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The Reservoir of Our Soul

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My morning walk usually takes me up the watershed road at the end out street. It leads me past an old reservoir, about thirty feet in diameter and then past a new one three times the size before ending at a flat area of the forest where I have a view of the West Lion, a mountain that oversees Vancouver. I normally pay little attention to the reservoirs, preferring the smell, sight and sounds of the forest, yet I do appreciate them for they provide fresh water to our village. Our water comes from snow melt rather than the big lake reservoirs that feed the city. The water is collected high up the mountain from the creek that runs below our home, transported to the reservoir, treated there by our works crew and delivered to my tap. All so simple, yet complex. I admit I take for granted the ease of turning on the tap, forgetting the process that allows it to flow freely and cleanly into our home.

This week was a bit different for I heard a talk about the reservoir of our soul. Oh, I know reservoirs! The teacher was describing the presence of God’s love within us as a reservoir. We are invited to open the door of our heart and let the reservoir of LOVE flow through us.

Have you ever seen a reservoir? Perhaps a huge tank or maybe a lake behind a dam…… Imagine with me a huge reservoir of love within you. God’s LOVE rests there, waiting for the work crew to open the valve and let it flow. This week I found myself wanting to open the door of my heart and let LOVE flow through me, flow freely and cleanly to those around me.

We are containers of this precious LOVE of God. Sometimes God’s LOVE can flow spontaneously through us, but often it helps if we intentionally seek to open the door of our heart, agreeing with, aligning ourselves with, the Spirit’s desire to flow into the world.

We are reservoirs of LOVE. Open the door of my heart to allow your LOVE to flow through me, through us today.

love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute of Contemplative Living

One Day at the Beach

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It is so good to be home. I’m privileged to live in a place of stunning natural beauty; forest surrounds me, creek runs freely beside me, ocean lies before, sky above and the Earth beneath holds me. Since I arrived almost seven years ago, I’ve heard the trees call me into stillness. They invite me to stop rushing, stop doing and be with them, just breathe and be still. Might I allow their ways to be my ways? May I be grounded, deeply rooted, connected to those around me, often in hidden ways, protecting those who need support, letting my seeds fall generously, and accepting that my growth is slow and steady, gradually expanding till I’m done and fall into the earth leaving behind goodness that will help others grow. Ah to be Tree-like.

On one of the last days of our holiday, my family was off on another bike trip, and I opted for some quiet beach time. The beach is clear and clean, running for kilometres along the west coast of the island. That day the air was crisp and the sun warm so the few other people with me on the beach wore jeans and jackets as they walked, played ball or rested. It was a quiet beach day. Just off from the waters’ edge I found a log, spread my towel and leaned back delighted to have a resting spot, a gazing spot to take in the beach and the relentless ocean waves. The tide was fairly high, and the surf was gentle that day. Held by the sand and log I felt at home, at ease and then the questions emerged, ‘What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?’.

Those are deep existential questions that many of us ask at different points in our lives. I value those questions and believe they have answers. Often, I’ve been driven to think they are task questions that lead me to take actions, and they may be. They can also be ‘being’ questions that lead me to reflect on my life and see if my walk matches my talk and consider my level of genuineness. Am I being as much myself as I might be today?  So usually I’ve listened to those questions as either task, or being focused, but right now I’m considering them differently, from the perspective of soul growth. What is the fundamental reason for the life of Elizabeth Anne Langley Crosthwait?

My Tree Friends help me find a still point and from there it didn’t take long to find an answer. Now I’m seeking to live into the answer. I have no doubt that each of us has a purpose, a reason for being here. Have you pondered yours lately? What do you know as the purpose of your life?

