August 10, 2025

Imagine right now, going to your fridge and pulling out a big lemon. Then you place it on the cutting board and with a large, serrated knife, you cut the lemon in half. Then you take one of the halves, put it right to your mouth and suck on it. Right about now, as you read this, your taste buds are probably standing on end and your mouth may even be puckering. All this happened without one lemon in your sight.

August 9, 2025

Pope John Paul II said, “The human body includes, right from the beginning, the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift — and by means of this gift — fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.”

August 8, 2025

Our souls are connected to God and, by virtue of that concept, all of us are connected to each other. Yes, our individual essences start from that One Great Essence. The soul connection with others is often felt when like-spirits are together, when souls unite over a birth or a death, or when soul power is required to save a family, a culture, or a nation.

August 7, 2025

The body’s T cells and B cells know exactly how to fight off harmful diseases. The body also wisely fights infection by requiring enough sleep, essential nutrients, and limited stress. But we do not always listen to our bodies. We go for stretches without sleep, we eat non-nutritious food, and we enter stressful situations. But the body lets us know the truth and signals its wisdom through such symptoms as pain, insomnia, digestive maladies, and anxiety attacks.

August 6, 2025

As a microcosm of God’s image, our bodies have the properties of God just as do our souls. One of the properties is healing and restoration. All of us have had wounds to the skin. Recently, I had a small cut that required a series of band-aids. Every time I changed band-aids, I saw how my body was naturally healing the wound. The healing process went through several stages. First the swelling went down, then the redness disappeared, a small scab formed and then the wound got smaller and smaller until it disappeared.

August 5, 2025

To further align with the Divine, our bodies can assume a divine position. This has been done in Yoga for centuries. The divine positions in Yoga are called asana. Each position mirrors an aspect of humanity's relationship with nature and the Divine. And then there are other positions from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions called mudras which, like asana, represent a certain posture of the hands or the total body. In the Enneagram community, there are mudras which stand for each of the nine Enneagram types.

August 4, 2025

Our bodies carry the image of the Divine. Just as God moves through the cosmos, we move in the world with our feet. Just as the Divine holds us in arms of love, our arms hold those we care for. Just as the Divine bends and reaches to meet us where we are, we too bend and reach to meet others with our knees and arms. Just as the Divine sees and hears us, we too have senses that alert us to this world. Just as the Divine is love, we too embody love.

August 3, 2025

After climbing hundreds of steps, I arrived at the top of a 153 feet high tower atop Red Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama. At the top there was only a black iron rail separating me from the abyss below. I neared the edge to look downward, but the height made me weak and dizzy, so I quickly stepped back from the edge. I was only six or seven years old, but my body said, “You are in danger ... don’t go near the edge.” I will never forget my body’s reaction on that first visit to the famous iron statue of the Vulcan, a famous landmark in Birmingham. With maturity I have learned to trust heights, but not all of them. My body still tells me, like it did several years ago at the Grand Canyon, “Don’t get near the edge.”

August 2, 2025

We live only one block from a neighborhood park, where children always play. I took my kids to this park and remember the different worlds they entered while freely playing on the monkey bars, swings, and sliding boards. 

August 1, 2025

Sai and Nanette Mudiam took Lark and me on several pilgrimages while we were in India. Our time at the Heartfulness ashram was unforgettable because it was a thin place, as the Celts called sacred places, where the veils between heaven and earth lift. Our next holy journey in India was to the small town of Bodh Gaya. This is where Prince Siddhartha (born 563 BC) became the Buddha. 

July 31, 2025

About four years ago, our dear friends Nanette and Sai Mudiam, led us on a pilgrimage to India. Sai, a native of Hyderabad, India, immigrated to the United States when he was in college. While we were in India, Nanette and Sai led us to several thin places, including the ashram, Kanha Shanti Vanam, near Hyderabad. We felt the veils lift as soon as we drove through the gates of this worldwide center for spiritual study and meditation, now called Heartfulness. 

July 30, 2025

An uncle once told me he used dousing rods to locate water underground on his farm. He said, “The rods showed me where to dig for the dwell, and sure'nuf it was 75 feet down; that’s where I drilled and the water is cold and pure.” 

July 29, 2025

In slashing rain, we ICB pilgrims followed the ancient path that pilgrims had been traveling for centuries. We trekked to the ruins of a nunnery, which for centuries was a priory and worship center. Clonmacnoise was out of the way, but our experienced pilgrimage guide, Phil Cousineau, knew that sacred ground by heart. 

July 28, 2025

A thin place is where the veils that cover their numinous qualities are transparent or gone. 

As we reflected on yesterday, a "thin place" is a concept primarily used in Celtic Christian traditions. It refers to geographical locations, times, or movements in which the veils between heaven and earth are thinner or lifted. Thin places allow an awareness of the transcendent Divine obscured by the ego and distractions. A thin place gives us more access to the Divine within and without ourselves. 

July 27, 2025

When I made it through the barbed wire fence and into the forest, I was in a different territory. Instead of my mother knowing exactly where I was, here in the woods, I was free. Instead of the predictable, this was a land of discoveries and special places. The smells of the wild foliage filled my lungs, and the sound of chirping crickets and birds filled my ears. 

July 26, 2025

Retrieving our soul child’s memories of love is one of the most healing and empowering things we can do. Remembering the people and experiences that first brought us into being and filled our souls with love makes us more confident, grounded, empowered, and directed. 

July 25, 2025

Recently, a TV journalist interviewed a noted chef in her restaurant. The chef gave the journalist sample dishes of her farm-to-table menus. The journalist tasted several but couldn't contain her emotions when she sank her teeth into one of them….

July 24, 2025

I am my father’s namesake. Though we are entirely different people, so many of my earliest memories are of him.