Category: Goddess Inspired

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A More Inclusive Prayer

If the Lord’s prayer is the model prayer, then it seems that half of the world is not included when we pray. Every time I pray the Our Father, I feel left out and excluded.

Goddess Inspired

September 18, 2023

Tagged Divine Feminine, Inclusivity, Prayer

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Recently I have been thinking a lot about prayer. I participate in a monthly spiritual group that is composed of some more liberal-leaning folks, including a few male pastors. I admire these men for their openness to ideas that don’t always align with their denominations’ teachings: they think for themselves; they see the contradictions in some of the religious dogma that exists in their denomination; and they are offering a more wholistic and loving interpretation of scripture to their congregations.

However, as we spoke about prayer and meditation in our latest discussion, they offered up the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer. As a woman, I find this model to be seriously disturbing. I grew up reciting this prayer, as did millions of other devout Christians. That prayer continually reinforced to me that God is a male, that he lives in a place that I can never reach, and that he is mainly concerned with power and glory.

I am no theologian, but that prayer, as much as anything else, made me feel as if there was no place in the church for me as a woman. Every time anyone prays that prayer it reinforces the patriarchal presumption that God is male and is outside of us, dwelling in some heavenly paradise, removed from the concerns of the world.

In Christian theology, we have the Father and the Son, but where is the Mother? Where is the deep feminine, nurturing, in-dwelling personification of the Divine? Where is the feminine model for me, as a woman, to emulate? If the Lord’s prayer is the model prayer, then it seems that half of the world is not included when we pray. Every time I pray the Our Father, I feel left out and excluded.

One of the members of our spiritual group shared another version of the Lord’s Prayer that is found in the New Zealand Book of Prayer. In this version, there is space for the Divine Feminine as source of all that is, and love, is the source of power. This prayer is much less problematic for me as a woman, than the version of the Lord’s Prayer which is found in the King James Version of the Bible. I would like to share it here today as an alternative version of the Lord’s Prayer.

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Barbara Garland
September, 2023

When Does the Spiritual Become Political?

Discovering Joy

And it (joy) is found in the ordinary moments of ordinary days when one is open to the beauty that is all around.

Goddess Inspired

September 3, 2023

Tagged Heart, Joy, Nature, Opening

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Once upon a time in a land not so far away a young girl lived with her mother. One day, when she came home from school, she told her mother that one of the words she had learned was ‘joy.’ “Joy is such a small word. It seems like it would be very hard to find,” she told her mother. Now the little girl’s mother was a very wise woman, so she suggested to her daughter that she go out into the world to try to find joy.

Since the next day was a Saturday, the girl decided that she would get up very early and journey to find joy. She packed lunch and some water and went to bed thinking about where to look to find joy. She almost couldn’t sleep; she was so excited.

The next morning she woke very early, dressed quietly, grabbed her lunch and left the house. She brought along her friend and guardian dog, Dusty. As she started down the path to the road, the full moon lit her way, and the sky was a blanket of stars. She looked up and was filled with awe and wonder. Her heart moved in her chest, and she wondered at the feeling that came over her.

After she had walked a bit, the dawn began to break. She heard the birds calling to each other, and soon their songs filled the air. Again her heart moved in her chest, but she wasn’t sure exactly why. As the sun made its way over the horizon, the sky began to fill with incredibly beautiful colors – red, oranges, gold’s, purples. The feeling in her chest grew and grew as she watched the sun rise over the hills in front of her.

As she continued on her way, she soon came to a meadow filled with wildflowers. She was almost overwhelmed by the colors and the scents of the flowers. As she walked through the meadow, she heard the buzzing of bees and saw hundreds of butterflies flitting among the blossoms. All of her senses were engaged in the sights, sounds, and scents of the meadow, and once again her heart moved.

Just past the meadow she came to a forest. As she walked along the path, she looked up to see a hawk soaring overhead; a woodpecker knocked on a tall pine; squirrels chattered at her from their safe perches in the branches; she glimpsed a deer and her fawn in the distance; the smell of trees and forest filled her nostrils; a babbling brook meandered along the trail, flashing silver in the sunlight. And her heart moved in her chest.

She was feeling a bit tired and hungry, so she and Dusty sat down with their backs to an ancient tree. As she sat on the ground, with her back against the mother tree, she could feel a tingling energy that filled her up and moved her heart once more. Sharing her lunch with Dusty, she patted his soft coat. He wagged his tail and looked at her with love in his eyes. Again her heart moved.

