love

She Abides

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Several years ago, my youngest sister gifted me with a large wall-handing made of weathered wood and carved with a feather and the word abide. I had a sense of what abide meant, but I wanted to be sure, so I looked up the meaning. Merriam-Webster provided me with several options:

a: to bear patiently : tolerate

b: to endure without yielding : withstand

c: to wait for : await

Today, I find myself again reflecting on the word abide and it perfectly describes where I find myself at this stage of my personal journey, especially in relationship to the outside world.

Today, I abide. I sit in quiet observation of the unfolding of humanity’s journey – knowing there is nothing I can do to change that which I find intolerable – things like hatred, division, and all the various isms. I endure the horrors I watch unfolding while refusing to yield my inner peace to things outside of my control and turning to my inner practice when the violence and hatred becomes too much for my sensitive nature.  I wait in hope that this time, humanity will get it right, while knowing they may not, and preparing myself for the worst.

Being able to abide requires a certain measure of inner strength and wisdom. Wisdom wrought through years of seeking and failing to facilitate change in the tide of humanity’s fate. Strength gained through the multitude of rejections I have faced along the way. Humanity doesn’t care much for change-makers. The institutions who benefit from the status quo, welcome change-makers even less.

Abiding doesn’t mean I’m giving up my visionary gifts or the impulse to support the healing and transformation of humanity. Abiding simply recognizes that now may not be the time.

So, I wait. I wait and watch. I hold on to hope without clinging to expectations. I have stepped aside, providing space in which humanity can walk its journey without interference or distractions. I abide in the contentment and peace I have so diligently cultivated awaiting the moment my gifts might be welcome, knowing they may never be. I abide in the reminder that the only one I can save is myself while providing an example that others may one day choose for themselves – and that the choice is up to them.

Going to Ground

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Monday morning, I posted my ballot for the United States’ 2024 presidential election. As I handed my ballot to the postal worker, I heard, as a distinct command:

“Your work is done here.”

Indeed. It feels as such. I have spent the past almost sixty years sowing seeds of love, speaking truth to power, and shining a light on all that is not of love in our world. Whether I wanted to or not, I have been a beacon of light – revealing truth and unveiling falsehood. Whether by my words, my actions, or simply my presence, I have been like an acupuncture needle, inserting love so that what is not of love might be released from our world. My presence has been welcome by many and a bane to some – especially to those who are either living a lie, or who benefit from a system rooted in fear, power, and control.

I say none of this from a place of vanity or pride. Being love in a world that wants to hate is a thankless and difficult job. Rejection comes aplenty and in a capitalistic world – certain financial struggle. When part of your mission (I didn’t ask for this!) is to be a catalyst for the collapse of systems sustained by greed, hatred, division, power, etc., you are woefully unable to live in or by the rule of said-systems. The vehicles of deception and manipulation through which wealth is amassed are not available to me – I couldn’t deceive or manipulate if I tried – and I wouldn’t want to.

But here I’ve been dutifully showing up day after day after day for ALL OF IT – casting seeds of love – all while watching humanity not learn a single thing. If anything, the divide has become greater and the violence, greed, and hatred more acute. Humanity has lost its compassion (if it ever had any).  Rather, those lacking in compassion have grown louder and more apparent while those of us who have been trying to sow compassion have grown weary.

We’ve done all we can. Now, humanity has to decide – will it choose compassion and love or will it continue to choose division and fear?

As of today, humanity has not made its choice. But I have. I choose love and will continue to choose love. I’ve done all I can to plant those seeds and to be a presence through which love is made real in our world. Especially as it relates to the current decisions upon which rests humanity’s fate – I’ve done all I can do.

I have no more words to offer that might encourage one to make the choice for love instead of fear. As such, I’m going to ground. As the world works out its fate, I will be safely tucked away in a sanctuary of my own making. One of three-foot thick earthen walls invisible and impenetrable to those who have not been invited. To those who have, the coffee is always on, I have snuggle blankets aplenty, and a comfortable place for you to rest your weary soul. Perhaps after humanity has decided its fate, the world will welcome our presence and yearn to hear our wisdom and we will rise again like the seventeen-year cicada ready to share our songs of love with the world. In the meantime, we tuck ourselves safely away as we wait and watch.

