Reflections – Radiance Within

Wild Spirit

July 11th, 2025

In these post summer solstice days, the oak tree whispers reminding me of when I was a young girl on the brink of adulthood. During the summer months, I almost always went for a walk after dinner. On these walks, long after I had exited the neighborhood, sunset turned into twilight, and by the time I made it to the cornfields, star fire pricked the horizon and lightning bugs dotted and flashed among trees and across fields as cicada bellies vibrated and buzzed, and crickets stroked their violin wings.

After an hour or so, I was sweat-soaked, and the humidity curled my hair. But it didn’t matter. On the walk back, whiffs of wind scented with pine, cut grass, and strawberries made the air feel and smell heavenly. Gusts from behind reached through my arms wrapping my torso in coolness, giving me the sensation of being carried home.

Recently, my meditation under the shade of an oak tree brought back memories of those evening walks, and with a smile, I was reminded of the Greek myths I so loved reading back then. All those years, decades ago now, I was like the ancient Greek maidens encountering natural forces. Gods of the underworld, earth, sky, river, and sea were greeting me, filling me with exuberance for life.

I see now the truth of those stories, how the storytellers could capture the imaginations of so many people for millennia. Something inhabits trees, embodies gusts of wind. Something powerfully, purposefully, lustfully tears through cracks in the earth and thunders down from the sky. Magical forces drive clouds and swirl the water right before our very eyes.

Something grand, seductive, and full of desire dwells in the fields, forests, and waters. That something seeks us wholly. Impregnates us the way Zeus did Danae, Leda, and Alcmene. Takes hold of us and carries us away like Hades did Persephone.

Most of us haven’t given birth to demigods and queens. But I am confident that many of us have developed ideas and businesses, created roads, bridges, and buildings, written poetry and stories, nurtured relationships, children, gardens, and homes. We’ve baked pies, cookies, cakes, and casseroles. And how many times did intimate contact with the natural world inspire these creations?

Summer evenings, walking, lying down in the grass, leaning against trees, lingering as the light of day fades to darkness—my whole life, I’ve known that these are times charged with magic, splendor, and wonder.

Whether you sense God, gods, goddesses, spirits of creation, or the burgeoning human imagination communing with the overflowing abundance of life, you must allow yourself to be swayed. Your soul survives on nothing less.

But beware. The old myths are cautionary tales.

Mortals seduced by nature’s sensual spirit face punishment, alienation, exile. No one believes the mortal capable of communing with the forces of nature. Caught red-handed, unable to hide the shame, the child, barely able to handle the glory of consummation with real powers of the world, mortals suffer.

But the truth cannot be denied. The forces of the universe want us.

And who would we be if we had never ridden a cresting wave, buried ourselves in the sand, raised our arms and let the wind carry us?

And what wastelands do we endure when we always keep doors, windows, curtains, and blinds closed? What happens to us when we lock away our wildness?

I know that I have swallowed my yearnings many times. I’ve cuffed my wrists and ankles. Like the disbelieving fathers and husbands of mythical women, I’ve been afraid. By controlling what I swore to protect, I’ve trapped my own wild heart. Paid the heavy price of misery.

But even after all these years, the oak tree still whispers the story of the young woman on the brink of adulthood who followed her wild heart and found herself loved, supported, cherished by the world that bore her.

-Radiance Writer

July 11, 2025

Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash
Spring Dawn

June 4th, 2025

When you wake at dawn, you have no choice. Go outside. The birds are shrieking the song of life. The version of it you are living right now must be lived. Go out. Greet it.

Live in the hope that the answers to all your prayers—all that you lack agency to do, all that you need to light you up, complete you, to make your life take flight—all of that steps boldly over the dewy threshold of the morning, marching in time with the harsh beauty of birdsong.

Don’t go back to sleep. Don’t avert your eyes. Get up, go out, meet the sun. Let it fill you with heat and light. Rise.

Maybe this dawn is telling you, singing to you. Arise. Enjoy the fruits of creation. We can plant trees. Water them. But we don’t have to tell them constantly to grow. We don’t have to stand over them and tell them to extend roots deeper into soil. We don’t have to watch, hover, or worry. Bit by bit they grow.

Whether you strive. Whether you rest. Whether you are young or old or something in between. Male or female or something in between. You are going to have good days and bad days. Good weeks and bad weeks. Good hours and bad. Minutes. Seconds….

The moments won’t be predictable. You will endure miseries. When the chaos clears, may grace find you. May you embrace life with tears in your eyes and a heart full of love.

Grace dwells in unexpected places—a drop of rainwater glimmering on a blade of grass, the orchid-like flower smaller than your thumbnail—laughter, the warmth of someone’s hand holding yours. The overflow of gratitude is even more precious because you don’t know how long the goodness will last.

Practice gratitude as if your very soul depends on it. Let your spirit pray thanks to life, consciousness, breathing, and the stars at night.

Hold on, hold on, hold on—birds are singing your song, our song. We are the living. Our time is now. For better or worse, we are beating. We are hearts. We are winning.

Let the beauty of I love you rise out of you in a song of thank you. Your voice joining the cacophony. All life on earth, now, and that has ever been. Cheers you on.

-Radiance Writer

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash
Touching Earth

January 7th, 2025

Walking has been a way for me to relax, exercise, and enjoy the outdoors for most of my life.

I have a clear memory of a summer when I was 8 or 9 years old. I set my alarm to wake up early so I could take our heavy-coated collie for a walk before it got too hot.

And then somewhere around age 11 or 12, my walks became a little less practical. They took on deeper significance. They became a source of spiritual connection and even transcendence.

After evening walks I started writing poems in a notebook. I was so full of a surge of spiritual wonderment that I just had to get it down! I had to express it somehow.

And I didn’t have enough words to describe what I was experiencing, so I learned the names of plants and trees. I studied star charts to know the names of the planets that appear in the evening on the horizon and the constellations that dot the sky in the different seasons and different times of night. I stayed up late in August to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower.

Even today when I see those same planets and constellations, I go back to being that girl who knew wonder, amazement, and enchantment in the great outdoors. I still am that young girl who inherently knew that touching the earth and reaching for the sky were pathways to the magic realm of creation.

And even before adolescent me began taking walks and spouting poetry, I was a little girl who roamed the yard at all times of the year, collecting berries, helicopters, seeds from dogwoods, sticker balls from the sugar gum trees, and of course, I made crowns and necklaces from clover blossoms and their long thin stems.

Many of these collections were made on Frisbees and in plastic buckets that I pretended were plates and cooking bowls. The bushes and the trees were my spice rack. I also sprinkled blue Magic Sand and held it all together with silly putty.

