void

Living in Limbo

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 7 Comments

I’ve just returned from a very short visit with the Minnesota Lumbys for our annual ThanksChristmas. As an introvert who suffers with a vestibular disorder that is triggered by movement, noise, lights, smells, barometric pressure and more, today is a rest and recovery day. I’m resting at home, in my self-created sanctuary, simply being and reflecting on the state of things.

Things are weird. My whole life I’ve had some sort of sense of purpose.  I had goals, lists of things I wanted to accomplish, studies to complete, grades (or as a grown up – money) to achieve. Now I find myself with none of these. Truth be told, I feel a little lost and at almost sixty, I sometimes wonder if I wasted my whole life by not becoming a high school English teacher – a path I never even considered but would have been really good at.

But alas, God (or whatever you call that) had other plans. Plans that included a lot of stumbling in and out of different careers, finally landing on what felt like my true soul’s calling. I still consider ministry of a certain kind to be my calling. I just never know what form it is going to take.  Certainly not one that bears any resemblance to how we typically think of ministry.

I don’t have a church. I sort of have a community. I don’t preside over liturgy. Over my dead body would I wear a collar or any of the priestly accoutrements. Like Jesus, I wear what regular people wear – in this day and age, usually jeans, a scooped neck top and boots.

Over the years my ministry has taken many forms – all centered around human development and counseling in some way. This continues to be true, but other forms have shown themselves, including serving as office manager (unofficial counselor) for a local ballet studio.

Most often my ministry, has really no form at all. It’s just showing up in a space and being myself.

And yet…..and yet……there continues to be something tickling the edges of my consciousness. Something beckoning. Something whispering. Something that is preparing to come into my life…….but its time is not yet here. And I have NO IDEA what it is.

Isn’t a deeply, long held longing that has not yet been fulfilled? It is more of God’s plan? Is it a yet undiscovered way to serve? Is it a miracle that will swoop in and ease the burden that the post 16 years has been? Will it be something that lightens the load and makes life just a little bit easier? Is it the second coming of Christ (insert hysterical laughter and a gigantic eyeball roll)?

I don’t know what it is and I am certain I am not alone in the deep seated feeling of “something coming but I know not what.” I am willing to bet that every single lightworker, healer, shadow worker, etc. is feeling something similar. For me, there is a distinct feeling of “something is finished” and “something new is soon to come in.” BUT I have NO IDEA what this new might be.

I would find myself impatient and sometimes frustrated in this unknowing, except that the VOID has been my constant companion for the last several years. So I wait. I sit. I do nothing. I accomplish nothing. I listen. I watch. I observe. I cease from interfering. I allow life/humanity to unfold its journey. I’ve stopped trying to convince anyone of anything or from trying to change their mind. I’m just letting things be. And this is difficult for two reasons – 1) I tend to be a person of action and change. 2) Many people around me are anxious about the state of our world and desperately want things to change.

I do too (want things to change), but I’m learned that my interference does nothing but cause distress. So I wait. And I remember that I, Lauri Ann Lumby, am not in charge (as much as I want to be – because darn tootin’ I could do it better). The Universe/God has a plan and there is absolutely nothing I can do until that something falls into my lap.

So in this Limbo time, I’m sitting with my heart and hands open for whatever the Universe has planned for me, knowing that I will say yes to whatever that is once I know what it is. I know better than to try to say “no” to “God.”

PS If I had said no to God about Reiki I’d still be working in the Church for a regular wage, doing what I’m told instead of wandering around on my own hoping and praying for enough clients and students to make my rent. Being obedient to our higher power, I have found, is not a path to riches. (hah!)

Believe in the Darkness

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 1 Comment

Believe in the darkness

and the spaces in between

for these are your teachers –

where you are forced to face your demons

and stare down the face of emptiness.

It is here, in the void, where all wisdom lies.

Where your sharpened edges are made smooth

by sitting with your discomfort

and sense of unease.

As life grows darker you must become small.

Contracting all you are –

your hopes

and dreams

and childhood wishes –

until you disappear into the no-thing,

until you become one with the no-thing.

until you become the no-thing itself.

It is here in the greatest stage of contraction

when all becomes invisible –

indistinguishable from the darkness

and emptiness of the void

where you shall glimpse the infinite potential

that resides at the center of nothing

and feel the rising pressure of a new world waiting to be born.

Believe in the darkness.

copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

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Live Course Starting April 10th

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Surviving the Long Dark Night

LIVE (via ZOOM) online course

Wednesdays 6:30 – 8:30 pm central time

April 10, 17, 24, 2024

Created and facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby

For centuries, wisdom teachers have spoken about the dark night of the soul, a stage of emptiness and sometimes despair in the spiritual journey – a stage that is pronounced and identifiable, but mostly temporary. We may experience several dark nights of the soul, but as described by these teachers, the dark night is always followed by periods of comfort and resolution.  

