Contemplations & Meditations

Photo: Stacey Couch and her horse “Isabeau”. Photo credit: Estella O’Connell Hiding Behind the Teaching My career began centered around a memoir. My story opened up doors to spiritual insights. I stepped through those doors to share with others. Over time, my focus shifted from sharing to listening. I embraced the role of transparent messenger. To write down “I” has become uncomfortable again.  Spiritual correctness, which is similar to political correctness, says to drop the ego. In life and work,…

Is time linear, circular or parallel? Depending on our perspective, we may be influencing our own healing. Chronos: Linear Time Regardless of the spelling, the name Chronus/Cronus/Khornos/Chronos, is associated with linear time and the early origins of the Earth. In some myths Khronos is a serpent with the heads of a man, a bull and a lion. He paired with the serpent goddess Ananke. They coiled around the primal egg and split it open to create the earth. In other…

First thing every morning throughout five or six months of the year, I build and light a fire in my fireplace. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to stay in bed past my husband so that he can warm the house before I crawl out from underneath my cozy flannel sheets and down comforter, but most mornings my duty is the fire. When the routine starts in November, I do it begrudgingly. I dislike getting up and fumbling in the dark for…

I had a thought provoking comment on my blog about Dove Spirit Animal today from a fellow who was moving across the country and took a wild mourning dove with him. After three days in the car together, the man released the dove in a completely new habitat. You’ll have to read his story as well as my response to see what path that leads down. Through his question another thread spoke to me in the form of a memory I…

In my article on red-tailed hawk spirit animal I encourage people to identify and connect with their tribe and for good reason. You may be surprised to learn that many people I encounter feel disconnected from a sense of tribe. They feel alone. So many people long for companionship. Often each person thinks, interestingly, that they are the only one that feels this way. There is a huge chunk of who they are that they both fear and yearn to share. There are a fair share of…

We adore logic. For many of us, we enter our spiritual practice with the fervor of a crime investigator trying to solve the mysteries of our lives, especially our past and wounds. This may be the default setting for most people in their spiritual practice. Many become brilliant scholars of the spiritual path and make fantastic inroads to enlightenment through the faculties of the mind. However, the great masters teach that reason and analysis are the enemies of a deep spiritual practice. Reason…