Mother's Day 2025

This Sunday is Mother's Day. Over the last few years, I have written about mothers, the "mothering" that all sorts of people freely give in nourishment to others, to all, to you--women, men, non-binary--human beings who care. I have written about the Divine Mother that serves as the counter-balance to a Father God. But this Sunday, my thoughts have turn to Mother Earth.

Earth Day is formally celebrated around the world on April 22, but this year it seemed overshadowed by a late Easter season, more weather upheaval, and the unrelenting news of ongoing political moves and counter moves. The brightness of May, has led me back to the awareness of Earth as Mother. Indeed, the United Nations General Assembly, designated April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, as it has since 2009. It continues its work in developing countries with the recognition that "only by reconnecting with Nature as our kin and integrating Nature’s concerns do we succeed in advancing and safeguarding societal progress for current and future generations."

The United Nations Develop Program's statement defines our relationship with Mother Earth as one of "kinship". In fact, the UNDP has declared it essential for any document using the word "Nature" to write it with a capital "N" in recognition of the “intrinsic value of Nature or Mother Earth” as evidence that Nature is “not an object or property, but a subject of law with legal personhood." Call it Mother Nature, or call it earth; it has "personhood." In ancient and indigenous religions, this Earth Mother is Beingness itself, the eternal source of all, to whom all returns. Nothing is separate from Her. Alan Watts put it: "We do not come into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean waves, the Universe peoples. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe."

For Walt Whitman the kinship dissolves in love: "Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset – earth of the mountains misty-topped! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbowed earth – rich apple-blossomed earth! Smile, for your lover comes..."

What about the cosmos, other solar systems, other dimensions and universes? The whole is too vast for human consciousness to absorb. We move from one vision to another, one idea to another, one truth, or one possibility, to another. We cannot contain it all in conscious awareness--the Unknown remains Supreme. But Earth, even with it's microcosms and hidden caves and forest mysteries, is more knowable, more accessible. I can look around this room where I write and find the Earth beneath my feet as stone-tile floor and dust blown through the door sill. Out the window, I see Earth in bloom. Earth as Mother, why not invite her to Mothers Day? (Susan Nettleton)

https://poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/A/AngelouMaya/ABraveand/index.html https://allpoetry.com/Mother-Earth https://www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/sleeping_in_the_forest.html

May 4, 2025

After a frustrating morning of various interruptions, disappearing passwords, and lost time checking the day's disturbing news, I decided I needed a short break outside. I opted for carrying out the trash and recycling as a symbolic gesture to restart my day. And actually, it helped. The weather was pleasantly warm; the sky clear. May has erupted full-blown in this small, very green yard. Lemon, orange and blood orange, grapefruit, tangerine, avocado, persimmon trees have rebounded from the fires. Along the path to the trash cans, there are flowers: roses (red, pink, white, orange), red bougainvilleas cover the fence, and azaleas, carnations, and peony brighten multi-shades of surrounding green. Two blue-jays suddenly flew across the yard in a stunning display of freedom. Truly the day was glorious. Even if your area now is bracing for storms, spring will come. Even though we live in times of sudden atmospheric shifts, nature still brings its moments of breathtaking beauty. The key is variation. The phenomenal--really unfathomable--variety of life is its glory. Attempts to reduce creation to sameness, leaves it hollow and stale; infinite diversity is the Way of Life.

Spiritually, it's important to consider this principle of life-as-variation in our attitudes--not just toward the wildness of nature and the animal world; we too, as human beings, are born in variation. We classify and name varieties of human beings, like we classify and name other species, plants, microorganisms, planets, galaxies and even possible universes. Yet, in reality, each human being is a unique combination of genetic, physical, mental, and emotional factors, which shape individual health, personality, behavior, and skill sets. Clearly, diversity serves the mystery of ongoing creation.

It is human thinking that assigns labels and meaning to natural diversity. And it is social-political collectives that assign social value. In my first class of undergraduate political science, the professor defined politics as: "the allocation of values for society." With this grand opening, I was hooked, and actually became a Political Science major. Many years down the road, and several other paths passed, before I understood that this 'allocation' includes the value, or lack of value, of the fundamental principle of natural diversity.

