January 25, 2023

Intentions and Direction, Not Resolutions and Goals

---

Do Resolutions and Setting Goals Work for You? How about Setting Intentions and a Direction, Instead?

My dear soul friend,

Today is the first Full Moon of 2024! Now that we’re into this New Year, , how’s it going for you? Are you someone who makes New Year Resolutions or sets up a series of goals?

I LOVE making goals and plans and charts and 3-month plans, 6-month plans, and even 5-year plans. But I’m not too worried about actually following them. It’s the doing the exercise, actually taking the time to plan that helps me hone in on what I really want to do with the time and the energy I will probably have available to me. Those resolutions or goals I make I hold only loosely. I understand them as setting intentions, not “To-Do’s”; setting forth in a particular direction, not wed to getting to a particular destination. Sometimes, like this year, I’ve made goals NOT to have goals!

It’s taken me a few (dozen) years to get to my current level of pondering my dance with what I want, what I want to accomplish, what life hands me, and what unknown opportunities will surely arise in the future.

Let me tell you some of my practices for the past few years. In the week between Christmas and the New Year I re-read my big journals for the year along with my Bullet Journals. My big journals contain what I call my “Archives”: printouts of newsy letters or emails I’ve received or sent, some sketches or watercolor experiments, all kinds of emails that I don’t ever plan to send because they’re mostly me venting about something I feel passionately about, rants about life, the universe, and everything, and even just beautiful photos and memes I got from online.

My Bullet Journal is the notebook I carry with me all the time. That, along with my Google calendar online, keeps me organized for each day’s commitments, meetings and webinars. It holds some of my notes from those meetings, and captures the good ideas (and bad ones, too) that come up randomly but I don’t want to lose. My Bullet Journal is not fancy or artful or beautiful, though I secretly envy those who create ones like that. When I’ve tried, it was way too much work and made my random notes look out of place. But I NEED those notes and ideas. So I go for useful rather than beautiful. I’ve found it a great tool. I just make a blank notebook and create weekly 2-page spreads that show me my week at a glance. Then on the following pages I record the current date and make quick jottings on whatever that particular day brings.

I also keep a dream journal —- I record my dreams on loose paper I keep on clipboards near where I sleep, plus in the bathroom, along with a pen in order to catch the dreams before I completely forget them. I date them and give them a title, then store them in the pocket of that month’s big journal. Analyzing them, especially the juicy ones, is a real joy for me, and a source of really useful insight.

Yes, I know that all can be considered excessive —- except that I enjoy it, and it serves me well. Back in 1996 I remember listening to a lecture by the productivity guru Steven Covey wherein he asked, “What is the one thing, that if you did on a daily or regular basis, would make the most positive difference in your life?” I immediately knew that it would be to keep more regular journals. And it HAS worked out to be a great blessing in my life.

I’d kept journals since I was in high school, but like most people (especially women), I wrote in them mostly when I was feeling sad. Those old journals aren’t a record of my life, only a record of the crises I went through.

More regular journals, though, have become a tool where I translate ideas and good intentions into life habits and projects. I use them to plan for the future, but also as a feedback mechanism that lets me know how realistic my good intentions may actually be. They also make visible to me all the invisible work that women have done for thousands and thousands of years —- well, at least my own “invisible work”.

I’ve had to learn, though, a particular attitude for this to be of use: not to criticize myself! (Even though that’s my first instinct to do!) I take as my bottom line that I am doing the best I can with the time and the health that I have, so no shame, no blame. Just information. And I even write that at the top of my paper where I do my assessment and planning to remind myself not to judge.

So, I read all the data that I’ve collected for the year. I jot down any strong feelings that come up as I read, any particular insights, or anything important I may have lost track of. I sit with that for awhile trying to put into words my impression of how the year went.

For instance, last year I started with highly detailed plans for how to get a new website designed and online, and how to get my book published through amazon. I came up with those plans by continually asking myself of each big goal, “Can I do that piece tomorrow? No? Okay, what needs to be done before that?” I write those down, and keep going backward, in more detail, until I come up with actual action steps for what I might be able to do tomorrow to move the project forward. Those were huge projects, and I needed a lot of pages to write down all the steps that I knew needed to be done —- not to mention leaving big gaps for all the things I didn’t know how to do.

