Tremulous Times Call for Radical Acts – of Kindness, Compassion, Empathy and Love

January 26, 2025Leave a comment

STOP. Right now! Breathe….

Now, breathe more deeply – with each breath, notice the sensation of the breath filling your lungs and the life-giving oxygen moving throughout your body.

Now that you have paused and I have your attention, how are you feeling? Yes, really. How are you feeling, right now? You are allowed to notice what is true for you, to embrace the fullness of who you are.

Tremulous Times

We are living in tremulous times. I do not have to share the litany of reasons why this is true. All of us who are paying even a little bit of attention – we all know them. Many of us knew it would be bad but the head-spinning velocity at which it is all coming at us can feel and be destabilizing. There are many who say that this is the goal – to overwhelm so much so that we lose hope, the ability to act, that we sink deeper into despair and feel completely disempowered.

For those of us who are empaths, we feel it all, including all that is happening to people, the earth, climate and the environment, in places near to and far from us. It can be debilitating. I know some are deeply challenged and it is all they can do to make it through a day.

For others of us, we have more choice. We can feed this energy and the energies that are indicative of a complete disregard for the sacredness of humanity and all living, sentient beings – or we can make a different choice, even on the days when it feels like our entire body is sludge, being dragged through clay or quicksand.

Radical Acts

Tremulous times call for radical acts – of kindness, compassion, empathy and love – to and for ourselves and to and for others, even as we secure our boundaries around what we are willing to let in and what we are not willing to have thrust upon us.

Kindness, compassion, empathy and love could be to and for the people directly around us or in our circles and it could be for anyone, anywhere on the globe who is need of it, in need of being seen, heard and acknowledged.

Amplify What is Good, Right and Healing in and for the World

It also means giving ourselves permission to experience joy and delight. To nurture our bodies, minds and souls for health and wellbeing and to be resourced against the assault on our sensibilities. It is not to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the world but it is to see and understand what is and is not within our control and to continue to action what is, no matter how small or insignificant it may feel. We often underestimate the power of small acts and actions and we do not know the full scope of who and what is in league with us in these choices. We may not be aware of how we can contribute to amplifying others actions and intentions that will help us all find our way out of the chaos of this present time.

Let’s do it for ourselves, for our loved ones and for those who are currently incapacitated in being able to do it for themselves. Let these be the radical acts that take root in a world that asks us to rise to the challenge of these times in whatever ways we are capable of. Kindness. Compassion. Empathy. Love.

Rumi – There is a Field…. I Will Meet You There

As Rumi has said, there is a field…. I will meet you there – in whatever ways I can: physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually – and we will amplify the light and healing that is already also at work in the world.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe I’m a Queen

March 3, 2024January 26, 2025Leave a comment

In an Open Space zoom meeting this past week, I was named two things: change maker and courageous; and I’m not sure how I feel about either of them. I didn’t originally register for the event because I didn’t identify as a change maker. It was only after reconnecting with my dear friend who called the session that I decided to attend. Not because of being a change maker but because of friendship and colleagueship. The check-in question was what is your biggest challenge as a change maker now? I was stymied. For a minute.

What Does it Mean to be a Change Maker?

Even as I said out loud that I wasn’t sure I identified as a change maker, it seemed absurd. Perhaps I was imagining change makers as something else. Maybe social entrepreneurs, somehow doing different things within and at the edges of our systems – communities, organizations, networks – than what I am doing? Doing something more substantive than what I do? I couldn’t even voice that out loud because of the absurdity of it. Talk about needing to own and embrace an identity. If what Jerry and I are doing with Worldview Intelligence and all its various applications is not change making, then I really don’t know what is.

So, what am I dealing with as a change maker? Within myself and those I work with or host: grief, overwhelm, guilt are just a few things. Grief for all that goes on in the world, overwhelm for the enormity and complexity of it all, both near and far, and guilt when life goes on in relative peace and comfort while so much else is in chaos and uncertainty.

It is important to remember where our spheres of influence are and focus attention there. It is also important to participate in things that nourish us. Which is why I joined a session during that call on ‘communing with more than the human world’. This is where someone said I was courageous and, interestingly, that carried back into the full plenary.

