My guiding word for 2025 was “Reverence”

It was both a resource and a lot of pressure

Which shouldn’t surprise me, because as I learn to appreciate the Divine in All

I often have to expand my idea of something to include its opposite

Dichotemies seem to be the double helix of progress

Whether soothing or pressure, Reverence kept inviting me to bow

To trust that the Divine is expressing in every aspect

And, that is humbling, sometimes confusing, and sometimes completely ignored

But, I really, really wanted to honor that which I encountered and my commitment to honoring it

And overall, I’d say I did so-so

But I’m glad for every time Reverence came to mind

Just the thought of it softens my edges

But this year I couldn’t choose a word

Although my friend chose Wonder and I was like, Oh, that’s a good one

It took me 2 weeks to really distill what I’d like to be both my rudder and my north star for 2026

I toyed with Surrendering to the Life that is Naturally Moving Through Me

Because I want Nature and Her Intelligence and Her Motion front and center

And who I think of as me deferring to Her as my orientation

I repeatedly had great experiences of this during the holidays

When I could press pause on the stressors I’ve been actively juggling

Intentional relaxation made space to just participate

Not to plan or construct or generate

But to allow the natural flow of the day and my companions

To shape a series of unknowns into meaningful moments I could just receive

I am so tired of trying to make things happen

And when I stop doing that, Life can happen to and with me

My choice is to let Life choose.

And so my mantra for 2026 will be “Let Life Live”

I like it because it’s got 2 faces

One is a reminder to let what is outside of me evolve without my judgment

And the other is an invitation to drop my internal resistance so life can live through me

This is the orientation I want as my north star.

My brother-in-law would occasionally call something: “A lot of stir and no biscuits”

When he thought it was a lot of work with no visible payoff

I spent a lot of 2025 stirring, and there were indeed no biscuits

But soil was cultivated, and priorities shifted

Making the intention to let go of the reins

And have Life do the guiding

Irresistable

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One job that did not materialize for me was for a Dark Retreat company

Weirdly enough, a body worker I love had suggested spending time in the dark just a few months before I met these folks

Just be in the dark, he said, not meditating or chanting, just be

I’d been practicing it, with towels at the doorjamb of my bathroom

And quite liked it

Speaking with friends, I learned of several who had done multiple days in darkness

And found it extraordinarily meaningful

Liz Gilbert had just done a piece on her first dark retreat

So, to hear of a company providing dark retreats at resorts around the world,

I was intrigued

Seemed timely

But, not every person can or should be left for days in the dark on purpose

I imagined they had a serious intake form, and local mental health resources

Nope.

My skepticism didn’t do me any favors, but being that I would’ve been Ops

It was a responsibility I wasn’t willing to assume, which didn’t rattle them at all, they just moved on

Days in darkness is a repeated ceremonial ritual across spiritual traditions

It’s just not for the faint of heart

Reading the next segment of The Aquarian Gospel

After receiving the scroll of Sincerity

Jesus was left for days in the dark

I recognized it as a rite in a way I hadn’t before

But then, one evening, again, two men enter through a heretofore unseen door

They have little lanterns, and once again ask Jesus to follow them

~We used to be priests here. This place is crazy. These priests are nuts. You won’t find what you’re looking for here, there is some creepy stuff going on. Follow us, we know the caverns, we can lead you out~

Once again, Jesus wasn’t having it.

“Your little tapers show the light you bring.”

And he goes on to continue the theme of my misunderstood but deeply relevant

“I don’t follow fear”

But with a spin of: ~why would I judge these people based on your experience and not my own?

I didn’t come here looking for anything. I’m not participating in these rites to become more blessed - we’re all all the way blessed all the time by the light of God, unless we give our minds to deceit, which is what you’re asking of me. You know where the door is, use it.~

And that was how Jesus earned the second scroll

The scroll of Justice.

Not taking someone’s prejudice on as your own

Trusting your experience and your own knowing

Not being deterred by naysayers

I was a naysayer for the dark retreat company, which was true for me and my risk assessment

Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it

Just means I shouldn’t do it

We get to make choices

And we should make them through our own knowing

Not someone else’s

We need each other

We each have a role to play

Best to follow the ones that ignite our inner light

Not wave us forward with dim little lamplights

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You may recall, 125 posts or so ago, I discussed my extremely productive misunderstanding of

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ

In the story, Jesus arrives to a sacred temple essentially to take the test to get the title of the Christ

And once settled, a couple of men secret into his room and say,

“The temple masters are jealous and plan to kill you. Play along until we can break you out”