Now looking back, after both of those complex projects have come to some completion, of course I didn’t plan perfectly. Too much happened that I just couldn’t have anticipated. But by having those plans, and looking at them every week while deciding which pieces might be accomplished in that particular week, I kept in mind my intention and kept going in the direction I wanted to go. After all, the best way to make God laugh is to tell her your plans! I KNOW by now that life WILL intrude!

My year did not go as planned, some things went better: the biggest change was being gifted with the help of my dear friend Stacy Oler in setting up my new website. As well, I decided that my life probably won’t be long enough to figure out how to set up my manuscript so that amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing will print it out not only accurately, but with the beauty that I had envisioned. I received a recommendation for an affordable and competent graphic designer who (thank God) prepped my manuscript so that amazon would understand what to do. (Note: we just can’t do it all ourselves.)

I ended my yearly assessment with two very strong impressions. The first was extreme gratitude and satisfaction that my book is actually published and out in the world! And, that my website is beautiful (www.catcharissage.com) The second was that I have never in my life been so frustrated so many times, and for so long, by technical difficulties. I was so frustrated for so long that if the computer were a person, I would have sued it for taking years of my life away from me! I’m not a digital native —- I finished a master’s degree before computers were commonly available! And this digital world does not come naturally to me. (Okay, Cat, calm down —- they’ve heard your rants before. . . )

So what are my intentions this year? Which direction am I setting out on?

To live deeply. I had been reflecting with dear spouse that 2023 had a seemingly unending amount of superficial busy work. Absolutely necessary for the completion of the book, but day after day after day of chores that were not intrinsically enjoyable nor inspiring. I need more depth. I want more depth. I NEED more DEPTH!

How I will accomplish that is yet to be completely revealed. I’m pruning activities and thinking hard before taking on any new commitments. I want to be consistent in my writing practice, and allow myself to make more art this year. I want to go more slowly and stay home more. And I really do not want to take on any projects that require me to learn anything new about computers!

Because these aren’t “things to do” that I can put on my calendar, I’m focusing on a rhythm of my days that allows me to live in the way that brings me the most depth, the best health possible, and the nurturing of my dear relationships with those I love. I do set up reminders in my Bullet Journal of how I want to live, and have loosely designated 4 day weekends for depth dimension work, with 3 days for the errands and chores none of us can avoid. I know how lucky I am to have sovereignty over my time. I’m fortunate to have a (modest) retirement pension courtesy of the CPP, a spouse with whom to share expenses, and the benefit of universal health care (hoping that it will continue to be available.) I have so much to be grateful for, and I am. May I use those blessings well!

And what about you? What is the one thing, that if YOU did on a daily or regular basis, would make the greatest positive difference in your life? I sincerely am interested in how you plan your time, if you do, especially how you accomplish very long term projects. What are your biggest frustrations, and what are the things that you love doing/being so much that you would invest many more hours into it if it were possible?

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

January 18, 2024

When Overwhelm and Panic Hit You Out of the Blue

---

Jan. 18, 2024

My dear soul friend,

Just starting that way — “my dear soul friend” — has me picturing each one of you on my subscription list who I know, thinking of sitting with you down here at my table in my study, surrounded by books, artwork, lots of paper and art supplies and a listening heart, drinking tea and sharing stories. Remember that aroma of Bengal Spice Tea, my “house tea”? I want to share authentically and deeply, and not waste your time nor mine; time being the only resource not renewable. (Personally, I want to learn to stretch time, maybe occasionally shrink it, too!)

I want to write something worth reading, especially something that encourages you and inspires you to reflect on your life so that to the greatest extent possible you are living intentionally, meaningfully, and joyfully, even in the hard times. And these are hard times. The spring online conference of the Spiritual Directors International organization was just announced, the title being “Spiritual Companioning in the Global Dark Night of the Soul”. I don’t think they’re overdramatizing it in the least.

Even for those of us who are relatively safe and far more comfortable than those living in places like Gaza or the Ukraine, almost all of us have a family member or dear friend in deep crisis. It’s just plain hard to witness the reality of life here on Planet Earth. The spiritual teacher Ram Dass used to encourage us to walk through hell with an open heart. Uh. . . okay. . . I’ll try, I think . . .