A Drumming Circle, Vision and Journey

I shared the story about the first drumming circle I ever participated in, talked about the vision with the shape shifting journey lion where we flew over fields of wild flowers, then trees, then mountains. On the other side of the mountains, there were people singing and dancing around a huge, celebratory bonfire. I shape shifted into the lion as we landed and joined in the celebration, welcomed home by the ancestors.

A decade later, I was in Gold Lake, Colorado, inexplicably drawn there to be with friends who were hosting an Art of Hosting training for financial planners. One of my friends said she was going to do a day long vision quest on the land following the training and the reason I felt called to Gold Lake was to do it with her. (I did, and that is a whole other story.) When I arrived at the Gold Lake Resort and started walking the dirt roadways and pathways, I could hear, in my mind, body and soul, a drum beat. It got louder with each passing hour and suddenly I realized, this land I was walking on was the land I had flown over in my vision a decade earlier and I never even knew it existed. I still get goosebumps thinking and writing about it.

This spiritual part of my identity I do own and embrace. I have pretty consistent meditation and “magic” practices. I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last four years without them. They support me in being a conscious, active participant in my own life. But courage is another thing. Is it courageous to share this part of my life with others? In this case, I was in the safest kind of space possible.

Of course, I did write and publish my memoir, Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness. Ironically, when I describe the book to people, I almost forget to mention it is about my spiritual journey. I talk about finding out I was adopted, marriage and divorce times two, job loss and starting a consulting business, my mother’s journey with dementia, long-term care and her death, and my father’s health challenges, particularly not waking up for almost 2 weeks after his second open heart surgery. All of these things are indicators and part of my spiritual journey.

What Does it Mean to be Courageous?

So, what does courage mean? What does it mean to be courageous? Definitions of courage describe it as “facing danger”. There is perhaps a perception of facing danger by sharing stories, deemed deeply personal. But danger to what? Reputation? Professionalism? Career?

The word courage is derived from the old French word corage, meaning heart and innermost feelings. I can identify with that more than with facing danger. I can and do bring heart to everything I do, whether writing, hosting or being in relationship with others. I can accept that as an identity. Heart changes spaces, dynamics and energy fields. It welcomes people, contributes to safe spaces and can positively impact someone’s day, sometimes just by being in the same space and sometimes just in passing by another person.

Everyone can be Courageous, Have Heart

Everyone can be courageous, can have heart. It doesn’t have to be loudly proclaimed, it can just be what we embody. I think it takes a pretty special person to be able to do this all the time. I know I can’t. Some days the stress of things, of worry or concern, in my life is too great. Those days I have to dig deep, sometimes just to get through them. Other days I can radiate heart. This is why practices are so important. They help tether us to what is most important in our lives.

In some ways, the terms are irrelevant. What does it take to show up fully and to embrace all that we are? Being present. Communing with nature. Seeing the beauty all around us. Allowing ourselves to feel. Giving permission to self to live into the things that bring joy, even with all that goes on the world, near and far.

“Maybe I’m a Queen”

I am reminded of this William Stafford poem that a dear friend shared with me in the months after finding out I was adopted, as the question flowed into my mind: Who are you, really? Maybe, I’m a Queen. It spoke to me then, it speaks to me now. Enjoy.

A Story That Could be True

By William Stafford

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.

When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.

The people who go by —
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?” —
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a queen.”

An Antidote to Distress is Blessings

May 30, 2023January 26, 2025Leave a comment

When we are feeling distress, we may feel unable to manage or cope with changes in our experiences, we may feel sad, afraid, anxious or lonely and may find it difficult to engage in normal life activities. For me, sometimes it feels like life moves in slow motion or like I am moving in slow motion through life. It can be hard to activate myself into motion.

Our thoughts fuel our feelings. Turning attention to what is going on in our minds enables us to change our thoughts and, thus, change our feelings. This is why an antidote to distress is blessings, thinking about the blessings we have in life, things we can be grateful for.

This is not about seeing life through rose coloured glasses. It is about deliberately turning our attention to focus on something that can make us feel better, lift us out of distress, so we can function in our day, week, life.

For me, it is children, grandchildren, my partner, his family, remembering my journey over the last 13 years in my home and all I have been able to accomplish here, the longer journey of my life with all its twists and turns, memories of my parents and grateful when they show up in my dreams, the work I do, the joy in writing, my quirky cats, friends and people I know and am connected to in a myriad of ways, good neighbours.

Really, there is no shortage of things to be grateful for. Where does your list begin?

