transcending Archives

Ordinary People’s Mystical Experiences – a review of ‘Mystical Interludes II’ by Emily Rodavich

February 18, 2019

‘Mystical Interludes II’, collected and edited by Emily Rodavich, takes us into the world of ordinary people’s mystical experiences. Read on!

A mystical interlude, which resonates in the heart, can remind us of our spirituality and our connectedness to each other. This is why it is meaningful to take heed.

from Mystical Interludes II by Emily Rodavich

You might sense a theme emerging in Quiet Writing lately.

Independently, books have come to me that focus on mystical experiences. These books arrived in various ways and means, all dealing with people having extraordinary experiences. It was quite surprising. Coincidence? I think not.

These mystical experiences are called different things: mystical interludes or NOTEs, Non-ordinary Transcendent Experiences. Some involve a specific life-changing moment like a Near Death Experience. Others are a kind of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence, involving signs or symbols. Sometimes they are everyday occurrences with enormous significance beyond the moment. They could be events that connect over the decades. Or an experience that manifests through increased sensitivity of some kind.

It was clearly time for me to look closely into this realm of reality and reflect on my personal experience of the mystical. For it is something that just about everyone experiences and encounters if we pay attention. Often, it’s an occurrence that yields rich rewards of transformation and growth. This is especially the case if we honour the experience, feel able to talk about it and share it more publicly with others.

Reading Mystical Interludes II

I was delighted to have the opportunity to read Mystical Interludes II by Emily Rodavich to enrich my sense of ordinary people’s stories of the mystical. The backstory of this book is fascinating. Emily Rodavich wrote her first Mystical Interludes: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Experiences as a memoir. Covering a series of lifetime mystical interludes, Emily seeks to make sense of encounter after encounter. These experiences include a near-death experience at 18. With the door opening to this aspect of experience, it seemed to usher in other spiritual experiences.

Emily reflects on her mystical interludes with this life wisdom:

I’ve come to realize that those powerful experiences have been extraordinary gifts that should be shared rather than closeted. It’s my hunch that the world is full of ordinary people like myself who have been surprised by similar incidents. It’s time we come forward and share them with each other and the world around us.

Mystical Interludes

So to put her weight behind this, Emily issued an invitation at the end of her memoir. She invited people who experienced a mystical interlude to submit a description of it for a new book. Mystical Interludes II is a collection of stories that came forward from ordinary people from that invitation and in other ways.

Emily speaking at a book talk

Ordinary people’s extraordinary stories

The quality that I love most about Emily’s Mystical Interludes II is that it is very much ordinary people telling extraordinary stories. You sense as you read that each author is continuing to make sense of what happened as they write. The overwhelming feeling is of everyone being right back in that moment even if it was many years ago. The details are sharp. It’s as if time stands still in the moment and everything is super-charged. The senses are activated in the story and in the telling.

Nancy Aloi in ‘Love from Beyond the Veil‘ describes a series of encounters defined by intense smells including tobacco and freshly baked bread. Smells that she connects with her late father, his spirit seemingly shepherds her through a difficult time.

Canela Michelle Meyers describes the expansive, light feeling of a Near Death Experience in her story, ‘Into the Blue’. The moments when Canela is ice-skating before she has a catastrophic fall are told in crystal clear detail. It’s as if the whole day and series of events are frozen in time.

Time after time, I marvelled at being in this house, in this hospital, in this room, on this street – in ordinary places with ordinary people having extraordinary things happen to them.

Overwhelming openness to experience

Each author reflects on these extraordinary experiences as a gift. They provide insights and learning that open the heart. Even when the experience was difficult or hard to understand, it resulted in a spirit of being more open.

Beverley Golden shares an “almost unexplainable experience with a past-life regression” in her story, ‘Answers from Another Place and Time.’ She concludes:

One thing I do know is that the experience has kept me open and willing to receive answers to questions, wherever they come from.

These ordinary people share conclusions from all kinds of extraordinary experiences. Conclusions about loved ones always being with us, living past lives, life beyond death and the power of mystical signposts to bring people together over time and circumstance. Each story has the effect of opening up your own experience and insight in the telling.

As Emily says in the introduction:

Just as each of us is an original one-of-a-kind being, each story is a unique, authentic revelation. The common thread throughout these narratives is that they are real. That reality is evidenced by their influences on their writers’ lives.

Extraordinary encounters of ordinary people

The authors are a rich mix of people. They include retirees, authors, physicians, integrative health practitioners, neighbours, teachers, artists, intuitives, psychologists, musicians. Authors of Quiet Writing Wholehearted Stories are contributors to this volume including Penelope Love and Maura McCarley Torkildson. Most of the authors I don’t know and some authors choose to remain anonymous.

This broad range of contributing authors reinforces the message that many people experience mystical interludes. I reflected on my own mystical interludes whilst reading this book. When reading Nicole Gruel’s book, I had an encounter experience around rainbows, a recurring symbol in my life. It’s as if in the reading of such books, our awareness is raised. We review the mystical experiences in our lives. Or they start to occur!

Suzanne Giesemann echoes this in her Foreword:

I know from my own research that simply by reading other people’s other-worldly experiences, we are more likely to experience such events ourselves.

The gathering of books and connections coming together on this topic in my life might be my own Mystical Interludes story! A whole series of personal connections has intersected during this past month or so of reading about mystical interludes. Chance and random encounters between people connected around mystical experiences. New connections made like it’s a web that extends between us. It has been an extraordinary light-filled time.

Connecting with Mystical Interludes

This is the real power and spirit of Mystical Interludes II and Emily’s collection of stories. The groundswell of interest in transcendent experiences is made richer by these detailed accounts of ordinary lives suddenly taking on another form.