This is Our Fate

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

For the past five days I have been trying to put into words the collective horror over last Thursday’s presidential debate. First, I had to be present to my body as it processed the empathic reaction to collective trauma – manifesting in my body as vertigo, headaches, and deep profound fatigue. Panic also paid me a visit. Then I had to navigate the tangled forest of illusions and projections, pulling back from my own temptation to point fingers, name-call, and cast blame. Finally, I had to pull away the veil of distractions that wanted to draw me into political analysis. Only after all of this was I able to arrive at what is truly happening at the root of the hatred, chaos, and separation we are witnessing from outside ourselves so that my words might help support us with a way forward, and if not a way forward – at least a way through.

To put it simply, the presidential debate and our reactions to it have nothing to do with Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or the future of our nation. Instead, the debate and the presidential election is simply a reflection of America’s fate and by association, the fate of all of humanity. In other words, in perfect clarity, the debate showed us that unless we, as a collective, make some clear and drastic changes, we are wholly and completely f*cked!

We are f*cked, not because of who might be president, but because of all the fear, separation, selfishness, greed, bigotry, and hatred that has brought us to this place – all of which is self-created. We have done this to ourselves. Out of our own unacknowledged fears and unhealed trauma, we have created separation where separation need not exist. We have privileged ourselves over others. We have taken more than we needed while depriving others of the very things they need to survive. We have cast dispersions on our fellow-humans simply because we perceive them to be different. We have created hatred of others based on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, religion, body shape and size, and every other way we have chosen to discriminate against others. We have destroyed our environment for the sake of greed. We judge others for their education or lack thereof. We despise others simply out of jealousy. We want what we don’t have and despise what we do. We take from others. We kill to get what we want. We wage war on other nations, or even within our own nation, simply because we want what we perceive others to have. We destroy entire races of people simply because we can.

Humanity has done a really shitty job of being human. Now, it seems, we’re getting what we deserve. Everything we despise in “the other” is a reflection of what is unhealed within ourselves and the Universe will continue to bring this hatred and separation before us until we figure our shit out. At one time it was hatred toward the Jews. Then it was hatred toward Muslims. Then it was hatred of Arabs. Then it was hatred of blacks. Then it was hatred of Mexicans. Then it was hatred toward the poor. Then it was hatred toward women. Then it was hatred toward homosexuals. Then it was hatred toward transgendered humans. Then it was hatred toward Republicans. Then it was hatred toward Democrats. Then it was hatred toward conservatives. Then it was hatred toward liberals.

“Fear. Separation. Hate.  Fear. Separation. Hate.”  This is the mantra humanity seems to live by. Until we heal this fear and its resulting separation, we will never truly be free, and we will never know the peace and safety we all desperately long for. To heal this fear, separation, and hatred, we have to turn our gaze inward and away from all the projected blame outside of us. We have to stop blaming and fearing others and look deeply at ourselves. We have to learn to sit with our fears and be present to our discomfort. We have to be courageously honest with ourselves – our own hatreds – and examine their cause. In what ways have we suffered disappointment and pain? How have we been the recipient of another’s unhealed wounds? In what ways have we forgotten that we are Love? Then we have to get really intimate with these wounds (seeking help and support where needed) within ourselves and in doing so, allowing them to find healing. Only in doing the deep work of healing ourselves and encouraging and supporting others in doing the same can we ever hope to experience peace in our world. Until that time, we will continue to suffer the consequences of our own unhealed wounds.

This is our fate. We have done this to ourselves. Collectively we have the power to undo it, but we may be running out of time. As such it is urgent that we stop projecting blame outward and start taking a look at ourselves. This alone is where our power resides – not in any of the distractions outside of us which are simply reminders of the inner work we still have left to do. Yes, we have the power to change our world, but first it starts with ourselves.

The Journey of Healing Ourselves

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Returning to Mundane

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…..there was an author who dared to suggest that at the end of our spiritual journey, is a return to the mundane. This author is Richard Bach and the books is Illusions – the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. In this story, Donald, a messiah, quits his messiah business and becomes a pilot. He then travels the wilds, giving people rides in his three-passenger plane. As the story demonstrates, being a messiah is a tricky, stressful business that has even been shown to get people killed. This, among other reasons, is why Donald quits his spiritual business and returns to the everyday, mundane world.

I first read this book in my twenties, and several times more in my thirties (it’s a short book and can be read in a day). I got the moral of the story then, but as I’m approaching sixty, I relate to this story even more. Not because I consider myself a messiah (one sometimes suffering with a messiah complex maybe), but because I now understand that after we have completed our spiritual journey (it’s never really complete – but we do eventually arrive at a place of “enough”), life takes on a whole different feeling and flavor.

