Whenever I get my hands dirty in the garden, I’m reminded how all things are part of the whole.

You and I and the earthworms.

I think when I fully realized and accepted that, I never again experienced separation or depression. Maybe that will change, time will tell but I just never feel lonely or anxious anymore and that has not always been the case.

What changed?

Being on a spiritual path has shifted my perception of who I am and why I’m here in a palpable way.

Spiritual sayings that used to sound like rhetoric or wishful thinking to me, but they are no longer empty words without reality for me. Words like “we are all one” are felt deeply.

Yesterday I was planting some flowers and vegetable seeds at my parent’s home in the sunshine and I was thinking about how a seed doesn’t grow until it has been put into the soil and is given the right environment. In the same way, a soul does not expand and grow and find self-expression until it finds itself in the right environment, surrounded by love and understanding. In those conditions, things begin to happen, and changes can come quickly.

Growth and expansion of consciousness can take place without any restrictions.

A few weeks ago I told my husband Scott I was considering winding up my Substack or at the least just taking a summer holiday so I could have more time to build a more supportive infrastructure to serve you better. To create a better environment for soul growth.

To be truly helpful.

The Field feels like home to me now so I don’t want this to end, so I plan to resume after taking a short break, most likely at the end of the summer or sooner if I can get things lined up. I’ve been trying to juggle both, but when you add life, summer wedding ceremonies, and other commitments I keep pushing back the most important and least urgent things -so something had to give.

I noticed some new subscribers last night - I feel bad that you just arrived and things are on pause, but now you can feel free to familiarize yourself with some of my older posts and you’ll all have a chance to read some of the ones you missed.

This feels like a safe place to share ideas and now I feel called to level up the environment and how I’m helping others because while I feel like it’s a place where I can tell the truth, it doesn’t feel that way for some of you -too many of you who would much rather respond to this directly or send me private messages than comment below so it’s time for me to create a better environment for all of us to grow together.

I have sincerely appreciated your messages and emails about how much you look forward to your Sunday morning ritual of reading field notes with your morning coffee. I’ve enjoyed writing it and I look forward to it for many more years to come.

Being a Minister is not about theology for me, nor is it about church and institutionalized religion- it’s about freedom.

It can be about church and belonging for some of us, but it’s also about “real” life and the peace of mind that comes with new understandings.

The power that ancient spiritual teachings have to soothe our souls and shift our perceptions is unlimited.

I’ve been thinking about the creative ways we can all express ourselves when words don’t seem like enough and what that might look like.

A Course In Miracles says that “words are but symbols of symbols…twice removed” and sometimes it does feel that way. We load the words with meaning. We add our perceptions to the mix and words take on a life of their own and it becomes harder to hear them for their intention.

When you hear the word “repent” what comes to mind? Did you know that ‘pent’ simply means to think - the word means to re-think…to THINK again. Take 2. Who doesn’t love a second chance or a do-over? A mulligan. Do you see what I mean about words?

What is more direct or less “removed” than words?

All kinds of things. Nature. Music. Symbols.

I recently ran across some of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen calligraphies.

I adore them.

They’ve been exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia. These eloquent ink artworks capture his insights, peace, and gentle compassion. His handwriting warms my heart and weirdly, it looks an awful lot like my own.

Familiar.

One thing I loved learning is that Thay (his students called him Thầy which means"master; teacher") always started his calligraphy with a tea ceremony. He had a sacred ritual where he drank it mindfully and then infused some of the tea into the ink of every design he made.

Here he is cupping the tea lovingly in his hands meditatively and then he would wait until something inspired and moved him.

When he felt it was completed, he stamped his work with the red square symbol which was his unique signature.

He was able with a few strokes capture the essence of his teachings in simple pure ways that land on us in a way words alone never could.

As the artist you can feel how soaked he was in the spiritual concepts and teachings that he carried with him day after day, year after year and he lived and moved and had his being in them. They went from complicated scriptures to one word or a few words on parchment infused with tea and love.

When I think of the simplicity of his teaching and stories, and of these caligraphies I feel affected and it makes me wonder how I can do this with my work.

Personalize it.

Be so soaked in loving compassion that I can bring that feeling with me into any environment and others in my presence will feel it.

I may be dating myself a little here, I’m not sure if they are still in circulation…but do any of you remember learning how to read with these books?

Hmmm…now that I see these, the images also tell a hidden story about not-so-subtle gender roles in the 1970s in a way words never could. My husband does the vacuuming in our home now and so does his father:)

I’ve joked to friends before that I’d like to “Dick and Jane” some of these spiritual teachings down with cartoons and maybe even acted out so that others can find freedom and peace of mind in new ways that are so clear that no one gets left behind.

Kind of like Spiritual Kindergarten. A Spiritual Sunday school or a garden for adults to grow and expand their consciousness. And maybe for children too.

Our authenticity is powerful.

When I first saw a short clip of this video on Instagram (watch for the first 1 minute and 16 seconds or so) it seemed to capture something helpful - I never did watch Lili’s full episode of the podcast with Jay Shetty, but I recognized the content of the material she’s using from an Allan Watts’ YouTube based on the Buddha’s teachings, but I think Lili expresses the teaching perfectly in her unique beautiful way.

She’s struggled with anxiety and depression openly and you can feel her sincerity.

Videos are another medium that others may find more helpful than words on a page.

There are many ways I could add more depth and dimension to this Substack to be more clear and helpful. I’m excited to get started this summer and look forward to sharing my harvest with you this fall.

All this kindergarten talk has reminded me of how we used to have “show and tell” and that could be another fun way I share these spiritual concepts:)

More like an all-inclusive or universal “Sunday School”.

Gravity & Grace

It’s a shame that most of us learned about a version of God in the church where God is separated from creation -not the living light and holy life force energy that we encounter in and through creation.

The primary principle in the Universe that holds the planets in place also holds us in our lives perfectly. It can be trusted.

Everything is alive and supporting us.

There are so many wonderfully supportive practices from many faiths and traditions around the world that can be truly helpful and I’d like to share some of my favorites with you this fall as well to show you how others connect with God or Source to tune inwards.

One example that comes to mind, even if we did go to church or Sunday school, most of us never had the pleasure of learning about the power of affirmative prayer - only the old way of praying to a God concept outside ourselves and asking for things and favors rather than aligning ourselves with a power greater than us, that we’re a part of so we can heal and experience our abundance and share our gifts in new ways.

Do any of you remember at least the first paragraph of this?

It never occurred to me that I could die in my sleep before I saw this. But now I see how beautiful it is.

Communing with a higher power gave me great comfort when I said my prayers before bed when I was little. Taking a moment to give thanks and bless our loved ones is sadly something many children today are not taught and anxiety levels for all children are on the rise.

Maybe it’s not just the phones that are to blame, maybe we are.

Or the powerful indigenous or ancient Christian Celtic and Essene practice of intentional alignment with the earth each day in a simple, fundamental, central, and sacred way to balance our bodies and connect to our elemental selves with wind/air, water, earth, and fire not just on the special occasions of the equinox, the solstice, and full moons but by simply feeling grateful in our minds and by kicking off our shoes and taking 5 seconds to FEEL it every day.

To step out into the sunshine in our pajamas and bare feet to sip a warm drink, listen to the sounds of life, give thanks, and connect to nature. And to our true nature - not the ticker tape of thoughts going through our brain.

Lacing up our shoes to watch the sunrise and to commune with what the Essenes called the “Angels of the Earthly Mother”.

We’ve forgotten how we ARE a part of nature and how it can guide us in the most miraculous ways when we open to it it will speak to us.

I’d like this Substack to become more than words, I’d like there to be an accessible way for you to be able to reach out in a private group so that we can practice applying some of these spiritual teachings to your life in real-time with others on the same path.

To ground these teachings down to earth in the most practical ways and share your experience.

And more than anything I’d like the work I put out in the world to be a catalyst for you to have your own sacred, felt experience of having an energetic connection to ALL of life.

By raising our level of consciousness.

Finding new, fun, and creative ways to help others master this inner shift from fear to love because what I’ll be sharing this fall is not being taught in a way that feels palatable or relatable in modern life.

Dense books like A Course In Miracles are so intelligent and helpful in shifting our perception, but many people struggle to understand the spiritual concepts or fail to make any headway with the workbook and give up before day 70.

I’d like to help change that as well.

I see a clear three-fold path to help us unfold a deep sense of inner peace and connection through:

1. Ancient & Modern Spiritual Wisdom from all lineages

2. Nature

3. Consciousness.

Using both science AND Spirit because if we’re using science we only accessing our separate physical and material-minded potential we are operating at only half our human capacity.

Our consciousness is where we unlock the quantum dimension in us.

I find it revealing that Quantum Physicists have tried to share the intelligence of their studies with the public in recent years, but they’ve hit a wall. It’s been too challenging to translate it in a way for the average bear to understand it with a materialist worldview.

My friend Robin told me that she once heard that when you’re teaching a new concept, even to adults you should aim for it to be a grade 6 level so no one gets left behind. I think she’s onto something.

There is no grade 6 version of quantum physics, so let’s create one.

Why are we so resistant to these new concepts?

Because it gives us an ice cream headache and fills us with dread.

It seems as though reality is too shocking to our “ordinary sensibilities” - because it challenges our ways of interpreting the truth of our existence.

The well-published and documented entanglement experiments have revealed that we’re all a part of a single vast web of interconnected particles that remain in contact with one another over ANY distance and in no time. No movement, no “transfer” of energy or information.

It’s instant.

This means that our physical reality is a single quantum system that responds to itself with further interactions. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know that we can heal in an instant?

Can you guess which language they have turned to to help us understand it all?

Spiritual language. The language of the Mystics.

I suppose we find it challenging because modern science is at odds with our old scientific and religious worldviews.

What we thought was reality is not.

This is very inconvenient for all of our established institutions.

But is that a good enough reason to look away? Because it threatens our worldview? Or our religion?

The facts are that we’re BOTH made of earth elements AND we’re stardust and the implications are HUGE.

It feels like we’re in a moment in history when we are living between stories.

The old rules and our fetishment of quantifying everything have made us deny forms of new knowledge. Like consciousness. Near Death Experiences. Pre-cognition.

Our ego and personal self is a conflation of the old story and it’s time for us to see it for what it is.

I’d like to step up and begin to tell the new story, not as an intellectual but as a human being seeking clarity and sharing from a more authentic heart space.

We have begun to finally understand that we ARE one and we are responding to ourselves as creators.

In the West it feels like we’ve inherited a false sense of superiority in our material mindedness, a false security, and false righteousness it is no wonder why our culture, religion, and politics are in the state they are in.

Only a healed, more compassionate, and contemplative mind can help bring forward the new consciousness needed to awaken a more loving, just, and sustainable world.

This requires not just a healing environment and supportive practices. It means admitting we were wrong. Dissovling or egos so we’ll do that work here as well.

It may take us a few more generations and more suffering, but we’ll get there.

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

Moving forward, we can undo a lifetime of false ideas and shift our perceptions to a new possibility aligned with the spiritual intelligence in us.

I’d like to invest my time, resources, and energy to support others willing and interested in creating personalized practices to touch and transcend their unconscious conditioning.

To learn how to align with our Buddha nature, our Christ Consciousness in fun and practical ways using ancient and modern spiritual concepts.

To develop a healthy ego that is aligned to serve the greater good so we can see more deeply, wisely, and justly.

Creating a more humble, loving, and patient community with the marriage of science AND spirit.

I’d like to leave you with a dream from one of my teachers.

Brian McLaren shared his vision of a restored Earth where humans live equitably with the Earth, other humans, and the more-than-human world:  

I dream that the wisdom of Indigenous people, the wisdom of St. Francis and St. Clare and the Buddha and Jesus, the wisdom of climate scientists and ecologists and spiritual visionaries from all faiths could be welcomed into every heart. Then, we would look across this planet and see not economic resources, but our sacred relations … brother dolphin and sister humpback whale, swimming in our majestic indigo oceans, with sister gull and brother frigate bird soaring above them beneath the blue sky. We would see all land as holy land, and walk reverently in the presence of sister meadow and brother forest, feeling our kinship with brother bald eagle and sister box turtle, sister song sparrow and brother swallowtail butterfly, all our relations.  

In my dream, the reverence we feel when we enter the most beautiful cathedral we would feel equally among mountains in autumn, beside marshes in spring, surrounded by snow-covered prairies in winter, and along meandering streams in summer.

In my dream, even in our cities, we would look up in wonder at the sky, and a marriage between science and spirit would allow us to marvel at the sacredness of sunlight, the wonder of wind, the refreshment of rain, the rhythm of seasons.

At each meal, we would feel deep connection to the fields and orchards and rivers and farms where our food was grown, and we would feel deep connection to the farmers and farmworkers whose hands tended soil so we could eat this day with gratitude and joy.  

In my dream, our life-giving connection to each other and to the living Earth would be fundamental, central, and sacred … and everything else, from economies to governments to schools to religions … would be renegotiated to flow from that fundamental connection.

In my dream, we would know God not as separate from creation, but as the living light and holy energy we encounter in and through creation: embodied, incarnated, in the current and flow of past, present, and future, known most intimately in the energy of love.  

This is my dream too Brian.

And I know it is for many of you reading or you wouldn’t be here reading every Sunday.

Thank you for helping me by supporting this Substack to confidently venture out into the world. I’m excited to develop and tap into more helpful ways for all of us to move forward, to create the new earth or the more beautiful world we all know is possible.

Sometimes it’s only when we decide to leave the old behind and then eventually in the light of the new that our growth and expansion of consciousness can take root without any restrictions.

Looking forward to seeing you again this fall - stay tuned for a few personal updates and progress reports this summer!!

Until then, have a wonderful summer and if you have any suggestions or ideas for me hit reply I’d LOVE to hear from you.

Cheers to our continued personal growth.

With love,

Rev Nona

ps. One more for the road…

Thay often said when he looked in his tea, that he saw a cloud. He would go on to explain that what was a cloud yesterday is now his tea (the rainwater:)

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Flowers don’t struggle to blossom.

They don’t seem to doubt their expression, the color they turn, how long they’ll live, or what part of the garden they grew up in.

They just are their flowery self.

Animals are also conscious beings, but they too seem more accepting of their furry, feathery, or amphibian fate.

They also seem to be able to express love. Feel sad, happy, or experience grief, but they don’t seem to question their expression. The birds don’t seem to worry that their voice is pitchy and the elephants don’t worry about their size.

They seem to trust life. To just experience it.

They grow, adapt, and experience themselves as they are.

When I see nature reflected in a calm body of water (even this man-made ditch we passed this morning on our walk:) it reminds me of the saying…

“As above, so below”.

In this case, double the beauty.

Or so that’s what struck me - there was a bit of a bonus fog coming up and the clouds were lit up in a way I’d never seen.

I felt moved by the beauty and perfection of nature.

On the other hand, the blackflies have started to come out, it’s been raining an awful lot and it’s muddy and when I wear my tall boots my socks fall inside of them and bunch up at my foot which I hate, and oh and Gracie came crashing out for the woods and ran up to me proudly with a cute little deer’s leg bone (hoof intact with bits of fur). Ugh. Is she going to get sick now? I wonder if I should take her to the vet…

You probably see where I’m going with this.

The incessant ticker tape of commentary we seem to have going on in our minds is not even the problem, it’s natural and as creative beings, scientists tell us we have thousands of them every day, but the images we hold in our minds, the ones we focus on and empower with our life force WILL be reflected to us in our own bodies of water.

Because we ARE nature.

What’s happening in our ticker tape ABOVE is directly affecting our experience of life and personal reality BELOW.

I have friends who work with horses that teach the importance of managing our inner coherence before walking into a barn because we’re carrying what’s on our minds and hearts into the barn with us. Our kids do too when we come home from work.

They experience our whole ditchy selves. We’re mostly made of water so it’s no wonder. There is always a correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various energetic planes of Being and Life.

This helps explain why in many different spiritual practices around the world, we’re asked not to resist life. To “let go” or “accept” whatever perceived terrible thing is causing suffering in our lives.

I think it’s safe to say that we all naturally want to fight against the things that threaten to harm us.

If we live long enough it seems that we will all face a crisis or a diagnosis, and the pain and discomfort can feel all-consuming so it’s natural to want to resist and fight back. So why are most spiritual traditions and wisdom teachings telling us the EXACT opposite reaction is the surest way to freedom?

We’re assured that peace will come when we stop trying to control or punish others for hurting us by loving our “enemies”, treating them the way we want to be treated, and turning the other cheek.

Why on earth would we not strike back?

It reminds me of the deep wisdom underlying the practice of Eastern martial arts:

Don’t resist the opponent’s force.

Instead, yield to overcome.

Sometimes, “doing nothing” when you are in a state of intense presence is a very powerful transformer and healer of situations and people. It takes more effort to bite our tongue, not to send the text or the email when all we want to do is to set the record straight.

In Taoism, there is a term called wu wei, which is usually translated as “actionless activity” or “sitting quietly doing nothing.” In ancient China, this was regarded as one of the highest achievements or virtues.

It’s radically different from inactivity in the ordinary state of consciousness, or rather unconsciousness, which stems from fear, inertia, or indecision.

And yet, our deeply embedded culture’s automatic mechanism of effort or escape seems to be our first reaction.

How do we learn how to use the catalytic effect of acceptance to transform our experience?

It’s not as hard as you would think. It’s a shift in perception so I’ll leave you with a bit of poetry, a parable, a handful of true short stories, and 3 practical steps today that summarize the process of acceptance so you can see if you’d like to give this a try in your own life.

This poem by Steve Taylor (2016) is a powerful illustration of what goes on in our minds when we choose to either resist or accept…

THE ALCHEMY OF ACCEPTANCE

Emptiness can be a bleak vacuum
cold and hostile, dark with danger;
Or emptiness can be a radiant spaciousness
warm and welcoming, soft with stillness –
and the only difference between them is acceptance.

Any task can seem tedious
a chore to rush through as quickly as you can;
Or any task may seem rewarding
a process to relish, with an attentive mind
that reveals more richness, the more present you become –
and the only difference between them is acceptance.

Pain may seem unbearable
searing through you from a sharp, concentrated point
so that you have no choice but to resist
to try to escape, or to push away the pain;
Or pain can be a sensation
which you can move towards and merge with
which no longer has a centre, and dissipates and spreads through your being
until it becomes soft and numb, no longer a pain at all –
and the only difference between them is acceptance.

Trauma and turmoil can break you down to nothing
destroy the identity you spent your whole life building up
like an earthquake that leaves you in ruins;
Or trauma and turmoil can transform you
break open new depths and heights of you
give rise to a greater structure, a miraculous new self –
and the only difference between them is acceptance.

Life can be frustrating, and full of obstacles
with desires for a different life constantly disturbing your mind;
Or life can be fulfilling, full of opportunities
with a constant flow of gratitude for the gifts you have,
and the only difference between them is acceptance

I LOVE that poem. We could go on and on with neverending examples, pretty much anything to do with us trying to negotiate the frailties of being human.

The issues we all naturally face, the ones that are beyond our control, that don’t seem fair, and yet we still spend so much of our life force energy complaining, feeling bitter, frustrated, and agitated.

We try to fix, plan, change, and control.

Because if we didn’t, things would fall apart…wouldn’t they?

What else are we collectively resisting?

Two biggies: Old age and death come to mind.

Our Western culture, in particular, seems to be going into debt to try to prevent the natural process of aging. We’ve declared war on our wrinkles and have diligently covered the evidence of grey hair. We’ve invested a small fortune in 27-step skincare routines and we buy food supplements at the health food store called things like Lion’s Mane that we’re not convinced is helping us.

Or does the process of aging liberate you? Do you feel enriched by a life well-lived with hard-earned wisdom? Do you feel more present, appreciative, free, and lighter now? Do you love your life, appreciate your aging body, and feel grateful to reach the age you’re at?

Is death an avoided topic of conversation in your family? Do you fear or dread the cold, black, unknown emptiness that threatens to rob you of your life, your loved ones, and everything you’ve achieved in life?

Or do you see it as the pinnacle of the end of a beautiful journey? Tired, fulfilled, happy, and content, you’re grateful for your family and all of the adventures with the life you’ve had and now you’re tired, slowing down, and ready to transition to whatever comes next.

The difference is ACCEPTANCE.

One of the biggest misperceptions we have when we face acceptance is that it’s not a spiritual bypass or denial of what is happening.

Just the opposite…it’s becoming one with whatever is happening.

Going deeper into it.

The opposite of avoidance. The opposite of numbing.

It’s also not about passivity.

Nor is it about resignation or not taking inspired action to alleviate suffering in ourselves or others.

We don’t refuse cancer treatments, but we DO embrace our diagnosis and don’t treat it like an enemy we’re fighting against because when we do we’re fighting against life.

Acceptance frees up energy and feeds a more passionate desire to help and contribute to the healing of the world.

It’s the STARTING POINT for necessary changes TO occur.

ACCEPTANCE is not weakness, it’s courage.

Acceptance aligns us with the laws of nature.

Having said all of that, YES of course it’s a perfectly normal impulse to resist whatever adversity we’re facing. It’s natural to want to take action to solve the issue. If we’re hungry, we eat. If we’re injured, we take action to aid our recovery. If we’re trapped we try to escape. If we’re being attacked we protect ourselves.

That’s natural, but we also carry our attitude of resistance into many other areas of our lives when it isn’t necessary or helpful.

We can also resist smaller things. Everyday situations like allergies, traffic, and waiting in line at the grocery store can result in frustration and impatience.

We may feel resistance toward our partners, children, and friends when they don’t behave as we desire. It’s the part of us that has us thinking thoughts like…I haven’t got time for this. Why does this always happen to me? or Why does she always do this?

It may also seem natural to feel unhappy in these situations.

But the main source of our unhappiness is not the situations themselves, but our resistance to them.

One of my favorite illustrations of the harmful effects of resistance is the Buddha’s parable of the two arrows.

The first arrow is shot at us from life, it’s the pain that we experience as human beings when life surprises us with the unexpected. An illness, a job loss, a breakup, a bankruptcy.

It’s what happens TO us.

The second arrow (the Dukka) is much more dangerous. It is our resistance to our suffering, including negative thoughts, judgments, and hostility towards others.

It comes FROM us.

The second arrow is totally and completely unnecessary.

The Buddha taught his followers to accept predicaments and free themselves from mental anguish. The first arrow is not something we can control, but whatever we do face becomes MUCH more tolerable without the second arrow that always comes from us.

Our minds are powerful and when we are in acceptance they bow down and serve our souls.

We become one with life, with reality.

Resistance inevitably leads to discord creating conflict between us and our perceived reality, since our thoughts are in direct opposition to what is.

Our perception, in turn, creates our reality. Think of the ditch from my dog walk.

Animals and plants don’t do this, but we have free will so we get to choose.

It takes a lot of our energy to keep fighting - until we surrender, it can begin to feel like we’re a fort that is under perpetual attack.

Authentic spirituality is more about letting GO.

Here are a few real live stories to illustrate the power of acceptance in our daily lives…

STEVE

One morning, back in Augst 2000, Steve was doing a morning meditation enjoying the silence and calm. About 10 minutes in, he heard a sharp, annoying ringing in his ears. He was startled by it but at first, he wasn’t very concerned. He assured himself it would pass. It didn’t. It lasted weeks and then months. It was difficult to sleep with the high-pitch and impossible to meditate. He tried to mask it by drowning it out with white noise or music.

He went to a doctor and discovered it was tinnitus. He suspects it was caused by going to concerts and playing in a rock band when he was young.

However he got it, it was his now. With him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It was driving him crazy.

He eventually decided to face it.

Rather than resist it he moved towards it.

Accepted it. He sank into it and allowed himself to be immersed and to his surprise, the noise became less disturbing. The first night, fell asleep easily.

Within days all of his anxiety and agitation faded.

He still hears it today, but it just doesn’t affect him.

It’s there in a neutral, non-bothering way. He has since helped his wife with her lifelong painful and debilitating migraines that she could never medicate away the same way and she’s still getting them but she has experienced a significant reduction in their pain level and duration.

ANANTA

Ananta was traveling in Japan and she was arrested for having an illegal substance in her possession. She was sentenced to 2 years in a Japanese detention facility with extremely strict behavioral codes including serving the whole sentence in silence and working 12 hours a day in a factory.

She was suffering.

It felt unbearable. She couldn’t go on for another day. Here is what happened in her words:

She experienced an awakening transformation by not resisting but rather by going farther into her pain. A beautiful example of acceptance. She worked and stayed her sentence in this bliss and connection.

KEVIN

After decades of struggling with addiction and severe alcoholism, Kevin’s wife asked him to move out. Soon after he lost his job, all his money, his kids, and his dog and he was considering suicide.

He had a few hundred dollars left to his name and nowhere to go. He found himself in a phone booth looking for shelter and saw a card advertising an AA meeting. He went to one meeting, then another, and found himself 5 days sober.

He worked the steps and when he arrived on the step asking him to surrender to a higher power he tried and he experienced a powerful shift that brought with it a palpable new sense of freedom.

He felt a feeling so content and peaceful.

He was in disbelief. It was as if we were flooded with love and peace.

His troubles were lifted from him in an instant and although he owned nothing, he was happy. He feels safe.

He has not felt unhappy or troubled since that playful moment of total surrender. It felt like a miracle and he still feels that wellbeing to this day.

MICHAEL

Michael was an executive for a large medical management company. One morning he was going about his usual routine of getting ready for work and one of the office managers called his cell phone in a panic telling him he had to come to work immediately. The FBI was there and had questions.

Michael was confused he’d done nothing wrong and couldn’t even imagine what it was about. He reassured himself that he’d go in and clear it up in short order and he could get on with his busy day. He arrived to a circus of Federal marshalls, 50 officers, 2 helicopters flying overhead, and the sheriff and they were armed with a warrant.

It must be a terrible mistake.

It was a branch of the US Treasury Department and without telling him why they served him with a warrant and confiscated all of his stuff, millions of documents, thousands of files, and 1.2 million emails.

The raid was JUST the beginning of a very long painful process. He was innocent and had done nothing wrong but he had to prove it.

It turned out was being conned by someone who had been employed by him and had been embezzling money and committing fraud and was trying to save his own hide.

It was a nightmare for Michael and his family and executive team. They were arrested and publically disgraced.

It felt unbearable.

Then he surrendered. There was nothing he could do.

In the end, it was a SEVEN-year odyssey of highs and lows. The legal battle cost $190 million and still, Michael had done nothing wrong.

It wasn’t fair and to make matters worse…Michael’s good friend and lead counsel was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery.

And the judge on the case after a few years had to step down.

Michael decided to continue to show up and practice the spiritual practices he’d cultivated over 40 years.

He started to write and relaxed into what was. He enjoyed his life again even during the process.

In the end, it was miraculously resolved in his favor by some divine intervention.

No scars were left on his psyche. He wasn’t bitter. He allowed himself to move farther and farther inside the pain and flow and he found a beautiful freedom and ended up in awe of how the whole experience taught him things he may never have had the chance to learn otherwise.

