the spring of 1972, a year before Roe v. Wade was handed down. I was a college sophomore, a French major with plans to spend first semester of my Junior year in France. When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified, engulfed in a wave of shame and guilt.

I knew that I couldn’t tell my parents. I knew that I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s mother. Although my boyfriend said he would marry me if I chose to have the child, I noted that he couldn’t look me in the eyes while making that offer. I knew he wasn’t ready to be a husband or a father. I can’t say how I knew all these things when it felt like my body and mind were frozen in dread and paralyzed by the enormity of the decision facing me, but I knew.

I look at that 19-year-old, her long hair hiding her face, and see a girl/woman trying to make the right decision with no good options before her. How much worse it would have been if abortion had not been legal in a state to which she could afford to travel. What if that young woman had been forced by circumstances, poverty, or laws into bearing a child she didn’t want and lacked the maturity to care for? I can still feel her desperation as she realized that any choice she made would result in loss. In the end, it seemed the least harm and most potential good would come from terminating the pregnancy, which is what she did, in a glass-fronted clinic in Manhattan when she was about seven and a half weeks pregnant.

There were so many paradoxes in the decision that 19-year-old had to make. It was, on the one hand, a life-affirming choice, a clear and resounding statement that her life mattered, her future mattered, what she knew about herself and her needs mattered. At the same time, denying birth to the potential child within her was saying to that seed being, “I’m so sorry, but I cannot nurture you. I cannot bring you into this world.” It was if she stood in the middle of a bridge. On one side was loss – the deepest loss she’d known in her young life. On the other side was liberation and a chance to really live, albeit with a heavy cloak of shame and sadness draped around her shoulders. How, at 19, could she hold these seemingly contradictory truths and not be split in two?

She did it by focusing on the practical aspects of her decision -- getting a bank check for the proper amount made out to Women’s Reproductive Health Services; researching the bus schedule; making reservations for the night before the procedure at a hotel the clinic recommended. She wasn’t alone on the trip. Her boyfriend went with her, carrying her suitcase up the stairs to the threadbare hotel room and finding a place for them to eat the evening before the abortion. He waited with her through the paperwork and questions at the clinic and was there to put his arms around her when she was released. He opened the clinic door for her as they walked back out into the glare and jackhammers of a late May day in New York City.

But a different door had already closed between them, though neither one of them recognized it at the time. The enormity of the situation stripped them both bare of their illusions. Inwardly she whispered farewell to the lovely fantasies they’d spun about their future together. It was just a matter of time before his letter would reach her in France the following fall, informing her that he was moving on.

The 19-year-old was left with the sense that she’d done something unforgiveable. She carried that cross for several decades until she finally sought the counsel of a compassionate Episcopal priest and went through the rite of confession. Absolved by the church, she then had to face the harder work of forgiving herself.

I look her in the eye, my 19-year-old self and say, “If you could have done it better, you would have. You did the absolute best you could under extremely challenging circumstances. You did the right thing. And I can say that because I’ve lived your life. I’ve walked from there to here. I love you. I’m with you. It’s all okay – you made the only choice you could have made that day, and it was the right choice.

I hold her in my arms, that 19-year-old, and think of all the women like her the Supreme Court ruling will devastate. My heart breaks for each of them. Today, in May of 2022, I am aware that I received the results of my pregnancy test when I was six weeks along – right at the point states like Texas now prohibit all abortions. Even moving as quickly as I could to jump through the required hoops, the procedure I had fifty years ago would be outlawed in several states today, with many more to follow if the Supreme Court’s leaked draft ruling stands.

I remind the 19-year-old that she won’t always feel so grief-stricken, alone, or irredeemable. I tell her that there is poetry in the world even if there is no poetry in her present moment, and she will write some fine poems in her time. But I can find no poetry in the Supreme Court’s choice to overthrow Roe v. Wade. I see in it only profound overreach and suffering for many – a step backwards to a time when women had fewer rights, fewer choices, and less control over their own destiny.

The 19-year-old and the nearly 70-year-old both weep. We each wish there could be a different outcome – then and now.

Danna Faulds

May 6, 2022

This is what I have to say to you. You can do this. Moment by moment. Day by day. Next thing by next thing. Morning, afternoon, evening, night. You can do this. Meet each challenge, each obstacle, with the assumption you can rise to the occasion and with faith and creativity you can go through, around, under, over -- or you can learn to fly. You can rewire your system to believe in your own capacities. You can keep going forward. You can do this!

