On this day, hundreds of thousands of our siblings are standing up to say ‘Hands Off’ our democracy, our beloved vulnerable friends, and our sacred planet.

It is important to remember how to stay centered while never giving up on our work toward a more just and equitable culture.

Of course, this week’s blog from Richard Rohr, once again, nails it:

“It may not be in our power to determine how things will unfold, but it is in our power to decide how we respond. It is in our power to hold on to the practices that nourish us, inform us, and give us courage.”
—Adam Bucko 

“The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it. Storytelling, listening, movement, and music all represent the gentle, interior healing necessary to empower the hard work of social change.”
—Liz Walker 

“Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves.”
—Richard Rohr 

Recommended Practice

Resting Back and Trusting the Unknown

Buddhist teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo offers an embodied meditation to calm our nervous systems in times of stress and unknowing:  

In a sense, our culture, our society is dissolving. We are collectively entering the chrysalis, and structures we have come to rely on and identify with are breaking down. We are in the cocoon and we don’t know what the next phase will be like. Learning to surrender to the unknown in our own lives is essential to our collective learning to move through this time of faster and faster change, disruption, and breakdown. 

To begin the practice, find a comfortable position, sitting, standing, or lying. Connect with your body and how it’s making contact with the chair or the floor. Allow yourself to rest back in some way and really feel the support of whatever is holding you.… Every time you breathe out, let your body rest even more into the support of the Earth. 

Allow your face to soften, releasing the forehead, the muscles around the eyes, the jaw … 
Let the tongue rest in the mouth … 
Be aware of the shoulders and as you breathe out, let the shoulders soften … 
Bring attention to the chest and belly, allow them to release and soften on the next exhale … 
Notice your arms and hands, with the next exhale let them grow a little heavier, releasing tension … 
Feel your legs and feet, as you exhale release, soften, and let go … 
Feel your whole body now as you inhale and exhale, allowing the whole body to soften and release its weight even more onto the Earth.… 

You can bring this quality of resting back into your daily life. When you notice yourself leaning into the future, tensing up, trying to predict what will happen, straining to figure out what to do, whether on your own or with others, see if you can actually physically rest back. Open up the front of your chest, let your arms hang by your sides, and lean backwards slightly. This can support your mind to rest back, release, and let be, even for a short moment and to whatever degree you are able. 

When I first wrote this, I decided to stop blogging for a while. It was just too bleak. But with the help of friends, I found a way to present it that feels gentler and appropriate.

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Brilliant thinkers have described modernity as being in hospice, but having worked in hospice myself; I wonder if it is possible that our culture isn’t in hospice but in the throes of active dying. A part of me now believes that radical acceptance means acknowledging the imminent end of our current systems, our established norms, and our sense of security.

When I look back at my life as an activist and, indeed, decades of my activist ancestors’ struggles, it seems we have made little actual progress. Yes, Martin Luther King spoke of an arc bending toward justice, but today, we seem to be spiraling into destruction.

We have reached a point where we are no longer in control. We watch helplessly as climate change accelerates, species vanish, and democratic institutions crumble. Many of us are at a banquet table, laden with privilege, while beneath us roils the darkness of suffering: refugee crises, immigrant abuse, systemic racism, and environmental destruction.

Those who lead us and promise to keep us at the table offer only false promises and fear. They demand our loyalty and compliance while the abyss pulls at our feet. Even those who strive for justice, who crawl beneath the table to offer aid, still partake in the feast. We are all complicit, all feeling the pull of oblivion.

The obvious responses to this are despair, anger, fear, and sadness, and those are absolutely appropriate responses.

But maybe, as part of radical acceptance, we can simply admit that we have failed. And maybe that’s the way it has to be.

In her newest book, the amazing, brilliant Sofie Strand speaks to how entities have come together in an effort to create and failed miserably throughout biological history. The destruction that arises from that inability to digest each other has sometimes been the catalyst for something new to arise. I think she is pointing out that this failure we are experiencing is the impetus we need to birth something new.

