A Warrior Spirit

To openly deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. Jack Kornfield

Mothers are natural warriors, because we are naturally centered in our hearts. We would do anything to keep our children safe. We are fierce in their defense and in our love for them. To become spiritual warriors, we need only use that same fierceness toward our own inner journey.

We must look upon our own spiritual quest with the same deep love and caring as we do our offspring. We must know that at every moment we have the ability to pierce through the veils of ignorance and attachment to the reality of the spirit, of truth and awareness.

When I was a child I wanted to cross the Red Sea with Moses, listen to the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus, see him divide the loaves and fishes and turn water into wine. I wanted to be there in the presence of a living saint. I wanted to see God. I still do! I was in my mid-20's when I met my first living saint. I went to see Muktananda in Oakland, CA. I looked into his eyes and I could see that HE could SEE, that he was real - a part of this world and a part of another world that I could not see. I wanted to be like him.

Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Macrina Wiederkehr

I am almost 60 years old now, a crone, and I am just now beginning to understand about holiness and its connection to the ordinary. Every body of water is the Red Sea, every dinner a miracle of loaves and fishes, every ordinary moment is infused with the extraordinary if we can but see it. I don't need to be with Moses. I AM Moses right now, right here.

Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky. Chippewa saying

Lord, save me from my own self-pity. Make me a warrior of the heart.

Time to go walk on water.... :)