The Anniversary of Dad’s Passing and The Year that Disappeared

January 16, 2021Leave a comment

One year ago today I got the call from a resident at the hospital saying that dad had had a restless night, his oxygen was low, they had moved him to a private room and I should get there as soon as possible. I notified my children, my brother and my partner. I got in the car and the tears streamed down my face the whole drive to the hospital. This was the moment we had anticipated, literally for years. I have written before that dad tiptoed up to the edge of death many times, looked over, shook his head and said, “No, not yet.”

This time, there was no going back. He (and I) could not envision how he was going to continue to live at home with any semblance of satisfaction. He couldn’t go to his workshop in the garage. He couldn’t go down the stairs to where he worked on his Bluefin Model. He had so many health issues over the decades. His pacemaker and many medications were keeping him alive as long as his will to live prevailed.

It’s been a strange year. The year of the pandemic and shut down where time disappeared in a vortex. I carry the memory of clearing out his house during the months of March and April, of feeling that his guidance was in every part of what happened. The stories of people and connections that have carried on beyond those days, new life long relationships forged.

My dad comes to me in dreams every week, often several times a week. My mother often comes with him, which was not so much the case before he died. I think perhaps she was with him more often then and they are together now.

I feel his absence during the storms when we would check in with each other to see how things were and what was being taken care of. I could imagine how difficult this pandemic and US politics would be for him to comprehend. When I have traveled, I imagine his concerns for my travel and his relief when I am back home.

There are moments when grief overwhelms me, the tears flow just as they did that morning, a year ago, when I drove to the hospital. Not because I wish he was here now but because of the great, unexpected love that was between us. I was his person. The time I spent with him has been filled in other ways. His and mom’s presence are in my house along with the few items of theirs I have incorporated into my home. I carry them everywhere in heart and soul.

This morning, I lit dad’s candle in front of Mother Mary with a candle and matches from his house. I lit another candle for my mom. I put out coffee with Bailley’s in cups from dad’s house for them both and Jerry and I drank a toast to the two of them. In my mind’s eye, I see them as they might have been when they met in the late 50s – young, beautiful, slim, in love; wearing the clothes of the era. With spiked coffee and mom smoking a cigarette. Dad was an avid smoker until he quit in the 70s to save his life. In my vision, he is not smoking even though it is from a time when he would have been smoking. My mother was a social smoker. She would have a cigarette with her coffee, when a friend dropped by for tea or with a drink, at a party. She pretty much quit when dad did but in this vision she is smoking a cigarette, laughing and joyful. Trust the symbols that appear.

Their impact on me and my life is indelibly imprinted on my heart and soul. I will forever cherish all my relationships in my lineage and it will always influence the relationships I want to nurture with my children, their partners and extended families, my own grandchildren and my partner.

Smiling this morning, along with the tears.

Doorways, Thresholds and Portals

July 7, 2020January 26, 20251 Comment

My home refresh project has brought me to the entryway of my house. I am having a surprisingly emotional experience as I prep the area for painting.

There are threads that have been woven from the third floor hallway, down a stairwell to the main floor, with the next stage down to the bottom stairwell to the front door. It is part of the magical energy I have been building in my home for years now.

These hallways and stairwells pass by rooms, some of which have already been refreshed, reordered and refocused with the remainder on the summer 2020 to-do list. As each room is taken apart, it is put back together, somewhat to significantly differently. The entire energy – and dare I say identity – of the house is shifting.

Doorways. Thresholds. Portals. Who and what passes through. Who and what is invited. Who and what is discouraged or even barred from passing through. Because it is my home and boundaries are important. Coherence is essential.

Doors opened and closed. Literally, figuratively and metaphorically.

Thresholds crossed daily with little thought about them. Other thresholds requiring intentionality.

Portals that open vast new worlds of transformation or that open the threshold between the visible and the invisible, known and unknown, seen and unseen worlds.

Practical magic. Being a conscious, active participant in my own life and my future. Allowing myself to want what I want without self-judgment, self-recrimination or self-censorship. Relying on my own moral authority and my ancestors, guides and guardians for guidance.

It’s been a full 10 years. I had planned to paint this year anyway. Started last summer with two rooms. With the disorientation and disruption of being grounded due to the Coronavirus, there is a different sense of urgency and compulsion attached to this refresh. To my sense of who I am. To how I want to engage life. My life. Now and in the future.

