I haven’t been praying the way I used to.
Yet today brings me to a desire to pray.
Sometimes the only reasonable prayer is an unreasonable prayer.
Join me for a cuppa tea? Here are a few of my thoughts.
Red Thread Letter #879
Sometimes the only reasonable prayer is unreasonable
Dear Ones,
I think this is a pretty incredible time to be alive. I imagine all of the times have been, but this time feels, somehow, amplified. I think it is because of the way we communicate. I can chat online with a distant Ukrainian relative to see how our family is, for example. I can hear about the bombing of the Lviv airport from an almost first-hand source, and Lviv is where my family lives.
My family was merchants, and they came to the United States 110 years ago and opened a shop and a church in Lopez, Pennsylvania. On the left, my grandmother Helena, the mother of my father Gregory, is in the white dress and hat with her brother and sister. On the right in a much older photo is my grandmother’s parents, Samuel and Mary, with Alex in the middle.
It has been interesting for me to pay attention to the stories, as the stories of Ukraine come to the world, and as I find a thread of connection to my distant cousins. I have always been interested, but it all seemed so out of reach. But not now. Now it is in reach. I will write another day about the work I have been doing with the ancient matriarchal art of the area of Ukraine – and connections I hadn’t made until now.
Because of the way we communicate during the Covidian Era, that we are still very much inside of, we learned to care about what was happening in other countries in a new and intimate way. We watched trends and curves in other places and could even measure timing about when things might happen here in the US. We were paying attention to the welfare, and yes, statistics, of other humans. We watched as our brothers and sisters responded with art, beauty, connection and community. So much goodness during such a time of sorrow.
The world’s swift outpouring of support for Ukraine feels amplified because of how the past two years have connected us. Not because we don’t care about the other wars, and all the other hard things, but because we are still in a cycle of paying attention to other places beyond our own neighborhood in new ways. The inter-connectivity across the boundaries of borders has shifted in our consciousness. If only we could see that we are one family….I pray. Yet my heart doesn’t believe it will happen on a global scale, but my heart wants it so much. So I pray.
Shiloh Sophia and Jonathan McCloud – Photo by Leni Felton
We opened the gallery this weekend, Musette Atelier, and yesterday a gallery guest asked me how my work has changed during these past two years. I was able to speak with pride, in a good way – about how much we all stretched to be together and to practice togetherness along the red thread. While I had so much loss in these two years, I also found so much joy in the founding of the global museum with now over 600 members worldwide and thousands of visitors to our virtual museum. While we count all the losses, we must also count all the blessings. Visit our global museum at www.imusea.org
The gallery opening is indeed a blessing to me and many. The number of people who said – “Sonoma really needs this” was very poignant for me. As I have been engaged in a 7 day liquid fasting cycle (with some champagne, it’s liquid!) – to ask:
What is the next step for me and what does Sonoma need?
Yesterday I was inspired to build an Ancestor altar at Musette – with artifacts from both Jonathan and my family and do ceremony – and here it is. This is also something you can do – to respond to the impossible. Build an altar. Yes that is Jonathan’s chocolate above the altar. To get some for yourself, you will need to visit Musette!
The other reason I feel this awareness of Ukraine is so strong is that all of us, men and women, but particularly women – have experienced a feeling of ‘threat’ from unreasonable (crazed) bullies and aggressors. We remember it in our bodies and in our DNA. The continual need to be alert, to lock the doors, to watch our back. For many of us, the one waging this war represents that patristic authority that does not have the best interest of his own children in mind, let alone the children of others. Not to mention the earth itself and her resources. We have a face and a name and a dominant culture – that is playing out one of the great archetypal fear of all humans – that one person or a small group with one headset could impact every single one of us. That someone would be this cruel, in this public way – the willingness to impact the world, every single person in the world, for his own gain. The impacts will be felt for generations to come. Who would do this? We almost can’t believe it. And it IS impacting every single living thing on earth.
I want to acknowledge that I know there are many other wars, and people under attack all the time. I want to acknowledge that I know that people who are not Ukrainian who are fleeing to other places are not being welcomed in the same way, at all – specifically people of color. I am tracking, and my friend Dr. Lissa Rankin wrote an incredible piece of writing about discrimination – which you can on her blog called: I Stand With Ukraine. I’m Also Unsettled By How Much White Lives Seem To Matter When Countless BIPOC Lives Are Still Threatened.
So I just want to say that I am aware, and this is a both/and situation like so many. As I continue to share and to stay focused on my work today – which is to pray for peace. Everywhere.
The reality that Portugal sent the Lady of Fatima (traveling version) into a war zone in Lviv and people gathered and prayed – caused me to pray. So I am inviting you to pray too. My heart needed softening and now, it is softer. That is always a better thing. I have prayed for a lot of miracles this past few years, and have mostly stopped, but today, I begin again. I stopped because what I thought of as the miracle happening, didn’t happen. My mom Caron and Carmen were not healed in body – yet I prayed anyway for the full healing, always believing it could work, would work. Then I stopped and moved into pure acceptance.
My invitation
Today I am inviting our community to take a visual and heartful action for peace. Post an image of the Mother, the Divine Feminine, a loving image of a woman, as your profile picture today or share it on your walls. Write a prayer for peace, or use the one I made.