Social values shift and divide us, or unite us, just as religions do. Regardless of belief, politics, and religions, the Movement of Life--Creation Itself, God, the Transcendent--however you name it, brings forth a world of multiplicity and diversity. Surely, Life has given human beings the intelligence and care to respect and nurture Nature's fullness of form. Navigating a spiritual path that recognizes the fullness and diversity of Life, ultimately means finding a place of Peace for all forms of life, including those who cannot accept the fundamental principle of variation and diversity. This week, consider you own attitude, reconciliation, and acceptance of infinite diversity, known and unknown. And in that spirit, why not celebrate Cinco de Mayo, too! (Susan Nettleton)

for poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46986/the-mayfly

https://www.poeticous.com/poets/william-carlos-williams/poems/the-locust-tree-in-flower

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/W/WhyteDavid/WorkingToget/index.html

http://www.whereearthmeetssky.com/musings/2013/09/my-work-is-loving-world-poem-by-mary.html

April 27, 2025

This last Sunday in April, I invite you to pray.

As you read my opening, what comes to your mind? I am not just inviting you to pray, but to consider your personal ideas and responses to prayer. Prayer is a vast spiritual field of meaning: longing, need, healing, faith, gratitude, strength, and surrender. Prayer is power, but not personal power. We can recite prayer, which binds us to collective support, layered with repetitive ideas, thoughts and passion across centuries. Or we can pray spontaneously--in the moment--as words and emotions flow. We can pray in a variety of places, postures, and times. Whatever our way, we are reaching beyond our separate, individual, human capacity to bring forth or express a desired condition. Prayer turns our awareness toward "something greater than ourselves" and our own thoughts, fears and pain.

I recently came across one of Emmet Fox's (New Thought, 1886-1951) teachings on prayer as the way to break a chain of repetitive, negative thoughts. Even though he taught and wrote before contemporary research on consciousness and well-being, he emphasized the power of prayer in the present moment as a way to dissolve negativity. Fox viewed thought as simply "vibration". This was an underlying assumption of 19th-century neuroscience, first described by Isaac Newton, whose work proposed that nerves included vibratory, elastic, and electric properties. Fox incorporated additional assumptions that arose out of early exploration of sound and vibration, including esoteric beliefs on higher and lower vibration, i.e., good thoughts have higher vibrations, and hence bring more good into our lives, and negative thoughts have lower and grosser ones, bringing more unpleasant experiences.

While modern research underscores the health and mental health benefits of positivity compared to a pessimistic view of life, "good vibes" and "lower vibes" are really metaphorical. The late 18th and early 19th centuries brought various theories that attempted to link musical and acoustic vibration to early neuroscience exploration of emotions and thoughts. Obviously music effects our emotional range, and vibration of different kinds impact the body, but the mechanism of thought is not in a symmetrical vibration system with sound--at least not one that has ever been proven. Human neuronal functioning is extremely complex. Thoughts arise from synapses, the connections between brain nerve cells. Those connections are stimulated via neurotransmitters, with a flow of chemical substances in and out of the cells, generating electrical impulses that pass signals from one cell to another.

All that said, Emmet Fox's technique is worth your own experiment. Consider his metaphor of a tuning fork. When a tuning fork is vibrating, you can stop it by simply touching it. The sound was a movement and the movement was stopped. Negative, fearful thoughts, self critical thoughts, paralyzing anxiety, however they are generated in our neurons, can be stopped. Thought substitution is one of the techniques cognitive therapy offers to move past the habit of negative self-thought, but Prayer is more than positive cognitive conditioning--it is indeed positive mental conditioning--but it is more than that. Prayer can be an expansion of consciousness that takes us beyond the boundaries of self, our limited frameworks, our mistaken assumptions. In some ways, it is like a koan that simply cuts through logic and mental rehearsals. We enter another realm. Prayer never leaves you where you started. Short, clear, frequent, from the Heart, today is a good day to Pray. (Susan Nettleton)

for poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45323/the-higher-pantheism

https://thecontemplativewriter.com/2018/04/26/contemplative-profile-st-augustine-and-denise-levertov/

