![]() by Laura Crosby This article is for the book lovers, the tender hearts, the deep(ish) thinkers, and anyone exploring life’s existential questions. It is a compilation of resources to nourish your heart-mind on a path of deepening peace and freedom. But first ... The Buddha said, “Nothing can survive without food.” A simple truth that speaks as literally to the state of the heart and mind as to that of the body. The sights, sounds, and ideas we consume every day condition our consciousness. Wholesome states like compassion, gratitude, and equanimity thrive and grow with nourishment, and can wane significantly without it. So too with unwholesome states — fear, hatred, anger. When we pay attention, we see this; feel this; know this. Thich Nhat Hanh taught that, “Mass media is the food for our eyes, ears, and minds … images, sounds, and ideas that are toxic can rob our body and consciousness of their well-being.” In fact, he once vowed, “to ingest only items that preserve well-being, peace, and joy in my body and my consciousness.” While this path may seem extreme, it points to the agency we can have over how and what we ingest (for the heart-mind) and what we nurture in doing so. Going deeper, it invites awareness, intention, discernment, and mindful choice around what will best preserve our own well-being, peace, and joy. In that spirit, offered here is a medley of works curated for their potential to soothe, nourish, and sustain. May something in them feed your peace and freedom. Meditations + Music
Voices + Insights
Art + Books
“Be mindful of what you watch, read, and listen to, and protect yourself from the fear, despair, anger, craving, anxiety, or violence they promote. The material goods they promise are only quick, temporary fixes.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life
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![]() By Pamela Mueggenberg, LMHP, MA I’ve been losing my words lately. Covid finally hit my house for winter this year, and two months later I can tell that my brain is still recovering from hosting its unwelcome guest. It’s not as though I’m forgetting words, having them lounge on my tongue until they’ve run off on a beach vacation to find themselves. It’s more like the words are sleeping in my brain; even with alarms and klaxons and their nest shaking in frustration, they continue to snooze completely untroubled by their rampant absenteeism. Often my mind attempts to find a way around the word, trying to communicate the emotion or image even if the sound is gone. I was as surprised as anybody when I called wrapping paper “surprise blankets” and my cat as “anger fluff.” I was talking to a friend of mine, a speech therapist, who gave me a few tips to help me find my words again. “The biggest challenge is not to freak out,” she said. “When you can’t find the path to a word our first inclination is to clamp down and force your way through. Take a breath, remember you’re not crazy, and it will come to you eventually.” This struck me as really good advice. We are all faced with the unknown - what will happen today, this year, this decade. What challenges and injuries we or our loved ones will encounter. What we think we can control when really, we’ve just been lucky so far. This time in history has stripped away some of the security we took for granted, and it makes sense that we would fill in the gaps of our knowledge with assuming the worst. How many times have you heard the phrase “end of the world” this week? We are facing serious challenges and have a lot of work ahead of us but the assumption that the unknown is imminently doomed isn’t true. The truth is we don’t know. And not knowing is not the same thing as annihilation. Instead, let’s take a breath. Remember who you are. And the future will come. And when it does, you will have an opportunity to show your values and strengths and keep those you love in your heart. You have those same opportunities today, and today we can choose what to do. So, plant a garden, hug your friends, pick up trash, and live a life you’re proud of. And the words will come. To read the complete newsletter, click here. ![]() By Marilyn Erickson, APRN Instead of making resolutions for this new year, why not make a commitment to feed your own inner self, open into possibility, open your branches wide to the magic around you and within you. Step out of making yourself small, wrong, or comparing yourself with everyone else. Does that sound difficult? One way to sort of take this apart and apply it to your own personality is to look at what personality might fit you the best? Are you a controller? Are you a pleaser? Are you an isolator? Are you a distractor? When looking at possibilities, some descriptions of these characteristics that may be helpful are as follows:
Think about where you tend to lean. Then consider what is possible, what can foster growth. Consider the actions you take. Are they from fear or do they come from your center? While these primary characteristics guide our actions, we still can discover what we have covered up and what has been hidden. We can uncover our gifts.
