Lovely community:

Today Brother Sun was bright in a clear blue sky and the combination of the sun’s warmth and the soft, cool breeze made sitting outside with a good book a joy. Since today is the autumnal equinox we hung our “Welcome Fall” decorative flag on our porch and filled the candle warmer with the scent of baked apple. There is a dish of candy corn on our coffee table. My husband is just now making a fire in our backyard fire pit as the sun prepares to set for the evening and a chill is in the air.
My heart is filled with gratitude for the gifts of this delightful new season.

I am grateful to be able to enjoy these gifts, no matter the visit of fibromyalgia fatigue and the annoyance of tinnitus. It is days like this that remind me that these afflictions can be a blessing if I let them. The soothing background music that helps me cope, and the necessity of slow, easy and quiet days when my energy is flagging is an invitation to acceptance of what is. An opportunity to “let go and let God”. And to sit in rest and renewal in nature’s healing embrace.

Om Shanti friends ♥

Lovely friends:

Even though the “official” start of fall is not until the autumnal equinox on September 22 here in the U.S. it has been feeling like fall all week. The leaves are just beginning their magical transformation into their fall colors and in the evenings it is cool enough to need a sweater. Our marigolds and geraniums are still hanging in there, our tomato and pepper plants still producing their bounty, and just this week our morning glories have finally made an appearance. This past week we also had the delight of watching once again, the farmers harvesting the hay in the field behind our little farmhouse. It is quite a show and brings me joy each and every time. I love when I connect with the farmhands and we give each other a wave and a smile. So grateful for this gift.

The heavy blanket of not only summer’s heat, but the anxiety and melancholy that has visited me lately, seems to be lifting with the arrival of this new season. For that I am very grateful.
And although I am a self-described “technophobe” I have to admit to being grateful for the science fiction-like technology that allowed me to talk to my daughter and see her at the same time through my cell phone….amazing! I am grateful to hear all about her life as a new middle school teacher and see the joy on her face as she talks about her lessons and her students. And since I also taught middle school (me-science, her-spanish) I can totally relate to how challenging (but fun!) it can be to teach that age group…they are a unique bunch!

No matter the season where you are I hope you are all finding a way to connect with our sister, Mother Earth. Immersing myself in Native American spirituality these past days has helped my spirit to feel lighter.
~With grateful love ♥

“We should understand well that all things
are the work of the Great Spirit.
We should know that he is within all things:
the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and
all the four-legged animals and all the winged peoples.”
– Black Elk (Oglala Lakota holy man 1863-1950)

Hello Marilyn….and welcome to this sacred space. You have found a very special community…or perhaps it found you!

Hope has always been a sort of “theme” for me in my life. So much so that we gave our younger daughter the middle name of “Hope”. It can be elusive at times like these….all the more reason to practice gratefulness. I wonder if keeping a gratitude journal would be helpful to you? I find the process of writing very cathartic and often a much-needed balm for when my spirit is weary. Like Amacord, I would recommend Pema Chodron…she is among my “gurus” along with Henri Nouwen and others. And this site, as Anna has shared, is full of wonderfulness! Have you watched Br. David’s video? It’s a treasure.

We hope you will continue to visit and share Marilyn. ~Be blessed ♥
ps. Music is therapy to me as well!

Cara Anna….my heart hurts for you and I share in your sorrow. I am so sorry that your papa, and you and your family are facing this challenge. I have no doubt that you are a source of comfort for him…your kind and generous spirit is surely a light in this present darkness. I pray that you will feel God’s Presence and His unconditional Love for you and your father. You are all doing the best you can so please be gentle with yourself my friend.

Your heart of gratitude is a shining light for me Anna. My prayers are with you ❤

Good morning my friend: I am with you in gratitude for all those who are serving during these horrific fires…and I will say a prayer for your daughter and her family. My husband’s sister and her family in Montana were ordered at one point to evacuate. And my daughters in Colorado could see and feel the smoke coming from the Rockies. All the devastation and loss is heart breaking.

Please let us know in the days ahead how your daughter is doing. Calling on the angels to surround them. ♥

Good morning Pollyanna:
I’m so happy to be introducing you to this mystic. However, I must apologize. Norman MacLeod (1812-1872) greatly influenced the Church in Scotland….but it was his grandson GEORGE MacLeod who wrote the prayer I shared yesterday. I’m so sorry that I quoted the wrong MacLeod!

I learned about, and fell in love with, Celtic spirituality by reading a book that I still treasure and from which the prayer I shared yesterday is found. It is called “Listening For The Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality” by J. Philip Newell, whom you no doubt are familiar with?

Pollyanna….I heartily recommend this book to you! I suspect it would speak to your heart as it did mine. Over the years, I have been drawn back to this beautiful book over and over again and I am so grateful to have it in my little library!
Perhaps you have heard MacLeod’s prayer from the “Breastplate” hymn of St. Patrick? According to Newell, it is one of his best known. If you google “George MacLeod breastplate prayer” as I just did, you should find it. In the meantime, my sincerest apologies for leading you down the wrong Google path! And here is an excerpt…the entire prayer can also be found in Newell’s book.

~With grateful love and Beannachdan to you as well. ♥ (ps. my Celtic roots are from my paternal great-great grandmother, who was from Ireland, County Limerick)

“Invisible we see you, Christ beneath us.
With earthly eyes we see beneath us
stones and dust and dross…..
But with the eyes of faith,
we know you uphold.
In you all things consist and hang together.
The very atom is light energy,
the grass is vibrant,
the rock pulsate,
All is in flux;
turn but a stone and an angel moves”