Testify!
Isn’t this a beautiful star, Magpies?
Flock member and in-real-life friend, Leanna Ramsey-Corrales of Which Way is Home Again, made it with my daughters and I around our kitchen table. I love how she’s allowing mystery to draw her into the wild unknown of a new year.
The Flock Year meditation (free) has brought so many insights — from big bright energetic words, to gentle prompts to fuller living. Several Magpie readers have told me the name of their guiding star and they said I could share these beauties with Y.O.U. Here are just a few samples. (I love them all!)
BOLDNESS is most definitely the name of the star that I see in my sky. I’m getting on my camel, ready to follow wherever it leads in 2012. Wish me luck!… My star is hanging right where I’m guaranteed to see it every morning as soon as my eyes are open enough to pay attention. I’ll definitely be seeing you in Flock.” -Karen Coverett, Recreating My World
BOWL. I loved your telling of the story and the yearning it opened in me. I could see that curving path through the desert so clearly. I almost cried when I reached out my hand for my star. Oh please, I thought, because my mind was so wordless this morning and I was suddenly afraid there would be nothing there for me. Oh please. The star landed and I pulled it to me and looked down into the cup of my hand and there it was: bowl. … This is what my star looks like: be the golden bowl, be a vessel of light, and hold it out to the world in offering. -Lisa King, Tell This
SELF says to me that I need to spend time thinking about who I am – authentically – not who I think I should be or who I think I want to be. It’s time for me to understand I understand that I am enough. -Karen B
SERENITY. Thank you so much for that beautiful epiphany reflection. It really spoke to me. My guiding star is Serenity. It’s something I desperately need in my life and it’s a pretty word. :) I’m really excited to join the Flock. And I want to thank you also for making The Flock group so affordable. -Sarah
What is your word? Please come and tell me at my new Magpie Girl Facebook Page. I’d love to hear your unique story.
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Ready for year-round soulcare? We’re saving a seat for you in the Flock. Won’t you join us? Need more information first? Come over, let’s chat.
*8Things
Hello Magpie!
Are you familiar with *8Things Thursday? It’s kind of been a habit of mine these past few years.
Sometimes I just make a list of *8Things that are rattling around in my brain so my monkey mind will calm the heck down.
Other times I’ve spent a few minutes just noticing *8Things of beauty or curiosity around me.
Lately I’ve been using *8Things as a gratitude practice.
What *8Things will we observe today? Come on over to my new Magpie Girl page at Facebook find out.
(I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.)
See you there!
-Rachelle
*your magpie girl
Curated Care: One-moment Memoirs
This week’s Curated Care recommendation comes from my soulsister Jenna McGuiggan founder of The Word Cellar. I think her new offering is brilliant — especially if you are longing to write more, but only have spare moments between changing nappies, or on your lunch break. Relax, the gentle do-able solution is at hand. Jennifer, step right up…
One-moment Memoirs
by Jenna McGuiggan
That moment when you’re washing dishes, and you see your own hand holding a little metal bouquet of silverware, and for a second you think it’s your mother’s hand.
That moment when your beloved touches your cheek, and you know in your bones that something fundamental has shifted.
That moment when you hear the loud summer buzz of cicadas, and a line of poetry floats into your mind, begging you to capture it for later.
That moment when the sun slants just so, or the clock ticks too loudly, or you get the phone call you’ve been waiting for. Those moments big and small, those moments that matter, those moments that you want to live inside of, or make sense of, or share with others.
Some experiences beg us to write about them, but we often feel overwhelmed when trying to capture the whole story at once. One-moment Memoirs helps you take a relaxed yet focused approach to telling life’s big and small stories in bite-sized pieces.
In this workshop we’ll explore the art of short-form storytelling, also known as “flash creative nonfiction” (which also happens to be the prefect size for blog posts). Using writing prompts and exercises designed to help you connect with the heart of your story, we’ll dig into the details of a single moment. You’ll use these to write your very own one-moment memoir in two to three pages.