We know from Emily’s gathering of these 39 stories, as well as Nicole Gruel’s research, that many people have such experiences but they may not talk about them. The stigma and the feeling of not being believed means many people have stayed quiet. Clearly, as these stories show, the immediacy and impact of these experiences does not fade with time. The retelling of them gives life and energy to the spirit of the experience.

I encourage you to read Mystical Interludes II to embolden yourself to think about such experiences in your life. And to share them with others. You might find yourself reflecting on your mystical experiences – past or present – as I have. If you have had a mystical interlude of your own, you might consider contributing your story to the forthcoming Mystical Interludes III.

Emily sharing her experiences via a book talk

Leadership in telling stories

The leadership of Emily Rodavich in telling her story as a role model and inviting and supporting others to tell their stories is powerful. It would be easy for these ordinary people to shy away from telling their stories. But in Emily’s very wise and inspired hands, these stories are dusted off, shaped and gathered together into a volume that speaks volumes about the nature of mystical experiences.

Emily’s book opens with a wonderful quote from Anthony de Mello:

Story-telling to shed light and share truth is what this book is all about. These are quiet stories, gently told, as they narrate momentous happenings. It is wonderful that more authors are choosing to write and share their mystical interludes story. It’s exciting too that Emily has stepped up to provide leadership to gather, honour and help voice the experiences of others.

I feel indebted to Emily and to all the authors for taking the time to share their stories in such detail, often from hidden or long ago places. I’m sure many readers will feel this same sense of respect and honour in witnessing these long-held stories of the heart and spirit. I encourage you to also witness these stories, their brave telling and what they might teach us about ourselves and our place in the world of spirit and the mystical.

Book Giveaway

I’m hosting a giveaway of Mystical Interludes II on Instagram and Facebook! Let’s celebrate ordinary people’s mystical interludes in the light of the Virgo Full Moon!

Working together with Emily Rodavich and Citrine Publishing, we have one printed copy of Mystical Interludes II to give away, sent to you anywhere in the world.

So make sure you are following me on Instagram and/or Facebook and follow the instructions to win this book in my posts on Tuesday 19 February AEDT. Good luck!

Thought pieces + footnotes

About Emily Rodavich

Emily Rodavich, retired English teacher, mother of three and grandmother of four, had a near death experience at age eighteen. That extraordinary event opened the door to a lifetime of spiritual happenings. Unable to share those mystical experiences with most friends or family for fear they’d think her “strange,” she kept them to herself. In recent years, realizing the ways those various mystical happenings had shaped her concept of reality and her character, she wrote her memoir, Mystical Interludes: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Experiences, which chronicles ten of her stunning interludes. Believing that everybody experiences mystical interludes to some degree, she invited readers to submit their stories for publication in this, her second book, Mystical Interludes II: A Collection of Extraordinary People’s Extraordinary Experiences.

At the end of her speaking engagements Emily found that people wanted to hang out and talk about their experiences. The result was the formation of the Mystical Interludes Discussion Group (MIDG) starting with eight members who met in her home for the first time in March 2017. Today the group of fifty members rents space for their monthly meetings. Emily’s mission is to do her part to support our collective spiritual evolution by bringing personal mystical events out of shadow into the light. In so doing, she foresees a day when mystical interludes will be accepted as normal human events, rather than strange or weird occurrences.

Connect with Emily by visiting the Mystical Interludes website. To express your intention to write for the next edition, click on “Share Your Experience”.

Reading Mystical Interludes II

You can use the below Amazon affiliate links to access and read Mystical Interludes II if you choose with no additional cost to you. I receive a small commission to help keep Quiet Writing efforts, book reviews and giveaways flourishing.

For Amazon.com.au:

Mystical Interludes II: Kindle

Mystical Interludes II: Paperback

For Amazon.com:

Mystical Interludes II: Kindle

Mystical Interludes II: Paperback

For Amazon UK:

Mystical Interludes II: Kindle

Mystical Interludes II: Paperback

Image 2, 5 & 7 provided by Emily Rodavich and used with permission and thanks.

Image 3 via Pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

You might also enjoy:

Non-ordinary transcendent experiences: a review of ‘The Power of Notes’ by Nicole Gruel PhD

Intuition: how to understand and master it – a review of ‘The Inner Tree’ by Maura McCarley Torkildson

The journey to write here: my wholehearted story

When the inner voice calls, and calls again – my journey to wholehearted living

Tackling trauma and “not enough” with empathy and vision – a wholehearted story

Personality Stories

Keep in touch + read the books that shaped my story

You might also find inspiration in my free 94-page ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below.

You will receive the ebook straight away! Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

personality and story reading notes transcending

Non-Ordinary Transcendent Experiences – a review of ‘The Power of NOTEs’ by Nicole Gruel, PhD

January 18, 2019

Want to learn more about Non-Ordinary Transcendent Experiences? ‘The Power of NOTEs’ will help you understand and work with them as a source for transformation. Read on!

NOTEs are an important aspect of the human experience that help point towards and awaken the desire, curiosity, and courage to explore more of what life could be.

from The Power of NOTEs by Nicole Gruel PhD

Nicole Gruel PhD

Have you ever experienced something that felt out of the ordinary, super-charged or transcendent, that changed your life in some key way?

Many of us have, yet it’s an area of human experience we tend not to talk about. Often this is because we don’t quite understand what happened. We keep quiet, often for years, as we try to make sense of it and what it meant. It’s frequently a solitary, and sometimes, painful journey. But more people are beginning to talk about these non-ordinary transcendent experiences however they manifest. They are emerging as sources of positive transformation and personal power if we pay attention, talk about them and work through them.

Dr Nicole Gruel’s new book, ‘The Power of NOTEs: How Non-Ordinary Transcendent Experiences Transform the Way We Live, Love and Lead‘ is an important, research-based contribution to the field of spiritual psychology and transformation.

After a near-death experience and the sudden loss of family members, Nicole found herself deep in the realm of non-ordinary transcendent experiences. In particular, she learnt their power for positive change.

