Writing, St. Ignatius & SoulCollage®

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Writing a blog is intimidating. Writing about spirituality is even more so.

When I notice areas where I’ve grown or had profound insights, a part of me wants to share that with others – sometimes shout it from the rooftop. I’ve struggled with boundaries most of my life and I tend to err on the side of being overly cautious, protective and guarded. What if what I share is TMI – too much information and I overexpose myself? The last thing I want to do is to expose proverbial behind on the internet FOREVER.

I journal which is more for I suppose. And even with my journaling, I’ve left explicit instructions for my journals to be burned upon my death. My personal musings, doubts, rants, questions, struggles and redundancies should not be a burden for my spouse or family to deal with.

I do want them to honor my SoulCollage® cards. I hope they will. I hope they see “me” in the various images because the images on those cards are windows into my soul. They don’t need words or explanations. When taken in their entirety, they reflect my inner wisdom and spirit.

I sometimes wish I could share some of those creations with you. First of all, the cards I’ve created are very personal. And another reason I don’t share them is I choose to honor the intellectual property rights of photographers and artists whose images I’ve used in creating my cards. Most of the images in magazines are copyrighted images. We respect copyright in the world of SoulCollage®. (The one card you see on this page is made of images from photographs I took.)

I wish I could show you the cards which have emerged in the past month. In the past month or so, I’ve felt a nudge or a call to work with the spiritual exercises designed by St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola are a usually done in a month-long program of meditations, prayers, considerations, and contemplative practices that help Christian faith become more fully alive in the everyday life of contemporary people. Very few people are able to dedicate an entire month for a retreat using these exercises. There are a variety of ways to use the Spiritual Exercises outside of a taking a month off for a retreat. I highly recommend obtaining the help and guidance of a spiritual director or companion should you desire to undertake these exercises.

I reviewed several adaptations by different authors and chose Louis M. Savary’s The New Spiritual Exercises: In the Spirit of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. When I read in the introduction that St. Ignatius adapted the exercises several times throughout his life, the proverbial lightbulb went on. What if, while using the Spiritual Exercises as prompts to dive deeper into my spirituality, I “mash them” with another spiritual practice namely, SoulCollage®? What if, I allow the prompts and reflections to tickle my imagination – which is one of the ways St. Ignatius invites us to deepen our relationship with God? What if my imagination leads me to create SoulCollage® cards?

I wish I could share with you the cards that emerged after reflecting on the mystery of the Incarnation. The images that came forth symbolizing the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation and Jesus teaching in the Temple surprised and delighted me in ways I could not imagine. I felt an abundance of Grace and insight into the mystery of God daring to become one of us. It has been a joyful journey in the past few weeks. Creating SoulCollage® cards has been extended prayer and meditation on the great mystery of God becoming like us and showing us “this is how it is done.”

By combining these two spiritual practices, I’ve been renewed and refreshed. All of which comes on the heels of companioning others on their spiritual journeys while directing week-long silent retreats in June and July. I feel so incredibly blessed and enriched by the lives of beautiful souls. I am grateful for their trusting me to hold tender and gentle space for them.

Perhaps the message is I don’t need to produce anything or bare all the details of my journey. Perhaps the gift to you is in the sharing of the process. Perhaps you sense an invitation to be creative, to respond to the nudges you feel from Spirit – however you name that and allow it to take you wherever YOU are meant to go.

Wherever you wander or whatever path you find yourself on, don’t be afraid to share that with a companion. I’m incredibly blessed with a wonderful spiritual director, a companion who holds the space for my exploration and creating. I am forever grateful for spiritual friends along the journey, too. Men and women who are not afraid to be real, genuine, and soul-deep.

Yes. It is intimidating to write about matters of the heart and matters of the soul. I’ll keep trying. I’ll keep doing the best I can with what I have at the given moment. It’s really all I can do.

I hope you will keep reading.

Be well and blessings – always ~ Christy

(This blog is not intended to serve as individual spiritual direction however, if you would like to explore one-on-one spiritual companioning, grief work, SoulCollage©, labyrinth, Reiki, or mindfulness meditation please contact me. If you, your faith community, book club, or other gathering of spirits would like to know more about spiritual companioning, hold a workshop, learn about SoulCollage® or labyrinth, please contact me to schedule a workshop. May these musings, photos, social media postings serve as a pause in your day, food for thought, or just a reminder to breathe in and breathe out all that is holy and good. The Divine Milieu is all around us. Thank you all for prayers, vibes, positive energy and support.)