One thing important to keep in mind these days, I believe, is to remember that even though in so many ways things are falling apart around us in society, in politics, and internationally, we can hold on to our own center. As long as we ourselves are not in immediate crisis, we don’t have to fall apart with it. How helpful is it to stay overstimulated with too much noise and too much news, too many chores and too much speed?

Although our choices to do what we want are certainly circumscribed by so much out of our control, there are still free moments where we can turn our attention to calm, to beauty, to peace. Do you have to turn on the radio as soon as you’re in the car, or worry aloud in front of your teenagers about how the future is just going to get worse?

My original intention was to write about my end of the year review and reflection. I was going to talk about the two overwhelming experiences of 2023 for me: the publication of my book Wildflower Seeds: the Beauties of a Reflective Life, and the ongoing, repeated, extreme frustration I faced with computer technology! Both experiences are still reverberating for me: deep satisfaction alongside frustration so intense that I could just spit! But that will wait until next week because I want to share my experience of this morning along with the insights that came with it.

For background, you need to know that my website was completely redesigned this year as well as migrated to a new host. Along with that I’ve adopted a new subscription mailing list with a new provider, the same as my website host. Suffice it to say that even with expert help, it has been very, very challenging and frustrating.

Well, this morning I was awakened by a low-blood sugar episode at 6:30 a.m. Feeling rather fragile, while I was doing what I needed to do and eating some yoghurt, I looked at my email only to find a notice from my website provider. Due to new practices on the part of Google and Yahoo I needed to do something or other to my sending domain. Still feeling physically shaky and just plain awful, here I was, not really awake and in a cold house, slapped with something else that I needed to do that I didn’t even understand, much less know what had to be done. But it was all my responsibility and if I didn’t do it, and do it right, something bad was going to happen. Really bad. Not only did I not understand what I was supposed to do, but none of my friends did either, and I didn’t even know who I could hire to help or how I would find someone to help or even know what kind of help I was looking for. I didn’t even know what words to put into a google search. But something bad was going to happen if I didn’t deal with it all, and deal with it soon! Adrenaline poured through my already stressed system, and I could feel the overwhelm and panic starting to take over. Remember, I’ve had a year of having to do things with the computer that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and my frustration levels are rather hair trigger sensitive!

Fortunately, my “witnessing self” came to the fore. (How many years of meditation and practice has it taken to develop that self?!?) That witnessing self reminded me that my feelings were out of proportion to this email message and that the reason I felt so completely and totally awful was because I was physically stressed and old memories from childhood were being triggered. I know what it’s like to be powerless yet held responsible and threatened with really bad stuff happening. I had a reality check: nothing bad was really going to happen even if I didn’t do whatever it was I was supposed to do. The worst would be that I would lose access to my blog and my website. While I certainly don’t want that to happen, it’s not like I would die or my child’s life was threatened. I wasn’t alone with all this; I have friends who could help me figure out what to do, and while I don’t have the money to just hire someone to take care of all this for me, I’m sure that I could afford a consulting fee or other temporary computer help. I drank some water, took some slow deep breaths, and got warmed up under the covers again. I still had a couple of hours to sleep before I had to face my day.

I was feeling grateful that not only was the perceived threat not all that threatening, but that I had the skills to calm myself down, recover from a blood glucose low, and handle the old feelings that sprang up when hitting the frustrations of computer difficulties. I’d had plenty of practice in 2023, for sure! Of course, I usually only deal with computer frustrations when dear body is in good enough shape and in the light of day! I tried to fall back asleep.

But there was some residual panic still running through my system, and I started to think of how many people are in situations of REAL threat, where they are truly powerless and physically compromised, emotionally depleted and despairing. I felt in real touch with so much pain in the world right now, in situations of grave suffering but also within so many of us from the traumas we’ve lived through. It wasn’t a witness of the pain, though, but a sharing of it that I felt could truly push me into serious overwhelm and depression.

Grace, and witnessing self, were available though, again, and I committed, again, to working toward a world where humans are resourced and kept safe, wanting to pass on the good things that I’ve both been given and have developed.

I was reminded of a conversation with my spouse where I was sharing how frustrated I was when progress seems so slow and dear body is even slower. I remembered that each day provides another chance to try again, to make haste, slowly. I remembered that I’m learning to measure my progress not as a goal reached, but as a choice to keep on keeping on, a chance to show up, saying “Here I am!”

