The weather forecast was calling for significant thunderstorms, and I had a Picnic, Paddle, Play, and Singing event planned with whomever showed up from my somewhat last-minute invitation to friends to join me and my younger two offspring at Harrison Bay State Park for what I was sure would be an adventure!  I had intentionally planned this event for sunset as it's one of my new life goals to get on the water regularly for sunset experiences, and, despite the weather forecast, I decided that we'd go, "rain or shine."  After all, isn't one of the trademark characteristics of an adventure that it's not truly "plan-able"?  I happen to believe, in fact, that without an element of uncertainty, there are no adventures.

So, after getting out the door somewhat later than I intended with our picnic packed and my inflatable kayak in the trunk of my van, we made our way from Ringgold, GA toward Harrison Bay State Park.  As the weather gods would have it, we weren't quite to the state line when the sky began spitting water on our windshield.  Undeterred, I pointed toward the ever-darkening horizon and joked with my children that we were headed toward that tiny speck of light in the northeasternmost visible corner of the sky.  And then, using a phrase my daughter regularly tells me when vying for my approval of her latest impromptu scheme which usually involves housing exotic animals, I said, "Trust...Just Trust!"  They looked at me with halfhearted expressions of boredom and disgust, but since I was driving they had little choice but to go along with my insistence that we were on an adventure.

We drove through pouring rain (like that really intense rain that causes some drivers to pull over with their hazard lights on to wait out the deluge) as text after text message came from various grateful friends who decided to bail on this particular adventure due to the storms.  Even when we were about 10 minutes from our destination, there was still significant rain mingled with some thunder and lightning.  Clearly...I was delusional!  And yet...not one to give up easily, and fairly confident that fun can be had even in rainstorms when one is on a mission to have a good time, I continued to hold out for either a short-lived storm, a warm and rainy walk in the woods, or the ease of picnicking under the shelter of a pavilion with the three friends who were still on their way as I continued to tell my kids to "Trust.  Just Trust!"

By some inexplicable bit of magic, as we turned onto the road that would land us at the State Park, the rain stopped and we drove in the dry toward the swimming/picnic areas.  Not entirely certain where we wanted to be, we found ourselves adjacent to a very dilapidated tennis court in a rather secluded area of the park, and we saw a large pavilion ahead that would provide adequate shelter in the event that the storm followed us to our picnic after all.  The winding road led us between two small fields where we suddenly saw FIFTEEN deer just hanging out in the woods.  We were awe-struck, and I decided to simply stop the van on the blacktop road and roll the windows down to enjoy the view.

My daughter the animal-lover began to call the deer like one would a kitten, and to our utter amazement they gently wandered closer to our vehicle.  I confess I was somewhat leery of having so many deer so close, but thankfully they were all does and fawns, so I chose to relax and generously allowed the organic carrots and cucumber from the hummus tray (the one I had lovingly prepared to share with friends) to be used as food for the deer who were, at this point, right outside our car windows.  Quietly and with as little movement as possible my children, exited the vehicle to sit on the side of the road and offer the deer food to eat from our picnic supply.  Kettle chips and veggies were consumed directly from their hands and one of the does even came around to the driver's side window and ate from my offering as well.

Never have I ever seen such domesticated deer willing to lick food from our hands with such ease.  It was 10 minutes of pure magic as we waited for our friends to arrive for the planned Picnic Adventure.  The storm raged all around us, but somehow we were in a tiny oasis of dry even as we continued to hear thunder for the next twenty minutes or so.  After our friends arrived and we parked our cars near the pavilion, we all enjoyed the deer from a distance as we sang a song of thanks, shared some yummy food together, and decided to get on the water after all.

My son and a friend played pickleball at the run-down tennis courts while others of us meandered to a more accessible put-in to paddleboard and kayak as the sun set.  It was THE PERFECT evening adventure and not one I could have possibly ever planned in all my wildest dreams!

I've been thinking since then about this phrase, "Trust.  Just Trust." and have concluded that it pretty well sums up my experience over and over again in this world.  I may not be able to trust that the weather will be what I want or that another person will show up for me in the way that I hope or that the experience I have will always be delightful, but I have learned over and over again that I can trust myself, my intuition, and The Universe to give me exactly what I need to learn, grow, change, and continue becoming more of who I want to be.