And for two decades at least, I interpreted Jesus’ response as,

“You come asking me to follow you in fear. Fear doesn’t motivate me. Go ahead, be on your way”

And that story realigned my thinking 1,000 times

Reminding me not to move from fear

But, as it turns out, I had the story wrong all along, and hadn’t noticed until rereading to write the Sincerity Scroll

What actually happened was:

These guys encouraged Jesus to play along, pretending to be copacetic but planning to leave

And Jesus was like, “How dare you ask me to lie”

Which is a related but distinct admonition

So, bonus for me

I got the very valuable lesson of my original understanding “I do not act from fear”

The precise lesson of the actual intention of the story “I will not deceive”

And some meta lessons about the fallibility of interpretation, openness of mind even when you think you know, and happy accidents

All of them useful and contributory.

I love The Aquarian Gospel because it humanizes Jesus and demonstrates divinity through choices

And that the title of the Christ was waiting for someone to actually live into, not bestowed

It’s one of those books that I still carry even though it’s kind of a slog to read

When I published “The Sincerity Scroll” my dear mother commented

“Please do more stories like this”

Four months later, here I am, finally fulfilling that request.

There were seven scrolls awarded Jesus in accomplishing the title of the Christ in this telling

And here as we march towards Christmas

I’m planning on retelling the circumstances of each of the scrolls next week

To remind myself and inspire all of us

About how simple choices distinguish a life lived in connection and integrity

From a life navigating fear and positioning

I think we’re faced with tiny choices every day

And we all do our best to choose wisely

So remembering that wisdom is alignment to love

Not constructed result

Feels timely for me, and I hope for you

Because as cool as it would be to turn water into wine

Living fully aligned to love

Is something we can do

Choice by choice

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I don’t have a lot of specific, major regrets

Having married the wrong person, taken a meaningful wrong turn

I mean, I’ve made plenty of odd or suboptimal decisions

There are plenty of things I’ve said I wish I had crafted more intentionally to land more beneficially

But I’ve softened my approach through my mistakes

And while it doesn’t erase the errors, it does parlay them into something contributory

So regret isn’t something that bogs me down tremendously

I am curious about what would have happened if I had made different choices, though

I just finished Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library” for the second time

Which proposes a space between life and death where you can join the life of the version of you that made a different choice

At any choice point

The first book you encounter is the book of regrets

To give you a jumping off point to look at what you may want to have changed

Then, the consciousness you know as you lands in a body of a version of you that made different choices

It’s a quick and pleasant read

Very life positive, including the nitty gritty hard parts

And offers a reflective invitation

That has me looking back at my life

And my most accessible regret is

‘I wish I hadn’t worried so much when life was happening”

I know the feeling of worry has dampened the light that was available

With all my practices, I do ok, but there was a LOT of unnecessary worry in there

And while I can’t do anything to change how it was

I can let how it was inform how much I let anxiety in now

And I notice anxiety has a very specific physical signature in me

I take on a posture where my head comes forward, chin up

My shoulders curve inward

The small of my back rounds

If I interrupt that pattern when I recognize it

It stops the train

And if I begin shifting my posture with what I know about deep alignment

I can spend several minutes completely removed from the original worry as I explore my body organization

Add a few breaths, and it’s a different person encountering the worry

A person who knows how to put it down

Or at least not give it carte blanche

And a person curious about how energy is moving (or not) through my physical structure

And that is better than must-see-TV (a phrase I don’t believe represents a truth)

But, I guess I’m lucky that I find the subtle sensations of posture and energy fascinating

In this version of my life at least

And when I bring my attention to the present and how my body is organized

I think I’m unwinding old tensions that I allowed to accumulate and literally shape me

I’m not only relaxed and willing to become

I’m setting myself up to reduce my recurring regret of, “I wish I hadn’t worried so much”

Even when there’s a lot to worry about

Replacing it with awareness, curiosity, receptivity

Regret, worry, and anxiety have much less stickiness here.

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I’ve been tasked with composing a single sentence description of ‘what I do’

Never have I felt more verbose and less clear

What do I stand for? What do I want to say?

I stand for so many things

Chief among them, remembering our wholeness (which is immediately fractured by naming a slice)

Connection, Interdependence, a context of becoming

While fully imperfect at it myself, I’ve made tremendous advances

By slowing down

Inhabiting and identifying as the whole of myself

Expanding my sense of self beyond my thinking

Accepting a dynamic role in the complex web of life

It includes spirituality, somatics, psychology, ecology, social and economic justice

The whole thing is about relationships

And approaching all of our relationships, including our relationship with ourselves

With openness and curiosity, not labels

A nimble readiness to meet the moment anew

Feeling the subtle and natural resources supporting us, despite very real challenges

Acknowledging those challenges

And having a relationship with life that believes we can meet them

With curiosity, creativity & collaboration

I believe I have a unique capacity to listen inside a context of becoming

And reflect the wholeness taking shape even in what feels like fragmentation

I know we need each other to remind each other of our light and life’s potential

How do I put this into a sentence?

