“Architects and planners use the term “desire paths” to describe the shortcuts taken by people for whom the laid-out pattern doesn’t fit their lives. But, in one sense, all paths are desire paths, the marks of human longing or need.”... Continue Reading →
"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 most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths." "These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life... Continue Reading →
"I had seen their ships come into port in the Indies and in (America), disgorging their cargos of emigrants, so emaciated and worn by their passage ... skeletal as living corpses, white as maggots from two months in the darkness... Continue Reading →
"The women who have reconnected with their instinctual power have gone beyond the limits of ordinary-world success, whether they have been taken there through loss and suffering into the depths of their being and reborn through touching into their creative... Continue Reading →
"What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been. How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own? How much dissolving and shaking of ego we must endure... Continue Reading →
Here's a theme that's been growing in strength: the importance of reclaiming the power of our focus from the myriad bling-bling distractions, reclaiming the power of our dreaming, so that we can direct more and more of it towards desirable... Continue Reading →
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on... Continue Reading →
This theme just keeps coming up -- navigating the uncertainties and other quirks and curiosities of the In-Between, when one cycle has ended but the next hasn't yet taken shape and gotten traction. Or maybe you've experienced some epic change in your... Continue Reading →
"Living without a horizon is one of the greatest distractions. It cramps the imagination; it stifles the soul's need for wildness, for adventure, or simply for free breathing." ~ Tom Cowan, in The Celtic Way It's true. Living without a worthy... Continue Reading →
"We that are here now are touched in some mysterious way with the ability to change and make the future. Those who wake to the wonder of this magic moment, who wake to the possibilities of this charged conjunction, are... Continue Reading →
"In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty … in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field... Continue Reading →
In Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill gives another perspective on the Withdrawal and Return stages of the Hero's Journey through which all heroines and heroes, all spiritual initiates and sages, must trek. We've just forgotten what many of our ancestors and the... Continue Reading →
Now that we're in retrospective mode, seeing 2020 in the rearview mirror while integrating all of the many experiences and perspective-shifters (or at least, perspective challengers) that the last year included, The Hero/Heroine's Journey yet again renews its relevance. The... Continue Reading →
"We are living in an age of radical discontinuity. The lessons come faster and faster as our souls and the universe push us into new growth. Familiar waters seem suddenly perilous, alive with uncharted shoals and shifting sandbars. The old... Continue Reading →
“You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying... Continue Reading →
“If you have these two things - the willingness to change, and the acceptance of everything as it comes, you will have all you need to work with.” –Charlotte Selver (1901 - 2003), grand dame of 'experience through the senses'... Continue Reading →
"The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes of all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning, we cannot begin to... Continue Reading →
"As we accept what is, we become people who stand in contrast to what is, freed from the aggression, grasping, and confusion of this time. With that clarity, we can contribute things of eternal importance no matter what's going on... Continue Reading →
With the passing of each day, it seems more and more vital not to get caught up in the swirling vortex and mass-hallucination of what's gone -- and what is going -- horribly wrong. Recently I noticed what seemed... Continue Reading →
"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 →
"The forces of love and greed are contesting with one another, and both are immensely strong -- so strong that almost anything could tip the balance. Everything we do now is vitally important. Each act of healing is a weight... Continue Reading →
"Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody... Continue Reading →
[I wrote and published the original post way back on August 28, 2012, and have updated it several times a year since, including late-September 2015 ... because yes, it's a timeless "new normal" topic in our wild-energy times!] The energies... Continue Reading →
Happy Spring Equinox, to those in the Northern hemisphere (and Autumn Equinox, to those in the Southern 'sphere). Here's a little Spring-time reflection food for you, to help tap into or attune with the essence of Spring, wherever you may... Continue Reading →
Perhaps you're one of many who feels called to greater authenticity, purpose, and heart-and-soul-aligned meaning for your own life and for the collective dream? What clues might be find about our Big Purpose, our dharma, if we clue-hunt and pattern-track in... Continue Reading →
Sometimes it's good to shake up stuck notions, when they get so calcified they become toxic. That's when we need to 'go all Hafiz', and turn it upside down to shake the nonsense out and reveal the original Wisdom of it.... Continue Reading →
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 →
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
"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 →
Welcome to the Resources for Empaths & Sensitives Series introductory post. As is the case with much of my writing and mentor-coaching, this series grew out of my own personal experience, as well as what I saw and learned over... Continue Reading →