Last night's adventure was a reminder that I can indeed "Trust. Just Trust!" that somehow or another all will be well.  My only job is to relax, follow the longings of my heart, and be open to the unfolding of all the good that comes my way as I meander.

It's not an easy path, but for me it's just exactly how I want to live.

What about you?  Where are you practicing releasing control as you "Trust.  Just Trust!" that all will be well?

​When you hear the word "freedom" what do you think of?  Perhaps you think of people who are physically imprisoned in circumstances you can hardly imagine?  Maybe your mind goes to other parts of the world where, from our outside perspective, there seems to be little to no freedom in the ways we tend to value it?  Possibly you think of books, songs, movies and powerful stories of journeys to freedom that have inspired you in creating your own unique path to the freedom you experience today?  

You might consider the places where freedom seems illusive in your own life.  Maybe your mind wanders to those places where there is some form of oppression that you find painful, challenging, unwelcome, or angering?  It may be that you are struggling to forgive, release, and allow that which feels unforgivable and in this journey you are caught in a web of discontent, resentment, vindication, and angst?

Wherever you are in your own journey toward freedom, you are not alone.  Any one who has lived an honest life knows that pain and heartache that comes with betrayal, punitive behavior, hatred, and sometimes even vitriol from another.  Sometimes that is a response to particular behavior and sometimes it is a result of some basic quality of being that systems of oppression exploit in order to benefit from the servitude extracted from an entire group of people.  The color of one's skin, one's gender, ability, sexual orientation, religious or political viewpoints, or even likes or dislikes can be used as the foundation for both covert and overt oppression in its various forms.

In preparing for a new singing series of "Singing for Freedom" I have been thinking about the ways we can become prisoners in our bodies, minds, or spirits.  I am aware that there are situations in my life in which I have been both the oppressor and the oppressed.  I wrestle with the nuances of "freedom" as a concept and the practical implications of such an unwieldy word.

Freedom in Body seems to be the capacity to have autonomy over our physical body.  Things like the clothes we wear, where we live, the food we eat, the ways we listen to and honor our bodies' need to rest, move, breathe, and replenish itself, where we go, and even how we move our bodies through the world are all part of physical autonomy.

Freedom in Mind is in part the capacity to think for ourselves, to choose the thoughts we want to focus our attention on, to embrace the perspectives that resonate for us and release the ones that no longer serve us.  The power to change our minds, decide for ourselves, and navigate our lives from a place of solid and stable mental well-being are all areas where we can experience bondage or freedom depending on how we choose to engage.

Freedom in Spirit from a purely human standpoint seems to me to encompass the capacity to live life from within the values, morals, and principles that ring true for us.  To recognize, acknowledge, and move ever more toward our own North Star as a guiding force in our lives is to experience a freedom that can lead to a greater expression of our True Self.  With support and determination we can resolve to embrace the resilience of spirit that leads to true freedom.

While these aspects of Freedom are inter-related, they are not in any way fully dependent on one another.  It is possible to be imprisoned in body and to be free in mind and spirit just as it is possible to be free in body while still living as a prisoner in aspects of our minds and spirits that are not yet truly free.

I wonder if, from a non-human standpoint, our Spirits are fully free always, and it is our minds and bodies that get bogged down in areas of resistance, contraction, and confinement either through our own or others' actions and their effects on us.

Additionally, there are the ways that we all function at different times as both oppressed and oppressor.  For many years I have contemplated why the comparison game that is so prevalent in our world is utterly ineffective.  At least one reason, as I am continually coming to understand, is because we can always find people who have it "better" and those who have it "worse" than we do.  And then what?  We boost our own fragile sense of self by looking closely at those who have it "worse" than we or wallow in self-pity when we focus on those who are "better" off than we?  This "better than/less than" thinking feeds a sense of inequality and, left unchecked, can contribute to this oppressed/oppressor dynamic in our thinking.