Nicole has gone on to explore NOTEs deeply including via PhD studies. Her Doctoral Dissertation focused on “AfterNOTEs: Non-Ordinary Transcendent Experiences and their Aftereffects Through Jung’s Topology”. This involved interviewing people who had experienced NOTES and working through the psychological dimensions of their response. This deep qualitative and quantitative research, combined with personal experience and NOTEs community connection, provides the rich source material that this excellent, practical book is woven around.

So what are NOTEs?

A non-ordinary transcendent experience is a rare and unfamiliar event that takes you beyond your regular understanding of yourself and the world.

from The Power of NOTES

An acronym created by transpersonal psychologist William Braud, ‘NOTE’ captures experiences at the intersection of “paranormal research, exceptional human experiences, and transpersonal psychology.” (p3). Well-known examples include near-death experiences and paranormal encounters, but the scope of NOTEs is much wider and more inclusive than this.

In the opening chapter, Nicole explains that she groups over 500 potential NOTEs into nine categories, such as Death-related experiences, Encounter experiences, and Mystical experiences. Nicole describes each category of NOTEs, helping the reader to connect with their own personal database of experiences.

What is the power of NOTEs?

The power of NOTEs is realising their potential for our growth and insight. Nicole explains the ability of NOTEs to take us out of ourselves and our habitual ways of being:

For many experiencers, tasting our core self is the greatest gift of a NOTE. (p7)

It is a type of disruption forcing our attention in new ways and often taking some time to integrate. This is often because societal and cultural contexts make it hard for us to talk about them. Nicole explores this with examples from the lives of experiencers. She shows too that NOTEs offer wisdom and insight that has implications beyond the individual.

Greater wisdom calls for us to access the insights of NOTEs as best we can, for these experiences provide a necessary lens into other ways of seeing and being in the world. (p9)

Research shows that when people share NOTEs, it has many benefits for individual wellbeing, such as reducing stress. Nicole has made it her mission to help people share and understand NOTEs as part of the human and collective experience.

The landscape of NOTEs

I had the pleasure of attending the online launch of Nicole’s book recently, where we had a virtual tour through the book. We also heard from leaders and writers in the NOTEs community. These experiences, alongside reading the book, have helped me better understand the landscape of NOTEs.

The book explores NOTEs from all perspectives including the dark and light sides of being an experiencer and from the viewpoint of neuroscience. Nicole scopes neuroscience perspectives and evidence that shows we are hard-wired to experience NOTEs.

A fellow personality type practitioner, Nicole also looks through the personality lens at the gifts of NOTEs:

NOTEs are powerful because they put us on the fast track toward a fuller expression of who we most naturally and uniquely are.

Research shows that the specific content of a near-death experience, its impact and significance is influenced by people’s personal psychology.

Connecting NOTEs experiences with Jung’s eight psychological types, Nicole explores eight gifts or transcendent dimensions of personality using James Graham Johnston’s model of the Gift’s Compass™. For example, Introverted Thinking (Ti) connects with The Conceptual Gift.

Using this lens of personality, Nicole explains that:

Experiencer stories show that the more the natural or true self is made available through NOTEs, the more a person’s dominant personality preferences take on transcendent aspects. (p40)

This ground-breaking perspective, informed by conversations with NOTEs experiencers, helps provide psychological insights into these transcendent events.

Working and transforming with NOTEs

The second half of the book explores NOTEs as clues to our natural flow states; ways to work with NOTEs during and beyond experiences; and how NOTEs can be a transformative power in how we live, love and lead.

Each chapter provides practical tips and practices for working with NOTEs as a transformative power source. Nicole shows how we can create a NOTEs biography and Well-being Wheel, with these tools based on recent, pioneering research and experiences of people actively working on integrating NOTEs into life stories. The self-leadership framework highlights the importance of validating and appropriately sharing NOTEs.

Ultimately, no one is a better coach and guide for you than you. (p62)

The power of love and legacy are keys to the self-leadership experience of working with NOTEs in a personally transformative way.

The experience of reading The Power of NOTEs

I encourage you to read The Power of NOTEs. It is beautifully and clearly written, full of lived and researched wisdom. As Katie Mottram puts it so well in her foreword:

This is not just a book; Nicole has gifted you an experience.

I couldn’t agree more. As if to highlight this, I had a transcendent experience during my reading of the book.

I realised my experiences of NOTEs are mostly in the Encounter experiences category: a kind of synchronicity related to “something wondrous or awesome, like a spectacular view or moving music...” Many years ago, I had a series of astounding synchronistic events with rainbows at a peak time of change and transformation. They had a profound effect on me as rainbow after rainbow connected in an ongoing narrative.

I started Nicole’s book in the early morning hours of a sleepless night two days away from Christmas, the first anniversary of my mother’s death. A few hours later, still restless, I got up early and headed out to the deck. There the most stunning rainbow greeted me in the sky. Rainbows are something I connect with my mother and also my father. I chose songs and poems with the symbolism of rainbows for both their funerals as a way of continuing to connect with them.

My experience of reading the book, reflecting on my own NOTEs symbolism, seemed to open up this connection. It would have been so easy to miss this rainbow.

Connecting with the power of NOTEs

Reading this book will help you connect with the power of NOTEs in your life. As the ‘Praise’ upfront in the book, the Foreword and the online book launch all show, there is a groundswell of research, interest and support in the area of non-ordinary transcendent experiences.

Organisations such as the International Spiritual Emergence Network (ISEN), American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (ACISTE), the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS) and the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) provide a touchpoint for experiences and research around them. You can find further links and information here.

More authors are stepping up to write their stories and gather, honour and structure the experiences of others as Nicole has done. You might like to read my book review of Mystical Interludes II – a Collection of Ordinary People’s Mystical Experiences, collected and edited by Emily Rodavich. The Power of NOTES and Mystical Interludes II came to me in a synchronistic way, at the same time from unique connections but covering similar terrain.