I’ll be teaching One-moment Memoirs online as part of wishBIG ecampin February. I’ll also be teaching a full-day workshop version of it this May for The Midwest Be Present Retreatin Culver, Indiana.
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Curated Care (formerly known as Tools of The Trade) features carefully selected courses, books, and other treasure that will feed your beautiful soul. I take pride in only reviewing only trustworthy, totally-worth-it products and services. I believe in this product 100%. To see some evergreen products and service providers I enjoy, click here. To read all my review posts, click here. Thanks for being here today Magpie!
Magpie Moment: How a ten minute meditation changed my work, my body and my parenting.
What if ten minutes with your eyes closed could flip on a light switch in your life?
What if stepping into a story lead you to an “ah-ha moment”?
What if you could start out your year with a strong guide?
Still with me? Watch this 3.5 minute video to hear how I accessed all of these things. Then click here to do it yourself!
Much Warmth,
Rachelle
P.s. Want this kind of soulcare all year long? Your invitation awaits you here.
Curated Care: Nikki McClure, A Year of Inspiration
I absolutely love the art of Nikki McClure. Every image is created by cutting away black paper with an exacto knife. And the way she combines a single resonate word with a stunning graphic image — well, it’s positively poetic.
Paul just gave me her most recent calendar as a Christmas gift. When Eden saw me peeking at the first page today she said, “Are you going to look at them all now Mom, or save them as surprise?” I was glad she asked, because I hadn’t really thought about it, but now I think I will save each one as a surprise. I’m even thinking about doing some collage work around each monthly word. (January’s is “Permit.” That seems ripe with promise!)
What will you inherit this year? Order Nikki McClure’s Inherit Calendar
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Curated Care (formerly known as Tools of The Trade) features carefully selected courses, books, and other treasure that will feed your beautiful soul. I take pride in only reviewing only trustworthy, totally-worth-it products and services. I am an amazon assoicate for this product, because I believe in it 100%. To see some evergreen products and service providers I enjoy, click here. To read all my review posts, click here. Thanks for being here today Magpie!
A Guided Meditation for New Year’s from Magpie Girl
Hello Magpie!
I so want to give you something sweet for the new year! One of my Flock members, Marie, says Flock emails “are like a piece of caramel. I …*sigh* {with} comfort.” So on Marie’s advice, I’m sending you one of my Flock email lessons as a special gift. Click here now to get your goodies right away, or read on to find out more!
Flock is my experimental relig-ish community. In the past it’s been open to women only. This year we are throwing the doors open wide so everyone we adore can discover their right-fit spiritual practices.
For 2012 we’ll be focusing on The Flock Year — a set of soulcare practices that reflect the changing seasons, and embody a set of core values. My goal is that by the end of this year you will have at least one soulcare practice each season that is 100% authentic to your unique belief system.
The first Monday of each month in The Flock Year you’ll receive:
- a video lesson explaining the history of that month’s practice, and how to engage in the practice.
- an invitation to email me for help adjusting the practice so it’s right-fit for y.o.u.
- space to exchange ideas about creative spirituality on our private Facebook page.
- the option to book individual spiritual direction sessions with me as needed. (This offer is only available to Flock members.)
In February, The Flock Year will begin it’s subscription price of $15 a month. The January lesson is my gift to you.
Find the name of your guiding star for 2012 with a free video lesson (8 min) and guided meditation (10 min). In less than 20 minutes, you’ll have a guide that will help you feel grounded and focused the whole year through. There’s no charge for this lesson, and you won’t get more than a handful of emails from this mailing list.
To receive Epiphany: follow your star please click here.
(This is an updated version of the meditation for 2012, along with a brand spanking new video lesson.)
Thank you so much for being here today. May your new year bring you fresh breezes, soft light, and many unexpected joys.