This is my understanding of what Nelson Mandela meant when he said that the only division that remains among free people is "between those who cherish democracy and those who do not."  At its heart, democracy is about equality of rights and privileges, and true freedom supports equal rights and privileges for all people.  Granted, this is difficult to work out, and yet, the notion that "I am not free until all are free" is a guiding principle for many on the path of social justice and the ongoing struggles for freedom in our world.

Maybe one step on the path to freedom is stepping away from the comparison game and focusing our time and attention on those unique things that nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits.  For me those things can be as simple as:

• daily gratitude, movement, and song,
• healthful and delicious food as fuel for my. body,
• a mindfulness practice that supports my noticing in the natural world,
• conversations with good friends,
• honest acknowledgment of the rainbow of my emotions, and
• commitment to rest and ease in a world that thrives on busyness and disease.

In addition to singing about freedom and working toward it in whatever ways you feel called, I also invite you to join me in taking a careful and thoughtful introspective look at the places in which freedom and/or oppression show up for you today.  Here are a few questions I'm asking myself:

• In what arenas do I find it easier to live fully in my freedom?  
• Where do I feel constriction or resistance to life?  
• What might it be like to accept the invitation from Life to notice my own confinement in some area?

And then, the flip side of that coin:

• How am I contributing to the freedom or oppression of others in either passive or active ways by my thoughts, words, actions, or indifference?  
• Where am I being nudged to notice how I show up in the world and lean in toward freedom for all - even those who I feel have harmed me?

As always, I welcome a two-way engagement with this conversation.  I'd love to hear your reflections on this topic of freedom and the ways you are expanding your understanding and practice of freedom in your life.

In conclusion I'll leave you with this word of commendation.  In his book, “A Long Walk to Freedom,” Nelson Mandela tells the moving and empowering story of his own internal transformation while in jail as a political prisoner for 27 years in South Africa.  From the age of 44 to 71 he tirelessly worked for the freedom of himself and his people from within his physical confinement on Robben Island.  His writing and story have inspired me to examine my own relationship with freedom as I navigate my own long and winding path toward more freedom.  I commend to you his autobiography, which is as interesting as it is long.  I've included a few quotations below from the following website that you can visit for more organized excerpts of his writing.  
archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/Mandela/Mandela.html

"...I well knew that the place he was referring to would not afford me the freedom I longed for. He then remarked rather cryptically, "As long as you don't make trouble, you'll get everything you want."

….The singing made the work lighter. A few of the fellows had extraordinary voices, and I often felt like putting my pick down and simply listening…. one of the warders was fluent in Xhosa and understood the content of our songs, and we were soon ordered to stop singing. (Whistling was also banned.) From that day on we worked in silence….

…the human body has an enormous capacity for adjusting to trying circumstances. I have found that one can bear the unbearable if one can keep one's spirits strong even when one's body is being tested. Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation; your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty….

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity. 

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. 

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

May all people everywhere know freedom of body, mind, and spirit.  May all be truly free.

Last night was a picture perfect evening: the sun was setting, a gentle breeze was blowing, the cicadas were singing their hearts out in East TN, and eleven brave humans gathered to sing outdoors in Chattanooga simply for the joy of blending our voices together and delighting in the shared experience of  community singing.  We are nearly halfway through the 3rd series in Chattanooga which I've titled Singing FOR and IN The Natural World, and we're experimenting with singing in various outdoor locations during our Wednesday evening sessions when the weather cooperates.  So far we've sung in the Wheland Foundry Tunnel on the Riverwalk and Renaissance Park.  

This has been a dream of mine for several years now after being introduced to this type of community singing with Maggie Wheeler in 2014.  I find that it's really tough to describe a singing circle to people who have never experienced it.  So, when asked about it, I generally just invite people to join for a session - it's one of those things that is far better experienced than described!

That being said, here are some of the comments shared by participants in the first two series regarding THEIR experience with Chattanooga Singing Circle:

"I undoubtedly leave feeling lighter, and more joyful and playful. It's beautiful to see how the people in the container connect and expand over the course of the series."

"I loved how quickly we were able to pick up the songs and really sing them. That felt fun."