We witness the rumbling sound beneath the table, our food bumping and skittering and sliding toward the abyss, and all that we treasured sliding away. Yet in the chaos and terror, there is also a gift.

So, can we live with that? Can we take one step at a time? Can we put one foot in front of the other and lead with love, to quote Melanie Demore?

What else can we do?

I depend upon what I’ve heard called intrinsic hope. The hope intrinsic in the seeds trembling in the ground at the beginning of spring. The hope that is intrinsic in the salmon battling upstream to lay its eggs and die. The hope that is intrinsic in stardust. The hope that is intrinsic in the vibrations of every molecule in every cell of everything that exists. Intrinsic because, somehow, something we cannot imagine will continue.

Maybe we have squandered our opportunity this time to create the paradise that was our gift. For that sin, we will suffer, and that’s what needs to happen. This antichrist-would-be king did not arise out of nowhere. All of us have birthed this monster. And now we have no choice but to move on in any way we can.

In the end, all we have is the bursting buds of springtime, the water flowing, the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and all our human and more than human beloveds.

So, let us weep, mourn, and then rise again, not with illusions of control but with a fierce commitment to love and service. And let us do it in community and ritual and make it sacred. Because finally, I have to believe that there is nothing that is not sacred, not even failure.

Friends, I’m taking a break for a few reasons.

1. It sometimes seems like there are enough (or even too many) words.
2. Many times they seem redundant and unnecessary.
3. I’m considering what part of my ego is attached to the idea that my words actually add any value.
4. My heart is struggling and I won’t subject you dear reader, to despair (I heard Matthew Fox say, the worst sin is spreading despair).
5. And finally, other than a few sweet and loyal folks who regularly respond, I’m not convinced anyone (or at least not very many) are listening.

It’s not a bad thing and maybe it’s just a rest.

For the most part my despair and exhaustion with the world leaves me in deep surrender, acceptance and wonder. I’m sincerely curious about what will rise from the ashes of our crumbling culture.

And I’m blessed with the realization that all I can do is laugh, sing, love, and serve in my little circles of influence.

Alhamdulillah.

Bye bye for now. ❤️😎🙏💕

And then one day you find
Ten years have gone behind you…

The sun is the same in a relative way
But you’re older
Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death
~ Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ by Richard Wright and David Gilmore

Time has been on my mind lately. Some days seem to fly by, while some minutes seem to last forever. But in every case, we are only gifted a limited time on this beautiful planet.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
~ Mary Oliver

A book I’m reading by physicist Carlo Rovelli called “The Order of Time” reminds us that what we think of as the marking of time is a creation of our culture. He notes that not that long ago, we didn’t bother to monitor and manage time with clocks and time zones. Those inventions only came about when we moved another step away from the natural rhythms of dark and light, the travel of the moon, stars, and sun across the sky. They were created in another of our misguided efforts to tame nature. Only when machines began to move us rapidly across the land did we need to agree on it being the same time here as it was there.

So, if time is a mental construct, what would it look like to fall back into the arms of the beloved earth and spend moments outside that construct?

Why do I find this compelling right now? Because we are at the mercy of the passing of the past into the future. There can be no such thing as now because it is already gone. We may remember the past (more and more vaguely possibly), and we envision a future that is, in fact, only a dream.

It begins to sink in that we are foolish to “fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way” (Pink Floyd again). Since we only have now and now is already gone, what is our motivation and passion that compels us to get up each day, to sing, to dance, to pray, and to work?

This is our practice this week. Invoke the assistance of the Divine and the Ancestors. Aspire with all your heart to know “the purpose that [divine] wisdom chooses.” (paraphrased from the prayer Saum gifted to us by Hazrat Inayat Khan). Vigilantly open to the best possible use of every wild and precious moment of the limited time we are gifted.