This is what I have to say to you. Take your time today. I realize it’s a trite phrase, too often used and little followed, but I mean what I say. Take. Your. Time. Refuse to be hurried, rushed, hasty, or impatient. Make it yours, the walk to the mailbox, the daily chores, the e-mails and to-do list. Bring your whole Self with you into each moment and this will be a memorable occasion, not just another date crossed off a busy week. Take. Your. Time, even if you get less done and the sun sets before you are ready. What matters is your presence, your noticing, your choice to stay aware. What matters is remaining grateful, open-hearted, and in the flow of love. Beginning with this breath, take nothing in your life for granted. Amen.

There is nothing to do but attune to the One – that sun at the center of all systems. And what does it mean to attune? It means to vibrate at the same frequency, to let go into the whole and surrender control to the divine. It means knowing what I know and allowing truth to shine through in moments of clarity and grace. It means floating in the current that pours in from Source and not doubting I belong there. It means giving body, mind, and heart to the One they came from and realizing my soul has been there all along, hobnobbing with angels. What I really want to say is attunement is a natural turn toward love that happens when I get out of my own way. It isn’t so much a doing as an intentional choosing. When I tune my dial to the God channel, life and love flow in. The music on that channel always moves me.

Holy mystery, keeper of the divine spark, bearer of all universal truths, I give myself to you.

What you choose to do with me is outside of my control. I can only make the offering and let go of the results. I’m right in the midst of this great experiment. I’ll report back on how it goes.

Consider this. Right now, simply by shifting my awareness, I can sit in the presence of God. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is! It doesn’t take sustained enlightenment or personal perfection, just a moment of quiet openness and the willingness to notice what’s true in my experience – the sense of wholeness, expanding spaciousness, ease, love, and serenity that’s right here when I attune to it. There’s all the surface turbulence and noise and then there’s the infinite mystery of divinity. Of course my experience is subjective and unprovable, but does that matter if it brings me back to truth?

When I say, “Lord, I’m yours,” there may be no audible reply, but inside, light shines. Inside, the source glows and I know I’m not alone. It’s worth everything for a glimpse of this reality – at least it is to me.

This is what I have to say to you. If I could give you one word to take into your day, it would be “open.” So much is packed inside that word. There’s curiosity to start with, and the willingness to look outside your small self and receive a greater whole. Open includes humility and listening, all senses poised for new adventures. For the heart to be open, there needs to be love. And where love is, there is also empathy and generosity. And I don’t know about you, but when I’m open there is at least the possibility of joy. If there’s no lid on my awareness, anything and everything is fair game for exploration and appreciation. May you be open to, open with, open in – and if you need to close down for some reason, may it be a brief hiatus before open is once again your reality. Amen.

This is what I have to say to you. Why not let your yes to life provide your meaning. Yes to creativity and yes to lengthy dry spells. Yes to personal quirks and eccentricities and yes to the whole truth that lies beneath them. Yes to the deathless and yes to this mortal body that will die. Yes to highs and yes to lows. Yes to growing, growing, growing. Yes to the shining interface with the divine. Yes to the invisible line that somehow joins instead of separates the seen from the unseen. Yes to every mundane act and how they all circle back to the sacred. Yes to who and what you really are, now and always. Amen.

Today I am a seemingly impossible blend of yearning and content, of leaning forward and sitting straight. If I can clear away the surface disturbances the mind habitually stirs up, the truth is I am happy. Isn’t that amazing? Me! The not okay, perpetually depressed, can’t find my right place in the world small self is none of those things anymore. I am who I am, quirky as all get out, still struggling in some areas of my life, but for the most part, I feel blessed, grateful, and even internally harmonious. I never would have believed if you’d told me in 2015 that I’d make it to happy, make it to self-accepting and serene, make it to amazement that this is my life, not someone else’s, not some fictional character’s dreamed up from my deepest desires. Surely I could be more God-focused. Surely I would like to find a way to be more socially connected, but just as I am today, I am enough. And coming from where I come from, that’s nothing short of miraculous.

When I ask what I have to say to myself today, there is a long pause, and then there’s this: Do not be daunted by the time it takes to heal. It took years for your mind to be shaped by old fears and it will take years to let those old fears go. But nothing is lost in this long process and everything is gained – happiness, creativity, awareness, increased capacity to be kind, to know truth, to share love. It’s so worth it to keep going, even if the task of healing seems endless. Daily you reap the benefits of your willingness to face your discomforts and your fear. It’s so worth your while to be here – right here where you are today, which is just a little more free than you were yesterday and a little less free than you will be tomorrow.