"The experience has exceeded my expectations and it is well worth the money."

"It felt very peaceful and made me happy to have a part of my week dedicated to singing (which I love)."

"It impacted me tremendously."

"It was a great opportunity to not only join others in uplifting, fun songs, but to build friendships and enjoy the community experience of blending our collective voices and supported throughout."

"I loved it! not only did it help me feel more confident singing in front of people, but it also helped me feel less socially anxious, which I'd been struggling with. everyone was genuinely sweet and supportive."

"It was something to look forward to, I was bummed when I missed it."

"At first I was concerned about not having the notes and words in front of me but that turned out to be okay."

"It gave me a boost of energy, uplift and support as well as something new and fun to think about."

"I love it! You really have created something magical in Chattanooga and I can't wait for more people to learn about it and recognize the benefits of singing in community."

"My experience as a participant in Singing for Transformation was truly transformative. It was amazing to feel such a strong connection with people I did not know. It was empowering and gave me a great deal of joy and increased confidence."

"I LOVED IT! Freeing and energizing - Connection"

"I was singing a lot more between sessions and found myself excited to come to group!"

"I wake up singing now. ✨"

"The absolute lack of judgment!!!  I can't tell you how important this was to me after a lifetime of tough classical training."

So, if you enjoy singing or think you might enjoy singing or are just curious about this experience and haven't yet come along for the ride, take a look at the schedule and join us!  You just might leave feeling uplifted and connected in ways you can't yet imagine.

It’s tough to capture in video what I do because singing is such a vulnerable experience. We’ve outsourced something as human as joining our voices in song to “the professionals” and we’ve become fearful of raising our own voices because many of us believe the lie that our voice is “not good enough!”

Many people I talk with have trauma around vocal expression:

• “I was told in 3rd grade to stand in the back and just move my mouth.”
• “My mother hit me across the mouth whenever I ‘back-talked’ (otherwise known as expressing a differing opinion with a bit of attitude as a child).”
• “The music teacher at my elementary school suggested that maybe I needed voice lessons before joining the school chorus.”
• “My dad would regularly tell me to shut up or he’d give me something to cry about.”
• “Nobody in my family can sing…we all just laugh at how terrible we sound!”
• “Only the powerful people would speak in my family…these were the men, so as a little girl I learned to be quiet and just listen.”
• “My parent sent the message often ‘Oh, honey, you can’t say THAT! What will people think if they hear you say what you’re actually thinking?’”

​
These stories leave painful scars long after the abuse ends. These are the stories of shame and silencing that come from being taught to be quiet, nice, polite, small, demure, respectful, inauthentic, and false to our True Selves.

The sad thing is that we come to internalize these false ways of being early, and, without examination, we stay small and live lives that squelch our true self-expression in so many ways.

Singing is just one form of self-expression, but speaking and singing our Truth matters. I work with people who want to reclaim their authentic voice through joyful and judgment-free community singing. Your unique voice deserves to be heard…just as it is!

Let’s sing more and worry less about how it sounds to the critics…even when that critic is one's self.

*I’m grateful to @outshine.adventures for this short video clip from last night’s impromptu sharing of “Bele Mama,” a song from Cameroon, West Africa after a gorgeous hike and yoga practice in community on Earth Day as the Full Pink Moon was rising over the bluff!

The Pillars of Traditional Healing are:
1) Connection to clan and the natural world
2) Regulating rhythm through dance, drumming, and song
3) A set of beliefs, values, and stories that brought meaning to even senseless, random trauma
4) On occasion, natural hallucinogens or other plant-derived substances used to facilitate healing with the guidance of a healer or elder

In this excellent book published in 2021, Dr. Perry says that today’s medical model  over focuses on psychopharmacology (4) and cognitive behavioral approaches (3) while greatly undervaluing the power of connectedness (1) and rhythm (2).

Which is where Singing Circle comes in!
Community Singing is one way to reclaim the 1st and 2nd pillars of traditional healing.

Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when I read this information on page 200 of this book, but I was encouraged to continue offering this opportunity to the Chattanooga and Knoxville communities.  We need each other, and the science is over and over again providing the research that supports how much better we are when we are connected in healthy and healing ways.

So, if you’re looking to connect to others AND rhythm as you heal from trauma and expand your resilience, I encourage you to try singing with us!  It’s an intentional, safe, and welcoming environment where you can try something new, dive deeper into community, and practice building your capacity to tolerate discomfort and be witnessed in your process of growth.
​
Hope to sing with you soon!

The New AI: Artificial Intimacy is a conversation between psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel and social scientist and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown. 

​Esther Perel and Brene Brown are two of my favorite and most influential current thinkers on the topics of relationships, vulnerability, and true human connection in a world where digital, mechanistic, and virtual connections abound.  Even me sitting at my computer to write this blog post that will land in your inbox is indicative of this liminal space between actual connection and pseudo-connection.  

I don't know about you, but I am hard-wired for human engagement.  It's central to who I am as a person and what's important to me.  And I am generally not satisfied with the "hi, how are you?" kind of generic connection that we get at the grocery store and the bank, although, as Covid taught us, even these seemingly innocuous forms of human interaction matter in our efforts at connection.

One of the reasons I was so drawn to singing communities and the sharing of songs in circle when I first encountered them in 2014 was because of the dearth of meaningful human engagement that I was experiencing in my life at the time.  I had chosen to leave the church community I was a part of because of some very narrow thinking that I had outgrown.  I was in a very unsatisfying primary relationship, homeschooling my kids day in and day out in ways that were both joyful and exhausting, consciously walking first my mom and then my dad to the end of their lives as they increasingly struggled with the effects of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's respectively, and not really sure where to go and how to fill my own relational cup in meaningful ways.  I was becoming exhausted and burned out in ways I wasn't really aware of.  I didn't even know what was missing in my life exactly, I just knew that when I gathered in community and sang songs of aliveness that felt deeply true and connecting for me, I felt more at home and more at ease than I did anywhere else in my life.  No wonder I wanted more of that!

What I now understand on the other side of Covid and all that has been revealed in the past 10 years, that I couldn't have possibly realized prior, was that I was desperate to be known, seen, valued, and a part of something bigger than myself.  My daily experience had become unbearable and I wasn't able to make sense of it all yet.  I felt deeply alone and lost inside a life where I was doing the very best I could to practice gratitude and joy while I was unraveling from the inside out.  I was terrified of speaking the truth about my internal experience for fear that it would reflect poorly on the people I loved or worse still on myself for getting into and staying in what was an increasingly impossible situation.  I was buried in shame for the ways I felt conflicted by walking down a path of growth and expansion while feeling more and more disillusioned and uncertain than I ever had before.

I now realize that my cognitive dissonance was growing by leaps and bounds and my physical, mental, and emotional well-being was suffering under the weight of trying to hold things together that needed to fall apart.  There was much in my life I could not make sense of and I was trying to balance what I thought (and had been taught) was the "right thing" with an ever-louder internal compass shouting for my attention.  It became impossible for me to do "the right thing" by external standards AND continue to ignore my heart.  As it turned out, doing the right thing for me meant being human, letting go, falling apart, learning more than I cared to learn about what was actually true in a variety of my relationships, and finally calling a recovery program and completing an intake process for a 4-week inpatient program that I thought might provide the support I needed at the time.

Instead of checking myself into a treatment center for recovery from trauma, I began to prioritize my own well-being with increased rest, creative endeavors such as writing, singing, and art therapy, a growing discernment about who were safe people in my life and who most definitely were not, regular connection in a 12-step community where I felt seen and valued just as I was in the midst of all that felt so very messy, ongoing therapy, an ever-increasing awareness of the effects of ADHD and menopause on my overall wellbeing, and spiritual practices like meditation and yoga to ground into more presence and peace.  I began to listen to and value my own heart and the loud and gentle ways my internal compass was guiding me into more of what I wanted most.