In technical terms, the spiritual journey, as it has been articulated by the ancient mystics, is comprised of four stages – spirit entering form, awakening and ascension, the great descent, and then ending in spirit leaving form and returning to source – Death. Each tradition gives these stages their own names, but the general descriptions are much the same.

Western pop-culture spirituality gives a lot of attention to the awakening/ascension stage of the journey, so with this you may be familiar. The great descent, however, is most often ignored as it is rife with challenge, struggle, ego-death, and suffering. It is the stage of the journey where after finding union with Source/God, we are plunged into the depths of our own inner hell – made up of our unhealed wounds, past traumas, spiritual fears, cultural conditioning, ego-attachments and more.  This is a hell made up of all those things within us that have forgotten our original nature as Love resulting in non-loving beliefs or behaviors about ourselves or others. It is here where we must come face to face (for example) with all our desires to be famous, rich, powerful, desirable, admired, respected, special, and needed rear their ugly face. This is also where we must confront every single lie we’ve been told and illusion we’ve created about life needing to have meaning and purpose in a way that is tangible, visible, and seen. Finally, during this descent, every illusion and need for control will be pried from the grip of our cold, dead, fingers.

There’s a reason few speak of this stage of our spiritual journey. Having been thrown into this stage somewhere around the year 2000, I know it well and can say not one single person chooses descent to make up nearly thirty years of their life!  I am also here to attest that the descent does eventually come to an end of sorts. Perhaps there are still ego attachments to confront, and pain still to be endured, but with these we have become familiar and accustomed and now we have tools for moving through these subtle layers of deepening in the important journey of ego-death.

The great descent frees us from all which imprisons us in insecurity, fear, ego-attachment, etc. While being freed, our truest nature of Love in Union with Source is increasingly liberated. Each moment we give to this transformation, we come to more and more fully live as Love, embracing all we are as Love (including our humanness) while finding the simple joy of being in the human experience. Here we are no longer bothered by life’s pursuit of meaning or purpose. Neither are we plagued by our imperfections. We are now able to return to the innocence we knew as children when we could simply enjoy the wonder of discovery, curiosity, and unbothered play. (YES, I know not every child’s childhood was great, but there was an innocence there among the pain.)

It is at this stage of our spiritual journey where many-a-messiah leave behind their work of saving the world and get on with simply living, which for those like the character in Illusions means returning to the mundane.

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Easter Means Nothing if We Don’t Know Love.

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

I’ve always struggled with the idea

that Jesus’ death and resurrection

opened the gates of heaven.

If we believe in the unconditionally loving God

about whom we were taught,

then to whom would those gates be closed?

As we sing our Alleluias

while closing our hearts to those

we don’t understand

or who believe differently,

then what good are our songs?

What are we celebrating

when we turn away from the poor,

reject the refugee,

and refuse care to those in need?

The purpose of the resurrection

is not so that “believers” might receive

their “get out of jail” card

while the rest suffer an eternity in hell.

Jesus’ rising simply proves that

Love is stronger than death.

The death that is made up of:

Prejudice and hatred.

Ignorance and greed.

Lust for power and pride.

And all the evils in between.

Love conquers it all.

But if we don’t know Love,

then Easter means nothing at all.

Copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

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Tested in Fire: New LIVE Course

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Live online course with Lauri Ann Lumby

Six sessions

Wednesdays 6:30 – 8:30 pm central time

May 8 – June 12, 2024

Live via ZOOM*

After we have tasted the unifying experience of Union with God/Source/Love that we experience at ascension (enlightenment, bliss, etc.) we are cast out of that bliss into a process in which we are “tested like gold that is tested in fire.” The ancients have called this the journey of descent.  Here we come face to face with all the aspects of ourselves that are not wholly rooted in love: our unhealed fears, past traumas, societal conditioning, and ego attachments. In this we are invited to confront our own inner “demons” and transform them into vehicles of Love so that we might fulfill the purpose of the human spiritual journey – the embodiment of Love/God.

In this six-week course, you will:

  • Explore the psychology of the journey of descent as it relates to human development.
  • Acknowledge and confront the challenges inherent in the journey of descent.
  • Learn the language and stages of descent through the Tree of Life as articulated in ancient pre-Christian mystical traditions.
  • Come to understand the Tree of Death as a vehicle of liberation from egoic attachments.
  • Find support in identifying that which limits your ability to know and be Love.
  • Provided with tools for transforming the “demons” experienced in the journey of descent into vehicles of Love.
  • Grow in becoming the embodiment of Love.

This course is:

  • Inspired by scholarship
  • Anchored in original source material
  • Grounded in sound mindfulness and creativity practices
  • Incorporating tried and tested methods for transformation
  • Rooted in the psychology of human development

** For those who have already taken the Beyond Ascension course, Tested in Fire stands on its own while going into much greater depth than was able to be covered in the Beyond Ascension class.  

Learn more and enroll HERE

How Love Calls Us

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

This morning I received an email from a dear friend. In her email she shared a news video of the October 30th “Not in Our Name” protest at Grand Central Station in New York City calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Palestine. Most of those attending were Jewish Americans speaking out against the war, asking for an immediate ceasefire and demanding freedom for Palestine. As American citizens, they condemned the use of US tax dollars in support of the war and implored the US government to stop its complicit participation in the ongoing oppression of Palestine, including the murder of thousands of innocent people. (Watch video HERE).

This is how Love calls us!

  • Love calls us to look beyond human made dividers such as religion, race, nationality, gender, orientation, and belief to seek out the path of compassion, peace, and justice.
  • Love calls us to bear witness to genocide, hatred, and injustice, and to speak on Love’s behalf.
  • Love calls us to listen deeply to the voices of the oppressed and to be their voice in the places where they are unable.
  • Love calls us to see beyond the pride of nationalism so that we might work together for the cause of peace and justice that seeks to support the dignity of all.
  • Love calls us to risk ridicule and condemnation from those who want us to remain silent.
  • Love calls us to see and point out the evils before us and to hold the purveyors of evil accountable – even (especially) when the purveyors are our own elected officials.
  • Love calls us to move beyond any conditioning that may have attempted to cast “the other” in the role of “enemy,” and to seek instead, the Love that dwells within all.

The protest at New York’s Grand Central Station is the perfect example of how Love speaks and the power of Love speaking. Jewish Americans speaking out against the oppression of Palestine and the violence being inflicted upon the innocent at the hands of the Israeli government. Jewish Americans speaking out against the US’s complicit participation in the oppression and genocide of Palestinians. Jewish American taking a stand for Love and calling for the freedom of those that another wants them to call enemy. Jewish Americans saying, “NOT IN OUR NAME.” Jewish Americans acknowledging that being pro-Palestine does not make one anti-Semitic.

This is what Love does.

This is how Love calls us.

How is Love calling you?

Can We Love Humanity Enough?

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

The most radical form of love is knowing when to let go. This is the way that we are loved by our creator. Love made us. Then Love let us go so that we could live our own life, pursue our own dreams, make our own mistakes, distance ourselves from Love, only to hopefully and eventually find our way back. But indeed, out of love, our Creator let us go. Not intruding. Not interfering. Not interjecting its own intention or desire for our lives. Instead, our Creator just is. Present. Watching. Listening. Holding us in Love. All while letting us live our lives in our own way.  

Love means letting go.

This is the meaning of the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32). The wise father, knowing his son, let him go. The father left his son to his own devices, knowing that his son’s wanderlust would not be quenched by forcing him to stay at home. He let him go to discover the world, apart from the love and protection of his father, where he could learn, and grow, have adventures, and make mistakes. It was through the father’s love that he let his son go. The father did not intrude. He didn’t go out and try to save his son or attempt to protect him from himself. Instead, the father let him be. In letting him be, the father never stopped loving his son. He never stopped waiting, watching, allowing, and hoping the best for his son. But he did let him go. And when the son returned, the father didn’t punish or shame him or taunt him for his mistakes. Instead, the father welcomed his son home with open arms and celebrated his return.

This is the radical kind of love that we are invited to embrace. Indeed, it may be in living this kind of radical love that we can finally be free from all the ways we wish, hope, dream, that humanity will one day work itself out, get its shit together, and learn to live as love. We cannot change those who don’t want to change, and we cannot heal those who don’t want to be healed. All we can do is be present.  Wait. Watch. Listen. And Allow. Humanity is working out its own salvation, in its own way, in its own time. And it is none of our business, except to be the Love that we are and welcome humanity home to that Love when they too are ready to embrace it.

Jesus Never Promised Utopia

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Jesus NEVER spoke about or promised utopia.  He never said that heaven would be brought to earth.  He never promised the golden age in which there would be peace on earth and that humans would live in peace.  In fact, he said quite the opposite, “there will always be poor among you,” “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”  Not once did he bother himself with the politics of humanity.  He never challenged or even mentioned the Roman rulers of the culture in which he lived.  And if he did bother himself with religion, it was to remind the religious leaders of the love that was at the core of their beliefs.  No, Jesus did not promise peace on earth and good will toward men and he did not work to make the world anew.  Instead, he made one promise, and one promise only:

The kingdom of God is within you.

