practicing pilgrimage at home and abroad
Pronounced “hoo-gah” (its adjective is even better: hyggeligt, pronounced “hoo-gah-lee”), hygge can translate to “cozy,” and who doesn’t love that? It especially is attractive in the cold winter months. Multiple books have come out on the subject just this year, and even the New York Times has caught on to the trend.
It’s also well-known that it’s been a rough and divisive election season—not just between candidates, but amongst family and friends as well—and many are left feeling they have difficult decisions to make when Election Day rolls around. In this season of chaos and uncertainty, spiritual practices can offer much-needed clarity of the mind and nourishment of the soul as we seek to stay present to our everyday lives. And while they might seem unrelated, when it comes to Election Day, I think they can offer some guidance as well.
So often Lent is associated with death and with fasting, but that’s not the whole story. It’s about the stripping of the false self in order to call forth the true self—the imago dei. It’s about surrendering the things that don’t give life in order to allow the things that do to flourish. It’s about clearing away the brush of winter and making space in our lives so we can tend to the new growth that comes with spring.
Lent is about omission and waiting, yes, but it’s also about taking action—about drawing close to God so that we may be refined, refreshed, and made new, just as Jesus was in the desert.
What will I be doing this Lent?
I’ll be giving up my typical morning reading during the season of Lent to make space for reading Scripture again. I’ve been taking a break for a while and am curious eager to revisit the stories of Jesus with fresh eyes as I learn from his life what it truly means to strip off the false self and allow the true self to bloom. Because of its ties to Celtic spirituality, I’ve chosen the gospel of John, and I’ll be practicing lectio divina with each passage in hopes of gleaning Sacred wisdom both old and new.
Interested in joining me? I’ve created a free guide to help make this practice your own during the season of Lent (PDF). Click the image below to download the guide and feel free to pass it on!
In this season of Lent, how will you usher in a springtime of the soul by setting aside the things that inhibit growth and making space for the budding of Sacred blooms?
To be honest, before then I feel like I had rarely heard (and even more rarely used) the term. But now, with some guidance from the work of Campbell (among others) and a little Jungian insight, archetypes fascinate me. I love anything that can give me more insight into my True Self (which is a token desire of my key archetype—more on that below), and so when I stumbled across the book, Archetypes: Who Are You?, by spiritual teacher Caroline Myss, I immediately put it on hold at the library. I picked it up just as I was finishing Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark, and its ideas have captivated me since.
“The idea of the archetype originated with the great philosopher Plato and is at the core of the influential Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s analysis of human behavior,” it says on archetypes.com, the site that accompanies the book. “Simply put, an archetype is a pattern of behaviors that, once discovered, helps you better understand yourself and others. Archetypes are the blueprints of your soul.”
While I’m enjoying the book, I’m even gleaning more from the site that goes along with it. At archetypes.com, you can even take a free quiz to discover your top three archetypes. I took the quiz recently and received these results (which couldn’t be closer to the truth):
Once you take the quiz, you can further explore your archetypes, discovering the family within your archetype, your archetype’s shadow sides, and even find tips for everyday life with your archetype in mind. You can also meet people with similar archetypes who are also seeking to know more of themselves since its a social network of sorts. I haven’t used that part of it yet, but I have a feeling that if I did, it would leave me feeling a whole lot better than many late nights on Facebook.
One thing is certain: I’m pretty hooked!
So, who are you? Take the archetypes quiz at archeytpes.com and then come back and share your results in the comments!
morning glow through the stained glass on the front door
These are the Core Desired Feelings that emerged when I revisited The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte in April. (Read my Core Desired Feelings from my first time working through the book here.) When I named these desires as my season of asking “What’s growing?” came to an end, they seemed so accurate and filled me with hope of the new season to come.
front of the house
And yet, with house-hunting and many ten-hour work days these past few months, they became the furthest things from my mind. In stolen moments where I paused to breathe, I often wondered, “What ever happened to ease?” But before I had the chance to clear a path to pursue it, life’s tornado would come by, sweeping me up again into it’s ever-twisting funnel.
living room, with stained glass and leaded windows on each end
Last week, though, after signing the final papers for our house, saying good-bye to The Seattle School staff as I left my role as Content Curator, and packing up 25 boxes of books, I decided to take a final pause in our tiny garden—one of my favorite places over the past six months—and intentionally revisit these Core Desired Feelings in this season of change.
Are they being met? I wondered. Am I choosing to seek them? Where am I making choices against them?
the dining room, with a view of the kitchen in the back and a curious puppy getting acquainted with his new home
Right now I am indeed at a threshold. It would be easy to miss it, though, if I instead focused solely on my growing list of to-dos, which is an ever-present temptation (along with its neighboring itch, figuring things out). What surprised me, then, despite my continual distractedness, is that as I brought these Core Desired Feelings out of the vault in which they had been kept these past many months, I realized that things have been falling into place without any conscious action on my part.
first downstairs bedroom
I stand at this threshold—between working part-time at The Seattle School and returning full-time to A Sacred Journey; between nine years of seemingly nomadic living and my very first house of my own; between what has been and what will be for my family, my vocation, and my life—and as I take the time to sit back and truly see, I’m surprised and humbled to find all of these Core Desired Feelings already being met.
second downstairs bedroom
As this roller coaster of a summer began to slow down and I revisited these Core Desired feelings, I at first felt guilt that I’d missed four good months of pursuing these feelings. But then I began to wonder—if prayer is truly communion with God and the sharing of your delights, doubts, and desires with the Divine, then perhaps these Core Desired Feelings emerged four months ago as a prayer of the soul, released into the heavens and captured by the One who sows life. Perhaps God has been tending to these desires all along, even without my constant vigilance. (Imagine that!)
first floor bathroom and second floor bathroom
Or, perhaps the realization that these Core Desired Feelings are being met is simply a shift in perception, brought to the surface in the slow, silent moments when I finally choose to pause. Could the two be so different? After all, A Course in Miracles (popularized by Marianne Williamson, among others) defines a miracle as a shift in perception, and finding these Core Desired Feelings met without much effort on my part undoubtedly seems like the work of the Divine.
second floor master suite (formerly an the attic)
Whatever it is, I’m starting to take notice, and I think that’s the part of the equation I’ve been missing all along. There’s so much value in setting intentions and choosing to make changes when circumstances are getting in the way of your True Self, but it can also leave a future-tripper like me always striving for what’s next and never sinking into what is.
the backyard
As I cross this threshold, I want to practice awareness and continue to set intentions and make changes as I pursue my Core Desired Feelings, but I also want to add a new practice into the mix so I’m not missing the work of the Sacred Guide as I’m caught up in my own master plan. I want to name the things that bring me life, count my blessings, and recognize the areas in which my desires are already being met—resting in abundance, being valued, feeling settled and energized, experiencing ease. Because if their source is Sacred, I’ll find them there, waiting—every last one.
When have you been surprised to find your desires met without your effort? When have you found prayers answered that you didn’t even know you had? Leave your response to the question or the post in the comments.
PS: Discover your Core Desired Feelings with The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte.
PPS: I’ll be engaging in the Sacred practice of nesting over the next few weeks, and I’ll be sure to share with you pictures of the finished product when I’m done, as well as tips to make nesting a Sacred practice for yourself, too.