Keep going. There’s a path and you’ve been on it all your life. Put the necessary time in. Your inner light increases day by day. Amen.

This is what I have to say to you. Step one: Settle in the here and now. Do what you need to pull your mind out of the past or the future. Try centering prayer or focus on your breath or use a mantra until you land precisely where you are.

Step two: Widen out the field of your awareness. Ask what’s true and see what presents to you.

Step three: Each time you realize your mind has gotten snagged in a story or a worry or a problem that needs to be solved, bring yourself present to the moment unfolding within and around you. Notice all the particulars of now. Stay as open as you can to the isness of your direct experience.

Step four: When you’ve sat for the amount of time you set aside, give thanks for everything that transpired – the whole shebang – and bring your connection with the truth of you back into your everyday activities.

And why bother to do this? Because meditation creates space and time for the love of the All and the Everything, the presence of the One to fill you up. It gives you strength to offer love to the exiled parts of yourself that you hid away so you didn’t have to feel what they felt or know what they knew. As they grow in trust and love, even those formerly exiled parts can love God. The whole of you can express your love for the Mystery. In that way, the circle is complete, yet always expanding in its reach.

This is what I have to say to you. Find your own ways to make sense of this world. Or better yet, let it make no sense at all and witness the discomfort that comes from being open to what is. Be resilient in the face of life’s demands – the eye inside the hurricane, a quiet place of ease and possibility and grace while all around you, chaos reigns. If you get caught up in the swirl, breathe until the inner still point comes clear and the strength of your true nature is revealed.

At the very core of your being, the source sends energy and light. It fills you with love of the infinite and unconditional variety – the kind of love that cradles fear in its arms and whispers, “There, there, dear. You can do this. I’m with you every step of the way.” That being the case, why not relax and enjoy the journey? Why not be uplifted by the moment instead of beaten down by it? Why not keep saying yes whether life makes sense or not? Despite the circumstances in which you find yourself, again and then again choose to shine.

This is what I have to say to you. There are so many ways to meet the moment. I say, why not meet it with joy? Be open to the miracles that hover just out of sight, waiting for the right time to present themselves. Be grateful for each day as the sun rises in the east and appreciative for the living of it as the sun sets in the west. If you take nothing for granted, every day is a wonderland of experience and grace. Feel your whole self waking up to hidden possibilities, taking steps in the direction of love. It’s enough to share that love as you are able and receive the blessings of the day as gifts. Let amazement and curiosity guide you.

This is what I have to say to you. There is no hole so deep or mood so bleak that you cannot climb outside. But there’s no instruction manual on how to do this. You just have to decide to leave the hole behind. It’s a matter of resolve and also trusting in the ultimate goodness of life. It involves trusting that there is light even when all your senses can perceive is darkness. It’s trusting the spark in your soul to have what it takes to climb out of the pit. And that’s probably the hardest thing – trusting yourself when you’ve failed so often to get past your particular demons, the old patterns that hold you back or provoke behaviors that leave you ashamed and hopeless.

But while you’ve failed many times, you’ve succeeded many more. It’s a choice, which you focus on, the failures or the triumphs. It’s hard, starting over. It’s difficult to see yourself at the bottom of the pit and know there’s such a distance between where you are and where you want to be. But maybe instead of climbing, flailing, scratching at the sides with your fingernails, maybe you just visualize yourself back on the surface, back to square one, and you start again to be the person you know you can be – the one you already are except she gets hijacked by fear or old triggers you didn’t know were here. You start again because that’s what humans do when they fail. You pray for help. You grow quiet enough to listen. You give yourself into the little bit of light that you see. You take a breath. You say yes. And you keep going.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was love. That love came from above, below, inside, and outside, a flood of love, a deluge, enough love to never run out, even in hard times, even when it seems love is in short supply or absent altogether. Receive God's love today. Receive and share it widely. In this way, it is always the beginning, everything perpetually new and fresh. In the beginning was the word, and the word was love, and you ARE that love. Be about that business today. Amen.

