Welcome to my blog!


I completely abandoned it a year or so ago but I'm back, now, still trying to discern a call to ministry (?) and figure out how to weave the various strands of my spiritual interests together with what seems to be an insistent call I haven't yet answered.

How it will all look, I have no idea!

So these posts will be for me until I can figure out exactly what I will offer to others.

You're still welcome to join me for tea & contemplation. :)

Meditation Video

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Wednesday Wisdom: A Message for Healers

Intuitive Reading:

You have enormous potential within you to create exactly the life you want, the life that is waiting for you. And you are called to work within yourself to change whatever needs changing and heal whatever needs healing so that you can manifest your greatest good.

Your greatest source of power is your ability to change yourself on the inside, to change your thoughts and beliefs, to change the energy or consciousness you inhabit.

There is a two-year period at work in your life. You may be at the beginning of it or you may be nearing the end. But this period is a process of transformation. Expect change to occur.

Are you resisting change when you shouldn't?

Mourn what is past and then, let it go, creating space and a heart open wide for the new that will come!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Strawberry Lemonade Happiness



I decided to move out of my comfy chamomile rut and begin to experiment with other teas. And I want to combine tea with meditation. I'm reading a great book about it called Tea Here Now: Relax and Rejuvenate with a Tea Lifestyle - Rituals, Remedies, and Meditations.

So I am going to start having afternoon tea every day that I am able to create space for it. I used to do it when my son was younger, and he and I both loved it! He would wake up from his nap and I would make tea for both of us.

Well, today, I decided to try Teavana's Strawberry Lemonade tea and I am loving it! I wish I had made a whole pot.

Within a few sips, it was making me happy, which prompted me to think about how there could be happiness in little moments like this one. Sipping my tea, watching the breeze gently ruffle the trees outside my window, enjoying the warm, bright afternoon sun... life is good!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Call of a Mourning Dove...

Yesterday, I heard the lonely call of a mourning dove. I was standing on my balcony at the time, luxuriating in the warm breezes that were drifting across my skin and the gentle swaying of the trees. I heard it again this morning as I was beginning my day.

In animal medicine, the mourning dove is a reminder to let go of what is past and look forward to new things to come. No matter how bad things were, new life, new birth, is possible. Good can come and will come.

"Mourn what has passed, but awaken to the promise of the future." ~~Ted Andrews, Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

I decided to add an intuitive healing card reading to see if it would shed even more light on this particular message...

The card I drew was about releasing your cares and worries, letting go of whatever is stressing you out, and there were a few suggestions about how to do it.

(1) Praying or talking to the divine or the angels about it.

(2) Talking to a friend or family member.

(3) Journaling or expressing your feelings in writing.

(4) Calming yourself physically through meditation or yoga or some other method for relaxation.

I can definitely see how this reading fits for me, both in a broad sense and specifically, today. Can you?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

My Plans for this Blog

Now that I have shared my story, I am ready to get the conversation started. There's a list a few posts down of what I plan to talk about as I sip my cup of chamomile tea...

I plan to post at least once a week, but I am not sure on what day yet. And I will post even more often than that whenever possible.

There are some regular posts I want to make...

(1) Wednesday Wisdom: I want to offer intuitive readings or insights from my own each week. These may be animal medicine readings or angel card readings or whatever happens to come to me.

(2) Native American Spirituality: I will post something related to this topic once a week. It may be astrology or finding your power animals or connecting with nature, etc.

(3) Tea Reflections: As I sip my tea and reflect on the week or the day, I will share thoughts or insights about healing or spirituality, or spiritual experiences related to meditation or journaling.

Grab your own cup of tea and join me! :)

My Spiritual Journey: Rebuilding My Faith

During a sort of lull where I was sure of my relationship with God because I still felt God's presence but wasn't sure of much else, I started to explore my interest in all things healing.

That helped me clear away a lot of denial and get a lot more honest about the questions and doubts I had always had. Coming out to myself just intensified the need to think through what I believed about God, about life, about life after death, about being Christian and gay, about my life purpose.

And then I spent two years training to be a spiritual director and at the same time, began crafting a theology.

Where I have landed is a kind of progressive, emergent and liberal Christianity that allows for all those questions, which makes the meaning of the Bible's love story more important than whether or not I take every page of it literally.

Which gives me room to connect to a mother God instead of limiting me to a strictly male father God. And honors my strong intuitive connection to nature.

I have more questions than I ever have before, but I trust the God I know. That God knows the answers. That God is the answer!

So, I'd love to hear whatever you want to share about your own journey. I hope you will know that whatever your story is, it is welcome here!

My Spiritual Journey: the Beginning

I thought as I started this blog, it would be good to begin by telling a bit of my story, spiritually speaking.

How did I get from no particular faith to a fairly strict conservative Christianity to reading tarot cards and talking to the moon?

Well, it began with my father refusing to attend a traditional church. When I was growing up, we spent most Sundays at a Unitarian Universalist church, listening to dry intellectual lectures and waiting for the after-church snacks. Or, at least, that's how it seemed when I was little.

I remember asking my father what happens when you die. He told me that there's no way to know because no one had ever died and come back to tell us what it's like. I believed him. But years later, was quite angry with him!

Plenty of people have had near-death experiences! Could he not have told me that? And in fairness, shouldn't he have at least mentioned Jesus, even if he didn't believe that he came back to tell everyone he had conquered death?

Something was missing, for me, in the experiences I had at the UU church. I haven't been to a Sunday service as an adult, so I don't know how I would feel about it today, but when I attended a class there, I loved it.

Meanwhile, I started a list of questions I intended to ask God as soon as I got the opportunity. I thumb-tacked it to the wall after each new question and eventually had over a 100.

During my adolescence, a friend of mine said she had become saved and told me that if I went to church with her, I would get all of my questions answered. I didn't.

But after watching one of those scary rapture films, I did do everything they said when they asked if I wanted to get saved. And then, I went to a Christian college, a Christian grad school and a charismatic cult-like "shepherding" church before I kind of crashed.

More on that how I survived the crash in my next post!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

Pull up a chair and I'll get you some iced tea. Or heated, if you prefer.

I am excited to start a blog that is just about spirituality! What could be more fun? Hope you will enjoy it, too!

I should mention that I do have a similar blog connected to my life purpose website. And there, I also talk about spiritual issues and personal growth, especially as it relates to living your life purpose.

So feel free to check out that blog, too, if that interests you!

But here, I will talk about the following kinds of juicy, delicious issues (I tend to use food & drink metaphors a bit)...

Native American spirituality

Meditation, Visualization, Guided Imagery

Intuitive Readings

Meeting Your Power Animals

Meeting Your Spirit Guides

Medicine Reiki, Karuna Reiki, Shamanic Reiki

Spiritual Aromatherapy

Teaching Your Children to Meditate

Teaching Your Children to Heal

And anything else "spiritual" I feel like discussing! :)

Join me?

Jeanine