spirituality

My Religion is Wonder

June 1, 2016

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. ~ W.B. Yeats

You know how there are some places that just fill up your senses; places that manage to feel completely magical and totally familiar at the same time? Siena was one of those places for me. I had never even heard of it before I went there, but it absolutely had me at hello.

For some, the overt Catholicism of Italy can be a bit much, but for me, the unabashed glory was soul-filling. Yes, you can tell me All Of The Things about religion and church and I will agree with you on lots of them – but I will still stand still in the middle of a cathedral as ridiculously decorated as the one in Siena and I will hold my breath in awe.

And I will wonder.

I do the same thing as I stand amongst trees or flowers or see beautiful art or eat delicious food or admire beauty or ingenuity or feel connection or notice kindness or talent or magic of any kind.

I do the same thing when I see something that makes me really laugh, like this clothesline of tights (I don’t know if they have a technical name) hanging on a clothesline outside of another church in Siena. The sheer every-day-ness of the laundry coupled with the shrine to the Holy Mother filled my soul with just as much delight as any painting.

I know I should go all Dalai Lama on you and agree that my religion is kindness, but for me it is not. My religion is the moments that make me stop and wonder. My religious practice consists of existing as much as possible in that state of true connection; in those moments that pull me out of my head and put me right into a state of gratitude.

Of wonder.

I believe that in those moments, I am as close to God/ the goddess/ the Universe/ the Mystery/ (choose your own word) as it is possible for me to be.

And I am looking to spend as much of my time there as possible.

Alignment, emerge, Leap and the net will appear

now

March 22, 2015

No one has escaped this process of shake down and shake up. If your life is still essentially the same now as it was three years ago I suspect that you have been in a cryogenic deep freeze. Or perhaps you’ve been vacationing on another planet. – Chris Zydel

fire move meg The past few days have apparently hosted a huge planetary dance: the end of something which began in 2012, the end of a 19-year cycle and the beginning of another.

No one can ever tell me ever again that the planets don’t have an effect on me.

“Make a powerful intention” the astrologers were saying as I handed in my notice and we decided to move to a different country.

“Let go”, the astrologers were saying as we sold/ gave away/ burned/ packed our belongings; reducing our ownership to the contents of a 5 x 5 x 7 foot crate.

“Everything is about to change” they said as I sat in my parents’ house, homeless, jobless, and in the space between one life and another.

They also say that on the new moon and the equinox, it is important to make a statement of intention – to put the coordinates into the GPS before you set off on a new month.

“The endings we face now, be they losses, disappointments or liberating closure, remind us of the need for deep and abiding alignment with the god-force from here on in, as it threads its way through our lives. – Sarah Varcas via Mystic Mama

These past few years and the past few months I have received proof again and again and again that there is more going on than I know. The support and the nudges and the help we’ve had as we’ve navigated these waters have been illuminating.

When you get a holy yes and you go with it, things won’t always be easy, but magic will happen.

So my intention on this day, as I sit on the edge of a new turn of the zodiac, a new 19 year cycle, a new lunar cycle and a new adventure?

Alignment.

I intend to follow the nudges, the holy yes, the god-force in my life. To believe in the magic of the total unknown, and to have faith in those decisions.

Because going with the magic is so much better than believing it isn’t there.

There is still time to join us!

Do you want to be part of a warm and open-hearted community of women, gathered around a virtual hearth fire? Would you like to join those women for discussion about spirituality, questions, self-care and magic?

Do you crave open, honest conversation about spirituality?

Then we would love it if you would join Sas Petherick and I for Heart and Hearth.

Alignment, emerge, sacred, spirituality

Practical Magic

October 14, 2014

And if you were to ask me | After all that we’ve been through | Still believe in magic? | Yes, I do | Of course I do – Coldplay, Magic

STARMeghanGenge

Do you believe in magic?

When I was being interviewed by the sparkling Sas Petherick, she asked me about what I thought about magic. I remember laughing and teasing her about what a big question it was. Some people might not agree, but for me it is one of the biggest questions.

In the movie Willow, the shamanic character says: “Magic is the bloodstream of the universe. Forget all you know, or think you know. All that you require is your intuition.” I must have seen that movie when I was about 15, but that quote has stuck with me ever since.

When I am talking about magic, I am not talking about card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats. I am talking about the moment, the space in time when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is more at play here than you can possibly comprehend. I am talking about the second that holds the intake of breath – and the sound/spirit you let out – when you experience complete connection. Magic is the sparkle in your eye when you have glimpsed the numinous, the synchronous, or the mystical.

Magic, for me, is in the moments when we know we are a part of something wondrous.

But if magic isn’t hocus pocus, how do we make it practical? How do we actively participate in it? In her wonderful book, Making the Gods Work for You, Caroline W. Casey invites us to, “Believe nothing, entertain possibilities.” She says that, “through honouring the invisible, we gain a strategic power: we need never be daunted by the limited logic of the visible again.”

Can I get a hell, yes?

So the answer is: magic requires our active participation. Magic is the dance that happens between us and God, the universe, and everything, but we have to be looking, imagining, cultivating and courting it. We need to use our intuition, follow the nudges, listen to our instincts. What is here and around and within us is so much bigger that we can imagine, and it is so willing to play with us.

We just have to pay attention.

Oh, and we also need to believe.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

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spirituality

My Religion is Wonder

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. ~ W.B. Yeats

now

No one has escaped this process of shake down and shake up. If your life is still essentially the same now as it was three years ago I suspect that you have been in a cryogenic deep freeze. Or perhaps you’ve been vacationing on another planet. – Chris Zydel

“The endings we face now, be they losses, disappointments or liberating closure, remind us of the need for deep and abiding alignment with the god-force from here on in, as it threads its way through our lives. – Sarah Varcas via Mystic Mama

Practical Magic

And if you were to ask me | After all that we’ve been through | Still believe in magic? | Yes, I do | Of course I do – Coldplay, Magic

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

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