May grace and the witnessing self accompany you, too. Keep on keeping on, and don’t measure yourself by what you accomplish, but by continuing to show up to your life, as painful and as glorious as it is.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Happy New Year! January 4, 2024

---

January 4, 2024

Hello dear friend,

I have two items to share this email. The first a reminder that if you’re in the Lethbridge area, I will be doing a reading from my new book, Wildflower Seeds: the Beauties of a Reflective Life. I’m sharing the evening with my friend and fellow author Vickie MacArthur. We would love to have you join us, and appreciate all your support. It will also be recorded for Rogers TV as a special event.

The second item is my letter to new subscribers to my email list, where you get notices of my new blog posts and occasional letters such as this one. A very warm welcome to those of you who have subscribed in the last few weeks! Since those of you who have been subscribed for much longer have not received this new letter, I thought I’d send it to everyone to let you all know what to expect from your subscription to my email list.

Along with the milestone of publishing my book just a few months ago, I’ve also completely re-hauled my website (through the gifted work of dear friend Stacy Oler) plus adopting an email subscription service through Mailerlite this past year. It’s all been a tremendous amount of work plus frustrations with technology (the blog function still isn’t working properly, though Mailerlite assures me they’re working on it — I send out these letters to you in a rather clunky way. But it works — most of the time!). So with a bunch of tears, unearthly patience, and a little help from my friends, I’m adapting to the reality of technology that promises much, . . . . but doesn’t always deliver smoothly. In any case, I’m so glad to have this ability to share my thoughts and reflections with you, in the hope that they will accompany you as you live your life of intention, purpose, and meaning, finding joy in the everyday.

And now, my Welcome Letter:

Dear Soulfriend,

Thank you for joining my subscription list! I want to welcome you and tell you a little of what to expect from me in your email box.

I’m Cat Charissage, a contemplative educator, artist, and writer, and I do Soulwork. What do I mean by that? Well, the short answer is that I want to remind all of us, myself included, that life is not complete unless we remain conscious of the Greater and Deeper aspects of our lives, and explore ways that we might delve into our inner lives with the intention of living our best lives with intention and meaning. The long answer is what I try to articulate in my blog and social media posts. I call my subscribers my “Soulfriends” on the assumption that we share an interest in these ideas and practices.

I write about Soulwork, and post a new blogpost about every week or two, along with other thoughts and glimpses into my life on Facebook and Instragram. You will receive these blogposts through your email. One of the most common topics that I write about is the challenge of living a reflective, contemplative, mindful life in the swirl of the frantic pace of the culture, the heartbreaking news cycles of our contemporary human experience, and the fact that I ALWAYS have many more ideas than I have the time or health to manifest. You see, I live with chronic illness and pain. I also paint in acrylics and watercolors, do some mixed media, and write poetry. You’ll hear about some of that in my blogposts.

I’ve been at this for a long time now, but until recently only blogged monthly. I consider it a little drop in the bucket of the internet that can add a positive, thoughtful, and inspiring note to those who might find it welcome. There are 10 years of Archives accessible on my website.

In addition to this foray into the internet wilds, I’m the author of a poetry chapbook, OPEN TO MYSTERY, and the non-fiction WILDFLOWER SEEDS: THE BEAUTIES OF A REFLECTIVE LIFE where I share how and why having an inner life is a political act. All of us contribute to influencing the world by our actions, and it’s important that our actions be motivated by our deep values and desires. The book contains almost 100 ways to develop this inner life of values and analyze how our gifts can change the world, 20 minutes at a time. Both books are available on Amazon worldwide.

Again, thank you for joining me in these explorations.

With warmth,

Cat Charissage

www.catcharissage.com

Soulwork: Finding Your Why, Making Your Way

Upcoming Events Dec. 2023

Upcoming In-Person and Online Events

---

[Dec. 19, 2023]  Please join me in one or all of the upcoming events:

Wednesday, Dec. 27, 7 – 9:30 p.m. Owl Poetry Open Mic at Lethbridge’s Owl Acoustic Lounge.  Bring your original poetry to share, and/or listen to 20+ poets telling it like it is, including yours truly.  No cover charge, but great food and drink.