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

A Foggy Day

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“What weather system would describe how you’re arriving this morning?”. When I was asked that question this week to introduce myself in a small group, I clearly saw the weather beyond my window, was also my interior weather system. I felt cloudy and misty, a bit drizzly, rather like living in a fog. I had arrived home from overseas two days before and still hadn’t caught up with this time zone, nor had my psyche arrived. I usually find some internal part of me says ‘Just how did you wake up in Paris and go to sleep in Lions Bay, Anne?’. The jet whirl just doesn’t make sense to me! I guess internally I would prefer to live in a world where I walked everywhere. Then there would be no waking in Paris and sleeping in Lions Bay!

I’m digressing… what I realized today was that although I have felt like I was in a fog, I actually heard the Foghorn regularly. I had all sorts of wonderful encounters during this foggy week. Last night when I realized I hadn’t done much writing I began to  look back and thought there was NOTHING going on all week. I just felt lost, confused, and in a fog; waking at 3.00am, falling asleep at 2.00pm, too tired to take on any tasks, simply wanting to read an entertaining novel…. but then I replayed my week and wow… I realized that I had many gifts; the delight of being in our home, in one of the most beautiful parts of the world – oh how I have missed it; a conversation that touched on stubborn optimism, radical abundance and regeneration as a life pathway; the new picture on my phone and how much joy I know each time I look at those people; a group that explored the tension between rules and freedom, how to both create a safe container and allow people freedom to be themselves; another group that pondered new beginnings and trusting deeply in the movement and guiding presence of God; catching up with friends with whom I dearly love sharing life; a moment where I knew I was held, knew we are all held by Divine Love.

When I looked back on my foggy week, I could hear the Divine Foghorn sounding again and again. Even when I don’t think anything of eternal significance is happening, it’s still happening. Why? Because God is ALWAYS present. ALWAYS. God is the sustaining power that sustains all of life. And God is always working good in our lives. Even when I feel cloudy headed, drizzly and lost in a mist. Even then. Now, will I open my eyes, my ears, my heart and receive the call?

How about you? What weather system would describe your current state of being? Where is the Light shining?

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

The Wound Wants to be Touched

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What began as a routine medical appointment transformed into a spiritual opening.

After many kilometres on a bike, a very soft bed, and a non-existent pillow a Dear One in my life ended up with enough new aches and pains that we sought out an osteopath during our holiday in France. We were delighted to find she spoke English confidently and even more delighted as she debriefed her treatment session with us. First, she asked a lot of questions, then moved into questions and exploratory treatment, followed by treatment and finally a conversation with us about what had happened.

As she began her treatment, she noted that the body welcomes the healing touch. At one point I saw her hands on a recent surgery scar. As she held her touch lightly on the scar I could see the muscles nearby begin to twitch. Later she said that a wound wants to be touched. She encouraged a regular, gentle massage for the scar which would stimulate healing throughout the muscle. I didn’t know that a scar was more than a superficial mark. It actually goes deep into the muscles and gentle movements help the deep scar to heal.  

A wound wants to be touched. What’s true physically is true emotionally. In both my psychological and spiritual training, I’ve been taught to slow down, be present to the part of me that is reactive or resistant. That’s an indication of a deep wound. It wants to be looked at, acknowledged, and touched. It wants to be healed….even if it seems resistant. Often our wounds can seem to run away, but they don’t. It more likely our ego that doesn’t want to unsettle the status quo. We’ve learnt how to live with a certain amount of pain, how to compensate in the way we walk, or the way we relate to others. Looking at, and even touching our wound changes our equilibrium. It may unsettle our ego, but our wound is waiting for us to help it heal. Will we slow down, be attentive to the call and invite the Spirit to gently move our wound, bringing healing to our deepest part? Will we? Or will we rush through our days, pushing reactivity, resistance or pain away?

Our wounds are waiting to be touched. Is this the day to slow down and gently touch a tender part of your being?