Read Nicole Gruel’s book to recognise, honour and structure such experiences in your life and also in the lives of those you love. If you have had a NOTE, this book can help others share in and understand your experience. Likewise, if you think someone you know may have experienced a NOTE, this book is a useful way to open the conversation or quietly support them. For counsellors, coaches and other professional people, this is an important resource to open up thoughts about spiritually transformative experiences in practice.

And as I finish writing, I hear the sounds of the children next door playing under the water sprinkler in the Sydney midsummer heat. One excitedly shouts: “There’s a rainbow!”

Thought pieces + footnotes

Dr Nicole Gruel is an author, speaker and transformational coach. Descendant from a long line of samurai, she has spent over two decades exploring human potential. You can connect with her at DrNicoleGruel.com.

The Power of NOTES was provided as a review copy by the author in return for a fair review. I am grateful to Dr Nicole Gruel for sharing this book with me.

To purchase, you can use the below link.

For Amazon.com.au:

The Power of NOTEs: Non-Ordinary Transcendent Experiences Transforming the Way We Live, Love, and Lead

Image 1 (feature image), 2 & 5 provided by Nicole Gruel and used with permission and thanks.

You might also enjoy:

Intuition: how to understand and master it – a review of ‘The Inner Tree’ by Maura McCarley Torkildson

“You are the authority on you”: a review of Danielle LaPorte’s White Hot Truth

Being ‘Fierce on the Page’ – a book review

Being a vessel – or working with introverted intuition

36 Books that Shaped my Story – Reading as Creative Influence

When the inner voice calls, and calls again – my journey to wholehearted livings

How to read for more creativity, productivity and pleasure

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

2 Comments

inspiration & influence transcending

Joy and resilience in challenging times

December 27, 2018

For a wise woman once

told Her that Her tears

were the most

healing waters of them all

Rise Sister Rise – Rebecca Campbell

Can joy be part of resilience in challenging times? This post explores how developing resilience and a kind of joy in small moments can help us through the most difficult times.

Joy as my Word of the Year in 2018

Joy is my Word of the Year for 2018. I’m reflecting on my experience of JOY this past year in a series of posts here.

I’ve realised that each quarter of the year delivered a new lesson and experience about finding joy:

alongside deep grief
and resilience in challenging times (this post)
in travel and being away from home (to come soon)
in creative work and my calling (to come soon)

I hope you find these reflections valuable for your own journeys with joy, grief, resilience, creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. And I look forward to your thoughts and experiences too on these issues and feelings.

Joy and resilience in challenging times

In the second quarter of the year, we faced extreme challenges as a family. Circumstances that took us all into unfamiliar territory. Again and on the back of the first quarter’s experiences, I had to work out where any sense of joy and optimism sat alongside all of this.

A book helped me immensely at this time: Rick Hanson’s Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakeable Core of Calm, Strength and Happiness. Practical, positive and based in neuroscience, this book focuses on 12 hard-wired inner strengths and how to cultivate them.

I read this book as an audiobook while driving and also an ebook when at home, dipping into its wisdom whenever I could. A toolkit of psychological resources and strategies, it helped me realise the resources I already had for navigating this extreme time. It also provided simple but powerful tips for changing my mind-set as I dealt with significant pain and challenge.

Resilient practices and joy

The two practices prompted by reading ‘Resilient’ that helped me most were:

Honouring my psychological resources
Feeling the beauty of joy in small ways as well as feeling pain

Honouring my psychological resources

Having been through a fair amount of pain, challenge and loss in my life, I’ve built up psychological resources to be more resilient and strong. We all do this. Everything we go through teaches us if we are open to the lessons.

At times, I have had to dig deep and be reflective, talk to special friends and professionals. I’ve learnt when to spend time alone, when to practice self-care and how to balance my needs with others. Tough lessons all and with more challenges stretching me, I dug deep into my learning this year and I learnt more. I am much better at contacting people and talking when I need it now rather than battling on alone.

I sought help from a psychologist to check in on my well-being and psychological resources at this time. This was positive and encouraging as someone trained and objective listened to what was happening and how I was dealing with it.

She provided valued feedback that I was doing well at this challenging time considering all that had happened and was happening. This helped me feel more self-compassionate and self-confident even as I felt overwhelmed. Perhaps not a feeling of joy, but it certainly helped me immensely. I was ready for a series of sessions if need be. But I found for this time, one session and conversation was enough to feel stronger and self-reliant, drawing on my personal resources.

Feeling beauty in small everyday joys as well as feeling pain

A big learning this year has been that it is okay to feel the beauty and joy of everyday things even as we feel immense pain.

Rick Hanson reminds us we can take an approach of gratitude:

Thankfulness is not about minimizing or denying hassles, illness, loss, or injustice. It is simply about appreciating what is also true: such as flowers and sunlight, paper clips and fresh water, the kindness of others, easy access to knowledge and wisdom, and light at the flick of a switch.

This ability to acknowledge and feel concurrent truths helped so much. One helps to balance and provide grounding for the other. I have found special joy in swimming, reading, writing, tarot work, sitting in the sun, cups of tea, coffee and connection with special friends and family at this time. These simple acts were a blessing and wisdom that helped me move through so much.

Feeling all the feelings

Sometimes we just need to acknowledge and accept that things are terrible and dark and find the points of resilience and strength that will get us through. In this way, we can discover transcendent energies we can tap into. They fuel us and help us strengthen wholeheartedly for life.

As a person with INTJ Jung/Myers-Briggs® personality type preferences, feeling is something I have worked on over time to balance my natural tendency and strength for thinking and logic. I am much better at working with both the head and the heart now. Through this time I learnt to experience feelings more deeply – sadness, anger, exhaustion, helplessness, frustration, fear, worry, pain. There were plenty of feelings moving through me.