It was the heat of the day, and she fell into a deep sleep with Dusty’s head in her lap. In her dream, the spirit of the ancient tree came to her as a wise old woman. “I understand that you are looking for joy,” said the old woman. “And have you found it yet?” she asked.

The girl recounted her day to the old woman. “I have felt my heart move, but I really don’t know where to look for joy. Is it a treasure, something that I am supposed to find? Or is it something I am supposed to do?”

The tree spirit looked deeply into the girl’s eyes. “When your heart moved, that was joy. When you opened your senses to the world around you, that was joy. When you saw the love in Dusty’s eyes, that was joy. Your heart moves when you feel connected to all that is, when you recognize the beauty around you, when you pay attention to the love that flows between you and the creatures of the earth. You don’t have to look for joy, you just have to let it in. Especially when the worries of the world bring you grief, open your senses to what you can see, touch, smell, hear, and taste. Put your bare feet into the grass; look up to the sky; open your heart. Open yourself to the beauty of each moment. Even when your heart is breaking, you can still find joy.” With that, the old woman dissolved back into the tree, and the girl slowly woke. Dusty thumped his tail, and licked her face, his entire body wriggling with delight. He could certainly find joy in every moment.

As the two of them made their way back home, the girl felt her heart move in gratitude for the world around her. She understood that finding joy is opening to the world and finding connection and gratitude. It isn’t something to do, but it is a treasure to find. And it is found in the ordinary moments of ordinary days when one is open and connected to the beauty that is all around.

Barbara Garland
September, 2023

Embodying Compassion

I don’t want to have to think about having empathy or compassion. Rather I want those characteristics to become my natural reaction to whatever situations arise in my life.

Goddess Inspired

August 27, 2023

Tagged compassion, empathy, love, Non-judgement

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This week I have been meditating on love, compassion and empathy. At the beginning of the week, I drew an oracle card depicting the Chinese Goddess, Kuan Yin, the Goddess of compassion or “she who hears the cries of the world.” She is the Goddess that many people pray to when they are in despair, and she is the archetype of the merciful, compassionate, deep feminine.

In my meditations this week I repeated the mantra – I am love, I am compassion, I am empathy. I wanted to completely embody these characteristics so that they become who I am. I don’t want to have to think about having empathy or compassion. Rather I want those characteristics to become my natural reaction to whatever situations arise in my life.

I also looked up the difference between compassion and empathy. Empathy is feeling the pain of another; compassion is feeling the pain and trying to alleviate it in some way. It is not enough to feel the pain of another. After I feel it, I must take some kind of compassionate action to alleviate that pain.

It is not that I have to save the world. It is easy to get caught up in despair about the state of the world, to feel helpless and hopeless because I can’t do enough. However I can do something. I can volunteer at my favorite charity; I can donate (according to my means) to causes which make a difference; I can join civic organizations; I can do my work with integrity; I can listen to my friend; I can be less judgmental; I can provide a smile or an encouraging word; I can love an animal; I can plant trees. I can use my gifts in some way to make a difference, to help alleviate suffering.

I must also not forget to shower the same empathy and compassion I show to others on myself. It is easy to judge myself much more harshly than others would judge me. If in fact I embody love, empathy, and compassion, then I must lavish it on myself just as I would lavish it on others. The first rule of survival is that to save others, I must save myself first. I am no good to anyone if I don’t treat myself with kindness and understanding.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about finding compassion for those who do terrible things. It isn’t easy, and it takes practice. It also seems to be a lesson that I need to work on. I still have a long way to go, but after this week of meditating on love, empathy, and compassion, I find that I am more open to seeing and hearing others. I more readily radiate love and understanding, to others and to myself, rather than judgment. I am freer to share a smile with a stranger and to give deep, warm hugs. I feel less stressed about the state of the world and more content with the things that I can do to make a difference.

Barbara Garland
August, 2023

Recalibrating

Why is it so hard to practice spiritual self-care, especially when I know how much better I feel when I take care of myself?

