MORE THAN JUST MEMORIES

      This Sunday I'll be taking an old, black-and-white photo of my mother and add it to our communally created Mother's Day altar during the Sunday Circle. The shot, shown above, was taken when I was just a few months old; we're both looking off camera, seemingly gazing into a hopeful, joyful future that I have been living ever since. It's one of my favorite family pictures; my heart melts each time I look at it, feeling how very blessed I am to have had such a kind, caring mother. Her physical body may have died in 2002, but her spirit remains a living, loving presence in my life on a regular basis.

COLLECTIVE WISDOM

     I hope you'll consider bringing a photo or other memento honoring your mother, too. Because as you and I add our "Mom-orabilia" to whatever else other members of the Circle community might bring to co-create this altar, we'll be doing much more than merely making an attractive, composite visual image. We'll be honoring and invoking the vast field of loving and supportive feminine energy that makes our lives possible.

POWER OF PARADOX

     Having said that, it's also important to acknowledge that you may have less-than-fond memories of your mother. Or perhaps she died so recently that your family memories are still clouded by feelings of grief and loss. Please know that those feelings, too, are a welcome addition to our co-created altar and our time of shared ritual remembrance of the Divine Feminine alive in us all. For the metaphysical energy of the Divine Mother is not all just sweetness and light; life and birth. It is also the energy of darkness, chaos and death, for there can be no light without darkness, no nurturing without challenge, no birth without death.

     And yes, it's hard to make sense of this paradox; the language of logic, precision and prose struggles mightily under the weight of carrying these seeming contradictions. Which is why I find so much value in the power of gathering together and focusing consciously through shared silence, poetry, music and ritual space. As we approach this Great Mystery of the Divine Feminine with hearts and minds wide open together, we are able to mine the rich seam of meaning and purpose that awaits us, in a way that's difficult to do as separate individuals.

TUNING IN

     So, whether or not you are able to attend our Mother's Day Sunday Circle in person, or are "merely" tuning from somewhere else, I truly hope you'll consider tapping into the vast field of generative, feminine energy we'll be focusing on together. It promises to be a powerful time.

With gratitude and blessings,

     Rudi

THANK YOU for holding the Circle in your heart by visualizing a generous flow of financial abundance. Thank you for supporting us as we continue our work of fostering a creative, inclusive approach to spirituality. We are deeply grateful.