And don’t forget to be thankful when you hear the answer to your prayer. This is the blessed and beautiful experience of “God” that Hazrat Inayat Khan speaks to when he says, “The time comes when the belief in God is replaced by the experience of God.”

And as a final gift to all of you, my beloveds, here is the rest of St Mary Oliver’s wild and precious poem, “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

It seems essential to continue to examine wonder. We spend our days working to overcome despair and fear. We take time to meditate, be in nature, and hold our beloveds. Maybe, as we spoke of in another blog post, we even take time to weep and wail.

But Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan notes, “Concentration and contemplation are great things, but no contemplation is greater than the life we have about us every day.”

In the end, no matter how well we manage to hold our balance, ground ourselves, and be there for each other, we can become identified with all of that work and practice and forget to be amazed by the life all around us.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement . . . to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

I can imagine holding that wild wonder and that radical amazement and how that would change how I walk through the world.

Like the child in the picture above, all I behold blows my mind! Walking in the rain today, the incredible art of the drops of water hitting puddles on the concrete. The mist wrapping all the sharp edges in its soft blanket. The metallic smell of the damp air in my nostrils. Umbrellas with smiling humans beneath them brush against each other intimately. The silver gray of the Salish Sea melds nearly seamlessly into the darker textured gray of the overcast. Every single drop, every unique scent, every inadvertent brush, every shade of color or lack thereof is totally and forever amazing.

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver

There it is. St Mary captures everything I’m trying to relate in three short instructions.

So, there’s your work for this week (and beyond). In radical wild wonder, pay attention, be astonished, and tell us all about it.

In her most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism, Mirabai Starr speaks to the ways we can all notice and live our lives as mystics in these times.

In a prayer from Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Kahn, we notice, “Thy light is in all forms, thy love in all beings.”

It takes only the sense that no matter where you are or what you are experiencing, you are in the presence of the Oneness that unifies all of us to be a mystic. If you aspire to spend each moment in wonder at and gratitude for everything you come into contact with, even the challenging and frightening things. You will experience life as a mystic.

“The sacred is always brimming from the heart of everything. If what it means to be a mystic is to walk through this world looking through the eyes of love, then anything and everything that we do with the intention and attention on the sacred, including our most difficult experiences, counts and belongs.”
—Mirabai Starr

“Public mystics are leaders who embody the ineffable while attending to the ordinary, those who host the transcendent, the mystical, and the mundane while engaged in pragmatic justice-seeking acts.”
—Barbara Holmes

As a practice, sit quietly and notice your breath. Send your roots down into the mycelial network and notice your connection to every being. Then stand and (if you’re not already outside) walk in nature, or if you’re in a city, walk noticing nature. And experience every being, sound, feeling, smell, or face as the manifestation of the Divine Oneness. Notice the wind on your skin, the scent of the forest or city street, and the sounds of birds, humans, and pets. Thank them all, and hold them in your heart with love, appreciation, and light.

This is the actual state of things. Our self-protective filters tend to distract us and help us forget this reality. In fact, no one, no matter how confused or cruel, doesn’t have this part of the Divine inside them somewhere.

By acknowledging, practicing, and spreading this reality, you become a light that reminds everyone, “Thy light is in ALL forms, thy love in ALL beings…”

Thank you.

This week, compelling writing and counsel have inspired me to consider deeply how we work with our sense of anger, despair, futility, and suffering in these extremely challenging times.

As we witness the imminent and ongoing compromise of our living planet and its beings, both human and more than human; as we watch our democracy purposely thrown into chaos by greed and fear; as we fear for the safety of those most vulnerable, the well of grief and fear cannot help but grow and crush on our ability to stay present and grounded.

We all know the need to acknowledge and be with our grieving. This poem from David Whyte says it well:

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The well of grief

Those who will not slip beneath
    the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water
    to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
    the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,
    the small round coins,
          thrown by those who wished for something else.