Goddess Inspired

August 20, 2023
1 Comment on Recalibrating

Tagged Meditation, Quiet, Recalibrting, Spiritual Practice

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Recalibrating

For the last several months I have let my meditation practice go. Instead of meditating as soon as I finish my walk, I either start on my tasks for the day or doom-scroll the internet. I convinced myself that I didn’t have time to spend thirty minutes meditating and journaling. As a consequence, I feel blah and uninspired. I haven’t written my blog on a regular basis because I feel disconnected from Source.

What is it about my human nature that prevents me from doing the things that I know are in my best interest – the things that will make me the happiest and healthiest physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Why is it so hard to practice spiritual self-care, especially when I know how much better I feel when I take care of myself?

To me self-care, even spiritual self-care, feels like indulgence, even play. I grew up with the strict admonition that play could only come after all the work had been done. And of course the work is never done. Consequently, I feel guilty for indulging in meditation, journaling, and all those little things that are part of my mental and spiritual health routine. It then becomes very easy to let everything else get in the way of my spiritual practices. There are emails to be written, notes to be transcribed, a house to be cleaned, clothes to be washed – a never ending litany of my to-do list. Because, quite frankly, it is easier to get caught up in the to-do list than it is to just be.

Being still and quiet seems indulgent. It feels like a waste of time. It is non-productive as far as the world is concerned. It seems selfish when there are so many problems in the world. It is the antithesis of what our culture demands. But it is absolutely necessary for my inner peace. And so I am resolving once again to set aside time to spend with myself and with God/dess. For me, it is the key to wholeness.

A Still Presence

I sit in silence waiting for the still presence of the Holy One.
Like the flutter of butterfly wings, almost imperceptible, She comes.
Invisible, yet present, I feel Her in
The wind on my face, the sound of the babbling brook, the call of a bird.

She will not come uninvited.
My stillness is her invitation, my quiet heart her home.
I sit in silence awaiting what She brings to me today.
I am here; She is here.
I am open; She shows me the way.

Barbara Garland
August, 2023

Finding Compassion

My prayer today then is to be filled with compassion toward whatever causes suffering in me and in others.

Goddess Inspired

August 15, 2023

Tagged compassion, Consciousness, empathy, love, Suffering

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I don’t know about you, but in these chaotic times, I have a very hard time sending love to those people who appear to delight in spreading hate and divisiveness into the world. I see their lust for power, their greed, and their appalling hypocrisy, and the last thing I want to do is to try to love them.

Matthieu Ricard is an ordained Buddhist monk and French translator for the Dalai Lama. Recently, in an interview for the New York Times, Ricard talked about the concept of compassion. As I read the article I began to understand more fully that compassion might be an even more powerful tool than love. According to Ricard,

“Because this [compassion] is different from moral judgment. It doesn’t prevent you from saying that those are walking psychopaths, that they have no heart. But compassion is to remedy suffering wherever it is, whatever form it takes and whoever causes it. So what is the object of compassion here? It is the hatred and the person under its power. If someone beats you with a stick, you don’t get angry with the stick — you get angry with the person. These people we are talking about are like sticks in the hands of ignorance and hatred (emphasis mine). We can judge the acts of a person at a particular time, but compassion is wishing that the present aspect of suffering and the causes of suffering may be remedied.”

As I read that paragraph it suddenly became clearer that despising the acts of a person is different than hating that person. While I always knew this in my head, I have struggled with the concept as I work to grow spiritually. However, when I think of having compassion for those whom I see as evil, I am more able to send love in their direction. For example, if I can picture Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump as hurt little boys, I can feel love and compassion for the wounded child within them that causes them to do the terrible things they do. I can be more empathetic because I can see the causes of their suffering. It doesn’t excuse their acts, but it helps me to move away from hatred and loathing to a more understanding stance. It helps me to realize that they do what they do because they are suffering.

Compassion then opens me up to empathy and love. It allows me to understand that suffering is what motivates me to do the things I do whether or not I am conscious of that suffering. When I act unconsciously, I am trying to assuage the suffering that I may have carried for lifetimes. When I understand my own motivations, I can then empathize with the motivations of others. I can still abhor those acts that are immoral and repugnant, while at the same time recognizing the inner suffering that causes a person to do what they do. I can then direct love and compassion to the suffering that is at the root of the behavior.

My prayer today then is to be filled with compassion toward whatever causes suffering in me and in others.

Barbara Garland
August, 2023

Choosing Love Over Fear

We are all creations of the Divine, and it is my job to look at everyone through the eyes of love.