The pure joy for me of remembering this story—is the feeling. I got lost in the world right outside our front door. I existed out of time—only aware of all those berries and seeds.

It wasn’t playing with my Barbies or blocks or anything that had shown up under the Christmas tree that resulted in this sense of deep presence and satisfaction and contentment. It was always when I was outside playing that I felt that timelessness.

You might say that I was found. I found my true nature. In nature.

I’d say that’s what I find when I rest on the lounge chair on our patio among the palms and bougainvillea or sit on the driveway and watch the sunset. I find my true nature. In nature.

As adults, maybe we don’t get to lose ourselves in an afternoon playing outside. But maybe we can find a minute or two. A moment to touch the earth. To hear the rustle of the wind through the palms. The pounding of the distant surf.

What seems, and often is simple, can be insurmountably hard if we let it.

That’s why memories like the ones I have of my childhood and adolescence feel like forgiveness, or mercy, or compassion.

Memories like that can power transformation and transcendence.

French writer Marcel Proust in his novel Remembrance of Things Past has his character take a bite of a petit Madeleine, a seashell-shaped cookie, and is transported to his childhood with such completeness and immediacy that a seven volume novel issues from it. Much of his memories revolve around his childhood home in the French countryside where his family took long walks.

His potent memories of childhood play and touching the earth shaped him into one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century.

I know that I need to connect with my memories more. I know that I need to spend more time outside because I realize that I unconsciously touch the earth in thousands of ways every day. The plastic that comes in and out of my house daily. The exhaust from my car. The electricity that I use. All of it makes an impact.

I want to touch the earth with more intentionality. Like spending an hour watching the night sky, slowly tracking the movement of Earth by noting the apparent movement of the stars and moon.

I want to seek inspiration from ancient people, people who only knew that the stars moved, not the earth, and yet, they built structures aligned precisely to the position of the sun and stars.

One of my favorite of these structures is Newgrange in Ireland. Newgrange is a mound built by Stone Age farmers in 3,200 B.C.E. It contains a 60ft long passage that leads to an inner chamber. This chamber nestled within the earth is illuminated by the sun only on the days surrounding the winter solstice.

Only a people deeply connected to the cycles and seasons of the earth could build such a structure. These ancient people knew how to touch the earth; in fact, they could never escape their connection to it.

We can’t either. But we have the illusion of comfort and security about us that makes it feel like we can.

These days, the forces of nature are screaming at us. We have to witness the catastrophic and strange patterns of our changing climate. We have to see the particles of plastic washing up on our shores. We have to pay attention to the record breaking heat of our summers.

I think part of the solution, or at least what might inspire us to find one, could be to remember what it was like to play outside. We must allow ourselves to be enchanted. We must witness the return of the sunlight. Build inner chambers that can hold and honor it.

Our very existence depends upon a massive shift in our thinking and doing. Like what happened in the spring of 2020 when the world was in lockdown and dolphins swam in the canals of Venice.

Imagine what could happen if we chose this time

to slow down,

to go outside,

and let the magic of nature come to us.

-Photo by Fabian Kleiser on Unsplash
The Radiator

November 22nd, 2024

Construction paper turkeys

with primary-colored tail feathers

in the shape of our second-grade hands

roosted on the cork above the chalkboard.

All my work done,

I went to the bookshelves

in the back of the classroom,

passed by desks

of other seven-year-olds

suppressing itches and questions—

stilled to silence by the threat of the work at hand.

The radiator knocked comfortingly

below the row of frost-framed windows.

What if I touched my tongue to the glass?

Would it taste like a snowflake?

Would I reach the cold freedom on the other side

where there were leaves to pile and dive into

and red berries on the dogwoods to pick?

The radiator hummed.

Warmth calmed the call to wild things.

For a moment

I thought I heard a turkey gobble.

Construction paper feathers nodded.

A mind awake

wants to dream.

I reached for the bound freedom at hand.

Back at my desk,

still time to open a world

Secretly disappear.

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash
The Fourth World

November 22nd, 2024

Reddening light from the window drew me

just as I was about to start dinner.

On the warm round of the driveway,

I sit for the evening show.

Black trees across the street—

backlit, a golden sky glow.

It happens every day

final glory before the lights go out for the night.

Today, I’m different.

I showed up.

Mosquitos nip at my ankles.

Potatoes need shredding.

The oven needs heating.

I continue on my way to the mailbox

(the practical reason for going outside).

Hands full of ads, my attention goes east.

Is that the surf ripping along the shore?

I’m sure of it, but I can’t see.

Something else surprises—

a giant pearl resting in an opalescent shell

light-tinged clouds—

moonrise.

On the sidewalk next to the mailbox,

I am poised

observer of three worlds

rolling in harmonious circles

endlessly about each other

through black space.

On the shoulders of a giant,

privy to heavenly beings,

I barely comprehend—

I am kin!

Frailty falls away.

As I am witness,

I become the fourth world.

-November 16, 2024

Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash
Migrant Landing

August 26th, 2023

From the air, the barrier island I live on unfolds like a landing strip. In the natural areas along US 1, its western trees permanently slant from bearing the brunt of hurricane force winds, and a network of interconnecting sea grapes hover over the sand on the eastern shore, sending down roots and spreading their foliage to make fortresses that hold the beach in place as it is buffeted daily by tides and seasonally battered by storm surges.

In my neighborhood, we’re used to putting up hurricane shutters and hunkering down in our homes while God-knows-what rages outside. But on a recent Friday morning, we were caught unprepared.

Instinct lifted my eyes from the dishes I was washing in the kitchen sink. The sun was blazing. It was shaping up to be yet another 90+ degree day with probable afternoon rain. But something was already stirring above, a strange storm disturbing the morning.

Roving helicopter wings beat the air. The windows rumbled. After an hour of regular beatings, it was the sirens that sent my husband to his cell phone.

What the hell was going on in our corner of paradise? Had Trump come to roost at Mara Lago? Shark attack? Boat explosion?

It was already in the local newsfeed. A speedboat packed with migrants from Haiti had attempted to enter the inlet. When a police vessel intercepted their path, the boat captain rammed it, sped south, and drove the boat ashore.

Amazed beachgoers watched over a dozen people of all ages drop to the sand and scatter while a helicopter hovered. Among the arrivals, a couple with a baby and a toddler. During the flight, someone lost a shoe.

Over a dozen people with nothing but the shirts on their backs traveled nearly 800 miles in a boat with a capacity for 7 people. They must have left everything they had behind, risking their lives for an ocean voyage to what they hoped would be the Promised Land.

But no new colossus stands at the inlets of Florida’s coast. Lighthouses merely show the way to incarceration.

When desperation lands on shore, it’s easy to ignore what it’s fleeing from. It’s easy to forget that most of us have someone in our past who arrived here like that— exhausted, hungry, impovershed, oppressed, or enslaved.