Thursday,  Jan. 11, 2024, 6 – 7:30 Book reading and Reflections with Cat Charissage and Vickie MacArthur, at Lethbridge’s great independent book store Analog Books.  No charge.  Featuring Cat’s  Wildflower Seeds: the Beauties of a Reflective Life and Vickie’s story “Thay in Disguise” from Tears Become Rain: Stories of Transformation and Healing.  Vickie is also the author of A Lotus on Fire.  All 3 books are wonderful Christmas presents that help to create a little more peace in the world.  All 3 are available at Analog Books, and on Amazon.

ONLINE SUMMIT:  The Power of Small: 5 Minutes a Day to Jumpstart your Goals in the New Year.  January 21 t0 February 10, 2024.  I’m one of the “guest experts” where I have a 7 minute video demonstrating how to do art or move forward on a project in just 5 minutes at a time.  I tell in there how I collected all the ideas that I turned into my book “Wildflower Seeds”.   Link to join the summit is at http://www.journaling.com/summit.

As this year rolls into the celebration of the return of the LIGHT (in our Northern Hemisphere), may you listen to inner wisdom that speaks of hope, tenderness, nurture, and new growth, whether your holidays are hectic or quiet.  May we all do whatever is within our reach and within our power to bring hope, tenderness, nurture, and new growth to this needful world of ours.  

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Feeling Out of Sync? Nov. 2023

---

Originally written Nov. 22, 2023

The world is folding into the darkest time of the year, yet the lights of advertising and Black Friday poke at us to go, go, go, rush to get whatever it is we want while it’s on special. At least here in North America, November is the cruelest month. It’s not yet full winter, but that just means that the warm weather feels about 3 years away. . . February is awful, too, but by then, new buds and flowers are only about a year and a half away. . . .

These last days of November, it only makes sense to hunker down into what comfort we can create in each of our nests. But the children are rehearsing for the Christmas play, you promised your friend to go to the benefit Holiday concert, and some relative will be quite put out if you don’t find them the best present — plus, there are all those sales, NOW!

Everything inside of us pulls toward “high coze”; everything outside of us pulls us to get out, brave the ice, brave the roads, and buy buy buy.

In the U.S. it’s the feast of Thanksgiving — the first European settlers wouldn’t have survived without the knowledge and assistance of the Peoples who already lived in this land, yet those First Nations were thanked by being nearly annihilated by new illnesses, warfare, and land encroachment. Paradox and pain. Disjunct. Too many conflicts, too many wars, too much out of sync. Meanwhile Ukraine freezes through another winter of war and the Holy Land burns with hatred and destruction.

How do we make sense of it all? How do we find some peace? Many of us would be grateful just to get enough sleep!

Take a deep breath. Clear an evening for a quiet family supper. Ask what you want, ask what each member of your family wants, what you really want at this time of fraught extended family get-togethers and commercial frenzies. What, of what you really want, is possible for you to have? You really can do it differently if you want to.

I remind you because I need reminding myself that we don’t have to follow traditions or meet expectations or get pulled away from what is deepest and truest within us. We can semi-hibernate. We can turn off the t.v., play softer music, make popcorn and play with watercolors. We can say no to most opportunities to go out, instead meeting one on one with a few close friends in these weeks of diminished sunlight.

Darkness is so misunderstood. “It must be banished!” “Evil grows in the darkness.” “Do not give in to the dark side!” But dark is also rich earth which grows our food. Dark is a black velvet night holding us in its embrace. Dark allows us to see the tiny candles of light that cannot be distinguished in brightness. We can see stars in the dark. So much becomes clear in the dark of quiet contemplation. Without the darkness of shadows and contrast, we cannot see beauty.

In this season of growing darkness of the sun, I invite you to take 20 minutes with your favorite cuppa, light a candle, and write down three gifts of darkness that you have experienced. Then write down those people and things you are thankful for. Know your own truths and live out of them.