Despair, Joy & Dancing Francis

I’ve been struggling to write lately. I’ve written short and quick social media posts, and presentations and prayers for retreats and workshops. But I’ve procrastinated and I’ve not written anything longer than a few paragraphs in months – including journaling.

I have lots of thoughts and feelings which usually are growing edge of something emerging in me I can’t quite name or want to make public! I think “I’ll write about that.” Publicly. On the internet on my web page. Gulp. Yikes. How would I say that? What could I write?

To be honest, I’ve been tired and overwhelmed trying to keep the plates spinning with a number of tasks and projects. Friends warn I’m overdoing it. I am eager to do what is mine to do and might have been over enthusiastic when I scheduled what I did. I am passionate. I have great hopes and desires. The energy and patience I need is not always present. The limitations of aging perhaps? Nope! I’m not ready to retire just yet.

I will also admit that sometimes the grief, despair, chaos and uncertainty overwhelm me. I journal with what arises or engage in creative practices such as SoulCollage® or walking the labyrinth. It passes. I sit without knowing with open hands and at times, find myself swimming in a sea of emotions. Since I can’t banish it, I let the discomfort in. It’s rarely easy. I wrestle, haggle, bargain, rationalize and curse eventually leaning into acceptance. Accept what I cannot change and change what I can has become a motto, a koan in my life. God grant me wisdom – soon!

I certainly do not want to put those difficult emotions out in the Universe especially for those who are also experiencing grief, chaos, uncertainty and more. I have avoided writing for that reason, too.

today, I have something to write about. I attended the SDI Engage 2022 conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-events/conferences/ May 11-15. SDI, is a non-profit international organization dedicated to cultivating practices of deep listening and presence across all faith traditions and spiritual orientations. I decided I wanted to attend the conference in December, 2021 and made plans accordingly. I was at the end of the video conferencing interaction. Enough! I wanted to see some people in person!

The conference was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I experienced feelings of despair, hopelessness, anger, frustration AND feelings of joy, connection, peace and hope. Workshops fed my hungering soul. Some plenary speakers spoke to my heart. Others, not so much.

My friend, Mary, and I visited the Cathedral of St. Francis in the heart of Santa Fe the Wednesday before the conference started. We returned on the last evening of the conference. Both times we walked the labyrinth located to the left of the main entrance. Both experiences were Spirit filled. Wow!

We decided to celebrate our last evening together with dinner at Dinner for Two. https://dinnerfortwonm.com/menu/ I highly recommend a visit if you ever find yourself in Santa Fe. It was fun, funky and festive, and the food was excellent. Dance music of the ’70s and ’80s had us literally rockin’ in our chairs. Our friendly server and bartender, Clayton, exemplified the friendliness of Santa Fe folks. Retired surgeon Pete and his companion chatted as if we had known them their whole lives. This is Santa Fe.

It was almost a full moon that evening and my friend, Mary, excitedly suggested we go walk the labyrinth at the Cathedral after dinner. The moon was already up and shining so we made our way to the Cathedral. In the totally spontaneous and unplanned events Joy and the Divine show up!

As we began our walk, a live band in a hotel bar across the street began playing the Stevie Wonder tune “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”. I HAD to take off my shoes! I was walking and dancing on holy ground. It was all holy. The song became our joyous prayer and we found ourselves dancing and walking through the Chartres style 11-circuit labyrinth under the almost full moon at a cathedral named for joy-filled Francis of Assisi. Another couple joined our walk. (We later learned they were conference participants as well from near Chicago!)

And the band played on! Soon our group of four became a “labyrinth flash mob” with people dancing through the circuits and have a grand ole time under the moonlight! I could only think of the refrain of the old ’70s song by one-hit-wonder King Harvest “Dancing in the Moonlight”. https://youtu.be/stDXwVqQvdA (I do not own the rights to this song. It may be subject to copyright laws.)

Spirit filled. Spontaneous. Joyful. A celebration of everything we experienced during the conference. Friendship. Connection. Prayer. Reflection. Challenged. Rollercoaster of emotions. Despair transformed to Hope.

In those moments we were all dancing with Francis and celebrating a lovely day, the presence of Spirit and connection with the One and the Many.

Be well and blessings ~ Christy



(This blog is not intended to serve as individual spiritual direction. If you would like to explore one-on-one spiritual companioning, grief work, group companioning, SoulCollage©, the labyrinth, Reiki, or mindfulness meditation please contact me. If you, your faith community, book club, or gathering of spirits would like to know more about spiritual companioning, please contact me to schedule an informational workshop. May these musings, photos, social media postings serve as a pause in your day, food for thought, or just a reminder to breathe in and breathe out all that is holy and good. The Divine Milieu is all around us. Thank you all for prayers, vibes, positive energy and support.)

