Recently in Holistic Spirituality Category

Here are some blogs and websites I like. It's not a complete list. But it's a start.

The first is called New Moon Journal and it is written by Michele Bailey-Lessirard, a life coach, collage artist, and "shamanic astrologer." On the opening page of her site, you'll find a little slide show of her amazing, healing artwork (which she encourages you to do alongside her). As a longtime lover of the work of Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters, I too believe that arranging collage images on paper is "spirit" work. Intuition reigns supreme as you connect with what feels aligned and right, and you'll learn ways to connect with your shadow, as well as your most divine self. So visit Michele, "a student of symbols and feminine mysteries," try some collage work, and start following the moon as closely as she does. Her blog is excellent.

Another "symbolist" and student of calendars is the ever-fruitful, gorgeous font of wisdom Waverly Fitzgerald, creator of SchooloftheSeasons.com. Unique is the right word. I feel I couldn't have written this blog without her. Visit her site to strengthen your connection to religious/spiritual holidays and the organizing principal of ritual. Waverly also blogs about flowers. And passion. And love.

Then there's Caroline Casey's site The Coyote News Network. Man, watch out! As we edge into a political year, it will be impossible for Caroline not to froth! She's a divinely-connected female John Stewart--she's also the beloved sister of novelist John Casey, a writer I knew at the University of Virginia. Caroline, who I met through my pal Shelley Ackerman, has a "Visionary Activist" radio show that's unlike anything else you'll hear. Fun, passionate, fired-up! I think you'll want to check in with her periodically.

Thanks to all the people in the last two years who have given me courage and support: my husband, Beliefnet.com co-founder, Steven Waldman, my kids, my sister Kathryn Janus, my loving dad and my precious in-laws, my editor Valerie Reiss, the whole Beliefnet.com edit staff, Frances and Chris Stahnke, Domenick Masiello, Nell Minow, Laura Stanley, Myra Klockenbrink, Cristy West, Kathleen Currie, Lisa Schamess, Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, Teresa Riordan, Sheila Kaplan, Art Levine, Laurie Sue Brockway, Vic Fuhrman, Lama Surya Das, Elizabeth Lesser, Jim Kullander, and all you readers.

Again, send your email addresses to me at ChatteringMind@beliefnetstaff.com, and I'll find you again! (Remember that great scene where Daniel Day-Lewis screams "Stay alive! Do whatever you have to do to stay alive. I'LL FIND YOU" as he leaves his new girlfriend and jumps down a cliff in "The Last of the Mohicans"?) Continue to read Beliefnet.com. It is not a Christian site, by the way. I guess it's just that the Christians are noisier. The Holistic Spirituality page of the site remains an excellent meeting place, and is always a good place to find articles.

Onwards!

Do you know about Damanhur? It's a 1,000-resident intentional community and eco-village in the mountains of Italy that's currently attracting the interest of American spiritual seekers. In 2004, the United Nations acknowledged Damanhur as a model for sustainable society. Children are being raised and educated here, the adults farm and make their own food. Check out the temples they've built to an all-embracing human spirituality.

Here's a film that shows the beauty of Damanhur's "Hall of Mirrors." And here's an article about the place called "Atlantis in the Mountains of Italy" that explains how it all came together and how problems are navigated. And here's the Damanhur coffee table book, with a forward by spiritual artist Alex Grey (who I'm always happy to see roaming the streets of Brooklyn near my food coop).

Dearest readers: After meeting with Beliefnet.com editors last Friday to talk it through, I've decided to stop writing Chattering Mind a week from today.

While I'm nervous about this idea of mine and sad about the loss of my ability to connect with you through such prime online real estate, this change makes sense to us all. For me, it comes as a huge relief.

First, I am tired. I've been writing this blog for 21 months, completing some 1,400 posts. This job keeps me on the computer longer than I think is good for me. After taking time off, resting my poor carpal-tunneled arms, I want to finish some longer pieces I've had on my mind for national magazines.

Second, the blog is not growing, hovering now around 24,000 page views a month. This is small for Beliefnet. The Beliefnet team has stood by me--we've been aware of the slow growth for many months--and while there are lots of ways we could jazz up the blog by making Monday interview-a-healer day, Tuesday yoga pose day, Wednesday tips on whole foods cooking day, Thursday a guided meditation or something... my energy for that is surprisingly minimal. I'm not sure why. If I were in another place psychologically, that would sound like a lot of fun. After a rest, I could do that. But for now, it feels right to completely shake up my day and spend substantially less time online.

Elizabeth Lesser wrote a great piece on change in the new year for Beliefnet last January. She recommends that we expect change, make friends with it and listen to its message. So whenever apprehension about this coming change surfaced over the weekend, I thought of her. She says, "Join forces with the dynamic flow of life," and quotes the African-American theologian Howard Thurman: "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

My kids are ecstatic that I'll soon have more time to be with them. "Mommy, you were stressed!" said the little one. True, there were days when I'd come upstairs from my basement office and just slap dinner together, days when I'd lost so much sleep the night before preparing my blog in advance, I'd almost nod off driving the kids home from school. I never figured out how to write fast and make the blog easy, so I am thrilled that I will have some months of examining a new way to balance, "be with," and, as Thurman advises, "come alive."

We'll have the week to process all this. And I want to do justice to the many half-written blog items I already have in my queue here! I was never very good at getting huge amounts of people talking through the posting process, but perhaps we can talk about this. Hearing back from you has always been a thrill. What changes are you yourself embracing? Are you following your bliss?

I'm not saying farewell today. And there is another much easier-to-execute Beliefnet project I might help them out with in the fall. So send me your email address at chatteringmind@beliefnetstaff.com, and I'll let you know what I'm up to.

God bless.

Amy Cunningham

P.S. Neale Donald Walsch's "Conversations with God" blog will appear next week in the Glow newsletter.

Inspirational teacher and artist Jan Phillips recently posted this sweet video on YouTube.com. It's all about the spiritual power of art. Watch the whole thing if you've been struggling to find time for your creative work. Learn more about Phillips, and subscribe to her wonderful "museletter" here. Every time she writes, I am uplifted.

Okay, I know. On the surface of it, "sacred self-centeredness" sounds insane. I hear the voices saying "What on earth is sacred about being self-centered?" How well we know those voices.

But women taxed by career, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, childcare, eldercare, and more--women who're calling out all their energy, heaving it up until few resources remain--these women, my friends, need to know from Sacred Self-Centeredness. So many women need to get back in touch with their own divinity, those connections they had to planet when they were caring, capable, creative twelve-year-old girls.

Am I wrong? No, I'm right. I was thinking of all this as I studied the web page of interfaith minister and life coach Deborah Roth. She offers tele-courses for women on the subject of the "seasonal journey to sacred self-centeredness," and the title of her upcoming August 1st tele-session is "Embracing Our Elemental Selves." It's a $40 women's group telephone conversation that sounds rather interesting. Roth writes: "In our circles, we commit to healing and re-claiming the Divine Feminine in ourselves and in our society through personal sharing, learning and discussion, meditation...Come with an open mind and open heart, ready to weave a tapestry of community, support, and empowerment." You get hand-outs with each meeting.

Click here if you're interested in the concept. And be on the look-out for other people (they're around) who insist it's okay to take care of yourself, even put yourself first. You are the source of so much.