Fall 2023

Rest is Soulwork, too; or Napping through the Patriarchy

---

I haven’t written in almost two weeks. Instead, I’ve slept, I’ve rested. I’ve healed from a minor illness, and I’ve recovered from my travel to Colorado and back. I’ve looked at the world around me and decided that instead of further exhausting myself by most probably useless debate/dialogue concerning all the “awfuls” that are causing such suffering around the world right now, I would take the radical act of saying no — no to frantic engagement, no to endless lament around what can I do? What should I do? I have to do something. . . . !! But when it’s unclear what will help, first, do no harm. That includes doing no harm to ourselves, if we’re lucky enough, that is, privileged enough, to have some choice about what takes up our attention each day.

I’m remembering what the African American feminist author Audre Lorde said about self-care — that it’s not an option, and that I won’t collude with the forces around me to render myself useless in making change. Too many forces in the world want us to be neutralized so that there is no opposition to their agendas of control, distraction, and more power concentrated in the hands of only the few, only the wealthy (and only those who have greater weaponry). Predatory capitalism as well as frantic mindless activism demand whatever energy we might have left over from the work of merely surviving at daily jobs and keeping our families fed and housed. How long shall we do more, and more, and more, until our immune systems cannot work anymore and the cancers and autoimmune diseases take us out completely?

For those of us who can, and by that I mean those of us who are not so shattered by immediate death and horror, is it not resistance to death dealing forces to not only survive, but choose to thrive, now, in our daily lives, here, around supper tables, calm evenings, and plenty of restorative sleep that allows us to dream up new worlds? For most of my adult life, I’ve wanted to serve where the deep needs of those around me meet my own skills and compassion, and much of that has been in the healing of sexual trauma and advocating for a healthier society. But trauma seems to have no end — at least for one or a few women to mop up — and we live in a trauma generating factory: the world as it is in far too many parts of our world, including in our own neighborhoods and streets. Is it not resistance to care for the greatest asset I have, my own dear body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit?

So I have taken care of this asset, already compromised by age, chronic pain, and maybe knowing too much. You know, most of us who are able to take the time and have the means to read this blog post of mine, do have more choices than we think we have. We can choose where we spend our money and how we use the pockets of time that are riddled throughout our days. Why not take a 15 minute nap? 20 minutes to write in your journal? Half an hour to dream up new worlds with your children? I say that having an inner life is a political act, and this is what I mean: thrive, now, to the extent that you can, by choosing a healthy, creative, generative life nurturing your inner strengths and saying no to endless re-runs of horror that we can do nothing about in this moment. Say no to “retail therapy”, too. I’m not talking about self-care as spa days or bubble baths. I’m talking about radical self-care that allows us to live fully as free human beings, not doings, and as a side effect, strengthens us to be the most effective agents of change in the pursuit of justice in the world, in all the areas within our reach. And that often starts with a nap. . . . And a dream.

January, 2023

What is Soulwork?

---

What is Soulwork?

Dear Friends,

Do you feel like you’re the pinball in the pinball machine, batted around all day with “have to do’s” and “ought to do’s”, never having the time or energy to get to the “want to do’s”? Our jobs and family responsibilities are never ending, and the pressure to do more, faster, seems ever present.

This way of living, which is considered normal in our times, reminds me of running on a treadmill: lots of huff and puff, lots of effort, and yes, it certainly counts as exercise — but did you go anywhere, get anywhere?

For me, the term “Soulwork” applies to that which is the opposite of being the pinball, the opposite of running on a treadmill. It’s the search for and the commitment to live a deep and a real life, right in the midst of whatever life hands me, right now, here, today, with these people and with these responsibilities.

That’s easier said than done, of course. But the attempt to do so creates a sense of meaning in life. You find your why, and make your way, where the day to day pulls out of you your best self. You begin to see all the little events as the context for choice even when you can’t control very much, for the sense that you have done the best you can, and the satisfaction that comes from living your days to the full. You open the way for love, and put yourself in the path of deep joy.

Some people find guidance for living in this way through their church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. . . And then there are the rest of us: those of us who have had faith crises, or despairing doubts, or who have experienced abuse, inappropriate control, or hypocrisy from their “spiritual” leaders.

There is now a demographic called the “spiritual but not religious”, but that’s not what I’m talking about when I use the word “Soulwork”. In Soulwork, I’m including that which is not necessarily called spiritual, like the feeling you get watching a magnificent sunset, or the insight that settles in you when you suddenly understand a problem or situation that had perplexed you. Or when you see your baby for the first time out of the womb. For some people, the term “spiritual” is too limiting for their experience of “soul”. At least, that’s been my own experience.