Waiting . . . and Listening

Most of us consider waiting as a passive activity, a state determined by events out of our control. We often find ourselves in situations where we just have to sit – or stand – and wait. Standing in line at the grocery. Sitting in our car in traffic. Counting the days until vacation.

I don’t know about you but I feel a bit of irritation when someone says “Just wait.”  I want to DO something. Waiting seems so passive. Or at least it used to until recently.

During this time of the year, I feel called to reflect on my spiritual roots in Christianity. When I was younger, I could not wait to celebrate Christmas which in our family was done on Christmas Eve. I was a “package shaker” in an effort to figure out what was underneath the wrappings before Christmas arrived. Eventually that materialism lessened as my religious and spiritual awareness grew (thank goodness!)

I still struggled with the idea of waiting patiently. Advent, according to the dictionary, is the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. In the Christian church, it is the four weeks and Sundays leading up to Christmas. The essence of scripture readings for those weeks is around waiting. I’ve grown in my understanding and sense of what it means to patiently wait. (Sitting in traffic remains a challenge!)

But the waiting is not passive. Those with spiritual awareness who wait are active waiters.  The waiting of Advent, for me, is filled with pregnant possibilities surrounded in the womb of Hope, Peace, Joy and Light. I’ve discovered if I wait with the belief a seed has been planted and something has already begun, the way I wait changes. Active waiting requires that I “be here now” fully in the present moment believing in every moment that something is happening where I am right here, right now.

This kind of waiting requires listening, deep listening of the ear of the heart. I’ve learned the real barriers to this kind of listening are the “woulda, coulda, shouldas” and the “oughts and ifs”. They take us out of the here and now into an unchangeable past and an uncertain and unpredictable future. Real life takes place in the here and now.

When we listen with the ear of our heart, Spirit is present. (You may substitute another word here for how you name the unnamable Source.) Spirit is always around us, within us and in the present. Whether our moments feel challenging or smooth, joyful or painful, light or dark, I believe Spirit is always in that moment. Spirit is the One who IS. Here and Now.

My spiritual roots taught me that when Jesus spoke about God, he always spoke about God as being where and when I am as being ever present. My study and experience of other spiritual practices have provided openings to ask questions, and deeply LISTEN to Spirit.  That kind of deep listening requires patient waiting in the stillness, in the pregnant pause with my breath and heartbeat to support me.

Blessings ~ Christy

How do you handle waiting? What, if anything, does your spiritual tradition teach you about waiting? What spiritual or contemplative practices enable you to listen deeply to Spirit or to that small voice within you?

(This was originally posted in the World of SoulCollage, Spiritual Companion Village on Mighty Networks. Edited for continuity. To join the World of SoulCollage, please visit https://community.soulcollage.com/share/0idVEDn9xegF49zM?utm_source=manual )

(This blog is not intended to serve as individual spiritual direction. If you would like to explore one on one spiritual companioning, group companioning, SoulCollage©, the Labyrinth or Reiki, please contact me. If you, your faith group, your church or your book club would like to know more about spiritual companioning, please contact me to schedule an informational workshop. In the meantime, my hope is that this blog, photos, social media postings serve as a pause in your day, food for thought, or just a reminder to breathe in and breathe out all that is holy and good. The Divine Milieu is all around us. Thank you all for prayers, vibes, positive energy and support.)

Liminality

Clarity through the Fog

Liminality by Carrie Newcomer

So much of what we know
Lives just below the surface.
Half of a tree
Spreads out beneath our feet.
Living simultaneously in two worlds,
Each half informing and nurturing
The whole.
A tree is either and neither
But mostly both.

I am drawn to liminal spaces,
The half-tamed and unruly patch

Where the forest gives way
And my little garden begins.
Where water, air and light overlap
Becoming mist on the morning pond.

I like to sit on my porch steps, barn jacket and boots
In the last long exhale of the day,
When bats and birds loop in and then out,
One rising to work,
One readying for sleep.

And although the full moon calls the currents,
And the dark moon reminds me that my best language

Has always emerged out of the silence,
It is in the waxing and waning
Where I most often live,
Neither here nor there,
But simply On the way.

There are endings and beginnings
One emerging out of the other.
But most days I travel in an ever present
And curious now.
A betwixt and between,
That is almost,
But not quite,
The beautiful,
But not yet.

I’ve been learning to live with what is,
More patient with the process,
To love what is becoming,
And the questions that keep returning.