Many people have passed through my front door. I have passed through that door too many times to count. An abundance of experiences of the ins and outs of life, relationships, phases and stages. Ups and downs on the stairwells of my house and of life. Joy. Grief. Happiness. Disappointments. Struggle. Regrets. Yearning. Development. Spiritual growth. It is all here. Right in front of me. Behind me. Ahead of me.

Collectively, we are still in a period of not knowing. Not knowing what is next. Not knowing when it will be wise to travel. Not knowing when or if there will be a second wave. Not knowing what my business will look like or how I will support myself. Not knowing when I will be with my sweetie in person again. Not knowing what is ahead. Ready and not ready at the same time.

Living through grief, sorrow, regret and yearning. Some days pushing through inertia. Knowing reflection, connection, meditation, practices and ritual connect me to the vastness beyond myself in ways that are grounding, supportive and orienting to me. This changes my imaginings about what is possible. It opens me to love and LOVE. One more day. One more practice. One more dream. One more enchantment. One more action. One more coat of paint. One more phase of transformation.

What are the next doors that will open, thresholds I will cross or portals I will travel? Discovering as I go?

Inhabiting Identity

July 2, 2020January 26, 20251 Comment

Who are you? Who are you really? Who do you aspire to be? How are you creating your life? How much thought have you given to these questions? For me, they are a guiding inquiry providing ample fodder for deep reflection.

I have been actively engaged in identity work for the last couple of years, becoming more of an active conscious participant in my own future, in creating my own destiny. I am doing this by becoming a magician (yes, you read that right) and living into being a powerful creator. Not a show magician full of dazzling tricks or someone who engages magical thinking, but a person who recognizes the power of combining deep spiritual work with practical mundane steps to advance a vision, intent or desire for my life. Learning how to do magic, be magic, live life magically.

A fitting image for the month of July 2020

I have found amazing teachers and tuned into a whole new world that has been waiting for me for decades. A world that has attempted to reveal itself through my spiritual journey but which often left me wondering what to do with what was revealed, with the spirit guides, guardians and supporters I knew to be available to me. Now I am learning how to build relationship, how to open the lines of communication more fully. And, I feel like my father through his death has opened a portal of greater access. Through this work, I am learning much more about identity, about my identity.

I recognize over the decades I have inhabited several identities – some more fully than others and none with the degree of consciousness I am bringing to this next evolution of who I am, who I am growing into.

Like everyone, I have a number of roles that shape who I am and contribute to my identity. Mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, sister, lover, partner, friend, neighbour, consultant, trainer, teacher, coach, author, co-author, traveler, cat parent, caregiver. And these many roles are not the consummate of my identity.

My identity is more than my roles. Although all of my parents and grandparents are now departed, I am still a daughter and a granddaughter but these roles are different now. Since my father’s death, I am no longer a caregiver for my elder(s), which was a consuming role. I am no longer part of the sandwich generation – sandwiched between parents and children. I am now the elder in my family.

Since putting a period on 70 Dufferin Street, clearing out my parent’s house where my dad had lived for 45 years, a house my brother and I also grew up in, I have turned my attention to my own house of 10 years. There are a few items from my parents’ house that have made their way into my house and they needed to be made way for. They have sparked a transformative effort in my living space. And, it’s more than that.

Two of my transformed spaces: my family room and my meditation/magic room.

My evolving identity is demanding a space to inhabit that is refreshed through paint, cleared of clutter, bringing a sense of order to each individual space and the house overall. I am in the midst of this now, in the summer of 2020, the year of Covid-19, the year in which I hope we see the tipping point of racial injustice and a rewriting of social contracts, a year in which the global economy is struggling and Jerry and I are reimagining our business and strengthening the foundation of it to ride the possibilities and opportunities post Coronavirus.

In the painting of each room in my house, a transformation takes place. When I painted my bedroom, I took everything out of my closets and cupboards and only about a third of things went back. Clothes that had been in the closet for a decade, brought here from another life, another identity, were shed. A wedding dress and shoes. Clothes given to me by other people that I did not wear but had a hard time letting go of. Gowns I would never wear again. Clothes I bought because I liked them but every time I put them on I took them off again because I didn’t like how they looked. Shoes I had barely worn. All gone. And as I caught sight of a few sweaters that had been much loved and enjoyed a few years ago, I recognized that the clothes we wear are all part of the identity we inhabit at any given time and it is hard to fully inhabit a new and evolving identity when the ghosts of past identities clutter our spaces.

