This past Sunday was the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels or Michaelmas (Michael’s Mass). In some countries in the northern hemisphere, it’s a Christian version of celebrating the equinox. For Lutherans, it’s one of the only feasts to commemorate supernatural forces in the world. It was a strange movement coming from evangelical worlds that took supernatural entities literally…
The autumnal equinox has wheeled around once again. Every year I am reminded how this season has become my favourite season. Historically lacking the consumerist trappings of Christmas or Easter, it has been free to explode a worthy celebration on the world without forcing it into a plastic mould. Without knocking the lovers of pumpkin spice lattes, I can’t help…
The Celts believed there was another dividing line that all people could straddle, if only they stretched themselves out a bit. And that’s the divide between the world and the otherworld. -Steve Rabery, In The House of Memory I was lying in a tiny berth in a cabin supposedly made for three grown people, but really could hardly accommodate one.…
In the Northern Hemisphere, February 01 is Imbolc or the Feast of St.Brigid/Brigid’s Day. Imbolc, in the Celtic calendar, marks the beginning of spring (which, I understand, is a little bit laughable coming from a Canadian currently sitting in the midst of the polar vortex). The day rests halfway between the autumnal and spring equinoxes, just as the summer festival…
Hey friends, You may have noticed some changes happening on Reluctant Mysticism. Check out the new theme and the new pages! Thanks to your support, I’m pursuing ways to help make this writing/blogging passion more a part of my career life. I’ll keep blogging about engaging our spirituality and faith practices after difficult times, while hopefully offering more…
A GHEALACH UR [54] An ainm Spiorad Naomh nan gras An ainm Athar na Cathrach aigh, An ainm Iosa thug dhinn am bas, O! an ainm na Tri tha d’ ar dion’s gach cas, Ma’s math a fhuair thu sinn an nochd, Seachd fearr gum fag thu sinn gun lochd, A Ghealach gheal nan trath, A Ghealach gheal nan…
“If we remember that the German word for holy (selig) is the root of our word silly, we may be forced to make some pertinent connections.” — Mary Rose O’Reilly, Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice It’s been a long, cold winter. I smile behind my wool scarf as I crunch over the snow and on down the road. It’s…
All begins in darkness. In silence. In cold. In the beginning, there was light eventually but the Spirit hovered over the waters in darkness. While the chaos waters — tehom — raged about Her, I somehow enter the scene with the raging on mute. There’s silence. And it always feels cold. Creation feels cold to me. Light has not come…
You separated the chaos waters in the beginning. Tehom. You separated but did did not destroy. Why? If chaos was before the beginning, and chaos was what kept the beginning from sparking, why did you not simply evaporate chaos? Why was it only separated from us and not obliterated? I wonder. I tread these overgrown paths of the old ways…
My dear Cubbie, Dodger, & Rex, On a late spring day like today you have probably imagined a thousand new wonders already (before breakfast even), invented new trampoline moves, created many-a-raucous noise, and designed more intricate Star Wars origami. It’s not a day for sitting too still for too long. There are worlds to explore and lives to experience. “Let…