I’m more open to going through feelings as a process step to the next stage rather than going around them. Especially through my intuitive work with Amber Adrian over time and her writings on All the Feelings, I’ve learnt to lean in and really feel my feelings. Crying and physical expression of feelings were part of this too. Amber has reminded me to ask “What next?” with feelings. In this way, we can move on and through, clearing out and moving onto the next stage of what we are dealing with and our response.

Joy and resilience

So there wasn’t so much joy in this second quarter of the year. It certainly didn’t feel joyful and at times, it was just very dark. In response to my post on joy and grief on Instagram, Cheryl Haezebroeck aka @the_intrepid_goddess shared that:

I love how a word of the year is such a learning experience because not only is the Word featured but the shadow is there too for our awareness and healing.

This is true. We can’t expect it all to be our stereotypical version of a word. Nor can we expect it to be all sunshine and light just because we choose a positive word, as lovely as that would be.

The lessons are often deeper and more long-standing involving shadow work. As I learnt with joy and grief, understanding the ability to live with paradox in challenging circumstances made all the difference. I was able to carve out small spaces of the day to manage self-care and practice resilience as I dealt with the most extreme worry.

And in the smallest moments, joy found a place in my heart and kept me hopeful, optimistic and confident that I knew what to do. These moments sustained me and kept me strong as I drew deeply on my resources to care for both myself and loved ones.

Have you experienced something like this? How have joy and other positive practices helped you with being resilient? What have dark circumstances taught you about the paradox of joy and resilience? Share your thoughts in the comments or on social media – Facebook or Instagram.

Find Your Word process + tools

First though, some information on the process and tools that can help you. If you have never worked on a Word of the Year, it’s a powerful process. Susannah Conway has a fabulous free Word of the Year ecourse available each year that I often dive into. It works really well alongside the Unravel Your Year process and free workbook that Susannah also creates and generously shares each year. I’ve been working through both processes to review my year and plan for the next one since 2014.

I credit these practices with contributing to deep realisations about where I was stuck and needed to make change. For the first few years, I found I was writing the same goals each year and not achieving them. This was mostly about writing books and making space for creativity in my life. Each year was swallowed up by work and my creative goals kept getting lost.

In 2016, I started doing things differently and began to make my transition and now at the end of 2018, I am two years in to my change journey and life is very different. It’s much more in line with the dreams and visions I had way back in 2014!

Amy Palko also offers My Word Goddess Readings with suggestions for your word for the year linked to a Goddess of the Year. Also a practice I have invested in for a few years now, it provides valuable intuitive insights and suggestions for words that might help drive your year’s energy positively.

You might also enjoy:

Joy and grief: the paradox and wisdom of finding joy alongside deep grief

Finding JOY in the everyday – reflections on my Word of the Year for 2018

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers – a wholehearted story

Keep in touch + read the books that shaped my story

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

transcending transition

New life, new wings, new opportunities – making the most of it

June 11, 2018

We are more than the sum of our wounds.

Sharon Blackie, If Women Rose Rooted

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: new life, new wings, new opportunities + making the most of them

Theme for the week beginning 11 June

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #18 Produce no waste.

After last week’s message – Taking a leap of faith with structure + the gift of surprise – this week is all about moving more fully into that new life. If you’ve been following along with my daily Tarot Narratives (now on IG stories @writingquietly), you may have noticed the Five of Cups popping up a few times (3 times in the past 8 days!) accompanied by the Eight of Swords in one instance. All of that seemed to be about not getting lost in disappointment or grief, in what could have been or what has been lost.

This card, “Produce no waste”, helps us to reflect on where we might be losing energy, effort or time as a consequence of what we’ve been through. What habits has it led to? Have we become adept at putting things off instead of actually doing them? Are we wallowing in something rather than moving on?

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook for #18 is:

Explore your use of time. Establish what needs to be maintained in your life. Scrutinize your perceived priorities. Look out for signs of procrastination. Is there anything else being wasted?

What can we waste: time, opportunities, connection, energy, resources, space… so many things.

Today’s narrative, led by this card, encourages us to see where we are moving to and how we are moving there. We are looking ahead rather than behind to check we are making the most of the opportunities of this new life.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 11 June

Tarot Narrative:

You’ve come a long way through and out. Take some time to celebrate but reflect also on what you can do with this time, your resources, what you’ve built so far. The unfamiliar beckons as a way of taking yourself, your creativity and projects into a new life with new wings guiding you to a higher space.

Cards: Six of Wands and Nine of Coins (Pentacles) from the Spolia Tarot and #50 No Place Like Home in protection (reversed) position from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Moving on and into new life ways

Last week we had the Emperor and Seven of Wands encouraging us to take some risks and a leap of faith in our creative projects. The Emperor especially prompted work with structure and an overall plan or in Jung/Myers-Briggs terms, some Extraverted Thinking – some frameworks and order.

I don’t know what your week was like this past week but I achieved some major goals. This included some that had been begging to be finished for a while. I just had to put a bit of structure in place and do the work and, voilà, long term goals were achieved.

I’m feeling pretty good about that but as this week’s narrative asks us, what does that moment of satisfaction and achievement bring with it? Is it time to sit back and do less? Time to celebrate and kick up our heels? The Six of Wands and Nine of Coins combine with a strong message this week to say: yes stop, have a quiet celebration but keep moving. Appreciate how far you have come but it’s also time to keep doing and seeing what the next steps are.

Where will you go with your new set of wings?

The Six of Wands from The Wild Unknown Tarot sums up the message of this card so well:

The obstacles have been relentless, but now is not the time to look back upon them. The more pressing question is: where will you go with your new set of wings?

Whatever you have been through recently, it’s time to look forward. It’s an opportunity to celebrate and recognise the wins, in case you missed noticing them. But then to see where they will take you.