Much Warmth,
Rachelle Mee-Chapman
*your magpie girl
Magpie Moments: Winter Solstice
Last week on twitter, Fiona Lynne of Far Far Away asked me how she could celebrate the winter solstice. (I’m happy to help!)
Winter Solstice occurs on December 21st this year in the northern hemisphere. It’s often called “the longest night” because it is the 24hour period with the shortest amount of daylight and the longest amount of darkness. To celebrate solstice means acknowledging darkness is a natural part of life, whilst simultaneously celebrating the return of the light. It’s an excellent post-modern practice as it requires you to hold two ideas — light and dark — in the same generous, open palm.
I’ve lived all of my adult life in climates that really feel the solstice. Seattle, Vancouver, Copenhagen — all of these cities live on the northern edges of our maps, which means our daylight hours are shockingly short this time of year. We can fight that reality and rage against the dark, or we can let our body’s circadian rhythms accept the hibernation-like tendencies of the winter, whilst looking forward to the lengthening light of spring
Here are some simple way to celebrate the winter solstice. Each of them is relatively simple and there is no “rule book,” so even though Solstice is only two days away, you can still craft a celebration to call your own.
Gather. The Winter Solstice traditionally involves gathering the clan. Invite your family or family-of-choice over for a celebration in your home.
Decorate. Pine tress, evergreen branches, and mistletoe are all traditional greens for the Solstice. You can also include winter berries, mosses, mushrooms, or pine cones. Gather some trimmings into a centerpiece or line your mantle with boughs.
Light: In the deep midwinter, we beckon the Light, imploring her return, inviting her home. Fill you home with candles and invoke the light.
Feast: A feast of seasonal foods is an important part of the Solstice celebration. Make a big pot of root-vegetable stew for your guests, or enjoy a cozy, reflective evening alone with a roasted squash and a nice mug of winter ale. A feast doesn’t have to be elaborate to convey gratitude, bounty, and celebration.
Offer Prayers: Prayers and blessing are a common part of the Winter Solstice across cultures. This one is a lovely Norse dinner grace to say over your guests. If you’d like to do a light-ritual, this one is particularly nice, and doesn’t require anything special other than candles.
What about you Magpie? How will you celebrate the Winter Solstice this year? What values are embodied in this seasonal celebration for you and your clan?
Church of Art: Linford and Karin
Hello Everyone. If you all will get settled down in to your pews, we’ll begin our service.
Today’s sermon is brought to you by Linford and Karin of Over the Rhine. May the work of their hands and the meditation of their hearts bring you through the darkest night. Amen? Amen.
Click to play: New Redemption Song from Snow Angels
From Linford’s Thanksgiving letter:
“I took a walk last night after dark beneath the stars and was reminded of what I wrote as a younger man:
And the sky. The sky is an upside down cobalt blue breakfast bowl of stars newly spilled and milky and we feel our eyes sting in the chill air. And we begin walking in the same direction and I realize there are so many things I’d love to tell you because now there is no longer need for words.
The younger version of me: I was often overwhelmed with how to respond to the unwieldy gift of being alive in this beautiful, heartbreaking world. I didn’t know where to begin.
But eventually I came to believe that music was as good a response as I was ever going to come up with. What better way to try to say thank you? Was there ever going to be a more nourishing ritual than gathering a group of people together in a room somewhere where we could make music over the course of an evening and have a conversation of some kind? Lean into the imaginary harness, and bend the world ever so slightly toward the hopefulness we longed for?
I know of no better time of year for music. The dark evenings are growing ever longer. The night air helps us make ghosts with our breath. We’re going to find some warmly lit stages and offer our songs to the close and holy darkness. It’s not the same without you.”
Curated Care: Good Causes
Several things have come across my desk this week that I think are just perfect for curated care. Each one is a brave and creative problem-solving approach. In the spirit of holiday giving at it’s best, I hope you’ll support one these dear-to-my-heart projects today. (Thanks Magpies!)