The Rumi in my head says, “There are always instructions for what comes next if you are attentive, if you choose to attune to that wave length. Today’s guidance is clear: Breathe. Be. The mystery reveals itself inside and outside. Let all five senses be awake and ready to partake of wonder. And let the subtle senses be so open that nothing escapes their notice. In this way, embrace each moment as your own, an entire day to celebrate how your life fits perfectly within the whole. If ever there was a time to know what you know and be who you really are, this is it. The seeds of joy are about to bloom. Don’t miss a moment of the flowering."

Here’s the first instruction: Write the word YES in capital letters. Now take the energy of that word right into your own essence. Yes to life. Yes to love. Yes to unblending from old patterns that no longer serve. Yes to the truth of you, radiant and serene. Yes to this embodied moment. If you get lost in a feeling, mood, or story, yes can bring you back again. Yes to life’s contradictions, imperfections, obstacles, and joys. Yes to making wise and discerning choices. Yes to God and grace and sacred presence. Yes to wonder and openness. Yes to the whole shebang, nothing excluded.

This is what I have to say to you. What if there is nothing at all you need to prove? What if you were born worthy of God’s love and that truth has never changed? What if, in this very instant, God’s energy, love, acceptance, and compassion is pouring in and through you, ready to sweep away any obstacles to truth? What if your task is simply to be yourself, and in the being, receive the gifts God so freely gives? And what if, once your cup is full, it’s the most natural thing in the world to pass those gifts along as joy, creative energy, and your own loving presence?

All of this is reality. None of it is conjecture, wishful thinking, or delusion. I tell you again, the love and goodness of God is already within you. You don’t have to do good deeds, meditate like your hair is on fire, or attain some perfected state. Right now, everything you most desire in your connection and relationship with God is already true. Simply be that truth.

This is what I have to say to you. Answer the call of your soul. Respond in the only way you can to the indwelling spirit’s bold invitation to be free. This isn’t a time for rule-bound austerity. Listen within and heed what you hear – the heart’s need for love, the mind’s desire for quiet. There are many ways to be in relationship with the sacred. Find the one that draws you into joy and follow it to the furthest reaches of awareness. That is where fulfillment lies, and with it, an overflow of caring, love, and wonder that can be shared with others. The willingness to receive and give is a pivotal step on the journey of wholeness.

There is something new trying to come through me - an odd blend of optimism, practicality, and joy, with a touch of silliness thrown in for good measure. It's not that I haven't known these qualities before, but they feel stronger now. Or maybe I am a stronger container for them to express in. The sense that everything will work out is often at the fore and it feels to me that all of the doorways to my being are wide open to the moment and even more.

Who would I be, unblended, unbound, mind cleared of its usual clouds? Living inside divine love, who would I be if I breathed that love in and let it kindle my own love energy? If the whole world is illumined by God’s grace, can I take in that light and let it shine? Who would I be if I believed in my own divinity and didn’t create obstacles to obscure it? For just a moment, can I let the infinite and finite dance without needing to tease them apart or braid them together? Who would I be, free and unafraid, if I simply allowed the day to be what it is, and me with it?

This is what I have to say to you. Turn all the lights on for a while. Not the bedroom lamps or the bulbs around the bathroom mirror, but the inner illumination that comes from opening to the truth and letting it shine in and through you.

And here’s the most amazing thing: even when anxiety or despair plunges you into darkness, light doesn’t leave. It may be hidden beneath your own personal bushel basket, waiting to be retrieved, but it is always there, that radiant truth. It’s not your light or my light but divine light, kindled at the source and burning bright.

This is what I have to say to you. Find meaning in your past, your practices, every one of your experiences in the same way you might find diamonds in a slag pile – by looking carefully, being patient, taking your time, not skipping over any bit of real estate no matter how unpromising it appears on the surface. You aren’t so much rewriting the narrative of your life as you are harvesting its riches, discovering themes and threads and hidden obstacles. This is your work now, to write and harvest, harvest and write. That you might be able to share your learnings with others is a future possibility, but to really take them in yourself is what’s most important in this moment.

I would like to say the pandemic has taught me patience. It has helped me learn to delay gratification in the name of safety, but I have a long way to go to equanimity. I’m impatiently awaiting the day life gets back to normal, even though the world will be forever changed by these cruel months. I would like to say the pandemic gave me time to find my center and make my home there, but it actually increased my anxiety and decreased my ability to focus, so reaching in to find my source has been a hit or miss proposition – sometimes right there within reach but often more dream than reality.