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

New Beginnings

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Fifty-two years ago, for five months I lived in a small village in Turkey. In the first century it had a been a flourishing Roman port with everything a Roman city offers; for worship a temple to Apollo, this one on a point of land overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, for entertainment a coliseum seating thousands, for exercise a gymnasium, and streets of homes some of which faced the sea. It was a lively vibrant port. The centuries roll by and now as it’s on the seacoast with beaches stretching on either side it’s an active tourist destination When I was there I had the privilege of being in a sleepy Turkish village; chickens ran around, our milk came from the cow that lived next door, and water from the village well. The Roman city was evident everywhere you looked. Not only were the remnants of those major structures still in place, but the current houses were often built out of Roman bricks. The villagers had taken apart the ruins, selecting any of the bricks they saw that looked useful and using them to create something new. Out of the old something new emerged. There were piles of bricks that they couldn’t use, but others were used to build solid stone homes, quite different from other nearby villages.

This week I’m intrigued by the idea of something new coming out of something that has been. Perhaps it’s part of this season for Easter is a time of new life, of Beginnings.  Most of our beginnings are really Emergings – something new coming out of something that already has been; a new season of life, a new way of living, a reframing of what I’ve known before, a new perspective. I was with a group this week and we shared the awareness of feeling ourselves called into a new way to be. Our conversation turned to our church experiences. We are a group who are theologically trained, scripturally taught and value our background yet seldom attend church anymore. It seems like a Roman ruin that has had its time. We wonder how we might be part of the dismantling and re-creating process. How do we take the church apart, retain those bits that are still relevant, and create something new for the next generation. Out of the old, could something new emerge? Our conversation ended on that image of the transformation of that Turkish village and I hold it wondering about the church. What is the Spirit overseeing in the church today?

I also know the new beginnings are for my own life too. There are aspects of Roman ruins in my life too; things that no longer serve me. It’s time to release them, time to no longer be as responsible and self-sufficient as my old operating system programmed me. Time for something new to emerge; not losing all of my old ways, but just those I don’t need and repurposing them to suit this new season of life. I’m not done yet. Something’s coming. Something’s Emerging.

As you experience the church or your own life, how is the Spirit working?

Love and prayers on this wonderful, ever-changing journey of life

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute of Contemplative Living.

The Human Cycle

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It’s Holy Saturday and I’m enjoying the stillness. Out of it comes my Easter 2024 reflections.

In a small group on Good Friday, I had a moment where I saw one of the flows in human life. When I was serving in parishes I used to enjoy Holy Week, slowing down and focusing on what happened to Jesus. The last three days were special; Good Friday with facing betrayal and suffering, Holy Saturday with waiting in emptiness and the Easter explosion of new life. Some parishes required a Vigil Saturday night and although I know people enjoyed the richness of that service, it meant for us a very busy Saturday for bonfires, readings, music, movement and bells don’t just happen. I preferred the times when Holy Saturday was a tomb day, still and quiet.

On Friday I saw how this special weekend is an image of the cycles in our lives. We regularly experience Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter, for throughout our life we have times of suffering, times of waiting, times of new beginnings. Our Christian story has us slow down each year to linger in these experiences. Too often in our lives we rush through the tough times, times of betrayal, when we deeply hurt, feel rejected, isolated and weep. Who wants to linger in that pain? Yet if we don’t pause in it, that pain will go somewhere else in our body or psyche. Holy Saturday is about waiting, the edge of the pain has eased a bit, times when we feel confused, lost, uncertain. The disciples didn’t know Easter was coming. They were caught, bound by their confusion and grief. We need times of waiting too, times when it feels like nothing is happening, nothing, feeling lost and confused. Often it’s a gradual springing that takes place, tiny buds begin to give us a new way forward. Occasionally its an explosion of understanding, but often it’s a slow birthing of a new way to walk in the world. The wounds are there, but they’re healing, bringing wisdom, different perspective on self and others. We move through this cycle repeatedly in our lives.