I am learning to trust
The horizon I walk toward
Is an orientation
Not a destination
And that I will keep catching glimpses
Of something great and luminous
From the corner of my eye.

I am learning to live where losses hold fast
And grief lets loose and unravels.
Where a new kind of knowing can pick up the thread.

Where I can slide palms with a paradox
And nod at the dawn,
As the shadows pull back
And spirit meets bone.

From Until Now: New Poems by Carrie Newcomer. Copyright © 2021 Carrie Newcomer. Published by Available Light Publishing. Check out Carrie’s website, here.

Carrie Newcomer’s latest poem came to my attention this past week. It seemed to echo the energy and feelings of the both/and and an invitation to bridge the duality of light and dark in a presentation. “Bridging the Duality of Light & Shadow in Your SoulCollage® Deck” presentation with Catherine Anderson and Kiala Givehand was one of several workshops as part of a weekend celebration of the 20th anniversary of SoulCollage®. You can read more about the creative, soul tending process here https://listening-heart.com/soulcollage/

The lessons of moving through liminal space and the in-between time was something I thought I had learned several years ago. In fact, I blogged about it. https://wordpress.com/post/listening-heart.com/733 What I’ve discovered in recent months is that was that was then. This is now. This is a new invitation to lean into this liminal time and space and discover new awareness, awakenings and gifts. 

In my experience, there are two moments of each day help us celebrate and go beyond the limitations of our imaginations. They help us strengthen our spiritual muscles to hold tensions and navigate transitions. At sunrise, we breath into and welcome a brand new day of possibilities, of light and of hope. Our day becomes pregnant with events, activities, meetings, gatherings, phone calls, laundry, cooking and running errands. Then, as the sun sets in shades of purple, pink, orange, and and silver light, and the moon rises for it’s night time dance across the sky, we exhale great THANKS and AMEN and let go of the day. 

Both times of the day provide us invitations to bathe in mysterious liminal in between space. In the space between darkness and light is the place where many of us find ourselves today. 

Somewhere in our psyche or our reptilian brains, we’ve learned that darkness was to be avoided – even feared. Greek mythology says Prometheus gave the gift of fire to the ancients ensuring their ability to cook, stay warm and see in the dark. Still darkness, for many centuries, has often been seen as the opposite of light, the place where the divine cannot be found. 

However, darkness has more recently been reclaimed as the place of pregnant possibilities and an opportunity for soul-work and for letting go of the known and leaning into the unknown. St. John of the Cross endured his “dark night of the soul” because he always saw Light in the dark which he named God. This “holy darkness” is a space for deep diving into the soul, a place for wonderment and profound reflection, a space full of hope for what likes beyond. When we view it as a both/and, it is not to be feared but to be embraced for the gift it can and does provide.  Barbara Brown Taylor, in her spiritual work Learning to Walk in the Dark, surmises, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light” (2014).

After reading Carrie’s poem and Barbara’s quote, the image above immediately came to mind. It’s one of my favorite images I’ve captured through a camera lens. I dare say I love it.  It’s our corn field that you can’t quite make out in the distance. It’s the harvest of not-yet and what is to be. I stand in the Now among the trees breathing in their exhalations of oxygen. 

I, too, am drawn to liminal places and spaces as Carrie is. The Celts call them “the thin places”. It is the space where I touch the holy and encounter the divine. On one hand it’s uncertain and scary and at the same time it is exciting when I wonder what lies beyond this time and place.

Perhaps this liminal space of this time – this Before and After – is an invitation to hold the both/and, to be here now in a way where there is no duality, no either/or but a genuine both/and of mind, body and spirit. 

Perhaps Now is the time, space and place to dance in and with the Divine with abandonment, free from judgment, learning to trust that what lies beyond the edge of the fog is Rumi’s field where the soul lies down in the grass the world is too full to talk about, out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.

Perhaps the invitation is for all of us to meet there as friends.

Blessings ~ Christy

(This was originally posted in the World of SoulCollage, Spiritual Companion Village on Mighty Networks. Edited for continuity.To join the World of SoulCollage, please visit https://community.soulcollage.com/share/0idVEDn9xegF49zM?utm_source=manual )

(This blog is not intended to serve as individual spiritual direction. If you would like to explore one on one spiritual companioning, group companioning, SoulCollage©, the Labyrinth or Reiki, please contact me. If you, your faith group, your church or your book club would like to know more about spiritual companioning, please contact me to schedule an informational workshop. In the meantime, my hope is that this blog, photos, social media postings serve as a pause in your day, food for thought, or just a reminder to breathe in and breathe out all that is holy and good. The Divine Milieu is all around us. Thank you all for prayers, vibes, positive energy and support.)