The ‘No Place Like Home’ card from the Wisdom of the Oracle deck has turned up two days in a row in the same position – protection or reversed. This card in this position counsels us not to get too comfortable and not to sit on our laurels. (Note also the laurel imagery in the Spolia Nine of Coins card!) Especially if we have been through a tough time, it’s easy to develop the habit of putting things off. We are encouraged via the Wisdom of the Oracle for this card to do something different and find a new path:

Choose something unfamiliar and trust that there you will find a new normal that supports your spirit.

This image via pexels.com

Book notes: New life and moving on from pain

It is true that we have to do a good deal of inner work before we have anything meaningful to offer the world; it is true too that we must recognise our wounds and incorporate them into the ground of our becoming. But we need also to stop licking them. We are more than the sum of our wounds.

Sharon Blackie, If Women Rose Rooted

The initial theme card about focusing on producing no waste suggested a focus on wasted time and other resources. It’s a fine balance between moving through pain to new life and getting lost on the way. It might be getting stuck in the habit of loss or disappointment. This means we can lose energy in negative ways rather than channelling it into the positive.

It could be getting carried away with celebrating our successes and missing the next opportunities. Perhaps it’s taking the safe way instead of the unfamiliar, the “exquisite risks” that last week’s message also suggested to us. We might choose heading home instead of the opportunity of a new adventure.

How can you move into new life in a new way?

So how can you move into new life in a new way, making the most of new opportunities?

The Six of Wands and Nine of Coins are both positive cards: we are rising up, feeling a sense of victory. We are finally feeling self-sufficient, independent, achieving creatively. But what are the next steps? There’s a sense of needing to do something different and unfamiliar to ride this new wave with optimism.

I’ve made big leaps in the past week or so. I’ve finalised my Jung/Myers-Briggs Personality Stories personality assessment, ecourse and coaching package. I am currently testing it with some fellow life coaches and a friend who is also a Myers-Briggs practitioner. Then I’ll be able to fine-tune it with feedback and release it more widely. After a long-term investment in my skills and this project, I’m ready to step into it. This week’s narrative is encouraging me to think a little differently with how I work now I’ve reached this point. Where am I going with these new wings? Am I wasting time and energy anywhere? Am I aligned? Am I making the most of what I’ve created?

Tips for moving ahead with new life opportunities

Here are some questions and tips for moving ahead with optimism into new life opportunities. Take time to reflect and journal on any that catch your attention:

aligning your time: Where are you wasting time? Where have you developed habits from another time that aren’t serving you now?
do things differently: As the saying goes, if you always do what you’ve done, you’ll always get what you’ve got. So how can you do things differently and embrace the unfamiliar in your work? What course or book might help you break new ground? Or where can you move ahead without any courses or books, instead creating your own?
notice where you are stuck: Where are you doing things because you’ve always done them that way? Check in and see if it’s still serving you.
the “new normal”: Which parts of your life feel like the “new normal” you want more of? In getting to this new phase, what helped you? Who helped you? How can you do more of that?
go outside your comfort zone and natural preferences – This was mentioned last week but the unfamiliar keeps popping up as a source of new opportunities now. Do the opposite of what you normally do and see what arises for you! Go to an event if you are introvert. Stay inside and explore your creative thoughts more if you tend to want to go out a lot.
let go: There is an element of letting go of the past and other attachments in all of this too. This post with some great quotes on letting go just popped up so sharing it with you.

Thoughts for this week

Celebrate where you’ve got to – all that hard work and vision over time. But don’t lose the momentum and keep focused on the new. Reframing and resetting offer wonderful opportunities for rising even more strongly now.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to what this message of moving ahead with a new life, new wings and new opportunities sings to you! All best wishes for a week of celebrating how hard we’ve worked but also moving ahead into a new normal with an optimistic mind-set.

May you find that taking a few moments to celebrate and reflect brings new opportunities and new ways of working. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way. And to help you ignite the psychological links in your passions!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

Choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way

May 28, 2018

Through meditation, observe your mind observing the world.

Lisa McLoughlin, Life Design Cards, #48 Stay bewitched by your own consciousness

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way

Theme for the week beginning 28 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #48 Stay bewitched by your own consciousness

After last week’s message to start work and ignite magic from your unique passions, it’s a time of going within again. We have had this card a couple of times before so it seems to be a favourite for Quiet Writing! No surprises really, given it’s all about meditating, going quietly within and playing creatively with our mind. It seems a very Introverted Intuiting kind of card to me. And that type of cognitive processing is about withdrawing from the world to find an insight or higher perspective, according to Dario Nardi in ‘Jung on Yoga’ (more on this below!)

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Through meditation, observe your mind observing the world. Play out creative inspirations with art, pure fantasy and dreams.

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to withdraw a little and choose best thoughts to make a lighter way.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 28 May

Tarot Narrative:

It’s a time of change or perhaps you are just coming out of a tough time where much shifted. As you work through this time, be aware of your own consciousness and whether you are filling it with flowers and growth, or swords that might damage you. Wield what will help you to shed skins and move into a lighter time.

Cards: Nine of Swords and Judgement from the Spolia Tarot and #12 A Change in the Wind from Wisdom of the Oracle. Loving the Spolia Tarot!

Watch the thoughts you are choosing

Last week we had the King of Wands and Ace of Coins and it was all about moving ahead on our creative projects. It was a very yang energy week and I achieved an enormous amount of things I have been trying to get to for ages. How did you go? Did you have that same experience of lots of forward action?

I noticed too though that the fear and doubt started to creep in. As we put ourselves out there with our creative projects, all kinds of thoughts can step in. This week we are encouraged to ground ourselves by choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way.

It’s amazing when we are reaching new goals and putting our ideas into action how the negative thoughts can come. The Spolia Nine of Swords captures this perfectly symbolising all those daggers of thought that can stop us from moving and fill us with fear. As Jessa Crispin reminds us for this card:

This is the card of waking up at 4am with your head spinning, letting you know all the ways you are letting yourself down….We can spin demons out of thin air.