I can say I’ve grown more resilient, to use the buzzword of the moment. What that means to me is that when I hit a wall, I go over or around it. Maybe I dismantle it brick by brick or dig a tunnel underneath. Obstacles don’t stop me the way they used to, and that’s a good thing. I’d love to say I’m more attuned to divine presence today than I was a year ago, and sometimes that’s true, but mostly I’m just muddling through, forgetting what’s important, then remembering again. I count it as success when I forget a little less and remember a little more. And as for patience, I’m still praying for it daily.

This is what I have to say to you. It’s all one vast, unthinkable whole, and in some way we can never understand with the mind, we hold that infinity inside us. We’re holograms – distinct and unique yet linked inextricably and forever to a singular reality, a unitary field. The paradox of individual diversity and universal oneness needs to be experienced rather than thought, and even experiencing it doesn’t prevent the prevailing amnesia from displacing truth with falsehood and realization with forgetting. Oh, but in that forgetting is the genesis of a desire to remember, and in that desire is the necessary fire to try and fail, to press ahead with prayer and practice and eventually reach the breaking point of surrender. And that’s where oneness lives – in the midst of giving up and giving in. Right there, in the moment of letting go, the soul glimpses its real home. All I can say after that is good luck with the nine-to-five. There’s no going back to the before times!

This is what I have to say to you. Of course you can make a shift. Why else do you exist but to turn negatives into positives, pessimism into optimism, impossible odds into accomplished facts? This time isn’t just a long pandemic ordeal. Look at it from a different perspective. You have time at your disposal to dive deep and make a leap. It’s true you can’t do what you want. Your activities are seriously limited, but your inner life and your writing can benefit as a result. Just take small steps in the direction you want to head. If you want to finish your memoir, do what you can, a little each day, to make it a reality.

When you hit an inner wall, don’t beat your head on it, just take a different route forward. If an opportunity to make a leap presents itself, go for it. But small steps count. Steady, incremental progress matters. Believing you can do something you feel called to do beats the heck out of feeling that you can’t. If you seem stuck, ask for help. Go for a walk. Go up to the third floor and weave. When you know something is yours to do, you won’t feel satisfied unless you are actively working on it, at least a little each day.

Remember that you aren’t alone or without recourse. Ask, and the door will be opened. How do you think you got to where you are today? A thousand doors have opened for you. Even if a thousand more remain, one at a time you can walk through them. The journey is always from confusion to clarity and darkness into light.

This is what I have to say to you. Create an open space inside you by choosing to be quiet. Don’t rush to fill that space with conjecture, thought, or inquiry, but let it stay open – a place for the mystery to enter in and take up residence. Don’t seek to name it, tame it, or frame it in an enclosure of ideas. Just be with it, or be it, no other action needed on your part. Let the mystery do or not do, move or be still, shine or stay invisible. Notice if it’s you or not you, or maybe both at once. When the mind chimes in, invite it to rest in the infinite depth and breadth of mystery and soul light. When the time for sitting ends, be grateful for however long you spent in that presence.

This is what I have to say to you. Be at peace, for time is neither friend nor foe, though its passing and whether it seems fast or slow is outside of your control. This day which marks the turning of a page in time is but a blink of the cosmic eye. At any given moment, you can wake up and be free, for waking is your destiny and love the road that leads from here to there. Let this be a year of love, each day an opportunity to be a force for good and generosity. With love as your intention, waking and divine connection are as natural as breath. The path of love begins where you are and it is wider than you think. So go forth on this New Year’s Day with love as your guide and you will find yourself awake to wonder. If you stumble or forget, just start again, love a beacon in your sky like Venus before dawn. And if you need reminding or a nudge in the right direction, just ask. Answers are always available, though sometimes disguised as questions. Yes – go forth into this good day and trust that love will find a way through pain, through fear, through nameless difficulties, and through tears. If love is your north star, no matter where you are, you’ll have courage enough to persist and the strength you need to complete the journey.

This is what I have to say to you. If with open heart and mind you sit quietly, you will find divine presence inside you, for it is always there. And if this be the company you keep, you will be changed. You cannot remain in the company of light for very long without having its radiance seep even into places you didn’t know existed, dark and hidden from conscious thought. What was once unknown becomes familiar territory. Just as sunrise drives shadows from the woods so are the places of inner darkness illumined and the fear that dwelled therein brought forth to be released.