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I know that even with all the tools I have to practice surrender, acceptance, and presence, even with the underlying knowledge that the Divine Oneness is always there, even with knowing that the grace of love, compassion, and caring has never and will never dissipate… that deep, dark well of grief can be overwhelming and exhausting.

My dear friend Kathleen wrote about anger in her recent blog, I Lean Liminal. It was a good reminder that even though many of us have been traumatized into pushing that emotion away, it doesn’t ever really go away. Like the grief and despair we feel, anger must be acknowledged and processed to direct it toward more positive actions.

This week, in a spiritual companionship session, we discussed how a well of despair can become a dark, almost solid weight on our souls. It often manifests as a painful tightness throughout my body.

My dear friend and spiritual guide noticed that we take time for our meditation practice, our work or social justice actions, exercise, and time with our beloveds. But when do we actually dedicate time to simply allowing ourselves to weep, scream, pound the pillows, or express our pain in any committed way?

In that session, we tested this idea of micro-dosing despair. It was a profound release of tears, moans, shouts, curses, and halting breaths. Ultimately, I felt like every cell in my body had been opened, split apart, and cleansed, becoming a more brilliant light.

But there were some important learnings.

• Don’t do this alone – have a trusted and capable friend or loved one to hold presence. They don’t have to say or fix anything; their simple presence might be enough. Or, if necessary, they might support you physically or with words of comfort if it becomes too intense. This could be a virtual companion, but better a three dimensional warm body.
• Put boundaries around this practice – ensure you are in a safe place and that someone will keep you safe from self-harm, interruption, or simply going too deep into the intensity of your grief.
• Have time boundaries as well. This is micro-dosing, so five or ten minutes might be all you need.
• Make time for this regularly. It is not intended as a cure-all. If we are paying attention, those atrocities and sorrows will invade our hearts again. Keep doing all your other practices to stay present, grounded, and guided to the work that needs doing. But, if this resonates for you – micro-dose your despair as a cleansing practice as often as necessary and appropriate.

As Kathleen notes about anger – noticing, accepting, and surrendering to these emotions is vital to self-care. We must include robust, sustainable, and formidable tools if we hope to survive and remain resilient and effective in resisting these dark powers.

This is hard, my dear ones. But there have been and are even more challenging times. Together, we can and will make it through. May it be so.

As I come to the end of a beautiful retreat with our Peace Dance community from Canada, Europe, the U.S., and many Latin American beloveds, I am so deeply filled with love, compassion, light and hope.

These amazing, enthusiastic young leaders from the south are filled with a potent love, courage and guidance toward the unity and connection of all beings.

In the ever more discouraging and threatening atmosphere of our insane “leadership” these beloveds remind me there is hope.

And they fill me with the strength to continue to hold even the deepest, most unsettling dark powers in light.

It is certainly the most difficult of my practices to open the news, witness the latest onslaught of autocratic insanity and somehow integrate that into the light of the Only Being, recognizing it as somehow still a part of that Unity.

As Richard Rohr notes, “I suppose there is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is what I mean by the ‘integration of the negative.'”

The challenge for me, (and maybe you, dear reader will relate) is to, in some mysterious and often elusive way, remember there is no them and us. No separation from even the most distressing and disgusting manifestations of dark powers. These too must be accepted and surrendered to.

To quote Mirabai Starr, “I am continually challenged to stop arguing with reality and instead soften into what is. Over time, I learned to find beauty, meaning, and wholeness in the heart of reality. Unpredictable, ever-changing, humiliating, and humbling reality.”

The practice I suggest for us all, is to aspire to that source of strength and loving compassion. In meditation. deepen into a place of stillness, invoke and specifically pray for, the assistance and power of the ancestors.

Perhaps chant Alahho Akbar, which Sufi Ahmed Murshid Samuel Lewis taught means “Peace is Power.” Or hold another mantra of strength, courage and action on the breath.

From that place of grounded strength, imagine all those who are weilding those dark powers as surrounded in a brilliant white light.

There is little chance it will actually permeate their brittle, fear and greed induced armor and change their ways. But that is not our work or our goal.

