As I travel in my chair, praying…

An updated entry from years ago, now…and no less true. Happy 223rd Birthday to the Society of the Sacred Heart! Sitting here in my usual morning chair, praying…I close my eyes and cruise around the world…to different political/humanitarian situations… to sisters I know…to provinces I know and provinces I have not yet seen…and I spiral…

These are the Elements: A poem composed after Communion

Composed After Communion at Saint Andrew’s, 14 November, 2023 These are the elementsof earth and all withinand all before and what will be.We too are the elements, we who spark and shine, cleave, combust, create.When these, the bread, the wine,are taken in together as onewe know again the Great Becoming—All elements, one table,one Source, one awakening.We are each…

Shadow, Light, and Hope: Sometimes things Converge

I put a post up this past Saturday that included the well known quotation from Julian of Norwich and an add-on from me: All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. For there is a force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast…

These November Things (poem)

I had a beautiful conversation this morning and at one point my friend said, “These November things…” “Such a good title,” I said. These November Things The grey light beckoning,gently murmuring with sunlight,like a well known blanket rising. Walking the astral mosaic,the orange and the yellow, green, redstars, shining on the footpath heading homeward. The…

And Love your Neighbour as Yourself

A homily from this morning… When I work with people on writing…when I listen to people speaking… I am often thinking about coat hangers… the framework for the ideas or the story being presented.  Can I tell what it is?  Is there a foundation or a discernible structure…or, have the sentences all fallen to a…

Saturday Prayer

I began the morning with a trip to the Farmer’s Market. I go every Saturday I can and most of the time, I come away with veg or bread or fruit building blocks for meals during the coming week. I go for the produce, and I go for the aesthetics. I love the textures, the…

Wind-Watching, Life-Feathering

There are many things I enjoy about flying a kite: the time to think expansive sky thoughts and the time to simply let go of thought entirely; the simplicity of it—time, string, energy, resistance, direction; the fact that it happens most often in wide open places; the independent alive-ness of the kite—I have the string…

The Assignment

The assignment was to fall in love. The details were up to you. -Louise Glück- This was a recent contribution to the near daily morning message exchange with a friend. Our on-line conversation began during the Pandemic and we have kept it up…sometimes a photo, sometimes a song, often a snippet of a work or…

Stained-Glass Verse

There are days when I breathe deepest within the cradle of sensory input…When I need to push against something that already is in order to make space for what I am feeling or thinking. Coffeeshops are often perfect for that…it is indifferent input, asking nothing of me, not requiring response and not interrupting…just a steady…

Summer’s Kitchen

A Summer Kitchen The stillness of time alone in a summer kitchen,time given to the grace of preparing cool foods for sharing,soothes my being,  my humid thinking,my heat thickened body that turns toward the herb-clean subtlety passing through on air that also holds birdsong in its breath… Basil and chickadee,  blue jay and lemon thyme;the cedar waxwing…