Return again and again to the shining presence at your core. Whenever you feel fear, turn toward light and keep it in your focus. This isn’t something you do once or twice, but many times a day in order to remain centered and awake. Divine presence. Indwelling wholeness. Infinite awareness. Love without limits or conditions. Many names for one reality. Return again and again to the truth your soul knew all along.

If love is what I really am, love at my core and center, then life becomes a series of choices to let love win, to let love express through me, or give in to fear and anxiety. Letting love win is the same as letting God win, and isn't that what my life is all about? If I want to realize the purpose for which I was made, step one is to notice love and step two is to embody it, to BE it through and through. Step three is to share it in whatever ways the moment calls for. Step four is to give thanks and let gratitude raise the tide of love even higher. Step five? I don't know yet what that is, but I trust life to teach me when the time is right.

Attune. Is not the whole universe inside you if you choose to let it in? While that may be physically impossible, the realities of spirit keep expanding. If the chalice of truth is within you, who's to say what is possible or not? If the infinite has no boundaries, and I think we can agree on that, then what you can attune to is limitless and vast. You don't need a name for what you pray to - just make the choice to listen, ask, resonate, feel, open, knock, and receive the full measure of divine generosity.

This is what I have to say to you. Every second you have breathed upon this earth, and even before your birth, as the universe exploded out from the Big Bang – every second has led you to this one, sitting here on your meditation cushion. Receive the full power and mystery of that cosmic legacy – everything leading to the moment that gives itself so graciously, offering you all the space in the world to say yes. Gratitude is a useful response, and wonder at this evolving culmination that continues to open and open and open before you.

Notice how you have a place in the isness of now. Your presence matters. Your awareness adds to the whole. And the wholeness itself – just sit with it – the impossible bliss and vastness, the wordless reach and silence, the thrum of love and vibratory ecstasy of light. The briefest glimpse or glimmer is enough to change your day. This is why you meditate.

This is what I have to say to you. May all the worrying and hurrying, the scurrying about to get things done – may all that drop away. For just this little while, may you bathe in love – not just a little love, the shot-glass-full of love you think you might be worthy of. May you know go-for-broke love, eternal, unconditioned, appearing out of nowhere to bowl you over and change your view of the word “love” forever. Love with the breadth and depth of oceans. Love flowing in from the unseen. The love of the creator for its creation. Love that says “Go ahead and lean on me because I am dependably divine and with you all the time.” Anxiety and difficulty on the one hand or love without end on the other. This isn’t a trick question. Which one will you choose?

I can open a book, open a window, open a drawer, open the ground with a plow. I open letters, jars, doors, boxes, and presents. “Open sesame,” I say. A play opens when the curtain goes up. Sinkholes open unexpectedly. Baby birds open beaks to receive food. An open gate is welcoming. When I pray to be open, I see veils pulled aside, walls falling, obstacles evaporating, defenses dissolving until it’s just me, in plain sight of the divine. When I pray to be open, I am asking to be taken to the inner chamber of God’s heart and there made new in love. That kind of openness can’t be taught or thought, only experienced – openness as a radical act of devotion; openness blending with surrender to give my life meaning and purpose.

Of course, the question arises whether there can be opening without closing. Can I open out of the opposites and into oneness? Can I open so fully there is no going back? In the meantime, I practice. I open a space inside my heart and let it fill with light. I open the portals of my senses and let the world spill in. Secret places inside me open to healing and wholeness. I open my palms and spirit rests upon them – a butterfly, a blessing, a suggestion to open even more.

This is what I have to say to you. Everything is possible – healing, wholeness, connection with the divine, writing, weaving, energy, and joy. This is a new era in your life. It has taken you two years to catch up to the fact of your retirement and live a more relaxed, creative life. Now that you are here, revel in it, celebrate it, be unabashedly happy doing what calls to you. You are entering a kind of “culmination phase” where the accumulated wisdom and experience of your years can be lived and savored. Yes, there may be more work to do. Yes, you need to stay awake and not lose sight of what’s really important. But your light is shining brightly after a period of being dimmed by doubt and pain. The light within is illuminating your way forward in a new and more dependable way. Trust your Self. Trust your unbreakable connection with the divine. Trust how your life is unfolding and what’s yours to do, one day at a time.

Love says to fear, “You are welcome here, but I will not live by your example.” Love says, “Your true nature isn’t anxious and defended. Look inside. Grow quiet. Tell me what you find.”

