Grounding + Becoming
A Spacious Wisdom Cross-Pollination
There is a current between knowing and unknowing. It will carry you.
Each one is troubled by the ultimate questions. And no one else’s answer can satisfy the hunger in your heart. The beauty of great questions is how they dwell differently in each mind, how they root deeper than all the surface chatter and image. How they continually disturb. Your deep questions grow quickly restless in the artificial clay of received opinion or stagnant thought, and if you avoid this disturbance and try to quell these questions, it will cost you all your peace of mind. Sooner or later, every one of us must come to our contemplative longing and gain either the courage, the recklessness to begin our own contemplative journey.
-John O’Donohue
What My Soul Already Knows: A Simple Poetry Practice for a Dark Night of the Soul
A simple practice for drawing on wisdom beyond rational thinking and pro-con lists — a steadying anchor for the disorientation of a dark night of the soul.
Something Else: A Spiritual Director on Holding Obscurity & Disorientation
If you are in the thick of obscurity, holding inner tensions that cannot be resolved, or feeling disconnected from your deepest knowing. If you are disoriented as the sands of time flow through the hourglass at a dizzying pace and there is no rest in sight, please open to this possibility with me: a taste of something else may also be very nearby.
Strong Winds Pose No Threat, A Dimensionally-Layered Practice
Vibrant beauty that once took away breath is a backdrop now; you search for novel sacraments.
Practicing Presence with Abstract Art
Contemplating abstract artwork is a way to wake up our hearts and find a doorway into the inner landscape. It offers us something quieter, deeper: a wordless language.
Glimmering Landscape Time: Spacious Spiritual Practices to Hold Us in Spiritual Disorientation
How do I hold this _______________? (chaos, obscurity, grief, disorientation, restlessness, dark night of the soul…)
Collaging Signals From a Creative Universe
When the gut-punch of anguish hit me hard, I collaged wisdom that called to me in songs and images.
Listening for Inner Wisdom Artfully
Here’s a spiritual practice to support you in listening for inner wisdom by creating and being curious with wisdom collages.
Contemplative Curiosity: Neil Theise on Complexity
A 10-ish minute spiritual practice -- bringing curiosity to a quote on complexity by Dr. Neil Theise.
An Invitation to Reflection: The Places We’ve Loved
Here’s an invitation to reflect on one of the places “you’re made of,” and to articulate it in writing or spiritual direction.
Good Conversations as Food + Drink for the Soul
John O’Donohue said good conversations are like “food and drink for the soul.” What does this stir in you?
Contemplative Curiosity: Cynthia Bourgeault on Surrender
Here’s a 10-minute unconventional spiritual practice - bringing curiosity and presence to a Cynthia Bourgeault quote about bracing and surrender.
She hadn’t been wide awake for years
What does this wisdom collage stir in you? Do the words or images draw you in? Do you resist them?
You’re on the Right Path
Here’s an invitation to an unconventional spiritual practice —bringing curiosity to evocative images to notice resonance and resistance. What does this wisdom collage stir in you?
Contemplative Curiosity: Lama Rod Owens on Goodness
What do you notice and wonder as you read this Lama Rod Owens quote on goodness?
Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way by Mary Oliver
Listen for your inner wisdom through the prism of poetry with Mary’s Olivers Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way.
Contemplative Curiosity: Mary Oliver on Moments
Creating space for presence with Mary Oliver's words about moments.
End of the…
This practice invites you to engage with evocative images to listen with curiosity for inner resonance and resistance.
Audio Divina: Listening deeply with “Gracias a La Vida”
Here’s an invitation into a new-to-me spiritual practice I encountered on the CAC’s instagram site.