He changed. The more he let go, the freer he became.

He wrote a book and had it published.

It became a bestseller.

His full name was Michael Singer.

There seems to be a pattern with every story or 3 stages to harnessing the potential of our challenges:

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Face your predicament.

2. EXPLORATION: Go inside yourself and explore your own experience. Become aware of any negative feelings or thoughts. The pain will diminish with your awareness of it.

3. ACCEPTANCE: Release all resistance. Embrace, accept it, and take inspired action.

It’s so liberating to me to realize that we have a choice.

We get to decide.

Viktor Frankl famously wrote one of the most popular and moving memoirs from WW2 - Man’s Search for Meaning - he learned in the concentration camps that we survive by being hopeful when the only control we may have over our situation is our attitude and how we respond to our experience.

I’ve learned the hard way, that the way I treat myself when I’m going through any issue - IS the issue.

Love, kindness, and compassion is the only way forward.

Let’s give nature the final word today:

Love Poem to God

“How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing---
each stone, blossom, child---
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.”

―Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Life rarely seems to unfold as we expect, but the 13.8 billion-year process didn’t begin and it won’t end with us. No matter how far you feel like you’re falling, trust that you are being held in place like the planets, and let’s see where it leads you.

Trust our true nature, not act on our fears.

To push the metaphysical template, the deeper truth is that ALL human pain is some form of resistance to the natural self.

It’s hard to even imagine that the Universe could be designed so perfectly that whatever will support our growth is right here, right now. By going DEEPER into whatever we’re experiencing.

Accepting it.

‘Feet on ground, heart in hand, facing forward, be yourself’.

Happy Mother’s Day.

With love,

Rev Nona

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Writing and thinking about integrity last month and the aftermath of our dear friend Roger’s disabling stroke and a second close call last weekend has me wondering about how we spend our energy and our lives.

How about you? Are you happy with your work life?

Do you feel fulfilled? Over or underwhelmed?

I’ll admit I’ve gotten caught up in the “find your purpose/live your best” life web of trying to find the perfect position which had me moving from one thing to another for years, never really feeling that things felt just right.

I had a tall order. I wanted to find a career in the middle of that Ikigai sweet spot where I’d be able to care for our boys well and be a loving mother and wife, contribute my natural gifts, make a real difference in the world, feel happy, fulfilled, easy AND make boatloads of money.

I’m still looking for that particular unicorn.

The truth is that truly knowing ourselves can take a lifetime and we can’t ever really control the outcome of anything. It seems to me like surrendering and engaging in the process by letting go of our future fears and focusing on what we’re doing right now is all we can do.

I’ve learned that we are only ever experiencing ourselves in the present anyway, so if we’re waiting on the future to feel joy, we never arrive and it keeps us in a perpetually unsatisfying job search.

I think deep down we’re all afraid to fail. We stay in work we don’t love because we don’t believe it’s possible to get what we want or that we’ll lose what we have. But rather than get caught up in these future scenarios, our instincts and intuition can be our greatest guides so let’s give them veto power.

You can’t force clarity, it takes time, unfolds naturally, and works best with an extra dose of self-compassion and kindness. Most importantly, no one else knows what you know, so it can’t be your friends or family who think they know what’s best for you; it has to be you.

Doug and Kris’ story today is about following that intuition.

Sometimes our work life can take us on the most unplanned, unpredictable ride doing things we never imagined possible with no guaranteed outcomes.

They seem to be the ingredients of a well-lived regret-free life.

To live a life true to ourselves no matter how that looks to others. This coming from the one teaching about love and God and making spiritual concepts more practical for our day-to-day modern lives which I never imagined in a million years would be the most soul-satisfying work for me.

To be honest, it has taken me 54 years and about 25 jobs to find this one and who knows what I’ll be doing in a decade?

My hope today is that you’ll find this a safe place to wonder about your legacy no matter what age and stage you’re in or how far down a path you’ve gone… maybe it’s time to make a change and open yourself up to try something new.

Or maybe you decide to stay and double down feeling energized with a new appreciation for the work and life you already have.

Have you heard of Doug and Kris Tomkins?

The photo above makes me smile because it seems to capture their essence in a place in the world that was transformed by their generosity and love.

After falling in love in mid-life, Kris and the outdoorsman and entrepreneur Doug Tompkins left behind the world of the massively successful outdoor brands they'd helped pioneer -- Patagonia, The North Face, and Esprit -- and turned their attention to a visionary effort to create National Parks throughout Chile and Argentina it what was the largest private land donation in history.

To date, almost 15 million acres have been set aside in 17 National Parks in South America. They have even rewilded the areas, and re-introduced species that were becoming extinct.

Sadly Doug passed away in 2015 on a kayaking trip on Chile’s Lake General Carrera. He was with a group of friends, including Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia outdoor brand, and Rick Ridgeway, a climber and filmmaker. Gusting winds kicked up huge waves, and the kayak Tompkins and Ridgeway were in capsized in the frigid waters. Ridgeway survived, but Doug succumbed to severe hypothermia.

This short trailer from a National Geographic movie released last year captures the essence of the dream that Doug started and Kris finished in her grief. I watched it last night by myself and I had to get up for Kleenex. Twice.

To be honest, I don’t read a lot of business books so I’d never even heard of Doug Tomkins before I saw the book a couple of weeks ago looking for Father’s Day gifts. What initially caught my eye about this book was something I didn’t expect from the Founder of North Face and Esprit.

Regret.

Doug lived the American dream and then he regretted the corporate capitalism that he’d profited from his whole life.

He was a skier and an outdoor enthusiast, a climber, and he had experienced nature the way most of us do.

As tourists.

He was best friends with Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia) and he had four friends who called themselves “The Fun Hogs”…

They did extraordinary things, had incredible adventures around the world, and one time they even got trapped in ice caves together. Here they are sitting on top of the world.

Doug somehow managed to spend three or four months of the year in the wild and jokingly called it his MBA - ‘Management By Absence’.

He seemed to have lived an ideal life by most measures.

He was wealthy and had time and freedom to do anything he wanted.

So why the regrets?

It wasn’t until he was flying OVER the mountains one day and the uninhabited lands of Patagonia one day…staring out the window at Volcano Michinmahuida blanketed in snow that he was profoundly struck by the beauty and wilderness. His intuition took over and his worldview began to shift. He and his wife Kris set about to make some changes after his realization that his work was contributing to the devastation of our planet.

On one memorable fly-over, he was so moved by the clear-cut forests above Washington State that he decided to abandon his life as a fashion tycoon to focus all his effort and resources on halting the destruction.

As a CEO he confessed that he felt responsible for causing much pollution and as he put it…“made things nobody needed.”

Now, he was declaring that it was time to reverse the damage to the planet, and maybe even himself.

His book (written by Jonathan Franklin) “A Wild Idea” tells the story of how he became one of the primary founders of our modern conservation and land protection movement. He stopped dams and saved whales, but he still felt like he was losing the greater struggle.

The same struggle we now all seem to share with our population topping 8 billion.

Long gone are the days when we can feel good or right by simply finding work to create a business and life we love without considering the bigger picture of the impact of our work on the planet.

Our carbon-charged lifestyles are causing species to become extinct. It’s time for us to begin to tune inwards for answers on how to move forward and possibly tie in our legacies and work to help in any way we can.

To use our gifts aligned to the greater good is not just a nice idea, it’s the only one worth having.

I’ve been reading some indigenous people's written accounts of their view of our European culture. We’ve been so busy colonizing them and the world since the 16th century and talking about their culture, are you curious to hear about their impression of us?

In 1932 Carl Jung met Chief Mountain Lake in New Mexico and when Jung asked him what he thought of Europeans he said:

“The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We do no know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are all mad.”

Many others have shared that same bemusement. They believed our lust for possessions and competition was a kind of madness.

The famous Sioux Chief Sitting Bull said:

“ Love of possession is a disease with them… They claim this Mother of ours, the Earth for their own and fence their neighbours away”.

How have we descended into madness and become so disconnected from nature and each other?

One of the most acute observers of the differences between our European and Indian worldviews Chief Luther Standing Bear wrote:

Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surrounding, the other sought the dominance of surroundings…For (the Indian) the world was full of beauty, for (the white man) it was a place of sin and ugliness to be endured until he went to another world.

Maybe we haven’t exactly been in our “right minds”.

I used to teach History and there is clear evidence of a point in our pre-history when things “went wrong” - that is, when warfare, patriarchy, social inequality, and our concepts of separation became widespread. Before that time, human societies were generally peaceful and egalitarian, and individuals experienced a sense of psychological well-being and connection to the cosmos.

The prehistoric murals that adorned caves had a noticeable absence of images of warriors or warfare in the paintings.

The worldwide myths of a golden age or “paradise” have a factual, archeological basis, not just a biblical one. The transformation began about 4000 BE with climate change in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Then there was an ego explosion. I call it that but A Course In Miracles refers to it as a time when we had “a tiny mad idea”. Biblically we know it as ‘The Fall’, but whatever we call it…this separation from God or love was followed by centuries of warfare, massive inequalities of wealth and power, the brutal oppression of women, classes, castes and so much greed that preceded the suicidal destruction of our planet’s life support systems that are causing natural disasters and are threatening irreversible change.

If you weren’t convinced that we are going insane, what could be more insane than our self-destruction?

I feel optimistic that we’re entering a new historical phase that offers a visionary yet practical path out of the morass that distorts human nature.

The discord in the world seems to stem from a discord in us. Once our minds are healed, we are will no longer able to participate in the destruction of our planet.

I’d be the first to admit this sounds absurdly utopian, but only because we’re so far removed from our true nature and our modern cultures have normalized the insanity.

Culture may still hold sway over us, but I think we’re mostly ready to heal our collective psychosis and shift our culture.

It’s not natural for human beings to kill each other, for men to oppress women, for any of us to despise our bodies, for children to be dying of starvation, or for small groups of people to wield massive amounts of power and wealth or to dominate massive numbers of other people.

So what does this mean for you and me and our work in the world?

Everything. It’s time for us to wake up from this schizophrenic nightmare, use our gifts, and contribute to this process of awakening in whatever way feels natural for us.

Doug and Kris saw that a broader grass-roots revolution was needed.

Doug fell head over heels in love with nature. His hobbies reflected that love, but his work although connected to the outdoors, was doing the very opposite. It was harming the earth.

He allowed himself to see past his ego and desires and see that he was a part of the problem, not the solution.

He cashed in his chips and used them to protect the wildness.

In the beginning, he and his wife Kris moved into a tiny cabin with no electricity or running water in Patagonia and things unfolded from there. It was in that cabin during that time that they had the idea of saving the land by buying it and then donating it back to the countries to be declared as National Parks.

Everyone thought they were crazy.

It was a crazy GOOD idea. This new focus and passion became their whole life focus and since his passing, it has become his legacy.

He and Kris have done the unimaginable - in countries where extraction and mining are their main focus they have protected land and created National parks. They (with their friend Yvonne) seeded a whole new generation of environmentally sound companies.

In 2022, inspired by his friend Yvon Chouinard, founder of the apparel brand Patagonia (Kris was the original CEO and started the business with Yvon), announced that he had voluntarily given away his $3 billion company, placing ownership in a trust and vowing to spend all future profits on environmental causes.

Whatever we decide to do, let’s just admit now that it probably won’t be easy.

The movie last night gave me a clear sense of what an arduous process the Tompkins went through to convince the governments of Chile and Argentina that their motives were pure and they weren’t trying to gobble up land as part of some nefarious scheme that would jeopardize those countries’ national security. Some of the outrageous suspicions made me laugh, but along the way, the couple faced death threats and covert surveillance by shadowy antagonists.

I was moved to tears by their efforts.

I know we look for ways out when things get hard. I do that. But most of the worthy things in my life have been the HARDEST.

The bone-tired feeling of laboring to deliver a baby comes to mind.

It’s our passion and love for what we’re doing that can help us get through just about anything.

The other lesson I appreciated because I need to learn it, is that we won’t always be liked. Doug argued with his friends like his neighbors like Steve Jobs in the 1980s when he was warning of the dangers of technology and globalization.

Maybe we find our backbones when we believe and love something even if it’s an inconvenient truth to tell. I get the impression from the book that he didn’t care what other people thought. I suppose he was probably a pain in everyone’s ass. He was also a High School dropout and yet he seemed fearless. He WAS an uncertified and unqualified force of nature.

Is there another mountain you’d like to climb while you’re here?

I originally intended for this Substack to be a safe place for us to come on Sundays and wrestle with the frailties of what it means to be human and how we can move forward more consciously. To trust life and relax into an acceptance that there is a force or a primary organizing principle at play in our lives guiding us.

We have clearly not understood the teachings of Jesus or Buddha or any of the prophets through organized religion.

If we had, we’d be more like them and we’re not.

It seems like the most helpful knowledge that Jesus shared has become so twisted, misunderstood, and rewritten so many times it has been transformed into something barely recognizable from its original beauty.

Lately, I’ve been reading the Essene Gospels of Peace (Jesus was an Essene). They are Christian documents where the Christian Philosophy of life is in harmony with nature.

Wow.

Where were they when I was growing up in Catholic school?

Dumb question. They have been swept into the “Heretical” pile. I mean, even I can see why how it could jeopardize the legitimacy of the Church as the divine representative on earth to release them and I certainly don’t want to challenge others’ sacredly held beliefs in our inherited Christian lineages. But it sure does explain why Jesus and the Essene teachings were a serious threat to the Church’s power structures and economic interests.

This is not shocking news to me and probably not to you - I’ve suspected this for two decades since I studied ancient Celtic Christianity which shares these truths, but no one can change the past.

Here is the point I’m trying to make…

Ancient Christianity WAS aligned with Native and Aboriginal teachings.

And the Natural World is the language we ALL speak so that’s the one I’m going to use going forward as much as possible.

A New Earth is not just a fantasy or a utopia.

Human peace in harmony with nature would result in a global pacifist movement that would prioritize the protection of the earth, and strive for the equality of ALL life on our shared planet.

It feels to me like no matter what career or job we choose, we all only have ONE job to do. To learn that we ARE this great love that we seek.

And of course, we’re here to take the inspired actions that come from that love.

To me, it seems that the nice things that pop into our minds are of God.

Not the judgemental ego voice that criticizes everyone and everything, how others look, the argumentative voice that makes others wrong, and tells us to become an eco-terrorist or buy dumb shit we don’t need.

The part that sounds the opposite of agitated…more like, “Smile at that woman with the cane and see if you can help her load her groceries. Hold your tongue. So they’re late, cut them some slack. Don’t gossip. Get up and go and watch the sunrise. Put your phone down and go to bed. Give your Mom a call and see how she’s feeling. Bring your neighbor who is sick some dinner. Sell your stocks and create 15 million acres of National Parks in South America.”

To create an amazing life story and feel good we need to listen to that inner voice as often as we can and we’ll naturally be led to the bigger things.

Before we know it, we’re feeling energized and getting up at dawn without an alarm and working 12-hour days like Doug and Kris did after they retired to squeeze more marrow out of life.

Or maybe we’ll rescue a dog from the pound and let it rock on the hammock with us in the shade.

It’s ENTIRELY up to us and maybe that is a part of the problem. We let ourselves off the hook too easily.

I like to think of us all as cells in ONE body or like a bee hive; we all have a role to play. In my experience, something feels a bit off when I don’t play the role assigned to me.

I confess without a queen Bee to tell me what to do, it’s taken me five decades to find something that felt right for me. I was on a call with an amazing group of women entrepreneurs this week lamenting about how long it’s taken me to find my way.

I’ve collected so many qualifications, certificates, and paychecks from different places (and a lot of unpaid work) since I was about 6 years old and they’ve all served me on some level but I never felt like I had arrived or was doing what I was meant to do.

No resume or bio could contain my multitudes or captivate the totality of who I’ve become. I don’t even know how to describe what I do but I’m working on that this week.

Have YOU ever listed ALL of the jobs you’ve ever done?

note: For fun, I’ve posted mine below to inspire you to do one to take an appreciative trip down memory lane to see how far you’ve come in your process of discovery.

I’m turning 54 in July and after a lifetime of working in what feels like every sector, I’m FINALLY ready to serve by simply being…

Me.

Not Reverend Nona, just me.

I’ve enjoyed aspects of ALL of the jobs and life that have challenged me in the best possible ways because they have taught me invaluable lessons.

I’ve pitchforked countless wheelbarrows of animal poop, and cleaned toilets, and other people’s vomit. I’ve taught kindergarteners how to play musical chairs and High School kids about plate tectonics.

I’ve led fun hot yoga classes and cheered for children playing sports on every continent.

I’ve married young couples in love, cried with rape victims, and comforted people near the end of life.

I’ve sweated for 10 hours in the hot sun with blisters and burns carrying heavy bags of trees with clouds of bugs on my face and up my nose and I’ve been to a ball in a Castle and I’ve been treated like a princess.

I’ve pushed others outside of their comfort zones as a coach, and I have been outside of my own mentally, physically, and spiritually.

I’ve swallowed my pride and cold-called companies for appointments they didn’t want with no soliciting signs on their doors.

I’ve been given rides in the back of strangers’ pickup trucks, flown in helicopters, and hiked through jungles. I’ve driven big machinery and a school bus license and raced a Ferrari around a Formula 1 track.

I’ve been mugged, robbed, sexually assaulted, and been physically and mentally in too much pain to feel like I could go on for another day.

I’ve forgiven all of the people that have hurt me and I’ve been forgiven for hurting others.

I’ve self-sabotaged myself, been sober, confidently helped others struggling with disordered eating, addiction, and compulsion, and then relapsed.

And I’ve healed.

I’m still healing and discovering the most incredible mind-boggling truths about our true nature that things are not as they seem.

I’ve LOVED my life AND it’s been so damn hard some days.

The answer I keep getting is simply to keep showing up. It may not work out as you imagined but the task is simple:

BE YOURSELF and serve Humanity in some small way.

Don’t worry about what others think or say, you’ll be cared for. You always have been and it’s never too late to answer the call on your life.

When we live in harmony with nature, and follow the the spiritual wisdom of our inner voices which the Buddhists call “living one’s dharma” we are assured by all scriptures that we will be provided for. 

Philippians 4 also says that our needs will be provided for when we align with God.

Trust life to take you to wherever it leads you next which is work that must nourish you, heal the earth, and free our common spirit.

There are many ways to share the mystery that is you, and the greatest of these is love.

To love one another without the expectation of gain is to transform the world.

“The first peace, which is the most important is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

Lakota Indian Black Elk

Let’s create peace in the world this week by doing what we can: creating peace in ourselves.

If you don’t have the answers or feel like you’ve landed where you are meant to be, it’s okay, you are in the process, and trust that you’ll know when it’s time to make your next move closer to “home”.

Sunday Evening Essene blessing:

The season’s work comes clear to me,

Amidst my outward growth.

To love it all,

The bitter and the sweet,

For each is drawn to me,

Bringing lessons

To aid my journey home.

How blessed is the student,

How wise the teacher.

And are they not the same?

So grateful to be both a student and a teacher alongside of you.

May all your days lead you closer home to yourself.

With love,

(Just) Nona

Lyrics

Well I have been searching
All of my days, all of my days
Many a road, you know
I've been walking on
All of my days
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade
All of my days
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made
All of this rain
And I've been trying to find
What's been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well, many a night I found myself with no friends standing near
All of my days
I cried aloud, I shook my hands, "What am I doing here?"
All of these days
For I look around me
And my eyes confound me
And it's just too bright
As the days keep turning into night

Now I see clearly it's you I'm looking for
All of my days
So I smile, I know I'll feel this loneliness no more
All of my days
For I look around me
And it seems you found me
And it's coming into sight
As the days keep turning into night
As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Now even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Alexi Murdoch

All My Days lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

As promised…the 25 jobs I’ve done in my life (so far):

1. Egg collector & farm hand on a bird farm (with horses:)

2. Housekeeping (maid service) in Ontario & Alberta

3. Waitress & Hostess

4. Front Desk admin help in a Car Dealership

5. Education degree (Middle School & High School Teacher) in Ontario, Switzerland & Africa

6. Tree Planter and Crew Boss (Ontario, Alberta & B.C.)

7. Financial Industry: Employee Benefits Specialist & Group Manager, Independent Broker

8. Stay-at-home Mom, school volunteer, Co-President of parent-teacher council, team sports coaching (and some failed Multi-level marketing attempts)

9. Life Coach with the Coaches Training Institute

10. Wellness & Triathalon Coach

11. Fundraiser for Cancer Research

12. Ambassador for a Cycling shop and Indoor training facility

13. Board of Directors for a Toronto Cycling Club

14. Nutritionist (Institute for Transformational Nutrition) and nutritional sales and consulting

15. B&A Fitness Model (filmed a commercial in NYC!!)

16. Vegan Chef and waitress

17. Nanny to my nephews (for a few months to help in a pinch:)

18. Recovery coach and Addiction Specialist

19. __(Long Pause#1…Physical/Mental/Emotional/Spiritual Breakdown)__

20. Yoga, meditation, and breathwork Instructor

21. Boxing and Outdoor exercise group instructor

22. Yoga Studio and Transformative Arts Studio Director

23. __(Long Pause#2….Covid-19 and mind-blowingly beautiful Spontaneous Spiritual Awakening)__

24. Ordained Minister/Reverend, Metaphysician, funeral & wedding officiant

25. Author (Substack and Co-authored book in 2023)

26. TODAY: All of those things. And just ME (Entrepreneur)

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I just learned this new word and I love it. I can even FEEL on my skin when I think of it…

Apricity.

From the Latin ‘Apricitas’ or sunny. Apricity means “the warmth of the sun in winter.”

You know that feeling of standing knee-deep in the cold snow and you just can’t help yourself. The sun is FINALLY out for the first time in weeks and you take a moment to silently close your eyes and tilt your head towards the light like sunflowers in a field.

Apricity.

It’s a welcomed reprieve during the long grey months of winter.

Apricity also offers us something that warm weighted blankets, block heaters, and heated seats do not: perpetuation.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving because it penetrates our essence and feeds our life force.

It’s the beautiful simple sensation that nature offers us in what can seem like a bleak time.

It may officially be spring, but I’m up in Northern Ontario right now and woke up to snow and frost, but it quickly melted and the sun is shining brightly today.

Gracie just paddled out into the deep water for her first swim of the season and had a good shake beside me (eek!) and is now giving me puss in boots eyes to play with her.

Can you see the big barrels of water on the dock?

The waterline on Lake Nipissing has risen right over the top of the dock and has spilled onto the lawn. This is a new phenomenon (it happened once 4 years ago) but it’s unusual. We’re expecting 30 mm of rain tomorrow and there are flash flood warnings so please send a lifeboat if you don’t hear from me next Sunday:)

I’m feeling incredibly appreciative of nature this week.

The full moon was so beautiful I woke up in a daze I was sure I’d fallen asleep with a light on because the room was so bright and it took me a few moments to realize where the light was coming from. Gracie seems to be in her element - she caught a grouse in her mouth last weekend in some thick bush and Scott and I pleaded with her (me a bit hysterically) to please let it live. She went against her instincts and let go reluctantly. Then a few short days later she had her first-ever deer encounter in the woods.

They stood frozen staring at each other long enough for me to fumble my phone out of my pocket…

Some heavy Muskoka chairs were swept off the dock into the water with the wind and waves and that is my handsome hubby rescuing one from the Bay and a few pics of our wildling living her best life to give you a bit of a Sunday nature fix.

I love how things come to life in the spring. The brown will all turn green in a few short weeks.

It’s funny how we say that we enjoy being closer to nature when we head out of the city when we’re never really away from it. It may be buried under a concrete crust, but it’s always here. We are no more removed from nature than any other creature, even in a large city. Our animal nature dictates our essential needs: clean air, clean water, clean soil, and clean energy. These “sacred elements” are created, cleansed, and renewed by the web of life itself.

If there were to be a fifth sacred element, I think it would be biodiversity itself. We are born of the Earth and constructed from the four sacred elements and I think all of us here understand that whatever we do to these elements, we do directly to ourselves.

I’ve been thinking about the weather and the snow and how much conditions have changed since I was a little girl and I officially no longer take the snow, wildlife, or even our shoreline for granted.

Not even this little bumblebee who just stopped by for a visit. Did you know that he flaps his little wings about 200 beats per second and can carry up to 75% of his body weight in nectar and pollen? Good grief, no wonder he’s bushed. Let’s all try to relax when we see them this summer- did you know that the males don’t even have stingers? All our panic swatting is for not:)

Have you noticed that the earth seems to be shifting in subtle and not-so-subtle ways?

I’ve observed how quickly the weather can turn and how unpredictable it is during seasons that used to be more delineated with certain temperature patterns. It even has our daffodils confused.

Maybe it’s always been that way, I’ve just never noticed. I had a Facebook Memory pop up with these photos side by side from the same chair lift one day later with the caption… “What a difference a day can make”.

I’ve made peace with the changes and unpredictability, but every day feels like Earth Day to me now.

I’d like to pay homage today to someone special whom many consider the Mother of the Environmental movement, Rachel Carlson.

Rachel’s 1962 book Silent Spring changed the world.

When she published her work, the companies that manufactured the pesticides that she was warning us about launched a personal attack aimed at discrediting her and her book. Rachel was told she was a woman and she should keep her mouth shut. She was called many worse things but “a whore, a slut, and a communist” on mainstream media. Even Time Magazine accused her of being “hysterical”.

Sigh. Ads by pesticide companies said things like “Isn’t it just like a woman to panic at the sight of the chemicals we need to grow our food”.

Double sigh.

She was right. But we didn’t listen.

Who else aren’t we listening to?

Eco Feminist Dr. Vandana Shiva is Montsanto’s worst nightmare and she has started a very public global seed movement. Her life has been threatened on behalf of our global well-being and deep concern about our microbiome, regenerative agriculture, and the seeds. You can learn more about her story in the movie: The Seeds of Vandana Shiva.

We are 90% or more made of microbes and they are being killed by toxins. Last night I watched another entertaining documentary called Hack Your Health about our microbiome and there seems to be an explosion of gut education that proves that Rachel WAS right all along.

Thanks to Rachel, Vandana, and countless others we are turning our ship around and I’m filled with hope for our future.

In religion, in particular Christianity…the cover-ups, theological censorship, Vatican denials, and book discrediting of people telling the truth to power are not acceptable. Books can be burned but we’re finding them buried. Truth can be denied, but it seems to have a way of revealing itself in the long run.

I ran across this incredible statement in the Gospel of Love and Peace (the Essene Gospel which is probably on the Heretical Hitlist) this week by Jesus that made my mouth drop. An interesting side note is that Jesus was an Essene and he didn’t share the gender separation and degradation of women that was common at the time and here up until the 1970s.

Here is Jesus’ response to a question about listening to God in his works (creation/the Earth) that you may not hear in the church where scripture is worshipped that rang true and gave me goosebumps.