I get that it would be helpful

Much like staring at a counter full of colorful, perfect vegetables

And not wanting to cut them up to make a soup

But a girl’s gotta eat…

All these words… so many words

Ideas and contexts and practices and remembrances

Want to breath and flow, swirl and intermix

I know that whatever sentence I come up with doesn’t have to be “it”

But I sure would like it to represent the heart of my devotion

It’s just that my devotion is so big

Utterly unified but wildly diverse

The tagline of this Substack is “daily chronicles of a resourced life in crisis”

Because that was true

I’ve had many people say “you’ve got to change that phrase: it’s not what it is at all”

But i have yet to receive a suggestion for what it actually is

I don’t like labels. I think labels are a huge part of our collective problems

Taglines can be fun, but I have yet to come up with one that settles my nervous system

That sets the field I want to live and work within

And so, I continue to float without landing

But I’m tired, and I do want to land.

“Remembering wholeness as life emerges through us” is what I’ve come up with so far

But it needs more -

How this remembrance chips away at anxiety, recontextualizes pain, and connects us

The role of nature, of our bodies, of our approach

The sacredness of inquiry, presence, and rest

Here I am with a whole lot of words, and yet not much closer

Thanks for witnessing

And if you have any ideas, recipes for vegetable soup

I’m wide open

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My favorite at-home retreat is a 45/15 schedule

45 minutes of activity followed by 15 minutes of active rest, all. day. long.

It’s beautiful.

The first time I did it, I set myself up with timers.

Activity. Alarm. Laying. Alarm. Activity. Alarm. Laying. Alarm

It took about 5 hours to sync up with the rhythm

And then I didn’t need the timers - the pace became natural

Tidying and laundry, and then laying down.

Then I’d get hungry and get up to make a snack, at which point the laundry was done

After which I laid down again, paying attention to my sensations, maybe writing, maybe reading, but mostly laying and breathing and noticing my body

At which point, the doorbell would ring…

What I’m trying to say is that after just a few hours, my day would reveal itself to me in that rhythm, where I would actually get quite a lot done, but I would also be very rested and grounded.

I’ve used it in preparation for holidays which is amazing, because I think I have too much to do to have time for rest

But getting the rest actually gets the stuff done, too

And I feel good

Today, I noticed that same invitation - my day offering itself in a pattern of activity and rest

And I’m so grateful

One thing leads to another and to another, and then to the couch

Then an activity arises, and another and another, and then out to the bench in the sun

The sun becomes too much, and the cycle starts again, and I think ‘I want to do this every day’

Because I stop directing my day and let it reveal itself to me

My typical overlay of my perspective and opinions and ideas about what I must do

Makes way to listen and move from that listening

Quite an upgrade to my experience

My thinking mind says I’m being irresponsible

My lived experience watches things get done between rest periods

And acquiesces

My cognitive mind doesn’t quite receive messages from staring at a bush for 10 minutes (I believe some people do)

But my body is getting more messages than I know how to translate

My nervous system is having a very different time than it does when i’m plotting my next action or evaluating my progress

Nature is speaking, always

Listening isn’t only cognitive

Listening does not need to translate what it hears

To shape my energy field

There’s a quote attributed to Alan Alda that says “true listening is letting yourself be changed by the other person”

I want to be changed by nature, too

That my wordless receptivity to wordless expressions of life living dynamically in the present moment

Align me with the heartbeat of nature and all of her beings

Lord knows listening in this day and age must be curated

The noise is loud. Everyone’s sharing their point of view. We all have visions of the world

But the world itself, that’s what I want to pay attention to

Not assessments or predictions

And when I listen to the voices in our culture inviting us into deeper relationship with the pulse of nature in all of her expressions

The ‘horizontal download’ of light from these sources shapes me

Listening is a privilege and a pleasure

Which is a welcome counterbalance

To the equally true atrocities also happening everywhere

I like to listen to Philip Shepherd and Tara Brach and Thomas Hubl

And let that listening shape me - and shape me it does

Yet it’s my own body and my own back yard where the shaping is most precise

Listening

Acting from that listening

Resting

It’s a beautiful pacing

And time for me to go lay down…

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We’re funny when we’re defensive

