Stranded on the Mainland: Inner Pilgrimage and Living Alone as a Spiritual Path:

Last weekend I watched a mega-marathon political series from the early 2,000's called, The West Wing.  After it was over coincidentally CBC aired, The Wizard of Oz. Two extremes in television programming?  Maybe not?  Strangely there are a lot of similarities between The Wizard of Oz and politics. What else? They still haven't caught who is responsible for the deaths of four college students in Idaho (a friend of mine's home state). People in China are demanding their freedom from Covid lockdowns (I can understand a little better the trucker protest I condemned in Ottawa last year). Men in FIFA soccer matches are standing up to repressive political regimes. Regimes especially hard on women. What else? I sent a birthday card to my dad last week where I wish I'd said less. And one to my mum in October where I wish I'd said more. And I still want to write sister back but I can't find the words. What else? The Salvation Army and the Sisters of Life are still organ...

Backing up my blog posts by copying them by hand is becoming part of my contemplative practice. It's kind of nice backing blogs up this way. It slows me down. I like writing by hand. And I suspect it is a good way to integrate what I have been writing about. Yesterday while I was copying a large batch of blogs by hand, I was also watching for more U.S. midterm election results to come in. It struck me I was (and still am this morning!) working in solidarity with the election workers in Nevada, Arizona, and elsewhere counting ballots.  I have about 40 more blogs to copy. LORD give your strength to my hands, protect my laptop, and keep everyone in U.S. midterm elections safe.   Will need to go out soon for more paper. Amen unsplash I loved learning this! "The noun manuscript evolved from the Latin manu scriptus , meaning “written by hand.” Manu is “hand” and scriptus is “to write." It refers to old documents actually written by hand before books were made, but it can als...

Two of my favourites poets are Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou.  I discovered Emily Dickinson when I was a girl and Maya Angelou later in life.  There is a certain slant of light.  And still I rise!   Why am I telling you this? Because I have a confession to make about my last post. I left the poetry out. I think I felt vulnerable trying to explain how it felt in my body when I heard Maggie Wheeler's song, Walk With Me .  Or maybe I felt powerful and that scared me? But teacher and mystic James Finley says we have to try and find language to describe these things. Maybe that's why leaving the poetry out of my last post wouldn't let me go? Thankfully I had handwritten how it made me feel in my journal:   I felt the song drop into my body like a pebble dropping in a pond... rippling out and filling me at the same time.  I grinned.  I smiled.  My knees became drums.   It was wonderful!   Thomas Merton wrote something like, "People do...

Are women waning or gaining in the fight for safe and permanent equality? Is it getting better or worse for us today? We are protesting in Iran, in the United States, in Canada and around the world. We pass on the truth to each that we're not walking blind, our ancestors went before us to show us the way. They're with us now, God is with us. We are not alone on our inner and outer pilgrimages. If I could have a theme song for my whole blog it would be the song below by Maggie Wheeler. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=MHD5Ln3FgQw . Amen