Along the way my sense of isolation began to dissipate as I held my own heart close and continued to develop a greater tolerance for the unknown by being firmly present in the now.  "There is only this inhale; there is only this exhale" was a mantra that came to me in yoga and began to carry me through tsunami-sized waves of uncertainty and internal turmoil as I tried to understand the inexplicable.  As has been my lifelong practice, I asked for help and followed the breadcrumbs along a path that I could not have imagined, and as I've walked I've found my way...one little step at a time.

So, last week when I listened to this podcast interview on Artificial Intimacy and heard Esther Perel talk about the power of singing in community, my ears perked up and I was reminded that what I have found to be true and what I feel called to create in the world is not just something "extra" to our lives, but is in fact something so central to who we are as humans.  There is a kind of intimacy created in song circles that I don't find anywhere else in my life.  Singing with others is for me a sacred experience.  The best people I've encountered on the planet are those who are willing to dive in and sing with others.  Yes, there is a degree of vulnerability and that can be scary.  Yes, sometimes we're retraining very old patterning around our voices, our right to show up and be heard just as we are in this moment.  Yes, there are elements of singing together and using my own voice that still feel unnerving to me, but as Esther sang in the song by community Songleader Ahlay Blakeley, "You do not carry this all alone.  This is way too big for you to carry this on your own, so you do not carry this all alone."

Whatever else happens in singing circle, one thing has been for certain in my own journey: I am not alone...and neither are you.  This is a form of real intimacy.  Being seen, heard, valued, held, and known just as we are in the circle we co-create.  We can laugh, cry, and wonder together at the ways song and community meet us where we are and carry us when it all feels too big and overwhelming on our own.  

After walking down the eighty-eight steps from the road to the beach wryly named 1000 Steps Beach, I looked around and was keenly aware of a deep and internal recognition of this place I had never been before.  It was a simultaneously strange and comforting feeling.

I've heard about Bonaire my whole life as it was home to my parents and three older siblings for six years in the 1960s.  There are many family stories of life on this paradise island in the Netherland Antilles.  "The Caribbean" was an everyday word in my childhood, and a place that the other five members of my immediate family were intimately acquainted with, and yet it was no more real for me than a make-believe land in my favorite fairytale in terms of my experiential knowledge of this magical world.

Until last week that is.  

Our parents are now both deceased, and it's been 55 years since my family lived in Kralendijk, Bonaire.  My three siblings have never returned together to their childhood home, and when they decided to finally make it happen after years of contemplating the possibility, I wanted to tag along.  After all, what do younger siblings do best if not tag along behind the "big kids"?

After arriving on the island we drove to the northern end where the infamous 1000 Step Beach is.  The small hand-painted rock on the side of the road that indicated we were indeed at the right place was tricky to spot, but between my brother's memory, the assortment of vehicles parked alongside the road overlooking the beach, and the bright though fading yellow rock with "1000 steps" in view, it was apparent this was the place.

It was surreal to finally be here - in this place I had only heard about in oft-repeated stories and shared memories.  These were tales I had heard throughout my childhood, but which, for the first 48 years of my life, had no visual place to land in my experience other than in my imagination.

After all, this was the place where my father, seeking shade from the relentless sun, spent an afternoon under a scrubby little tree where all of him but his feet managed to escape the rays that scorched his feet turning them a bright and painful red.  It was also the place where my brother was "lost" as he played happily and alone in the ocean out of view of my parents.  After some time of searching in vain for him, dad began to conclude that the inevitable and unthinkable must have occurred.

Yet, here I was, walking down those "1000 steps" with the ocean in view and the multitudinous coral beneath my feet, and it felt oddly familiar to me.  In part, it felt familiar because of all those many stories I've heard through the years, but it was also recognizable to me because in my childhood my mother had on display a large wooden mixing bowl filled with shells and coral from Bonaire.  I regularly played with the various shells, feeling their differing textures, shapes, and sizes and "listening" to the sound of the ocean in the large conch shell that was among her collection.  As I walked on that beach and swam in the ocean last Tuesday, I saw in their native context the shells and coral rocks that were part of my own childhood in ways I could not appreciate until that moment.

