My last post ended this way: I wasn’t able to comfortably say “I love you” to myself today, to recognize the Divine light that is me, partly because I haven’t heard it said to me enough in my life, especially as a child, when it mattered most. I imagine I am not alone …
December 19 – “Say ‘I love you’ to yourself and mean it.” The Calendar of Care was created by the minister of my faith community, who shared it with the congregation on the first day of December with the reminder that December can be a hectic time, both joyful and sad, …
Many years ago, when I was in my twenties and living in San Francisco, holiday meals were always at Denise’s. Fifteen or 20 of us would pile into her apartment with appetizers and side dishes and wine and sweets–or, if we couldn’t afford it, just our hungry selves– to accompany whatever gorgeous main …
Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but today, on the suggestion of a dear friend, I got a head start. I began a gratitude list. As I do my daily Reiki self-healing, I recite the five precepts, often pausing at the third—“Just for today, I will give thanks for my many blessings”—and …
Sitting in the passenger seat of my neighbor’s truck as it crawled down the road, hazard lights flashing, I was starting to hyperventilate. The barn door had blown open in the fierce wind, and my two horses, Tara and Fuersti, had run the length of the barn aisle and out the front door. I called …
A few days ago a former Reiki student, a beautiful, loving woman who is devoted to the well-being of animals in distress, a woman who I am now honored to call friend, sent me a link to an incredibly moving video: In Memory of Ol’ Boy. Ol’ Boy was a stray dog who had lived …
A quiet evening in the barn, the air cool, the wind soft in the trees outside the door, I watch with delight as my two horses, Tara and her brother Fuersti, groom each other after dinner. Fuersti has begun the ritual, as he most often does, approaching his sister and nibbling …
I shared distance Reiki sessions weekly for several months with Sid, a beautiful standard Schnauzer who was infected with cancer. During our first session, he had told me what his human had already sensed: that he did not want surgery. His human and I agreed that the Reiki sessions were keeping him comfortable. …
I know that animals have a connection to the Divine because over the years the animals in my life have changed me: They have been my teachers, my healers, my guides; they have forced me to grow as a spiritual being. I know because when I was 19 and lost, a white …
Chorioptic mange, from mites, the kind that jump species. The goats gave it to the horses, who gave it to me. The vet didn’t believe the horses had mites; he insisted they had a bug allergy. This didn’t make sense to me since the goats had the same symptoms, and now my head was starting …