Category: Podcast

Released on the Spark My Muse podcast

Rebirth and colored eggs?

 

colored eggs
colored eggs

Today, I helped another mom guide 40 kindergartners in coloring 4 eggs a piece. One child was allowed to do the activity if the project revolved around the curriculum of dinosaurs, and was a dinosaur egg project, (that is, it wasn’t not related to Easter, or pagan rebirth symbol in some way.)

Spring is a time of rebirth. Easter is the only holiday Christians celebrate that retains its pagan name, and keeps certain pagan traditions (rabbits, eggs, feasting, gifts, candy, much of which references futility.) “Easter” (Ishtar) is a pagan Spring fertility Goddess. “Death and Resurrection Weekend” is probably too wordy for Christians to deal with, so it’s stayed “Easter”.

However, here it is important to see where some spiritual truths reverberate in and through multiple cultures in time and space. Like it or not, they reflect Truth, (a Being) and too, they carry with them the power of spirituality in symbols that reveal that which is universally true.

Sometimes the simplest reminder that spring brings new life can awaken us to the spiritual. God wants to redeem. The pictures are everywhere, once we start looking. God whispers through the workings of his world, and into the desires of our hearts to be re-created and refreshed. Is it any wonder that new life would be celebrated in Spring? I, for one, am happy to decorate some eggs, and chew on some chocolate rabbits.

When it comes to this time of year, what is the most spiritual thing for you?

Taking your suggestions

I’m looking for reader feedback, the constructive kind–positive or negative, (or better yet, both) to have the best thing going here at “life as prayer”. I truly think “we” is better and smarter than “me ” (as in, one creator) in this endeavor. If you haven’t been here before (or if you’re checking back), please scout around, and let me know.

What is the best thing? What is missing? What is the worst thing? Any thing strike you that you’d like to share? Thanks for any help you can offer.

(The same help is appreciated on the author site, and Spirit=Breath of Life site.)

Blessings to you!

jealousy/desire

Until today, I never considered jealousy as positive for the reason that desire lies behind it. Desire (behind jealousy) that is not negative, but helpful, creative, productive, and beneficial to others– can be rightly directed. I have squelched all jealousy, tried to kill it dead, and even denied it, but it exists in all of us. (Or I have let it ferment so it hurt me.) Jealousy crops up with/beside love too. If we appreciate the desire behind it as good, and accept who we really are, and what we really feel, perhaps we can channel all we are for the best. (For ourselves and others)

The Dark Night of the Soul- Part II

The Dark Night of the Soul, says  Dr. Gerald May, sounds different in his patients when they speak. There may be (felt) discouragement, and silence from God. There may be a confusion, and a lack of spiritual “experience” or lack of sensation of the spiritual as there had been before. But, compared to his patients who have symptoms of depression, these folks do not have despair like those who are depressed do. They do not have the same cynicism, even though they may feel alone.

In the dark night times one knows transformation is underway. During times of depression, one hopes to return to normal.

Because God is not a “thing” but rather Spirit-all places at once-as we progress spiritually, invitations come to rebirth and journey closer to union with him as Spirit. What I speak of here is not a journey to a physical spot, but to an awareness of God, in a deeper, richer way. One that involves faith, not sight, or even the crutch of sensation, which may confused for God, but also cannot be God, in actuality.

We can leave behind the old methods of tapping into the spiritual that are like outgrown child’s clothing–too small for us. Ultimately, we move toward union with God in this way.

Some dark nights take years to move through. We must not fear them because they involve a greater revelation of God’s amazing grace and love. The end always results in greater insights of God’s love, and greater union with the Divine, in a brighter day.

In Part III, I will talk about the “Dawn” from the Dark Night.

Some information taken from my reading: Gerald G. May, M.D. The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth. Harper San Francisco, 2004.

 DID you read PART I ?