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

Yesterday I watched a re-run of Super Soul Sunday. It was an unexpectedly beautiful interview with Chanel Miller discussing her memoir, Know My Name : " Know My Name (2019) chronicles Chanel Miller's journey after experiencing sexual assault. Miller was assaulted on Stanford University's campus in 2015 and became publicly known as "Emily Doe" during her assailant's trial " (uw.pressbooks.pub) . Chanel's sexual assault story is different than mine, however I am profoundly struck by the similarities between how it connects to the car accident I had when I was 19 years old. Let me explain: I too was sexually assaulted in the U.S. a few months before my car accident in Windsor. Chanel and I both had been drinking prior to what landed us in the hospital. We both woke up in a hospital not remembering how we got there or what had happened. We both processed our traumas through writing; Chanel in a book, me in a blog. Her trauma mattered. My trauma matte...

Tomorrow I am returning to ACA (on-line).  It strikes me that we ACA's are a bit like a body of broken bones.  Broken, but often stronger in those broken places:  "As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is a resetting of a Body of broken bones." (Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 2007, 70). Forty-two years ago today, I was nineteen years old, living in Windsor, and literally a body of broken bones in a hospital after a car crash: "Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. (Ez 37:11). Now years later I am filled with gratitude and awe to be remembering a friend I lived next door to in Windsor.  She had an older sister who I think became a journalist at the Windsor Star?  There was something magical to me about this sister who became a journalist. Next, I did some research and learned she had indeed become a journalist-- a staff writer at the Windsor Star. Then I...

Pentecost Sunday is growing larger on the horizon.  This weekend folks will be gathering for my Uncle Cliff's Celebration of Life and for Mother's Day too. What does a celebration of life mean to you? I have been thinking about this today. For me I feel it's connected with Pentecost. "Pentecost is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks." (source:wikipedia). How does the "Feast of Weeks" speak to the Celebration of Life for Uncle Cliff in Parry Sound? How does it speak to those who are and are unable to attend? An excerpt from the Acts of the Apostles finds and shines amazing light on how. "And they were all amazed at this-- at how everyone attended. They did not understand how all the apostles, family, friends, colleagues, and relatives could do this....

Once upon a time I wrote a Fairytale about a young girl's Big Dream to change her troubled, dysfunctional family into a loving and supportive one (ACA).  She failed for the most part.   With both Fairytale and ACA on my mind, I want to share some excerpts from the book, Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families (Chapter 8) : We reach adulthood believing we failed, unable to see no one can stop the traumatic effects of family alcoholism and dysfunction. We go forward in life by knowing where we came from and how we survived to get there. We can restage (and reclaim) our childhood and teen years with gentleness by being a Loving Parent to ourselves. We do not fictionalize our childhood (make it a fairytale), but we take the time to see how vulnerable, courageous, and loving we were as children. This is defictionalizing failure.   I think I'll stop here. imagecredit: Creator: Appleing  |  Credit: Appleing // Shutterstock Loving Parent ...