Join us this Saturday to recreate the news!

We’ll be gathering together on Zoom to create art around the headlines that weigh heavily on our hearts. It may be tough to limit your choices. Whether you make a piece of art that captures your reactions to the headlines or literally “re-create” the headlines by rewriting or reimagining headlines that might be more uplifting, the choice is yours.

I’m excited to announce that CREATIVE RESISTANCE is now open for enrollment!

The time has come to gather together to support each other in finding and expressing our truest selves!

We need more community and less isolation.

We need more creating and less destruction.

We need to resist the forces that keep us fearful and silent.

Our creativity is our unique way to add beauty and positivity to the world that is desperate for our gifts.

Have you ever felt lighter after a session of creativity?

How do you feel after you’ve played with your art supplies?

Sometimes it just feels good to smoosh paint around on the page, yes?

And sometimes, art can set you feel free!

Why create in community?

Creativity is a way to express what is truest within you. Doing that in community surrounds you with a crowd of supportive non-judgmental souls who can witness your truth and your bravery for showing up for you.

I’ve been feeling more helpless and overwhelmed with every wave of news headlines. How about you?

Hearing from some of you, I know I’m not alone in this enormous struggle. I keep asking myself what is mine to do.

The answer involves community and creativity. Not just another meeting, but coming together and creating something in a circle of creative community, exploring creativity as an act of resistance!

It is time to shine your light in the darkness that surrounds us now. Remember why you came! What vision do you want to create? Shine brightly as an act of resistance.

Rembrant’s painting depicts an invitation to step into the divine embrace where we’ll receive our deepest desires: belonging and a sense of home. Can you trust that God loves you enough to search for you? Can you trust the one who runs out to embrace you as soon as you remember that small voice that calls you “Beloved”?

With all the noise in the world, so much of it frightening and disturbing, it is very difficult to realize that those loud voices promise us everything but deliver nothing. It is essential to our well-being that we find a quiet space to hear that voice that calls us home.

It is only in that quiet space that you can hear the invitation to live the celebration!

As the Celtic wheel of the year shifts again and Imbolc returns, we can notice anew how we are responding to the invitation to allow the Christ consciousness to be born in us. Each of the eight festivals give us a fresh opportunity to recommit to the journey and begin again. Because the wheel works more like a spiral than a closed circle, we greet each festival again but we are in a different place, perhaps a little deeper into, or higher up on our journey, whichever metaphor works for you.

Defining hope as taking responsibility for the future, joyfully and with perseverance in spite of obstacles. And regardless of outcomes.

I commit to being here with you, and for you, to walk through whatever craziness and uncertainties rise up.

I am committed to the journey.

I am here.

Adsum.

Is your inbox filling up with emails encouraging you to commit to the perfect “new you” in this “new year?”

This is not that.

This is an invitation to ask yourself what you need right now. Do you need the structures of carefully thought-out plans to energize you? Or do you crave more rest and a gentle easing into the New Year? Or a little bit of both?

I am advocating the realigning of your energies to match the energies of the shifting seasons. The more we can live in right relationship with creation, the more we will thrive. So let’s have a look at the Celtic festival of Samhain.

Trusting God is hard! But when we step out of alignment with the Divine and let the ego drive, we lose our inner peace. Here are some ideas to consider in learning how to trust God more and worry less.

The first step toward finding peace in your heart is the practice of seeing the divine everywhere, in all people, and throughout creation. If we do not see the face of God in “the other,” we can not see God.

A big obstacle to seeing God in the other is dualistic thinking. Sometimes referred to as “us/them thinking,” it contributes mightily to the divisiveness in the world today.

The fear that you may be feeling actually comes from what moves you, concerns you, and makes you weep. If you didn’t care about the possibility of losing what deeply concerns you, there would be no fear…. These questions now come into play:

• Am I showing up from a place of fear or a place of love?

• Is my false self or my true self in charge when I’m afraid?

We cannot not talk about it.

We need to bring our faith and all that we’ve experienced and witnessed - the injustices, poverty, wars, immigration, racism, sexism, and all the traumas happening in the world - together to a large listening table, and with respect and compassion and courage, listen to each other. We need to begin the journey of reconstruction, building a compassionate community and showing up as Christ for others with divine love.

Calling creativity “an act of devotion” is the salve I didn’t know I needed! The words feel like a loving, expansive permission slip to create more!

Figuring out exactly what you have control over (spoiler: yourself) and what you don’t control will lead you in the ‘right’ direction for you, the direction that is aligned with your soul.

Sketching in Ireland taught me how to take up space and show up for myself.

Let go of the death grip on certainty and being right, and allow a bit more space for mystery.

Here is my challenge for you: can you slow down enough to see the wonder in the most ordinary of moments?