How you perceive yourself, whether it be one of these four characteristics or a combination or something else, you can create, lead, nourish, and have a vision for what is possible. While your perception of yourself may guide your actions, you can discover what is hidden, uncover your gifts. If you get caught up in “what if” way of thinking, practice thinking of the what if as a positive outcome. Thinking of a positive outcome helps overcome the fear. What if everything goes right and things unfold into possibilities. What if the challenges of your life help you to become more steady, more committed? For the isolating or distracting person, does this help to be more supportive of others so that the matrix of your relationships can shift in a positive way. What if you have so much to give and also to receive? Sometimes these what ifs are a means of criticizing yourself, judging. Do you see these old ways of looking at things in a negative light as keeping yourself safe? For example, you lock your keys in your car, you say to yourself, “Why did I do something so stupid?” Or can you say to yourself, “Oops, I locked the keys in the car. What am I going to do?” Talk to yourself in a soothing way, not in a judging way. Help build your own strength and courage through self-soothing. Use kind words to reflect yourself. Judging leads to loss of energy. You are responsible for how you talk to yourself. Learn to recognize the old voices that bring you down. Practice discerning rather than judging. Say to yourself, “I don’t agree with my own actions. What do I need to do differently?” See yourself with compassion, through loving eyes. All of these changes in ways of seeing ourselves take practice. Practice self-soothing, enriching, learning and trust in your intuition. Bring light to your life through listening, gathering the tools that will help you, staying steady, and nourishing yourself. Come into stillness, settle and listen. Open to possibility. ![]() By the CML Practitioners Each year, as the wheel turns, the practitioners at CML take a moment to reflect on the coming year and a choose a word that might be a source of intention or focus for the months ahead. Here are our choices for 2024. "Non-Judgement / Nonjudgmental" - Dan Mindfulness practice can be defined as “paying attention, on purpose, to whatever is happening in the present moment in a nonjudgmental manner.” Non-Judgment (or non-judgementalness) from this perspective implies that one is (1) aware of (paying attention to) when thoughts of judgement are occurring, and (2) making the effort to be fully in the present moment without passing judgement. The mindfulness practice of non-judgement involves mentally noting (to one’s self) “judgement” when judgement occurs. I want to reengage with this practice for the new year as a way to reduce my own judgementalness. “Vulnerability” - Hillary In 2024, I want to lean into vulnerability. I have always been vulnerable, and I’ve always connected to others through vulnerability; however, I don’t think I’ve sat with the true power and healing potential of vulnerability until recently. What would it look like if leaders were more open and vulnerable about their insecurities and fears? What would it look like if society valued vulnerability as a strength? What would our world look like if we approached each other with the openness, curiosity, compassion, and (dare I say) love that often accompany vulnerability? What would our personal healing journeys look like if we approached ourselves in this way? I believe that nestled within vulnerability is hopefulness that someone (ourselves and/or others) will truly see (and truly love) us. I want to cradle that nestled hope in the year ahead. “Mystery” - Kara My word for the year is mystery. This word was inspired by a practice I engage in every year with my tarot cards. I add the month, day of birth together, and the upcoming year for one sum. This year the sum was 12 which corresponds with the Major Arcana card “The Hanged Man.” The Hanged Man pictures a person wearing a blue tunic (representing psychic connection) and red tights (representing material awareness) suspended from a mystical tree. The person’s legs make the shape of a four. The person appears serene, and their head is surrounded by light. This card symbolizes the power of taking a less familiar stance to perceive myself in a new way. This new perspective may be a clue for better understanding something that is difficult to understand, a mystery of sorts that lies within me. There is a sense of adventure embedded in the word of mystery, and my efforts to discovery what has yet to be known will guide me this year. “Peace” - Laura May I practice finding, making, and being peace in 2024. Finding the peace within and around me. Making peace with the impermanent, imperfect, uncertain, unknowable, and exiled. Being peace amidst confusion and hatred. May peace take its seat in my heart as an inseparable part of my being * -- not merely the peace of quiet, stillness, or refuge, but also the transformative peace that brings awakening and freedom to all beings. May this practice honor the legacies of beloved nonviolent peacemakers Thich Nhat Hahn, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, and Martin Luther King. ‘“You keep pairing me with quiet” peace said, “but my true companion is the mighty clamor of chains being ripped clean from the wall.” ~ Lori Hetteen *inspired by a quote from Gandhi “Poetry” – Louisa This coming year, I am trying to orient myself toward beauty. There is so much ugliness and hate in our world right now that it seems to obscure the true beauty of