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/T/TheophantheR/Imageshoweve/index.html https://monadnock.net/gibran/prayer.html

April 20, 2025

Today is Easter Sunday, 2025, celebrated by Christianity for approximately 1, 995 years. Consider the vast changes that have taken place in the world throughout these centuries--wars, cultures/countries, births, deaths, natural disasters and nature's repair, art, literature, science, discovery and loss of species, new theories, new practices.Yet, the Easter story has remained as a relatively newer religion, compared to tribal and indigenous practices around the world, along with the major religions of Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. Even Buddhism pre-dates Christianity. Many researchers of various disciplines view the totality of world religions as a branching tree, over time and through cultures, unfolding, evolving from our deepest needs--and perhaps even collective memory--as distinctive 'limbs' of human spirituality that sprout in different times, places, and circumstances.

Considering this view, what is the need that sustains the Easter story? At first look, it may seem to be the conquering of death through sacrifice and resurrection. A friend of mine wrote recently that she had found herself reading a philosophical analysis of the improbability of the Resurrection; the book asserts that the "whole Christian creed" is based on Jesus' Resurrection as the Christ. In overcoming death, Jesus fulfills the Biblical prophecy that literally establishes the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The author concludes, if the biblical resurrection is not accepted, the whole Christian construct collapses; the story collapses. My stance has always been that there are many ways of interpreting an almost 2,000 year old sacred text, along with Old Testament foreshadowing dating at least 4,000 years, including metaphoric and symbolic metaphysical interpretations. Since resurrection stories were part of religious/mythical stories long before Jesus, it's no stretch to find them as part of the biblical history, in both old and new testaments.  Years ago, I read an article on "mystery cults" and their influence on Christianity written by Martin Luther King, Jr. while he was in graduate school. The last sentence of his paper is "To discuss Christianity without mentioning other religions would be like discussing the greatness of the Atlantic Ocean without the slightest mention of the many tributaries that keep it flowing." His tributary analogy is similar to the idea of a branching Tree of Religion. If you are curious, the link is: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/study-mithraism.

Last Friday, someone else sent a text simply announcing, "It's Good Friday", and I responded, "A day of forgiveness." My friend asked, "Tell me more." I explained, "Jesus forgives on the cross and asks God to forgive his persecutors. That is the relatable sacrifice. The message is not about suffering, but about love; forgiveness is an aspect of love."

Later in meditation, these two different exchanges about Easter coalesced for me. I realized my sense of Jesus was never about the Resurrection--for me, the teachings of Jesus have always been about healing. 'Rising from the dead', is a metaphor for healing, and love is an inextricable aspect of healing. Forgiveness is an inextricable aspect of love. Love and forgiveness heal. Jesus' branch of the Tree of Religion includes: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... " (Matthew 5, 43-44) and "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9) This Easter Sunday I invite you to reflect on the ways that love and forgiveness open a path of healing. And consider this Tuesday, a larger healing for Earth Day 2025. (Susan Nettleton)

For Poetry: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/C/CatherineofS/ConsumedinGr/index.html

https://predmore.blogspot.com/2021/05/poem-r-s-thomas-but-silence-in-mind.html

https://poets.org/poem/love-iii

April 13, 2025

Yesterday morning as I woke up, I caught a poem running through my mind. If it arose from a dream, I had no memory of it. I briefly tried to reach for anything that might have triggered the passage--but nothing immediately linked, although I have used it before in a Sunday post over the years. It seemed an isolated recall from the 14th century Kashmir Poet called Lalla (also known as Lal Ded).

"God of the dark blue throat, who drank the poison to save us, You have six powers, and so must I! But I've grown separate from You, and taken on another six ... They deceive me."