THIS was the good news that Jesus preached – that the kingdom of God – the experience of peace, love, joy, harmony and contentment is right here, right now, when we take the time to go within and remember.  Jesus then demonstrated how remembering this truth of our original nature, brings forth all kinds of miracles in our lives.  In and through this connection, we come to know ourselves, we come to know our unique giftedness and we come to understand and then become empowered in how we are called to use these gifts for the sake of our own fulfillment and in service to others.

As Jesus taught his disciples, achieving this peace is an inside job and has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on in the outside world.  Nothing.  As Jesus himself demonstrated, we can be experiencing the most unspeakable form of torture (death on a cross) and still find this peace. 

Jesus taught his disciples how to remember the kingdom of God that was already there within them.  The word Jesus used to remind them of how to access this peace has been translated repent.  In the original Greek, however, this word has nothing to do with sin or punishment.  Metanoia (repent), means turning again and again and again and again to the place within where we know love, peace and joy, that which some might call God.  Period.  It is as simple as that. 

When the world out there disturbs us and causes us to fear, turn within.  When we are distracted by the events of the world that speak of violent, hatred, suffering, war, turn within.  When someone betrays us or breaks our heart, turn within.  When we experience loss, disappointment, condemnation, ridicule, turn within.  HERE is where utopia lies – not in some time or place light years away, not in some perfect alignment of the stars or when we finally think the right thoughts.  Heaven on earth is right here in the core of who we are when we take Jesus’ advice and remember. 

Living by Magic

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

My primary influences as a child were Samantha Stevens and Morticia Addams. To my young girl self, they provided a reflection of my truest nature. I saw in them the power of independence and inner authority along with the magic that I knew was in me, despite what the world would say otherwise.
I’ve always known I was magic and that like Samantha, I had the power to bring forth what I needed seemingly by magic. It is only cultural conditioning that has caused me to doubt my magic, or to act in ways compliant with the rules of a world separated from its truest nature.


We are all magic. Magic is a function of our true nature. We are magic because our true nature is Divine. We are the living, breathing, physical manifestations of Source – that which some call God. It is only in our conditioned state of separation that we would believe otherwise.


I’m here to prove this conditioning wrong.


Magic is another word for Love. Divine Love. The Love that is the Source of all. The Love that is the intelligent force of the universe bringing forth infinite expressions of that Love. The Love that lives, and dwells within us and seeks to be known by us and lived in the world through us. The purpose of the human experience is to remember that Love and to experience the inherent magic that comes forth from us when we are aligned with Love.


The even greater truth is that Magic comes forth from us even when we are not aligned with Love. Love operates on a dimension beyond division. As such, even our fears, doubts, unhealed wounds, and past traumas cannot infringe on that which is intended by Love for our life’s unfolding. We are Love experiencing Love’s Self in the world through the unique expression of Love that we are. The greater Love has a vision, a knowledge, a plan as to how this unique expression of self shall be in the world. As such, everything that occurs in our lives is a function and plan of that Love. It is only our conditioned separation that causes us to see it elsewise.


When we are aligned with this Love we are able to see how everything is a part of Love’s unfolding through us.

It is here that we can be witness to Magic. Witnessing our lives through the lens of Magic helps us to see how every disappointment, challenge, loss, heartbreak, betrayal has served a higher purpose. We can see how the suffering in our lives has created opportunities to gather strength and to gain acceptance of our humanness. Suffering also provides us with important lessons in humility and helps us to grow in empathy and compassion for the suffering of others. Viewing our life through the lens of Magic also helps us to see the miracle and wonder in those gifts that seem to come out of thin air. Synchronistic meetings and encounters. Doorways that open to new experiences for learning and growth. Work and creative opportunities that land in our laps. When the right teacher arrives at exactly the right time. When our whole life turns on a dime because of a single conversation, engagement, or introduction. When our poverty suddenly turns to abundance and when our suffering instantaneously turns to joy.


Magic is the true nature of the Universe and I’m grateful for Samantha Stevens and Morticia Addams for showing me that magic and for other teachers who have collectively shown me the way to living by that magic.


“Amen, amen, I say to you,
the one who believes as I do
will also do the works that I do,
and indeed will do even greater ones than these.”
-Jesus