Wild Mustang: Lover of Soul and Inviter to the Dance

Contemplative Painting Over twenty years ago my friend Glennietta gave me some paints and paper for my birthday.  I told Glennietta that I was not an artist.  She said she was not asking me to be an artist.  Simply put paint on paper. If you want to splash some purple, splash purple.  See a green that grabs you, paint that shade of green.  Just play with it. See what happens. What I discovered when I did this simply process, when I got out of my head, and just slipped into creative, messy, paint play, I would enter into deep soul work. It is amazing what shows up on the paper. For two and a half years, I have been leading Contemplative Painting at the Retreat House Spirituality Center in Richardson, Texas. We gather, introduce ourselves, choose some colors that speak to us, do a brief meditation, and paint.  At the end of our time, we share what the experience was like - what (or who) showed up, what we felt, what we see in our paintings and in the paintings of others. It is a

R.I.P. My Friend, the Thistle             Each day as part of the Seminary of the Wild virtual retreat we were invited to go out onto the land. We were instructed to find a portal, something we could cross over or ask permission of in order to begin our wanderings. These portals are important because they help us shift from our ordinary time into the mysterious, where we don’t know what might happen.             On the first day of my wanderings at Erwin Park in McKinney, as I walked from my car, I saw a thistle plant standing tall above the surrounding grasses. I was drawn to this particular thistle plant and went over to look at her.   The thistle had one bud at the top of the stem and a smaller one coming forth from a lower branch. Thistles are fast growing plants and I knew I would enjoy coming each day to see what new growth she had had. I looked at the leaves with their thorny edges and saw the small spikes running up the stem. A beautiful plant but one I didn’t want to

Knowing Eternal Life             (This blog takes a previous blog, Encountering the Woods in New Zealand and seeks to apply that insight to our knowing of God) In March I and six other family members traveled to New Zealand in March to visit our daughter and to see New Zealand. (This happened right before the covid-19 pandemic shut everything down.) We saw many wonderful sights each day.   It was a marvelous time. I want to share with you an experience I had in the rainforest of New Zealand.             Picture towering trees, over 100 feet tall. Pines. Oaks. Trees I don’t know the name of.   Picture lush vegetation, green all around. Ferns standing 6 feet tall and reach up to the sky.   Birds flying overhead. Some sitting in the trees singing. The air rich with wonderful fragrances. I placed my hand on one of the huge trees to feel the energy of this place.             As I stood in this rainforest, it occurred to me that there were three ways I could know and experience wh

Rain in the Rainforest and My Shoes I took a break from this blog last week because I was on a Seminary of the Wild virtual retreat. This week I return to more stories of our time in New Zealand.   I enjoy the opportunity to continue to live and relive these stories again and again.             Our first full day in New Zealand it rained.   This was fine because we planned to tour the glowworm caves in Waitomo, which are deep underground.   We arrived in Waitomo in time for a quick lunch before our tour.   We walked up a hill, in the rain, to a restaurant.   My feet got wet.   This was a surprise because I had on waterproof shoes.   My feet were not supposed to be wet.   I had worn these shoes for several years, in the rain, through puddles and shallow creeks and my feet stayed dry.   Why, at the beginning of this trip, are my feet wet?             After lunch, we walked down to the entrance to the glowworm cave, in the rain, and my feet were sloshing. This is an inconvenien