It felt so good and true that I had to read it twice and share it with you:

Seek not the Law in your scriptures, for the Law is Life, whereas scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living word. The law is living word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everthing that is Life is the Law Written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of Heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves. For I tell you truly, all living things are near to God than scripture which is without Life.

God so made Life and all living things that they might by the everlasing word teach the Law of the true God to man. God wrote not the Law in the pages of books, but in your heart and your Spirit. They are in your breath, your blood, your bone; in your flesh, your bowels, your eyes, your ears, and in every part of your body. They are present in the air, in the water, in the Earth, in the plants, in the sunbeams, in the depths and in the heights.

Wow. It’s just too good and it makes sense.

More on the Essenes another day, but I just wanted to give you a little taste of how connected Jesus seemed to be to BOTH his “Earthly Mother” (The Angels of Water, Soil, Joy, Air, Sun, and Life) AND his “Heavenly Father” (Eternal life, Work, Power, Love, Peace & Wisdom).

I always wondered at Catholic school why there was so much Father talk and no mention of a Mother when we love our Moms. Hmmm… anyone else wondering if the commandment asking us to obey our Mother and Father was possibly lost in translation and it never was referring to our biological parents, but our Cosmic ones?

If only we had that one right 2000 years ago we could have saved ourselves a lot of suffering.

In reverence for the earth, this week let’s celebrate some wins for the planet…

• Three cheers for the way we celebrate Earth Day around the world together - zoom in on this photo that I found online and can’t find a source for…check out the expressions on people’s faces and you’ll see HOPE and JOY:)

• Before the Paris Accord, we were forecasted to go up by 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) but we have dialed that back to 2.7%

• In the cases where governments are not measuring up to their Paris Accord promises, people are taking action. I saw a news segment on two Australian brothers -Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai from Boigu Island in Australia's Torres Strait leading a landmark climate change court case against the Australian government. This would set a huge precedent and could be a game changer for every country around the world to keep their word.

There is more good news…

• 10 years ago 0.7% of cars sold worldwide were electric and today it’s over 20%

• In 2015 experts speculated that solar plants would be cheaper than natural gas and today onshore wind and solar ARE!

I’m excited to see these changes and many more in the months and years to come.

We may have a ways to go to change our minds and shift our consumption habits, but it feels like things are coming together now more than ever.

It’s uncomfortable to change, but we must.

Now is the time.

A new study published in Nature last week found that global warming will cost $38 trillion every year by 2050 (the global economy is about $100 trillion)  One idea proposed by the brilliant Esther Duflo (2nd woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics) is that the richest people should compensate poor people for the climate damages they disproportionately caused through a climate tax on billionaires and large corporations.

Whoa. Ripples are being made. BIG TIME.

GOOOooooooo Esther, Pabai & Paul!!!

I wonder what I could do?

Are you wondering that too?

To close this first part, I wanted to share one of Joni Michell’s catchy little songs I remember from when I was little…

When you were growing up, did you watch cartoons?

On the weekends my brother and I did when we didn’t have to get to the ski hill or swim practice - I just LOOOOOVED them.

My faves were the Flinstones, Scooby doo, and Looney Tunes. My brother liked Spider-Man and afterward, he’d point the inside of his wrist at things around the house and me and say “Phfffffffssssssssssshhhhhhht”.

They were fun. I suppose it’s why our generation also created adult cartoons like the Simpson’s which we watched for years. I can remember getting together with friends at University to watch a new episode as a social event and all of those hours left an impression on me.

As adults, cartoons and jokes can help us bypass our egos and somehow slip past our defenses and see a deeper meaning. Our magnificent intellects step aside so we can experience ourselves on another level.

Drawings are like bedtime stories, they don’t threaten our worldviews and can be received openly with an innocent child-like curiosity.

But don’t let their simplicity fool you.

Today I’d like to tell you a story with drawings about our two minds.

The core problem we face today is that we’re trying to change our lives with only one of our minds and there is another way forward.

Credit for these drawings today goes to Jeffrey Allan and Hisami Reiko Allan (I’ll tell you their personal story at the end).

The Earth is changing.

The energy around the earth is shifting and so are we.

The Earth’s energy field has been blocked since the beginning of time by an impenetrable dense filter that is in the process of being lifted and replaced with a higher vibrational filter which is changing our experience of Earth and ourselves.

The lifting started in 2012 and will end around 2030.

During the transition, we will notice physical changes, and natural disasters all around our planet as adjustments are made to clear out the old and more dense energies and lower frequencies to make room for higher frequencies.

Individually, we may find ourselves triggered by old traumas that will come up to the light to be seen and healed in our personal lives.

We will all feel and see the change to some extent.

As we deal with our “stuff” (see black sandbags weighing us down:), we will lighten our load and lift…to higher and higher levels of consciousness.

This new ascending energy is shifting the planet and guiding us to our true nature.

We can make it a smoother transition by trusting and aligning with the energy in nature.

Living in integrity and being a vibratory match to nature. It will be finer, lighter, and much faster than it has been in the past.

This unified energy field has been called many different things…

There seem to be two major approaches to our personal development and spiritual alignment during this transformation.

First, we can consume content (learn stuff) and take action to change or control our external world. We seem to all be familiar with this method as it is the way we’ve all been taught.

It’s a helpful and Hedonic approach where we seek pleasure (or avoid pain) as our main motivation to set goals and make changes in our lives.

This outside-in carrot-and-stick approach often does work but the effect is not always lasting.

The second is more of an inside-out job - or a “eudaemonic” approach that is about increasing meaning. It’s based on the idea that happiness (and miracles) ensue from a perspective shift after finding deeper meaning.

Spirit mind teaches that you don't need to learn something new, and you don't need to follow guidance from outside. You simply need to remember your true nature and follow the guidance that comes from within you.

To be clear, this guidance is not from your analytical mind or thought, but from what one of my beautiful teachers, Hisami Reiko from Japan calls the “Spirit mind”.

Before I continue, just a reminder that neither mind is right or wrong, both exist, but one gives us a different experience of life and ourselves…

The more beautiful world we all know is possible will only come if we learn to BLEND both into our everyday experiences.

Humanity is made of two minds:

1. A Mental mind that operates in a service-to-self orientation.

2. A Spirit mind that operates in a service-to-others orientation.

Today I’d like to tell you a story about these two minds and how we can activate them both to optimize our human potential.

The material mind (M) speaks first and loudest. Some call it the small self or the ego mind. We use this mind to function in the material world individually and collectively.

What many of us immersed in materiality and lower density don’t realize, is that we also have access to a Spirit Mind (S).

According to prophets and wisdom teachers from every major world religion and native wisdom teachings, it is from the Spirit mind that we can communicate with all forms of life, including other dimensions, trees, and water, but primarily we can use it to heal ourselves, the planet and experience deep physical, emotional and mental healing.

Best of all we have the power to tap into Spirit Mind to experience deep inner peace, fulfillment, and salvation (freedom) from suffering on Earth in THIS lifetime.

We have free will and can live our whole lives in the Material Mind if we choose.

The Spirit Mind

The spirit mind is different. It doesn’t exist outside of you, it’s in you. Not like a brain is in you, it’s energy and it can’t be seen.

Essentially it is the primary organizing principle that animates all of your cells. It is highly intelligent and adaptive.

This Spirit mind is eternal, wise, abundant, and loving.

It is the higher awareness in you that never ages or dies. The part of you that feels the same when you’re 9 and 39 even though your body has aged.

It is the mind connected to the Creator. It’s all-seeing and knowing and exists multidimensional.

It’s pure energy or consciousness. It solves problems and can guide you to the best outcomes for all. It has no judgment or other motive than to love unconditionally and forgive.

It’s quantum in nature and it can bend the Newtonian laws of space and time. It exists here and now in what some call Heaven or the Upper Room.

Operating from this higher mind often results in what material-minded people call Miracles.

Popular prophets like Zoroaster, Krishna, Jeshua (Jesus), Buddha, and Muhammed demonstrated how to transcend the Material Mind and to be one with the Spirit Mind in or as this highest human expression.

Spirit Mind is a quiet observer, it is soft-spoken, a good listener, and unconditionally loving.

The “S” mind is the energetic eternal part of you that exists beyond time and space.

The Material Mind

This mental part of you seems to operate brilliantly on earth. It functions in and through our brain and nervous system on a horizontal or physical plane.

It is neutral and programmable by our thoughts, senses, and perceptions and runs all of the incredible processes of our physical bodies.

It’s the Mind we inherit at birth. It’s taught to us and we use it at home, in school, in church, and every culture on earth. It’s responsible for medical and technological advancements and is governed by Newtonian physics and man-made laws.

Most of the world operates from this mind alone. We set goals, make lists, economies, judicial systems, governments, and small talk with others with this mind.

It’s amazing. It can get things done. It can solve problems, adapt, run fast, design and make nuclear bombs, and artificial intelligence.

It naturally cares mostly about earthly things..security, and satisfaction, and tends to be more preoccupied with what it believes will give it more of that.

Accumulating money, accomplishments, status, a nice home, health, beauty, family, religion, and education are understandably its main motivation and focus.

It has limitations, is controlled by the ego, and tends to operate in fear out of self-preservation.

It wants to inflate itself to protect itself because it is not Divine and it feels lacking on some level. It feels separate and is never fully satisfied until it’s aligned with “Spirit Mind”.

It will serve and even worship God or nature and science through religion, medicine, and technology but through the Material mind filter it judges others critically, needs to be right, to win, and it wants to look good doing it. It often behaves unethically. it bends the truth in service to self, rationalizes, and manipulates them with fear out of self-preservation.

It has trouble changing and can easily become addicted to feeling pleasure and avoiding pain.

Here is a cross-section of your brain and spiritual anatomy;)

Most people on earth operate solely from the material mind and have no clue that their spiritual mind even exists - they have forgotten and it will remain asleep until it’s awakened.

The Material Mind is filled with judgments and man-made laws.

It’s competitive. Righteous. Ambitious.

It is kept alive with shame and guilt. It carries grievances. It’s defensive and based on a belief in separation and lack so it tends to want to hoard things to try to feel safe.

It loves being social, being online, on social media, in the know, and on-trend.

This Material Mind is always changing and wants things to feel complete.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s new book “Somehow: Thoughts on Love” and this part jumped off the page at me yesterday that seems to capture the Material mind:

“We humans screw up; that is our nature. Francis Spufford wrote in his book, Unapologetic that the human propensity is to fuck things up. There is a flaw in our genetic and social coding, which is why we keep kicking up errors in the form of damage to our relationships, to ourselves, and to the planet. Most of the blame goes to the ego, protecting and promoting itself without a thought for the neighbor, the community, the divine. It is always trying to get away with more, while obsessing about how unfair it is that others get away with so much. It’s the part of me that always wants the bigger cookie and glares at someone else if they take it before I can. It’s the part of me that would have me pushing aside women even older than I am to get to the Titanic lifeboats.” (p. 81-82)

The last couple of lines made me laugh out loud.

I think we can all relate.

Annie’s a Sunday school teacher and endearingly calls herself 'the world's worst Christian.' I’ve heard the joke in another book (sorry I can’t remember which) that she’s just grateful that her mind doesn't have a PA system because she admits how she talks and preaches goodness and kindness, especially to people who are hurting, which is most of the people in the world. Then in her mind, she’s just scrambling and striving to get ahead of everybody.

She is describing the activity of the mental mind.

Spirit mind compels quietly and is only love. It’s incapable of judgment.

The awakening or inner shift sometimes called enlightenment occurs naturally as an expression of love when the Material mind quietens and reverently serves the Higher or the Spirit Mind.

The Material mind is a gift and makes an excellent servant like every other organ in our body like our lungs, hearts, and digestive system, but we suffer when it is our main mind or master.

Once we shift from the material mind alone to both we understand that our life experience comes FROM us.

We’re spiritual beings having a finite physical experience.

Our powerful perception IS creation.

We are divine intelligence expressing itself.

The moment we understand the deeper meaning of who and what we really are and why we’re here we feel a bliss that we never imagined possible. We feel things but aren’t deeply affected by them the way we used to be.

We begin to have new skills and we can develop new spiritual gifts at the higher level of frequencies. We can see new spectrums of light and transform in new and exciting ways.

Historically, the material mind in us has been overly active.

The Spirit Mind quietly awaits our discovery.

Let’s learn how to activate BOTH minds in a balanced way.

When more of us learn how to shift all things are made new.

The more beautiful world we know is not just possible… it’s inevitable.

We are whole now, so we don’t need to change or become something new…we just need to do the work to remember and come back into alignment with nature, which is our essential nature.

Knowing this, it feels like there has never been a better time to be alive.

The End.

Is this a true story?

Maybe it is.

Apricity and peace be with you.

With love,

Rev Nona

ps. Here is a real-life example of what having a blended material and spiritual mind is like…

A NEW AND ANCIENT LOVE STORY

In 2021, I was searching online for others who had a similar spontaneous awakening experience to help me make sense of what I experienced in 2020 and I found my teacher (left) Hisami Reiko.

She had a powerful awakening in 2005 and she gained deep psychic insights.

I teared up when I found her, she validated my own experience, and everything she said I also knew to be true.

I love that she is gentle, kind, and all about the energetics of this truth beyond all of our human labels at a time when I was trying to connect the Universal dots to find out what was true for all of us.

Her love connection with Jeffrey started energetically, not with words because they didn’t even speak the same language.

Hisami met her partner (and now husband Jeffrey Allan) in Japan.

Jeffrey tells the story of standing outside a restaurant in Tokyo and feeling nervous because he knew he was about to meet his wife-to-be. He had never even seen a picture of her, talked, or even texted with her.

You’re probably wondering how he knew.

A week earlier he had arranged to have lunch with a friend and she said “I’m going to bring my friend Hisami with me”….and as soon as she said her name, he saw a beautiful light and he knew she was his person. (Jeffrey can get very clear guidance from Spirit, he already knew what was going to happen with this person he’s never even met before.)

Waiting for the two of them outside of the restaurant he saw them coming up the escalator and as they both approached Hisami said in a friendly voice..

“Hi. I’m Hisami, nice to meet you.”

Jeffrey responded…

“Hi. I’m Jeffrey Allan Dennis.”

There was a long awkward pause.

Other than the greeting, he didn’t speak a word of Japanese and she didn’t speak a word of English and that was their first encounter. They had a magnetic connection and a week later they decided to have their first date.

The day arrived. He stood on the platform at the train station in Tokyo, the only white person for miles wondering how he’d find her with 100’s of people swirling around him.

The crowd parted and there was a beautiful bright light as Hisami walked up to him and took his hand. They hopped on the next train to Yokohama and they couldn’t talk but he had this powerful feeling that he wanted to know her better.

They are both energy healers so he picked up her hand and (using Spirit Mind) they circulated energy, no words were spoken and they laughed and had the best 8-hour date he’s ever been on in his life.

8 months later he describes being on a moving train and seeing her on the platform. As he’s waving goodbye to her bound for a European Tour, he teared up because he didn’t want to say goodbye or feel this way ever again.

Even though she lived in another country and they didn’t speak the same language. When he came back to her a week later he proposed.

She immediately said YES and they were married 3 days later.

That was more than a decade ago. Their love connection started purely energetically and has continued to grow and deepen and both are learning to speak each other’s language.

It was their hearts that were connected first, they were fully present in the moment and it was a powerful lesson for both of them.

Our material minds can’t imagine marrying someone when there is no language.

Imagine a world with no dating apps, just using the full capacity of our dual minds.

Hisami and Jeffrey are living proof of the power of using this loving energy to communicate and to trust the synchronicities and guidance from the all-seeing and knowing Spirit Mind.

We all have access to this knowing or Spirit mind, and like any skill, it just takes practice.

*This story today was made up by me but it was based on Hisami and Jeff’s work and the name “Spirit Mind” is trademarked by Hisami and Jeff - I’m not an affiliate, I just really like their work. They have an online course and community that you can learn more about HERE.

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It’s been a wild couple of weeks.

It may be the eclipse, I’m not sure, but it feels like a cosmic force has bitten us like a stray dog.

It’s not because I’m personally so in tune with the planetary movements, I’ve just had triple the number of messages and calls. Some of my closest friends are facing life-threatening challenges, so if you’re feeling it you’re not alone.

My poor sister-in-law was even bitten by a stray dog on a beach in Costa Rica.

Many people seem to be seeking a bit of extra love and support, and many of you have reported feeling like things are coming to a head in one way or another.

Today, let’s give ourselves a breather from the swelling, the bruises, and the nitty-gritty of whatever challenges we’re facing and pause where we are to look at the bigger picture.

Teleology comes from two Greek words: telos, meaning “end, purpose or goal”, and logos, meaning “explanation or reason”.

Teleology is helpful to allow us to see or reframe the events in our lives as not an isolated challenge but as a part of a larger picture or purpose.

This higher view allows us a different view of the discomfort we are currently experiencing based on the purpose they serve when we look at the larger landscape of our lives.

My Mom had her knee replaced Friday instead of only being focused on why this happened to her, the pain, the discomfort of her physio exercises, or the inconvenience of not being able to drive the Telos may be that this operation will lead her to a life of independence, moving freely and living fully for the rest of her life.

Teleology describes lifting above the dark woods, past the error and confusion, unexpected inconvenient event, or struggle to…WOW IF that had not happened I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Things seem to flow to us FROM an event, a challenge, or an inciting incident.

If I had not gone tree planting, I may not have met my husband. My kids would not exist.

If I had not suffered from chronic pain, I may never have turned to spiritual teachings which have taught me about love the whole point of life, and this incredible wonder-filled experience.

This substack would certainly not exist and I may still be feeling depressed or overwhelmed by my life looking outside myself for safety, fulfillment, and satisfaction all while doubting and self-sabotaging myself at every turn.

I would probably still be numbing out my pain and feeling like a victim of my circumstances.

I’m grateful beyond words for others who have connected the dots in their own lives to this bigger picture beyond the short-term struggles.

Kris Carr was diagnosed with stage 4 of a rare form of cancer without a cure and was working to “fight” and control her cancer then realized that because of cancer she had become a bestselling author, met her husband, made a movie, and had financial freedom because of it. She stopped fighting what was, and loved her tumors which in turn began to heal and shrink for the first time.

She may not be cured of cancer, but it was a game-changing shift in her consciousness and it reflected in her experience of it.

She was given 10 years to live 20 years ago. In the end, cancer was a gift in disguise. The worst and most life-threatening news became the catalyst for the most affirming.

It reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver called The Journey.

Her poem is like a doorway to encourage us to continue and take a step towards a greater life no matter what struggles we face.

Years ago, a man in our church went through a significant health and financial crisis. In danger of losing it all, he felt overwhelmed and paralyzed. I remember him describing how everything felt impossible. He felt abandoned. Alone. Even opening his Bible felt pointless. All he wanted was to get back to his life before the interruption and he couldn’t let that go.

But what if the interruption was happening for him TO see and experience something more?

For him to trust God, or life and teleology, instead of separating himself from it and focusing his powerful creative mind solely on the challenging circumstances and suffering and feeling stuck in a rut.

There will of course be obstacles in life, and it will feel scary when things change; but in the end, you have the power to decide to experience this inner shift for yourself when you’re ready to see more.

You can leave the bad advice and demands of other people based on their experiences, to follow YOUR instincts instead—that is, to forge your path in life based on inner guidance from YOUR personal experiences.

I have friends who call this inner guidance all kinds of things from Source, the Holy Spirit, Angels, synchronicity, the quantum field, and guides or council but to me, they are all describing the same internal teacher or ethereal force for good we all have access to. It’s our higher Self that knows best that we can have a direct line whenever we open up our mind to learn about it.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver, from Dream Work

I like to read poems a few times to see what comes to me between the lines. At first glance, my mind wandered from my perspective as a mother…is Mary saying to let my family fend for themselves and save myself by leaving in the middle of the night? ha, I confess I missed the magic.

I can see now that it’s about the biggest picture, my ability to show up and serve the greater good and the life I have that belongs to the world IS my destiny. And when we step towards our greater life…there is the possibility we will leave others behind.

I was not born to plant trees, teach high school geography, become a wife, a mother, a life coach, or a yoga instructor. I’m not here to sell group insurance and retirement plans to companies. I’m not even here to become a Minister. I did all of those things and they all offered me life experiences to eventually have the realization that I’m NOT what I do. I’m here to BE love. To serve God and no one else may understand my motivation.

When I became a minister and stepped outside my ego identity it felt like I was leaving in the middle of the night - it was dark, there was debris I had to step over and no one else wanted to come with me on my spiritual and sober path.

I remember one friend looking aghast at me: “Nona, why on earth would you do this?”

It WAS social suicide but it was the best thing for me.

I FINALLY knew what I had to do and began.

I may not know how things will turn out on this new path, or how I’ll even earn a living going forward, but I feel like I’m starting to lift.

I love the way David Whyte re-reads lines over twice or even adds lib in between to make a clarifying point and deepen the learning.

There is a kind of knowing that lies dormant in us for years and one day we break open and it ALL begins to make sense.

The landscape of our lives finally comes into clear focus.

For me, it was a forehead-slapping moment. Being sober, having a spontaneous awakening, and a deeper understanding of my life and our greater cosmic existence.

I remember having a HOLY SH*T moment - that this life is not what I thought and neither am I.

It felt like an epiphany and I’ve heard for other people it’s a slow burn or evolution.

We are all being called to this Divine dance, but not all of us are ready to say yes and hit the dance floor, we want to be wallflowers just a bit longer.

It seems like our exploration of our world is limited by our senses and it’s not something we can learn with our brains in books and this is a shame because it’s all we seem to know.

After years of marinating in mourning, once we’ve been cooked in grief and have been broken down or have experienced a letting go of a way of an old way of being in the world, the way of living that you have outgrown marks your new beginning.

This is the road less traveled.

It’s not necessarily a religious path, but it is spiritual.

NEW LIFE emerges from this new path.

When we surrender control, we are moved by life from order to disorder, to re-order.

We are healed from the inside out. As we slide deeper into our true nature we experience our essential selves.

It’s the most powerfully wonderful and humbling feeling I’ve ever felt.

I think I love Mary’s work because she’s not overtly clever or full of obtuse stuffy words. She was a plain and simple person. She smoked. She lived quietly on the east end of Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachussetts for 50 years. She worshiped nature and sought to understand the divinity of life in it. If you ever wanted to meet her you just had to go to the beach at 5 am. When she died in 2019 it struck me that this simple Pulitzer Prize-winning woman’s passing was International News because she was authentic. She lived in integrity by simply being her true self, something I have personally had a heck of a time doing.

Her poems use nature as a doorway inside ourselves and it’s an experience we all share so her words speak to all of us.

Einstein’s work has this effect on me too.

I’m reading a great book right now - it’s called “Einstein and the Poet” by Dr. William Hermanns (who was the poet and had four private teleological conversations with Einstein that he describes in his book that changed his life.)

I’ve learned from this book that our genius is not created by others, we are born with it, but it’s so deeply buried beneath our cultural constructs and the people around us that we need to excavate it with self-evolved tenacity.

The same tenacity I saw on the Boston marathon runners faces last week, no matter what their time was. The winners and the ones in their seventh hour of the race had the same expression.

They were running their race and had unique challenges, but they shared a bigger goal.

Not just reaching the finish line but the telos of living their greatest life.

Collectively we’ve created mountains of knowledge to climb, more than we can in any lifetime if we keep our heads down, but when we take a break and look up, we will begin to see what the stars are showing us and we can intuit our next steps.

I was reminded in this book that when Einstein was 5, his father gave him a compass as a toy. He was so intrigued by the invisible forces that moved the needle that he could hardly sleep.

Entranced by the mysterious magnetic forces directing the needle, Einstein found in this simple device a profound glimpse into the hidden order of the natural world.

The compass, with its invisible guiding principle, became a metaphorical compass for Einstein himself, propelling him toward an exploration of the beauty of the universe.

We all have this experience. For some of us, it’s a dog, a pony, or a sailboat. Something captivates us and we have more questions than answers.

His father couldn’t give him an answer to appease his curiosity.

What if we all did that, called everything we don’t know ‘x’?

That would mean that for me God is ‘x”. Not the male God he learned about in school or church, or any one religion, but the ineffable order of the universe.

Einstein and I have something else in common, we both suspect that a lot of what we’re taught in school and church is not entirely true.

His genius was that he wondered with the wisdom of the mind of a child and began to see Universal Patterns that are true for all of us.

Einstein had a tough walk down a dark road with huge fallen branches and stones to step over. He struggled in his early life at school. He was overlooked, he wasn’t athletic or perceived as good-looking or culturally valued and he questioned everything.

Deep down he knew that we didn’t have all of the answers and that science was never finished.

He failed a thousand times but after 9 years he finally published his work, and he was anxious about doing it. For good reasons, his life was threatened.

He wanted to give up many times, and he had innumerable sleepless nights, but he eventually found the answers he sought.

He knew he’d be on the top of everyone’s hit list. His answers deeply upset the status quo. He was sick for 14 days after he dropped off the papers to be published.

EVEN Einstein had self-doubts and he discovered with mathematical simplicity that matter and energy are the same thing.

Mass is concentrated energy. He didn’t come to this by accumulating old mountains for knowledge or by empirical methods, but through a philosophy of deduction.

Through intuition.

For Aristotle, a telos didn’t necessarily need to involve any deliberation, intention, or intelligence.

It was about us flourishing as human beings.

The painful journey has always been about that all along.

There is nothing wrong with you. YOU are doing life perfectly.

No matter what physical or emotional trials you face in your life, nothing can ever change or hurt this deeper part of you that has no fear and wants to experience it all.

Let’s support each other to get radical and seek and solve for the ‘x’ in us by living the questions from that deeper place.

Be patient and keep putting one foot in front of the other or moving forward to the finish line any way you can, even if you need a push.

You’re not alone and anything is possible together.

I’m cheering for you as loud as I can, probably not in star-spangled shorties.

With love,

Rev Nona

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I hope you’ve realized by now that I’m not covering the topic of integrity because I have it in spades and I’m here to dole it out to you. In this case, the saying that we teach what we want (need?) to learn is certainly true.

The spiritual context of integrity is not about judgment, or the fear of bad karma, religious rules, morality, or ethics - it’s more of a spiritual philosophy that points out the impact you have on your mind and experience of life when you harm others and in turn, yourself.

All spiritual work is really about a healed mind.

I once heard philosopher Peter Rollins say we are like haunted houses.

The things we choose to do, even in childhood come back to haunt us.

We are also all haunted by the memory of those we love, and those with whom we feel we have unfinished business. While they may no longer be with us or in our lives, a faint aroma of their presence remains.

A presence that haunts us until we make our peace with them and let them go.

The problem we face is that we tend to spend energy attempting to avoid truth.

We numb it out or construct an image of ourselves that seeks to shield us from an imagined confrontation with our ghosts.

It’s maybe why we all encounter our ghosts at night lying in bed.