Goddess Inspired

August 4, 2023

Tagged Choice, Fear, love, Other, Shadow

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What is it that turns off in a brain so that reason cannot get in? When my dog, Hank, hears a golf cart, his fear response goes into overdrive. At that point, not even food can bring him back. All he can hear, see, or sense is the object that causes the reaction. At that point, he has no idea that he is snapping at me, whom he loves, in order to get to the object of his wrath.

So it is with some people – when the object of their hatred is in sight, no amount of rational thought can get into their brains. They are deeply into fight or flight. They are totally irrational.

It seems to me that our reactions to almost everything are based either on fear or love. There is nothing else. While it sounds simple, it is actually quite complex. We act out of fear because we are afraid, -afraid of not being loved and accepted – by others, by God, even by our own selves.

To further complicate the picture, we also fear our inner shadows. A shadow is that within ourselves which we perceive is unacceptable. Instead of accepting that I have the capacity to be a liar, thief, or even a murderer, I project all those parts of myself onto others. In doing so it is easy to lump types of people into certain categories. For example – all Muslims are terrorists, all black people are in gangs, all gay people are pedophiles, all women are emotional, all men are misogynist …you get the picture. Once our brains lump people into these categories, it is easy for us to see them as other, as less than human, as objects to be feared and reviled.

Politicians and marketers play on these fears of the other all the time. It is so easy to exploit our inner fears by pointing to others as the cause of all our problems. Because we are afraid that we will lose and the others will win, just like Hank, we become irrational, and no amount of reason can change our point of view. We project our own shadow selves onto those people, and those people become the cause of the ills of the world.

It is important then to do our shadow work, so that we do not fall prey to projecting our fears onto everyone else. Yes, I do have the same capacity as anyone else to be a liar, a murderer, a thief; but I also have the capacity to be a kind and loving human being. I have the choice of which path to follow – love or fear.

I choose to follow the way of love. It is in that choice that I can begin to empathize with all human beings, to understand that my experience and theirs may be different. I have the capacity for good and evil; it is my choice. I can choose the way of love by working with and recognizing my own shadows. I can choose the way of love by recognizing that the thing I abhor in others is the thing I abhor in myself. I can choose the way of love by recognizing that everyone is made in the image of the Divine – that we are all one. I am neither better nor worse than anyone else. We are all creations of the Divine, and it is my job to look at everyone through the eyes of love.

Barbara Garland
August, 2023

Who Is My Brother?

In this crazy world where hate seems to gain more traction every day, why is it so hard to love one another?

Goddess Inspired

July 16, 2023

Tagged acceptance, Brotherly love, Openness, soul

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I have been thinking a lot about my brother who passed away suddenly in 2014. He was my only sibling, and I still miss him deeply. He was the kind of person that was a friend to everyone. He never met a stranger, and always had a joke to share. He would go out of his way to help his friends, or strangers, and he asked for nothing in return. There was standing room only at his funeral because of the influence he had on his teacher colleagues and on the youth he coached and taught.

At his funeral we played the song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, “by the Hollies, because my brother exemplified the words of the song in so many ways. He was a true brother to anyone who needed him, and he never considered that giving a hand up was a burden.

A line from that song has been stuck in my head for days. It says, “If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness that everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness of love for one another.” In this crazy world where hate seems to gain more traction every day, why is it so hard to love one another? Why can’t I see myself in the eyes of everyone I meet? Why is it so hard to understand that we are made of the same cosmic dust and that we are all one?

For too long, patriarchal religion has been the religion of duality – right, wrong; black, white; male, female; good, evil. I judge and am judged by where I land on the spectrum between the extremes of each polarity. My ego becomes the arbiter of who is right and who is wrong, who is worthy and who is unworthy based on a set of values and internal rules that I have absorbed through religion and culture. I decide if my brother is worthy of being carried. I decide to love or not love based on a criterion that I may not even be conscious of.

What if I quit judging and saw everyone as my brother or sister? What if, instead of judging someone’s actions, I could look into their eyes and see a fellow soul on its own unique journey? What if my heart could fill with gladness because I could freely and unequivocally love that other person? What if I could freely and unequivocally love myself?

