A Poem for Returning Home
THE FIRST PILGRIMAGE Lauren B. Davis The fruit was not as sweet as I’d hoped. You might call it tart. But I loved the tree. I loved the way the branches twisted and reached out for light and life, every limb an offering. Who was I to say no? Everyone blames the snake,…
Read More2024: Liberation and Death
Every year, as some of you know, I choose a word to focus on, as a way of experiencing whatever may happen during this turn of the wheel, and I calculate the Tarot card that symbolizes this part of my spiritual journey. A couple of days ago I wrote about my Tarot card of 2023…
Read More2023 – The Hanged Man & Interbeing
Last year my chosen word was “Interbeing,” a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh that speaks to how all of us, every sentient being in the cosmos, are connected and are in relationship with one another. Then there’s the Tarot card. I like the Tarot. I use it often, as did Carl Jung and many…
Read MoreBooks of my year
What a strange year it’s been. So much loss, frankly. My beloved Bailey, and my anam-cara, Sr. Rita, and our dear friend, Paul, and Sr. Mary Ann, and even our great 100+-year-old tree, called by a friend, “The Sentinal of the Neighborhood,” and the world, which is full of losses and violence and fear, and…
Read MoreWisdom Companion — the last, for Sr. Rita has gone Home.
Sr. Rita Woehlcke, my soul friend, my aman-cara, has gone home on this day, September 23, 2023, the day of the Autumnal Equinox, which the Irish call Mabon, when the wheel turns into the long, quiet, dark half of the year, a time to ponder death and grief, and to bring in the harvest, a…
Read MoreWriting Matters, Regardless. Meditation, Writing, and the Mundus Imaginalis.
A friend I talked to recently hit on the existential pain of the writer’s life when they said they feared their long years of work and sacrifice were all for nothing since they feared (with good reason) the book they’d been working on for years will never be published. To have a manuscript remain unpublished…
Read MoreWisdom Companion #13 – Living “Woke” Is A Holy Pursuit
Hello everyone, this is the latest news and wisdom from Sr Rita, who is on a journey with cancer. You will find the twelve previous “Wisdom Companion” pieces from Sr. Rita by searching this site. This essay speaks to me in many ways. I’ve been unsettled for a long time by attacks and accusations of…
Read MoreWisdom Companion #12 – Random thoughts at the one-year mark
Hello everyone, this is the latest news and wisdom from Sr Rita, who is on a journey with cancer. You will find the eleven previous “Wisdom Companion” pieces from Sr. Rita by searching this site. From Sr. Rita: One year ago, today my liver lit up the MRI, confirming the presence of cancer. I left…
Read MoreWisdom Companion #11 – A CIRCUMSCRIBED LIFE
Hello everyone, this is the latest news and wisdom from Sr Rita, who is on a journey with cancer. You will find the ten previous “Wisdom Companion” pieces from Sr. Rita by searching this site. I love this reflection and am grateful for what it teaches me. Just this morning I was doing tonglen meditation,…
Read MoreWisdom Companion #10 – The Great Asceticism: Life on Life’s Terms.
Hello everyone, this is the latest news and wisdom from Sr Rita, who is on a journey with cancer. You will find the nine previous “Wisdom Companion” pieces from Sr. Rita by searching this site. In this reflection, Sr. Rita talks about what it means to find oneself at a place in the journey where…
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