Ridiculous may be a better word

We’re all trying so hard

We want to be acknowledged for the intelligence in our efforts

Even when they’re fruitless or ineffective

There is intelligence there

And care

And that is a beautiful thing

And we’re protective of it

An inner allegiance

The result isn’t nearly as important as the care put into a macaroni necklace

When a kid presents a macaroni necklace to you

They know it’s not just what it looks like that matters

They know the care they put into it is part of the gift

And should it be received with criticism

It doesn’t feel like the macaroni necklace that’s being judged

But the maker and the care

There’s a dynamic here that I’m interested in

How tenderly we hold our inner being who is trying so hard

And how inadequate we can simultaneously find that same inner being

There is a story in Hinduism

That Brahma wanted to extend divinity to humans

But when humans walked around as gods, they abused it

So he had to hide it, so that it would be realized only when approached with humility and care

There was much discussion among the gods about where to hide divinity

“Shall we hide it at the top of the highest mountain?”

No, humans are industrious. They will find and climb that mountain.

Shall we hide it in the bottom of the deepest ocean?

No, humans are determined. They will conquer the ocean at any cost to seize the treasure.

Where shall we hide it then?

At some length, Brahma came to a decision, “I will hide it deep in the center of their own being. They will never think to look there. For those who do, the excavation will soften them to honor the heart of all of life”

We know this treasure is within us

Defensiveness comes up when something sacred feels unrecognized

I’ve felt it, and I’ve seen it - and bowing to the inner divinity diffuses the constriction

Yet, settling in to know our sacredness is a little harder sell for most of us

We seem to be hardwired to look for divinity outside of ourselves or at least at the end of some achievement

Which is sad in a host of ways, but I believe basically simply an expression of our social nature

Our need to reflect and be reflected

The outer world isn’t the place to discover our divinity

But the place to watch it dance, sing, and evolve.

So, I’m trying to receive those moments of defensiveness

As a reminder of the divinity within me

That doesn’t require my defensiveness but my own acknowledgement

The heart of divinity within my own heart

Sovereign and inherently connected

Alignment to the divinity within

Aligns me to the divinity in all

A place where success doesn’t come from conquering or achieving

But from feeling and participating

A witness to the wonder

A macaroni necklace

Held with the value of the crown jewels

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The Vedanta Society was formed around an exemplar named Ramakrishna in the late 1800’s

Once, one of his disciples was on a ferry and heard people disparaging the saint

When he got to the ashram, Ramakrishna scolded him

“You can listen to people speak falsehood about me and say nothing? What do I mean to you? You must defend the truth with all your strength!”

Months later, another devotee came across some folks being pretty unkind about Ramakrishna

And he let them have it, “How dare you! I know this man as you do not and I will defend his honor with my every breath.”

When he got back to the ashram, Ramakrishna scolded him

“You don’t need to defend me. Let people think what they will, it’s none of your business”

The disciple was confused. In fact, all of the students were confused

“But you said…”

“Yes, there is not one answer for all beings

I don’t give one direction to each of you

But speak to the development of each individual’s character and spiritual disposition

Tom is too timid, he has not found the fire of his devotion and must stoke it

Speaking up for that which he loves will cultivate that important trait

Jerry’s got no problem with fire, his center needs the cool flow of surrender

These are not contradictions but prescriptions

There are as many roads to God as there are human hearts

And each heart is unique and requires different interventions to realize its true nature”

I love this story because it makes perfect sense -

Of course you respond in the moment to the needs of the moment

To the individual about the individual

But it also speaks to this human proclivity of

Wanting to know the hard and reliable answer so i can play by the rules and do it right.

We keep looking for standards, when what we need is sensitivity

We are uncomfortable with what Philip Shepherd calls “the vagaries of the feminine”

The feminine will never predict or label you, she meets you exactly as you are in this specific encounter

We want the hard answers of the masculine with clear lines and things to do

But life is only kindof like that - we really need dexterity with both

Remember in The Sound of Music when the children had to be in line all the time with short, choppy answers, all treated the same,

The Captain trying to mould them all into rigid, predictable versions of themselves

And how they seemed a bit mean

And then Maria came with the arts and creativity, noticing their unique talents and interests, and they began to thrive individually and as a group?

I swoon about Maria

Then act like the Captain

I want the quirky, creative, laughter, but I also want it to come in clear, straight lines

Oh, sweet human heart. Breathe. Relax, and remember.

Left foot, right foot. We are built for this.