What these teachers have not spoken of is the reality of a darker night – one that is not simply a stage but appears to be enduring and potentially everlasting. This is not the dark night of clinical depression (though the two can bear similar traits) but is instead –

a sign of having accomplished the spiritual state of embodiment.

Embodiment is that which surpasses ascension and is the culmination of the human spiritual journey. In becoming embodied (anthropos), we have integrated the union experienced at ascension and are now living more and more fully as Love within our human form and experience. In this state, Source is no longer perceived as outside of us. Neither is Source experienced as an ecstatic inner state.

Instead, Source is experienced only as ourselves.

In the long dark night, we

  • experience what appears to be the absence of “God”
  • miss the ecstasy and intimacy that often accompanies our experiences of union with the Divine
  • feel empty, alone, and often afraid.
  • experience a sense of abandonment
  • become acquainted with the Void – the perceived absence of support, guidance, hope, and direction
  • come face to face with Death
  • become terrified by the possibility of there being nothing – both in life and on the other side of life.

The long dark night can be terrifying as it encompasses in its embrace, the opportunity to heal and transform the final vestiges of our ego attachments, false perceptions, and non-loving conditioning.  

The long dark night supports us in:

  • knowing our own voice as the voice of God
  • understanding our own needs as the needs of Source
  • becoming empowered to trust ourselves as our own Source of guidance and support
  • knowing we are the Love we seek, and living as the embodiment of that Love
  • accepting our own sovereign nature as wonderfully and gloriously made
  • finding peace in the perceived solitude of union/autonomy

In this live, online course, you will:

  • Learn to identify the signs of the long dark night
  • Come to understand the purpose of the long dark night
  • Discover that you are not alone in this mysterious state of becoming
  • Experience resources and tools for navigating the long dark night
  • Be supported in surviving the confusion and desolation that often accompanies the long dark night
Learn more and enroll here.

Surviving the Long Dark Night

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Surviving the Long Dark Night

LIVE (via ZOOM) online course

Wednesdays 6:30 – 8:30 pm central time

April 10, 17, 24, 2024

Created and facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby

For centuries, wisdom teachers have spoken about the dark night of the soul, a stage of emptiness and sometimes despair in the spiritual journey – a stage that is pronounced and identifiable, but mostly temporary. We may experience several dark nights of the soul, but as described by these teachers, the dark night is always followed by periods of comfort and resolution.  

What these teachers have not spoken of is the reality of a darker night – one that is not simply a stage but appears to be enduring and potentially everlasting. This is not the dark night of clinical depression (though the two can bear similar traits) but is instead –

a sign of having accomplished the spiritual state of embodiment.

Embodiment is that which surpasses ascension and is the culmination of the human spiritual journey. In becoming embodied (anthropos), we have integrated the union experienced at ascension and are now living more and more fully as Love within our human form and experience. In this state, Source is no longer perceived as outside of us. Neither is Source experienced as an ecstatic inner state.

Instead, Source is experienced only as ourselves.

In the long dark night, we

  • experience what appears to be the absence of “God”
  • miss the ecstasy and intimacy that often accompanies our experiences of union with the Divine
  • feel empty, alone, and often afraid.
  • experience a sense of abandonment
  • become acquainted with the Void – the perceived absence of support, guidance, hope, and direction
  • come face to face with Death
  • become terrified by the possibility of there being nothing – both in life and on the other side of life.

The long dark night can be terrifying as it encompasses in its embrace, the opportunity to heal and transform the final vestiges of our ego attachments, false perceptions, and non-loving conditioning.  

The long dark night supports us in:

  • knowing our own voice as the voice of God
  • understanding our own needs as the needs of Source
  • becoming empowered to trust ourselves as our own Source of guidance and support
  • knowing we are the Love we seek, and living as the embodiment of that Love
  • accepting our own sovereign nature as wonderfully and gloriously made
  • finding peace in the perceived solitude of union/autonomy

In this live, online course, you will:

  • Learn to identify the signs of the long dark night
  • Come to understand the purpose of the long dark night
  • Discover that you are not alone in this mysterious state of becoming
  • Experience resources and tools for navigating the long dark night
  • Be supported in surviving the confusion and desolation that often accompanies the long dark night
Learn more and enroll here.

What Comes After “The End?”

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

In this week’s gathering of the Magdalene Membership community, we explored the question, “What is on the other side of the end?”  Taking inspiration from Isaiah 64, we dove deep into our own experiences of endings and what came after? Or rather, how did we survive them?

