The Unclad Soul

The burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France this week captured the attention of the world. Immediately afterward, billionaires came forward to donate millions of dollars to restore the historic church. Stunned crowds formed near the Cathedral for days. People wept. They looked on in alarm, broken-hearted by the scene. What was it about that event that created so much emotional sorrow and distress? Some have criticized the news coverage, the horror of people, and even the billionaire donors, saying it was after all just a building. And a building in disrepair, vulnerable to just such a tragedy. No one’s faith was destroyed in the fire. No one, thankfully, was injured. Most of the historic pieces of art were saved. The basic structure remains. Why then were so many so upset? For me, it was the desecration of beauty. Though the fire seems to have been accidental, it still destroyed significant parts of a masterpiece of architecture, genius, and skill. ...

Novelist Lisa See has written, “All women on earth-- and men, too for that matter-- hope for the kind of love that transforms us, raises us up out of the everyday, and gives us the courage to survive our little deaths—the heartache of unfulfilled dreams, of career and personal disappointments, of broken love affairs.” Transformative love. It is possible to know, to experience, and to share. We often look for it in romantic relationships. We all want that. A relationship with someone we truly connect with. Someone we grow to respect and cherish. Someone gentle and kind, affectionate and loving. Someone who makes us laugh out loud, whose joy in life we share, whose depths we understand. Transformative love gives us access to something undeniable, something solid and foundational. In the person we find this with, we find what we have always wanted to be true about human beings. They meet our longings, our desires, our needs—with intelligence, wittiness, humor, passion, tende...

"In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again."  ~ Parker Palmer, Author/Educator

“To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.” – The Mystic Writers

“Everything in your life is there  as a vehicle for transformation.”  ~ Ram Dass, Mystic/LifeCoach/Author

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ― Cynthia Occelli, Author/Attorney/Blogger

“I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.”  ―  Mary Oliver , American Poet

The Layers By Stanley Kunitz I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? .... Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my...