It is for us to simply remember and let it go. And from that place of surrender to what is, to gather the strength and power from the benevolent ancestors; share it in our communities, and open our hearts to what we are called to do.

From that place, it has been my experience that the Divine will guide us to what service is ours and is needed in each moment.

So, set that intention. Invite and share guidance and assistance from your beloved community and ancestors. And remember with each breath to say thank you.

Alhamdulillah. All praise to the One.

After last week’s post, a friend suggested that I write more from my heart instead of sharing others words all the time. I love the wisdom of my teachers so much that I often resonate with their words and want to share them here.

But for this blog, I will take her advice and talk more about stillness and silence and its importance in our lives.

I think of the verse in the Old Testament, “Be still and know that I am God,” a phrase from Psalm 46:10.

And the words of Jesus about praying in private so we can be in a place of listening to the divine, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6)

In the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Sufi master, “Through the silence of nature, I attain Thy divine peace. O sublime nature, in thy stillness let my heart rest”.

As a response to trauma, fear, and despair, which are endemic in our world, we tend to fill our lives with distractions: music, talking, news, TV shows, and movies. None of these things is terrible, but they can often distract us from that still, small voice.

What can we practice to remind ourselves to listen? What kinds of unnecessary things can we let go of or could be done much less to have time for silence?

I love this quote from Mirabai Starr, “The more you turn inward, the more available the sacred becomes. When you sit in. silence and turn your gaze toward the holy mystery you once called God, the mystery follows you back into the world. When you walk with a purposeful focus on breath and birdsong, your breathing and the twitter of the chickadee reveal themselves as miracles. .” (Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy)

In her new book, Ordinary Mysticism, she discusses the importance of her morning practices. She notes that even though she absolutely doesn’t have time in her busy life, she still takes that time because it sets the tone and intention for the rest of the day.

I resonate with her words. Every morning, I also make an effort to spend time in gratitude, remember all my beloveds and my mycelial connection to the all in all, and aspire to a life dedicated to service. I pray part of a prayer that Hazrat Inayat Khan shared, “Use me for the purpose thy wisdom chooses.” and I chant the Hebrew word, Hineni (hee-nay-nee), which translates as “Here I am.”

One of my favorite practices is called Khilvat in the Sufi lexicon. It is an extended time of silent meditation, usually in a beautiful natural setting. I also find value in fasting during that practice. Removing all distractions, even talking and eating, is genuinely transcendent.

I deeply treasure a walking meditation to a place near my home, which I call my ‘Sit Spot.’ I share that space with tall trees, vibrant plants, animals, and a beautiful creek burbling, reminding me of the beauty of acceptance and surrender. Once, it generated a surrender poem about how the creek doesn’t need to go back, doesn’t want to go back, can’t go back, and neither can I.

Even in this spinning, intrusive culture, we can and must find every opportunity to be present in the stillness and the silence and listen for guidance from that still small voice. Holding that sense of silence on the breath, perhaps even noticing those brief moments of stillness between the in and out breaths, can be a practice of remembrance in every moment.

Knowing that stillness is indeed Divine creates an opportunity to truly be grounded and open to the light of guidance.

And when we infuse ourselves and our souls with that radiance, we can be a lamp in the darkness. We can radiate that light to all those who suffer and need to notice the stars sparkling in the dark night.

This is our work. That is why we arrived here at this time and place. Chief Arvol Lookinghorse, the chief of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota tribes, said, “Know that you yourselves are essential to this world. Each of us is put here in this time and in this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Do you think you were put here for something less? Do you think that the creator would create unnecessary people in this time of terrible danger?”

Look into your own life. Consider what is getting in the way of your ability to spend time in stillness and silence. What distractions could you reduce or even let go of? See if you can set aside time, even if it’s only a few minutes, to be still and silent and hear that still, small voice.

