a Place Called HOME

 

 

 

 

The ESSENCE and SPIRIT of poetry connects the reader to the Artist. This connection may not be a literal understanding of the words but a resonance to an experience, a felt sense that is shared in the heartbeat of the poem. Its message is abstract, existential, and unique to each individual who chooses to engage with the MUSE that reveals one’s SOUL interpretation. That’s the PLAY I engage with here as I surface words|phrases that open something in me. It might be very different for you… I invite you to explore for yourself.  WHAT URGENCY CALLS YOU TO YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE?  I like good questions.  I love great questions even more.   This question asks us to plumb the depth of our SOUL and understand our one true calling. What if that call remains in the shadows and is unknown to us?  What if we’ve followed a prescribed or predicative path? What if we allowed someone else to influence our choices and decisions? What if our “one true love” doesn’t inhabit the p...

  I am angry… *surfaced after the 4th of July shooting at Highland Park, IL; republishing after the Madison shooting at Abundant Life Christian School 16 December 2024 Madison, WI I am angry… … because I am a woman  who has birthed Life  into the world AND watched men so carelessly & indiscriminately extinguish this Light! I am angry…  … because I am a woman who has had and has made  choices in my Life AND justice reversed this progress in the name of religion I am angry… … because I am a woman who has been marginalized, mistreated and raped for her resources  AND seen men who believe in their own providence do the same unto people of color, indigenous tribes and Mother Earth - ALL for the economy of money, power, and status  I am angry… … because I am a compassionate woman opening her arms and her heart to love & include more AND we label and categorize and discriminate down to a descriptor that divides US  I am angry… … because I am a wo...

  the ground is tilled for planting stirred up, unsettled exposing raw soil to the elements awaiting to receive the seed  some ground is frozen some is soft from a daily dose of light who knows what is most fertile it mostly depends on acceptance the details are immaterial where we land, how we grow temperamental to what gets thrown at us we learn to survive or thrive or die when a flower grows wild it can always survive, wildflowers don't care where they grow* just let the love & the light shine in nature knows the way to go there's a Spring in my SOUL yearning to BLOOM and must abide by nature's time  seasons and cycles that bring new LIFE #spiritliveswithin #intotheGRAYzone #pause #breathe #engage  #aPlaceCalledHOME #theRadicalAcceptanceofALL  *inspired by Wildflowers; Tom Petty

  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 ...

 " 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 w...

  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 ...

 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: ...

  "...the chance to enliven ourselves to the fullest  and  thereby spark an exchange of aliveness  that illuminates the gifts of humanity." ~Mark Nepo How long does one wait within the discomfort of life? Some feel they have no choice, while others are quick to move on. Staying in a place of discomfort stretches us beyond our own limits if we allow ourselves to be there longer than we want. There is a creative wisdom contained within this unknown void; something that speaks to us when we hold a safe space for insecurity and uncertainty to meet.  Sometimes we can do this alone. And other times, we need someone to travel with us.  SAFE SPACE: this is where you rest; a physical or emotional space where you feel nurtured and comforted.  a place where there are no pretenses or boundaries needed.  this is a place I describe as "home". where your Soul feels at rest, where your Heart is held unconditionally, and your Spirit is free to live within its pass...

  "... time isn't a straight line along which we travel,  but a deep dot in which we dwell." ~Sue Monk Kidd Living deeply in one place has not been something I've been able to do... well. I have had more of a "horizontal existence" reaching out to places and people and things unknown to me. New experiences provided a rush of adrenaline that had me making those leaps quite consistently. Pair that with being a 7 on the Enneagram [more about that another time] and FOMO [fear of missing out]; it was quite a shallow life. I equated these experiences with growth outside my comfort zone not realizing that it WAS my comfort zone - avoidance! I was stone hopping experiences as Jumpin' Julia! I was avoiding the deep depths of pain that moving on left behind. Subsequently it didn't allow me to be my most compassionate self with anyone.  "Look at the bright side." "Find the silver lining." "What's the gift in this?" All dishonor...

