empty & open

Many religious or spiritual practices believe that the hand that comes empty, leaves empty. This can either mean, not entering a place of worship empty handed or that we come into this world with nothing and leave it with nothing. 

Advent season 2024 started on December 1 - with the first Sunday of Advent celebrating hope. The first Advent candle symbolizes a shining light in anticipation of the coming of Christ. 

hope shines bright this first Sunday of Advent

It is usually a purple candle called the Prophecy Candle - representing God's forgiveness of humanity's sins. Purple is traditionally the most important of the Advent candle colors - reflected in liturgical garments used for vestments. It is associated with prayer, contemplation, repentance, and hope. 

An apt way to close the year - hope in a time of transformation. How best to manage times of radical change? We find hope through accumulated years of observation and wisdom gathered from times. cultures and people all over the world. 

Through our shared experience we collect tips, timing and tools for navigating life. There is solace in not taking it all too personally - in knowing we are moved and moving with the rhythm and flow of ever spiraling change. 

Inevitable and divinely orchestrated - an eternal dance, an unfolding revelation, an illuminating liberation. At times unsettling - in its release, we are forever changed. 

May we all glide gently through this holiday season - buoyed by hope and comfort in the ebb and flow of that which is so much bigger than ourselves. 

Over and over – always has always will, no matter what. 

scattered seeds

Rather than creating yet another space for my countless scattered reflections I decided to resurrect an old thread that fell through the crack waaay back in 2009. Another chapter in my going on 69-year life. 

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! 

Room for the River Waal - Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Here I am pursuing and strengthening my writing - starting with 250 words a day. Let us see where that leads us. The focus is the journey and not the destination - right? 

Attempting a more mindful approach at consciously clustering a day's multiple AHAs. Rather than being at the effect of who knows what. As we are swept down the river or rapids I might as well enjoy the view and entertain its effects on any interested. 

Keeping it to three a day is how I choose to deal with my AHAs. Afterall, it is not the intent to run amuck - though we remain fluid and flowing. 

Come along for the ride? 

1. Today is Lief Erikson Day - what better time to go on a journey and explore? 

2. Today's political update from Heather Cox Richardson - includes another bombshell: in 2020 Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it. 

3. Sponge city designs that resist floods and increase biodiversity to help us adapt to a changing climate. Perfect reading this hurricane season. 

That’s it for today!

"[S]ometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out." ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird