The Unseen

This morning I've been contemplating the Unseen Among Us. I spent a lot of time with people that live outside, noticing how their life on the margins is often ignored, judged and ultimately not witnessed. I'm discovering that the chronically ill population and the dying are also among those that are often unseen, excluded, judged, and pushed to the margins. This must change.

Becoming Willing

7 sticks with out hitting a vein....I'm finally willing. Time for a port.

And this morning, I heard once again that what I'm going through with IVIG treatment is just as intense is going through chemotherapy, sometimes with even more side effects. Yeah, I suppose that's true.

I tend to make light of the things that I'm going through, as I'm used to doing things on my own.  But I'm increasingly learning that I don't need to do things alone.  Those that view me as a burden can simply take a hike!  That line of thinking is no longer welcome.

I'm very grateful to those of you who have helped to maintain normalcy for my daughter as I've walked this road, and to those who kept me company while I've received these difficult treatments which will continue for the foreseeable future... and to those of you who continue to reach out with loving support and kindness.

I was told by a doctor recently that this might be as good as it gets for me. I'm unwilling to accept that reality, as I continue fighting for healing! But I will say that I feel a depth of gratitude for how good I have felt this last few weeks, and I feel very hopeful for what lies ahead for me in the future!

God Breaks In

From Richard Rohr today....
And I'll add this commentary.....For the longest time I didn't realize that my art was ministry, meditation, contemplation and theooetics! I simply allowed my hands to do what felt right!

Yes...God breaks in and meets us where we are... one of these days soon I will write about how the Holy Spirit  showed me that she can even work through dating apps like Tinder! Now that's badass theology.

God Breaks In
Thursday, May 17, 2018

Today Barbara Holmes continues exploring the contemplative in surprising places:

Contemplation is not confined to designated and institutional sacred spaces. God breaks into nightclubs and Billie Holiday’s sultry torch songs; God tap dances with Bill Robinson and Savion Glover. And when Coltrane blew his horn, the angels paused to consider.

Some sacred spaces bear none of the expected characteristics. The fact that we prefer stained glass windows, pomp and circumstance . . . has nothing to do with the sacred. It may seem as if the mysteries of divine-human reunion erupt in our lives when, in fact, the otherness of spiritual abiding is integral to human interiority. On occasion, we turn our attention to this abiding presence and are startled. But it was always there.

. . . Art can amplify the sacred and challenge the status quo. The arts help us to hear above the cacophony and pause in the midst of our multitasking. The arts engage a sacred frequency that is perforated with pauses. Artists learned . . . that there were things too full for human tongues, too alive for articulation. You can dance and rhyme and sing it, you almost reach it in the high notes, but joy unspeakable is experience and sojourn, it is the ineffable within our reach.

When you least expect it, during the most mundane daily tasks, a shift of focus occurs. This shift bends us toward the universe, a cosmos of soul and spirit, bone and flesh, which constantly reaches toward divinity. Ecclesial organizations want to control access to this milieu but cannot. The only divisions between the sacred and the secular are in the minds of those who believe in and reinforce the split. . . .

You will lose everything - Jeff Foster

You will lose everything - Jeff Foster

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes and no longer turning away.

But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound trivial, obvious, like nothing, but really it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude.

Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.

Christianity BELONGS on the Margins

Oh my...how pretentious we Christians have become...time to remember what Christians are all about....walking with the outcasts and standing with those that are suffering. Instead we look away as a society, candy coat suffering, and blame the marginalized...going so far as to exclude people from the church! I say no.

"Jesus went directly to those who were outcasts. He much preferred to associate with the “sinners” than with those who proudly set themselves apart. Jesus shared the lot of the downtrodden because God himself loves those rejected by society, those the world deems unworthy. God wants to help all people, and raise the dignity they possess to the light."

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
Source: Everyone Belongs to God




Photo by Rex Holbein, Facing Homelessness
Image of me and some fellow humans living outside.

Midwifery and Transformation

I've been called a midwife. I've walked people and businesses through transformation for my entire career. From new entrepreneurial ventures to multi-billion dollar companies; from the homeless to the wealthy; from the suffering to the joyously free.........transformation means wading through the field of chaos to the other side of form and dynamic energy. The fact that I'm going through my own transformative process again and again makes sense....afterall....would you trust someone to walk with you if she's never done it herself?

I am a Blue Phoenix - Paradox. Transformation. Water AND Fire.
The following quote from Kristen Roderick says it beautifully!


"Events like marriage, childbirth, the death of a loved one, a health crisis, or a divorce are clearly transitions that change us. But there are other, less obvious circumstances that create the conditions for a rite of passage to occur, moving us into that cycle of transformation, separating us from what we know or submerging us into a state of enclosure. The creative process is one of these.


After we let go of old identities, but before we emerge as artists, writers, small business owners, or whatever our creative gifts long for us to be, we enter a space of conscious incubation – a protected state where growth and change can be held in a kind of sacred trust within, until we are ready to share it with the world.

Within the dark womb of the creative process, many of us may find ourselves avoiding parties and other social events, staying close to home, and engaging in activities that replenish, rather than consume our energy. Particularly for those of us who are changing careers, becoming writers and artists, finding our voice for the first time, dismantling old identities and trying on new ones – we are creating and birthing ourselves anew, and this is painstaking work. We are in the trenches of our lives, creating the very things that will later help us to fly."

"Mother and Child"
Original art by Heather Thompson, Blue Phoenix Art

Courage this Mother's Day

Today, I finally have the courage to let my hair down again....what a journey of radical self acceptance!

I am finally learning to feel beautiful amidst the strangeness of chronic health issues....loving this unfamiliar body and making it home....Courageously wearing a bathing suit! As I undergo my own transformation, I am teaching my daughter to love her body as it changes and transforms throughout her life (a lesson my mom never taught me). This is among the greatest gifts that I can give to my little girl.


And, the transformation/radical self acceptance includes a willingness to continue walking the healing path. So, I have to spend the next 24 hours without the neuromuscular medicine that gives me strength because I have a badass diagnostic test tomorrow called an EMG. This test will involve both needles and electric shocks for over an hour. They say it's going to be uncomfortable, although I am willing to endure it and frankly I've done it before.

It's the time without the medication, though, that is difficult. My eyes are blurry, I am stumbly, my voice is raspy and the pain is increasing.  Just walking down the hall feels like I am climbing Mount Everest! If only people could understand what it feels like to attempt to move this body.

As the day progresses, I can feel the judgement from other parents as I sit at the pool, being very quiet, in the shade, so that I don't exacerbate my condition. However, I have SO MUCH JOY watching my daughter swim in her glorious mermaid tail, recognizing that I haven't been able to do this for some time. I am in Portland for testing, yet we are treating this like a much needed vacation. Lemons into Lemonade!.

It's Mother's Day, and I am grateful, even with the invisible illness and the limitations that others can't possibly fathom. That's a perspective that has been earned through years of difficulty, AND it's a perspective that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Happy Mother's Day!