Luckily, we have reminders

Luckily, Life invites us again and again to get to know it

And if we slow down just a pinch

We get our own, sweet, personalized invitation

Come, bring your strengths to meet your vulnerabilities

To be in real relationship with ourselves, each other, life, and God.

photocredit: one of the students at the Sunday School program at the Ramakrishna Monastery in Trabuco Canyon California in March 2019

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I can’t remember what prompted me, in meditation one day, to shift my upward and outward orientation of devotion by 90 degrees

But it’s one of my favorite remembrances

Always, I prayed up and out, to the Light, to heaven, transcendent and supreme

Even when I knew God Is Everywhere, still I had some sense of preference for an “up there’ home base

Illness shifted me down and in, and that has been a stunningly robust and experiential orientation

But this 90 degree business was really interesting

When my north star shifts to the horizon

I am always walking toward God

And God is inhabiting the fullness of the landscape

The throne itself is on this plane

Heaven is right here.

And in this orientation, God’s intermediaries are also right here

Angels don’t have to come down from on high in metaphysical intervention

Angels can sit down for a cup of coffee, share a story, write a book

While I know and can feel my central core and sometimes can sense the light coming from the vertical

This orientation has me know and sense light coming from the horizontal as just as potent

And far more accessible

In addition to the wholeness of the beauty of nature as divine emissary on this plane

We become the conduits of God for each other

The kind word

The timely insight

The loving act

These horizontal downloads come at us from every angle all the time

But like everything, are more potent when noticed and appreciated

And when we look at the symbology of the cross

It’s the intersection of the vertical flow and the horizontal flow where our heart sits

The symbol does not prioritize the vertical as the place of holiness, but this meeting point

There’s a lovely practice from Access Consciousness

Where you bring your greatest longing as a crystal into your heart

And you just amp up this little crystal full of your highest vision of this longing fulfilled

The sensory attributes, the narrative, just the ideal expression of what it is you really want in full bloom

And the crystal grows and glows and begins to spin

And as you continue to fill it with aspiration and intent

Poof! It has so much energy it explodes

And while the original crystal shard remains in your heart

Its fragments have blown out into the world for you to discover

Distributed throughout time and space still holding the light and vibration of your longing

Your inner crystal will know when it meets another shard - they’ll both light up in recognition

Magnetized to each other as they are

And meet them you will

Out in the world, where they sit shining in nature, in people, in experiences and events

Waiting for you to discover, recognize, and receive

As you walk, open and knowing, across this horizontal plane.

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Surely you’ve heard Alexander Den Heijer’s wise and wonderful:

“When the flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower”

I’ve had no problem at all applying this to broad issues of the day

It’s at the heart of trauma-informed care

But it really never occurred to me that it could apply to my life and situation.

Today, I was in Thomas Hübl’s community call which is always chock full of wisdom, acceptance and care

He never tires of finding new ways to explain and explore the universal principles inviting us to wholeness

And I’ll need to watch the recording to pinpoint when I realized I needed to raise my hand

But the dynamic was this:

As we are willing to be present, curious, and caring, we integrate and things flow

And I was like:

Excuse me. I am so very present and so very curious and pretty dang caring and things are very much not flowing

He asked what that not flowing felt like

And I said, well, it’s like i can see what you’re talking about, but there’s a big glass wall I cannot breach

So, of course, he asked about the wall and what it felt like when I encountered it

To which I replied: it feels like a bird hitting a window. Hard stop. Equally dangerous fall.

So, he led me on some exploration of the nature of the wall (grief, sadness)

And I realized a couple of things:

One: I used to be really impatient. Especially with patient people. Come on, folks, get with the program.

Then I developed patience, and recognized its many gifts

But guess what

I also have maybe been using patience as avoidance

I’m not saying for sure, I’m just saying it doesn’t sound entirely false

And I have to take a couple of breaths and sigh just saying that

Because patience was hard won, and is wonderful, and is maybe sometimes also a crutch

Sigh.

The other thing I realized is that I have been a bird flying into a window trying to figure out what I have to do differently to get through the window.

Not my best choice.

But even naming that dynamic has a little freedom in it

Like, anthropomorphizing a flower, the moment the flower realizes it’s not exclusively responsible for its lack of blooming

There’s relief in there

And then, quite clearly, some work to do, shifts to make

But very different attention than the nonfunctional infinity loop I’ve been in.

So, I’m very happy for the experience

Very happy for the nascent sensations of space and relief

And curious about how that space and relief may expand as I meet my inner walls in new ways

You know, not just smashing up against them

Wondering what’s wrong with me

Wishing things were different

Maybe I can open that window

Maybe I can fly in a different direction

It remains to be seen

I’m just happy the pattern’s interrupted

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