I am on a mission. As I turn my attention to the next space(s) in my house, things are removed, new order is brought in. By summer’s end, all of my living spaces will have been refreshed and transformed. My sense of my identity will continue to deepen and I will walk in the world with more confidence and hopefully more grace than in all of the decades before.

For those curious about who I have been learning from, my main teacher is Fabeku Fatumise. Through him I have discovered Dan Carroll and chaos magic, Jason Miller and Aidan Wachter among others. Buy any of their books and prepare to immerse yourself in a new journey. For me, it is a healing journey full of new awareness. It is a journey that has kept me sane through difficult times and it offers me practical things to do and focus on in times when it feels like there is little that can be done. And, as I said at the beginning, it has given me practices that enable me to be an active conscious participant in my own life.

When the Story Becomes Hollow

August 16, 2017Leave a comment

We use stories to make sense of our experiences. These stories shift and change over the course of our relationship with them. The way we speak of an experience that just happened is different than the way we speak of that same experience a few weeks, months or many years later.

Our relationship with our stories defines and shapes us to greater and lesser degrees. Sometimes we become very attached to the story we tell, to the version of ourselves we have lived out over time.

Some of these stories are truly defining moments of our lives. Some of them offer moments of journey we visit over and over again, looking for lessons learned, looking for healing, looking for moving on. When I wrote Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness I described it as a process of peeling back the layers of the onion, only the onion seems to grow new layers even as we are shedding the outer ones. It can be annoying, frustrating and downright disheartening when we discover the story we thought we had outgrown still has life within us.

onion-276586_960_720 These story themes are rooted deep within us. Depending on your beliefs, some of these patterns may have been carried into this life time from past lives (or future lives perhaps) and some of them may be within us as a result of being passed from one generation to another. We might not know or discover the root of the patterns we live out in life, relationship or typical conflicts we may find ourselves in.

So, when do you know the story is healed – finally, perhaps forever? I am sure there are many possible barometers but one of them (newly discovered in my awareness) is when the story begins to feel hollow. It has no substance, no catch, no grab, no hijack anymore. Like a quantum resonance you can see or sense it just within your field of awareness – like a ghost image asking to be let go. You could possibly put it on and wear it again, but like that comfortable old coat you use to wear seemingly forever, it no longer fits, no longer offers the protection or service it once did. It no longer defines you or your look – since your physical body often also changes noticeably when new levels of healing take shape.

I’m not sure it is something we achieve. I think it is something that graces our awareness in the moment it is revealed. Then we can acknowledge the journey, thank the story for all it has offered us over the time we have carried it and turn our awareness to the future and to the new story that is already emerging within the fabric of the old one that no longer defines us.

Doing the Work While Looking Away

March 29, 2017Leave a comment

There is such pressure to do everything full on and perfectly – including or especially the spiritual journey – that it induces guilt and even shame in people whose experience is more spotty. Like, most of us. It is the rare person who has an epiphany, an enlightened moment, the moment when everything makes sense now and forever, our life, habits and patterns forever changed. Some strive for it so ardently you can hear the strains of it as they talk about their spirituality, their practices, their connection to spirit. It has a ring of falsity to it and yet it arises from the pressure of perfection.

bandaged heart For most of us the spiritual journey is more like fits and starts. The moment of clarity arrives through some deep spiritual experience – in a meditation, on a retreat, in the presence of great spiritual teachers – or in a mundane moment of living – doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, having a shower (since there is no one way that these moments arrive and no right way) – or in the moment of great life transformations like marriage, divorce, having a child, being with a loved one as they die. Gradually, over time, the epiphany or moment of enlightenment becomes a bit obscured and then more so by attending to life, relationships, work, demands on our time and attention.

And then, something brings our attention back to the moments of epiphany – days, weeks, months, maybe even years later. We are reminded that this is our path. Instead of turning to embrace it, we often give ourselves a hard time – the itty-bitty-shitty committee that sits on our shoulder – for having strayed away from “the path”, for letting ourselves be overwhelmed by life. We give ourselves grief because we don’t light candles every day, or meditate or have some daily ritual that would ensure our spiritual purity. We forget to allow ourselves some grace and compassion in the journey of life.