How Can I Keep from Singing?

(Photo courtesy of Christine Green via Unsplash)

Dory, from Pixar’s Finding Nemo , reminds us to just keep swimming. The birds in my woods remind me to just keep singing.

Do you find it difficult to be hopeful in these times as I do? I sometimes find myself choosing minute by minute to hang on to a tiny thread of hope. It’s not always easy. In fact, I’m at a point again, unfortunately, where I don’t know who or what to believe or where to turn for accurate information. Nationally, voices of doom and gloom filled with fear are again front and center.

Yet, there are other reputable expert voices trying to be heard with a different view which are being silenced. Statisticians review the raw data and draw different conclusions. Other reputable medical professionals tell us of the dangers of vaccines which have yet to be completely authorized by the FDA and they are disregarded. There are severe adverse reactions to some of these vaccines and many grow concerned these vaccines have not been properly vetted and studied. Well known colleges and universities continue to research prophylactic measures imposed last year and have drawn mixed conclusions. Treatments, which proved successful in some cases, are downplayed and even banned from being mentioned. Truly frightening times.

And if that isn’t enough, I’m experiencing some physical and medical challenges. Not to worry. I don’t believe it is serious but it is not without it’s frustrations. I tell myself – and my nutritionist often reminds me – I didn’t get this way overnight. And times as we know them did not get that way overnight.

Again and again, I return to the line in the Serenity prayer to accept the things I cannot change and change what I can. Changing what I can usually involves changing something in myself. Physician heal thyself, right?

I’m very blessed I have friends, family, a great spiritual director and other supportive contacts who DO listen. Spiritual practices like SoulCollage® and walking the labyrinth in my backyard support my navigation through these trying times. My teachers and “gurus” support me through their spiritual writings. I enjoy them all in the sanctuary and refuge of the Double C, named using our first initials. This is my respite and place of peace from the stress and uncertainty of these times. Nature listens and invites me to listen to it.

Here on the Double C, I understand the impulse of the hermit, the Buddhist monk or nun, or the member of the ashram to sit in silence. The introvert within me screams with delight when I’m alone especially walking in the woods. There is life in the most unusual places in the woods and it is peaceful, non-political, polyspiritual.

A walk in the woods is freeing and time for play. My Curious Child emerges and discovers the natural world of interesting fungi, a snail shell, a turkey feather or the orange flower of jewel weed. Sunlight through the trees warms my hurting heart. Cricket, cicada, and birdsong are the instruments of nature’s symphony.

Colorful fungi 8/4/21 – Applephone

And it is the birdsong in particular that brings me back to center. Birdsong reminds me to keep on singing. I remember the old hymn “How Can I Keep From Singing” by Baptist minister Robert Wadsworth Lowry and I particularly recall the version arranged by Christian singer, Ed Gutfruend, from his album “From and Indirect Love.” It’s one of those songs from my guitar group days of the late 70’s and early 80’s. I haven’t heard it in years.

        My life flows on in endless song;
	Above earth’s lamentation,
	I hear the sweet, tho’ far off hymn
	That hails a new creation;

	Ref: No storm can shake my inmost calm 
	While to that rock I’m clinging. 
	Since Love is lord of heaven and earth,
	How can I keep from singing?

Who or what is your rock? What song do you sing? What practices, writers and people help you navigate these difficult times? Who and what is a source of hope? How do you feel when others do not share your feelings and beliefs about the current state in which we find ourselves?

I encourage you to contact me if you want to be heard, need to mull over and explore your spirituality in these trying times or you are searching for ideas for spiritual practices to support you. I offer a sacred, confidential, non-judgmental and safe space for you in-person at the Double C or online via Zoom. I encourage you to read my page containing information on spiritual companioning https://listening-heart.com/spiritual-companioning/ then message me to set up a free 30 minute Q&A session.

Ram Dass said, “we are all just walking each other home.” I would be honored to walk with you on your journey.

Blessings ~ Christy

(This blog is not intended to serve as individual spiritual direction. Spiritual direction and spiritual companioning are typically done face to face in a confidential setting or via Zoom or other virtual platform. If you would like to explore one on one spiritual companioning, group companioning, SoulCollage©, the Labyrinth or Reiki, please contact me. If you, your faith group, your church or your book club would like to know more about spiritual companioning, please contact me to schedule an informational workshop. In the meantime, my hope is that the photos and this blog serve as a pause in your day, food for thought, or just a reminder to breathe in and breathe out all that is holy and good. The Divine Milieu is all around us. Thank you all for prayers, vibes, positive energy and support.)

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