(from Naked Song, translation by Coleman Barks)

I considered that perhaps the "message" was simply about personally "taking on too much", and I entered the fullness of the day. Later, I sat to begin the post for today, on Palm Sunday, the first day of Easter Holy Week in Christianity. Growing up in a Protestant Church, I viewed childhood scenes of waving Palm leaves as part of the excitement buildup of Easter brought Easter Services, special choir music, a great meal, and afternoon visits with aunts, uncles and cousins, Easter baskets, and egg hunts. It was many years later before I understood the larger role of Palm Sunday. Yes, the day marks the Biblical story of Jesus entering the holy city of Jerusalem, riding on a humble donkey, as crowds of followers gather in the streets, waving palm leaves in his honor, as he passes by. But, what begins as a great celebration and welcome, will end in betrayal and death, culminating one week later, with the mystery of the resurrection. In essence, the joy of this dynamic entry is meant as an affirmation of Jesus, as the promised Christ, the anointed Savior of Israel, and beyond that, potentially of the entire world. Many though, envisioned this destiny in the context of a political revolution to overthrow the Roman empire, and restore Israel to freedom and power. Instead, Jesus walked a path of total surrender to God's Will, through humility, sacrifice, forgiveness and love. "My kingdom is not of this world." Here, the spiritual supersedes our limited perspective--our dramas, fears, and fights. It is a call to that which supersedes separation, competition, and personal, worldly gain.

As it turns out, my contemplation on Lalla's poem led me back to the theme of Divine Intervention through sacrifice. The poem refers to the blue throat of the Hindu God, Lord Shiva, Hindu mythology tells the story of a time when Gods and demons came together to churn the oceanic waters releasing the "nectar" that lay at the bottom. This collective churning produced minerals, gems, animals and other coveted materials that were divided up and distributed to the participants. But along with these elements, there was a deadly poison--so deadly it threatened all existence. As the only being with the power to survive the poison, Lord Shiva assumed responsibility and drank the poison, saving life and restoring peace. He swallowed all of it, but did not allow it to move beyond his throat, blocking the esophagus until the poison was absorbed. The effort turned his throat blue. Lalla, in her spiritual trials, gives gratitude for this story of intervention as she realizes that she, too, now has powers, and with them, responsibilities. Yet, she has also come to see the temptation to over-extend, and assume personal power that she can no longer hold. The illusion of personal power will only create the self-deception of separation. She, too, must totally surrender.

If all the plot twists and roller-coaster shifts of 2025 disrupt your peace, give yourself a little more time to re-set everyday. Find those points of good, of well-being, of gentle affirmation, and your personal path of surrender to the larger, overriding, spiritual field. Peace is often practice. (Susan Nettleton)

for Poetry: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/L/Lalla/Playfullyyou/index.html https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/L/Lalla/Tolearnthe/index.html https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/MertonThomas/APsalm/index.html

April 5, 2025

Last week, I had an early morning wake-up 'ding' from my phone. A local friend, out for her early morning run before tackling a grueling Los Angeles commute, was struck with a startling realization. It was so shockingly wonderful, she had to immediately announce it to someone else. Her text, seemed to shout it out: "The mountains are turning green again!" Fumbling with my phone in the early morning, I couldn't quite absorb what it meant. A picture appeared, showing a sunrise over houses perched on the tiered mountainous road, but I couldn't orient the view. Was it possible? I could feel something lifting me, as I re-read the text. You may think, "What's the big deal? April brings new grass." But for those of us plagued with the L.A. County wind-whipped fires in January, consuming trees, vegetation, houses, wildlife, infrastructure and people, followed by rain, mudslides, and evacuations after evacuations, the earth can feel scorched beyond nature's repair.