Ruminating in our minds.

We are all 100% human and we are more alike than the labels we put on ourselves seem to imply.

What is deepest and most intimate in us is most Universal.

Last week we touched on the importance of integrity and its redemptive power to free us from suffering.

How do we cultivate integrity in our day-to-day lives?

Today I’ll share the 2,600-year-old secret ingredients that make what the Buddhist monks call living “the bliss of blamelessness” where the highest happiness in life comes from knowing that you’ve done no wrong to anyone. It’s a journey we’re all on whether we’re Christian or Atheist, Democrat or Republican, Heterosexual or Homosexual.

We are all 100% human.

In Buddhism, ‘the Pārami’ (commonly translated as perfection) are the qualities that help us develop and reach true happiness, our highest potential. 

In other words, to live in integrity we must be aligned with our true nature.

These guidelines explain how we can have this blissful experience of being fully conscious and present in our true power. We all have the same needs and fear the same things. Press deep enough into each other’s hearts and we find one another. We all experience disappointment, sorrow and loss, loneliness and illness.

We have a deep desire to belong.

We long to create peace and flourish.

We need to give and receive love and deserve compassion.

Before we dive in, it feels right to interject here that I’m drawing on ancient and wise Buddhist technologies, they are attributes common to all major world religions, the essential Spiritual Laws or the golden rules of the Universe.

There is a commonality exposed that is so illuminating that understanding it and embodying it has the power to free and guide us to new ways of seeing and perceiving.

The top two mistakes we make wiht spiritual teachings are :

1. We are myopic. If we identify with a chosen religion, political party, or identity-based on a learned or inherited belief (including atheism) and we discriminate against or criticize other belief systems…or are defensive of a particular point of view, that is our human ego. If we are well versed in only one area of study, we have no clue what we are even judging. In my experience, the wisest and most intelligent people on earth can often be heard saying “I don’t know”.

2. We strike at these teachings when the iron is too hot. In other words, when you’re deeply stuck or in grief and can barely see straight. If you’ve been crying hard for 9 hours and your mascara is giving you Alice Cooper eyes, you are not in an ideal frame of mind to absorb new spiritual teachings.

We can’t expect to learn the Juma prayer, engage in Puja, or host a Shabbat dinner to help us resolve negative issues when we are IN the negative issues.

But these sacred teachings have the potential to create a powerful foundation to teach and inspire you to new heights.

When we feel calm and centered in a beginner's mind we can receive these. I like taking them in after meditating first thing in the morning when everyone is still asleep and my ego or material mind is still offline. They can go straight to my heart.

I often hear sharp criticism of cherry-picking from different traditions.

Drilling down in one tradition can, of course, be helpful and create a deep sense of meaning and belonging. Experiencing many different lineages over the past two decades, my stance has softened. Once the golden thread that weaves through all of them is recognized, it becomes hard to unsee or even affiliate with just one, because if something is true, it must be true for ALL of Humanity.

Otherwise, it’s simply perception. They are all pointing to a truth that has the power to set us free.

As above, so below.

It’s such a relief to understand this. I can even see the same truth in Biology. In Physics. In nature. The more areas I can deepen my understanding in, the clearer the picture of who we are and why we’re here.

And it’s EXCITING!!

I recently heard a professor of religion (Jeffrey Kripal) say on a podcast that he doesn’t like religions because they exclude one another on this horizontal or social plane. They unwittingly create a lot of suffering and violence - not just on land with machine guns, but in our minds.  And yet he is still professing about world religions because they are highly intelligent resources beyond our human temperaments.

We are terrible at emphasizing sameness or looking for possibilities of truth in the other to find out what we do have in common. 

There is a heavily policed illusion of what is considered scientific, or that our religion is the right and only true one. Even though there is no such thing as a science or a religion that isn’t a mishmash of everything that came before it, it’s something that few people ever address, which is there IS no such thing as a pure tradition. Zoroastrianism influenced the development of Judaism (with a verifiable percentage of identical teachings) which resulted in the birth of Christianity. 

Today, regardless of our belief system, let’s hover above them all and see what these Buddhist teachings have to offer us.

It seems we are stronger BECAUSE of our diversity. We can separate ourselves but we all have an International heart and with the power of the internet, we are all learning how connected we are in a way that just wasn’t possible four or five hundred years ago and this is exciting. 

There isn’t even a binary between liberal humanities and science anymore. 

And it is not academia that gets us there, it is a life that does. 

Idealism and superiority are kicked out of us as we go through life. 

Cherry-picking is an affirmation OF our transcendence. 

Okay, enough of that… it’s time to give you the goods!!

A Stairway to Heaven

One thing I admire about Buddhism is how simple and relevant the teachings are for all of us in modern times. The ‘Pāramis’ helps us understand and experience the inherent order in the process of integrity. 

Instead of working with each component separately, one naturally leads to the next, like a set of stairs. 

Each step supports the one that follows.  Skim down this list today and then come back to read them over a few more times when you have some quiet time to yourself to reflect until they feel embodied.

By focusing on one at a time in their natural order, the task becomes significantly easier. Each step transports us to a different elevation. Same terrain, a different perspective - a much more empowered place of clarity, strength, commitment, and consequently more joy. 

The 10 Components of Being in Integrity: 

1. Generosity 

This first foundational step is about the pure motivation of the heart and love. Lubricating our sense of abundance, sharing freely all of our resources with gifts, actions, and words in service to others. 

I like to think of this one as spiritual kindergarten. To teach generosity, some Buddhist monks teach their students how to pass a rock from one hand to the other. One hand does not keep tabs and expects anything from the other hand. There is no attachment just movement.

This quality of heart is one way we stay aligned and you know you are because it feels so darned good.  Giving without expecting anything in return, not even a note of gratitude, a smile or a thank you is generosity in its purest form.

When our motivations are pure and sincere, they tend to arise like an impulse at the moment to help and can be easily done anonymously.

A reader told me this week that she was inspired by the list of the things I loved about my husband that I wrote and shared on Valentine’s Day. From her generous spirit she complimented me and the piece, and with that same spirit of generosity made her personalized list for her husband’s birthday. It was funny and heartfelt and she said he was so moved and loved it so much that he had it framed and told her it was the best gift he had ever received. 

What is one small and generous thing you could do today?

2. Virtue 

Honoring the divine essence in all of life by committing to not harming.

Easier said than done.

We share a life force. Even plants, fruits, and vegetables have it. And the big spider that is walking over the pile of books beside me right now -he’s also here to live his best life.

To be honest, before this understanding was on my radar, spiders and houseflies used to be a definite must-squash for me. I never even thought about it, it’s what the fly swatter is for, right?

It’s a way of thinking or a rationalization that is problematic for all of life.

This step is not only about refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrongful speech, and using intoxicants - it’s about our intentions.

You may be thinking COME ON Nona, that’s ridiculous, it’s just a fly and it seems that way, but Buddhists understand that INTENTION is the driving force behind karma.

Throughout our lives, we are bound to hurt someone or something without meaning to like the bugs we kill on our windshield or even a friend’s feelings with our honesty. That’s a part of life. We don’t intend it and it is not what this one is about.

Accidents happen.

VIRTUE, on the other hand, is why millions (billions?) that practice the religions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism around the world refrain from eating meat.

It’s not black and white.

In Hinduism for example, verse 5.33 of Manusmriti (one of the first Sanskrit texts to be translated into English) states that meat may be eaten in a time of adversity, verse 5.27 recommends that eating meat is okay if not eating meat may place a person's health and life at risk.

I may find it tasty, but I’d have trouble killing the cow or the pig with my own hands for my next meal.

I’ve also noticed that when I relax and leave the spiders alone, they are usually gone in a day or two. If I’m not comfortable sharing accommodations, I can also scoop them onto a piece of paper or in a cup and release them outside alive.

I feel better when I do. I used to wince when I squished a bug in a Kleenex and now it just feels right to live and let live. In the same way that we were relieved the other night when a bunny just barely missed a truck’s tire crossing the road on our evening walk. I know it’s wrong because killing them feels bad.

It’s unnecessary.

When humans kill humans, it causes trauma. We are not meant to kill, this is why we live in haunted houses.

And back to bugs, if you could zoom in closer or get to know them, you might be surprised by their complex patterns, colors, and intricate beauty- doesn’t it feel like nature is trying to tell us something?

Virtue is about purity in speech, action, and livelihood.

Moral excellence, right thinking and action, and goodness in general. 

Minus the judgment. It’s like a peace of mind based on non-remorse.

A Non-hangover:)

What is ONE thing you can refrain from today that is harming you or another?

3. Let Go (Renunciation)

Letting go of ALL that no longer serves you. Restraining your desires, giving something you like and want up voluntarily, often at a sacrifice to you. 

I get it. This one doesn’t look like it would improve your weekend, but hold up!

Let’s spend a few minutes here because I’m convinced that we all struggle with this one to some degree.

This pārami is pointing out our insatiable wanting of more. A better-suited partner, the perfect pair of shoes, deeper meditations, more money, a different job, a better body, more followers, and a nicer house on a better street but we’re being taught here that these are enticing empty promises.

We all get caught up in the web of I would be happier if ________, which is THE SOURCE of a bucketful of lifelong dissatisfaction and much suffering. 

Can this be turned off? Yes.

We can transcend the part of our mind that feels lacking. We can still have nice things but the dissatisfaction part of the equation of where we are now, or what we have can be turned right down.

It’s our awareness that can disempower our egoic desires so we can focus on more soul-satisfying ones. It’s not deprivation, it’s more of a renunciation. The command comes from our higher spirit mind or consciousness, not our brains or our psychology.

Some Buddhists call this non-addiction. It’s the absence of the frequency of mind that we can so easily get caught up in when we’re unaware.

We can begin to feel like WE are the ones being consumed - I sometimes feel this with technology or social media. When Scott goes away I can stay up too late at night watching Netflix or getting sucked into a social media vortex. An hour will fly by or even two and I will lose myself in it and feel nothing.

It happens to all of us with food, shopping, gambling, sex, love, drugs, alcohol, self-help, phones, gaming, etc…

A desire arises in our brains, it feels evocative, biological, it’s unrelenting, pulsing with promise and we capitulate. 

It’s often the opposite of our highest mind’s intentions for our lives. We may want to be healthy, but we can’t seem to stop vaping or smoking. Sugar is everywhere. We want to gossip less or eat more plants and less meat but everyone around is gossiping and grilling steaks.

Then we feel conflicted. 

Insatiable wanting is the CAUSE of much of so much of our suffering. Awareness comes in before we can shift our behaviors.

Our cravings recede when we stop feeding them. 

Yes at first maybe that means rehab. Or fasting. Or moving our RV out of the casino parking lot. Whatever we need to do to get away from the frequency of addiction.

Simplicity and renunciation are two of the greatest gifts in my life.

It has nothing to do with deprivation and everything to do with freedom. 

Our self-destructive patterns are the least interesting thing about us. Let’s stop allowing them to lead our identity. Our greatest life challenges are not our whole story.

The excitement to me is in the new story of unveiling in the present who we are beneath our coping mechanisms. The worth that’s been buried inside us waiting to be noticed. The latent gifts and desires we both know you feel.

Is there something in your life that feels like it has control over you or that you keep fighting a battle with and losing?

4. Wisdom

Deepening your understanding through internal inquiries as things arise that challenge you. 

We are encouraged to look to wisdom teachings from luminaries and wise elders, but also to the tutor within…. your intuition.  

Get still. Close your eyes and wait. Patiently. TRUST. Answers come 100% of the time.

I confess I’ve struggled with this one but it’s been a GAME CHANGER.

Ask a question and you will live the answer.

For some, they receive internal downloads or vision but for me, it comes in the form of a hunch, a book, a person I meet, or a coincidence.

Intuition fascinates me. It’s my favorite way of staying in alignment- I love learning how to communicate with life directly and I’m astounded by the answers and synchronicities that guide me in all areas of my life.

Activating this dormant dimension in myself has given me the realization that this wisdom is everywhere and has been my whole life, but I just wasn’t open to it until I suffered.

We simply need to be ready and willing.

We can develop a more beneficent self-concept, but it’s impossible to do so when we want to retain our old concepts of ourselves.

There are many millions of different wise teachers, also students just a bit ahead of us on the path. Their teachings and books appear to us at the perfect time to choose to learn from both modern and ancient or both.

Here are a handful of my personal favorites.

Who speaks truth to your heart? You’ll know because you’ll feel it - it will resonate as true.

5. Energy/courage

This step is about courage, perseverance, and vigor (in other words, a mind that does not retreat from difficulties). 

A healed mind can stay present in the moment. 

An unhealed mind struggles.

Sometimes, a thing that we would think could sap our energy ends up being life-giving.

A personal spiritual and physical example of this in the short term is that right now is doing an extended water fast. Food appears to be our main source of energy, but I’m not eating food, and yet I feel more energized and clear-minded than when I do eat. It also feels culturally challenging and outside of my comfort zone to skip meals. 

What will I learn or feel by sticking to it and not retreating from the fast?

What will I learn if I quit?

Going to therapy to go into our pain or “through” it as they say, sitting to meditate, doing breathwork, or listening to someone with our whole attention and not interrupting them is life-affirming. 

Where do you retreat from difficulties in your life?

6. Patience

This step is about our ability to relax and simply be with things as they are. 

Accepting what is.

Meeting all our days with a plan that we hold loosely so that if we’re required to wait 20 minutes longer than expected for our driver’s license renewal or on the phone with our internet provider when our service is temporarily interrupted. I can remember trying to get our children to school on time and losing my mind over this one when they dawdled and were still in their pajamas when it was time to get in the car.

Not only are we asked to rise to this but we are being asked to do it…

Without complaint and with compassion.

I used to love reading Mo Williams's book “Knuffle Bunny” to our kids and I think any parent whose child has lost a favorite stuffy or has gone boneless in public when they didn’t get what they wanted can appreciate the power of staying calm when our patience is running thin.

One personal example this week was that Scott tried to get groceries last weekend, but the store was closed because of Easter. I offered to help out by doing an online order on Tuesday. When I went to the store parking lot to pick them up at our pre-arranged pick-up time, they came out and told me it would just be a few more minutes, again and again.

After 70 minutes they were loaded into my car. Ten years ago I would have been in a tizzy, but now I enjoy sitting in the sun with my window down and responding to personal messages on my phone. I smiled gratefully when they came and told them I understood when they apologized profusely and explained that they were understaffed.

What makes you feel impatient in your life? How do you let it go in the moment?

7. Truthfulness

Your ability to act and speak in accord with truth is an indication of your loyalty, trustworthiness, honesty, and sincerity.

This one is big. What surprises me about this one is HOW difficult it is. 

I had no idea how untrue I was being until I sat with this non-judgmentally and did a compassionate inquiry of my own.

Rising above the tree line of my own life, I can see now that it’s not helpful to pay MORE attention to a deluded mind. To self-examine a narrative through a lens of fixing, guilt, shame, or defilement.

If we can’t see our greed, hate, delusion, conceit, wrong views, doubts, torpor, restlessness, shamelessness, and recklessness then WHO can help us?

No one.

It needs to come from us. When we do, miracles can ensue.

If you had a magical drone with Xray thought vision hovering above your life what would you see replayed on tape?  What are you doing? Saying? Thinking? Exaggerating?

Today let’s try something new and look with interest and curiosity, not judgment.

Are you seeing yourself truthfully?

What concepts are you indulging in about yourself? 

8. Resoluteness

This step is about your determination to follow your aspirations with an unwavering, faithful resolve. 

Why not aspire to greatness? 

When I started to mountain bike I had to walk over the rock gardens and up steep hills. They were just too steep and scary for me. Hard to maneuver my bike through. When I saw them, I felt dread. People passed me. I hated them (the hills, not the people) but I felt more like Eeyore to their Tigger.

But somewhere along the way, after some coaching…my attitude changed. I had new thoughts that came automatically to mind… “Oh good! here comes a hill!” or “Just keep peddling” in a rock garden. The challenges were strengthening me from the inside out, like lifting heavier and heavier weights over time because I was adapting and becoming a more confident and stronger rider.

I went in a 24-hour relay and learned that it’s easier to ride through the rock gardens at night, I never had to get off my bike and walk simply because I had a focus. I was told to just keep peddling!! I was no longer psyched out, and it was very revealing to me.

Notice the times when you want an aspiration but don’t follow through.

Parami means purification of the heart and mind and it’s a practice.

It’s not one and done, there is no end to this work just layers with deeper dimensions of peace and freedom.

Our ability to carry on without giving up is about understanding that the difficulties and boulders in our way are a part of the way.

What do you aspire to? 

WHAT DO YOU WANT??

Let’s invite your intuition up to the microphone to answer the question this time because only the voice inside of YOU knows the real answer to this. Not the part of you that answers this question like a bored waitress listing off the specials for the 100th time.

9. Loving Kindness

If you would like to sleep peacefully, wake peacefully, dream peaceful dreams, and experience love this is the step for you…

It’s about benevolence.

Specifically your Kindness, affection, and love for others and all of life. 

Pay attention today when you meet people throughout the day. Notice when you are kind and when you are not.

I find it fascinating to hear how many people who have NDEs (Near-death experiences) describe a peculiar phenomenon. They describe experiencing a life review when their whole life flashes before their eyes and minds and how surprising it is to them that they don’t see the things you’d expect or the big things we accomplish as celebrate in life. Not entrepreneurial success or the day our company goes public, we pass the bar or become a judge, but how it’s the minuscule things like our acts of devotion, prayer, helping a stranger in a snowstorm or paying for the balance owing for the single mom in front of you digging in her purse for loose change to pay for her diapers that are the real lifetime achievements. Those seem to be a MUCH bigger deal to “God” and our higher or eternal self than any material success or Ph.D. and the traditional kind of gift exchanging we tend to do.

Loving-Kindness. 

The ultimate achievement in life.

There is one subtlety few of us understand… ALL action has a karmic result, but if we do it for that karmic benefit, not out of a genuine desire to help, our action WEAKENS the benefit! 

Can you discern a distinction in how you interact with people you meet between loving-kindness and attachment? Or is it transactional? Are you being loving and kind to the people you know that you can maybe someday get paid back from them?

10. Equanimity

This final step is about composure and grace.

Your non-reactivity, even-mindedness, and ability to remain calm and undisturbed no matter what chaos is happening around you. 

It’s not about what is happening to us that matters, it is how we relate to it that matters. It’s about being the calm person in the boat when everyone around you is succumbing to their mind’s anxieties and panicking.

This one reminds me of the Dalai Lama. He was often quoted as saying that he often gets angry, but in the depth of his heart, he doesn’t hold a grudge against anyone. He can see that everyone wants to be happy and they are trying their best. 

I feel that deeply.

Notice when you lose your equanimity.

What happened? 

TADAAAAAA. And there you have it…all 10.

Are you getting the sense that this quest for personal integrity is not to be taken lightly?

The suffering in the world and our minds comes from a lack of attention to the things WE believe, think, say, and do. 

Then our bodies react.

These teachings humble me.

I see myself wanting to enhance my position or pad the facts to make my idea more persuasive sometimes. None of the behaviors that used to seem very natural or “human” to me are very kind, gentle, true, beneficial, or uplifting. 

They were about ME being right. 

This stairway is a life-changing process of self-realization through compassionate inquiry that is available to ALL of us for free.

You can simply START where you are…

Climbing up on the very first step of being GENEROUS, will make you feel happy. 

When we reach the top of the stairs we can see that the unburdened sweetness of life comes from a guilt-free mind. 

From living in integrity. 

The challenge seems to be in understanding that all these states DO benefit you, but that is not the motivation for doing them.  Moral progress only becomes possible for us when we don’t believe everything we immediately think and when we question what we have been taught to do only what is most loving.

It is through our commitment to integrity that compassion arises and with it the greatest happiness of all…

peace of mind. 

Our house is no longer haunted. We can stay. Open up the windows wide, feel the fresh cool spring breeze, and realize that we are free.

With love,

Rev Nona 

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ps. You may not hear the song ‘Walk the Talk’ (and Talk the Walk) by ROCKY DAWUNI on the top 40, but it made me smile because he seems to cover the pāramis in his lyrics.

Rocky is a three-time Grammy-nominated musician and activist. He promotes interfaith harmony creating sounds that unite generations and cultures and works to foster global peace. Dawuni has shared the stage with Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Jason Mraz, Janelle Monáe, and John Legend, among many others. Dawuni is a spokesperson for various global causes. He is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador -he uses his music to shine a light on crucial issues facing humanity across the globe.

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In 1965, United Airlines introduced its famous slogan:

“Fly the friendly skies.”

The man who led the ad agency that coined the phrase explained:

“Let us show the public our warm 'good-guy' genuine concern side, as well as the efficient side they already appreciate in us.”

Interesting slogan.

It struck me that it sounds a bit like the way I have been presenting myself to the world ever since I can remember. Loving and compassionate all the while keeping the perfect hive-like level of efficient productivity like somehow being “good” at life would solve the issue of how I was feeling inside.

That it would be pleasing to others and they’d buy in and when they did, it would feel rewarding and I’d feel happy. But I’ve discovered the hard way, that even after doing everything we can to be good, we don’t necessarily feel good.

We’re sold ideas about external rewards of happiness, health, prosperity, true love, and self-esteem but this equation fails to balance.

But even when we seem to have all of those things, sometimes our planes just crash.

What can we do when things break down and we feel lost or trapped and things begin to break down all around us despite our best efforts?

Aviation has been under the microscope this month in the news with a series of high-profile incidents raising concerns about safety across the industry. 

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sent a letter to customers last month acknowledging recent issues at the airline and pledging action to increase safety measures:

“Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, our airline has experienced several incidents that are reminders of the importance of safety. While they are all unrelated, I want you to know that these incidents have our attention and have sharpened our focus.”

If you’re curious, the incidents are tires falling off in mid-air, engine fires, damaged wings, stuck rudders, and missing bolts, and panels. No fatalities or serious injuries that I’m aware of, but there have been other customer service issues like oversold flights.

When I was flying last month I overheard a United Airlines flight coaxing passengers on the intercom who had purchased seats to please give them up and in return, they would be compensated $500 and could get on a later flight that same day. They had a couple of takers but not enough, so they were back on the intercom 10 minutes later and the price went up to $1000 per seat. It felt like an auction. A couple more people stepped up, but they still needed a few more seats so they upped the ante to $1,500 and that seemed to do the trick.

I was a bit taken aback - I almost felt sorry for the more agreeable people who took the $500. It all felt a bit offside. They had oversold the flight. I understand why Hotels and Restaurants often do that as well because of the attrition rate - usually, a small percentage of people don’t show up so they hedge their bets.

It’s understandable but also a bit of a customer service gamble when online reviews and stars can make or break a business. It seems like a huge risk to make a promise and take a customer’s money knowing full well that they may not deliver the service as promised. Also, it just feels icky.

Sometimes things go wrong in life despite our planned maintenance protocols and good or warm and friendly intentions.

As passengers, we assume the flight risks when we board any aircraft but most of us do it under the assumption that the companies are compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration and are being…well, honest.

As you probably already deduced, today is not really about airplanes, but it’s helping to set us up for the greatest connection of our lives.

Our final destination next week is a surprise, but before we take off…

Can I see a show of hands?

Raise your hand if you lie.

(If your hand is down, please find the fire extinguisher fast because smoke may be coming from the general direction of your pants:)

Keep your hand up if…

• You have ever cheated on a test or taken something that doesn’t belong to you?

• Have you broken a promise, or a vow, or been unfaithful?

• Exaggerated a story, fudged an expense at work, or a deduction on your taxes?

• Skipped putting money in the parking meter?

• Fibbed to a friend to get out of something you should have said no to in the first place?

• Taken more than your share, or not kept your promise to others (or yourself)?

• Have you ever stuck your gum under a table or a chair in public?

• Or left dog poop on someone’s lawn or the side of the trail?

First, please take a deep breath, relax, and remember this is a judgment-free fly zone.

You’re not getting in trouble, nor are you bad for doing any of those things.

But aren’t you the least bit curious as to why you feel the need to lie or compromise yourself?

When you don’t get caught, do you believe you are getting away scot-free?(BTW, the ‘scot’ in scot-free has nothing to do with Scottish people, it was a medieval tax; if you evaded paying it you got off scot-free, that is without receiving the deserved or expected punishment or without being harmed.)

Is there any unexpected harm that comes to us directly or indirectly from these risky behaviors?

Today touches on something powerful that seems to be pulling our puppet strings without our full awareness. It’s rarely spoken of in our media, at work, in our governments, schools, or in our homes.

Any guesses?

When it’s compromised it feels like remorse, guilt, or shame. It can lead to disease in our bodies.

On the flip side, when properly aligned, it has been known to heal our trauma, make us feel joyful, and is the best indicator we have of whether or not we love and trust ourselves…

drumroll, please…

INTEGRITY

The word integrity comes from the Latin “integer”, meaning whole, or INTACT.

In other words, we quickly fall to pieces when we lose it. Hence the lying and less desirable behaviors.

Divided in our minds, we feel conflicted and we suffer.

At first, the suffering may be mild, almost unnoticeable, but no one can sleepwalk away from integrity indefinitely because things get much worse the further we travel in the wrong direction.

Again, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just how our systems motivate us to regain our integrity.

Integrity or being aligned with our true nature is THE most underrated contributing factor to our overall well-being and our feelings of worthiness.

A lack of integrity is responsible for countless broken promises in the political arena, the economy, and in all of our relationships including the one we have with ourselves.

It would not be a stretch to say that having it or losing it is the root cause of the quality of our personal experience of life no matter what circumstances we endure.

Aligned with it, happiness and joy are its natural effects.

LIVING IN INTEGRITY

Have you ever had the experience of boarding a plane and after you enjoy the small victory of finding a coveted spot for your carry-on in the overhead bin and everything is stowed you sink into your seat and allow yourself to feel the anticipation and excitement about your new adventure?

And then it happens. A delay is announced by the pilot.

Your heart sinks.

You sit and wait and wonder with a ripple of dread how long a baby can cry continuously before it exhausts itself and then you begin to feel nervous about whether or not you will be on time for your connecting flight.

But eventually, you realize you have no control and your mind settles in.

It surrenders because a part of you realizes that it’s better to be late and arrive alive.

You are about to be taken up in over 300 tonnes of aluminum, steel, and titanium 40,000 feet in the air, and not being in perfect structural integrity is paramount, so you wait.

I like this airplane metaphor because it has nothing to do with morality.

Or judgment.

This kind of integrity is the kind that keeps the plane whole and undivided. It keeps all the bits and pieces together in the right places because if they’re not, we may falter or crash.

It’s not a judgment, it’s physics.

That’s it.

Just like United Airlines, it shows us where “our attention and sharpened focus” needs to be to make the skies friendlier for all of us.

When we live with integrity, we are always in service to the well-being of the whole.