Isaiah 64, penned not by the prophet Isaiah himself, but by a disciple of his teachings, identified by scholars as “Third Isaiah,” unveils the confusion, heartache, and sense of hopelessness and lack of direction experienced by the Hebrews as they were released from their exile in Babylon and were returning to Israel.  The home they had once known had been destroyed. The temple had been torn down, obliterating all they thought they had known of their “God” and their relationship to “Him.” The beliefs and practices that had been the center of their existence were no longer.  The slate they were left with was blank and they were forced to be present to unknowing, unbelieving and the feeling of having no guidance to draw from.

Third Isaiah gives expression to all the many layers of bewilderment and in doing so, affirms and validates the experience of the Hebrews while attempting to give them hope in the possibility of something not yet known.

In short, Third Isaiah reminds the Hebrews that in the no-thing (Ain-Sof)

is limitless potential.

When the end has come and we are left with nothing, we can be certain that there will be something on the other side of the end. Getting to that other side, however, is everything but easy! In order to get to the other side of the end, we first have to be willing to let go.  Not just “let IT go,” we have to LET IT ALL GO.  We have to let go of our attachment to everything we thought we knew, thought we believed, and hoped for of our life before the end. We have to let go so much that there is literally nothing left – including (especially) our need to control.

As we are letting go, we have to grieve. We must grieve every loss, every old belief, every past relationship, every goal and every hope. In the grieving, we are supporting ourselves in healing from the loss and inner sense of betrayal that happens as we approach the end. Further, grief allows us to continue our emptying.

We must be fully empty, and fully immersed in the VOID before we can begin to receive anything new. In order to be immersed in the VOID, however, we first have to move through the sheer terror that comes with the VOID – and this is no easy feat! 

As it turns out, our greatest fear is not of death,

but of the possibility that after life there is NOTHING.

This is the fear we encounter as we approach the void.  When we allow ourselves to be fully present to that terror, we find comfort in the state of nothingness. It only in finding this comfort that we can begin to be open to something new.

This is what the Hebrews experienced in their return from exile. In being present with the no-thing, they began to be open to the Mystery revealing itself and to simply being present with what is in this moment. This is where we too are invited when facing the many endings of our lives – learning to be present to what is and simply being present to the mystery of life. This alone, we eventually discover, is really all there is, and it is enough.

Staring into the Face of the Unknown

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Good Lord this has been a year!  For those with whom I am in close contact, including myself, 2021 has been the year of letting go, letting go, and then letting go some more.  I can’t speak for others, but at this point, I’m not sure there’s anything left for me to let go.

Photo by Filipe Delgado on Pexels.com

Let me confirm that letting go does NOT bring on a sensation of peace. Instead, we are left with a great sense of unease. As we stare into what has become an empty vessel, we are struck with three things:

  1. Grief over what has passed away.
  2. An anxious desire to fill in those empty spaces.
  3. Sheer terror over the possibility that the emptiness might be the end of all things (or in my case that everything I have done has been for naught and that I will have to go out and find a “real job.” UGH!).

To grieve is appropriate.  As we gaze over what has passed out of our lives and what we have intentionally released, sorrow will come. As will every other face of grief.  Bargaining most of all as we reach for those things we’ve released, hoping to find security in returning them to the now empty vessel.  What we have let go of, however, cannot return.  Instead, we are invited to be present to the sorrow, secure in the hope that something new will come to take its place.

Anxiety is also appropriate. What was known provided a sense of security and surety in our lives.  If nothing else, it provided the illusion of security simply because it was known. As we release what is no longer life-giving, or it is torn from our clutching fingers, our first instinct is to call it back. When it cannot be called back, our second instinct is to find something to replace it – even if that something is of our own contriving and may have nothing to do with our highest good.  We just want to fill the empty space. The answer to this anxiety is simple:  DON’T DO IT!  Instead, become comfortable with the anxiety.  UGH!

Emptiness is a kind of death. What we have known has come to an end and the new has not yet come into form. Despite our attempts at seeking out or even forcing the new, the new will only arrive in the hands of Divine Timing. Terror comes when we are faced with this level of unknown.  With this there is literally nothing we can do but stare into the face of the unknown and FEEL its terror. 

This is where we find ourselves at the end of 2021 – staring in terror into the face of the unknown. It’s ok to feel anxiety and fear. Allowing ourselves to be with this terror is good medicine. The more we allow ourselves to be with the terror of the unknown and sit in its company, the more we discover there’s really nothing to fear. The purpose of terror is to remind us of the illusion of control – likely the final thing we cling to. When we let go of our need to control and the illusion that we ever had any in the first place, then, only then, will we find peace.

Lauri Ann Lumby is currently scheduling mentoring sessions starting the second week of January. Email lauri@lauriannlumby.com to schedule your session today.

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