Now awake, I faced a day full of commitments, but first, I decided to drive up the hill and take a look. I drove my main route, taking quick side glances, as houses and open cross streets let in glimpses of the mountains. I saw fleeting flashes of purple in the dark spaces, but in the sunlight, I only caught barren gray rocks and straw colored earth with patches of burnt brown and black wood. Then, a few blocks further, with a long, empty space between houses (most likely where a house had burned to the ground), I saw a flash of green! Encouraged, I slowed down as I reached the open view of the next street. There, above where the mountain driveway met the city street, shone a entire field of green! Nearer the ridge, even more green spread across a field! I cannot put other words to the gratitude and wonder of it--just simply what my friend had written, what felt to us like a miracle: "The mountains are turning green again!"

Nature does repair. We too are planted in nature; we are an aspect, a species of the natural world. We recover. We adapt. And we sprout. There are many ways of defining the "green" aspect of humans and society: fads and trends, associations with our 21st century obsession with money, green as a free run...the "green light" and the power of go, green as genuine concern about a changing climate, with its pull to enter and protect nature, the pull to integrate by bringing the 'green world' into our concrete urban life. In a way, all of these are green sprouts. But a green sprout can be fragile while it spreads it's roots unseen. And we label someone who is learning and growing into a skill, a field of work, study, or responsibility as "still green", but with the assumption that in time, they will gain mastery. The green limb bends; it doesn't break; it grows.

So today, or through the week, consider your own green nature, not as vulnerability, but as a unique expression of Life that is growing. Not just renewal, but new and different Life. Even in the face of turmoil and uncertainty, in the metaphoric winds, fires, and mud all around, You are sprouting as new life, The mountain named You is turning green again! (Susan Nettleton)

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”

― Basho

For poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57500/the-poem-that-took-the-place-of-a-mountain. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47107/of-history-and-hope http://poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/T/ThomasRS/Moor/index.html

March 30, 2025

As I reflected on this final weekend of March 2025, a phrase from one of Larry Morris' poems kept floating through my mind: "Heart, you belong here, woven of this Peace." The irony of this, is every day seems hit with one form of chaos or another. Devastating earth quakes in South East Asia, U.S. upheaval and sparing around the globe, severe weather warnings across the country, do not bring a sense of well-being. While Peace can unexpectedly descend on anyone, it seems to me rare that it descends collectively--at least not in a tangible way that we can name it as collective Peace. Group Peace seems to gravitate to excitement, joy and movement, as pent-up pressure is released. Yet, the inner prompt I am 'hearing' for this Sunday message remains, "Heart, you belong here, woven of this Peace." Enclosed deep within, there is a Peace beyond storms and turmoil. This is a good day, whatever may be going on, to touch it.

I did take a little time to search my computer and books shelves for that poem to the Heart, but it stayed hidden. Instead, I came across another brief Larry poem and that was all I needed:

"Unexpected

happenings

freeing

the

mind

from

fixed

positions."

(Apples from the Tree)

As wondrous living beings, we are not fixed objects, neither is all of nature, and actually neither

is the most rigid mind you know. Unexpected events crack the facade of self certainty and push our mental structures, allowing us to rearrange our ideas. Sometimes it is a subtle unconscious shift, that stretches the framework of our minds. But other times, the mind resists, and instead rearranges a happening, or its meaning, to conform to our belief structures. Belief structures are essential to who we are and how we function as unique individuals; they have their purpose. But we are living beings that belong to the Allness of Life; we grow, we learn, we ingest and digest changes. Our "world" expands through the unexpected.

How do we move through a time of unpredictable happenings? Let the happenings spiritually loosen your fixity enough to discover/recover inner Peace. That Peace has Woven your Heart. That Heart is your guidance system, and your healing. Trust THAT. (Susan Nettleton)

https://allpoetry.com/poem/16531910-I-pick-a-path-with-heart-by-Joseph-Moon

https://predmore.blogspot.com/2023/12/poem-immersion-by-denise-levertov.html

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/T/TheophantheR/Imageshoweve/index.html

March 23, 2025

Spring has arrived! And with spring, comes an opportunity, an opening, for healing. March carries us into a season traditionally linked to the promise of nature's renewal--the gradual fading of winter harshness and the first hints of life and natures quickening into blossom and new growth. Yet, we are living in times of erratic change on so many levels, including climate and the rhythms of nature.