As I was contemplating this blog post, drifting into an afternoon nap, the leaf blowers started up outside as they are wont to do. And I slipped into this poetry I share with all of you to end this post.

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Intimate Silence

I had a dream…

All the leaf blowers wound down to silence.

All the cars and trucks, motorcycles, and work vans – every vehicle slowly
pulled to the curb and turned off. And none of them ever started again.

Airplanes, helicopters, and drones – landed safely, shut down and would never start again.

All weapons ceased to work. Even tools like knives, spades, axes – if raised in violence crumbled to dust.

Motorized tools of all kinds stopped and wouldn’t start again.

Amplifiers and microphones failed.

And finally…

When every noise making invention of the crazy human animals fell silent…

In the intimate, sacred stillness
A sabbath rest,
A potent dark seed trembling…

Everyone, everywhere, human and more than human
Took a long, deep breath
Let out a relieved and grateful sigh…

And then…

The singing began.

Of course, the birds started it.
Then other creatures took up the song.
The stars, clouds, moon, and sun smiled and tapped out the rhythm of day and night.
The oceans and rivers filled the low end with gurgles and tides.
The animals contributed their beautiful melodies.

And finally,

Sobbing,

The humans began

To harmonize.

There is much beauty and value in noticing and embracing the times between the parts of our lives. One can experience this in meditation by spending time between the in and out breaths and genuinely feeling what that place of silence and stillness holds for us.

My friends Tovah and Ted of the Anokhi Institute sent out the following beautiful essay last week. They offer many classes and events relating to mystic practice. I can’t recommend them highly enough.

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We mark a new year, yet still in the peak of the darkness and quiet of the winter season. A time of transition and introspection.

Life’s most transformative moments often occur in these spaces between—between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. This in-between space can feel unsettling, even disorienting, as we are suspended in a place where the familiar has faded and the new is not yet formed.

This pause, however, is sacred. It is a liminal space—a threshold where deep reflection and inner transformation can occur. Just as the soil lies fallow in winter to prepare for spring’s growth, we, too, need these periods of stillness to process, reflect, and envision. The pause between what was and what will be is a gift, though it may not always feel like one. It is here, in the quiet, that clarity and inspiration often emerge.

Embrace this quiet space as an invitation to slow down and listen. What do you hear when the noise of doing subsides? What truths emerge when there is nothing to distract you? This pause allows us to step outside the momentum of our habits and reflect deeply on the unfolding of our lives. It is a time to ask profound questions: What do I truly value? What seeds am I planting for springtime sprouting? What am I being called to nurture at this time?

The in-between can also be a time for recalibration. Transitioning from one season to the next, one year to the next, can unsettle our routines, habits, and patterns, offering a chance to realign with our deeper selves. By embracing this quiet time, we give ourselves the spaciousness to imagine new possibilities. It is here, in this fertile void, that our own inner genius inspires us to envision what could be.

At its heart, this pause reminds us of the quiet power of stillness. Even when no outward signs of change are visible, transformation is unfolding beneath the surface, preparing us for new possibilities. Like seeds germinating in the darkness of the soil, the changes we are readying ourselves for are often invisible until the right moment to emerge. This requires patience—a willingness to let go of control and allow life to unfold in its natural rhythm.

However, the in-between space can also bring discomfort. Uncertainty, doubt, and even fear may surface as we navigate the unknown. These feelings are natural, and they, too, carry wisdom. Discomfort invites us to explore the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we need. It asks us to trust that we are capable of meeting the mystery of the moment, even without all the answers.

Discomfort, while challenging, can also be a catalyst for transformation. By leaning into it with curiosity rather than resistance, we may discover insights and inner resources we didn’t know we had. 

Takeaway Practice:

Dedicate time each day to sit quietly and reflect on the in-between. Light a candle or create a ritual to mark this pause. Ask yourself:

What seeds of transformation am I planting in this pause?

What possibilities or inspirations are quietly emerging within me?

Allow the answers to arise organically, trusting that clarity will come in its own time.