everything that lies around us. We look for what is flawed, what is “other”, what doesn’t belong, rather than stand in awe at the marvel of it all. And we must see the beauty of it, if we are to believe that it is worth saving. The idea of poetry seems to capture the essence of the lens that I hope to look through instead. Can we take the isolated dark words and painful images that surround us and rearrange them into something new? Something that speaks to our courage and ingenuity, rather than our hopelessness and fear. Where we are shown despair, let’s paint the colors of hope. Where we are told to be angry and reactive, let’s write the music of inspiration. When we believe we are unloved and alone, let’s dance in the downpour of compassion and community. When we hear that we should conform, let’s sing at the top of our lungs in our own unapologetic voices. Then stand together hand in hand, feeling the warmth of the sun on our faces, and smile at the beauty of it all. “I believed I wanted to be a poet, but deep down, I just wanted to be a poem” ~ Jaime Gil de Biedma “Light” - Marilyn There is so much to be said about light. As we move toward the winter solstice, we think more and more about light. We think how it greets us in the morning, how it leaves us in the evening. We celebrate the light even while we rest and reflect in the darkness. And we also consider the light inside us. We want the light to grow stronger within. We listen. We observe. We remember who we are. We notice our breath. We allow our spirit to breathe. Through these actions, we bring ourselves closer to the light. Amanda Gorman, the young American poet and activist tells us, “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.” So in this darkest time of year, through quiet, rest, reflection, observation, and listening, remember that the light is always there. ![]() By Louisa Foster, PsyD, RDT/BCT I am a recovering sufferer of FOMO. To the uninitiated (and it seems highly unlikely in contemporary American culture to be uninitiated), this stands for Fear Of Missing Out, a clever acronym to explain a compulsive need to overdo and forgo rest. Yes, I was the kid sitting at the top of the stairs when my parents entertained craning for a glimpse of a guest’s outfit, straining to hear snippets of “grown-up conversation”, the idea of restorative sleep easily sacrificed in order to be part of the action. As I got older and opportunities for new experiences became more accessible, I never really learned to consider my limits of time or energy in the equation. I just said “yes” before consulting my gut AND listening to my wiser, inner self. When I agreed to something, my enthusiasm was genuine. I was so excited and honored to be thought of and included. I was authentically curious about how I could participate and lend my voice to a project. I wanted to play. And even though I may have had too much on my plate and my self-care was precarious, I would say “yes” almost automatically, and with vigor. Fear Of Missing Out is about just that – missing out. I imagined and worried that, if I said “no”, the person I am meant to meet at the venue, the opportunity that I may have encountered if I don’t do the thing, the connection or skill that I could only gain in this way, will be forever lost to me. What if the very thing I needed to learn that will change my life is only accessible by doing this project? I might not get this chance again. So I said “yes”. I fully subscribed to the axioms “Life is short. Sleep when you die” and “Say yes to everything. You never know when the Universe is guiding you to your destiny”. I found that my seemingly boundless energy was rewarded by my environment, offering me even more opportunities to do even more things. I became the “go-to girl” when you need something done. It was exhausting. Naturally, this kind of living has an expiration date. Wisdom and experience have helped me understand the value of discernment as I decide where to put my precious energy. I also had a little help from a healthier adage that I adopted a few years ago: “What is meant for me will not miss me.” This lens involves a bit of trust and a surrender of control. I don’t need to remain ever vigilant for the experiences I’m “supposed to have” to enrich my life. If I can trust that I am right where I am meant to be, then whatever experiences I am intended to have to step into fully becoming myself will present themselves again and again. Until I am ready to say “Yes”. This may sound familiar if you’re conversant with the model of The Hero’s Journey. The Hero can refuse the call to adventure as much as he or she wants, but what is destined is persistent and will not give up on us so easily. It’s not just a single shot and a lifetime of regret for having not taken it. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of saying “no” and having the opportunity come around again at a time that was perhaps better suited for you? Or perhaps gaining more from an experience because you were more mature and ready for the teachings it had to offer? When I can remember that life is not linear but a cyclical co-creation between my readiness and the opportunities that arise, I can release my fear that I will be missing out. An important reminder as we head into the chaos of the holiday season. While it’s problematic to let every opportunity pass us by, it can be just as fruitless to engage in them all. I’ve also learned how to really enjoy my sleep. ![]() By Hillary Rubesin, PhD, LIMHP, REAT “Draw a dot in the middle of the page.” I make my mark and await the next instructions. “Now write about what you see.” One of my supervisees is testing out an arts-based therapeutic process before presenting it to her clients. I focus on the dot, and my thoughts immediately go to my son—an 18-month-old with various medical issues and developmental delays. I notice fear, anger, sadness, and guilt tightening my throat as the “dot” lodges itself in my windpipe. I write for a few minutes before my supervisee gently calls me back. “Did you write about the dot or the space around the dot?” I pause. I had not even considered the space around the dot. I was so focused on the small, black circle that I never noticed the openness surrounding it. Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy is based around the idea that, by transitioning between different art forms—such as music, visual art, drama, writing, and movement—one can gain new and deepened insight. I use intermodal expressive arts therapy in client sessions, in supervision sessions, in my teaching, and in my own personal healing. A few hours after this particular supervision session, I decide to return to the dot. I explore the image further through Authentic Movement, a somatic practice created by Mary Starks Whitehouse that involves a “mover” moving their body intuitively while a nonjudgmental “witness” observes. With the paper as my “witness,” I allow my body to engage with the dot. I curl into a ball and give myself permission to fully experience the grief I am holding about my son. Although the feelings are intense and painful, the grieving process almost feels easy. This is a space I’ve occupied many times before. Far more difficult is braving the space beyond the dot. I move cautiously at first, exploring the outer bounds of the dot with my eyes closed. Surprisingly, the open space is peaceful. There is so much room here. I stretch out. I breathe. Soon I am on my knees, tentatively crawling around the space, just like my son is still learning how to do. Letting my body take control, I begin “digging” into my carpet, “planting” tiny seeds. I plant seeds everywhere, almost frenetically, and then I sit back, exhausted yet calm. I remain in this liminal space for a few minutes longer, not sure of how or if the seeds will grow. Suddenly, I notice I am sitting on the imaginal dot. I am able to be in both spaces at once, holding both wonder and fear. I am whole. I am okay. I sit with that for a moment. I breathe in deeply and think about my son. For the first time in a long time, another voice rises within me: We are okay. If you are interested in individual therapy, upcoming trainings, and/or professional supervision using intermodal expressive arts therapy, please contact Hillary at [email protected] ![]() by Laura Crosby Let’s play with our little friend Distraction. No judgment or guilt. Just curiosity and kindness. It’s a guilt-ridden topic. “Distracted by distractions” is something we’re not supposed to be. Maybe it’s on the unwritten list of self-improvements underneath “be a better person.” Thinking about it can be uncomfortable. Deep breath. No need to go to war with ourselves. Second, we can handle a little discomfort together, can’t we? And we are together in this. Who among us is immune to the crush of things vying for our attention? As I relate to my own distract-ability in this Epidemic of Distraction, I tend to blame technology first — for obvious good reasons. The “news” runs a close second, and the two seem addictively enmeshed. In fact, distractions today (and our addiction to them) seem unique to our New Media Age. After all, you don’t find epidemics of distraction in the history books. So let’s acknowledge that “today’s world” is manipulating our attention and literally driving us to distraction. But what else is at play here? How do we relate to distraction? Are we victim or author of our habits of distraction? Where is our agency and what is our intention? When T.S. Eliot described being, “distracted from distraction by distraction,” he captured today’s nuanced, complex predicament of distraction – only he did so long before smart phones, internet, social media, email, texting, open AI, and device-driven cars, jobs, and homes. For poetry fans, he writes: … Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Excerpted from Burnt Norton by T.S.Eliot (circa 1936) “Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” Eliot claims in the same poem. He writes of “inner freedom from the practical desire,” of “release from action and suffering … from the inner and the outer compulsion.” These are longings of the human heart, transcending time, place, technology. One interpretation of the Tao Te Ching says this about our reaction to “very much” reality: “Restless energy keeps saying, ‘Not this, something else.” It keeps us looking for an escape, A return to something called ‘normal.’” The Caregiver’s Tao Te Ching by William and Nancy Martin Not this. Something else. This is referred to as the beginning of the “suffering cycle.” So, are we habitually and restlessly distracting ourselves from “this,” looking for an escape to something normal or better? Can we notice whether this is true without making a problem out of it? Can we understand when and how this causes suffering? It’s not about finding fault. Attention is especially vulnerable to patterns of distraction when we believe things unbearable, unpleasant, or underwhelming. And yet, according to The Caregiver’s Tao Te Ching, “… we do have another choice. We can [allow] this unsettled energy … the sensations will peak and then ebb away. We do not need to make ourselves calm. Everything quiets down on its own.” With mindfulness comes choice. Kind awareness sees clearly. It brings