Graphic Design for GLBTQ Youth: My beloved brutha Shay of Anarchist Reverend helps run a summer camp for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth. (Wow that’s a mouthful!) Camp Osiris provides support and spiritual nurture for young people who are often ostracized and bullied. At Camp Osiris teens and young adults don’t have to wait for it to get better, because they are already in a safe and joyful oasis. Got design skills? Help Camp Osiris create some super hip merch for the campers this summer. Click here to find out more about this design contest. (Contest closes January 30th.)
Support Grandparent’s Rights: This is a complicated story, so I’ll try to sum it up. Kelly Bean is an inspiring light in my life. Without her example and support, I would not be leading a spiritual community outside of the religious institution. When I was floundering in the dark, Kelly’s work showed me there was a way. Kelly, who receives little to no pay for her inspiring work, is now in financial need. The estranged father of her 5 year old grandson is trying to win full custody of Gabe. Gabe is in danger of loosing all contact with Kelly and her husband Ken, who Gabe has lived with his entire life. They are now required to go to court to petition just for simple visiting rights, while Gabe’s father is trying to prevent them from seeing Gabe at all. With grace and dignity, Kelly and Ken have started a Chip-In fund to help with legal costs. If this story resonates with you, please click here to read more about Gabe’s story and chip in.
Have Kids, Will Travel: Finally, my sweet friend Bethany Bassett of Coffee Stained Clarity has an intriguing Kickstarter project up right now, Appertifs and Sippy Cups. Bethany, who has been honing her travel writing skills the past few years, is now ready to write a book full of tips for traveling with young children. An American ex-pat in Italy, Bethany played hostess for me on my solo 40th birthday trip to Rome and Perugia. Her preschool girls completely charmed me, and their tales of travel throughout Europe were downright inspiring. If you are parents (or parents-to-be) and you think you’ll never be able to travel again — be encouraged! Help is on the way. Click here to see the video and make a Kickstarter pledge.
Thanks for supporting the efforts of these beautiful souls!
Much Warmth,
Rachelle
*your magpie girl
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Curated Care (formerly known as Tools of The Trade) features carefully selected courses, books, and other treasure that will feed your beautiful soul. I take pride in only reviewing only trustworthy, totally-worth-it products and services. To see some evergreen products and service providers I enjoy, click here. To read all my review posts, click here. Thanks for being here today Magpie!
Magpie Moments: Why Churches aren’t Relig-ish. (Even the hip ones.)
My beloved colleague Steve Knight recently wrote an intriguing post about whether or not the emerging church was in the process of creating gathering places that would be available to folks who self-identify and “None” – you know, as in “None of the Above” on what-religion-are-you survey. As you know, I am super in love with the Nones, or as I like to call ‘em SBNRs (spiritual but not religious folks.) I love ‘em just as as much as I do the Recovering Evangelicals. Ya’ll are my people. Why? Because I am one.
I’ve been working with SBNR folks for a goodly number of years now, and you know what? I don’t know a one of them who truly feels comfortable in a church. Not an old school ritual-based church. Not a new-fangled pop-music-and-candles church. Lots of people do feel comfy in both of those settings. (Huzzah! More power to you!) And lots of SBNR folks do go to those kind of churches. They just don’t feel especially right-fit behind the double doors. It’s kind of like when you really want sushi, but you are in the middle of a corn field in a landlocked state, so you end up eating chicken-fried steak and eggs. It’s not bad. It fills you up. Other people like it a lot. But it’s not sushi.
If churches are so very interested in making space for the None’s/SBNRs, then why aren’t more of those folks feeling at home there? Because I know a lot of emergent pastors, and I know they are trying to makes space for “the other.” They really really are. So why isn’t it working? I’d like to offer 6 reasons, all of which I’ve observed over several years of working with just such a relig-ish population.
