Meditation

Being Gentle with Ourselves

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 1 Comment

It is near impossible to ignore the death throes of the dying empire. We are bombarded with the symptoms every day – often every minute of every day. It is constant and relentless.

What we may forget to heed, however, is the credit we are due for enduring the constant assault on our being – our bodies, minds, and spirits are all suffering from the assault of a world gone mad. Admittedly, “enduring” might be overreach when on most days simply surviving feels like an enormous effort. The fact that you’re reading this, however, tells me that at the very least, you are surviving. Perhaps just by the skin of your teeth – but you’re still here.  That’s the point.

The dying world is not meant to destroy us (though there will be those destroyed by the collapse). It will test and challenge us. In direct opposition to our conditioning, the purpose of the test is not so that we might exert our strength or bolster our will. Instead, the invitation in the face of the dying system is to learn how to be soft. Instead of toughening us, the empire’s collapse is meant to make us more gentle. Gentle with ourselves – and others.

Learning to be gentle starts with ourselves. It begins with a thorough examination of our conditioning and all the ways we were ridiculed, condemned, criticized or rejected for being sensitive, kind, quiet, compassionate, caring, sharing, and gentle. The examination continues by exploring how our conditioning told us how we should be instead: strong, brave, courageous, competitive, tough, bullet-proof, etc. In the world that is dying, we have not been rewarded for being gentle – only for being tough. The new world that we are moving into will reward us for being gentle.

Choosing that new world starts today. Give yourself credit for the suffering you have endured in your life thus far. Acknowledge the losses, betrayals, deceptions, and heartbreaks you have suffered. If you have suffered trauma, offer yourself grace when your past traumas are triggered. Give yourself permission to do nothing, to wallow, to “rot” (as Gen Z’s say). If your panic or fear are triggered and your brain goes numb, allow yourself to check out. Be quiet. Be still.  BE NON-Productive (our value is NOT determined by our productivity – as much as we’ve been told otherwise)!  Defy the capitalistic, patriarchal expectations around striving after achievement, seeking to be known or seen. Popularity does not determine our value!  When you’re feeling sad – be sad. Weep, cry, wail, flail. Do whatever you need to do to be present with your feelings and then take a rest. Nap. Sleep. Read. Listen to music. Take a day or three to do absolutely nothing. Hide under the covers. Retreat into your cave. Walk slowly and gently. Be conscious of your breathing and slow it down. Close your eyes and just listen to the quiet of the universe. Meditate. Pray. Be simple with your meals. No one expects you to be Martha Stewart. Say no to invitations. Don’t buy into the shoulds of holidays. Skip the decorations and the pressure.

And more than any of this – be gentle with yourself. Cease from judging your feelings and just accept them as they are. Don’t condemn yourself for your sensitivity – celebrate it. Hold yourself in gently fierce loving care when you feel like you are falling apart. Be compassionate with yourself when you break down or shut down or dissociate. Don’t measure your day by how you are feeling. If it takes you 3 days or a week to get through a trigger response, then that’s exactly what you needed. Celebrate your willingness to give yourself exactly what you need.

Journeying through the collapse of an empire is an experience like no other. As it’s been several hundred years since the most recent collapse of western civilization, we’re entitled to feel burdened and overwhelmed. We also know from the past that it is not the loud or the brave who survived, but those who knew how to move quietly, slowly, even invisibly, and who more than anything, knew how to be loving toward themselves, gentle and caring toward others. Let this be our invitation as we navigate the death throes – that our gentleness be our salvation.

Everything is a Practice

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Finding our way along the journey of self-actualization and personal mastery, we eventually come to the realization that everything is a practice. Whereas the early stages of our journey may have put us on the path to setting time aside each day for a dedicated mindfulness, contemplation, or meditation practice, we soon come to find out that our dedicated practice begins to spill out into the everyday experiences of our lives. Soon, everything becomes grist for the mill as we work to heal all within us that separates us from our original nature as love, while continuing to love the pieces that are not yet healed.

For me, this “everything practice” showed up in one extremely subtle and another powerfully obvious way.

I’ll begin with the extremely subtle:  I’ve been noticing in my daily practice an almost undetectable sorrow. It showed itself as a sorrow I could not initially name, but felt very deep and infinitely small. When I reached toward this sorrow, I perceived it as a tiny dot, no bigger than the end of a pencil. As it my practice, I’ve spent this week “working” on that dot of sorrow. Going toward it (instead of away). Pointing to it and “sending” healing. Holding the sorrow and asking what it had to say to me or teach me. The goal of this practice is to simply show up to that sorrow. In my experience, the fruits of this kind of practice eventually lead to healing and release, or alternatively, the revelation of something hiding behind the sorrow that seeks to be known. I’m still working on this piece, but I have gotten a glimpse of the original wound of separation that is just beyond this sorrow. That glimpse nearly gave me a panic attack, but I know that the only way to continue healing that wound is to stay with it.

The powerfully obvious way that everything presented itself as practice arose in a fit of rage. Without boring you with the gory details, suffice it to say that the rage was in the form of ranting resentment over a need for which I had requested support. The support was denied. To be honest, as I write this, I’m still pissed. First – because I rarely ask for help. Second because I should have known better.

What I do know, however, is that beyond the ranting and raving (which are appropriate inner responses to our needs not being met) is an old wound showing itself for another layer of healing – the wound of unmet needs. This is a pretty universal wound in that most people can share stories, experiences, conditioning, etc. in which their needs have gone unmet, or been flat-out rejected. Every time we have the courage to ask for help, and it is denied, a part of us feels like it has died. Heap up a lifetime of rejected and unmet needs, and the wound becomes a gaping hole. For myself personally, this is a wound I’ve given much time and attention to in the form of transformational practices. And, just like most everyone else, it’s a wound that still needs love. First, we have to work on healing the wound of rejection. Next, we tackle the wound of unmet needs. Finally, we do the work of meeting our own needs while setting appropriate boundaries around those who, due due to their own unhealed wounds (likely), are unable to be a reciprocal source of support for others.

From the very subtle to the greatest of charged emotions, everything is our self asking to be seen, known, and loved. This love, ultimately, is what our practice is all about.

Letters from Hell #2 – Rest

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

This morning, my thoughts have turned to rest. Specifically, rest, that it seems I am needing a great deal more of. I never needed rest before – or at least I acted like I didn’t need it. I would work from before dawn to after dusk Monday through Sunday. Weekends were taken up with chores – cooking, cleaning, yardwork, being a mom, etc. etc. etc. There was no time for rest – rather, I rarely took the time.

But now, as we’ve been living in hell, it seems like all I want to do is rest.

I can’t help it. I’m tired. Damn tired.

Living in hell is exhausting. Between “hearing (and feeling) the cries of the world,” the increasing division and violence, and the constant bombardment of traumatic events and chaotic actions, I have very little left to give – to anything – other than survival.

It’s no wonder when the weekend comes all I really feel like doing is sitting at home, reading, napping, and watching TV. I have zero bandwidth (or money) for much else. I don’t want to go anywhere or be by anyone. And please don’t ask me to go somewhere where there will be crowds. I get enough of the energy of people during the week, and I really cannot tolerate any more.

I suspect I’m not alone in this – at least among those who are paying attention. As a healer and an empath, I feel it all  – every person’s emotions, feelings, anxieties, frustration, anger, and fear. I can’t help it. My body is like some kind of processor for all the darkness that is erupting in our world. It comes into me and moves through me. It seems I have no choice in the matter. It’s part of what I’m here to do and be. And trust me, it is not out of pride that I share this – because I would not wish this “job” on anyone.

With no choice in the matter, I do what I must to survive: 

First, my home is my sanctuary. I have created it into a place of refuge and safety. It is my hermitage, my monastery, my cloister. With three-foot-thick concrete walls, it is a fortress in which I feel safe. I am here mostly alone or in the company of loved ones or special clients. To the world, my home is invisible. To be found, you must have been given an invitation.

Second, when I’m not at the job that provides the income I need for basic survival, I’m at home. Except for visits to the yoga studio, running basic errands, visiting my favorite coffee shop, I’m home. At home, I am deeply immersed in my practice – meditation, prayer, reflecting, writing, reading, and praying some more. Increasingly, in prayer is how I spend my time. I need it. The world needs it.

Third, I’ve learned to embrace rest. When I’m tired, I nap. When it’s not a “work day,” I rest. In this also, I find I no longer have a choice. I need it after all the energy it takes to live in this hellscape, to be forced to be out in the world, and to be one of the many witnessing and supporting humanity as it decides its own fate – an eternity in hell, the end of the human race, or if they will finally agree to embrace the opportunity they’ve always been given – which is to be Love.

Rising Above the Chaos

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

As the world as we know it continues in its collapse, there are bound to be times of unbridled chaos:

  • Chaos created by those who stand to lose power.
  • Chaos manifesting as distractions, impulsive actions, and irrational and rash decisions.
  • Chaos instigated as an attempt to control a narrative.
  • Chaos created in the hopes of causing confusion.
  • Chaos as the reaction to above-mentioned chaos by those unable or unwilling to acknowledge their own anxiety and sense of unease in the face of said-chaos.
  • Chaos in the irrational anger, frustration, and impatience that arises in the face of unacknowledged and unmanaged fear.

Human-created chaos and human-reactions to chaos, most simply, are symptoms of the death throes of a world imploding. When the life we have known approaches its end, humans’ initial tendency is to cling to what has been, and that clinging most often manifests in rash attempts to manipulate and control their own dying.

Death, however, cannot be controlled. When a way of being has lived out its usefulness, it comes to a natural end. Nothing can stop it. Neither should one try.

In the face of a dying, however, humans are rarely rational. This is especially true in those who do not know how to acknowledge or manage the natural fears that arise in the face of endings. This unacknowledged and unmanaged anxiety comes out sideways in angry, rash, impulsive, and often irrational actions. These actions can be enormously obvious such as deploying military troops “to help eliminate crime” in areas where crime has already been effectively managed, or as subtle as rudeness or road rage.

No one is immune to the natural fear of endings. We have two choices in the face of these fears: allowing the collective chaos to sweep us away in a storm of our own anxiety and worry, thereby triggering our own responses to fear; or acknowledging the anxiety that we are feeling and employing the tools and resources we have for mitigating and managing fear.

Tools for managing the fears we naturally experience in the face of a dying world (as we know it) include: medication, meditation, movement, music, mindfulness and mindful actions and activities. Mindful activities can include anything from cooking to gardening, hiking, exercise, making love, and more. Really, anything that allows us to rise above, or move beneath the chaos of a world in its death throes works. It doesn’t matter what form our practice takes. What matters is it allows us to be present with our anxiety and move through it so we are no longer a prisoner of our own anxiety, or vulnerable to the fear-driven actions of others; but instead, we are peaceful, content, and safe as the world around us goes up in flames.

How are you rising above or moving below the chaos to find your own place of comfort and safety?

Be Still

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know I.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Psalm 46:10

During times of great upheaval, chaos, and turmoil, the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and the world is to be still. Being still draws us inward toward our original nature which is peace. In stillness we are able to locate the deep well of contentment that is present within us always – when we remember to take the time to return there. Returning there is the remedy to the anxiety, fear, and hyper-fixation that is triggered when everything around us feels to be outside of our control. In that deep well of inner peace, we find comfort, inspiration, guidance, and even a sense of safety when everything around us seems to be on the verge of collapse.

Collapsing it is. Collapsing is what it needs to do. We cannot prevent the collapse, nor should we try.

Instead, we are invited to be. To be witness. To wait and watch. To observe where and how we are being triggered by the collapse, and care for ourselves by turning within.

It is in being still that we shall be unharmed. Stillness provides us with safety and protection. Simply being allows us to find center while everything around us is turning to shit.

Eventually, the collapse will come to its natural end. What will remain will be those who were able to be still. Those who knew how to simply be will be the ones gathering the seeds left behind by the winnowing and who will know how to plant them so that a new world might begin.

If you want to be part of the new world that is coming into being:

Be still.

For over 25 years, Lauri Ann Lumby, MA, has provided one-on-one support for those seeking peace and/or direction in their lives. As a trained spiritual director with a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology, Lauri has the perfect education, background, and experience to support you in hearing your own truth, healing past wounds, overcoming trauma, and finding the tools to help you move through the inner obstacles that might be keeping you from the inner contentment you most desire.

Learn more here.

It’s All About Power

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

how we cultivate it, protect it, with whom and under what circumstances we share it

It is not a coincidence that the recent surgery I had (and from which I am still recovering) was to repair a separation of the muscles in the center of my abdomen in the area of the solar plexus and to secure that (likely genetic) weakness. Throughout my life, I have tended to be a leaky person – giving my energy and power away (governed by the solar plexus chakra) to those who don’t deserve it and allowing my energy and power to be stolen from me by ill-intended beings.

In a culture that trains us to be co-dependent, a leaky solar plexus isn’t unusual. We are conditioned to be caretakers of everyone else’s needs but our own, while also being taught it is our responsibility to make the world a better place to live by conquering evil and birthing “love and light.” Whereas I do not argue the love part, what I’ve learned is that conquering evil is less about what we do “out there” and more about what we do within.

Those who operated in our world from a place of evil, gluttony, lust, wrath, envy, greed, sloth, and pride are doing so from a place of great emptiness. Due to their brokenness, they have no power of their own. As a result, they seek to get that power from others. Think of sexual predators, abusers, manipulators, and deceivers. They all do what they do so as to steal energy and power away from the (perhaps) less broken, but decidedly vulnerable.

Let’s use the “Big Beautiful Bill” as an example. Only powerless, hateful humans would come up with a plan to deprive the most vulnerable among us of the programs that provide for their most basic needs. I had a moment of fear and allowed myself a couple days to grieve after the tentative passing of the bill. Myself, my son, my father, and other people I dearly love, stand to lose access to life-saving care should the bill be implemented as planned.

This brings me back to power. It was appropriate for me to allow a day to grieve and process, but with this, and other situations I find myself facing in this moment, I also have a choice. Will I allow my own energy and power to be drawn from me by ill-intended beings? Am I willing to give my energy to worry, fear, anger, hatred, and rage (which is exactly what the ill-intended want), or do I call my energy back to myself and anchor it deep within my own being where it belongs?

The easy answer is the latter. Accomplishing this task, however, is easier said than done. It takes years, and sometimes a lifetime, to realize that we have been giving our energy away or that it is being stolen from us. Some never learn this. I’m grateful that sometime in the last 20ish years, I came to understand the energy draining behavior with which I had become familiar. Today, I’m still working on NOT giving my energy away and keeping it to myself. It is a daily, if not a moment by moment practice.

Our energy and power was never meant for anyone but ourselves. It is ours. It is what fuels our gifts and draws those in need of our gifts toward us. Unfortunately, it also draws to us those who want our energy for their own with no intention of acknowledging or applying the gifts we so freely share. Our power serves as a magnet, drawing toward us those of like mind, our “tribe,” along with those who would use our gifts for their own ill-intended benefit. I think of it this way, fully-in-power humans draw other fully-in-power humans along with those who are lacking in true power and think they can get some by spending time with us. The mythological name for the latter of these two is succubi. You know of whom I speak – those who are draining just to be around and those who enthusiastically claim to respect and honor your gifts and drink deeply of the well you provide, but who actually learn nothing for lack of application. Equally guilty are those who say they value your gifts but do nothing to engage, utilize, or share them.

Every time we give our energy to these kinds of people, we are depriving ourselves of our own power and diminishing that which we may be called to share with those who would actually benefit. You will know this experience by how you feel exhausted, frustrated, impatient, and even angry over how you’ve given your energy away or how it’s been stolen from you.

The key, is to STOP. Stop giving away your gifts, your energy, your time, your power, to those undeserving. The politicians and constituents who supported the “Big Beautiful Bill” are not deserving of your energy or power. Engaging in worry and fear, anger and hatred, the desire to do battle, serves no one except those who want you to feel afraid. Instead of giving into the temptation of allowing your energy and power to be drained away, CALL IT BACK. When you find yourself worried, impatient, afraid, angry, STOP and call that energy back. Draw it deep into yourself and hold it there.  Allow the magic of your power to gather, grow, strengthen, and become anchored in who you are as a person of Love. SIT in that Love and allow it to radiate from within you.  Sitting in the center of your own power deprives life-force vampires from taking your energy and triggering your fears. Keeping your energy to yourself prevents succubi and other ill-intended beings from their source of nourishment. Don’t let them have it -your power or your energy. Keep it to yourself. This is how we drain the swamp – not by giving into their ministrations, chaos, and bullying tactics, but by calling our energy back to ourselves and keeping it there. When we stop giving them our power, they have nothing left to live from. Then, they will either get help for their brokenness, or die from lack of nourishment.

When we stop giving our energy away, we and our solar plexus energy center will find itself healthy and wholly intact – as it was always meant to be.

PS  Thank you to Dr. Lee Stratton and his team at Aurora Hospital for your expert care and support.

In my online course, Into the Wilderness with Authentic Freedom, we do a deep dive into the chakra system – how each chakra corresponds to our physical, mental, emotional, and especially spiritual bodies. In this course, you learn how to identify the fears that are triggering energy leaks (for example) and other non-life-giving symptoms and how to heal and transform those fears so that you might return to your most authentic self.

Learn more HERE

Ground Your Light Video-cast

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

A huge thank you to Lauren Kimberly Moore who invited me to participate in her “Ground Your Light” video-cast. Please enjoy this heart-felt conversation!

Learn about Lauren and her work with Sacred Living Arts:

Learn more HERE

Lauren Kimberly Moore is a Certified Spiritual Director having trained through the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute (2018-2020). Her training groomed her to be a supportive, loving and non-judgmental companion along the spiritual path for those who seek deeper meaning, purpose and understanding in life. Spiritual direction is a non-directive contemplative practice that carries one into present, intimate and holy spaces. Lauren’s aim in this work is to be a compassionate listener and to help support the creation of sacred moments in daily life.

In her deepest inner being, Lauren’s work is a ministry. She has had a lifelong calling and practice to help illuminate the Soul. Lauren feels strongly that we are here to walk alongside one another, to witness each others healing and authentic truth. As an initiated Magdalene Rose priestess, Lauren walks women through ceremonial and transformational experiences to reclaim the sacred feminine within. From this feminine energy of opening, receiving and remembrance, we return to our whole self embodying divine power, love and wisdom.

Lauren is a Registered Yoga Teacher with over 500 hours of training through Alignment Yoga (2015/2017), Holy Yoga (2017) and the Vivekananda Kendra Yoga Research Institute (2001).  Along with teaching yoga, Lauren has been facilitating mindfulness meditation courses, retreats and workshops since 2014. She enjoys using her collective skills to compassionately support the well-being of others. Lauren teaches privately, to small groups and continues to work within various school districts supporting mindfulness practices for both students and staff alike. 

Lauren is also a Wisconsin Licensed Massage Therapist (432-146). She graduated in 1996 from The Humanities for Allied Health in Pinellas Park, Florida. Specific to bodywork, she has trained in the modalities of Therapeutic Massage, Swedish Massage, Neurovascular Therapy, Thai-Veda massage, Reflexology, Reiki, and Raindrop Therapy.

Lauri Ann Lumby

Has over twenty-five years of experience as an educator, facilitator, spiritual counselor and soul-guide. She has supported hundreds through her one-on-one guidance, books, workshops, retreats, online classes and community.

Lauri is an author and a poet and has published eleven books including Authentic Freedom – Claiming a Life of Contentment and Joy, and her popular novel Song of the Beloved, the Gospel According to Mary Magdalene.

Lauri earned her master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia/ITP University, is a trained Spiritual Director in the Ignatian tradition and has certificates in Adult Education and Psycho-Spiritual Development. Lauri is a Reiki Master Practitioner in both the Usui and Karuna traditions and is an ordained interfaith minister. 

The Crystalline Palace – a meditation

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Since the first of the year, I have been “given” (as answers while in meditation to my own distress) specific practices that have proved to be helpful in:

  • Keeping me grounded and at peace.
  • Able to navigate the torrential onslaught of the dying world.
  • Sane and feeling safe.
  • Allowing me to continue to be a source of support for others.

As I have mastered these practices within myself, I feel compelled to make them available here for those who may find them equally helpful. Some of these practices have been “emergency aid” (something to use when feeling in crisis).  Others have proved to be a source of deepening into ourselves while anchoring the new world that is coming into being. What I am sharing with you today is for the latter.

I’m calling this meditation: The Green Crystalline Palace.  It is a continuation and deepening of the process that began with the jar of containment, become the fortress, and most recently anchoring the new earth. As crystals are a substance of nature that grows from a molecule-size seed into formations that can become feet and stories high, it seems appropriate that the green tourmaline crystal within the stone fortress would eventually come to encompass and enfold the entire fortress we originally imagined. This, in fact, is the meditation.

You are invited to return to the image of the fortress with the single green tourmaline crystal pillar planted in its center. Holding that image in your mind, imagine the green tourmaline crystal reaching deeper and deeper into the earth creating roots of crystal that are moving beneath the soil and coming up to the original stone walls of your fortress.  Then imagine these roots reaching upward through the stone walls. As the crystalline roots are moving up through the stones, imagine the stones themselves slowly changing from grey stone to vibrant green tourmaline crystals. Imagine this process unfolding to the point where the entire fortress has become a many-spired green tourmaline crystal palace. Watch the green crystals as they continue to grow, creating a protected, while brilliantly beautiful space around you, knowing that as you are surrounded by the crystal, your heart is being healed, peace is returning to your soul, and you are being cleared of any final attachments to the dying world so that you may step forward out of that world into the new world that is seeking to be born. Know also that as you allow the formation of the crystalline palace, your place in the new world is being anchored while facilitating the growth of that world in which you are choosing to live.

Return to this meditation again and again as you find yourself drawn in by the anxiety of the dying world and remember: we have the power to choose which world we are living in:  the world that is swiftly dying, or the one of our choosing that if we so choose is made up of compassion, love, peace, collaboration, and harmony. I’m choosing the latter.

Anchoring Your Own New Earth

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.”

Isaiah 65: 17

There can be no doubt, a new world is coming into being. We may hope, and wish, and dream, that the new world is the material world in which we are living – that human beings will finally get their shit straight, coming together and bringing forth a new age of peace, love, and harmony. I’m not, however, laying any bets on this one. I’m still hoping, but I’ve also come to understand that the “new earth” that has been prophesied may have much less to do with what is outside of us, and everything to do with what is within. Over the former we have no control, but we do have the power to choose the world we know and live from within ourselves.

Isaiah’s prophecy was made close to three-thousand years ago! The author of the Book of Revelations borrowed these words to reiterate the same. Not much about humanity or the way humans live their lives has changed in all these many years, and I haven’t yet seen Christ descend from the heavens on a cloud to usher in the new age (for the record, I don’t believe the “second coming of Christ” has anything to do with men descending on clouds). Instead, both Isaiah’s words and the words of the Revelator may more appropriately be interpreted as relating to our own inner personal journeys. (See my Victory of the Holy Bride – the Book of Revelation class for more on this.)

The inner journey and cultivating an inner world of peace, contentment, compassion, and joy, has been the focus of my personal journey for the past thirty years. This work is anchored in my daily spiritual practice which has ultimately become an all-day, everyday practice. Life itself has become my practice.  As this practice has grown and deepened, additional tools have been added to help me further anchor my own new world. These are the tools I share with those who are open and willing to learn. For none of these tools can I take credit as I either learned them somewhere else (Ignatian Exercises, Tonglen, Ho’oponopono for example), or they were “given” to me while in meditation by a Source deep within (what some might perceive as outside) myself.

This Sunday, I was given a new tool to add to my arsenal of spiritual resources. While deep in meditation, I saw a large piece of green tourmaline being placed in my hand. I was told to use this stone to help anchor my new world.

In crystal lore, green tourmaline:

provides one with a heightened sense of awareness and is here to help you grow into an image of your higher self. Its vibrations push one’s mind to follow their heart and desires. One’s focus becomes laser sharp and actively pushes you to move towards the direction you need to go in. There may be many distractions in your life each day, but Green Tourmaline will provide you with the tunnel vision needed to continue pushing forward. (www.thecrystalcouncil.com)

Green tourmaline is closely connected with the heart chakra and is both a cleansing and an activating stone – helping us to release anything that blocks our ability to know and live as love. Equally, it opens the channels to knowing and being love. I can think of no better stone for helping us anchor our own new world.

