You are here to re-member the world of love
You are here to re-member the world of love
We make the world sacred by our attention to the sacred.
To my new subscribers: Welcome! It’s my honor to invite you into my world. Thank you for being here.
To everyone: Welcome back. I haven’t written for a little while so in this newsletter, we’ll do some catching up.
This is one of my husband’s stealth photos of me. He caught me, deep in contemplation (and in my pajamas). Surrounded by papers, sitting on the floor of my office. This is my happy place. Sorting my work into piles. One pile for my memoir, one for The School of Magic and Miracles (Squee!!), a small pile of watercolor projects (my new fun thing), and a pile for my ongoing workshops —Journey, Writing Spirit, and New Moon at the Well.
There’s a lot of new energy coursing through my world - and, as always at the beginning of a new project, I’m feeling a mix of gratitude, inspiration, determination and uh-oh. Knowing this is normal for me, understanding my own creative process helps me flow what is asking to move through me more easily - helps me enjoy it all much more.
I thought I’d greet you this Saturday morning with a bit of an update. Here’s what’s been going on where I am.
Smoke:
Last month, in the rural suburb of New York where I live, we experienced a new kind of lock down when smoke from the Canadian wildfires sent us all inside again. Behind a yellow haze, the sky was blue, the sun bright but we, inside, found ourselves sitting by the window again. It was eerie and strange, reminding us how interconnected we all are on this tiny blue pearl planet.
Revisiting the past and letting it go:
Every time I sit down to write, I find myself revisiting my biography. Maybe this happens at my age - I turn 66 next month and for some reason, this birthday feels ‘big’. Bigger than 65, it feels as if I’m stepping into elderhood — I’m refusing to use the phrase ‘old age’. I feel younger today than ever. If we don’t count the need to put my weary legs up the wall every afternoon. Whatever the reason, I find myself looking back over my life and looking ahead to what I still want (and need) to do, see and complete before I go.
Making this list… over and over
I want to say yes more - and so, I am.
It’s part of my spiritual practice. Oh, you are inviting me to speak? Yes. Oh, you would like to interview me? Yes. An invitation to the beach, to the city, to a dinner party? Yes. Yes. Yes.With all of the yes-saying, I am experiencing such gratitude and enjoying many new experiences. Why was I saying no? I’d gotten used to being quiet, solitary. I noticed this and asked (through prayer and journaling) for invitation.
I want a wider, deeper life. This is related to accepting invitation. To noticing the depth and width of the life I already have.
I need to travel again. Back to the West Coast. Back to France. I need to walk into the entrance at Chartres and hear ‘her’ whisper, Welcome home again. (That story is here.) Travel does something to me - rearranges my stagnant energy, restacks my chi. It refills and refuels me. I need it. Therefore…
I am deliberately shifting habits that bind me to a way of life that feels too small for me. I am wide and deep. I am vastly creative. I am fountains of joy and color. What space can hold this? What environments support this?
I am ready to network - to visit other peoples’ podcasts and invite them onto mine. Ready to see how other people are thriving (and struggling) their way through our post-Covid reality. The world has changed and being pushed back indoors by the smoke was a stark reminder of that. If you have a podcast, invite me on. I’ll say yes! I’d love to talk with you!
I am feeling closer to the unseen forces that support my life. I’m suspecting that you are, too. Last month, when I sat down with Leslie Zehr and Keren Brown at the “Exploring the Unseen” Summit, it all came back to me. The ten years when I ghostwrote a weekly column about angels. The interviews, the miracle stories. Everything I do now, in my workshops and one-on-one sessions, began then.
I am up to my knees in memoir - thinking memoir, reading memoir. It feels as if I am reorganizing my story inside my own body. There is so much to tell you. I go back into my history - flying over my biography, noticing patterns, seeing causes and effects. Through it all, I sense the presence of the bright, buzzy energy of the angels. The sound of their energy. The taste of it. At the same time, my relationship with nature - with Her, the earthy everywhereness of the Mother.
We don’t return to the roots of ANYTHING without being re-minded of the soil those roots are planted in. The soil is love. The reason I got involved in this work is love. Put simply: I am love. Today, I was reminded of that. Next week, I’ll probably forget. That’s okay - I know now that the angels will remind me the true nature of this world - just as they’ve shown me for the last 19 years.
This world is a field of blessing, made of love, held together by love. So am I. So are you.
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
~ Brené Brown
No big announcements today. Just thought I’d share a few good things.
I just read this brutiful book:
Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad (Audible version, read by the author)
I’ve been listening as I drive around. As the blurb says, this is a “deeply personal book about the author's journey through her cancer treatment and the road trip she embarks on after her treatment concludes” From her diagnosis of a life-threatening cancer at 22, just as she was falling in love for the first time through the struggle of treatment and recovery. How she used her creativity to stay connected to life - writing her “Life Interrupted” column for The New York Times. I don’t want to tell you too much so I’ll just point you toward her beautiful, warm-hearted Substack blog, The Isolation Journals. It’s a triumph.
(The author, Suleika Jaouad with her travel buddy.)
I keep listening to this beautiful song. It makes me laugh and dance and bang on the kitchen counter with my wooden spoon. Pure joy play!
I started this monthly thing - I love it. Come play with me! Salon at the New Moon Gathering ($!8/free for paid subscribers). Last month’s gathering at the New Moon in Cancer was a dream. The next one, New Moon in Leo (my birthday month) is August 13th.
May your weekend be rich with invitation. May you open wide and deep. May you fill to the toes with your own light and luminosity. May you rest, may you restore, may you exhale into peace.
xxoo
Amy