This month, The Lancet, a leading journal of world wide clinical, public and global health knowledge, published an article on "Climate realignment: the US shift and global implications." (cited below) The author is clear that divisive public perception of Climate change remains a barrier to positive solutions. But, he offers the long term possibilities for recovery and adaptation (already taking place globally), as collective vision shifts from "unpopular, resentful regulations" to opportunities for economic growth, through creative climate technology and global invention. This recognition spotlights a reframing of an approach to climate change by initiating positive, economic opportunities that expand over time. I am using this as an example of shifting a point of view. Spring 2025 offers us an opening to reframe and claim our own renewal and healing, despite upheaval and uncertainty.

Another medical article that landed in my email this month summarized a recent study published in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine, analyzing a vast range of non-surgical and non-interventional treatments for adults used by people with low back pain, and compared to placebo. The study reported that only 10% of those treatments were effective, and provided only small pain relief beyond placebo. Underlying the article, and various medical commentaries, was the idea of further research in the quest for specific a healing treatment, along with pain management. It struck me that there is rarely--if ever--one exclusive path of medical treatment, and certainly when we consider healing in a broader field of healing possibilities, we don't know the limits. Healing is multi-modal. Whether we term it spiritual healing or holistic healing or medical healing, life is interwoven with life. An injury, an illness, a heart-ache, a loss impacts our bodies, mind and emotions, our relationships and activity, our work and "place in life". We often ignore the "periphery"; but multi-layered "wounds" impact our well-being. We learn to compensate, or we focus on healing. We may shift life around us, turn to professionals and friends as treatment and support--conscious or otherwise, we are invoking expanded health practice. The pentacle of this layered healing is prayer.

In my way of seeing spirituality, prayer takes many forms. It is the meeting point, the connection between our everyday selves, and our sense of a vast, larger field of Life that we are enfolded in and that is enfolded within us. Call it anything you want. Because it is a point of connection, and in its own way communication, exchange, we offer the layers of our lives, the places we are stuck, lost, or hurting. Enter prayer from any point or thought within you. Ask and accept, or simply share and receive. Let it lead you in self-care. Your healing this Spring, whatever level, is the world's healing. (Susan Nettleton)

Poetry: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/ https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/R/RosenstockGa/SpringWitha/index.html https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47247/in-just

References: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)00320-4/fulltext Published March 5, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)00320-4 Also available on ScienceDirect Copyright: © 2025 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

BMJ Evidence Based Medicine https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2025/03/02/bmjebm-2024-112974

March 16, 2025

Last Sunday in this post, in acknowledgement of the spiritual Energy of the current holidays of Lent and Ramadan, and the practice of spiritual fasting in different forms found in all major religions world-wide, I encouraged you to consider your own March fast. That Sunday, I asked in meditation, "How do I personally engage in this time of fasting?" My mind, although trying to quiet, ran through a spontaneous list of possibilities. I decided I needed a deeper receptive silence. What came then was an unexpected awareness of the structure of my own psyche, around which my daily thoughts and habits are built. The question became clearer, "What fast will open beyond the structure; what do I really need to release through a "fast". Understand that I am not referring to fasting in the sense of refraining from food, but fasting in the sense of "giving up" a struggle, a fixed attitude, or rehearsed pattern that is an aspect of this "structure," not helpful, and needs to go. The answer then was clear: my struggle with time pressure. I simply did not have enough time to do all that seemed necessary to do. My fast began.

Ironically, the week became exceptionally busy. The "To Do" list suddenly expanded. My computer rebelled, obligations multiplied, deadlines loomed, urgent shifts were required, routines were upended, torrential rains--with new evacuation warnings--disrupted things further! With every meditation, I had to re-release my time pressure and lingering resentment with it. I finally let go. One evening I thought, "I'm tired. Forget it all, I want to read a book," a novel I had started, but couldn't find the time to read further. So I did. I didn't check the evening news, or scroll my phone. I meditated. I read. I slept.