If your job is okay and your relationships are fine you still may be getting lift-off, but after decades of flying the same routes, you may begin to notice that you feel restless and you begin to fantasize about running away from the life you have, you are innocently trying to feel better albeit in a misguided way.

There is nothing wrong with you or your feelings.

It’s all working perfectly. All you need is a quick tune-up to get realigned WITH the natural laws of the Universe, not against them.

The end goal is to feel good, but we certainly don’t need to feel wonderful all of the time, we can enjoy the range of human emotions freely like a newborn baby. Otherwise, how would we recognize when we have a need that needs to be met? Emotions help guide us. They cleverly indicate when we’re unaware that we’re heading in the wrong direction for us.

In other words, our emotions are indicators, not dictators.

Culturally we’re taught to suppress them or stuff them down and that, in my personal experience is when we risk the wheels falling off.

The wheels that fell off United’s airplane thankfully didn’t cause any human injuries, but there are a few cars that were in the parking lot that may never be quite the same.

So what does it feel like to abandon our true nature?

Since we’re all liars here, let’s strain ourselves and be honest for a moment and admit that most of us have no idea what it’s like to BE perfectly aligned with our true nature because we’re not.

We’re walking contradictions.

Instead, we try to fit in with the herd. We know when we do because we’re surrounded by others, but we still feel alone and lonely.

So what’s the big deal with going with the flow? We spend our entire childhood trying to fit in, how will going our OWN way help us?

Ralph Waldo Emerson taught that inconsistency, originality, and nonconformity are essential human virtues for our awakening to our true nature.

They are the source of our power.

We need to BE us.

Our internal guidance is our genius. It’s the intelligence that already knows our true potential.

Becoming quiet enough to hear this guidance is our work.

When we deny ourselves this gift, or we try to fit in by compromising our integrity and changing ourselves, when we suppress how we feel we never quite feel at home even inside our bodies.

Our energy becomes blocked and thankfully our bodies can’t lie and will give us signs and even some symptoms if necessary to help us stop the harmful trajectory we’re on and get re-aligned. From a headache or rash to an eye twitch or a more serious diagnosis our consciousness is highly sensitive and intelligent and resides in every cell of our body and will do everything it can for us.

Sadly, most of us have learned to medicalize our symptoms and neutralize our feelings with medication or self-medicating to disconnect from them in our feeble attempt to feel better.

When we feel divided we abandon our true nature and we lose ourselves.

We smile politely but our smile doesn’t quite reach our eyes.

We wear uncomfortable shoes and do things we don’t want to do just to fit in.

Abandoning my true nature felt to me like depression and anxiety. Eventually compulsion and addiction.

It feels like wanting to escape the life we have.

It can be mild at first. Maybe you have things that need doing, but you find yourself sinking into your couch, procrastinating, scrolling, dreading a commitment, or shopping online for sequined cushions of Nicholas Cage’s face… before you check out consider allowing yourself to see the deeper truth, that you are just trying to feel better.

A compassionate self-inquiry seems to be the best way to become aware of what’s going on beneath the surface behaviors.

I’m teasing with the pillows, but most of these things DO work in the short term so of course, it’s why we innocently reach for our cigarettes or control our food and want to change our bodies when nothing outside of us can help us feel better in the long run, but getting back into alignment will.

When we behave in puzzling ways that seem to contradict our desires, we may not be able to connect the dots in the exact moment when we’re eating the pint of Cherry Garcia on the couch, but we’re simply out of alignment.

The ice cream weight gain or staying up late gaming is not the source of the problem.

Like the warning light on the pilot’s instrument panel, it’s an indication of being off course and we can make any necessary adjustments in real-time.

The deeper truth is that we have already arrived at our destination, we ARE whole, but thankfully we will face turbulence in the form of challenges in our lives, periods of uncertainty and darkness, compulsions or contradictions to help us have this realization for ourselves.

We can be a mass of contradictions and our dual nature requires careful integration.

One day we are kind, and another day cruel.

One day we feel clear and the next we are totally confused.

One morning we’re incredibly joyful and before dinner, we’re downright sad.

And yet, having contractions is not our dilemma.

Understanding them is what helps us to tap into our inherent genius and what Emerson called “self-reliance”.

Would you like to know how to trust your true nature and hear the whisper “only you can hear” to fly high above the turbulence in your own life?

In an age of imitation, social influencers, and self-measurement based on ‘likes’ and ‘winks’, we need this message of originality and contradiction more than ever.

We can turn our sights within and gain an ‘internal locus of control’ like our very own panel of inner instruments to balance us, which frees us to evolve in our natural manner with love, not fear.

Rest assured, your internal guidance system will signal “WRONG WAY” as clear as day.

The lies and deceits fall away along with the fear and grievances when we’re integrally aligned with our true nature.

Next week we will take a closer look at how the wisest and most enlightened people on earth recommend you fly in the direction you aspire.

As we learn better how to read the internal signals and recognize what we yearn for, rather than what our culture sells us brings us on a spiritual adventure that changes the direction of our lives and brings us to a place of genuine happiness.

You can put your hand down now.

You are cleared for takeoff.

It’s time to stow your laptop, put up your tray table, and fasten your seatbelt because the way of integrity will take you to unexpected new heights of peace and happiness.

No matter what mechanical issues life throws at you or what problems may occur, when all parts of you come together at once, it feels like you’re flying.

It feels like a miracle. The mind-boggling amazement never gets old no matter how many times we lift off the ground and watch the city below us get smaller and smaller.

As we head into the clouds, for a few moments our view is blocked, but we feel safe knowing that while we are not in control of what lies ahead, we can rest assured that we’re aimed in the right direction like a well-built plane that has been checked and rechecked and is in integrity and can be trusted.

Working as designed it feels like we’re flying in friendlier skies and being led back home to ourselves.

With love,

Rev Nona

p.s. Just like pilots, next week I’ll send you a Buddhist-inspired practical checklist of 10 ways to help gently guide you back into integrity if you feel like you’re straying off your path.

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There is a religious Easter, but there are many other ones.

I’ve been thinking about Easter in broader strokes this week and how our lives seem to evolve through a complex and beautiful but familiar pattern of death and rebirth over and over.

I had coffee and a great conversation with a friend who has been struggling this year and she inspired me to dig back into the spiritual intelligence of Easter.

Not just as historical journalism, but as an opportunity for personal transformation.

Sometimes it’s not until there is enough distance between us and the events of our lives that we can see the peaks and valleys in a new light, but today I’d like to paint a picture of Easter that will help make all of our lives richer and more meaningful going forward.

BUT FIRST…

For fun, let’s do some globetrotting to see how other countries celebrate Easter to remember that there is more than one way to crack an egg.

From where I’m sitting in Canada, it seems like Easter is mostly about egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, church services, tulips, and daffodils but that is certainly not the case around the world:

1. Did you know that in Papua New Guinea, the chocolate melts so they hang tobacco and cigarettes in trees instead?

   Trees outside houses of worship are decorated with packets of tobacco and cigarettes, which are then given to the congregation after Easter services. (The practice has a very positive effect on attendance at church;)

2. In Australia and New Zealand, bunnies are considered pests, so they’ve replaced the bunny imagery with Bilby the Bandicoot (often confused with rodents, bandicoots are small, omnivorous marsupials)

3. In Switzerland, it’s a cuckoo that delivers chocolate eggs.

4. In Germany, on Good Friday dancing is prohibited and eggs are delivered by a Fox.

5. In Bermuda, kites are flown representing Jesus rising to heaven.

6. In France, flying church bells drop the chocolate eggs.

7. In the U.S. ever since 1878, the First Lady hosts an “Easter Roll” and about 30,000 people on the South Lawn to roll eggs with the help of a large wooden spoon.

8. There is even a French village named Bessières that celebrates Easter Monday by making a GIANT omelet with 15,000 eggs! Families crack their eggs at home in a bowl and bring them to the town square to combine them. It originated when Napoleon Bonaparte visited and requested a giant omelet to feed his troops and TADA…

9. In Italy, the super cool name of this egg dish caught my eye;)

10. In the Ukraine (my people!) they make the most beautiful eggs and sing hayivky - songs combined with dances that call for spring.

A few more eyebrow-raising traditions:

1. Czechoslovakian women are busy at Easter avoiding being whipped by men with ribbon-tied willow branches. They then reward them with painted eggs and shots of brandy. I’m puzzled how this is supposed to represent good luck and health but to each their own.

2. Påskekrimmen, is the Norwegian tradition of reading, watching, and listening to crime stories and detective thrillers during the Easter holidays seems a bit obscure, but I can dig it.

   

3. How about a friendly water fight? That’s what the Polish think of when they celebrate Śmigus Dyngus (Poured Monday  – the wet festivities take place on Easter Monday) by throwing lots of H2O at each other. Fun.

4. Watch out for flying pottery on the Greek island of Corfu on Easter Saturday at 11 a.m. sharp, the residents of Corfu throw clay pots (of all sizes) from their balconies. Sounds like a smash - it feels to me like it could be sponsored by Ouzo.

The tradition dates back to the 16th century (B.M.K. before Marie Kondo) when people threw all of their useless and old belongings that didn’t spark joy out of the window to get ready for the New Year – the breaking pots scare away evil spirits and mark a new beginning.

What do we all have in common?

We’re Human. And maybe HOT CROSS BUNS

This or a similar rhyme was sung—or shouted out—by street vendors announcing their wares during Lent.

They are probably closer to 180 pennies now at Cob’s Bakery but that’s not a great sales pitch.

Love them or not, these soft spiced buns lovingly dotted with dried fruit, toasted to perfection, and dripping with butter don’t seem to last very long, but they smell good and have managed to get their hot cross buns into our hearts and bellies around the world.

The English custom of eating spiced buns on Good Friday dates back to at least Tudor times, when a London law forbade the sale of spiced buns except on Good Friday, Christmas, and at burials. I'm sure you’ve put this together better than me, for the longest time my young mind thought they were “x”s for kisses**, but the symbolism of white crosses on these pull-apart beauties commemorates the crucifixion. They are traditionally consumed after breaking the fast on Good Friday, but no one judges here, so enjoy!

**I also thought Bon Jovi sang the words “It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not” when apparently, the correct lyric from ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ is: “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not”. Our son Gordie called being naked being “maked”. Good thing we have each other.

Here is a highly-rated RECIPE FOR HOT CROSS BUNS if you’re feeling adventurous!

What are the hidden Spiritual gifts of Easter?

It can be challenging to take historical, ancient, and scriptural events and make them relevant in modern life.

It’s no wonder Easter went from one of the most extraordinary events to bunnies with baskets brimming with eggs, giant omelets, marsupials, and tossing clay pots off balconies.

We spend $127 million a year on marshmallowy Peeps. I confess, I’ve never tasted one but they must be the new hot cross bun because that’s enough peeps to circle the Earth 3x’s.

Modernity may have lost touch with the holy significance of Easter, but the deeper I go into the symbolic truth, the more I’m sincerely moved by the significance of these three symbolic days.

We understandably made the person Jesus an object of worship, but you get the sense in the gospels that Jesus didn’t want to take credit, be idolized, or start a world religion, he seemed intent on showing us a universal pattern for all of life.

From a mystical viewpoint, he was sharing a cosmic blueprint to show us how to be fully human and fully divine.

Carl Jung described the Christ archetype as THE most important archetype for a good reason.

The story of Easter is not just a teaching parable, it’s a spiritual invitation for our own life.

A holy journey we’re all taking part in.

When we think of taking a journey we usually think of traveling from A to B or about a changing landscape…

but a holy journey is not fulfilled unless you stop moving.

Sometimes we stop voluntarily and sometimes it’s forced on us.

It might present as depression or anxiety, a personal challenge, addiction, a marriage in need of transformation, a diagnosis, loss, or a pandemic that kicks us out of the ordinary and pulls us off the hamster wheel of life.

It’s the death of normal and a call for change.

An invitation to begin again.

We can change our story, die to the old, and rise again.

This symbolic Holy Journey can be divided into three distinct stages.

There is always a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This archetypal pattern has existed since before Christianity from the ancient Greek drama and Aristotle’s three-act structure in Poetics with an inciting incident, an ordeal of some kind, and a victory.

In spiritual psychology, there is the purgative stage, an illuminating stage, and the unitive stage.

Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey with the call to adventure, a road of trials, and the return.

It's not just for humans it’s the story of transformation for seeds, clouds, stars, caterpillars, and honeybees from a seed stage to maturation.

Sometimes all three stages of this HOLY JOURNEY happen in a single day or even in an hour and other times they can take years or decades to play out:

1. CRUCIFIXION - it begins with a death

2. THE IN-BETWEEN /DARKNESS- feeling buried- tomb/womb/surrender

3. RESURRECTION

You will experience yourself as dying and then you will be reborn.

One thing is for certain, even if things appear to be the same on the outside, YOU ARE CHANGED.

Did you know that there are more than twenty symbolic “3-day” journeys in the bible?

Many choose to read the bible literally, but it’s the metaphysical interpretations that have made the most sense to me.

Here are a couple of my favorites to illustrate the symbolic power of them:

1. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus

Paul is traveling on his horse (horses in mysticism = intellect). He’s riding (on or in his mind) and he falls from his “horse/mind”…and he’s blinded. He can’t see anything for three days. He’s toppled from his mind and he’s blind… but after day 3 his sight is restored.

Was it a physical blindness? Or spiritual?

He changed…there was a before and after. Before he hated Jesus and in his ignorance he wanted to destroy him and after only a few days, he’s had an awaking, a change of heart. He sees things differently. He loves Jesus and after his inner shift, he “saw” the Christ in everyone.

What do you make of this for your own life? Is there any time when you were blind…and THEN you saw things differently and everything changed?

2. Jonah and the Whale -

Jonah receives his instructions from God, but he loses his nerve and tries to run away. He hops on a boat and the sea becomes stormy. In metaphysics, the stormy sea represents emotional turmoil and drama. He’s resisting his calling.

When the people on the boat begin to suspect that he’s the dark cloud and the cause of the bad weather, they toss him into the sea. He’s swallowed by a whale and spends a few days in the belly of the whale before he’s spat out onto dry land a changed man.

He’s ready now ready to face his purpose.

Is there a time when you knew what to do but you avoided it and ran the other way or procrastinated? (FYI - I’m raising my hand high:)

These biblical stories are so rich with meaning. They seem to be whispering for us to hold on when things look hopeless, to just have faith. To stay. To feel it and let it pass. Simply keep showing up and we’ll be guided.

The story is JUST beginning when you’re in the darkness and you can’t see straight. It’s how we grow and eventually bear fruit.

It feels like Jesus singlehandedly eliminated all of our excuses by suffering them all in one weekend.

Jesus voluntarily accepted his undeserved suffering as an act of total solidarity with the pain and injustice of the world.

He showed up defenseless and had faith.

He was resurrected.

What Jesus is demonstrating to Humanity is that when we’re willing to stop trying to control our lives and everyone in it…

• EVERYTHING passes.

• EVERYTHING is transformed.

And to be clear, it’s not us doing the transforming ourselves, we’re helped, guided, and inspired. A Course In Miracles makes this pretty clear:

In all ancient scriptures from every world tradition, we’re reassured that we’re not ever alone, it may seem that way- but in Christianity, Jesus said a “comforter” will be sent. It used to also be called “Universal Inspiration” in the Bible, but it was eventually changed to the more modern name: The Holy Spirit.

We can practice kenosis - or “self-emptying” so we can clear our minds and listen to that still small voice with prayer and meditation so our next steps can be revealed to us. I like to think of prayer as asking questions and meditation and time in stillness to listen and receive answers.

What is the change you are being asked to make?

Jesus is teaching us Metanoia. A conversion or an alternative way of being in the world, not just for himself, but for everyone.

To shift from a separate self that seeks justice, control, and retribution to another deeper sense of self we have lost touch with.

The True Self.

To shift from “I am a body with a Soul”…to “I am a Soul with a body”.

He and many other prophets have demonstrated how to shift identities from matter to spirit.

Jeshua or Jesus to Christ.

Siddhartha Gautama to Buddha.

We are being shown an alternative to vengeance, anger, judging, fighting, resisting, defending.

Jesus lived out all of our excuses plain as day to help us see this:

• He was betrayed by his best friends

• He was arrested for something he didn’t do

• He endured undeserved torture and humiliation and eventually was killed

The nature of being human is that we’ll all have an opportunity to experience these things.

We will be betrayed and we will betray.

We will be humiliated and we will humiliate.

We will be abandoned and we will abandon.

The only way path forward is to forgive.

To bring it forth is to tell the truth and stop living in denial.

It’s a reckoning. A time to stop running away.

Easier said than done, but that is why we have all these beautiful ecumenical teachings and spiritual tools to help guide us when we are feeling destroyed.

We can do what Wendell Barry calls “practicing resurrection”.

We’ll be guided to a new way of thinking, acting, and being.

Jesus has good reasons to complain.

But not only does he not complain, or become violent…what does he say to his friends after they betrayed him?

Shalom.

Peace.

One of the most precious, transformational hope-filled Easter messages that are hard for most of us to imagine is that there is no death, just transition.

I’m not here to convince anyone to believe anything, I’m more interested in our human potential…in this lifetime by seeing a bigger picture, but reading scriptures with a mystical lens, and hearing near-death experiences seems pretty compelling to me.

I’d like to keep an open mind and keep growing and expanding and the good news is that we don’t need religion to see this, science has also clearly demonstrated it.

We see it in the natural world. In biology and astrophysics.

They ALL confirm a singular truth of reality or the shape of everything, it just keeps changing form.

Nothing ever goes away totally - or dies, it’s transformed.

We are not our bodies, we are the animating energy.

This is the cycle of life. The recycling.

No matter how dark it gets in the winter, the spring ALWAYS arrives.

There is nothing for us to do, simply stop resisting what is. And when we do…

Life wins.

Grace wins.

This is the GOOD news. We find peace of mind and freedom in the realization that there is nothing wrong with us, we’re not broken, and we never were.

We can choose again.

CHOOSE LOVE.

If it feels like you are facing the impossible right now, hang in there, this too shall pass.

Until then… you are in my heart and prayers.

Shalom & Happy Easter!

With love,

Nona

PS. Two more Easter treats for you…The wonderful Howard Thurman and Leonard Cohen’s Holy Journey with his song Hallelujah.

Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, regret, and loss…perfect for today’s topic.

Cohen wrote the song Hallelujah in the 1980s.

He sang lyrics about a world full of conflicts and about transcending them.

Leonard Cohen lived this three-part Journey with “Hallelujah” over three decades…

PART 1 - THE CRUCIFIXION

• He wrote 80 different verses and he whittled down to 7. It took him 180 attempts over a decade to perfect it– only to be rejected by his record company Columbia Records.

• Columbia didn’t recognize it as the future hit it would eventually become and the rejection crushed Cohen.

PART 2- TOMB TIME - THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

• In 1994, Cohen, suffering from excessive drinking and depression, moved for five years into a Buddhist monastery in California.

• He surrendered and let the song go to be what it could be.

PART 3- THE RESURRECTION

• Slowly other artists liked and sang his song

• “Hallelujah” was covered by John Cale, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bono, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, Regina Spector, and 300 other artists.

• Dreamworks wanted it for a movie. Shrek turned the cleaned-up version of the song into a MONSTER HIT.

• It was ranked #259 on Rolling Stone's: "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

• It led to more cover versions by KD Lang and Brandi Carlile.

• Hallelujah also became hugely popular on TV talent shows like “American Idol”, with Alexandra Burke winning The X Factor in 2008 with her rendition, and subsequently topping the chart

The song was unexpectedly resurrected.

Cohen was pleased. His work was finally being appreciated.

Most of us are familiar with the Ancient Hebrew word Hallelujah which means “Praise the Lord”, but when Leonard Cohen wrote his song “Hallelujah” he said it was to affirm his faith in life.

It did exactly that.

Cohen died in November 2016 at age 82, just weeks after he released his last album, "You Want It Darker," whose lyrics reflect heavily on death, spirituality, and his place in the universe.

He was still writing poetry a few days before he died.

It seems Jeff Buckley understood what Jesus was all about when he said…

How do you feel about doing things on your own?

I’m not sure if it’s because Scott and I have started watching “Alone” again, or maybe it was hearing stories from radiant friends just back from trips but the topic of flying solo is on my mind this month.

Have you ever considered booking a ticket for one? Traveling to a new place, hiking, camping, or signing yourself up for an adventure WITHOUT your partner, family, and friends but you’re not sure you can?

If so, today is for you.

I’ll share some reflections about solo travel and pilgrimages, highlight examples of real-life journeys taken by two of my friends this past month, and leave you with an enticing list of some of the most popular pilgrimage sites in the world, and even a song to listen to while you do.

Maybe something will call to you so if you feel your heart flip, get truth bumps, or feel curious maybe now is the perfect time for you to wander away from home.

"Wanderlust" can hit us at any age and sometimes when we least expect it. It’s basically when you have a desire to travel or go on a journey and explore the world.

I wonder if it’s not so much the traveling that takes courage, it’s the saying YES and the leaving home part.

The etymology of the word adventure comes from the Latin adventures - advent is a thing that is about to happen and in French “a venire” means to come or arrive.

Planning a new adventure feels like a preview of life’s coming attractions.

In truth, we don’t need to go anywhere, but in my experience when we travel solo we can more easily experience ourselves in a new way.

A change of scenery is a beautiful catalyst.

We can also meet the most incredible human beings young and old who align with us to help us along our authentic path. Some have taken me into their homes and fed me home-cooked meals, some treated me like family and others have parted ways with me after a few days and were on their way never to be seen again.

Even when I anticipate them, the synchronicities when I travel solo surprise me every single time.

Of course, we should be discerning- I gravitate to small groups and I have graciously turned down offers from perfectly nice people when something just feels a bit off…

Here’s a little gallery of total strangers from one solo trip - many of whom I can’t even remember their names…

A nice and safer way to dip your toe in the solo travel water may be to attend an organized retreat to something that tugs at your heartstrings.

A breathwork, meditation, or yoga retreat could open you up in new ways.

Do you ever feel a YES PLEASE in your whole body when you see a place you’ve never been…

Many of these spiritual retreat centers like Kripalu offer scholarships or volunteer opportunities. They also have sliding scales and room options from singles to dormitories depending on your budget.

I recently heard about a heartwarming connection made between “Field” subscribers here on another continent.

Fieldnote readers and friends of Cathy and Colleen live and work in different cities and mustered up the courage to take a solo trip of a lifetime to the Italian Countryside last year. They listened to their heart’s desires and planned, and when it was time to pack their bags they left their families and headed for a villa in the rolling hills of the beautiful Italian countryside to a 13th-century Tuscan farmhouse to slow down, learn how to cook a few healthy and rustic satisfying mangia fagioli (bean:) dishes from the domestic goddess Debbie Travis herself.

The experience brought them both deep joy. What I found amazing was that they could have gone any time but they happened to be staying in the same place at the same time.

Perfectly aligned.

It can be scary to branch out so we understandably easily shut down our yearnings, but today is about what can happen if you answer the call.

A beautiful double negative exists when we experience a change of scenery and do something physically, spiritually, or mentally challenging.

It can be particularly enticing on the edge of big life changes. A diagnosis that has threatened our longevity, a heartbreak, or a significant life transition like changing careers, retirement, or when our children leave the nest.

We can meet our discomfort and pain in a healing way by doing something out of the ordinary. Something unique, something spiritual to us that makes us feel more alive and connected and can help bring us home to ourselves.

I can remember feeling small sitting on these rocks overlooking the most incredible vista in Kenya feeling awe and reverence. It felt a bit “Lion-Kingie”. You know, the scene where Simba is shown growing up and transitioning from a cub to a teenager and into his adult years looking over the land- I even remember what I was thinking at the time in this photo. I remembered a little girl pouring over her parents’ Animal Kingdom encyclopedias filled with wonder. Here I was living the images.

WHAT IS YOUR SOUL LONGING FOR?

I know I know what you’re thinking. You’re not in your 20s anymore, you may have family responsibilities and financial constraints, and it’s not as if you’re not home dawdling your thumbs with extra time on your hands looking for things to do.

Maybe with work commitments, it’s just not feasible.

But what if it WAS?

WHAT IF you could find a way?

In my experience first just saying YES and then getting out of the way for the Universe to conspire to help things along is the easiest and fastest way, usually within a few months opportunities will always present themselves in magical ways.

In math, a double negative results in a positive.

This also appears to be true in life.

When we’re feeling challenged we can move, and add something that challenges us further…and the result is a net positive.

We grow.

It can be a physical challenge, but it doesn’t need to be. When I went to Kripalu the first time I was in pain and could barely walk so it forced me into a quiet stillness and the challenge was purely mental.

The net positive feels like coming home but in a new way.

There is a Chinese saying that makes me smile, “There is no scenery in your hometown”. Being in another place heightens our senses, it allows us to see more, enjoy more, and take delight in small things; we feel more alive.

T.S. Elliot expresses it beautifully…

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”

Aware of it or not, we seek something whole and healed in life that instinctively draws us deeper into ourselves.

The Spiritual Pilgrimage

A spiritual pilgrimage is a sacred journey (typically on foot) that provides an opportunity to reconnect with yourself, nature, and maybe even a higher power of your understanding.

All 5 great world religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam— have a tradition of spiritual pilgrimage, but a pilgrimage doesn’t need a religious connotation. Thousands of people take spiritual pilgrimages to change their perspective, commune with others, and search for deeper meaning in the world around them.

Either way, the ultimate goal of a pilgrimage isn’t in reaching your destination, but in the sheer pleasure of the journey itself.

Anyone can have a fun, inspiring, and challenging few days or weeks.

It may seem obvious, but the beauty of solo traveling is that you can go at your own pace and have your own unique experience.

You can also:

• stop as often as you wish

• go as long as you like

• develop independence, courage, and self-confidence

• realize your resourcefulness

• experience complete freedom

• have a sense of achievement when you summit, cross the finish line, or make it to the cathedral (you may even cry with relief)

• gain healing self-reflections and insights

• quiet ALL outside influences and finding clarity on what YOU want

If time and money weren’t an issue where would you stay or what would you want to see?

The first step is to simply allow yourself to imagine the possibilities.

It can be super simple like staying in a tiny cabin in the woods near your home for $100 a night or an Airbnb with a view like this…

Or maybe you just crave a small break from your regular life to commune with nature. To pop a tent and lie beneath the canopy of stars or the northern lights and listen to the night sounds.

During COVID-19, my husband and I built a quinzhee or quinzee /ˈkwɪnziː/ on the top of Blue Mountain in the woods which is a Canadian snow shelter made from a large pile of loose snow that is shaped and then hollowed a bit like this…and best of all it didn’t cost a penny (and thankfully we didn’t get arrested for trespassing:)

Can you see new possibilities?

Two friends recently shared their own powerful experiences on unique solo adventures…

I met the beautiful soul that is Sarah Hepburn through a community of entrepreneurs (she’s a fellow Monarch). Sarah loves to write and hike as much as I do and we also have grown-ish aged children so we became fast friends. We took a hike together in Collingwood last fall and on that walk, she shared her dream to walk the Camino Trail.