I’m grateful for one of the bystanders the TV crew interviewed. He and another guy helped one of the migrants struggling in the surf get his footing. These men give me reason to hope.

-Radiance Writer

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
The Spiritual Practice of Tea

February 19th, 2023

Recently, I started a 10-20 minute practice designed to help me savor two of my favorite things, baked goods and tea. A friend’s birthday party was the inspiration. Her high tea celebration made sipping a hot beverage and nibbling on something freshly baked in the company of friends an exalted, exquisite experience.

High tea made me finally say to myself, “The hell with deprivation and control. I’m going to eat cookies and biscuits and pie and cake every day if I want it, as long as it’s accompanied by tea.”

It would be a planned event. A moment I would spend with myself. A moment I would stop everything and make time for savoring.

Here’s the recipe with all the magical ingredients included:

Light a candle near the spot where you will savor your tea and treat. That way, by the time you are ready, the room will be filled with the golden glow of flame and fragrance if it’s scented.

Set water to boil on a burner. The burner is important. Warm your fingers in the steam. Hear the force of energy making the bubbles rise.

Arrange 1-2 cookies or a small slice of cake or pie on the most beautiful plate you have and place on a serving tray. Fold a napkin. Align utensils according to decorum.

If it’s before bedtime, select an herbal tea. Morning or afternoon something with caffeine, maybe even coffee.

Place the tea bag in the most elegant cup you have, preferably one with a matching saucer. Try to keep it 6-8oz. A size you can savor and finish in the time you have.

Once the water boils, pour it over the tea bag. Enjoy the sound of it lapping against the sides of the cup. Again, savor the steam. Set the timer. Finish arranging your tray. Add a flower (optional).

When the tea is steeped, carry the tray to the cozy corner where your candle is burning. Wrap up in a blanket. Sit askance, preferably near a window.

Take a deep breath. Smile. Sip. Take a bite. Pause. Repeat. Don’t go anywhere. Keep tasting and smelling the tea, the sweetness, and the gooey crumbles. Relax. Savor. Be. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20….whatever time you have, however long you need.

This is a practice that won’t let you down. Peace and deep contentment come from knowing that the perfect moment is always possible, even if you only have a few of them.

-Radiance Writer

February 19, 2023
Baked Goods and Love

January 28th, 2023

I blame my grandmother. She’s the one who taught me that cookies, pies, and cakes can be expressions of love. It’s her fault that I love a good homemade baked anything.

And while I’m spreading blame around, let’s implicate my mom, too. And all the moms of the kids I went to grade school with who sent dozens of cupcakes to school on their kids’ birthdays, and the principal who authorized bake sales, and my aunts and older cousins’ wives who brought gooey brownies and sticky pineapple upside down cakes to family reunion picnics.

Why do we teach children to love such sadistic concoctions of sugar, flour, butter, and eggs? Standing fully clad on the scale in the doctor’s office wondering why I wore such heavy jewelry and jeans, I want to grab the nurse by the shoulders and exclaim, “They knew not what they did!”

I’ve pretty much been on a diet since I was fifteen years old—counting calories, thinking constantly about the amount and quality of the food I put in my mouth. As I advance into middle age, I’ve gotten a little tired of tracking and monitoring. I’ve started to wonder if there’s a way to have my cake and eat it too. I’ve started to wonder if there’s a way to make peace with craving because I’m realizing that what I crave the most is peace and self-acceptance.

Baked goodies, or any kind of food, have never been the problem. It’s my desire to run from an inner agitation that needs soothing. It’s anxiety, downright fidgetiness, boredom, resistance, pressure, and/or impatience that drives me sometimes to inhale cookie after cookie without really tasting it.

It’s emptiness, neediness that goes deeper than physical hunger.

And I have to admit, my grandmother never taught me to inhale my food or overeat. She taught me to enjoy the process and to take my time. She woke early in the morning to bake because she thought leavening worked better then. She taught me to sift the dry ingredients, to chill the dough, to use a spoon and a knife to shape cookies, and to reshape and sugar the trimmings of pie crust for an extra treat.

She taught me that cookies, cakes, and pies were for sharing with people you love. And the number of people she loved kept her baking all the time.

Baked goods alone don’t provide the magic. There are other ingredients, intangibles that don’t get included on recipe cards. There’re what all the grandmothers, mothers, and aunties have been trying to teach us with every wax paper lined tin, every buttered pan, every perfectly iced cake and sprinkled cookie.

Confections only satisfy soul needs when they’re accompanied by the feeling that the person who made them cherishes you and the certainty that not only the recipe, but the love will carry on.

-Radiance Writer

January 27, 2023
Winter Solstice Blessing

December 21st, 2022

It is the longest, darkest night of all that sheds light on our better selves, if we stop and take the time to kindle it. On this night, the ancients lit bonfires that crackled and sparked to the heavens. They gathered around hearths. As close to the heavens and earth as they lived, it was hard to escape a fearsome sense of awe as the planet rounded a corner.

Today, we’re more removed from those global forces. We tend tamer fires. We light candles and flip a switch to turn on twinkling lights. But whatever the source, we’re still bound by the same forces. We’re still compelled to offer light on this night, and when we do, our aspirations come sweetly singing to us from a quiet place, an often too unfamiliar place, in the cathedral of the heart.

By bowing to the darkness, we bow to our own souls, and we witness the soul of the world unfolding. As we wait, as we watch, we witness a miracle. We embrace mystery, wonder, and hope.

Another year on Earth gently passes, unseen, except to those who are watching, tilted in the direction of the axis, leaning in to feel the shift.

It’s time to take stock of blessings and review the trials that have and are shaping us even as we stand in the deep shade of the planet’s shadow. All the candles and trees strung with lights remind us to come together, that we are not alone.

Each tree, each log, each kandelika knows that from this long night, more light will come. Through some undeserved benevolence of the universe, each day another tiny flicker will join the light of others until the full torching glory of the sun returns.

On this longest, darkest night, let us revel together in hope and certainty. Let us huddle around the fires that we create with our hearts, minds, and hands, cradling all that is light within us, all that is love, blessing the darkness for holding us in a place where we can see what really matters.

-Radiance Writer

December 21, 2022

Photo by guille pozzi on Unsplash
Cozy Christmas Movies

December 17th, 2022

I have a confession to make. Despite a degree in English and a few decades of teaching young people to appreciate and interpret great works of literature, I love cheesy, formulaic, plot-driven, cozy Christmas movies.

