a Place Called HOME

At what points in your life have you found yourself standing on the edge of a new threshold?  Was it something you recognized at the time? Or after the fact?  When you recognize the pattern of transition & transformation in your life, then the thresholds become apparent... and the footsteps become known. Much of the time we build our life from the out side in - we construct security through jobs, family, friends, etc. - a host of externals that manufacture something we believe we can and should live within... Then, at some point, when we've crossed a significant threshold we begin to realize that life is created from the inside out.  And the outside world becomes a projection of the life we're living internally.  As a result we start listening, differently.  We realize the answers are contained within us and not in some new adventure.  Although, often, new adventure follows.  The question is where are you leading from? T...

There is a certain unfolding in life that can't be predicted, controlled or even created by a certain set of instructions. There is what we want and then there is what we get; an order of the Universe that may hint at participation and yet seems to manifest in ways 'other' than what we may have imagined. Prayer. Prayer looks so very different to man y people.  We ask for what we want. We ask for what we don't want. We ask for God to read what's unknowable in our hearts. We pray after the fact.  We pray in our hopes & dreams. We pray in the midst of struggle. Prayer is a very powerful thing.  It is an energy that identifies us as co-creators in this wild ride called LIFE.  I pray because I believe that my silence, my prayer is a part of a much grander story. And yet, there is a wonder that must accompany prayer ~ a WONDER-ment at how our LIFE unfolds. Similar to the origami crane, our words and prayer take a certain shape.  It...

Life has a rhythm that can, at first, seem dualistic in nature because of it's opposite.  There's day and night; full moons and new moons, positive and negatives ends to a battery, etc.  Name a few yourself.  It is practically human nature to pit one aspect against the other as is evidenced in our politics right now.  However, both aspects are necessary for WHOLENESS. I love the image of the dolphins for wholeness.  They breathe the air and swim in the water.  They could NOT survive breathing air on land; they need both air and water.  Day and night always follow each other, to varying degrees, but are needed to create a whole "day".  The battery only works if both the positive and negative end have contact for conduction.  Similarly, at our most basic level, we inhale and exhale.  We cannot survive with just one! I can not sustain my life on an inhale alone. Our wholeness is predicated on this simple fact of survival....

  LIFE IS BORN OUT OF THE VOID - babies emerge from the womb, water flows to where there is none, and when one thing ends it creates a space for another to begin.  How scheduled is your life? Do you create spaces between events? Are there margins in your day for the unexpected? This is where life lives & thrives! In the white space of your life.  We all need a pause to rest and restore, or synthesize the events in our day.  Sleeping is the most obvious "pause" but so many people resist this opportunity to unplug and allow our body, mind, and soul to reset.  Sleep gets pushed back for work, or shortened to accommodate unfinished chores, or disrupted by things we ingest. We wear a badge with pride that "we'll sleep when we're dead!" What would it look like to have a fully rested body so the mind & spirit could create our life? What would it look like to purposely invite time in our day for reflection, quiet, and stillness? What...

There is a liminal space within all of us between our external and internal worlds; a threshold that invites us into a fuller way of BE-ing. Our whole life is a prayer in answer to a greater calling about WHO we are and HOW we are meant to serve this world; the alignment of individual will with the will of the community and ultimately with the will of the Divine. When our outside living no longer aligns with our inside desires, a messenger is sent to harness  our attention; a messenger that guides harmonizing human energies into a whole. Sadness, anger, grief, etc. emerge to alert us to something more; perhaps something missing. What invites us into BE-ing more alive? Dark emotions are the invitation that calls us through the doorway to change. In a culture where we want to "be positive" and "be optimistic", we hurry across the other emotions that haven't been honored for their rightful place in our discernment and direction. While dark emotions can be ...

In this human experience, there is a continual dance between ambiguity and our PERMEABLE ALIVENESS. This swirls in the space between "no longer" and "not yet" and is the very threshold into the Mystery of Spirit and the Grace of God. It is the proverbial ebb and flow of LIFE. Our PERMEABLE ALIVENESS is the essence of our best Divine self engaged in sacred REVERENT INTERACTIONS with Life. It is the point on the continuum that reveals our highest expression  of God. At the other end is fear, contraction, and our human smallness when we're not reflecting Spirit. Often when I type SACRED I accidently invert 2 letters and type SCARED which perfectly captures this very continuum of PERMEABLE ALIVENESS. At one end is my human self limiting this life experience to the finite. The other end is INFINITE. It reveals my relationship with God. How do I show up? How do I engage God in others? How do I elevate "Julia" expressing as God? How do I inspire? H...

Inherent within the GRAY Zone, is how we connect to the Divine. The cross, for me, represents both the details of our earthly life and our connection to God. The horizontal axis is the physical details of our life here on earth; places that create uncertainty: illness, divorce, loss, job change, etc. Any two situational points where we find ourselves "caught" between knowing and not knowing. This IS where the Mystery occurs - the space between "no longer"  and "not yet". God & Grace exist at the edges of what we know. Often times it is when we find ourselves praying. The vertical axis represents the continuum of HOW we hold this space in the unknowing. Will I be fully human and caught in the drama of telling my story, being attached to the attention I receive, the reactive emotions that emerge... or will I move closer to the Divine Mystery and allow it to unfold, gracefully? Will I see my opportunity to be inspired and inspire others? Will I...