For me, the pandemic has felt at times a bit like an uninvited guest, an old acquaintance who arrives unexpectedly, someone with whom I have a long history, mixed feelings about and who I had begun to wonder if I would ever see again. The fire and brimstone lessons of my strict religious childhood prepared … Continue reading Your One Wild and Precious Life
I’m kicking off a new music project inspired by my relationship with the Rumi poem Don’t Go Back To Sleep and my deep sense of it’s relevance to these times. I’m looking for contributions of recordings of people reading poems they love and that are inspiring them right now. I’d like the mix to have … Continue reading Don’t Go Back To Sleep
I’ve been in my new home, self isolating alone on the edge of town, a short walk up to Southwick Hill, for a week now. It’s been non stop for three weeks, preparing for the move, moving and then getting set up here. Lying half awake first thing this morning I felt like I wanted … Continue reading Southwick Hill
What a time to be alive, and entering the leadership phase of my life. Awesome and fearsome are the two words I’ve been using recently to describe my experience right now. Brené Brown sums it up beautifully: People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis”, but it’s not. It’s an unraveling – a time … Continue reading The Great Unraveling, The Spirit of Intimacy & The Vision Quest
In the midst of this remarkable transitional phase of my life, as I slowly and carefully unwrap the layers of meaning that encapsulate the end of the most significant love relationship of my adult life, I find a vast panoply of thoughts, feelings and emotions which in some sense have been held static for a … Continue reading Initiation
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. … Continue reading The Line Separating Good and Evil
According to Mac Macartney – elder, storyteller and founder of Embercombe – The Children’s Fire was a small fire which was placed in the centre of the Native American council of Peace Chiefs to remind them of their pledge that any decision they made should not cause harm, directly or indirectly, to their children or the children … Continue reading The Children’s Fire
The purpose of my vision quest last September was to perform a ceremony whereby I would initiate myself into full adulthood. Rites of passage is a familiar concept for most people in our culture, but nonetheless we tend to underplay the importance of ceremonially marking life’s big transitions. We take for granted that at various … Continue reading A Band of Brothers
On the rare occasions I have a conversation with someone about my vision quest last year I invariably begin by explaining that it’s not over, that in some sense I’m still in the ceremony. I experience strong, mixed feelings of excitement, fear and confusion whenever I think about this. During the two days I spent … Continue reading All Souls Pass Into The West
I’ve blogged before about my belief that a key aspect of my healing journey is the incorporation of an aspect of myself which is childlike. Sometimes it seems as though this journey has required me to go back and re-experience and renegotiate all of the natural development stages of childhood and adolescence, where parts of … Continue reading The Crossroads