The elements of fiction are predictable—a lonely hero or heroine, a parent/spouse/significant other dies, the protagonist has survived a horrible divorce, or gets knocked over the head. There’s a journey into unknown territory, the meeting of another lonely stranger of child-producing and/or rearing age. There is lots of snow, winter wonderland scenery, and of course falling in love and having to make the choice to leave the old lonely life or the wrong boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé behind in favor of this new magically-delivered-in-time-for-Christmas person.

There are best friends and mentors. A magical event involving a Cinderella-type dress. Money problems are solved. The beautiful castle/hotel/old family business will carry on. But then, darn it, something from that pesky old life resurfaces and threatens to deny the hero or heroine the dreamy new life.

Not to worry. This is a cozy Christmas movie. All will be well in the end.

Deep, personal losses will be overcome. Broken relationships will mend. The lonely single life will end so a thrilling married or partnered life can begin.

The conversations are a bit forced. The wise oracle in the form of a neighbor/servant/co-worker meets the hero or heroine and immediately reveals secrets from the past that will unlock the heart of the resistant beloved. Suddenly the perfect idea for saving the inn/family business/royal reputation dawns on the protagonist.

But, oh, no! There’s a deadline to meet, or a flight plan to interrupt, or an engagement ceremony to crash. The one who got away must be lassoed or show up at the last minute for a marriage performed by Santa Claus underneath the Christmas tree just as it starts to snow.

I’ve read enough 20^th century Existentialism and lived long enough to know that life will never be this neat, tidy, pretty, and well—cozy. But wouldn’t it be wonderful?

It renews my sense of hope to witness a thirty-year estrangement between a father and son resolve in one afternoon of putting up a Christmas tree using an old box of lights that flicker a few times before working properly.

It’s empowering to see that the pain of divorce and an empty nest can be overcome on a solo Christmas trip to a castle in Scotland or a wildlife sanctuary in Africa.

After a meet cute and a few twists and turns, a brand new life minus the problems of the old one appears beneath the Christmas tree.

I snuggle into the recliner with my feet propped up and the remote controls handy. I hold my warm mug of hot chocolate close to my chest and enjoy ninety minutes of what it felt like to wake up on Christmas morning before I figured out that my parents were behind all the mystery. I suppose watching cozy Christmas movies is my way of playing Santa for the kid in me who still believes.

-Radiance Writer

December 13, 2022

Photo by Kate Laine on Unsplash
Hurricane Yoga

November 11th, 2022

I’m sitting through another hurricane today. So far we’re just getting hit by brief torrents of rain and wind. But the shutters are bolted in place. Canned food stocks the pantry. Flashlights and candles are strategically placed. All of my classes are cancelled for two days. Now there’s nothing to do but wait it out at home, hoping the power doesn’t go out.

Such is life when one lives on a barrier island in South Florida.

Plenty of work waits. I could sit in my shuttered office and write, prepare lessons, return emails and texts. I could clean, organize, cook, do laundry. I could fill up my online shopping carts, go mind numb watching cat videos on social media, or watch the 24 hour coverage of varying spaghetti tracks and reporters bearing up against the wind. I could allow the images showing the 600 mile wide pinwheel heading straight for us to fill me with terror, but I’ve decided to take a different track. Beneath the hype and hubbub, introspection, acceptance, and serenity are calling to me.

Last evening, as the first outer bands came through, I was teaching a yoga class comprised of seasoned students. We all knew the sequence by heart. As the class progressed, we fell into rhythm. I spoke less and breathed more. I became attuned to the audible, disciplined breath of the students, who like well-practiced musicians, only need minimal gestures from a conductor to keep them together.

Earlier, on the drive to the studio, the erratic driving around me seemed to signal people’s agitation about the coming storm. I was grateful for where I was headed. Yoga always makes me feel more stable.

In the dim glow of the studio on a prematurely dark evening, my students and I were rooting to the ground with each down and up dog. With every chaturanga dandasana, we hunkered down, and let the earth hold us, like rabbits in a burrow or tortoises in a den.

This morning when I woke, the gusts were mild but expected to intensify as the day wore on. Still feeling the glow of the previous evening’s class, I spread a mat on the patio beneath the overhang, absorbed the uptight breath of the planet, and began to do yoga during a hurricane.

The plan was to return to the familiarity of the set practice from the night before. But it just didn’t feel right. Then I remembered what happened on the drive home after class. As I turned into my neighborhood, a warning came across the car’s display.

CHECK HYBRID SYSTEM

STOP THE VEHICLE IN A

SAFE PLACE IMMEDIATELY

I was almost home, so I slowed down and kept going. The electric engine wasn’t kicking it like it normally does at that speed. The gas engine got me home, but at a limp. The gas engine was supposed to be the comfortable, familiar, and well-established one, but without the hybrid function, it was unstable, maybe even dangerous.

My tried and true practice felt something like the gas engine in my hybrid car. My wrists ached. My neck was tight. If I continued, it would be at a limp, a shadow of what I was capable of. I stopped and felt a pull. I needed to get closer to the ground. I dropped to my hands and knees. Put my forehead on the mat. Child’s Pose.

Something akin to intuition, instinct, or grace, led me from there. Working gently, slowly, strongly, I made way up to a few standing postures, and got right back down to the mat again. Working in this way, with, rather than against natural forces, I found a peaceful center in the midst of chaos and uncertainty.

For the millionth time, yoga redeemed, saved, and brought me home to the wisdom I only find when I listen, really, deeply listen, and integrate all that I’ve studied and learned. When I practice through the tumult, I come to terms with the uncontrollable mystery hedging against all that I think is safe, lasting, and permanent.

-Radiance Writer

November 9, 2022

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
The Darkest Days of the Year

October 31st, 2022

Halloween. Samhain. All Saints Day. All Souls Day. Diwali. The Day of the Dead.

The lifting of the veil between the world of the living and world of the dead. The arrival of the darkest days of the year.

I am grateful for a holiday, a holy day, devoted to celebrating life’s greatest and most terrifying mystery. Death.

We live on a planet that has a life, death, and rebirth cycle. But as individual human beings, we personally, don’t get reborn. And actually no life—no seed, plant, or root does.

Dying is always a transformation. The new leaves of spring look like those of last year. Children bear resemblance to their parents. But it’s not the same leaf, and children are not their parents.

Yet, life at its essence renews. It continues in new, similar, evolving forms from one generation to the next.

Cycles and continuance are what present the greatest hope and the greatest fear. Our individual annihilation is what we alternately deny, grapple with, struggle against, make peace with, and gracefully accept and celebrate.

As a woman approaching menopause, I am keenly aware that my ability to give life in the form of a newborn child is over. I can dye my hair, eat more fruits and vegetables, buy some anti-wrinkle cream, and whiten my teeth, but if I don’t do some really hard spiritual work, underneath illusions of youth and vitality, my soul will despair. It will long for the peace at the end of the mystery. My soul will long for the joy that comes only after the struggle with the Angel of Death is over.