Fear is silent for a while and then says, “There’s quaking and there’s darkness. I think there might be more, but I can’t see clearly.”

Love says, “Embrace the quaking and the darkness. It’s all okay. All parts of you are sacred. They all belong. What else do you notice?”

Fear says, surprised, “Wait a minute. There’s a tiny light, like a match flickering in the night. It’s growing brighter.” Fear pauses for a time, then says, “There’s so much space inside. It’s all one shining presence, and I’m part of it, though different. Something whispers to me ‘Be not afraid,’ and I’m not. I’m truly not. And there’s a path forward – my path – illumined and warm. There are obstacles too, but the voice whispers, ‘You can do this’ and I choose to believe I can.” Fear continues, “I’m walking now. When the quaking comes, I wait until I find the light. I can’t believe I’m doing this – that this is really me!

It takes a while but fear is completely transformed. Love says to love, “What an amazing journey we all take from fear to love and from shadows into light. Let’s keep going, shall we? The joy and generosity we add into the mix can tip the cosmic scales in the direction of goodness. Together, there’s nothing we can’t do."

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What is this time asking of me? It’s asking for patience, restraint, delayed gratification, and a willingness to sacrifice my small desires in service to a greater good. It’s asking that I manage my anxiety with compassionate understanding, not with a heavy or judgmental hand. It’s asking for the capital S Self to take the lead – her courage and clarity a guiding light in otherwise dark times. It’s asking that I not give in to old patterns of hopelessness, helplessness, or despair. It’s asking me to look to nature for solace and inspiration, to take walks, weed the garden, watch the flowers bud, bloom, pass their prime, and let their petals fly. It’s asking me to face my fears of death, change, not getting what I want – face them, feel them, get to know them, and not be overwhelmed. It’s asking me to live in love, act from love, be as loving in my interactions as I can.

It’s asking me to forgive myself for imperfections and unconscious, habitual behaviors. It’s asking that I invite all my creativity to come forth and see what’s possible when there is time, and quiet, and very few distractions. It’s asking me to connect with God/Source, the Infinite/All That Is and keep that connection alive by placing it at the center point of my life. It’s asking me to use every moment as an opportunity to be awake, aware, caring and kind to others, as well as caring and kind to myself. It’s asking me to do my small part to keep the plant healthy. It’s asking me to be intentional in all my actions and thoughts. It’s asking me to be grateful, every single day, for the abundant gifts and grace that fills my life. It’s asking me to fully live while I’m alive and not worry so much about dying.

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“I’m here, Lord,” I say. “I’m listening.”

“Me too,” God says. “I’m here with you.” Her voice sounds a little like Oprah’s but with more of a southern slant.

“So here’s the thing,” I say. “At nearly sixty-eight, I want to start again. Instead of approaching everything with a presumption of “I can’t” because I’m flawed, bad, unworthy, or not enough, I want a clean slate, a new beginning, a glass-half-full approach to life. I want to assume I’m sufficient to each moment unless you tell me otherwise. I want to serve you in whatever ways work under the rather complicated circumstances of this moment. I want your will to be my will and your vision of life to be what I see too.”

“I like your spunk,” God says. “I like your good intentions. I like that you aren’t wasting time whining “why me?” but are just looking to move forward. In the big scheme of things, sixty-eight is a newly-sprouted shoot, but it really doesn’t matter how much time you’ve got left in this body. It only matters that you use it wisely. It matters that you dedicate yourself to increasing the love and light in your corner of the world. It matters to take great delight in small things like earthstars and ravens and spread that delight with your creative expression. It matters that you turn your mind to the divine for inspiration, energy, and the juice to stay awake.

You aren’t so much starting over as losing a lie and filling the space it occupied with truth and goodness. I’m right here with you in this radical endeavor to reframe everything you know about yourself. I’m right here with you, day by day, willing to lend my faith when yours is weak, willing to let you know what I see in the biggest picture.

Everything you wish for and more is possible. Remember that when the going gets hard. As for your desire to serve, you can do so by living your life with delight and love at the center of your being. You can serve me by listening, writing, creating, not waiting for some imagined future perfection but living fully now, loving now, sensing what’s yours to do and doing it as best you can.

If you have questions, ask and I will answer. If you run into brick walls, ask and I will help you to dismantle them. There’s no better place to begin than where you are, and no better time than now. I’m with you to the end of days and into the timeless. Go forth with my blessing. Amen.”

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