us home to our intention, and allows things just as they are, staying present as distractions, restless energy, or underlying stories and emotions arise and pass away. There is curiosity and deeper knowing — am I looking for an escape? Is what I am believing true? What needs my attention? From this space can come a conscious choice. And perhaps with conscious choice there can be an understanding that, “Knowing what to do is not as important as knowing when to stop doing it,” to quote again from The Caregiver’s Tao. ![]() By Pamela Mueggenberg, MA, LMHP I have been deep diving into neurobiology podcasts lately. Listening to neuroscientists, neurologists, and neuropsychiatrists talking about the squishy stuff between our ears has been a fascinating distraction from more concrete endeavors (should I tackle insurance billing or have scientists explain glial cells to me? Hmmm!). I am also learning more about just how entangled our brains are, how infinitely complex these systems are, and how little I know about how our beautiful, transcendent machine of a body experiences and navigates the world. You may have heard of Polyvagal Theory, popularized by Bessel Van Der Kolk in his breakout book The Body Keeps the Score. The idea explores our vagus nerve, one of our cranial nerves that begins in the base of the brain and then goes basically everywhere in our body. It traces along our digestive tract, encircles our kidneys and stomach, tells our heart to slow down or speed up, even travels up our neck through our jaw and over our ears. Polyvagal theorists believe that as we navigate the world different bands in our vagus nerve are activated to provide connection, protection, or shutting us down when things get to be too much. If we can exercise or activate the vagus nerve and heal our relationship with it, then perhaps we are better able to heal from trauma, stress, and disconnection. Polyvagal Theory has fundamentally transformed how people think about trauma. Being able to embody security, focus on connection, and regain a sense of safety through the lens of this theory can make my work as a therapist be much more effective. However, clinicians are ethically obligated to follow the science and since the theory has been in practice, research has shown that there is much, much more to the story. Working with the vagus nerve, we have systems upon systems that are providing a fuller picture of how we feel, how we think, and how we believe the world to be. The cannabinoidal system. The serotinergic system. The HPA axis. The gut-brain axis. The vestibular system. The limbic system. All these systems talk to themselves and each other, and all of them can be pushed off-kilter when we have difficult experiences. We can begin the journey of healing through this major pathway of the vagus nerve, but we need to understand how our thoughts, our medication, our diet, our sleep-wake cycles, our hormones and loads of other variables have to be addressed. We can think of ourselves in discrete parts: the brain, the heart, the gut, the soul. To do so would be turning away from the more complicated, messier, and far more interesting idea that we are music. There are so many instruments, contributing their song to create a vast orchestral piece. We cannot focus on, say, just the violins and declare us treated. Rather, we need to find a harmony within them, make sure they’re all in tune, and thus find peace in ourselves. To read our monthly newsletter, click here. ![]() By Louisa Foster, PsyD, RDT/BCT I have a made it a practice of turning off the news as of late. Yes, I know I have written about this before. I share it here again because it is an ongoing commitment I must make to myself, especially as the political landscape begins to burn its way into our consciousness again. It was a gradual disconnection which began with relying on aural media only, to spare myself the images of suffering, loss, and plain idiocy. Now, I find myself staying informed through friends, trusting that anything that I truly need to know to maintain my status as a world citizen will make its way to me through them. Though I will admit that I now worry about them and their exposure to toxic storytelling and heightened fear-driven rhetoric. There are challenging days ahead. We know this in our bones. Though we may not yet feel the bite of change, we know it is imminent. We are holding a breath that will need to be exhaled when the forces that are brewing conflict and mischief in our world finally clash. We hunger for ways to make sense of this chaotic world, as we teeter on the edge of the unknown abyss, where the world before us is shrouded in dark gauze. Imperceptible, frightening even, as the unknown always is. What will the coming months bring as we navigate the treacherous roads of political division, cultural strain, climate change, willful ignorance, and uninformed self-righteousness? There is a palpable sense that monsters lurk around every corner, and we find ourselves ill-prepared to face them. But there have been monsters before. These monsters that call out in each of us our highest capacity as monster hunters and bringers of the light. And there will be monsters again, as the wheel of human experience continues to turn ever forward. Our forefathers and foremothers had better tools to handle these liminal spaces. Before the advent of science and mathematics to explain our world, our ancestors relied on myth, story, and oral tradition to explain not only the sacred, but the mundane as well. Once the age of reason began to supplant our communal storytelling practices and dismiss any pursuits of knowledge that could