Soulwork is stepping aside from “God-talk”. There are no claims for or against God, or faith, or belief systems. All are welcome; I hope to speak to all. Soulwork is an attempt to talk about the deep and real things that make life meaningful without using religious language nor claiming that knowing the “deep and real” demands a certain religious faith.

Many of you know that in my young adult life my religious heritage, Roman Catholic Christian, was very important to me. My degree is in theology, and I came to Canada in the first place to continue studying theology on the graduate level, with the eventual hope of becoming a professor.

Well, that didn’t work out — to make a long story short, my increased knowledge about the history of the church plus current events across the world had me wondering how a good God could just let all this unmerited suffering go on. After all, if I were God I wouldn’t let innocent people suffer so much! Anyway, that all led to a crisis of faith, and I left my studies and I left my religious upbringing. In integrity, I could not stay and pretend that everything was all right.

Yet, even though I abandoned most of my beliefs about “God”, I never left the search for something that was more than myself, I always searched for beauty, meaning, love, goodness. And I realized that however people around the world and throughout time put words to their understanding of this something “Greater”, however I felt like the words and teachings I had known about this “God” didn’t seem to make any sense, that this search for meaning, for goodness, for depth in life, was not a waste of time.

And that’s what I mean by “Soulwork” — I don’t spend my time searching for or defining beliefs, but I do talk about how we can live in certain ways in which depth, meaning, goodness, love, and community are the center of our lives.

My new book, Wildflower Seeds: The Beauties of a Reflective Life, available on amazon, is about all the ways that we can consciously live this way and how we develop the habits of finding and making meaning in our lives. It’s how we remember to choose love, and joy, and commit to creating a world where we all belong, where we all have home.

I look forward in this blog to telling you more about why I call myself a contemplative educator, writer, and artist, and how you can develop your own ways of deeply living your soul life, your Soulwork.

With much love,

Cat

P.S. You may recognize this post as similar to one that is already on my blog. I have been having problems with my blogs being sent out by mailerlite, and I don’t think that most of my subscribers have received that blogpost. Until that problem is resolved, I’m trying a different way to send out posts. Thank you for your patience while we work through the glitches.

Fall 2023

Appreciating Beauty in the Unfinished

---

Originally sent out on October 22, 2023

Dear Friends,

This Work in Progress is only about 1/2 finished. I love it, and designed it so that I could do one square per painting session, creating a Mindfulness Mandala in each blue square and a botanical image in the other squares. I haven’t worked on it in weeks, but I noticed that even though it is unfinished, it has its own beauty right there, right now.

Well, this painting is a metaphor for me right here, right now. I’ve just come home from a “Heart of the Wounded Healer” training with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and I am wiped! There was so much left unfinished before I left home on Oct. 7 to drive to the training in Loveland, Colorado (outside of Denver), especially regarding my new book WILDFLOWER SEEDS: THE BEAUTIES OF A REFLECTIVE LIFE (available through amazon). Then there’s sending my 28 pages of notes to those whom I’ve promised, an immense amount of mess and clutter that somehow appeared in the house in my absence, and enough paperwork to burn for a week if I were to indulge my impulse and set a match to it all! Not to mention the phone calls.

Yet my dear body can’t perform on command, and is insisting on resting from the increased stress caused by the total of almost 6 days of driving plus all of the deep work involved in the training. This year we worked on removing our inner Shadows; i.e., all that occludes the Light shining through us. We worked on sexuality, gender, difficult people, and several other topics. It was very deep, with trancework plus dyads where we shared our insights with one other person, then full room comments and discussions with all 100 or so of us.

So I’m reminding myself that life, my life, your life, is good and has much beauty, even if we can’t rush to finish the projects we committed to. Even if we can’t accomplish what we can already imagine as our next creative project, Autumn is so beautiful, my messy home has the people and love that I crave, and all the piles on my desk promise new adventures. Eventually! Including learning to take better photos that don’t have this much glare in them!

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Fall 2023

What is Soulwork, and what is a contemplative educator, writer, and artist?