  "Existence will rush to fill us and overwhelm us  if we don't meet the outer world  with an inner life." ~MarkNepo It is the proverbial making lemonade from lemons. We all experience difficult times personally and collectively but how we prevail... how we write the story into the fabric of our own life is where transformation occurs.  This reflection is more of a challenge for me to write. Am I able to write about isolation and fragmentation and loneliness? Am I ready to write about the darkness that fills me before the light reaches through? Is it the 'right' voice? It is a voice that I've often avoided to remain positive and hopeful, yet this deeper darker voice exists within all of us... especially now. For me, this is the voice I start with and move through to get to a more palatable "other side". Can I do it justice?  Most often when I write I focus on where I end up, not where I start! Once I've traveled my own road of transformation, I e...

  "The MYSTERY of deep living is that we become Life itself." ~MarkNepo I have known myself as a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type of person. I know enough to do "just enough" to get through a job, a conversation, a project... Life! I'm a quick learner who processes information fast and understands my resources for anything I might need to research. It's exciting and fast-paced and, probably, hints a bit at FOMO - fear of missing out! Its allowed me to take in a wide expanse of knowledge for enjoyment.  Recently, I took notice of a local photographer on Instagram that only photographs Holy Hill... well, mostly only.  ONE subject over and over through 4 seasons, morning and evening with either his camera or his drone. Previously I would have dismissed that as boring. Yet during this Pandemic time I've been fascinated with discovering my own "backyard"; digging deep into the richness that surrounds me right here, right where I am present. ...

  Life doesn't add up it OPENS up! ~Mark Nepo My husband and I share a belief about relationships; be a well, not a fence. Imagine a horse in a corral where the boundaries are clearly delineated. It is unable to run to its full potential; always stopped by the parameters setup by the rancher. Whereas a wild horse can run free and knows where to go for hydration.  In a relationship, any relationship[self, others, God], much the same thing can happen. Expectations and judgements and opinions all work to create a limited space within the relationship, thereby limiting its potential. When we carry expectations or get disappointed because of an action or an opinion, we close down that relationship and make it smaller. You may decide to stop engaging that person in outings or conversations or even on social media.  However, when you stay open, you are a well! The ability to set your ego aside, create a space for understanding, then provide an opportunity for communication that...

In ALL that I do, may I be a channel for Your Light to shine through In the past few years I have been gifted with a slow and steady removal from the traditional workforce. The days of punching a clock, scurrying from one meeting to the next, and being on constant call are behind me. It was exhausting! Running at someone else's pace and responsible for someone else's agenda pulled me far away from my center. I was too tired to even look inside to know who I wanted to be and how I wanted my Light to shine in this world.  It takes courage and discipline to silence the noise of the world so that we can really listen to what matters. Courage means cutting through the chatter; even after you've found some time or space for yourself - are your thoughts/feelings your own? Or those of an ingrained pattern from reacting to the world around you? Unprecedented worry, unprecedented depression, unprecedented emptiness are there because we try to fill up on the "empty carbs" of...

Yellow Blazes mark the direction on the National Ice Age Trail here in Wisconsin. I've walked many segments of the trail, volunteer to field edit the trail, and have a "home" trail segment near Holy Hill that I walk frequently with my dog.  When I took the picture the word MANTEL kept coming to me.  Since movement opens me to inspiration, I allowed the word to enter though it didn't really make sense or seem to fit.   A mantel is where we place our most loved pictures of family & friends and seasonal decorations that make us feel at home. The hearth warms the house and makes it a home. It is the center; the heart of our gatherings. Consider the direction we each take in our lives. What informs that direction? How is our life impacted by that direction? And truly, there is no wrong direction because the markers, the Yellow Blazes, lead in all directions. During this season of fall, it's not about LETTING GO of what no longer serves us but rather LEANING INTO wh...