I can fight the inevitable all I want, but I have the feeling that if I keep fighting the aging process, the long, slow march toward the great mystery, the other side of the veil, I will miss out on a deeper understanding of beauty, grace, and wisdom. After all, it’s the infinite darkness that makes even the faintest stars appear. Fall leaves reveal hidden flames of color before they give up the ghost.

As the years behind me accumulate, I’m trying to learn from the leaves. I’m looking for the glow that’s beneath the surface. The fire there needs tending.

I need to go into the backyard, gather kindling, and light a bonfire that sends sparks into the night. I need to sit beside it, swelling with gratitude for this day, this moment, dying of love for the world that for a while longer, I am a part of.

-Radiance Writer

October 31, 2022

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
Outer Bands

September 28th, 2022

It’s late September in South Florida, so it’s not surprising that I find myself living beneath the outer bands of a hurricane, roughly 200 miles from the eye. Wind surges have shaken the live oaks all day. I’d like to say they’ve never been shaken like this before, but I know that’s not true. Our neighborhood rests on a barrier island. From our backyard we can hear the waves of the Atlantic crashing on the shore.

Almost as frightening as the gales and squalls are the random periods of eerie calm. Any sense of peace or safety is false. With these capricious bands, you never know when the next blast will come.

It hardly seems like five years have passed since predictions of a direct hit were so dire. My husband, dog, cat and I joined countless others on jammed interstates fleeing north.

Days later, when we returned, the live oaks lining our street were denuded. These trees never fully shed their leaves. In late winter they drop half of them and almost instantaneously sprout bright new ones.

That fall I was shocked that the leaves didn’t wait until February to regenerate. By October, no one could tell that a hurricane had blasted through. I shouldn’t have been surprised. If live oaks are smart enough to figure out that there’s no winter here and can withstand the intensity of the Florida sun, surely they’re capable of recovering from the ravages of 70 mph winds.

Last night, as this year’s hurricane moved in on us, it was hard to distinguish the sound of rain from the sound of wind. Sheets of water crashed against the stucco walls. At one point I thought the garbage cans must be loose, but we had secured them in the garage earlier. I turned on the outside lights. Maybe it was someone else’s stray something that hit the house. I saw nothing but glints of driving rain.

Where does all of this energy come from? What god swirled his trident over sea and sky? It’s easy to imagine at times like these that we are in the hands of an angry, merciless being.

The digital images on TV show arms of vapor reaching around the curve of the earth. Could it be Poseidon throwing a right hook?

We are very modern people—sophisticated, educated, informed—but we still dwell among giants and titans. The purest forms of energy are asserting themselves, proving once again that they will always be beyond us and our control.

Mother Nature isn’t the only one who mocks humanity’s hubris. These winds have their origins in the sun, the center of our universe. Our nearest star has spent all summer in cahoots with the sea cooking up this unwieldy brew.

Here beneath the outer bands, I am grateful. Only a few hundred miles away, homes and businesses are flooded. We don’t know yet how much has been destroyed. Millions are without power. I can only imagine the fear, loss, tragedy, and mortal terror for those hit head on by this beast that blows water and wind instead of fire as it trespasses the sky and treads the shore.

-Radiance Writer

September 28, 2022

Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Autumn Equinox

September 22nd, 2022

Today there is balance. The earth on its axis tilts in such a way, that the sun caresses it evenly. Our days are equal to our nights. It’s difficult not to feel the harmony, the new, yet familiar slant of the sun in the sky. It’s been in this position before, and it’ll be there again on roughly the same day next year. It’s a comfort to be aware of it. It’s a spiritual practice to celebrate it this changing of the sun, to own that our universe is set up to cycle for billions of years.

Grappling with the scope of all that is beyond its limited powers of reason, the human imagination has for millennia, conjured all kinds of gods, larger than life figures who bring forth the harvest, give gifts of fire, rain, ice, and seed. They appear as punishing mothers and fathers and lustful and avenging lovers, clever connivers and cheats. Whatever their passions, humans have always been at their mercy. And at the end of our days, our minds do not deceive us.

In just the last few hundred years, science has revealed that the universe truly is of endless magnitude, and modern inhabitants of earth, if they allow themselves, feel even tinier than the ancients did juxtaposed against the Titans upholding the firmament.

Despite the hard ground living creatures walk upon, molten rock flows at the planet’s core. A veil of gases wraps about earth, protecting its surface from the ravages of the fireball two planets away that will one day explode and destroy all that it now animates.

With imagination, ingenuity, and plain hard work, humans have risen above the plight of despair. They’ve made themselves the gods while striving for relief from fear of obliteration at the hands of the elements. The human race has accomplished much. For better and worse, it has transformed the face of the earth.

In the midst of striving to keep body and soul together, it’s easy to forget about the tilt of the axis and what makes day turn to night. It’s easy to forget the forces that propel this magic blue, green, and white marble through the universe at blinding speed. It’s easy to forget the delicate balance of these reliable cycles, and it seems impossible that any ant of a human being could affect such workings. But together, collectively….It’s easy to miss the tearing and soiling of the thin veil of protection.

At the autumnal equinox, it’s time to pause and feel the slow drift into darkness, to sense the lack of mercy at day’s end, year’s end, life’s end.

It’s also time for hope and harvest and homecoming. Every plant, tree, blade of grass, burrowing creature, migratory bird and predator, and every human in his or her bones knows that the balance is always shifting. There will be more light than dark again. And in the meantime, let the darkness lengthen our dreams and the hearth fires spark new stories beyond the limits of imagination.

-Radiance Writer

September 22, 2022

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash
Sunrise

September 3rd, 2022

Even though I’m not a morning person, I get up at 5am to teach a Sunrise Yoga class. My yogi soul can’t resist the idea of performing Sun Salutations at dawn in front of a windowed wall overlooking a lake.

I was glad to have a reason to be up. It must’ve been that way for the medieval nun making her way to chapel for Vigil. The speckles of Orion’s belt twinkle over the neighbor’s roof, and as I back out of the driveway, a thumbnail of moon hovers above the garage. It looks over my shoulder as I drive, and by the time I park, it hangs over the building I have to walk through a patch of trees to reach.

On the gravel path, it’s still the middle of the night. Crickets chirp and frogs croak. Cypress trees and mulched earth fragrance the air like frankincense and candle smoke. Above the buildings the brightest stars and morning planets dot the black sky.

The whole scene disorients my already foggy senses. The sky is usually bright blue and full of puffy white clouds when I walk this way. The contrast is dramatic. It gives me pause and reminds me of the medieval nuns again, waking at all hours of the night to pray. A flash of gratitude warms my heart and eyes.

