a Place Called HOME

  There is a stone in my throat that blocks the path of my heart. I rely on my intellect to survive and even that fails me now. Now my heart has been quiet too long. It needs to be heard. It sits patiently in silence, yet words fail its expression. Expression is God living as Julia. However, the channel is not open; the stone is a barrier for that which needs to be given voice. My voice shoots out violently for attention It cannot stay quiet like the heart. The stone attacks the unknown predator who accidentally sets the tripwire. Once the tripwire is broken, so are my words; shattered like glass  because I hurt. Hurt didn't know how fragile the words are within me barely formulated against an image that provides me with meaning. Meaning that I, too, need patience and space and breath to inspire the words that are  so elusive to capture. Captured feelings beneath the stone yearning for words to set them free; no longer trapped within the heart but manifest fully into form.

  "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." ~ T. S. Eliot. This IS my childhood home. Literally, a place I called HOME for more than a decade. I am not normally attached to the mundane or nostalgic about my life yet, when my husband found this former house I grew up in, I was surprised by the emotion that surfaced within me.  a Place Called HOME - my spiritual companioning vocation - was never about a physical, tangible place. It is about finding those characteristics we associate with how we define HOME within ourselves. It is the journey away from our selves in a fervent discovery that what we are searching for lives within us and is expressed as us whether or not we allow it... with grace and wisdom comes that acceptance.  For most of my life, my dreams have informed the current state of my life through images of houses; burned down houses charred by the flames, new co

 " Wonder is not precisely knowing" ~ Emily Dickinson I've been rethinking WONDER since Patrick Lencioni's The Six Types of Working Genius.  WONDER is the first gear of Working Genius that drives the other five. However, I'm more interested in how WONDER shows up in our own lives and drives our engagement in the world.  🌟 Openness & Curiosity: there are many things written on openness and curiosity from different disciplines; the biggest being able to suspend judgement and ask questions to gain understanding. Your experience is what you agree to tend to… the most difficult being Radical Acceptance for what is shared with you and what shows up within you.      ❔WONDER stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system by disrupting our default pattern of reaction. what surprises & delights you? when do you suspend bias? how do you practice intelligent naïveté? 🌟 Bewilderment & Hope: bewilderment is the disruptive factor in WONDER; it's a noticing with

  co-REGULATION: a "continuous unfolding of individual action that is susceptible to being continuously modified by the continuously changing actions of the partner" (often between infants & caregivers) ~Wikipedia  I was first introduced to this concept through the performance company at Danceworks. In their Fight or Flight concert they explored stress, triggers and recovery through interviews and dance. It was profound and this idea of co-regulation intrigued me.  I am now exploring the idea and it's application in my own life. How did it impact my relationship with my children? Does it inform my relationship with my husband? And, if so, is codependency the shadow form of co-regulation?  And if after living through a pandemic that revealed how much we are connected, how does this concept of co-regulation apply to a larger context? How much are we responding to others who are responding to us? Are we co-regulated within our communities?  This holiday season I invite y

 Stripped... almost naked, I feel exposed. Like a new green shoot in Spring I am experiencing all the elements. Falling... not quite floating, I feel the letting go. Like a leaf in full color I am no longer attached to what used to be. Emerging... practically radiant, I feel the opening. Like the sun that shines indiscriminately I am revealing my deeper, Divine self. Life is Universal! It happens to us and through us. Step back and listen. Spirit is at work here. #meditation #breathwork #quietthechaos #lovelightandhealing #spiritliveswithin #intotheGRAYzone #pause #breathe #engage #aPlaceCalledHOME #theRadicalAcceptanceofALL

  "...anger is often simply the unwillingness to live the full measure of our fears or of our not knowing, in the face of love..." ~ David Whyte FEAR: there are three fundamental fears: 1. the existential fear of dying 2. the cultural fear that we're born into 3. the situational fear of the moment. We all live with fear on some scale and we all face fear differently.  Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Flee.  I think we're all well familiar with these responses in the animal kingdom. It is also a part of our nervous system and how we handle fear when it shows up in our own life. what fears are you aware of in your life? name them. how do you respond to that fear when confronted with it? and at what point does your response shift?  how does fear factor into your life? what percentage of the pie/of the whole do you dedicate to fear? what would it look like to be fearless? describe it. what would change? what wouldn't change but perhaps be approached, differently?   ANGER: I&