It was a moving moment of "belonging" and "connection" to this particular family and this unique history that was both not mine and very much mine.  Isn't life like that?  The juxtaposition of the places where we feel both part of and apart from the larger story of humanity is fundamental to our experience as humans.  We may or may not be aware of the tension inherent in the paradoxes that confront us on a daily basis, but they are no less present for our lack of awareness.

Much later that same day I was wandering through the streets by myself and taking pictures of tropical flowers that struck me as beautiful and reminded me of my mother, an avid gardener who regularly said that her favorite flower was whichever one she was looking at in any given moment.  I recognized and could identify many of the plants I saw including this hibiscus and bougainvillea, and once again I realized that my mother carried Bonaire as a part of her in ways I did not know as a child and could not have understood until now.  I never considered that her love of these particular plants, which are not native to the hills of East Tennessee, was probably due in large part to the years she spent living in a tropical paradise and the connections she made with the flora of that special place she called home as she and dad were raising their own three young children.

Although there were many moments during my hours on Bonaire that made an impression on me, perhaps the greatest gift I received from this sibling trip was a deeper, richer, and more felt experience of belonging and connection to this place and by extension this family thanks to my mom's subtle but very impactful ways of bringing bits of Bonaire into my childhood in ways that made it recognizable to me all these years later without ever having been before.

Thanks, Mom, for sharing with me the gift of belonging to this larger family story in ways I could not have imagined.  Thanks, Dad, for making this trip possible by your careful management of your finances through the years and the money that enabled us all to go on your dime.  I'm grateful today that I can see, feel, and experience with more depth this part of my family history, and I am growing in my lived sense of connection as a result.

I was introduced to this Rebecca Spalding song by Maggie Wheeler in a workshop several years ago and the minute I heard it I was in tears.  The lyrical line, "before you throw the stones of judgment" transported me to the religious world of my past where judgment was often preached against while simultaneously being levied on everybody and everything "not like us."  It was a strange dichotomy and one I have been unpacking continuously at ever-deepening levels since leaving the church.

I realized recently that shame cannot exist without judgment.  If there is no one judging me for my decisions, thoughts, behaviors, or perspectives then I won't feel shame.  The more judgment I experience the more shame I will feel, even if that judgment eventually comes from myself as I internalize the voices of judgment and shame that have resounded loudly in my ears for a lifetime.

About the same time that I learned this song I was also introduced to the idea that anything a person does, says, thinks, or feels is a direct response to their lived experiences.  Or as Shakespeare put it in his tragedy, Hamlet, and a friend has on her outgoing voicemail message, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."   Although not at all a popular view from within the fundamental Christian world of my past, today I understand the wisdom of this truth.

We are all products of the cumulative effect of the inputs, perspectives, cultural norms, family stories, and opportunities we've had in our lives.  As children we are taught to judge and be judged, and the harsher the world in which we are imprinted, the harsher our judgment of ourselves and others and the louder our sense of shame at not measuring up to the harsh judgments we feel.

I have been struggling for years to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable pieces of my life and I have sensed judgment consistently from all sides.  The only thing that has effectively minimized my sense of judgment and shame has been doing the tough personal digging to understand the roots of my shame and judgment and make peace with my story as a human among humans.

As a participant in a 12-step program for children of dysfunctional systems (and who among us doesn't qualify to some degree or another for that program?!), the solution that we read at each meeting and attempt to learn to practice regularly is "to become your own loving parent."  A year ago I had a dear friend and wise elder remind me that my job was to love, understand, and comfort myself.  As an adult, my spiritual work is to show up for myself with the love, understanding, and comfort that I longed for as a child but didn't receive in the ways I needed it.  THIS is a human experience.  None of us had perfect childhoods.  We all have hurts and patterns of relating that are more harmful than helpful.  I don't believe that there's a single person on the planet who hasn't experienced judgment and shame to some degree or another, and as I understand my own story better I am far less judgmental of myself and others.

I am learning to recognize and hold myself in my places of pain rather than to hope that someone else will ease my discomfort.  I am understanding that the miles I've walked have been in shoes unique to ME - partly what I came wired with and partly the experiences I've had away, but uniquely my experiences nonetheless.  The results of those experiences are part of our shared humanity.  I can love and understand others to the degree I grow to love and understand myself.