During the day this place is full of people preoccupied with agendas and meetings and work. At 6am peace and tranquility pervade, and just for this one morning, I’m awake to see and feel it.

It doesn’t matter that by the time I set up the room for class and five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes pass and no one shows up. The room and the moment is as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

I drag my mat closer to the wall of windows. The crescent moon hangs on and the first light begins to appear in pink and orange streaks.

I begin. Inhale, arms overhead. Exhale, bow forward. Inhale, lift the head. Exhale, step back. Lower down. Inhale, upward facing dog. Exhale….

Now I understand why those early yogis meditating on the Ganges were compelled to move. One has to do something when one aligns and feels that the earth, the sun, and the moon are moving, when one witnesses and feels so much a part of it.

I stop my practice. If I hurry, I can reach the beach in time.

When I arrive, the water lapping the shore is so warm, I am tempted to wade all the way in, clothes and all. Tips of seaweed poke through the waves. The first ray stretches across the ocean, a gesture that makes it feel like love is what lights the world.

A man walks in front of me. I notice his white goatee and then his smile. “Happy Wednesday!” he says.

I was disappointed that no one showed up for my class. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a new day, and I’m here to see it.

-Radiance Writer

August 24, 2022
Time to Love the World

August 24th, 2022

Hard as it may be to justify, what was once a luxury is something I can no longer afford to lose. The extravagance of spending time in wild places is becoming the necessity it has always been.

Twice a week I teach yoga classes at a corporate campus situated on grounds that preserve the habitat of a South Florida barrier island—beach dunes, coastal strands, and cypress swamps. The walk from the parking garage to the building is a hike on a winding gravel path through saw palmetto, live oaks, and dodder vines.

For years I have hurried to get inside and then hurried to get home or to my next class or the bank or the grocery or wherever I thought was more important than where I was.

Only recently, after telling myself that I needed to plan more weekend trips to local parks and the beach, did I realize that I spend time in a nature preserve twice a week on my walk to work.

Only recently did I allow myself time in the middle of the week, in the middle of a work day to just stop, to give up trying to control when was an appropriate time to enjoy a place where the trees, plants, animals, and vines are going about their business of living despite the intrusion of humans.

I went even further, stepped off the gravel path, sat down next to the shallow water of the swamp. From there I couldn’t see the upper stories of the buildings nearby. It was just me and the water and the habitat.

Much more than I ever could have imagined greeted me there.

A previously hidden universe literally sailed in on white wings. The soft “thuft” of feathers was audible as an ibis landed and began poking its beak in the loam.

The high noon sun radiated across the water. I relaxed onto the damp grass and soon saw that I was in the company of more than a bird. Tiny fish were darting and treading. Spotted dragon flies skated by. A leaf fell from a tree.

More time, more attention revealed turquoise sequins on the tails of the fish. Why hadn’t I seen them before? And there were larger fish, too, sporting muted turquoise stripes. Where was I just a few seconds ago that I didn’t see them?

Out of nowhere a turtle as large as my torso angled through the water. Something prehistoric stirred in me. The age of myth was palpable. I wanted to tell her story, as if she were the mossback that brought the first land up from the deeps. She puts me in my place. In the epochs of time on Earth, my time is fleeting, yet frighteningly impactful.

All the peace I’ll ever need existed in the ten or fifteen minutes that I stopped, watched, and waited.   I didn’t have to go looking for nature. I needed to let it find me. I needed to give reverence time to catch up to the commotion of an average human day.

There is enough time to love the world. There has to be.   My soul tells me I have no choice.

-Radiance Writer

August 3, 2022
Lettuce Leaf

July 27th, 2022

Have you ever held a leaf of lettuce up to the light of your kitchen window while it dripped into the sink after you rinsed it?

Have you ever taken a few moments to examine its ruffles of tissue and intricately woven veins?

The leaf in my hands is a vessel for streaming light and holding water. It has the potential for being so much more than what I plan to do with it.

What can I do? This living thing has caught me in a moment. It’s revealed its true identity. My vision is x-ray. I see what it is to capture light, to be a light being.

The image of an entire tree with roots, trunk, branches, and leaves is imprinted on a piece of lettuce. Held up to the light, it’s like a photographic negative or a blueprint artfully recorded on what will soon be my lunch.

And to think that such beauty, such an intricate network, can nourish, can be broken down and absorbed into another body, sustaining its life, my life.

I will dress my salad in humility and toss it with gratitude. I will ask forgiveness from what I must destroy because I seek to live, because I need to eat.

All I can do is notice. All I can do is open my eyes.

-Radiance Writer

July 26, 2022
Poetry Has a Place

July 22nd, 2022

The world needs the poetry of places, people, and passages. Lyricism, thoughts in verse, and whispered prayers bolster us against the machinations of life, to keep us from degrading into hollow images, like those in video games maneuvering at the behest of others, for the purpose of accumulating endless points.

We need the poetry of places, people, and passages because inside we are soft. We are real. We need to love and be loved. We need to care and be cared for. We need hugs and kisses and warm words and gentle gestures. We need beauty of thought, form, and substance. We need elevation and transcendence.

We need space for thoughts and feelings to meld into the quiet grandeur of perspective, meaning, purpose, the will to go on. Between the industrial, the marketable, the lucrative, the commercial, and the profitable, we need a balm, something to seal the hard, jagged cracks formed from our efforts to make it in this world.

We need the poetry of thoughts and deeds, words, dances, intricate forms, colors, and music. We need candles and bowls of water, skylights and stained glass, statues, icons, and mosaics, incense and chimes, high ceilings and arched portals.

We need muses, reminders of higher ideals and humanity. We need places that capture our imaginations and feed our souls, sanctuaries to nourish our dreams and heal our broken hearts and anguished minds. We need places to mark our passages, temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, open fields, forest canopies, and sandy beaches. Places to honor and elevate our fleeting, noble lives.

Poetry has a place wherever the silence is full, wherever depth of feeling and thought is palpable, wherever the human spirit is striving and thriving, wherever the colors are rich and multifaceted, clarified and true. Where people gather in solitude and in community. Where silence is sacred and all are reminded that the divine dwells within them. Where spirits of the departed linger whispering to us of inspiration, daring us to hope.

-Radiance Writer

July 21, 2022
Time to Stop

June 20th, 2022

Sometimes I don’t know when to stop. I don’t know when to stop talking. I don’t know when to stop doing. I don’t know when to stop trying, thinking, and figuring. I just don’t know when to stop.

That’s when I know it’s time to do nothing. It’s time to sit on the floor and withdraw to the bare minimum of what must be done to sustain me and my life. In this moment all I have to do in order to live is breathe.