not be empirically validated, we left the path of image-based learning and healing in favor of the quantifiable and concrete. Yet both are needed to navigate the challenges of our world. We must be able to understand at profound levels both our tangible reality and our inspired dreams of who we can be, as individuals, as community, as a nation, and as a planet. Here, at this time in history, we find ourselves on the precipice of what is both sacred and what is profane - two archetypes that often travel together in unremitting and uncomfortable tension. However, from these moments, if we can stay present and alive in this discomfort, if we can hold the tension of these opposites, a glorious third option may emerge. In honoring all those who have come before, in the millennia that have encompassed all human experience, all those who have weathered discomfort, political corruption, a commitment to greed rather than compassion, we know that we can survive this threshold space. We might ask “What new, or rather, what old tools can we bring to these experiences?”. Surely the answer does not lie in the news, in reality television, or in the circles of despair that we gather in to bemoan the state of the world. Perhaps it is time to look towards old stories for the answers? Perhaps it is time to let go of the idea that logic and rationality, in the absence of expansiveness and mystery, are enough to bring us through? Both are needed now. Only both the collected logic of rational thought, as well as the aspirational reverie and poetry of the human experience can help us cross this threshold. In the coming months, I invite you to join me on an exploration of both modern and ancient stories, old and new traditions, and art making in service of facing the monsters, both internal and external. This series of workshops use an art form known as Mythopoesis, the writing of our own personal myth, to be used as a lantern to illuminate our path as we move forward through the dark. Let us together banish those forces that keep us from experiencing our own power. This is an opportunity to shed a skin that no longer fits, to experience ourselves and the world through the eyes of old wisdom and, together, to find the third option. In these workshops, we will steward the old stories and rebirth them in our modern understanding. We will rewrite our own stories and join together, not to feed our grief, but to honor it, and to experience ourselves in a community dedicated to seeking our own wisdom for the betterment of all. *Our first Mythopoesis workshop will take place at the end of October (see above). Stay tuned for more information. ![]() By Kara Cavel, LICSW, Ph.D. If you have read my contributions to the CML Newsletter in the past, you know how I love to use the practice of Tarot to ground and center me. In keeping with this newly established tradition of writing about this practice, I would like to offer a meditation on “The Lovers.” I chose this card because it is the 6th card in the Smith-Rider Waite Tarot deck, one of the 22 cards known as the Major Arcana, and June is the 6th month of the year. The card is full of imagery, but to summarize, we see two people standing in a garden, the Tree of Life behind the male figure, the Tree of Knowledge behind the female figure, and an angel overlooking both. The number six represents harmony, cooperation, and reciprocity. The two states of reason (head) and passion (heart) are invited to emerge and join as one, helping us consider how to reach a divine and awakened spark within. This spark is difficult to achieve in isolation, and “The Lovers” card suggests that love of others, as a spiritual practice, helps us transcend life’s separation from each other and all beings, returning to the mystical ideal of wholeness. The angel hovers to remind us that we are not alone and that if we look closely and with intention, we can discover connections with all beings despite our differences. Recently, my partner and I helped one of our senior pets cross the rainbow bridge. This was a difficult decision, but we made it our last act of love to help our beloved animal leave his physical body in peace, surrounded by care and calm. A few days later, a small bird with hints of green feathers flew into our sliding glass door. My heart, tender from our recent loss, cried for the bird as we moved her to safety. We brought a bottle cap full of water and sat with the bird for a while. To my surprise, the bird recovered and flew away. Relief and joy filled my heart, and the connection I felt for the beings of our world was strengthened. “The Lovers” card reminds to make the decision to love, to ask what I can learn about love from others, and to learn the lessons from others that I may not really want to learn (like how to let go). In both the love I had for our beloved pet, and the concern I had for the temporarily injured bird, I was invited to understand the lesson of letting go and embracing the difficult cycle of birth, death, and re-birth. During the season of summer, it seems like growth and love are abundant. People are tending to their gardens, flowers, chickens, and walking outdoors more with their furry friends. Everywhere I look, I see the magic of how tending to something with love facilitates growth. And as the summer fades and we transition into yet another season, we will find that there is love in the process of letting go, as we see all that we have tended to slowly move into the dormancy of the winter months. Let the most abundant season of our year, teach us the importance of how love transforms. |
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