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Sophia's Children

Living and Leading the Transformation.

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Contemplativa & Mystica

What Makes a Mystic … and a Feminine Mystic?

What makes a "Feminine Mystic?" This is the question that writer Carl McColman asked Mirabai Starr, author, speaker, mystic, and translator of the mystics, in a Patheos interview. This is an excerpt from Starr's reply. "Mysticism is about a direct... Continue Reading →

Bird in Hand – #Blesstival-2016

"The Bird of Paradise lands on the hand that is not grasping.” (Thanks to Jack of JackSpotting for offering this reflection in a Blesstival post comment.) Big Love, Jamie See other Blesstival blessing posts AND participate in the Blessing Wave, too!... Continue Reading →

Being Present to Your Holy Self

I'm still listening to and gazing deeply at threads of integration that are weaving themselves together after the flurry of energy wildings, weirdings, and Eureka-moments of recent weeks. How about you? The waves of the intense energetics have continued to... Continue Reading →

Welcoming Hospitality

I wrote recently on the 'power word' benediction, and today it's blessing and welcoming hospitality that arise, deliciously, for reflection. In the February message from Friends of Silence, the reflection theme was friendship, but moreso a quality of blessing and... Continue Reading →

Power Words: Benediction

“While our culture is all gloss and pace on the outside, within it is too often haunted and lost." "The commercial edge of so-called ‘progress’ has cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in... Continue Reading →

Let All That Is Within Me Cry ‘Holy’

It's a rich and wonderful contemplative and spiritual practice to invite a word or theme for reflection. Each word has a frequency or a power or a 'mood' of its own, which is why certain words and themes are more... Continue Reading →

Riches Drawn From Dark Night and Well of Grief

"In a dark time, the eye begins to see." ~ Theodore Roethke In the pitch-black nadir of my own journey through the Underworld -- the dark night, the forest I knew not -- 0ne of the many sparks of light... Continue Reading →

The Via Feminina: The Garden of the Senses

Continuing on the very Venusian-Taurean theme of coming to our senses... The Garden has long been a metaphor for wholeness, for the mystical Heart, and for the Divine Feminine. In a mechanized, techno-distracted age, the Garden (and all that comes... Continue Reading →

To see clearly, let the murk settle …

"We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see." - Taoist Proverb I've always found calm, and sometimes clarity, too, in these very Taoist, natural-element bits of wisdom, especially water-related ones.... Continue Reading →

Who are you? Merton On ‘Identity’ and the Way

"One of the characteristics of "mass society" is precisely that it tends to keep man from fully achieving his identity ..." "To have identity is not merely to have a face and a name, a recognizable physical presence." "Identity in... Continue Reading →

Out of Fear-Spin and Into the Heart, Illuminated

"Listen and attend with the ear of your heart." ~ St. Benedict Who doesn't want to step out of the perpetual spin-cycle of fear, dread, and anxiety? Heart- and Spirit centering practices come in many shapes and sizes, and have... Continue Reading →

Rothko: What is the Better Condition?

"When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money, yet it was a golden age for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is... Continue Reading →

Creative Awakening: Your Forgotten Wealth

"When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected inner wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within." "That which is scattered has no unity,... Continue Reading →

“The Question Holds the Lantern”

"The question holds the lantern." This, from the late John O'Donohue, could in itself be a meditation, which I find to be the case with much of what he wrote. But here is a bit more from The Question Holds... Continue Reading →

Secret Gates and Hidden Paths

This lovely snippet arrived in my email box yesterday, thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien and Elaine at Blue Moon Astrology. Tolkien's musing is perfectly aligned with the watery essence of the Piscean-Neptunian new moon and other imaginative, dream-visiony, experimentation-friendly energies of now. "Still round the... Continue Reading →

‘Sacred Scrabble’ and Crazy, Holy Grace

Because it's always a fine time for Crazy, Holy Grace, here is a resurfaced gem from the Sophia's Children cave (aka archives): 'Sacred Scrabble' and Crazy, Holy Grace. Big Love, Jamie