And if I breathe deeper, I can extend my smile, unwrinkle my brow, hear the air conditioner kick on and off. I can hear the crickets calling out from their invisible places in the grass, trees, and shrubs. I can hear and feel the pulse of my own heartbeat. I can be without doing, fixing, striving, or working at it. I can be. Just be.

-Radiance Writer

June 16, 2022

Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash
All the Holidays All at Once

April 20th, 2022

Sometimes I just want to pull all of the holiday decorations out of the closets and the garage and have all the Holy Days of Pleasure and Delight and Belief all at once. It would be a moment of star power with so much energy behind it that the planets would move into alignment and the joy of the universe would sing through all creation.

Burdened humanity would get a burst of renewal so devastatingly sweet that everyone would want to live again and again and again.

Imagine a world where Christmas trees and menorahs light up living rooms and make homes glow from within while Easter baskets and Seder meals grace tables. American flags and sparklers wave in every hand. Fireworks explode in glittering bouquets over shining dark waters. Lanterns, lit and lifted by candles, are released into the night. Everyone’s mailbox is stuffed with Valentines. Shamrocks carpet the world in emerald, and lacey painted eggs in all the colors of the rainbow nest in the fresh dewy grass while children spray each other with brightly colored dust. Dozens of deep red roses, poinsettias, Easter lilies and tulips, chrysanthemums and sunflowers decorate doorsteps and statues in temples and compete to be centerpieces on glossy dining room tables.

All the ovens in all the homes all over the world warm kitchens and hearts. Delighted children watch as iced sugar cookies shaped as Santa, snowflakes, hearts, shamrocks, Easter eggs, and pumpkins cool on wire racks. Fruitcakes and birthday cakes sweeten the air. Latticed pies burst with apples, blueberries, and strawberries. Savory harvest pies of pumpkin and pecan rest on window ledges. Platters of dates and crisp baklava tempt all to feast after the long days of fasting.

There are tables and tables of roasted turkeys and hams, stewed lamb, and chicken both fried and barbequed. Grills are smoking with shish kabobs, hamburgers, and hotdogs. Liberated bodies streak past blazing bonfires that light the night and melt the s’mores that smear the faces of the young at heart.

People and pets are clad in floral dresses and bonnets, velvet and tartan plaid, witches hats and ghoul masks, bridal gowns and stars and stripes bikinis and swim trunks. Volleyballs and badminton birdies soar through the air.

Adults sip mulled wine, margaritas, sake, and mint juleps. Children lick ice cream cones and icy pops.

Choirs are singing Jingle Bells, Hallelujah, and Morning Has Broken. Orchestras are playing The Stars and Stripes Forever and Beethoven’s 9^th. Chanteuses are belting The Star-Spangled Banner and O Holy Night. Lounge singers are crooning It Had to Be You. Monks, Nuns, Priests, Rabbis, and Imams are chanting in Latin, Sanskrit, Pali, Arabic, and Hebrew.

O Come O Come Emmanuel processes over the Amber Waves of Grain where Frosty the Snowman will rise again. Everyone will wake up in the morning with a quarter under their pillow.

Roll it all out, all at once, our full on celebration of everything. What would happen then to war, to the horrors, the despair, the suffering, and the need?

If all the people, all over the world, could decide together to retreat behind closed doors to save humankind from a virus, imagine the celebration we could have with the same amount of time, the same togetherness, only with this time the doors would be wide open.

-Radiance Writer

April 18, 2022
Time for Lions

August 19th, 2021

Late July through most of August is the time of the lion sun. It must’ve been easy for ancient stargazers lying on sand dunes to imagine the fierce, focused eyes of the predator and his yellow and gold mane bursting from the sun at this time of year.

After the summer solstice, I begin to long for these days, and when they arrive, I bask in the glory of blue skies and radiant heat. I head to the beach for a few precious moments of full blast, midday glory.

I float in the ocean, then rinse off the salt and sand at the outdoor shower, turning my face to the lion sun, cooling my burning skin in the stream of water. I do this as often as I can because the deep, penetrating radiance of these days only lasts a few weeks, and then it’s gone for another year.

There’s so much illumination. At night the shapes of cloud columns glow dimly in the dark.

When I moved to South Florida, I thought I’d shrivel in the heat and intensity. But I’ve learned to take it in small doses, like medicine. A full body x-ray exposing what needs to heal. Shedding light on what’s broken.

After 15 years, I feel now that I’d shrivel without the light. I crave the crystal clarity of these days of the lion. Days when the trees and grass shimmer and flash like diamonds.

Has an unexpected place ever gotten under your skin? Have you ever changed climate zones? Has a place ever changed you?

My closet used to be filled with black. I wanted to be covered. I had a lot to hide. But such darkness in dangerous, unnatural in this heat. I’ve learned to shed lots of things in South Florida. One can get by living light.

In this time of sun and sea water, I am purified. Exalted. I roar inside. I see clearly the road ahead. I’m healed.

At dawn bright star Sirius marks the east. In the afternoons, clouds amass like giant wings of angels, whisps across the sky. Birds glory in flight. At sunset planets simmer on the horizon. And in the darkeness, while we take repose, Earth passes through the Perseid cloud, and our nights are streaked with shooting stars from the debris of a comet’s tail.

The sun’s on full blast in the Northern Hemisphere. Stay awake. Don’t miss it. Open the eye of your eye. Sit still in silence. Bring down the glory of heaven. Roar like a lion.

-August 16, 2021
Watch Stop

July 26th, 2021

The day the world went into pandemic lockdown, my wrist watch stopped. Its battery ran out. That evening I dug into my jewelry box and found two other watches, neither of them worked either.

I condsidered ordering batteries online and figuring out how to change them myself, but what was the point of telling time if I wasn’t going anywhere?

Fifteen months later, fully vaccinated and on week three of my slow reentry into physical human community, I went to Sears wearing the watch that was frozen in 2020. The store was ghostly empty. An entire section in the middle was cleared of merchandise. When the service attendant handed back the watch, time had fast forwarded.

A lot of things stopped in 2020, but time wasn’t one of them. Four million recent graves, shortages of every kind, unemployment and inflation, and disposable masks littering parking lots prove it.

But lots of normal, life-giving things did stop. Like buying watch batteries at the mall, seeing loved ones, and going to church, work, or school. Exercise classes, shopping, concerts, and eating out stopped. Lives ended and began, and loved ones couldn’t be there to grieve or rejoice.

Those who could sat at home wrestling fears and enduring online interactions of every kind. Many made frightening choices in order to care for the rest of us or their own families. Many struggled to keep or find jobs. Sanity was challenged as we watched our world go out of control.