Choosing the best thoughts and clearing your mind

So this time calls for a strategy of going within and choosing our best thoughts – flowers instead of swords – and clearing the mind. Whatever works for you to clear your mind – yoga, walking, swimming, running, knitting, colouring, drawing – will help to clear the air. That way you can begin to choose the best thoughts – the more creative ones – rather than the dark ones that make you doubt yourself.

The challenges of current or recent times are potential sources of growth. They can feel very tough but as the Judgement card suggests with its imagery of a snake shedding its skin, it’s all about transformation. And part of the transformation is choosing the best thoughts to take us forward instead of dwelling on any mistakes or shortcomings. It’s a whole lot lighter that way.

As I was swimming this morning, I was reflecting on how the act of swimming is a kind of yoga for me as I breathe in and out very deeply for about half an hour. In that process, as I float and move, I feel much lighter. And much like yoga, the thoughts come and go as I come back to focusing on my breath and movement. The practice of my body moving through salt water.

In this process, I go within and access my own consciousness and inspiration often comes intuitively. It’s easy in this way to choose the best thoughts rather than the “waking at 4am” style of thinking, full of fear and doubt.

This image via pexels.com

Book notes:

Withdraw from the world and focus your mind to receive an insight or realization. Check if synergy results. Try a realization to transform yourself and how you think.

Dario Nardi, Jung on Yoga – for Keen Foreseeing (Ni Introverted Intuiting)

Today’s theme is all about going within and finding ways of choosing the best thoughts. And this is a kind of Introverted Intuiting or keen forseeing. There are eight cognitive processes including four extraverted and four introverted in Jungian psychology. Introverted Intuiting is one of these processes. It’s highlighted this week for going within and finding those bewitching thoughts in our own consciousness.

Dario Nardi describes this Introverted Intuiting as ‘Transform with a Higher Perspective.’ This energy and cognitive process is valuable for us as we seek to change and shed old ways that are no longer helpful. Moving past the dark Nine of Swords thinking and into lighter ways of working, we can engage with our creativity.

‘Jung on Yoga’ is a fabulous resource on finding psychological balance through yoga and the chakras as well as through working with your cognitive processes and psychological type. It is particularly valuable on the Transcendent function and provides a contemporary perspective on conflict as a source of growth and how to work with this. As Dario Nardi states:

The tension of opposites is your fuel for growth.

Tips for choosing the best thoughts

So how can you actively work on choosing the best thoughts? For me, it’s finding the self-leadership strategies that help me settle and work with my personality type. It might be different strategies for different times too. As Dario Nardi’s work on neuroscience, cognitive processes and self-leadership reminds us, it might be about stretching our cognitive options to suit the environment and demands up on us.

You might like to read up too on self-leadership and being the Captain of your Own Life via this great free ebook. My piece on ‘Anchors of self-leadership in seas of change‘ is there along with fellow Quiet Writing contributors Elizabeth Milligan and Lynn Hanford-Day. Just click on the image to read – it’s free! It’s all about finding ways of choosing the best thoughts and quieting the darker ones.

A huge thanks to all fellow contributors and heartfelt gratitude to Angelique Desiree who conceived the idea, pulled us all together and created this beautiful ebook every step of the way. Enjoy some fantastic reading on wholehearted self-leadership and being captain of your own life as this week invites us to do.

Thoughts for this week

Going within and choosing the best thoughts to help us chart our course is highlighted this week. Judging what is best can be relative, but certainly finding the self-leadership strategies that you know will settle you will help you move with grace and calm.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how this message of staying with your own consciousness and its more introverted and intuitive practices resonates with you this week.

All best wishes for a week of going within to settle into choosing your best thoughts in creativity and life focus.

May you find that shedding the skin of darker thoughts is easier and that your path is lighter. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

Opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

May 7, 2018

In each loss, there is a gain as in every gain there is a loss. And with each ending comes a new beginning.

Shao Lin via The Art of Life Tarot – Eight of Cups

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

Theme for the week beginning 7 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #19 Design from patterns to details

We’ve hard this card before not so long ago! Last time it reminded us of the value of strategy and the higher order of connections. This week the message is similar but with a particular focus on moving through and not letting details get the better of us. We are reminded to look at ideas, patterns and getting our ideas and feelings out without getting stuck.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Are you concentrating too much on the details whilst missing the bigger picture, or vice versa?

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to step back a little and see the whole. Looking at patterns rather than flaws or minor issues will serve us well at this time.

It’s about being positive and macro focused rather than micro. We are encouraged to reflect on how working at a higher order of life design can serve us and others well now.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 7 May

Tarot Narrative:

Moving on from the tyranny of details, you open your heart to inspiration of a different kind. You want to take your ideas forward but get stuck on the pieces which breaks your movement. So focus on higher order things: patterns and designing from a higher place. With spirit as your guide, work on manifesting your ideas in form and flow without obsessing about every small thing. It will all find its place.

Cards: Daughter (Page) of Swords and Eight of Cups from The Wild Unknown and #40 Co-create from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening (for May 7)

Mark Nepo reminds us for today’s reading in ‘The Book of Awakening’ of ‘The Ordinary Art’. This is about keeping our minds clear and not seeing life through a dirty lens. One way of keeping things murky is to get caught up on the detail – the one piece of dirt on an otherwise clear window, the one thing that is not right. So much can get lost in obsessing about detail before you even make a start or begin opening your heart.

Mark Nepo goes on to say:

Perhaps the purpose of authentic relationship is to help each other keep our minds and hearts clear. Perhaps inner work is the ordinary art of window washing, so that the day is fully the day.