Good Friday – Holy Saturday – Easter

Suffering – Waiting – New Life

Crisis – Hibernation – Rebirth

Storms –Grey Skies – Sunshine

Our lives flow through these cycles all the time. Sometimes it takes months, even years for the cycle, yet other times it might be days or hours. It could happen all in one day. Our invitation is to let the cycle happen; be present to the pain, not running from it but feeling it; be present to the time of waiting, not rushing it along but valuing the process; be present to the change that is coming alive in you, giving it room to expand and guide you. Be present each day to what you have in that day.

May you receive the Easter Blessing that is yours for today.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Follow the Thread

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There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread. —- William Stafford: The Way It Is

Contemplative Fire introduced me to this poem last Sunday and I immediately felt a bit ‘yes’, for I’ve followed a thread all my life. Have you?   

For me the thread is the call of God on my life. There is no other reason for me to be here than to seek a closer experience of the Divine and to let that Light shine through me so other lives will be touched. The call has been constant since childhood. Sometimes I’ve only held my thread loosely, but it’s always nearby. People have laughed at me, misunderstood me, and rejected me because of how I was as I held on to the thread. I was only doing what I knew how to do. Yes, at times I wanted to explain too much to too many people. It took me years to learn that not everyone walks with the same thread.

I’m grateful for the thread. It grows larger and stronger as I age. I have a deep sense of holding onto the Divine Thread; Spirit is leading, guiding my journey. Yes, I actively participate in it. I have decisions to make, choices that are mine, yet the Big Picture is the Divine’s, and she is leading me home. I’m grateful in this season to know so many other people who are following the same thread I am. Nothing lonely here. I feel like a child at daycare, holding a rope with my buddies. We’re walking together to the park and it’s good. I yearn that more people will walk with us.

I know my thread but there could be other ones; people, beliefs, philosophies, values, rhythms…. What’s your thread?

What is it that changes? Who has questioned your choices? To whom have you tried to explain yourself? What tragedies have you walked through? How has the thread been your guide? How do you feel with life unfolding before you?

Thank you William for putting your experience into a poem for us to share.

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Tides

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This week, one of the Spirit movements I knew was around how life ebbs and flows. We don’t live on mountaintops or in valleys; we live on the road that ascends and descends.

I was enjoying an intentional conversation with a friend when she spoke of the tides of life; sometimes everything flows into place giving us a full and rich feeling, whereas other times life energy seems to slip away leaving an empty beach, even with bits of rubbish left behind. Those ebbs and flows are as natural as the seasons. In my culture I wasn’t taught to let nature be my teacher, definitely my loss, our loss as a society. We are here on earth, in these very human bodies, yet don’t recognize that we’re interrelated to one another and to the earth. How different my life might have been if I’d been taught to let nature be a teacher. Maybe I would have found an easier way to walk through the world.  

In the past few months, I’ve known high tides and low tides, spring and summer as well as fall and winter. I’ve known times of deep clarity and connection with Divine, and other moments of human fragility and sorrow. Years ago, as I began to learn Ignatian spirituality I received the rich teaching about humility; walk gently each day seeking neither health nor sickness, riches nor poverty, fame nor ignominy; seek only the Holy One, all other aspects of life will, in the very end, pass away; seek that which is lasting.

It’s easy for most of us to savour the high tides, when heart swells with goodness, kindness and compassion. But those low tides….when I wake in the morning feeling sad, or scared or worried; when someone bumps into me emotionally and I question who I am; when rubbish from long ago surfaces again into my consciousness and I embrace it as valuable….ah to honor those times too. To be able to see low tides and the stuff that is left exposed as part of me, to accept that unacceptable side with as much care as the glistening full tidal waters…and to help others do the same. ….Ah now there is the work of a life time.

Tides, they come and they go. Walk gently not as Velcro but as a silk scarf. Whatever state you’re in now, it will pass. Spirit’s love and care will not.