And this month, she did it!!

She chose a 126 km route from Valença do Minho in Portugal to Santiago de Compostela Spain (on the Portuguese Camiño) with just her hiking shoes and what she carried on her back. Sarah texted me a moving voice memo to share some meaningful highlights and her gratitude for this powerful experience…

Here is a tiny taste of Sarah’s simply wise advice:

1. Don’t wait - If you’ve been thinking about doing something do it now. There will never be a right time. 

2. Do it scared - This walk had been on my mind for a long time but I only finally booked it about six weeks ago. I overthought everything because I was scared. What would the path look like? What will I eat? Will I have the right clothes? My fears almost stopped me from going.

You can read more about Sarah’s journey on the Camino and in life through her Instagram @_sarahhepburn, and her Substack.

I also thoroughly enjoyed reading her book last year which the Substack was named after Walking Forward -every week I’d read a new chapter sitting under a canopy of trees in nature reflecting on her words. I admire the simplicity of her work, the short easy-to-read bite-sized chapters, and the way she draws her readers to reflect on their own experiences.

If a spiritual pilgrimage is not for you, maybe Brandon’s story will inspire you to try something a bit different…

I met Brandon when I joined his co-working space in Collingwood, Ontario called The Foundry. He’s been instrumental in the business growth of many appreciative entrepreneurs in our community. Here he is with his bestie Dean who is also an adventurer. Don’t let his tiny size or tongue-out vibe fool you - Full-of-beans-Dean as he is affectionately called has his own IG and has hiked the entire Bruce Trail.

What I like most about Brandon is that he’s a great listener, he’s also humble, and kind. He loves his dog, woodworking, hiking, and being in nature so we became fast friends. I admire how he serves our greater community, including holding a seat on our Town’s city council. My husband and I recently did a walk with him to raise money for youth experiencing homelessness in our community.

Needless to say, he’s busy and is juggling several projects, but he always seems to be able to make time for everyone.

After a particularly challenging year, Brandon planned his very own solo pilgrimage of sorts. He set his sights on a Trans-Rockies race called RUN THE ROCKS on the legendary singletrack of Moab, Utah. He also did some nail-biting off-road traveling with his Jeep over steep terrain through the rocky desert.

I love reading Brandon’s writing.

It’s so grounded and relatable. You can read more about Brandon’s adventure and more of his work on MEDIUM.

**SIDE NOTE: Faced with the tough terrain, the high altitude, and back-to-back days of long mileage to cover, Brandon reached out to another member of our local community (and Field member:) endurance coach Andrew Flynn to help him prepare. If you have a goal but feel a bit anxious about your chosen goal and you’d like the support I wholeheartedly recommend Andrew - Scott and I have also used his services for some long-distance swim training- so if you’re in the market for expert advice or endurance coaching don’t hesitate to reach out to @andrewflynncoaching on Instagram to find out if he can help you prepare for your adventure.

I’ve been reflecting on this topic this week wondering where my desire to travel came from. I was reminded of a book I read in High School.

Do you remember reading the book “Walkabout” by James Vance Marshall?

It was on our grade 9 syllabus in Canada in the 1980s, so maybe bit outdated being from the 1950s, but it was based on two (white) schoolchildren who are left to fend for themselves in the Australian Outback after a plane crash and who come across a teenage Aboriginal boy who helps them to survive. It was popular at the time, they even made it into a movie in the early 70s.

Looking back I suspect it could have been seeded into me by that book, or maybe the influence of my Dad’s love of the Great outdoors and growing up with dirt in my fingernails, but somewhere in between my inherited ideas and love for the natural world was the embedded deep into my psyche the desire for a coming-of-age spiritual ritual that involved being in nature and going off on my own.

I was itching to travel when I turned 18. Maybe I was just in a hurry to grow up.

My first solo trip was out west in a place you don’t even need to visit to be able to imagine how magical my first solo hikes were.

I was struck by a deep desire to interrupt my “regular” life to go on a solo journey.

I met so many great people like Travis who loved mountains as much as I do and somehow managed to convince me to try sushi for the first time in Banff.

My next trip was to Europe… more mountains!!

Feeling on top of the world in Chamonix on Mont Blanc - yes that’s me before Leo and Kate made this arm splay famous. I loved staying in a tent on the mountain -I’ll never forget watching the sunrise from my sleeping bag.

And then off to Africa a few years later where we felt the thundering waterfalls in our whole bodies. This is me with my friend Bucky (photo taken by his girlfriend Jen - now wife:)

I’ve instinctively headed out to nature in every place I’ve ever spent time in from Swaziland and South America to Bora Bora and Botswana.

Even at home, when I’m feeling heady and blah at home I head for the trails and experience an inner shift.

Do you ever feel like you’re beginning to wilt?

Do you sometimes feel like ever since you’ve become a grown-up everything gets planned and there seems to be very little white space in your calendar for spontaneous adventures? Our lives can begin to feel bogged down by our need to constantly steer, control, and schedule.

It feels like we’re often heading to Toronto Pearson now to drop our kids off to experience new things in faraway lands while we make bigger dents in our sofa cushions. And of course when we listen and give ourselves what we need, even for a weekend our well-being (sanity) and personal fulfillment benefit our entire extended family.

When we decide even to head out on our own to the woods behind our homes, or hit a trail in a faraway land, two things happen:  

1. First, it forces us to fend -which makes us feel alive and engaged and wonderfully “off schedule” - we can’t just blindly follow, we need to make decisions for ourselves and note which end is up.

2. Second, it reminds us of our powerlessness. Nature has a self-organizing rhythm of its’ own that can’t and won’t be controlled. Waves roll, cliffs drop off and rivers flood as perfect conflations bigger than us and more perfect than our feeble attempts to steer things.

It’s a deep subliminal reminder that flowers don’t try to bloom. They just do.

Leaves allow themselves to fall off the branch when the time is right for them to die.

Nature is like our very own grounded life coach, quietly demonstrating how to live well.

So why do we find ourselves doing the very opposite of trusting? We plan, we pray, we pine and plead for a better or different future with our goal-setting but there is rarely space for anything new in our already cluttered lives.

Open Space.

To just BE.

I suspect it’s even why spring cleaning feels SO darn good because it frees up space.

In physics, there is a term “horror vacui” or “plenism” commonly stated as "nature abhors a vacuum". It explains why even if we manage to clear some time and space to try to dig ourselves out of a dark place or even tidy up our homes those empty spaces are often immediately filled with more of the same.

In nature, we’re made aware of our smallness and impotence – we’re also made aware of the bigger picture that our lives are a perfect conflation of self-organizing forces that can’t be controlled.

Sweet relief.

When there are rocks to clamber over, spider webs, and puddles to dodge – it seems like nature’s powerful elixir to shut down tedious, ruminative thoughts lulls our attention back to the present moment when we connect and plug into the ecosystem of all that is.

Neuroscientists at the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory have also found awe-inspiring natural experiences release oxytocin and a University of Michigan study found that because our senses evolved in nature, by getting back to it we connect more honestly with our sensory reactions. Which connects us with our true selves, and enhances a feeling of “oneness”.

It improves our well-being and moves us to deep, satisfying realizations that reset our thinking.

Watching sunsets, camping under the stars, coming face-to-face with a deer in a forest (remember that turning point scene in the cult film Stand by Me?) – such experiences have been shown to have a universal effect. Some call it the Wilderness effect.

The Wilderness effect is real.

The wilderness effect describes the psychological effects of being in the wilderness for a week or more although it feels pretty immediate to me saying something unoriginal like “Wow”, or “So beautiful!”, usually followed by a soft sigh. There are several aspects to the effect, but fundamentally it involves “feelings of expansion or reconnection” which many researchers describe as spiritual (Greenway, 1995: 128).

The longer I spend in nature, the more reverence and respect I feel for all of life.

Hiking solo has a multitude of other mental and physical benefits too many to list and it even increases our attention spans and creative problem-solving skills by as much as 50 percent when our devices seem to be pulling us the other way.

Maybe the biggest shift for me was my mental health. I can remember feeling so depressed and stuck and just weeping openly on the Bruce Trail and eventually quiet naturally in time feeling whole again. This study (along with thousands of others) shows that being in nature can help people with severe depression feel less hopeless, depressed, and suicidal so it just seems like common sense to add nature into whatever other conventional modalities you seek.

Being in the mountains makes me feel small, humble, and alive.

Fear is a funny thing. It is meant to keep us safe but it can end up limiting our experience of life and ourselves.

If you are already afraid, then every experience you have is filtered with fear. We don’t need to see the whole staircase.

Just the next step.

In the immortal words of Lao Tzu, “Don’t be afraid to take that first step. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

A BIG thank you today Sarah and Brandon for sharing your stories with us.

I’d love to hear about your next adventure now that you know the truth (that T.S. Elliot knew all along) that what we’re ultimately seeking can be “half-heard in the stillness between two waves of the sea”.

Traveling solo seems to be about reconnecting with ourselves, having a new appreciation for others, and our homes, and permitting ourselves to thank and leave the old story behind and write a new story for our life.

You’ve GOT this!

With love

Rev Nona

PS. Two parting gifts for you today - a song and a top 10 list…

This song by Colten Jesse is called “Sorrow Symphony”. It’s a country tune - I heard our son listening to it the other day and asked him who it was (I should probably share that he was also making dinner for us which may have had me in a euphoric state), but I loved the down to earth realness of his voice and the lyrics seemed right.

Do any of these tug on your heartstrings? Please don’t limit yourself there are thousands of options but to give you an idea scan down this list to see if any catch your eye…

National Geographic’s top 10 pilgrim routes:

1. Abraham’s Path, The Middle East

This epic 1,243-mile route starts in Harran, Turkey, where God is said to have called upon Abraham to ‘go forth’, and rambles on through Egypt, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan. 

2. Via Francigena, UK, France & Italy

A 1,200-mile route connecting Canterbury to Rome via France, the Swiss Alps, and the Italian Apennines, passing churches and shrines devoted to St Francis. 

3. Adam’s Peak, Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka’s Central Highlands, this conical, 7,360-foot-high peak is home to a footprint that’s said to belong to Adam, Buddha, or Shiva (depending on your faith:)

*Sarah’s route…drum roll…

4. The Camino de Santiago! (Portugal, Spain & France)

The Portuguese wild Atlantic coast unravels before you on this uncrowded trail from Lisbon (380 miles) or Porto (140 miles) to Santiago de Compostela or the Camino Frances or the Camino del Norte in Northern Spain.

5. Mount Kailash, Tibet

This three-day, 32-mile circuit of sacred 21,778ft Mount Kailash in Tibet is what is referred to as the holiest mountain in the Himalayas and is said to bring good fortune.

6. Lourdes, France

The 92-mile Piemont Route connects St-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Lourdes, a holy pilgrimage site since 1858 when Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have witnessed 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary. For 159 years, millions of the faithful from all over the world have flocked to Lourdes, where, it is said, the sick can be healed miraculously.

7. St Magnus Way, Scotland

This one speaks to me…the wide-open horizons, space, and silence of Orkney’s coastline enthrall this 58-mile route honoring the island’s patron saint. 

8. Kumano Kodō, Japan

Okay…this one does too! This network of ancient trails dives into the remote, densely forested, shrine-topped mountains of the Kii Peninsula, Japan’s spiritual heartland. 

9. Via Coloniensis, Germany

Grand abbeys and palaces punctuate this 152-mile trail, uniting the former Roman cities of Cologne and Trier, where fourth-century St Peter’s Cathedral is a highlight.

10. St Finbarr’s Way, Ireland

Traversing three mountain ranges, this 22-mile pilgrimage begins at the Top of the Rock in Dromdaleague, County Cork, where sixth-century monk St Finbarr once preached. 

Care to share yours?

Leave a comment below or message me right away… get it out into the ethers before your fears and doubts change your mind;)

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I know what you’re thinking, baseball seems like a departure from what I normally write about but to me, any field is the perfect subject for taking field notes about life. I was lucky enough to attend two Blue Jays games at their spring training camp in Dunedin, Florida with my parents this month so I have baseball on my mind. I’ve been reflecting on its’ influence on our family, culture, and even our language.

Today let’s take a look at the game of baseball through a metaphysical lens to see what it can teach us about overcoming some of the tenents that have been limiting us as human beings.

If you are a new subscriber, you may not know that Baseball is BIG in my family.

My brother and I played in our youth and I still have my soft MacGregor glove.

Our boys played and now our nephews who range in age from 7 to 16 play, but arguably the biggest ball fan in our family is surprisingly my Mother, or “Nana” as she is affectionately called.

My Dad “GG” is a good sport and usually keeps her company - they have had the same season ticket seats to the Spring Training camp for years, a tradition generously started as a gift by my brother and sister-in-law who have also been coaching and driving their kids to ballparks and practice domes for years.

Our nephews Stryder and Dax even have part-time jobs as umpires - these are outdated pictures (below) that I took of them in action that I happened to have on my phone (they are teenage giants now) but they have both grown up on the ball field.

The discipline, different team tryouts, hours of practicing, managing injuries, and learning how to be encouraging and dependable teammates on various successful teams have molded them into exceptional human beings. Of course, we’d love them either way, but let’s just say that the sport of baseball has had a huge influence on them.

Some of you reading may not follow baseball and yet many of you use the idioms of baseball every day. They have a way of seeping into our conversations -I was just telling Scott this morning on our walk that it’s surprising how many we still use.

One of baseball’s most famous moments was the home run by Bobby Thomson to win the 1951 World Series for the New York Giants, the “shot heard round the world.” As Yogi Berra aptly put it: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Most of us have heard that saying more than once, Scott and I heard it again last night while watching the great docuseries called “Dynasty” about Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the episode where they play Atlanta in the Superbowl and come from behind to win it in the last minute of the game.

I’m sure there are many, many more baseball sayings, but for fun skim down this list and see if you recognize or still use some of the 15 more commonly used ones:

1. To succeed at something is to hit it out of the park

2. When we take initiative or try our very best we are said to be stepping up to the plate or leaving everything out on the field

3. High performers with a reputation for getting results are known as big hitters

4. Being strategic is playing smart ball

5. Less benevolent strategies or tough negotiations are when someone is playing hardball

6. An unexpected response is known as being thrown a curveball or we can be caught off base

7. If we want to connect we will often say we’ll touch base and if we can’t make it we’ll take a rain check

8. A viewpoint unconnected or unexpected comes out of left field, 

9. If we do an amazing job at a task we knock the cover off the ball

10. A fresh start or something different is a whole new ballgame

11. Welcome to the major leagues when we get a big promotion

12. When we anticipate or think of everything we cover our bases

13. When there is a 50:50 chance of something happening we say it’s hit or miss,

14. Something or someone is a little off base when things feel not quite right

15. In dating, we judge if someone is out of his/her league, and do any of us make it out of puberty without knowing exactly what happens at different bases? ;)

This past month it occurred to me that watching baseball seems more exciting than it used to.

I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Maybe it was the steady stream of high-flying foul balls coming hard and fast overhead. My mom and I were making cringy yikes faces at each other when they flew up over the dome towards the parking lot at high speed (in the general direction of our vehicle in our lucky front row spot) wondering if the windshield would still be intact when we got out. It was:)

Or maybe because it’s FUN.

Since covid it feels different to me somehow - I no longer take group atmospheres for granted. The families, the loud pump-up music, and clapping together in unison.

It’s such a rare opportunity to sit in the stands surrounded by the electrifying energy of a happy crowd of baseball fans.

One of the main reasons I felt inspired to write this piece is of course metaphysical, so let’s cover that right off the bat (pun intended:) then I’ll finish off with 8 powerful lessons that the game of baseball has to offer all of us.

It all started with something profound that happened to me in November of 2020.

It’s hard to find the right words to describe it without sounding like I may have been hit in the head with a bat and a ball myself, but in a nutshell, I had a spontaneous experience where the room filled with a bright light and I was suddenly filled with a tremendous feeling of love for everyone. It was the most unexpected and beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced.

For months and even a couple of years later, I felt a strong urge to demonstrate that love and express my affection through friendliness.

I felt drawn to total strangers in a new inexplicable way.

We all know that life is not all sunshine and double plays, but it’s as though I was experiencing myself and all of life in a new way.

I was still me and it was as though nothing changed physically, but I noticed that I could sit and listen to strangers without judging them. COVID vaccinations, politics, work, and strained relationships, all I felt was compassion toward them.

I was somehow different than I was before. I felt different. It was like I was sitting up in the nosebleed section of life and I could see more, I sensed our common human identity, our need for happiness, meaning, and purpose. Our interconnectedness.

It suddenly made so much more sense to me to connect, rather than compete and fight.

It’s like this one moment shifted my perception and prevented me from seeing others as separate, but rather as a whole human race. It’s been four years and I still don’t have a political identity like most people do, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. It feels to me that the highest political expression is both liberal and conservative.

My attitude to everything has changed.

I enjoy a ball game and my life now for the game’s sake, but I’ve transcended any notion of group identity in myself and others. I no longer see ethnicity, nationality, and religion - I see us as a whole.

And yet it’s true when it comes to sports that I still love certain teams like the Blue Jays and The Miami Dolphins but probably because my Mother and our Son love them and I’m happy for them when they win and it’s fun to have a favorite team.

It feels shocking to me now when I hear booing or hate slurs at games towards the opposing team and I’m quickly brought back to earth and reminded of how a mind and ego work. When there is violence between home fans and visiting teams, and people are hurt or property is damaged after a hard loss it’s like I understand their need to support their specific team, but now it strikes me as a bit absurd and sad. It even happens in Little Leagues around the world and brings out the worst in all of us.

As parents, we may be surprised to witness other parents or even find ourselves exchanging unkind words at our kids’ sports games with other parents or criticizing referees or other parents out loud or in the car on the drive home with our children listening closely to our every word.

What’s going on?

It’s just a game.

Why do we feel so defensive and threatened?

FEAR.

Fear is the only reason we ever lie, exaggerate, cheat, steal, or feel the need to win at any cost. We’ll do things that compromise our integrity and then lie about doing it.

This fear and need for being the one in power or on top is responsible for much of the conflict and brutality that has filled human history.

Most wars have been fought between two or more opposing groups.

Religious groups like Catholics and Protestants or Muslims and Hindus, ethnic groups like Serbs, Bosnians, and Croatians, or the Tusti and Hutu in Rwanda; or ideological factions such as communists and fascists. Group identity has led to campaigns of persecution and mass murder, such as the Holocaust or the untouchables under the Indian caste system, racism, and inequality. Human beings are defined by these separate groups and are not regarded as sacred beings or individuals but as members of a different and inferior group.

We judge others by the color of the jersey they wear.

Does anyone else find it interesting that in most sports the home team often wears the white or lighter colored jersey and the away or visiting team wears their darker tones?

When we strongly identify with a group, we are more liable to restrict our empathy and altruism to our fellow, withholding them from our group.

Psychologists call this “moral exclusion”. Where if you’re not on my team you’re my rival. I feel threatened by you and I blame you for my problems.

Our egos also feel defeated and threatened when we lose. And sadly it becomes possible for us to judge, exploit, oppress, and even beat or kill the “other”.

You may have heard of this incident from your news feed back in January at a stadium parking lot in Miami when 30-year-old Dylan Brody Isaacs from Ontario and his friends were returning to their vehicle after a Sunday night game, they had an altercation with the driver of another vehicle from another team. The driver pulled out a gun and fired several shots at Isaacs, who died at the scene.

Most of us of course realize on some level that it’s just a game for our entertainment, but if we attach to our ego and separate ourselves, we’ll quickly find ourselves rationalizing behavior that we’d never do in our right mind.

We become oblivious, righteous, and downright rude. We’re not bad people, we are just identifying with our ego or material mind.

One moment we can feel inspired (in spirit), experience awe, and even get goosebumps and tears listening to a national anthem with our caps off feeling connected and then next we’re rivals.

It’s not even just the players that get sucked in, as spectators when the umpire makes a bad call against our team for the third time in a row we can feel our hackles go up and we boo.

Our consciousness seems to rise and fall in our frequencies all day long according to our level of awareness.

This can be felt in the field of life in every way. At work, in our romantic relationships, and especially being a parent can be one of our greatest spiritual teachers.

Before my awakening experience, I can clearly remember the ups and downs of riding that see-saw of consciousness, especially as a young parent. After a good sleep, coffee, and my morning routine, I felt like Julie Andrews…

But by dinner time the boys would probably describe me more like this…

Can we still be good parents, support our kids, love sports, have a favorite home team, and transcend any illusion of group identity to the common identity of all human beings?

YES!

Can we move past ethnicity, nationality, and religion to the formless essence that expresses itself purely and equally in everyone?

ABSOLUTELY!

In the process, we can extend empathy and altruism to the whole human race.

There are so many powerful lessons available to us from baseball. Here are a handful that came to me:

1. Staying Awake

Baseball moves slowly. Some joke that they’d prefer to watch paint dry. A baseball game usually lasts about three hours, although there is no clock, so it goes on until it’s over. Very few sports are like that.

Baseball invites you to relax, reflect, and chat with friends and get to know the people seated around you.

My mom knows so much about the game that it’s especially fun to watch with her.

For me, she gives the game context. She tells me about the players, their playing history, injuries, and even their personal lives. She logs their stats. My mom is ALL in. She pays attention not just to the Jays but to everything. It’s her superpower.

Like baseball, the game of life also seems to play out slowly. The boredom “between pitches” in our lives can sometimes get the better of us. Instead of being in the present moment, we distract ourselves or get lost in a storm of unhelpful thoughts. If you’re not sure this is you, sit still and do nothing for 5 minutes.

If you have an untrained human brain, you are going to want to move or feel compelled to DO something. It’s why it’s so hard for us to learn to meditate at first with an untrained mind.

We naturally seem to reach outside of ourselves to feel better. We’ll go for our phones or our wallets, we’ll even risk having to remortgage our homes to pay the man with the big foam hat and funny voice walking around announcing “Ice cold beer here” at the ballpark.

When we feel something we don’t want to feel or can’t control life, we will avoid the feeling rather than just feeling it and allowing it to pass on through us.

There is another significant way we avoid boredom or hearing something we don’t want to hear even at a ball game.

We fall asleep.

A helpful life tip from Mateo Peluso: If you’re going to lie down on your Zoom calls it’s best to turn off your camera.

For many fans, attending a live sporting event is a riveting experience- far superior to sitting on their couch and watching the game at home, but this gallery of photos I pulled off the internet tells another story.

These were taken from different sports, from the US Open in Tennis, Football playoff games and even the Masters in golf (cameraman snoozing while Justin Rose tees off at the 13th hole at the Masters in 2008) is a tribute to all of us who sometimes doze off in life at the wrong time.

This is probably why they invented the “Seventh inning stretch” which is something we should maybe consider bringing into our daily life.

Just a pause. A walk, a break, some fresh air, and some music in our daily round in the afternoon to refresh ourselves.

In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s a long-standing tradition that takes place between the halves of the seventh inning of a game. Fans generally stand up and stretch out their arms and legs and sometimes walk around and often play the crowd sing-along song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game".

I love seeing my parents standing, clapping, and following Ace the mascot’s raised arm prompts while singing “OK…OK..BLUE JAYS…BLUE JAYS…LET’S….PLAY…BALL”.

That never happens at home and it’s probably why most of us doze off on our couches but we can bring the 7th inning stretch with us wherever we go.

2. Show Me the Money

So then why on earth do we pile our exhausted bodies into the stands and still love being entertained by baseball so much?

I’d like to think it’s because we love the game. The last game I was at it was sold out. Standing room only.

The numbers tell another story…it’s also BIG business. The 2023 revenue from the MLB was $11.6 billion.

One thing I admire about baseball is that it’s one of the more affordable sports to watch and accessible to the average family. Especially the spring training games. My ticket was only $16 and the average ticket to see the Toronto Maple Leafs is $322 which is not ideal if you have 3 kids that love hockey.

The average professional baseball player makes around $2 million but someone like Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani (currently the highest-paid player in major league baseball) has an astonishing salary of $70 million this season which is similar to what a top Hollywood Actor is paid (last year that was Adam Sandler at $73 million).

Adam Sandler is a household name and I wonder how many of us would recognize Shohei Ohtani if he walked by us on the street?

Either way, we’ll empty our wallets to be entertained and because it’s fun to be together watching the best in the world play a sport we adore making memories with the ones we love.

Some would even say it’s priceless.

3. Batting with A Higher Power

If you attended an elementary school in North America, chances are that you’ve had a turn at bat. You probably remember that uncomfortable, familiar anticipation and nervous feeling of your name being called. Choosing your bat, carefully lining up our feet with home plate, and looking at the pitcher just waiting for the pitch to come.

This is one of the phenomenal things about both - failing daily, is not just a part of baseball, it’s a part of life.

We have three tries because a swing and a miss is a natural occurrence.

A good baseball player with a batting average of .300 is failing 70% of the time.

Wow.

What other sport does this happen in? Can you imagine someone missing tennis or their golf shots 70% of the time?

These players carry their previous batting experiences each time they step into the batter’s box and it’s OK.

In the same way that every single morning we wake up we carry our previous day’s experiences with us each time our feet hit the ground out of bed. Our minds will have 70-80% of the same thoughts and we’ll make the same mistakes we made yesterday AND IT’S OK.

When we do get up to bat we often feel compelled to seek spiritual reinforcement or find ourselves in some sort of a silent negotiation.

My two favorite hitters are Vladdy and Bo on the Jays.

They both have HUGE swings and swing for the fences every time they are up.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is especially fun to watch. He has such a pleasing energy on the field and when he approaches home plate to bat he has a beautiful ritual:

• First, he holds the bat by the barrel, and with the handle of the bat, he reaches down and writes ‘Dios’ into the dirt of the home plate circle— “God” in Spanish.

• Then he takes the bat and he taps the catcher, and he taps the umpire—a show of respect. No one seems to mind, I read that he’s done that ever since he was little. His way of connecting to the Divine and no one has ever told him to stop.

• Then he steps in and waggles the bat.

• I’ve noticed that now and then, he’ll rest it on his right shoulder for a moment, and he seems calm and comfortable.

• He stares out to the mound. You’re never sure if he’s going to uncork on the first pitch or just sit there and keep staring waiting for the right pitch.

It works. He got a home run at the game I was watching.

He’s magic. But he also fails and strikes out.

He’s not alone with his pre-hit rituals. Many of the players also wear a big gold or diamond-encrusted necklace as a symbol of success, others wear a religious symbol like a cross, and many kiss it before going up to bat. I remember the day our son Gordie who has never set foot in a church asked us for a chain with a crucifix on it. He wanted some of that pro-athlete magic. He wore it every day for a very long time.

Players sometimes point to the sky after they’ve made a hit. Is it an open expression of gratitude? Giving all the credit to God?

It seems that way to me. An acknowledgment that we are just vessels for the divine to work through us when we are aligned and open to it.