---

Dear friends,

Those are intentionally rich and ambiguous words that I use to describe myself and my work, and part of what I hope to do here in this blog for the next while is to introduce you to these ideas.

Many of you know that in my young adult life my religious heritage, Roman Catholic Christian, was very important to me.  My degree is in theology, and I came to Canada in the first place to continue studying theology on the graduate level, with the eventual hope of becoming a professor.

Well, that didn’t work out — to make a long story short, my increased knowledge about the history of the church plus current events across the world had me wondering how a good God could just let all this unmerited suffering go on.  After all, if I were God I wouldn’t let innocent people suffer so much!  Anyway, that all led to a crisis of faith, and I left my studies and I left my religious upbringing.

Yet, even though I abandoned most of my beliefs about “God”, I never left the search for something that was more than myself, I always searched for beauty, meaning, love, goodness.  And I realized that however people around the world and throughout time put words to their understanding of this something “Greater”, however I felt like the words and teachings I had known about this “God” didn’t seem to make any sense, that this search for meaning, for goodness, for depth in life, was not a waste of time.

And that’s what I mean by “Soulwork” — I don’t spend my time searching for or defining beliefs, but I do talk about how we can live in certain ways in which depth, meaning, goodness, love, and community are the center of our lives.

Notes on “Contemplative” will be in my next blog post.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

November 2023

POEM: Circles Within Circles Within Circles

---

Hello dear friends,

Here is the poem I read at Wednesday’s monthly Owl Poetry’s Open Mic that Teri Petz and I co-founded 5 years ago. It’s a poem that invites you to look at life from a different perspective. I hope it provokes thought.

With much love and many blessings, here it is:

Circles within Circles within Circles

I think that we are all immersed in infinite interconnectedness

with all of reality, in circles within circles.

At its simplest, in our bodies, we’re not really

self-contained boxes of organic material.

These bodies are semi-permeable,

self-ambulatory condensations of matter

constantly taking in our environment with each breath of air,

with each look around us, with each sound we take in.

And we leave our bodies behind us as we breathe out

shedding vapor, hair, and skin cells.

Each day, we take into our bodies the liquids and solids

of food and drink,

and we leave behind us the liquids and semi-solids

that our bodies can’t use.

So even just physically,

we are embedded in circles within circles

of taking in and leaving behind,

Of nourishment and danger.

And going out from there,

our minds and thoughts interconnect with others.

We move the muscles of our throats and mouths into vibrations

that are taken in as meaningful sound by other condensations of matter.

From our conversations to the books we read,

to the Facebook comments we write, to the shouts of warning we yell out,

we touch each other in a myriad of ways,

intermingling ideas, creating each other’s minds, opinions.

Circles within circles within circles.

And look at time — spread out nicely

so that everything doesn’t happen all at once.

While our sphere of action is the present moment,

we do extend backwards and forwards in time.

Backwards and forwards beyond our own lifespan, too.

We have been influenced by civilizations that lived thousands of years ago,

as well as by the last few presidential elections

of our southern neighbor.

And what we do now with this earth will reverberate

for a thousand years in its ability to support human life, or any life.

If we keep extending this interconnection outward

to the complexities of conflict

and the psycho-spiritual effects of trauma,

plus our everyday projections,

how does this all interact with love?

There is taking and destruction within our circles.

There is familial bonding and sexual need

mixed deeply within,

And there is unconditional love and generosity.

I don’t pretend to know how all this works,

especially when one adds life’s depth dimensions,

spiritual experiences and mystical practice to this.

But I do know that we are embedded

in circles within circles within circles.

And that what we do matters, more than we can imagine.

We belong here, with each other, for better and for worse.

Given all this, what we do can make a profound difference

to ourselves and each other, for good or ill.

And though what we do is influenced by what we think and feel,

And we do not have total control over what we think and feel

due to past traumas, current gut biomes,

and the people we have to live with or work for,

we do have some control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

We have choices about what we pay attention to in our environment,

and the ability to contribute to environments that can enrich our lives.

We are not completely at the mercy of our bosses, our political leaders,

or social media.

And just as we have huge resources for destruction,

We also have huge untapped resources for connection, healing,

inspiration, meaning. Possibility.

We live in a world that has more than enough for our needs.

We live in circles within circles within circles,

Infinitely interconnected.

And what we do matters.