Because I’m a rock collector, I was first tempted to go out and find myself a green tourmaline specimen. When my search because daunting, I was reminded, I don’t need the physical stone to activate its intention. So instead of laying down cold hard cash on a new stone to add to my collection, I simply sat in meditation with the stone. As I did, so, an even deeper meditation presented itself. While meditating on the stone, I saw myself within the courtyard of the spiritual fortress that recently presented itself (see more about that here) and in the center of that courtyard was an enormous pillar of green tourmaline that reached from deep into the earth into to beyond the walls of the stone fortress. This image became my meditation and what I share with you today.

Go back to the inner fortress you constructed and imagine, in the center courtyard of your fortress, a giant pillar made of green tourmaline rising from deep within the earth into the heavens. Allow this image to be the focus of your meditation. Imagine the fortress as your place of safety, protection, and groundedness, and the tourmaline as activating your own new earth – the one that right now is taking root within your being. Allow this image to be the touchstone that you can return to again and again and again as you find yourself anxious, afraid, distracted, restless, angry, impatient, and frustrated as the material world around us struggles through its death throes. While that world is busy with its dying, you can be about the business of creating your own new world.

And who knows, maybe if enough of us find this world of Love within ourselves, the world outside of us may in fact begin to change.

Living Against the Grain

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

Monastic Living in the Modern World is ultimately about living against the grain. In every way, shape, and form, choosing to live monastically requires us to step away, disconnect, and decondition ourselves from all that society has set out as its values and goals.

Living monastically has nothing to do with capitalistic definitions of success including the search for fame, wealth, and power. Living monastically is not about driving, striving, or achieving. Monastic living is not about working hard, and it has nothing to do with society’s constant pressure to do. Living monastically is not about being seen, heard, or known. Choosing to live monastically is not the path if we wish to be considered valuable or appreciated by those outside of us.

By society’s standards, choosing to live monastically is a thankless choice, but for those called to this way of life, it is our soul that gives us thanks.

The monastic calling is one that honors a certain type of soul with a unique kind of temperament. Those called to this way of life often have a deep connection with Mystery – otherwise known as: God/Transcendence/Spirit/Presence/The Source of All that Is. They are often people of learning – driven to explore the knowledge of others so as to find their own truth. Those called to a monastic kind of life are sometimes extroverts but are more likely to be inclined toward introversion. They are deep thinkers and even deeper feelers. They are often creatives with a penchant toward self-expression through writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, etc. They see wonder in all things, especially nature and art. They may be single or coupled while treasuring their solitude. They seek after quiet and long to move gently upon this human plane. They thrive equally in the company of beauty and simplicity.

Ultimately, those called to live monastically seek to live simply in a world that on most days looks absolutely mad.

There is a reason why those called to monastic living have historically separated themselves from society. Whether a hermit in the desert, a witch in the woods, or a nun in a monastery, monastics have never fit in with the status quo. They have never fit in with the surrounding or presiding culture. They have always been called to live their lives against the grain. Moreover, their sensitive nature made it near impossible for them to live among the chaos of the everyday world. As such, they sought or created their abodes elsewhere. Even if the monastery was in the midst of a bustling city, their homes were sequestered with ample time and space for prayer, quietude, silence, and a gentle way of living. Unless cloistered, direct service to others arose out of the service they were doing first to “God,” and secondly to themselves.

In our modern and increasingly pluralistic world where many monastics are no longer called to live out their calling within the confines of a religious institution, the expression of that calling requires ingenuity. How do we carve out a place for our calling in a world that expects us to be everything but what our soul wants? The answer is both simple and complicated. We first have to acknowledge the calling. Then, we must free ourselves from every single shred of societal, cultural, and familial conditioning that would hinder us from living out that calling. We have to learn to say yes to our soul’s longings and NO to what culture expects of us – including our culture’s expectations around work and provision. Yes, we still have to “chop wood and carry water,” but maybe a 40-hour, 9-5 work week doesn’t work for us. Perhaps we don’t have to make a six-figure salary. Maybe we can find creative ways to provide for ourselves while creating ample space in which our soul might thrive. Who knows, we just might find peace living below the mean. Finally, we have to exorcise ourselves from our attachment to other people’s approval and get comfortable with the questioning looks, raised eyebrows, and blank stares from those who just cannot comprehend our decision to live against the grain. Believe me, your soul will thank you!