What would our own lives be like if we lived more devotionally?

Can I please also state the obvious? Do any of us believe that God cares if we hit a ball with a bat or strike out or are we giving that all the meaning it has?

Is God not also in the dugout of the losing team?

Whatever the case, let’s all remember today that it’s okay to fail. When Babe Ruth broke the record for most home runs in a season he also struck out more than any other player.

4. Going to Church

For Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon’s character in the movie Bull Durham, she committed herself to what she called “the Church of baseball”…

“I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring… It’s a long season and you gotta trust. I’ve tried ’em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.”

I love that scene.

Maybe she’s onto something.

Find what feeds YOUR soul, not someone else’s. There is no “right” way, only a way that is right for you.

5. LISTENING TO OUR INNER BASE COACH

I never would have believed that the 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel Shoeless Joe movie “Field of Dreams” could ever have been art imitating life, but this movie is no longer fictional to me now.

He built it and they came.

I’d like to share a true story that one of my teachers Jon Gabriel shared about an experience that happened to him that has had a profound effect on me. I’m more open and willing to listen to the whispers in my head because of it. Call it intuition, the Shakina, or the Holy Spirit it doesn’t matter, but it's a viable bridge to perception between us and the Divine or our “Higher Self”.

Jon is a biochemist with a degree in Economics. He was in New York and needed to get to San Fransisco for an important meeting with investors to fund a big project, but right before he boarded his flight, he felt a strong and compelling inner voice telling him NOT to board.

It made ZERO rational sense to his Wharton School of Business mind. He surprised even himself when he didn’t board at the last minute, but before the end of the day, he wept in gratitude for listening to that voice.

It was September 11, 2001, and he had a seat on the United Airlines flight 93 that was hijacked by terrorists. His intended flight crashed into an open field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all passengers, crew members, and terrorists on board.

This incident changed his whole life. Up until then, he worked all of the time. He was unhealthy, unhappy, and unbalanced. After this spiritual experience, he had one of the most remarkable physical transformations of all time.

Just like on the baseball field, there are coaches at every base around the diamond we can listen to who are there to help us get home. In life, if we are willing and open to guidance we can access our inner coaches whispering to us on behalf of our higher self.

When we do we’ll be shown the bigger play for our Soul’s evolution and it won’t always make sense to our rational or material mind but can be trusted 100% of the time.

6. WINNING BY LOSING

From our first “T-ball” game to the major leagues and everything in between life is just an experience of ourselves in relationship to one another.

It would seem that our human egos want to “win” at all costs simply because we’ll somehow be better. More acceptable. More admired and loved.

In my own experience, the best has come to me when I have lost.

Winning may bring awards, accolades, and money, but it does not mean anything in the bigger picture of our soul’s existence other than the meaning you give it.

From a higher or “Christ-consciousness” perspective, number 17 in the red shirt along with all of the kids in blue riding the bench on all of the losing teams around the world and Shohei Ohtani or Joe DiMaggio are the same.

A perfect part of creation.

Made in the image and likeness of the source that created us all in our perfection.

In life, no matter what belief system or construct of faith we were handed at birth it can be easy to forget that while we all may be born to play for different teams and wear different uniforms like Halloween costumes, there is only one World Series when it comes to life and we’re all on the same team.

We just get traded around.

We share one pool and one turf.

We can separate ourselves in our imaginations or perceptions into Eastern and Western divisions or geographical Hemispheres with imaginary lines on maps, but at the end of the day when we take a cosmic perspective there is no real separation between our teams or even our countries, it’s all made up by us.

For fun. For the love of the game.

And don’t get me wrong, it IS fun.

Life and competing can be fun and can help us grow if we don’t identify with it as ultimate.

We may even benefit by getting injured and maybe even temporarily losing our positions. Every game we play is the perfect experience for our own soul’s evolution.

No more permanent than the chalk outlining the bases and home plate. We can relax and allow things to unfold naturally no matter what, it’s all good in the long run.

7. Coming Home

I find it fascinating that the goal of the whole game of baseball is different from most other sports where there is a net, a hole, or a hoop to put the ball in or through.

In baseball, the object is to hit the ball, but the goal is for the batter to come home, to get back to home plate.

Just like in our spiritual lives, we are here to help walk each other home. To remember or realize the truth of our being.

In baseball one of the major ways to help get your teammates back home, around the diamond to home plate, is to sacrifice for them.

A sacrifice play means that you don’t get credit for it but it advances the runner.

Walks, bunts, and sacrifice flies, which are good hits but caught for an out, while advancing the runner are examples. The key to this game and the game of life is sacrifice.

In my life, the most beloved people who I hold closest to my heart have sacrificed something for me.

Like my parents. My husband. My In-laws.

There is something about the generosity of spirit and helping another that is deeply moving and life-giving for all of us to remember.

8. Transcendent moments

Some plays seem to transcend space and time. You know the ones…

Like a long ball heading over the fence for a home run until a player in the outfield leaps at the precise moment to connect with the ball and hold it majestically in his glove.

Or the poetic double play in which the shortstop tosses to the second baseman who then twists like a ballerina in mid-air throwing perfectly to first base.

Or the play at home plate when the runner slides ten feet–and a bit out of the baseline–while managing to brush the bag with his hand or foot to avoid the catcher’s tag.

These plays make us get to our feet and leave us awe-struck.

They feel divine. Special. Like something extraordinary has just happened.

They keep bringing us back for more.

Today was a simple reminder that we all create our personal and collective experiences from a field of possibilities. So the next time you hear the cry “Play ball!” remember that baseball is MUCH more than just pleasant recreation.

It can direct us to realities beyond itself and offers helpful pointers for the game of life.

With love,

Rev Nona

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ps. Wishing you all a wonderful last day of March Break for those of you who are off with your kiddos. Reminds me of our visit with our other nephews last March Break.

They were good sports baking in the hot sun, they even brought their gloves but never caught a fly ball… but the friendly parking lot attendant surprised them with a foul ball on their way out and they were so excited. Let’s GO Blue Jays!!

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If you examine the various spiritual traditions and scientific theories about the origins of the earth, there is one often overlooked commonality.

Most of them agree that life, the Universe, and everything was first created by SOUND.

Not many people understand the genius of this simple biblical line.

The word was translated from the Greek word logos. Logos in its traditional meaning is sound, thought, principle, utterance, speech, or the act of speaking.

LOGOS MEANS DIVINE MIND IN ACTION.

Our quantum physicists and our ancient mystics agree with Earth’s origins.

In physics, it’s referred to as “the Big Bang” theory.

What many people don’t know is that this theory was inspired and first proposed in 1927 by a Belgian Roman Catholic Priest Rev Georges Lemaître (who also dabbled in physics) and someone I would have loved to have had dinner with.

For anyone interested, I’ve linked some references here if you’d like to read up on this in more detail…

Rev Lemaître first derived "Hubble's law", now called the Hubble–Lemaître law by the IAU, and published the first estimation of the Hubble constant in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Rev Lemaître also proposed the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe, calling it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom",^[9] and later calling it "the beginning of the world".^[10]

I’m not sure who or what powers that be decided that this theory was “unchristian”, but they made a mistake by misinterpreting John’s gospel and separating science and religion and all of us in ways that have taken almost a century to overcome and many still separate the two.

Sound means vibration.

It’s well documented that Ancient Egyptians would think of an object and speak it into being.

It’s no wonder so many of us have been fascinated with “manifestation”.

They understood even back then that everything including us is energy and is in a state of vibration.

The ancient Egyptians believed that everything in the universe was connected and that everything had a unique vibration or frequency. They also believed that these frequencies could be used for healing, communication, and even to manipulate the physical world. They believed that by understanding the vibrations of the universe, they could harness its power which included building pyramids that we are still scratching our heads over.

Science and religion have shown us that sound brings material into form. It impacts matter and the quantum field. Water, sand, air molecules, clay, and our human bodies.

To better understand how matter is shaped by sound, I find it helps to see how matter physically moves with different sound vibrations into surprising patterns and shapes…imagine these tiny grains bouncing into different shapes depending on vibrations emitting from sounds…

We have recently seen how sound and utterances affect water with Dr. Masaru Emoto’s famous studies on putting different mental intentions and sounds or articulations on water and how frozen under a microscope he could photograph the outcomes. These studies have since been replicated by the Noetic Science laboratories and have been published in scientific journals.

We are more than 70-80% water and it becomes easier to understand that sound has the power to transform us on a cellular level.

Maybe this origin story or the timelines will change with discoveries, but for now, we all agree and both science and early scripture teach that…

In the beginning, the word, the first sound or utterance in our Universe was an explosion.

That then expanded and shaped the Universe.

This power that shaped the cosmos is much more than a mere vibration. It holds the key to healing and the potential to transform our world.

We know from quantum physics that even on an individual level we are ALL continuously created, affected, and evolve from the literal utterances we make, and the corresponding emotions they inspire animate those words by affecting our quantum field of energy and creating and shifting matter itself.

Matter is created first in mind, and then in matter through vibration. Nothing comes into form in this world without first being imagined. Everything including thought is a wave of energy and can only become a particle when there is an intelligent observer.

It’s our divine perceptions that are the creative force in the Universe.

Faith, belief, and thought are pure energy.

Prayer is the medium of miracles because it is WORD. It can shift matter even as a thought because it has a resonance in our morphic field.

We are ALL created and affected by logos, by this sound or utterance that then shaped the Universe. Logos is the ontological indwelling “Christ” potential or higher consciousness that is potential in every one of us.

The word spirit or spirits means to breathe, to blow, to live. It’s the divine breath in man.

We are walking dynamic spiritual potentials.

THE HEALING POWER OF SOUND

Sound is a power that continues to shape our cosmos with each note and affects our brains in astounding ways.

Sound vibrates every molecule in our body. It affects every cell within our being.

If the structure of space-time is ALL vibration of light, then at some stage it must convert to what we know of as sound. At the moment of that conversation, scientists now believe that the waveforms that make up the luminescence of everything - become the molecular patterns and fractals that we can see.

These patterns can be changed and adjusted by sound.

In cymatics, you have the beautiful mandala-like sacred shapes created by a singular frequency of sound coming through water and if we are 70% water it should make us question the sounds we are listening to most often.

Are they creating harmonic arrangements in our bodies or are we causing disharmony?

When we hear sound it feeds energy into every organ of our body…

Sound is a language we all speak and understand.

Just watching or experiencing a few minutes of this compilation of people from 23 cities in 17 different countries of people that downloaded personal videos of themselves dancing to Pharell Williams's song “Happy” will have you feeling the energy and physiology in your own body.

The sounds all around us become us. In nature, the birds, the wind, city sirens, traffic, and even coyotes howling all affect us on a cellular level.

Acoustical physics is researching the processes that we as humans experience in the soundscape from 20 kilohertz to 20,000 hertz. We are continually absorbing and transmitting sound energy and how what is happening inside of us is affecting the earth and the external universe around us.

We are biotransducers or organic vehicles of sending and receiving sound on ALL levels. Sound is the very definition of our holistic life patterns that compose the process of our evolution.

Is anyone else beginning to see the power and the implications of this?

The unified field theory unites this science of sound and spirituality.

Most modern understanding is string theory (vibrating strings). The different vibrations create the different elementary particles which are the building blocks of the atoms and molecules.

Sound is being reintroduced as a key aspect of our story of origin and we’re quickly discovering that consciousness is the primary substrate of all that is vibrating.

Whether you hear a gong or have crystal bowls being played on or over your body you are a participant or a co-creator of the soundscape that we live in.

Our bodies are basic conductors.

The music of our DNA and the higher vibrations allow us to emphatically feel another person’s mind that is inaudible to our normal ability to hear but can be sensed.

In acoustic and anechoic chambers around the world, research is being done and a growing body of evidence is supporting what the ancients have known and practiced for eons, sound, music, and vibration have a profound influence on our physical bodies revealing the potent potential of sound as a tool for healing.

One of the most important ways is through stress reduction. The research was pioneered by Dr. Herbert Benson in the 1980s showing that if you sounded out a one-syllable word frequently (think of the mantra “Om”), you would get a reduction of heart rate, respiration, and brainwaves.

Even when we hum we can increase our nitric oxide levels (which is a powerful vassal dilator) by more than 15 times. Nitric oxide (NA) generates a molecule that positively affects our circular systems, and immune systems with viral and anti-bacterial. (I recently stumbled on some Enya and discovered that she has a song called The Humming if you’re looking for a reason to hum.)

I sometimes listen to her song May It Be before I meditate to get into harmonic resonance.

As a prayer, I like to close my eyes and listen to Schubert’s “Ave Maria” like this classical version and it gives me what my friend Jody calls truth bumps or chills. I quickly activate my third eye (feel tingling) and can rarely get to the violin solo without feeling aligned and tearing up.

Music has a fascinating effect on our bodies. Dr. John Stuart Reid, an acoustic physicist has research showing how different musical sounds will help regenerate and reactivate the red blood cells.

Each organ in our body has a unique signature sound or resonates at different vibrations to serve a different purpose so by applying sound to the different parts of our bodies if they are in dissonance (diseased), we can restore them to their intended natural vibrations or return it to harmony and a healing response occurs.

Sound dissolves amyloids and plaques, it’s affecting our Alzheimers research, and using the sounds of the Veda for different parts of the body is being developed. I don’t know enough about the different Herz levels, but here is a diagram of the famous Solfeggio frequencies:

Scientific papers have been published on “Vedic Vibration” and it’s exciting to see different spiritual and scientific branches working together and supporting each other to improve our health and well-being in new and integrative ways.

The sounds seem to not only impact our physical well-being but also have a profound effect on our minds and emotions.

Sound affects our level of consciousness which in turn shapes the sounds we make. The sounds in nature have a healing effect on our bodies.

Last week walking on the beach and listening to the sounds of the ocean, the wind, and the birds affected me in felt way. It was exhilarating. The dolphins that swam by might have helped too - I was pretty excited and I may have jumped up and down:)

I once had a sound reading and my voice was recorded to collect information. We can even tell where we are in our cycles based on our tone and or if we are ill. By better understanding our relationship to sound we can begin to use it in our daily life in new ways.

This explains why sound healing has gained popularity in our communities in the last decade and offers spiritual growth through intention and meditation to help us harmonize our bodies.

We are more aligned to move stuck energy from trauma and receive messages from spirit when we are in harmony.

The crystalline energy in the crystal bowls aligns with the crystalline energy in our bodies. Usually, 432 Hertz frequency, and when they are played in our proximity can shift the frequency in our bodies.

The ancient Shamanic traditions of using sounds as a means FOR healing, for creating resonance and entrainment.

When you bring one thing that can vibrate at a certain frequency like a guitar string and you bring it into proximity with another thing that has the POTENTIAL to vibrate with that same frequency in time it will bring both into this “entrainment” or synchronization.

With sound, we can shift our consciousness at will.

When we relax into a meditative state with binaural beats it will quickly induce an altered state into a beta state or theta. If you want to be in a weighted gamma state feel uplifted and juiced up and creative but very alert of the outer world.

Places to help us are popping up in every major city, if you’re in the Collingwood area, please check out VORTEX Wellness so you can experience what this technology can do to help bring you back into harmony.

For an immersive group experience, my friends Justine, Jay, and Kathy also offer some remarkable sound healing and chanting sessions at a local yoga studio downtown Collingwood which I love- you can check out their offerings HERE - Lotus Sound.

The Mozart effect that you may have heard about is a study that was done at UC Irvine that showed that people who listened to classical music increased their IQ tests by 9 points versus when they were not listening to music or they were listening to other types of music.

This is because sound grants us access to greater amounts of information at higher states of consciousness.

The power of sound is available to us through not only music and instruments, but mantras, singing, humming, praying, and intentional speaking - ALL forms in which we use the human voice to speak reality into existence.

What we put out is what we create and attract.

We have the potential to shift our consciousness and the reality that surrounds us.

In ancient metaphysical teachings all “magic” is spoken.

Or by my words, so shall it be.

When I end my prayers, I like to add in a “and so it is” before or after my amen.

As we take our intention and express it outwardly through sound, through words, and especially certain ancient words in ancient languages like Sanskrit, they are formulas or building blocks for creation. We’ve discovered that by bringing certain letters, names, and sounds together we can impact the quantum field. We can use sound, toning, chanting, mantras, and rituals to manifest our deepest desires.

As we tone, we are not just expressing outwardly but we are affecting our innards, stimulating our parasympathetic systems and Vegas nerve creating a vibration inside that alters our state of being.

Once we truly understand the technology of sound we can do something like the Hannuman chant or lie still for sound healing and stop wondering if it’s helping or if we’re wasting our money. We can consciously choose to ignore the heckles that our fearful ego or material mind is sure to project into our minds out of self-preservation. It’s time for that fearful mind to shrink.

The work I feel called to do is to help people do just this - to shrink or transcend that material mind that is the cause of all fear, anxiety, and depression to experience themselves in their harmonic true nature. I’ve spent the last month formulating fun and practical ways to do this so stay tuned.

For today, I hope those of you who are more science-minded or hesitant to trust spiritual teachings can see how grounded they truly are IN science.

It’s interesting to me that it’s the silence in between the sounds that gives ALL sound structure. Where the sound stops is what makes the sound what it is, otherwise it’s a continuous sound.

The punctuation of silence gives the vibration the structure that can heal.

It’s not like the silence punctuates the sound, it’s the sound that punctuates the silence.

Transcendence, or the field of ALL possibility is a field of SILENCE.

Now we all know that there is more than meets the eye or ear but this explains why we all love lullabies as babies and singing camp songs. They soothe and shift our state of being.

Sound is the fundamental essence of existence from shaping the cosmos to the creation of matter.

Sound is sacred.

We can be active participants in the creation of a more compassionate planet in harmony with all of life.

At least now we know that we are echoing the unseen threads that are shaping our reality.

YOU are word.

YOU are an aspect of God being brought forth.

Your vibration matters.

With love and humming,

Rev Nona

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The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible…

At the spiritual level, trees, plants, and animals can help us become more aware of our connections with something larger than ourselves.

In mythology, trees are sometimes portrayed as the abodes of nature spirits.

We even have a special word — dendrolatry — regarding how we worship trees.

Here are pictures of the two oldest trees on Earth…

I’m filled with awe the more I learn about the natural world, it is WONDERful. It would be impossible for me to ever believe that God or Source is not in ALL of life on our planet.

Do trees and plants have a silent awareness or a consciousness? It’s a hot debate but science is discovering that they are aware of themselves because they can take in multiple pieces of input and make decisions based on that input. Like us, they can accept, transform, or change based on the input.

In other words, adapt.

Wow.

We can quite literally measure and synthesize sound messages from plants and we do it through water. Water seems to be the key element that gives life to ALL conscious beings on earth.

Are you curious to hear some interspecies music?

After listening it seems to me that plants have something to say. Our next level of evolution as human beings may be to evolve in harmony with ALL of life.

Does this video make you want to drink more water too? :)

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There was a segment of the Grammy Awards that has stayed with me. It was so touching that I teared up when country singer Luke Combs got to sing with his childhood inspiration in what he later described as “a defining moment in my career.”

Tracy Chapman’s rare public appearance was the surprise of the night appreciated by many.

Especially me.

From the illuminating joy on her face to the admiration on his, their performance seems to have struck a chord. The audience of the industry’s best was cheering loudly for her and even Taylor Swift was fangirling in the front row standing on her feet and singing along.

In case you didn’t catch it, here it is…

Tracy’s authenticity first silently struck me when I was about 18 and “Fast Car” became a hit.

For some reason, I couldn’t stop listening to that track.

There’s also just something about her shy smile, hair, big eyes, beautiful face that tugged on my heart, and “Fast Car” is one of those songs that you just feel in your soul: the lyrics about the yearning to escape, the gentle guitar and the hope that something better is coming.

“The world’s a mess,” says Tracy Chapman flashing a winning smile and then breaking into laughter in an interview for Rolling Stone in the late 1980’s. She was only 24-and she seemed to be railing about a catalog of social ills at a time when I was mostly worried about my popularity, the labels on my clothes, whatever team sport I was playing at the time, my love life, and preventing acne.

Or was I?

I heard her. Something resonated deep in my heart. Something about driving in a car and the promise of freedom. Of being able to reinvent ourselves.

I was listening and on some level, I was yearning for the same thing.

There’s a seriousness to her that drew me in. She was so compelling somehow with her streamlined way of being. Her independence, her bluesy voice, and a directness about her political beliefs. I was unaware at the time that she was quietly queer, which later just makes me love her more now for her authenticity and the way she showed up shining as herself in an industry covered in artifice and glam.

I did a bit of digging and found out that Chapman grew up in a predominantly black working-class neighborhood in Cleveland and began playing music as a young child, taking clarinet lessons at school and playing the organ in her home. Her parents split up when she was four years old, and she lived with her mother and her older sister, Aneta, to whom Tracy Chapman is dedicated. “There was always lots of music in our house,” Chapman says, citing Betty Wright, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, and the gospel singers Mahalia Jackson and Shirley Caesar as being among her mother’s favorites.

In Chapman’s sophomore year, the school’s chaplain at the time, the Reverend Robert Tate, took up a collection among students and faculty members to buy her a new guitar.

And then there’s Luke and his smooth country voice.

That’s him with his wife Nicole and one of his sons. He turned 34 this week (March 2, 1990). The last time I checked he had more than 16 consecutive number one hits. His music has earned him three Grammy Award nominations, two iHearts, four Academy of Country Music Awards, and six Country Music Association awards including the 2021 and 2022 Entertainer of the Year award, their highest honor.

He was an only child. He grew up in North Carolina and attended Appalachian State University where he worked as a bouncer at a bar before gaining stage time in that same bar. He played his first country music show at the Parthenon Cafe in Boone.

After five years and with 21 hours left on his degree he dropped out to pursue his country music career. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career and the rest is History.

It seemed to me like a surprising song for a white male country music star to cover, but Luke remembered even as a young boy of four how her song made him feel. It was one of the first songs he learned to play on guitar, and it reminded him of spending time with his dad driving in their truck down dusty roads when he was young. He jokes that just hearing that familiar early first part of the song is enough to know it in its perfection. He admitted that it was his first favorite song before he knew what a hit chart was.

And here he is having a full circle moment live on the Grammys.

There’s a famous line in A Course In Miracles that “all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy”.

Holy, in the Course, is another word for “whole”. Complete.

The Course explains that none of our encounters in life are chance meetings. Two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult "by chance," two students "happening" to walk home together. Which is ironically how I met my husband at the end of my first year of University.

A rational mind will easily dismiss this, but it seems that from all higher dimensional teachings every encounter we have whether for a moment, a season, or a lifetime has something to teach us.

Some of our encounters seem superficial, but each of them is a teaching-learning situation. The strangers in the elevator will smile at one another, the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; maybe the students will become friends the way I did with my husband. I remember the energy shifted when we met, it felt like time slowed like it did when I was almost in a bad car accident. Like time was suspended -it had an underwater feel to it. I remember thinking, what is going on? But I never could begin to articulate, it so I didn’t.

Even at the most casual encounter level, two people can lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment, and that one moment will be enough to connect them and affect their energetic field.

Luke met his wife at a music festival. Luke and Nicole are both from Nashville, but they met by chance at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

I’m sitting here filled with wonder contemplating the effect of music on our field and the coincidental encounters on all of our lives. How some songs or sounds or people get under our skin and stay with us and others just sail right on by.

Or how drastically our tastes change. When I was 12, I wouldn’t have believed that a day would come when Duran Duran wouldn’t be on my yellow Sony Walkman.

The first time I heard Phil Collin’s song “In the Air Tonight” I stopped what I was doing. I doubt I’m the only one of us who played the imaginary air drums in the middle of that song more than once. It’s still hard not to.

I felt it.

I recently read that John Cougar Mellencamp wanted that bombastic drum sound from Phil Collins’s “In The Air Tonight” on his song Jack & Diane, but neither he nor producer Don Gehman could do it. It took David Bowie’s previous guitarist Mick Ronson, who dropped by the studio in Miami to say hello, to explain how producer Hugh Padgham had used an effect called “gated echo” on the drum recording to get the sound for Collins.

Did you know that Mellencamp was disenchantment with the song “Jack & Diane”? It took about three decades for him to even like it because his record company refused to release the song in its original version, which was about an interracial couple.

“Originally the line was “Jack was not a football star, Jack was an African-American,” Mellencamp told Huffington Post in 2014…

“In 1982, when I turned the song in to the record company, they went, ‘Whoa, can’t you make him something other than that?’ 

“I said, ‘Well, I don’t really want to. I mean, that’s the whole point. 

“This is really a song about race relationships and a white girl being with a black guy, and that’s what the song’s about.’ 

“And they said, ‘No, no, no, no.’ … So, anyway, through much debate and me being young, I said, ‘Okay, we’ll make him a football star’.”

I liked that catchy song in 1982.

Another song I remember hearing and liking immediately was the Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. There are over 1.2 BILLION views on that YouTube video for that song so I know I’m not alone.

In 2019 it was given an award for being the most-played song in radio history.

Every song has a story and some of them come from a painful memory that can haunt the artist for a lifetime.

Sting (whose real name is Gordon) wrote this particular song in the Caribbean at a hideaway after the public fallout from an extramarital affair with his wife Frances Tomelty’s (left) best friend and their next-door neighbor Trudie Styler (right).

Sting later said: "I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano, and had written it in half an hour.” He later added that it sounds like a comforting love song and most people hear it that way, but the lyrics seemed to also be the words of a possessive lover. Or the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy that follows. When he wrote it he didn’t even fully realize this deeper meaning he later acknowledged himself.

As an aside - Sting and Syler are still together and they have been together for over 30 years and they have 4 grown children.

Whatever the intention behind the lyrics, Sting struck a chord with his lyrics and sound.

Music can bring different generations together in a way that words alone never could. I love how our kids learned the songs from the 80’s and 90’s and know the words better than we do.

Music seems to have the ability to connect us to others and ourselves.

It gives us the comforting realization that there are other people out there in the world who have similar thoughts and feelings as we do.

When I think back to Tracy’s influence on my own life and the song Fast Car, I remember being 18 and driving home from a trip with my first serious boyfriend, driving his manual stick shift Subaru that he had JUST taught me to drive 15 minutes earlier and then he loaned me his car to get home.

I can remember rolling down the windows (old school) and the warm summer evening breeze whipping my hair around while I silently prayed for green lights and not having to stop on any hills. Mostly I recall singing at the top of my lungs feeling like I was on cloud nine driving away from my childhood and becoming a woman (in between gear grinds):

“I-eee-I… had a feeling that I belonged. I-eee-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone ...”

I listened to this song about 17 times this week and I smiled at myself when I heard my husband playing it too.

Which songs or artists have guided you in your life or have quietly helped you in the background of your life?

What is it about certain songs that stay with us?

This week I stumbled on a song that I hadn’t heard in years “All the Above”.

