The Contemporary Spirituality of Women

I am blessed by my work of guidance and support with women transforming challenges to their happiness through the strength and skills of their spirit....or as I say, “taking the grit life delivers to us as our divine instructions for engaging our grace!”.  I remind women how spirituality is not following rules and obeying authority outside herself; it is actively living her deepest values and visions and making her choices with integrity. I remind her how spirituality is not something separate from her daily life; her spirituality is lived in showing up, speaking up, and standing up right where she has been planted.
Contemporary spirituality is conscious partnering with our spirit and soul for practical guidance and support in our daily life. Contemporary spirituality is living grace that is practical and honoring the grit of life as sacred.  Contemporary spirituality honors the teachers that are animal, plant, and "the other" and contemporary spirituality honors our body as not simply a vehicle, rather as a teacher and healer divine.
Contemporary spirituality demands we update our beliefs, definitions, and concepts for daily living of our active, embodied, and emboldened spirituality as women.  Ask yourself these questions-your answers are for living in your daily life!

• If you knew you were always being divinely guided and supported, how would you live differently your life?
• If you were to embrace "where you were planted"-to the beauty, to the challenges, to the gratitude-what would be different? 
• If you took 100% responsibility for your life vs deferring your power to "karma" or "God's will" or "I have no power to make things different" where would you take up your voice, your power, your outrage? 
• If you truly honored your spirit and soul as your most intimate partner in life, how would the priorities for your time change? Would time for meditation, prayer, and self-care become less luxuries and more essentials in your daily life?

Contemporary spirituality is not about furthering our means of control; it is daily living our power, our purpose, and our presence as guardians for all life.  Contemporary spirituality honors relationship, integrity, and creativity and where these are lacking, the responsibility for bringing them forth. Contemporary spirituality is living there is truly no separation between what is spiritual and what is not spiritual....and that our humanity is simply divinity in a body.

"Summer's Essential Sensual"

Living in New England, where our summers are so very short,  a day at the beach every couple of weeks has become a priority on my summer to-do list (yes, the irony does not escape me). The warmth of the sun, the sounds of the waves, and the delicious hug of the water is not only sensual,  it is essential for my happiness and well-being. A few years ago, my summer flew by without a single visit to the beach-there were so many more important things to do!-and the ensuing long and cold New England winter taught me the error of concluding my sensual needs as optional.

Here are suggestions for honoring summertime's "essential-sensuals":

• Indulge in what delights your palate in the bounty of summertime foods! Eating watermelon outside on a hot day, with it's juices dripping down my chin and onto the ground delights the kid in me who still loves to make a mess!
• Know what delights you in Nature's summertime offerings; while one of my summertime's sensual-essential is a day at the beach, a day hiking in the mountains or canoeing in a lake may be the delight your body and soul will hallelujah with!
• Honor your summertime essential-sensuals as a top priority on your to-do list, receiving any feelings of resistance or pesky inner nay-saying voices as simply your invitation to meditate or journal on what challenges you in living your delight or essential pleasure!
• Be open to the "ah-has" which come through your physical delight and pleasure as essential wisdom for yourself and your life.  Our body's wisdom is profound in it's clarity and intelligence and learning to respond in our life with the "non-logical" wisdom of our body have a magical way of increasing our happiness and well-being!

Taking delight and pleasure in the sensations of our body is essential for not only our physical health and ease, it is essential for the fulfillment of our heart, soul, and life. We are beings that need food as well as nourishment through our sensual experiences.  When we honor our sensual as essential for creating happiness and well-being in life, a day at the beach becomes less a luxury and more the priority on the to-do list for every season!