Opening your heart

The Page of Swords can often represent “a great idea with no outlet” according to Jessa Crispin in The Creative Tarot. It can remind us that it’s “time to grow up and see a project through to completion for a change.”

Do you have a project that never seems to get going or even make it through to the draft stage? Do you close your heart down before you even start as the details cloud over you?

This reading starts with the Page of Swords as a weather report card telling us to get on with our work or relationships. Too much focus on the detail and the tyranny of perfection can stop us from even starting work or communicating.

One way of opening your heart is embracing the overall pattern of your work rather than obsessing with the details. Just as Mark Nepo reminds us, seeing our work or loved ones through a dirty lens is just not going to be helpful.

Inspiration of a different kind

The Eight of Cups reminds us to let go of what doesn’t serve us. It might be painful but letting go and leaving things behind can be positive. We might, for example, let go of an obsession with detail to finally get our work done. Walking on the beach, we might see the one stone or shell that speaks to us instead of being overwhelmed by many. We might let go of a way of thinking, a person, a job or an attitude that stops us achieving higher order goals like love, creativity or connection.

The Wisdom of the Oracle card Co-create also reinforces this message by encouraging us to see our life as art co-created with spirit:

Connections of the heart serve to inspire you, opening you up to new ideas you would never have had on your own.

This Tarot Narrative work I do is an example of that. I never know what these weekly posts will focus on until I do this intuitive work in partnership with spirit. It is a unique practice of mystery and manifestation that is larger than me. The tarot and oracle cards are tools for me to connect with my intuition. For this week and beyond, focusing on higher-order patterns and a clear view of my work and relationships will serve me well. And I share this in a spirit of co-creation with you.

Details, endings and beginnings

As the Art of Life Tarot Eight of Cups reminds us, endings and beginnings and losses and gains are often intertwined. Especially when big life transitions or events happen, it’s easy to lose the larger picture in the details. We feel hurt by small things that feel magnified. It’s easy to dwell on these upsets. We are encouraged to see the cyclical nature of life and to move beyond getting stuck through an obsession with detail.

Working with our intuition, seeing the bigger picture, working with patterns, choosing to see through a clean window can help us. It is as if we need to erase the details that can trip us up or hold us back. Defining ourselves or others by small events or a few words said can be limiting. Just as not developing the unique creative ideas that come to us because of a fear of not achieving our ideal will limit our productivity.

“Done is better than perfect” is a maxim I have embraced more this year. There is no point having such high expectations of ourselves or our work that nothing gets started. Or ever sees the light of day.

It’s a great week for opening our hearts to inspiration of a different kind.

How are we embracing our creative ideas rather than stifling them?
Where are we be generous in our relationships rather than fault-finding?
What have we learnt about the ways we stop ourselves from moving and how can we action this?
How can we find a higher order pattern to work from rather than getting stuck on details?
What can we do to invite inspiration in and take it through to completion?
Where can we work in partnership with intuition and spirit and the spirit of others to further our work and relationships?

Walking away from practices that no longer serve us can help us feel more inspired. Take some time to journal on how you can lift your eyes to see the positives without the details becoming a barrier this week.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how you are working from design and a different kind of inspiration this week.

All best wishes for this week of seeing the big picture to guide us in moving forward.

May you find inspiration in opening your heart and seeing new beginnings. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

transcending

A mystical interlude, which resonates in the heart, can remind us of our spirituality and our connectedness to each other. This is why it is meaningful to take heed.

Reading Mystical Interludes II

Ordinary people’s extraordinary stories

Overwhelming openness to experience

Extraordinary encounters of ordinary people

Connecting with Mystical Interludes

Leadership in telling stories

Book Giveaway

Thought pieces + footnotes

About Emily Rodavich

Reading Mystical Interludes II

You might also enjoy:

Keep in touch + read the books that shaped my story

Share this:

Like this:

NOTEs are an important aspect of the human experience that help point towards and awaken the desire, curiosity, and courage to explore more of what life could be.

So what are NOTEs?

What is the power of NOTEs?

The landscape of NOTEs

Working and transforming with NOTEs

The experience of reading The Power of NOTEs

Connecting with the power of NOTEs

Thought pieces + footnotes

You might also enjoy:

Keep in touch

Share this:

Like this:

For a wise woman once

told Her that Her tears

were the most

healing waters of them all

Joy as my Word of the Year in 2018

Joy and resilience in challenging times

Resilient practices and joy

Honouring my psychological resources

Feeling beauty in small everyday joys as well as feeling pain

Feeling all the feelings

Joy and resilience

Find Your Word process + tools

You might also enjoy:

Keep in touch + read the books that shaped my story

Share this:

Like this:

We are more than the sum of our wounds.

Sharon Blackie, If Women Rose Rooted

Theme for the week beginning 11 June

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 11 June

Moving on and into new life ways

Where will you go with your new set of wings?

Book notes: New life and moving on from pain

It is true that we have to do a good deal of inner work before we have anything meaningful to offer the world; it is true too that we must recognise our wounds and incorporate them into the ground of our becoming. But we need also to stop licking them. We are more than the sum of our wounds.

How can you move into new life in a new way?

Tips for moving ahead with new life opportunities

Thoughts for this week

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

Through meditation, observe your mind observing the world.

Lisa McLoughlin, Life Design Cards, #48 Stay bewitched by your own consciousness

Theme for the week beginning 28 May

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 28 May

Watch the thoughts you are choosing

Choosing the best thoughts and clearing your mind

Book notes:

Withdraw from the world and focus your mind to receive an insight or realization. Check if synergy results. Try a realization to transform yourself and how you think.

Tips for choosing the best thoughts

Thoughts for this week

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

In each loss, there is a gain as in every gain there is a loss. And with each ending comes a new beginning.

Shao Lin via The Art of Life Tarot – Eight of Cups

Theme for the week beginning 7 May

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 7 May

Book notes:

It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening (for May 7)