It took me IMMEDIATELY back in time. I used to play it over and over and over on my long runs. The last time I heard it I remember exactly where I was. It was during the Boston Marathon and it helped me get over the hilly bits (There is an actual hill on the course called Heartbreak Hill. *My husband Scott is training for that marathon - I’ll be down there cheering for him, my sister-in-law Carol, and some friends next month probably feeling relieved that I don’t need to run it again!? )

The song energetically uplifted me.

The beat and the lyrics are admittedly a bit outdated. It’s peppered with literal “overcoming” words like pain, struggle, destiny, survivor….and well, it did the job and helped me get to the finish line. The energy burst was felt then and still now…it inspired me to break into a run on the golf course the other day for a bit and I even pictured the places I last heard it on the running course in my mind (and then I quickly came to my senses;)

I’m so grateful for all of the music that has played in the background of my life.

Musicians like Tracy have helped me feel like I’m not alone.

The songs and lyrics in our lives seem to be a way to connect beneath the surface of what we see when we look at one another.

We recently went to see the Bob Marley movie “One Love” and it struck me how when it seemed like there was nothing anyone could do to stop the violence, his concert to promote peace ended up affecting more than just the people of Jamaica. He brought reggae to places it had never been before. Bob has often been called a “flawed idealist” and the movie has mixed reviews, but I’ll admit that I teared up more than once and we all enjoyed it. It was powerful.

It showed how gang violence and political unrest shaped his life, how he was displaced by his family and got shot, and how he turned to his faith- a religion of love (Rastafari) - and his guitar to tap into a higher or more peaceful self.

Ras means King. I found it helpful to better understand it to see where his music came from inside himself so let me just paint a quick picture for you because so many of us associate them with dreadlocks and marijuana but there is much more than meets the eye.

Rastafarianism is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. A belief in one God. Rastafari seems like much more than a religion. It is a way of life, a social movement, as well as a mindset. Rastas are vegetarians and eat organic whole foods. Promote peace.

The smoking Ganja for a Rasta is a special experience to help enlighten their mind so they can correctly reason the ways of the world. The Ganja is always smoked ritually. Before smoking the plant the Rasta will say a prayer to Jah (God- Jehovah) or to “Haile Selassie I”. The Rasta call them reasoning sessions when they use Ganja for Nyabinghi. There was an oceanside scene where they showed this ceremony in the movie.

The history of dreadlocks is long and can be traced back to Egypt and Hinduism and it means many different things to different people, but one recurring theme is that like the story of Sampson, many believe that our hair holds our divine or energetic power.

“Locs” for Rastafaris came from how the Bible says Jesus will return as the Lion of Judah. So, they grew their hair into locs to resemble a lion’s mane in symbolic preparation for the second coming of their powerful leader. Locs were a symbol of letting go of material possessions and worldly vanity.

The resolute part of Marley that wanted to do right and help the Jamaican people who were divided and caught up in colonial struggles, and gang violence to proclaim peace and unity in the middle of a National election. The unique way he connected with crowds, shut his eyes on stage and sang with one hand high like a preacher reaching up to God at a time when singers like Mick Jagger and David Bower were seducing crowds in an almost cool, disconnected, or untouchable way.

I was moved by his personal history. He was bullied as a child for not being “dark enough”. His mother was black and his father was white.

His magnetism, morning jogs with his mates, and how he pulled off living every teenage boy’s dream life of doing whatever he wanted, noodling on a guitar, taking soccer breaks, and loving many women who were not his wife made him seem eternally youthful.

He was only 36 when he died of melanoma.

There is a scene at the end with footage of his real life from the show's climax that came during the song “Jamming,” when Marley called rival politicians Manley and Seaga onstage—and held their hands aloft together to symbolize love, peace, and unity. The two men, on whose behalf hundreds, if not thousands, had been killed, appeared uncomfortable like two kids being forced to apologize, but he boldly held their hands in his while the crowd cheered.

As a distant father and flawed human being who grew up in an area called 9-mile in Jamaica, sleeping underneath the house away from the rest of the family he made an impact on the world by being fully himself and connecting with a God of his understanding.

There was a palpable energy about him. A vibration. Everyone that came into contact with him felt it.

I believe that it’s our secret spiritual interests that can silently energize our true power and affect our life story whether we live out our dreams in public like Tracy and Bob did, or not.

We don’t need to sing on a stage in front of thousands of fans. Even if our dream of becoming a musician dies alongside the hairbrush we used in front of our bedroom mirror as a mic. There seems to be a mistaken idea that we need to become what our young minds dreamed we could become to live a good and happy life.

I don’t believe that anymore.

We are not what we do for a living. It’s such a shallow self-concept of who we are.

It suggests that if we become an insurance salesperson or a lawyer, but we dream of teaching kindergarten or singing on Broadway we are not actualizing our potential or living out our purpose as a human being.

Hogwash. We are still us whether we are a crossing guard or the president of the United States.

Human Beings.

Powerful divine thinkers.

Our ego confuses this concept of levels, castes, and hierarchies and wants to be famous and powerful out of fear, not love.

We bring our love and our unique gifts to everything we do and no job title or what we do for a living defines us.

When we believe that nonsense like many of us still do, we can easily fall prey to anxiety or depression.

The idea that is sold to us to “find our purpose” to live a happier and more fulfilling life is finally dying off now thank goodness, because it has had so many of us seeking outside ourselves for a degree of success, the perfect job, or the love our lives to be happy. Even if we get them, it’s not the answer to lasting joy and fulfillment or happiness.

You don’t need to quit your day job or get married and have children to live an inspired life. That’s the illusion. It’s a lie told in fear.

A learned perception we can easily shift.

The journey we’re ON now, as it is… is the masterpiece that is our life.

We are here to learn how to love one another as we are.

To see past the fearful behaviors of others and forgive. To be present, align with our true nature, and create from that place. To stop actively denying our unity and separating ourselves or throwing stones.

It doesn’t matter what Halloween costume we decide to wear while we’re doing it, what religion we practice, or if we do it while we live in a shanty town or a mansion.

Music is one way we CAN open ourselves up and pour ourselves in two directions at once.

INWARD and OUTWARD.

It’s the most powerful way to be in the world because it can help free us from our human egos and material minds better than anything else while we’re here. It strips us bare resonates wordlessly and makes us dance and cry because it’s a vibration of truth.

Music makes us feel things and admit things we won’t even admit out loud to the people around us that love the most.

It gives us a way to speak up when something feels off.

But then one of us says it out loud…

No.

It’s not okay. Music has the power to show us what we can’t yet allow ourselves to see.

There are thousands of examples, but one that comes to mind is the toe-tapping tune that got played over and over Robin Thick’s 2013 giant hit “Blurred Lines”. I’ll admit that I liked the rhythm and cool video when it was released. Still, I’m embarrassed to admit that it took a while for me to recognize the blatant objectification of women or even the subtle sinister promotion of rape culture.

The notion of blurred lines and creepy lyrics like “you’re the hottest bitch in the place” or “you’re a good girl but…I know you want it”, encourages the idea that no doesn’t mean no. Even flashing scenes where men are fully clothed and the women have smoke blown in their faces or are barely clothed dancing around.

Hmmmmm… how did I not notice this?

That was 2013.

It took four years and then it hit the masses…

The #MeToo movement happened in 2017.

This song just wouldn’t fly today.

It’s like we sing to our mass level of consciousness but as we begin to collectively rise before long what was once okay is no longer okay as we evolve and expand.

John Cougar Mellencamp WOULD be able to sing the song he intended about the interracial couple today that he intended in 1982. Maybe the producers were right - in an era of prom Kings and Queens, we all just wanted to hear him say “Football player” instead. I loved that line.

The artists ahead of their time like Tracy Chapman, Neil Young, and Bob Marley seem to almost fly under the radar at first, but eventually, the truth arises and they become iconic for being ahead of their time.

We like their songs, we buy their music even if we don’t know why at the time.

They work their magic on us at a vibratory level. They tap into our creativity and energetic field in a way that is hard to even grasp with our rational minds.

There is TRUTH in them. Vibrating. Resonating.

They strike A CHORD that we’re all in ACCORD with, whether we realize it or not.

Last week at the 66th Grammys Miley Cyrus had everyone standing by the end of her interpretation of her now-famous chart hit “Flowers”. It left an impression and even Oprah was mouthing the words and dancing on her feet.

I noticed that Marianne Williamson wrote about it on her last Substack. She called it “one of those moments” - you know the ones…when popular culture delivers magic and captures the zeitgeist of the moment.

Miley even calls out the audience for pretending like they didn’t know the song.

I remember the first time I heard the song. It was like a reassuring balm. That we can love ourselves better than anyone else ever could.

I’m not sure what to think of Miley, but I admire her. At the very end of the song she did some interesting Tina Turner-ish adlibs that I found myself sitting up straighter for, and when she shoved the mic and walked away in her power mussing up her hair with her hands and it felt like a bit of a mouth drop moment.

Everyone got to their feet.

It was surprising. She shimmied across the Crypto.com Arena and celebrated her first Grammy win while throwing her hands up in self-celebrated joy.

Even on the red carpet, she made a statement.

Yes, in case you’re wondering…those ARE safety pins. In this photo, she reminds me a bit of a young Madonna pushing the envelope and making us all a bit uncomfortable. Like we don’t know where to focus our eyes…the same way she did when she decided to ride a wrecking ball naked.

Creative artists are like wake-up calls.

And this material world is only one part of our human experience.

It’s been the predominant story, and it seems ultimate, but there is another energetic and spiritual story that is much more powerful to tell about the music we all make and enjoy.

Next week I’d like to dive a bit deeper into the metaphysics of sound.

We’ll see how the resonance and vibration of our very beings are creating the symphony of all of life.

We’ve recently discovered that animals, trees, and plants can make music.

Whether we realize it yet or not, we are an important member of a global band that gets to decide what we’ll put in our next set and the effects it will have on all of life.

There is an important distinction to be made between “rememory” and memory.

Memory is a constant knowledge and represents the moments we willingly recall.

“Rememory” addresses the recollection of the things that a person has forgotten and, as Freud puts it, “repressed”.

On the surface, prophetic artists and overplayed hit songs can help show us things we may not be noticing or allowing ourselves to see.

And not only the fearful ways we call out for love but the beautiful ones. Like awakening to the “rememory” of our Soul.

Our brains are designed to block this deeper awareness about our eternal nature from our consciousness for a good reason, so we can be here now and experience this contrast so our Soul can evolve but waking up to it is the most freeing, empowering experience we can have on earth.

Let’s feel the healing magic of sound this week in a new more conscious way and be willing to remember our True nature.

Listen to Tracy’s song one more time.

Why not roll down our windows, turn the music up a bit too loud, and smile knowing we belong (Minus the speeding so fast that you feel like you are drunk part).

You already ARE that someone you long to be.

You have nothing to prove.

With love,

Rev Nona

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ps. I’m a Word person and it came to me this week that I don’t like the term climate challenge - it doesn’t feel inspiring, maybe instead I’ll call this post-script segment Charles Eisenstein’s…

The more beautiful world we all know is possible…

This week’s idea is to listen to this song by Neil Young.

Neil Young is one of rock’s most dogged green campaigners but he never wrote a more affecting song on the subject than his sci-fi esque “After the Gold Rush”, home to his most famous line:

“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.”

I was recently watching the sunrise over the water while I was listening to this song and appreciated his haunting lyrics. Neil Young's poignant storytelling, accompanied by the melodies of this song, paints a vivid picture of history, the present, and a speculative future.

Apparently, he had had writer's block for months, and his record company was after him. The lyrics to After the Gold Rush were inspired by a dream^[1] and they consider a future when mankind uses space travel to perpetuate the species in the wake of environmental destruction so they have the almost confusing feel of someone telling you about their dream.

To me, this song feels like a full-circle moment over 50 years later.

His final lines suggest that the earth is now dying as the chosen ones board spaceships to find a new planet to colonize. The imagery of tragedy (children crying) and hope for the future of mankind (flying - in spaceships)- Mother Nature's silver seed (-the few chosen ones-) to a new home.

Will we ever have an “off-world” presence?

Your guess is as good as mine. The subject of space colonization has rapidly moved several steps closer to becoming a reality thanks to major advances in rocket propulsion and design, astronautics and astrophysics, robotics, and medicine. The urgency to establish humanity as a multi-planet species has been re-validated.

Companies such as United Launch Alliance and Lockheed Martin are designing infrastructure for lunar habitation. Elon Musk has claimed SpaceX will colonize Mars.

But are any of these plans realistic? Just how profoundly difficult would it be to live beyond Earth—especially considering that outer space seems designed to kill us?

Maybe his dream was prophetic.

But it’s not clear if it’s even possible. I guess we’ll see but to me, it makes so much more sense to simply swallow our pride and change our minds instead.

What current songs are we listening to and could be learning from?

Do you have any particular songs or artists that have helped you or have impacted your life?

I’d love to hear from you.

ps. As most of you know, I did not plan this vacation ahead of time and I appreciate your patience with my video-making “Nine Minutes with Nona” and my new App “The Shift” which are coming this Spring. I’ll be returning to Canada on March 7th and I’m excited to get back to work on those projects!

If you’re in the Collingwood area I’ll be speaking at a Library event in celebration of International Woman’s Day with my “One Decision Away” co-authors on March 8th at 2pm.

The event is free and you can register HERE. Hope to see you there!

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I was on a walk with my husband Scott and our dog Gracie last week and I was telling him a story I’d recently heard about a couple that had been married for several decades.

When the husband asked the wife if she loved him, she responded,

“Of course, yes, I love you dear”.

Then he asked pointedly, “What do you love about me?”

She quickly responded… “Nothing”.

At first, he was crestfallen, “What do you mean, nothing? Nothing at all?”

She smiled and explained that she didn’t love him for any reason. Not because of his intelligence, looks, wealth, charm, or how well he treated her.

But she loved him JUST BECAUSE.

That is, not for any particular reason.

Then she went on to explain to him that if he lost his job, his money, his looks, his health, or even his memory of her, she would still love him.

Just because.

This story stuck with me because it describes a kind of non-judgemental or unconditional love that I couldn’t even have imagined possible when I first got together with my husband 30 years ago.

I’m sure we’ve all heard Corinthians 13 being read at weddings, but do any of us even relate to this brand of love?

If Google is right and the average relationship lasts 2.9 years and we know about half of our marriages end in divorce we’re not loving each other in this “never fail” kind of way.

Let’s be real. Most of us are more familiar with a much more ego-based conditional kind of special relationship.

One where we’re a bit more impatient, not always kind, and much more self-seeking.

We are looking to have our own needs met and we’re easily angered and “delighting in evil” when our expectations are not met.

Our egos make a mental record of the wrongs they’ve done. We keep track of who is doing what and who spends what. We keep score. Not to mention the irritating habits, the annoying quirks, and who can resist giving their partner grief if they’ve used the last bit of toilet paper neglected to replace the roll.

So what does it take for us to experience this other kind of True love?

That’s something worth sitting with this Valentine’s Day.

Who do we need to be to love others this way?

I’ve been with Scott for 30 years and every year we seem to be drifting closer to the description in this Corinthians passage through no conscious effort of our own.

There seems to be a direct correlation between the length of my list of grievances and this love.

The shorter it gets, the closer we get.

They are practically non-existent, I genuinely feel like I hold no grievances.

As nice as it is to go through life with someone, having a good partner doesn’t prevent us from having our struggles.

In the image at the top of this post are two Christmas cards on the bulletin board that bookended my 40s.

In 2012 I was standing beside a wonderful man and I was dying inside. I felt stuck and depressed.

In 2021, I felt whole. I was standing beside a wonderful man watching a sunset down by the waterfront and I was filled with a deep peace, love, and an unshakeable joy.

What happened?

I experienced a powerful inner shift from fear to love inside myself and it was a TOTAL game changer.

We’ve never seen a therapist consciously put in effort to improve our relationship - it has just happened naturally.

I know that I’m a lucky girl.

My husband is one of the good ones. He’s very considerate, genuine and honest. He has a playful enthusiasm and kindness that’s uncommon but when I was unhappy, it was hard to appreciate that. I projected my fears onto him and I kept a list of grievances.

I don’t do that kind of list anymore.

Here’s a new kind of list that plays in my mind about Scott now…

1. I love his inability to resist a Dad joke and how he sends them to the kids and me most days. Hearing him laugh at them when he tries to tell them is often funnier than the joke itself….
   “If you drive a Subaru backward what are you? u r a buS.”
   “Two antennas got married…the ceremony was OK, but the reception was excellent.”
   

2. The meticulous way he chops up the uniform bite-sized pieces of vegetables when he cooks and the artful way he piles perfect food combinations on his fork with every bite.
   

3. How he sticks his tongue out when he’s in deep concentration or learning something new.
   

4. How he “raps” like he’s Eminem on 8 Mile.
   

5. The way he subtly wears his hood up at the dinner table to imitate the boys and no one ever says anything, and then keeps it up for the entire meal.
   

6. How he always waits for everyone to get to the table before he starts to eat.
   

7. How he stealthily sneaks up on us and the dog when he comes home or from working the basement.
   

8. How his inherited Morrow family sneezes sounds like some kind of ceremonial battle cry to their ancestors.
   

9. How tight jar lids, scary movies, misplaced car keys, and something unexpectedly falling out of our overstuffed fridge can get the better of him.
   

10. I love that we have a secret handshake and we use it.
    

11. How he enthusiastically knuckles me back on the couch to silently acknowledge the best parts of our shows and movies.
    

12. How excited he gets when I bring him a coffee in bed.
    

13. How often he misplaces his glasses on his head.
    

14. The way he considers Siri his friend and talks to her during football games and how gleeful her unexpected answers encourage him to keep asking her more things.
    

15. How he notices wildlife on every road trip we take and how effortlessly he can get everyone playing “name that tune” or the car game.
    

16. How he has 100 pairs of running shoes for every occasion and keeps track of the mileage he has on each pair.
    

17. How much he loves Michael Jackson and is not afraid to admit it.
    

18. How he celebrates me when I have a stellar hand at cribbage even when he’s losing.
    

19. The way he tucks his dressy work shirts into his track pants for his Zoom calls.
    

20. The way he joyfully hoots and hollers when he skis in powder.
    

21. How well he listens.
    

22. How he always tries to do the right thing even when no one is looking.

    ---

WHAT’S ON YOUR LIST??

I’d love to hear what you are noticing about the people you are closest to.

Yes, of course, dogs and cats count too.

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This unwavering and unchanging peace of mind is felt when we connect to the place where love resides inside of ourselves (even when the toilet seat is left up).

It’s never dependent on us having a good or bad day and it’s also not about bypassing or trying to feel something we don’t.

When we embody this love, our perceptions are shifted BY it.

We’re the same US on the outside, but I’ve noticed that we begin to have a new inner capacity to love others AS THEY ARE.

When we make this shift, we can finally love ourselves exactly as WE are.

We no longer operate from fear or judgment.

That means I can make a mistake and my husband can wear his track pants pulled up to his earlobes with his sweater tucked in and socks in his Birkenstocks and we’re okay.

I have no relationship advice to give this Valentine’s Day, but I do know about the power of this unconditional love and there is nothing it can’t do or undo.

We can learn to shift our perceptions, forgive and see others as guiltless, and witness the miracles in ALL of our relationships.

The potential to live and move and have our being in this higher human experience is inside ALL of us.

It’s not about an idealized morality or a “right way” to be, it’s an unchanging spiritual law at our core.

And even when we forget or stray from our heart and fall into fear…

We can RETURN to love.

Every morning my intentions or spiritual practices can help bring me back home to this unconditional love and it’s enough for it to stay with me throughout the day.

Well, it’s a miracle. It FINALLY happened…

A 9 minute post.

The list of good things keeps growing!!

With love,

Rev Nona

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Today we have a special call to action…

Nowhere To Call Home:

I’m deeply moved by the plight of the youngest among us who are experiencing homelessness through no fault of their own. Most of the artful black and white images above are by Lee Jeffries.

Lee was an accountant who was in London, England to run a marathon. On the day before the race, Jeffries thought he would wander the city to take pictures. Near Leicester Square, he trained his 5D camera with a long, 70-200 lens on a young, homeless woman who was huddled in a sleeping bag among Chinese food containers. “She spotted me and started shouting, drawing the attention of passersby,” Jeffries says. “I could have just walked away in an embarrassed state, or I could have gone over and apologized to her.” He chose the latter, crossed the street, and sat with the woman. The eighteen-year-old, whose complexion indicated she was addicted to drugs, told Jeffries her story: her parents had died, leaving her without a home and she now lived on the streets of London.

Societies often classify homeless youths as juvenile delinquents, which results in exclusion, criminalization, and oppression. Data was collected from 49 studies with a total of 13,559 participants from 24 countries, including 21 developing countries. No one was older than 24.

39 percent of participants cited poverty as their reason for homelessness. About 32 percent reported family conflict as their reason for being on the streets, and about 26 percent cited abuse.

Today’s challenge is to help raise this little thermometer a few degrees in the next two weeks to support youth experiencing hurt, hunger, and homelessness.

At the moment, I have 4 sponsors and they all coincidentally have the last name Morrow (and one of them is our dog:)

You can find out more information or donate HERE.

Any amount would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back in March for those of you with free Subscriptions and those of you with paid subscriptions will be seeing more of me on video starting next week!

Who is the most powerful person in any room?

Is it the wealthiest? The strongest? The smartest? The most beautiful?

No.

The most powerful person in the room is always the most loving person.

We are energetic beings and the measured frequency of love is more powerful than that of pride, hate, or fear.

Love is often confused with an emotion, romance, attraction, or dependency. More on this next week, but as we close in on Valentine’s Day let’s remind ourselves that true love is none of the above.

Love exists as an energy in the universe.

It’s the most practical and mystical force available to us.

Vedanta is the teaching of the Upanishads, a collection of dialogue, stories, and poems that go back to at least 800 B.C. Sophisticated Hindus do not think of God or the Source that created us as a special and separate super-person who rules the world from above, like a monarch. Their God is “underneath” rather than “above” everything, and he (or it) plays the world from the inside. Hindus realize that not only are they God in disguise, but they can only be that if it’s also true of everyone else.

In Vedanta philosophy, nothing exists except God.

A Course In Miracles seconds this notion. That God or love is all that exists in Reality and can’t be threatened by the “unreal”.

Jesus is the living embodiment of this teaching, and yet it’s such a complete subversion to what most of us as Christians have been taught or even as a secular society, our minds are so filled with mythology and ideas about being shot by Cupid’s arrows and eros trying to make sense of love for ourselves but we may have missed the mark completely.

Beyond the well-intentioned fear and fundamentalism, a golden thread is weaving through all religions and natural science to a deeper truth and trust that is easily missed.

Genuine love comes from a deeper knowledge, not from a sense of duty, guilt, or sexual desire. It also can’t come from just saying or believing something intellectually.

It is FELT.

The first time I understood any of these sayings of Jesus was when I had my spontaneous spiritual awakening. Something I still can’t adequately describe except to say that in a single moment, I finally understood the true meaning of love and it’s inconveniently not at all what we’ve been taught or sold by Hallmark.

To me, love is so beautiful, non-judgemental, and otherworldly beyond all of our religious concepts of God that all I could do in its presence was weep in awe.

We may never be able to grasp it or describe it with words or language, but whatever it is, everyone can tap into true love because we already live and move and have our being in it. It’s the most practical power available to us if we can pierce the veil of our ego.

In my personal experience, it can’t be preached, it has to be experienced.

Growing up most of us learn to view ourselves as distant and separate from the world around us. But this sense of alienation -from other people, places, and things- is dangerous. That separation is a myth, and we need to deconstruct who we are beyond separate egos with competing desires enclosed in bags of skin.

We need a sense of our existence in accord with the physical facts which overcomes our feelings of alienation from the Universe and our true nature.

When I think of someone working for real transformation and change practically using this love that resides in all of us, I think of Jesus.

If I had to name someone from this past century, the person that comes to my mind is Gandhi.

Neither Gandhi’s political ideology nor his life is beyond criticism, but he committed himself to freeing his Nation from British oppression in a peaceful but powerful way.

Martin Luther King Junior went to India in 1959 to study his ways and they inspired the non-violent Civil Rights movement. A new way to oppose. To protest. King wrote that Gandhi was a "guiding light" for him.

Ghandi was very aware that to do this, he needed to access what he called “Soul Force”. Gandi said that one of the most powerful words we have in English is the word NO.

No. We will not be a part of a nation that denies the divine imperative of granting access to refugees who need sanctuary.

NO. We will not sanction the demeaning of women or the feminine.

No. We will not be a part of a lack of care and concern for the less fortunate. For the hungry and people experiencing homelessness.

No. No. No.

Gandi is well known not to have tolerated injustice to himself or anyone else.

He taught all of humanity with his life and faith that sometimes…

Love says NO.

And yet according to Gandi, undergirding this “no” is an even STRONGER more powerful word…

The word YES.

Saying YES to the true essence of one another and ALL of life.

Saying yes even to those with whom we passionately disagree.

As one of my Celtic teachers John Philip Newell likes to say “At the heart of their being and the heart of all beings is the image and the likeness of the one from whom we all come”.

When we say YES, and when we LOVE another we are calling the other back to himself or herself, rather than calling the other to become like us.

Prophetic movements for change can undermine themselves through self-righteousness.

Instead of separating ourselves further, we are calling one another to access that true SOURCE.

This highly intelligent organizing love is at our core.

This Soul Force.

Today let’s take a closer look at the nature of this fierce indescribable love that has the power to dismantle all that we’ve created in fear…

Here are 7 powerful human examples of what aligning with this love can do in a lifetime.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”. Until that bending happens, the prophetic call goes out to all of us that something is off.

Something is radically wrong in society when we see or feel injustice or a visceral “NO”, this is not right. This happens when our systems are shaped by politics and defined by error.

The canaries in our coal mines are often ignored by the majority of us in our busy lives, but if we’re aligned with LOVE, we will always answer the call.

First to say NO and then to get to the much more powerful YES.

This power in all of us will compel us to move beyond our egoic desires to serve our own best interests to make things better for others and ironically in the process we feel the fulfillment and joy that we’ve been seeking all along.

There is a new Netflix series that I recently devoured called “Live to Lead” which was inspired by Nelson Mandela’s life who came out of prison empowered to lead and speaks to this love on a macro level perfectly.

Each episode highlights the life’s work of someone who said no to some kind of injustice, but they did it with LOVE and forgiveness.

Not with hate, coercion, fear, or force.

I’ll give you a quick taste, but I highly recommend the series if you enjoy this piece today and are looking for some edutainment.

1. GLORIA

Gloria Steinem’s life is a testament to her belief that what matters most in life is to make empathetic connections with others.

One of the first female astronauts was reportedly overheard whispering under her breath as she was boarding her first rocket heading into space… “God Bless Gloria Steinem”.

Her view of women’s roles in society changed how we all think about ourselves.

GLORIA SAID YES TO EQUITY FOR ALL.