Grief
2023 – 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 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 MoreEulogy For My Brother, Ronnie.
My brother, Bernie, died from suicide, the result of alcoholism and depression on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1996. My brother, Ronnie, died from suicide, the result of addiction and depression on Good Friday, April 10, 2008. I have written about that here, in an essay called, April is the Cruelest Month. Every April I try…
Read MoreMother of Sorrows – the Universal Dark Mother
I was fascinated by my friend, Sr. Rita’s, take on Jesus’s mother, Mary, which she wrote about here. Two things struck me most – first, her resistance to what she called the 1950s version of Mary: all pastels and rosy cheeks and purity so complete as to be bloodless; and second, her reminder that Mary,…
Read MoreOn Being Dumbfounded In The Face Of Life
Today I received the following comment on the blog I wrote about choosing “Interbeing” as my word for the year. I was so touched by it that I found myself writing a long response that’s turned into its own blog entry. Anne M., I am grateful to you. Anne wrote: Thank you for this lovely…
Read MoreAs Above, So Below… Interbeing for the New Year
There is no doubt 2022 was an, ahem, challenging year worldwide. I felt it, and I suspect you did, too. As the saying by Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary figure associated with the beginning of alchemy, the birth of material and spiritual science goes: as above, so below. In other words, what goes on in the…
Read More