Love and prayers on the journey,

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Walking the Way of the Heart

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Recently, my morning contemplation took me to Rembrandt, ‘Woman with a Pink’. From shadowy depths we have a young woman holding a flower. Instead of gazing at the pink flower, her eyes are averted. She’s in deep contemplation of something. I wonder what. As humans we reflect, ponder, and wonder deeply about who we are, what’s going on around us. We’re capable of instinctively seeking meaning and purpose from our activities, relationships and lives; that ability sets us apart as humans.

I’m curious about this woman and what she is pondering. She holds a pink flower, a symbol of love, but she’s not gazing at it. Her eyes are averted. Why is she not looking at the only other object in the picture? Where did it come from? Who gave her the flower? If it’s a gift of love, why are her eyes averted? Did she want a bouquet and she got a single flower? Was the giver not to her pleasure? Is she counting the cost of love? Is she feeling the pathway of love that she must walk even though she lacks the feelings of love?

What a gift Rembrandt is for he invites me to ask; when have I averted my eyes from love? ………Oh yes, I can feel it – when I get busy with tasks and avoid the people around me; when I walk past the homeless; those mornings I wake up and feel the door of my heart closed; in conversations when my heart retreats and I’m not fully present. All those times I’m averting my eyes from love.

There’s a path that we’re invited to walk in life, the Way of the Heart. Again, the Universe is repeating herself for I keep bumping into that reminder – through art, through my yoga class where I’m invited to be aware of opening my heart, through my devotional reading, and then a new book ‘Dare to Feel’. It’s our choice whether we’ll walk it or not; we’re always loved. How often do my eyes turn away from LOVE? How often do I choose to walk the path of closure?

Stepping forward, I declare to you Gentle Reader, that I want to walk the Way of the Heart. I know I’m already on the path, yet I want to climb higher, go deeper. I know I’ll stumble and fall as I go. I want to live fully, to let God’s Being flow through me more clearly and cleanly, brining more LIGHT to the world. That’s what I want. The Way of the Heart is the path. I was programmed as a child to hide; I’ve learned to be open; I want now to fling open the door of my heart even wider. Gulp. Thank you, Rembrandt. Here I go. How about you?

Love and prayers for the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

A Pilgrimage to Genuine

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Last week was challenging for me. The events asked me to look deep within, see some of junk inside me, sort it out, hold the pain, let it go, consider forgiveness and turn toward a new way. It was work. But isn’t that how the road to ‘Genuine’ is paved?

I like living peacefully. I like when everything within me is humming along, and I feel contented and well. The last few weeks haven’t been like that. I’ve found that family can press my buttons like no one else. Unconsciously they ‘know’ me and can say, do or not say, or not do, just what jerks my internal world. Ah yes, family. I think that’s one of the reasons we are in families! If life here is all about soul growth, and I believe that the main reason I’m here is for my own soul growth and to help others in their growth, then the best training ground are those long term, sometimes safe and nourishing, but often conflicted, family relationships.

In the last few weeks family members, while simply being themselves, have poked a stick or two into my inner pond and stirred up the mud. They’ve unintentionally tossed stones onto my path and dug potholes. They’ve changed the road signs. They’ve taken down road signs. And I’ve gotten lost, bewildered and confused.

I’m on a pilgrimage to genuine. I want to follow the aroma of authenticity. This week I said I’d do something that I didn’t want to do. I said ‘yes’ without ever considering the soul cost. I lost my peace, being ugly and noisy as I became argumentative. I needed to retrace my steps, go back to where I lost direction, say gently what I needed to say and return to my pilgrimage to genuine.

Just before I veered off the path, I’d found a quote from the young, yet old poet, Cole Arthur Riley, “I’ve accepted that the whole of my life will be a pilgrimage toward the sound of genuine in me.”. Nicely spoken. I agree. It helps me to know others are walking the road with me. We are not alone. Companions on the Way. Thank you for being there to keep me company and help me get up when I stumble.

Love and prayers on the journey,

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living