Mindful Spiritual Direction

05/09/2026

“My pond drains to the brook, to the creek, to a great and needful lake. The water net connects us all. I have shed tears into that flow when I thought motherhood would end. But the pond has shown me that being a good mother doesn’t end with creating a home where my children can flourish. A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish. There are grandchildren to nurture, and frog children, nestlings, goslings, seedlings, and spores, and I still want to be a good mother.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer in ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’

Happy Mother’s Day 💚

PS - this video shows four mallard drakes meandering in the pond behind my townhome. Mike and I call them “the bachelors” - and we imagine that the hens are incubating eggs or tending to ducklings nearby. May they all flourish.

03/04/2026

https://youtu.be/yLg1pCeiZUk?si=JBwtYwmM_5deELOb

http://www.carrienewcomer.comhttp://www.carrienewcomer.substack.comhttp://www.facebook.com/CarrieNewcomerhttps://twitter.com/CarrieNewcomerA live concert vid...

09/16/2025

Do your experiences in the natural world help you connect your inner journey with something life-giving and larger than yourself?

Perhaps an encounter with an animal touches your heart.

Or watching the sun rise over a vast lake horizon expands your hope.

Or – as happened to me recently – the prairie alive with soaring wildflowers restores your groundedness, your openness to love and light.

In these moments, consider the invitation. Savor the experience with your full presence and curiosity. Acknowledge your relationship with creation. How will your response affirm your interdependence with all of life?

What would the world look like if we all embraced the essential blessing of innerconnection?.....

08/14/2025

"Your inner teacher is the all-knowing part of you that is connected to the Creator and the entire creation. In order to find our inner teacher, we have to stop running and start being comfortable with the silence within us....
The inner teacher communicates to us through subtlety: tiny flashes of inspiration, a nagging feeling that we can't shake, seeing repetitive symbols, and hearing random suggestions from others. Learning to listen to our inner teacher takes discipline and practice, but once we do, we realize that the guidance we have been seeking is all around us at all times."
~ Sherri Mitchell (Weh'na Ha'mu' Kwasset), Sacred Instructions, p. 148

05/27/2025

04/28/2025

How to Find Wisdom When Everything is Falling Apart

04/23/2025

"We are longing for an expanded vision of the universe, a reawakened love affair with Earth, and a deepened sense of spiritual presence in every moment and encounter of life. We are yearning to grow in awareness, to find wellness in relation to the whole, and to delight in love together. And we are longing for the recovery of wisdom, for meaning in both the joys and sorrows of life, and for a reimagined faith in the immortal light that shines in all things." ~John Philip Newell, in the conclusion of The Great Search.
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03/29/2025

I appreciate his perspective on mindfulness and building our capacity for meaningful presence. Thank you Oren Jay Sofer

Mindfulness doesn’t make us more comfortable with the crises around us. It makes us more awake to them.

02/05/2025

Over the past weekend, the Arizona Indian Festival was held in Scottsdale to celebrate cultures, traditional arts, crafts, and foods of Arizona’s indigenous communities. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Traditional Dancers performed this basket dance before an admiring crowd. Afterward they invited everyone gathered to come up and dance with them. It was a beautiful day.
On Substack/The Cottage today, Diana Butler Bass asks, “What does the good look like” in these times of careening changes and heightened anxieties. She suggests that “if we remain connected with one another, if we understand our connections with one another, we will feel stronger, less threatened, and more likely together to think of some positive alternative visions of both faith and democracy.”
To learn more about the hopeful place of a culture of connection at this moment in history, see this very helpful presentation by Diana Butler Bass: https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/
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01/28/2025

The Lunar New Year begins tomorrow, ushering in 2025 as the Year of the Snake. Among Asian cultures, the snake represents a spectrum of meanings, from darkness to rebirth. The South China Morning Post reports, “In China, snakes hold a complex and varied symbolism. They are simultaneously associated with harvest, procreation, spirituality and good fortune, as well as cunning, evil, threat, and terror.”

While visiting Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary north of Scottsdale last week I learned that local snakes are shy around humans. They adapt to all climates and elevations in the Arizona desert, and they help desert life to flourish. I processed any anxious feelings I have about snakes along with this new information, pausing to admire the snakes' beauty in the diverse web of creation, to ponder how all life is sacred.

In my life, can I hold this tension – of watchfulness and circumspection, on one hand, deep admiration and wonder on the other? This year, like the Snake, may we all “shed the skin” that no longer serves, so that our lives can be transformed and renewed.

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