I have been a devoted student practitioner of the Blessed Mother since I was 24 years old. A few years ago it started to change because of how devastating the entire patriarchal paradigm is – how can I believe any part of what they say? I used to keep going because where else could I go – and at least they honor the Blessed Mother. I guess I am still wowed that any men, honor the Blessed Mother. Even the man who started this war is part of a tradition that puts the Mother at the center. So I pray to Her to intercede in the life of her son, a man gone so wrong. And I pray for all the people of that land, that do not want the war. May they be courageous and have impact. The art of the world, as artifacts, tells a very different story than the one the conquestors speak. Without the art, we would not even KNOW about a time before war. But we do. And the art of the ancient indigenous people of the Ukraine, Romania and Moldovia speak to a time of peace, during the Cucuttini-Tripillia area – before it too – was wiped out. More on that another time
For the past two years, have been in a cycle of very clear agnostic mysticism as a choice. Yet watching the footage of Our Lady of Fatima as Our Lady of Peace, arriving from Portugal into Lviv, Ukraine (where my family lives) really got me. She is being brought into a war zone. I need that kind of faith. I WANT that kind of faith.
If you can’t pray a real prayer, pray hypocritically, full of doubt and dry-mouthed. God accepts counterfeit money as though it were real ~ Rumi
Thank you sister Anasuya Isaacs for the video share of Our Lady arriving this morning in Lviv and the language of my ancestors asking for Her and receiving Her.
Yvonne Evans, Shiloh Sophia and Anasuya Isaacs on the opening of Musette
Of course war is unreasonable, and so praying for a miracles seems like a reasonable thing to do.
So I am meeting this war, and wars all over the world, not just Ukraine, with a prayer for peace. Sometimes the only reasonable prayer is an unreasonable prayer for a miracle.
Join me if you choose in whatever way you do as we honor this changing of the seasons and welcome Spring/Fall and pray for peace. Praying for peace is the personal act, that leads to a transpersonal action.
Jonathan looked out the window today during cafe and saw a hummingbird at the orange tree, and said – if the hummingbird is at the orange tree, it is time to harvest oranges. So today we bring bowls of oranges and Cala Lillies and daffodils to the gallery. Oranges and daffodils make me think of my Grandmother Helen. She spoke to me about what it was like to eat an orange as a little girl – it felt like a miracle to her. And each year when the first daffodils came up – she would call me. So I am praying with my Ancestors today.
Today I will paint the Lady – which I haven’t in 3 years – and good friends I haven’t see in a long time will join me in the gallery to paint, and to pray.
with love from my soft heart, during the Musette soft opening, to yours
Diego is helping me write the Red Thread Letter today…in my Christmas fuzzy pajamas that Amy Ahlers gave me. I know my letters are long. But it took me over three hours to create this for you – taking 15 minutes with me to read it isn’t such a bad thing I hope. Now I gotta get to the gallery. xo
Intentional Creativity Poem or Prayer Prompt
When we are in times of change, turning to beauty is essential medicine! In the Intentional Creativity® community, that means any of the arts. Yet one of the most immediate, and one of my highest forms of personal medicine is writing. Get a journal, and let’s write together.
Today I invite you to write a poem or Psalm. This process is sparked by a teaching from my mother, Caron McCloud.
Writing Your Poem or Prayer or Psalm
A poem can be any form of poetic writing, where a Psalm or Prayer would be dedicated to the Beloved/Divine.
TUNE IN: Begin by reading a poem, psalm or listening to a song you love. Allow yourself to tune in and be blessed by the energy, the beauty of it. Energy will begin to move. Set your intention, to write a poem from this experience.
FEEL IN: As you tune in, begin to feel your whole body, noting how it feels to just be in it, to be alive, to listen to the spaciousness of being that you are.
GIVE IN: Surrender into the purest feeling you can find, let it move over you and through you. Let there be love. If you choose to, you can do some drawing to amplify the experience.
MOVE IN: Get your journal or paper. Gently, and with intention, connect with your internal voice. If you don’t know how to do this, make a simple request. “I would like to hear my clearest voice”.
Then write ten phrases that come to mind, intuitively and without editing as much as possible. Just let them flow from the space you just created. When you are complete, begin to move them around and find an order to them. You don’t need to use all of them, but look for the common thread. Trust this is what wants to be expressed as healing through you.
If inspired, find an image you painted that goes along with it and post in our global community space, The Red Thread Cafe.
The Healing Fields – Equinox
how does healing happen?
is it…forgetting a little at a time that which hurts
and waking up one morning just feeling a little bit lighter
is it…finally forgiving yourself and the world
by understanding, somehow, we are all wounded with you
is it…realizing that the world is whole after all or accepting
that the world is broken open and has need of your love
is it…noticing a whole day, week or month has gone by
without beating yourself up in the old ways
is it…realizing that this is just how it is right now
and somehow this is oddly, unreasonably, not personal,
or about you at all, this is about us
is it…allowing shadow-work and light-work to co-exist without
striving for either one to be greater or better or good or bad
is it…being willing to lean into your resistances until
the edge of your hardened places creates tender spaces
is it…opening your heart, yes again and wider still,
to a new face, a new heart, a new idea, yes,
a new chance even in the same life you have now
how does healing happen?
chances are, it is happening right now
let’s look with the eyes of love
find the healing fields are ever present
we are co-creating them together
This is our human story,
we are creating this together,
what part in the story will you play?
what story will you tell?
Amen
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