The real burden for all of us lies in not being able to truly see the soul of another and to love that soul no matter what. The real burden lies in carrying a set of rules in my head about who or who is not worthy of love. I want my heart to be “filled with the gladness of love for one another,” and to do that I must look at others as well as myself through the eyes of love.

My brother was not perfect, but he was open, loving, and accepting. He saw everyone as his brother and was willing to help them bear their burdens without judging whether or not they were worthy. He set an example for me and others that I hope to emulate.

In loving memory of Chris Byler, brother to all.

Barbara Garland
July, 2023

The link to the lyrics:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lyrics+to+he+ain%27t+heavy&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS959US959&oq=lyrics+to+he+ain%27t+heavy&aqs=chrome

Gratitude

I realized that it is as essential to count one’s blessings as it is to breathe, because gratitude is the essential ingredient for living a joy-filled life.

Goddess Inspired

July 8, 2023

Tagged Blah, Blessings, Gratitude, Joy

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Early this morning, as my dog, Hank, and I walked our two miles, I was filled with an overwhelming gratitude for so many things. I realized that it is as essential to count one’s blessings as it is to breathe, because gratitude is the essential ingredient for living a joy-filled life.

I am reading a book called, “Feeling Blah?”: Why Anhedonia Has Left You Joyless and How to Recapture Life’s Highs, by Tanith Carey. In this book, the author describes the phenomenon of anhedonia, (coming from a Greek word meaning ‘without pleasure’) which describes the ‘blah’ state in which many of us are living, especially post-Covid. While I have not yet finished the book, the author makes the case that our modern life, especially in the developed world, lays everything at our fingertips. Although I realize that I am speaking from privilege, in my world I have everything I need and most of what I want. I live in my own home in an active senior community; my refrigerator is fully stocked; I have a bed to sleep in; my home has heating and air conditioning; I have friends and a meaningful volunteer life; I am healthy and strong; I can get everything I need at the grocery store, or from Amazon: I don’t have to fight daily for my survival.

In this modern state, the pleasure centers of the brain keep me flooded with feel good hits. However, it takes more and more of those feel-good hits to make a difference, to fill me with joy. Living in a modern society, I have become desensitized to the things that would have made previous generations giddy with pleasure. Most of the time a stocked refrigerator is taken for granted, not spoken of in gratitude. So for me, gratitude becomes an essential part of feeling joy.

This morning I was grateful for the soft breeze that kept me cool; for the moonlight and a sky full of stars; for living in a place where I could walk safely in the dark; for the beautiful animal who walked beside me; for the deer and other creatures who make their homes in our neighborhood; for the ability to walk two miles at my age without pain; for the healthy husband I came home to; for clean, running water and the ability to heat that water for my tea; for the food in my pantry and my refrigerator; for a refrigerator; for having a bed to make, for a vacuum cleaner; for a home to clean; for clothes to wash and machines to wash them and dry them; for a computer and a phone; for my own space in which to work – and all these were things I thought about before six AM.

I have listed these things because they are things I usually take for granted. They are so mundane, so ubiquitous in my life that I don’t see or think about them. They just are. However, when I begin to list each thing, I begin to see how fortunate I am – especially when I realize that this list is just the tip of the iceberg of things for which I can be grateful.

Oprah Winfrey said, “Being grateful all the time isn’t easy. But it’s when you least feel thankful that you are most in need of what gratitude can give you: perspective. Gratitude can transform any situation. It alters your vibration, moving you from negative energy to positive. It’s the quickest, easiest most powerful way to effect change in your life — this I know for sure.”

If you are caught up in that feeling of blah, I challenge you to join me in thinking of the mundane things for which you are grateful. I challenge you to program your brain to really see your everyday world as a source of gratitude-inducing things and experiences, not just the things you take for granted. How many things can you be grateful for before you start your day?

Barbara Garland
July, 2023

Who is the Divine?

Just by being present, we become that small sense of Presence for those in despair.

Goddess Inspired

July 2, 2023

Tagged compassion, Divine, love, Presence

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In the past couple of months, I have attended several funerals. Some were for folks who lived good long lives, and who contributed greatly to the good of their communities. Some were for good people whose lives, in our estimation, were cut short. No matter what the situation, family and friends were left in deep grief, in one of those situations where no relief from the pain is in sight. For those who are suffering, it is sometimes easy to feel that there is no Divine, no greater energy or force, and certainly nothing that can ease their pain.