In a conversation with a friend and colleague who I coach, she said she feels like she is looking away from the work she needs to do. It is a thought that carries weight and heaviness – not just for her but for everyone of us who has had this experience. It occurred to me as I listened that we may also be doing the work while looking away. This does not need to be mutually exclusive. There may be many reasons why we look away.

We might look away because we are distracted. Life has a way of bringing us many distractions as we live into work, relationships, health, dreams. We might look away because it is too intense right now and we need a buffer. We might look away because our body, mind, heart and spirit needs time to absorb what we are learning and experiencing. Absorbing is also part of the work. Allowing is part of the work. Self compassion is part of the work. Finding our way – even or especially in fits and starts is part of the work. Remembering is part of the work.

It is not a straight line between the first steps or awareness and the next or last steps. It is a winding journey that brings us to many experiences. This is part of the reason I wrote my memoir, Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness. It details the fits and starts of my own life journey – the moments of epiphany, the moments of losing my way, the experiences of being drawn back to the journey of openheartedness – because it illuminates the journey of an ordinary person fortunate to have extraordinary experiences that keep reminding me I am human and I am a soul at the same time. It keeps reminding me to focus on the soul journey and not the human tragedy version of the same story.

It is easy to lose our way. It is also easy to find our way back – if we allow that this is all a natural part of the journey of life. And we can still be doing the work – or the work is finding its own way in us – even when we are looking away.

Visions and Memories Can Be Whatever You Want and Need Them To Be

May 8, 2016Leave a comment

When I first became aware of my spirit guides, there were four entities that I tapped into regularly. One was a grandmother guide. I first became aware of her on my own, as I sensed her presence. For me, I sense the presence, tune into and then begin to “see” the quality, shape, colour, details of the presence. It can be whatever you want or need it to be and it will be something that resonates with you, something you need to be reminded of, you know or need to know.

In this case, I “see” my grandmother – Casey – my mother’s mother. She was 94 years old when she died but I never “see” her old in my visions of her. She often shows up in 1950’s attire and whatever age she would have been then. She is stylish and is often dressed as if she is out and about or ready to go somewhere – with a cigarette in her hand. She is full of spunk.

Two beautiful women: my mother – Mary Patricia Ann Ritcey Jourdain – with her mother – Kathleen (Casey) Hackett Ritcey – in 1990 (the year my first son was born)

The same is true of my mother. I don’t see her as she was in her final years in long term care, physically diminishing with dementia. I see her in the vibrancy of an earlier age, happy, effusive. It is also how I remember her. Because I can remember her any way I wish and there are 50 years of memories to draw on. Remembering what makes me smile is good for my soul. Remembering what makes you smile is good for your soul.

These days, it is different guides and entities I tap into more regularly because what I need now, need to access, is different than it was then. But whenever I turn my mind or attention to my grandmother guide – or any of the others so prevalent at that time, they appear. Easily, readily, in the fullness of everything they have to offer.

The visions that come to us have valuable information. Trust the symbolism. It is specifically meant for you. Whether it comes from spirit or comes from your unconscious it doesn’t matter. It is meaningful and has meaning. Let yourself discover what it is and take joy in the beautiful images and memories that appear. They can guide your path and your intention, increase your vibration and allow more good to flow through and to you.

Drumming and the Soul

February 11, 20159 Comments

In 2000, I experienced my first drumming circle. At the time, it was a brief, but profound experience and even then I couldn’t imagine how profound it was, would be, as it reverberated through the next decade of my journey and beyond. It was so profound that my book, Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness, begins with a description of the drumming circle.

I did not deliberately seek out the depth of spiritual journey that showed up – at least not all the time – although the spiritual journey was persistent in seeking me out. At times it felt like I had no choice but to respond, to follow the nudges and to give in to what kept wanting to show up. This journey for me was an opening to gifts and talents I did not think possible for me or available to me. I had imagined only “special”, “deeply gifted” and “powerful” people would have access to these kinds of gifts. The realization over time is that we all have access, we all have gifts. Most of us just need to find our way through the persistent story telling that tells us otherwise, that tells us that these experiences are not real, that we are making them up. The mind does not know the difference between what we imagine and what is real – which is why visualization is so powerful.

In this audio clip from an interview I did with Terry Paul Choyce, she asks great questions about my soul journey and I share snippets of my experiences and understandings that have emerged through this part of my life journey.

My favourite picture from when my son and I made our own drums in 2009.