The next afternoon, I asked my kindergarten granddaughter about the pile of homework in her backpack and she announced with great clarity and enthusiasm: "This month is National Reading Month! Kids all over the country are reading books this month! I have reading homework and New Words!" It was so serendipitous. It re-ignited my love of reading, and an awareness of how the digital world of news and information steals from my energy and time. My practice now becomes to stay informed, without being inundated. My 'fast' is changing shape.

While literacy remains the foundation of childhood education (with education in America currently fielding upheaval), my focus today is to encourage your personal experiment: set aside the screen, phone, the flashing meme, computer, or TV, and/or the 'voice' of A.I. to hold a book, open it, and read. Digital reading, of course, is still reading, and for some, auditory input is essential. This very post and the hillsidesource.com website are offered through the wonder of technology. But the libraries of the world hold stories and...well, answers...that have yet to find, may never find, their way to digitalization. The broader issue is freedom of choice as books disappear, along with their special kind of private sensory engagement in the turning of the page. How does it feel to you? What kind of reading, allows you to choose, to learn or let go, to relax, laugh, heal. Spiritual insight and answers come in many forms. Try a book this week. (If you simply cannot find the time to read a book this month, consider another holiday in mid-April, D.E.A.R. which stands for Drop Everything and Read! Susan Nettleton)

for poetry: https://www.poeticous.com/dylan-thomas/notes-on-the-art-of-poetry https://allpoetry.com/Good-Books https://hillsidesource.com/daily-thoughts/2018/3/16/readiness

March 9, 2025

Last Wednesday night as I was driving home, I noticed the neighborhood streets were unusually lined with parked cars, and several people making their way to the nearby Catholic church in the early dark. I suddenly realized it was the first day of Lent! Last Sunday, I mentioned the collective power of Ramadan. Lent is a Christian practice of fasting and prayer in spiritual preparation for Easter Sunday. Even though religious doctrines may not ever recognize them as such, Ramadan and Lent have a complementary energy; within each are their own denominational variations of practice--fasting and/or abstinence, prayer and devotion. They are not the same, but there is a power in the depth of each that re-orients human focus to the spiritual. This year, they overlap.

I am writing from the point of view of individual spirituality, your unique path as a one-of-a-kind expression of spirituality. Even if you are deeply connected and devoted to a specific religion, with a specific doctrine, belief system and practice, you remain a unique creation. Your understanding and expression ultimately arises from your personal unity with God, with Life. Those who share in your spiritual life, add support. Ultimately, we share this world, this planet, and a collective construct--usually unconscious--of what life is, as well as an understanding that there is more that we do not, cannot, understand. So in my way of seeing, the reverence and love expressed in Ramadan and the reverence and love expressed in Lent and the Easter story are available to us all. That availability is not limited to Christianity and Islam, it extends to Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Indigenous understanding as well. It may seem too muddled and confusing, but that is because we hold ideas of separation. Yes, we are each unique, and from that uniqueness, combined with primal connectedness, Life is woven.

If your are outside a committed spiritual practice of Ramadan or Lent, consider this week (or month) a practice of your own form of fasting and prayer. We all develop habits or activities that in spite of our insight, weigh us down, or undermine our self-care. One possibility that Hillside has promoted over the years is "fasting from worry"! It may seem impossible, given the current political atmosphere of erratic shifts, mandates, and policies that fly by us daily, but replacing worry with a meditation break and a calmer, clearer mind, brings the necessary insight of what is real, what is meant to de-stabilize, and what is the wise path to take. Worry is not a solution. Or fast from self judgement and self blame, or fast from procrastination, or from mindlessly scrolling your phone. What activity weighs you down? Consider with your fast, Lao Tzu below. (Susan Nettleton)

“Do you have the patience to wait 
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?” 
 More: https://hillsidesource.com/daily-thoughts/2018/3/24/fasting-from-worry https://hillsidesource.com/daily-thoughts/2018/6/20/finding-peace-of-mind https://sacredpoetryproject.com/fasting/