Last week I wrote about a small sense of Presence in light of our own individual suffering. This week I want to posit that we can be that small sense of Presence to those around us who are suffering and grief-stricken. When people feel abandoned by the Divine, we are the ones who can be lovingly present to their pain. We are called upon to be that small candle flame that shines a light on the possibility that hope and healing might someday be possible. In these situations we become the living Presence through our thoughts, words, and deeds.

We can do the practical things – bring meals, clean the house, hold, listen, support, hug, encourage. We can do the quiet things by sending out loving energy and prayers for healing. We can show up and hold space for whatever emotions may surface in that deep grief. While we are not the healers, we can
be instruments for healing. Ultimately, we become the hands and feet, the
physical manifestation of the Divine. Just by being present, we become that small sense of Presence for those in despair.

In the same way that we find hope in a personal small sense of Presence, we can share hope by being that Divine Presence for others.

I SEE YOU

In the deepest dark, a small flame flickers.
So small, so small – I can’t believe my eyes.
It seems so far away.

My strained eyes focus on the light.
A kind word, an embrace
The light grows brighter.

I speak, pouring out my grief and pain.
A hand grips mine.
The light grows a little more.

My tears fall, a torrent, a river,
and ocean
I am held in a silent embrace.
The light grows.

The light of the flame burns bright
now.
I feel the Sacred Presence of the Divine.
When I look upon Her face, I see you.

Barbara Garland
July, 2023

A Small Sense of Presence

As I connect to my own inner Divine, so then I must become a small sense of Presence to others just as they are to me.

Goddess Inspired

June 24, 2023

Tagged compassion, connection, Disconnection, Divine Presence

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Yesterday as I was driving to an appointment, a song came on the radio. The title was in French, which I don’t speak, but it seemed to read, “a small sense of presence.” It really doesn’t matter if my translation is correct or not. What matters is that particular phrase has stayed with me and continues to tug at my heart.

Many times in my life I have felt disconnected from the Divine Source. I have felt alone, discouraged, lost. I didn’t have a clue where to turn or what to do. But deep inside there was a “small sense of Presence.” On some level, even though I felt lost and afraid, I knew that there was something that held me and wouldn’t let me go. All I could feel was a very small, quiet Presence, an almost imperceptible connection to the Divine.

It is easy to feel and acknowledge the Divine in the mountaintop experiences when life is beautiful and wonderful. It is not so easy to feel and acknowledge the Divine when I am in the dark night of the soul, when I feel bereft and unmoored. It is in those times, when I feel forsaken and abandoned, that I must grab onto that small sense of Presence.

That sense of Presence is like a tiny, flickering flame. It is only a glimpse of pale light that I can hardly believe is there. However, the more I acknowledge the flame, the more I keep my eyes focused on the flame, the more I can see. In those times of disconnect when it is hard to feel that small sense of Presence, it is helpful to become quiet, to listen deeply to my inner voice. I do that by journaling, meditating, practicing Yoga or QiGong, being out in nature, or just resting.

And while the Presence resides within me, sometimes the flame is fanned by an outside source. Like the title of the song on the radio, the small sense of Presence can come from anywhere – the doe and her twin fawns that walk through my yard, the birds singing to the dawn, a hug or email from a friend, a smile from a stranger, a creative act. All of these and many others help to fan the flame of the Divine Presence within. They are outward signs of an indwelling Presence.

As I connect to my own inner Divine, so then I must become a small sense of Presence to others just as they are to me. My energy must be attuned to respond to the people around me with love, empathy, and compassion. I must be ready to be supportive and non-judgmental as other people go through their own struggles to discover the small sense of Presence within themselves. I must acknowledge the Divine within others and encourage others to acknowledge the Divine within themselves. It is then that the small sense of Presence becomes a certain sense of Presence that cannot be shaken even in the darkest of times.

Barbara Garland
June 2023

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About Me

I am a seeker of truth, a truth teller, a lover of the Divine Feminine, an aspiring writer, a mystery, an open book, a work in progress. I have lived a long and varied life, and now in my seventies, I am being called to share some of what I have learned over the years. I hope to share the wisdom of the deep Feminine that is being channeled through me.

If the Goddess has ever whispered to you, I invite you to join me on an incredible journey of love and discovery. May you hear Her wisdom through these words.

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