A Deeper Spirituality and the Medicine of Wisdom

"Women cannot simply retrieve or re-appropriate tradition. They must find a deeper spirituality, a new mysticism." ~ Beverly Lanzetta, Radical Wisdom That's just one of the things I've learned on my own journey, once Mother Wisdom had grown impatient with... Continue Reading →

A Time to Cultivate Epiphany Inspiration

e·piph·a·ny To reveal. Shine. Manifest Revelation. An Illuminating Realization or Discovery Resulting in Elation, Awe, Wonder. “So many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role, or... Continue Reading →

“A Listening Life …” ~ a reflection from Adam McHugh

Okay, raise your hand if you resonate with this in your very heart and core (if you're a fellow introvert, the chances are excellent that your hand will be raised): "But in truth, there is no glory in listening. There is... Continue Reading →

QuoteWorthy: “The older I become…”

“The older I become, the more I sense, the less I speak, the more I pray — in ever so many ways.” I included this wonderful reflection from Clarissa Pinkola-Estes' book Untie the Strong Woman in a previous Sophia's Children post... Continue Reading →

Muse Food ~ What’s your song?

This is one of my favorite Muse Foods for my morning reflections, though it seems a lovely reflection for any time, doesn't it? "Let my song give blessing and insight to those who can’t see for themselves. And let your... Continue Reading →

Get Lost (in the Tao Magic of ‘Not Doing’)

Things have a way of arriving or arising in batches. Ask a genuine question, and watch (if you're observant) various answers or clues popping up in different ways as you go through a given day or week. That's Spirit's fascinating way... Continue Reading →

Doctor, you say there are no haloes?

This gem about seeing with our other eyes arrived in my email inbox this morning from Transfiguration Monastery, a contemplative Benedictine community not far from where I currently dwell. This poem by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Lisel Mueller (b. February 8, 1924),... Continue Reading →

Drinking Alone at the Well of Wisdom

In an externalized culture with a bias toward extroversion, introversion, solitude, quiet, stillness, and drawing inward can be an anathema to some and downright terrifying to others. And yet we know, more and more, the costs of perpetual extroversion and... Continue Reading →

Holy Disorder and Not Knowing on the Way

As many of us know (whether we'd wish to or not!), holy disorder and not knowing are familiars on the mystica and shamanica Way (by whatever name we might call it). Even if we've been meandering the path for some... Continue Reading →

Anam Cara, Believing Mirrors, and Allies on the Path

"In your Anam-cara you discovered the Other with whom your heart could be at home." ~ John O'Donohue, The Confessions of St. Patrick (Introduction) On this notion of our soul-deep yearning for our anam cara, our true soul friends and believing mirrors,  Carla... Continue Reading →

Imagination in Focus

Speaking of Imagination (in recent posts) ... "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Proceed as Way Opens

"As Way Opens" is a reference to the old Quaker saying that we should "proceed as way opens" after patient, prayerful waiting for Spirit to move in the world, and open or reveal the way forward." This saying popped up... Continue Reading →

Energies of Now: The Rising Waters of the Intuition Age

I must have been a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. ~ Anais Nin I've found myself resonating more and more with this musing from Anais Nin, as the blueprint for my... Continue Reading →

‘Sacred Scrabble’ and Crazy, Holy Grace

Yes, crazy, holy Grace. Like crazy, wild Wisdom; or radical presence; or holy listening -- like a weird-in-a-good-way kind of Sacred Scrabble game that beckons us into a full-sensory exploration, adventure, and living-into of the Words. My kind of words... Continue Reading →

Solstice Reflections and the Season of Lights

I love this time of the year, with its juxtaposition of light and yinny dark and lots of little sparkly lights and candles everywhere. The sparkly lights shining into the dark of night make me happy, and pretty well symbolize... Continue Reading →

Storms, Cycles and Black Madonnas

Since my last post - amazingly, about a month ago - we've had the stunning force of 'Frankenstorm' Sandy in this region of the U.S., followed by the presidential election, the aftermath of both, a solar eclipse, and then Thanksgiving.... Continue Reading →

Hail to the Hermit: The Wisdom of Introversion

IX The Hermit

From Celestial Tarot by

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