For a while, we gave ourselves over to the power of the mind. The best minds labored day and night to create safe vaccines and keep civilization going. The worst minds spread fear and panic and lies. Everyone suffered. Everyone lost.

The stopped watch that sat on my dresser for over a year reminded me to shut down the digital world from time to time. It reminded me that the world existed before the digital age. It existed long before clocks and humans. Without us and our inventions, the creatures of the world know what to do and when to do it. They sense when to eat, sleep, plant seeds, follow herds, migrate. We used to know too.

The pandemic didn’t send us all home to rest, reflect, and remember. We plunged head first, full body into cyberspace. When the world as we knew it became unlivable, we moved into the virtual world. It was a matter of survival. We kept moving, going, living two lives in one, but we were outside of reality. Time compressed, magnified, and went out of whack. The watches of the world didn’t just stop. They couldn’t keep up.

It’s time to be at home in the real world again. A world where for maybe a month or so in 2020 dolphins swam nearer to shore and deer wandered across city streets.

-June 9, 2021
Summer Journeys

July 13th, 2021

Summer is a time for taking journeys. It’s a popular time for packing up, hitting the road, and going someplace.

It’s especially joyful to travel in the summer of 2021. A year ago, our freedom to rove, to see family and friends, to have adventures, was severely restricted by the very real threat of contracting or spreading the potentially deadly COVID-19 virus.

While we’re still not out of the woods, many are feeling free to journey, to physically go someplace again.

But for me, summer also means taking time for inner journeys. Living in South Florida, late July means being drawn like a magnet to the blazing sun, dropping everything to go to the beach. Even if it’s just for 15 or 20 minutes, I float on my back in 80 degree turquoise water.

After a shower, then I’m ready. The rest of the afternoon is devoted to going through closets, bookshleves, boxes, and cabinets–cleaning, clearing, reflecting. I encounter who I’ve been, what I’ve forgotten, and what it’s time to let go of.

Some afternoons storms roll in, and instead of the beach, I sit on the front porch. Leaning against the warm adobe of the house, I let the wind blow rain on my face, arms, and legs.

Other afternoons I’m led to another time and place, another life, by a great book. I take siesta. I slow down. And when there’s enough space, I’m able to tell my own story.

Weeding through the people, places, and events, I look for the trails beneath the overgrowth, the lasting marks–the seeds I’ve scattered. The flowers I’ve planted. I remember that I’m an unlimited spiritual being having a limited human experience. I explore the merits of the journey, asses whether or not I’ve grown spiritually.

I go back to the beginning, chart the key destinations, savor the highlights, handle artifacts from pilgrimages. I stand at the back door of where I am and smile at the distances I’ve traveled. I gather memories of peace, connection, contentment, joy. I nod to my mentors, sages, role models, teachers, and sources of inspiration. I savor the friendships, the temples, the homes, the places of worship. I handle the books. Sing songs. Remember old practices.

Grateful for all of it, embarrassed and even ashamed by some of it, I let the feelings come. Sadness. Regret. Longing. Celebration. Weeding out, holding on to the fruits and flowers, I see more clearly where I am. It’s like standing in the ocean at midday. Water is glass and the horizon is forever.

Join me here. Take this inner journey. Reflect. Savor. Fill up your heart with the absolute wonder of you–spirit contained in a human vessel. Accept the gift of time the solstice grants every living being. Your soul has been waiting for it. Radiance illuminates the path all around you. Open up. Enter in.

-July 12, 2021
Flower Moon

July 5th, 2021

Such a personal moon, this soft pink and lavender full moon of May 2021.

It started drawing my attention at the gibbous, three-quarter phase. Its power already palpable. Yet in its strength–its size and brightness–it was gentle, almost loving. I interpreted its pull on me as call toward compassion, especially toward myself.

Nudged on by the soft evening breeze, the serenade of crickets, and the echo of the neighbor’s chimes, I lay on the chaise lounge in the backyard, certain of my need to bathe in the light of the Flower Moon.

I don’t know exactly where that hour of moon gazing took me. Maybe it was an inward journey toward awareness and appreciation of the natural world that I am so often too busy to notice.

Maybe it took me toward forgiveness. I know I tend to lose my way, trespassing on the feelings of others on the way to what I want.

Perhaps it took me toward peace. I struggle so hard against myself, others, the world. Surviving, striving, and thriving take their inner toll.

Perhaps during my hour with the moon, I slowed down and got quiet enough for love to catch up with me. Maybe it was a gift of time from God, creation itself, the universal spirit, the collective aspirations of the human heart.

The pastel colors of that gentle moon stayed with me. The next day I bought pink and lavender candles, scented with peony and lilac, flowers that kindle a certain sense of homesickness. The home of my dreams that never was. The youth that’s gone more every day.

But the soft fragrances remind me, the soft moon reminds me, I can steep my soul in the iron core of strife. I can burn in battle against people, ideas. I can fight to be right. I can carve out a space for myself in the material world, but I will never dry out the need for the eternal river, the gentle flowing substance of soul.

I can pretend all I want that I am of this world, but nature will always remind me of the mystery–spirit’s call–the reality of candles, and twilight, and the moon. The magic of life miraculously ebbs back.

I remember who I am, eventually, and that despite all of the necessary doing, at its heart, a human life is about being.

-May 20, 2021

Photo by Johnny Kaufman on Unsplash
Hour of the Wolf

May 20th, 2021

It happened again last night. In the strained distortion between 4 and 5am, wakefulness seized me and wouldn’t let go. A predator had hold of me. Worry, mystified and seasoned by night, turned to panic. The wolf inside fed on her prey.

But wild fear woke me before I could be consumed. Instinct knows consciousness is the only power that can conquer the primitive. Wakefulness worked against the wolf, but she had already fed enough on my sleep.

It was no use. I got up, felt my way to the bathroom, and flipped on the light. My eyes strained against the glare. A friendly meow greeted me in the blindness of the hall, the cat on her conscientious patrol of the living room. Predators were loose in the house, including the attic of my mind.

But last night when I turned off the light and got back into bed, I must’ve negotiated something with the mysterious wolf. The moon was only half full. An evenness existed between time and space. The irrational balanced the rational. Sleep spilled over into wakefulness and then receded into sleep. In the pull between them, fear and reason found common ground. And today is like a morning after a storm, an unlikely aftermath of clarity and calm.

The wolf seems to have forced a peace. I thought she’d hunted me down in the vulnerable hours because she was ravenous and wanted to feed on my worries. But I was wrong.

We are both drawn by primitive forces. No matter how tame my human life appears to be, my wolf reminds me I am governed by the moon and the terror of the hunt. In the light of day, it seems obvious. She only wanted to rouse me, so together we could howl.

-Radiance Writer

May 19, 2021