My healing journey is far from over, but I'm grateful for the ways I see and feel progress along the way.

​How are you holding your heart as you heal?  

Here we are at the end of 2023 and on the cusp of a brand-new year with all the usual turning of the year rituals...gathering, celebrating, reflecting, resolving, setting intentions, selecting a word-of-the-year, and considering what we want to let go of and what we want to call in.  Despite the fact that time is a human construct and there are not clear and clean lines in the passage of our days as the calendar might lead us to believe, there is still much value in these rituals of acknowledging the change of seasons as winter encourages rest and reflection in preparation for a spring of planting and new growth.

This year I'm considering the concept that "Every experience is compostable."  What if even the toughest of years are ones that can go on the compost pile of life and eventually contribute to the rich, fertile soil in which new life and growth can flourish?  Maybe not this spring, but some day.

There's a common image that has been circulating in recent New Year's of the old year in a sack of stinky garbage and headed to the dump.  I confess that there have been recent years when I've been tempted to see the previous 12 months as mostly trash.  When I do this, however, I buy into the belief that somehow it's my fault and if only I could have been better or done better then somehow the pile of trash would be less large and less stinky.

This year I'm realizing anew that I'm simply not that powerful.  I'm not always as responsible as I think I am for the tough things that come my way.  Sometimes shit happens and there are many factors that contribute to the tough seasons, but by and large, it's not my fault.  Tough seasons are indicators that I'm a human being...or that I'm quite literally being human.  I make mistakes; people I love make mistakes; random strangers I don't even know make mistakes.  Those mistakes have real life consequences and those mistakes always make sense from within the larger context of my life experiences, brain chemistry, family background, cultural conditioning, and internal wiring. 

What if I could see all my mistakes as stepping stones to more of the growth, freedom, understanding, and depth of character that I long for?  Maybe my experiences can be put on the compost pile of my life and, when raked together with time, understanding, forgiveness, self-compassion, and distance, I'll discover the fertile soil that has been being developed in my heart along the way.

I am grateful to look back at previous years and experiences that I once viewed as a waste of time and full bags of trash to be carried to the landfill and recognize them today as the scraps that have been cooked down by the sun of time, winds of patience, and rain of my tears into a rich loam that is ready for planting.

Sure, there's still a pile of compost that's waiting to be turned, but today I see a few heaps of beautiful dirt from my life that are ripe for new seeds of hope, life, and growth in 2024. 

How about you?  How have your challenging life experiences been composted into the beginnings of a new and beautiful garden that you couldn't have imagined?  And if you're in a season now that feels dark and cold and you can't imagine anything desirable coming from it, be gentle and patient as you wait in the dark and cold.  And know that you're not alone.

Often, when I tell people that I facilitate Singing Circles, I am asked if it is like Kirtan.  Until a couple of months ago, I said I didn't really know since I had never experienced Kirtan.  I have had the opportunity to attend several Kirtan events in the past several months and have mostly enjoyed my experiences.  There were times when my discomfort with not really knowing what was happening was challenging, but as I've learned to do with discomfort, I stayed put, breathed deeply, and found myself dropping more and more into myself and the communal experience as I did.

Upon arriving at Kirtan, I was warmly welcomed and offered a card with printed words, and then we've jumped into chanting with the use of at least a harmonium to assist the voices.  In every case Kirtan has been led in a call-and-response style with the caller singing a line and the participants echoing it throughout each chant.

I've also learned that the syllables used in Sanskrit are all connected to the chakra system in our bodies and therefore are uniquely designed to tap into different aspects of our bodies and psyche in ways that are intentional and effective whether or not we know the meaning of what we are chanting.

Kirtan has been a nice space to drop into a very different type of vocal meditation and I am grateful for my experiences with it, and I intend to make it a regular part of my own vocal practice.  I can also now give a better answer to the question, "Is Singing Circle like Kirtan?"

I encourage anyone wanting more vocal experience to try both.  You'll find what works for you, and the process of using and expanding your voice will bring unexpected and delightful gifts along the way!