- First Problem, The Other. I know we need language to define things. It’s helps make unwieldy things easier to talk about. But this idea of welcoming in “the outsider” or “the other” is a modernist vocabulary. In the postmodern milieu the idea of the other is fading fast. Eastern philosophy and the concept that we are all part of a universal whole is starting to blur the lines of us and them, of me and you. Churches are still largely functioning in the terms of “us” and “the other.” Churches who are interested in welcoming the Nones need to start getting uber curious about the life of these “other’s.” What do they believe? How do they live? What helps them feel rooted? What causes do they support? (Now switch and have the other person answer the questions!) Finding the common ground and dancing in the overlap needs to become a more central concern than pulling someone across an invisible boundary that doesn’t really exists anyway.
- Conversion. No matter how welcoming a church is, there’s still that underlying vibe of “we want to convert you.” Even if that’s not your gig, newcomer’s are going to feel that way because of how churches have behaved in the past, and how they still behave on the Fox nightly news. No one feels comfortable with that. I mean, who wants to hang out someplace where the whole goal of the gig is to get you to abandon your core beliefs? For churches who have a heavy emphasis on conversion, or who are dedicated to the idea of one undeniable universal Truth, making space for the None’s is going to be a tough call. And that’s okay. Those branches of faith should go ahead and pursue the conversion thing. But if that’s not your main gig, then you need to really work hard on changing your language and your programming to demonstrate that you are interested in learning from newcomers and making space for new ideas and practices.
- Wiggle Room. The theology and doctrine of most churches is not flexible enough for the level of questioning that SBNR/None folks are are engaged in. Churches aren’t set up to be interfaith. And maybe they should not be. Maybe that is the role of another yet-to-be-born kind of relig-ish community. But if a given church wants to make space for the Nones/SBNR they are going to have to kick their beliefs open a lot wider.
- Let’s talk about Sex. Except for of the most liberal of mainline churches, the sexual mores of most churches are too restrictive, and discussions about sex are too narrow. And if you aren’t both open and affirming, well, most of the None’s aren’t going to darken your door.
- Dead White Guys. Religious debate that stems from the teachings of dead white guys is just too big of a concern among most church leaders. And the ratio of theological debate vs. living-out the gospel of love through service/charitable giving is still too heavy on the debate side. The SBNR folks I work with aren’t interested in parsing creeds or analyzing Augustine. They are intelligent and interested in theory as much as the next guy. But the felt need is more about how to live out the Gospel of Love in our current cultural context. To put it in terms that my theologian readers will understand: your concern over orthodoxy is trumping your parishoner’s need for assistance with orthopraxis.
- No Space for Relig-ish Hybrids: Just as emergent pastors are captured by the idea of hybrid denominations, the SBNRs are captured by the idea of hybrid faith. They aren’t asking “Am I cathlobaptist or mennoanglican?” Rather they are self identifying as Christian-Buddhist, or Jesus+Reiki, or as one of my Christian-ish readers once said, “I love Jesus, and I’ve always been a little bit witchy.” In my opinion, hybrid religion is the next evolution of faith in an increasingly global culture.
As a spiritual minister, the question I’m asking myself is: Where will these relig-sih hybrids find a home? What does it mean to create a relig-ish sanctuary? How do we gather the SBNR/None folks who are hungry for a place of spiritual nurture and exploration? How do we accommodate the natural shifts in beliefs throughout the human maturation process? What does it mean to pursue common truths across religious borders?
These are the questions that really light my fire. Creating such a place is my passion. We spiritual misfits, we soulful wanderers, we need a landing place. We need a place to call home.
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What about you Magpie? What is your relig-ish hybrid (if you have one)? And where have you found a place to call home? Still looking? What would you need to feel welcome in a regli-ish nest?
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Magpie Moments is our Monday morning series this Fall, featuring a single shot of soulcare from me, your Magpie Girl. Join us each week and toss back some nurturing goodness. Need a double shot of soulcare? Click here for previous Magpie Moments. Thank you for being here today.
