Contemplative Practices Archives - Spiritual Director- Sweet Georgia Pam

dreams + spiritual direction

September 2, 2017September 2, 2017
by sweetgeorgiapam

Dreams are playful; spiritual direction sits on the bench and watches.

Dreams are wild; spiritual direction is still.

When you pair these two up against each other they act as the yin/yang that makes movement.

They shake up your life and create friction that heats things up and propels growth.

When I walked into the chapel at the Ignatius House Retreat Center to begin leading the day of reflection on dream work, I knew right away what we needed.

Everyone was sitting comfortably, quietly gazing ahead at the serene scene in front of them.

This place inspires peace.

It fuels deep contemplation.

As I looked out at the forest behind the altar, I felt it too- the call to let the silence wash over me and settle me down into the depths of myself.

“Time to shake it up,” I thought. It’s beautiful out here, it’s safe from distractions. So now let’s unpack those dreams. We all have them; dreams that disturb our peace. Dreams that tell truths we don’t want to admit; and show us experiences we never want to see and ones we never want to leave.

We were all gathered together to look at how tending to nighttime dreams can serve as spiritual practice. And so for the day, we played with dream imagery as the raw material of our souls. We used the chapel as a place to bare our souls- even the parts that make us blush. We talked about how dreams can be scary, mysterious, hilarious and mundane. We played with dreams, asked questions and pondered about them, we turned to awe and wonder and we supported each other’s claims about the audacity of our dreams.

We became relaxed, receptive. Throughout the day, we let a dream guide us beyond the emotions they elicited; we let them shake us up- and we let them show us that even in the midst of the terrifying, in the midst of the wild storm of them, we are always still safe.

By talking about a dream, we assert conscious control over it. By bringing the nighttime dream into the daylight and out into the openness of a conversation, we learn that even when dreams haunt and overwhelm us, we are still, always, in control.

We have a moral responsibility and right to go to the dream and say, “enough.” and “Thank you.”

Our nighttime dreams share everything with us, holding nothing back. And then, they wait for our response. “Here I am,” the ocean (vast and powerful) says, “what would you like to do with me?”

Spiritual direction, then, is learning how to be in dialogue with that which is vastly beyond us.

God’s unending mercy reminds us that we are meek, small, less than, minute, and minuscule in comparison to the vastness of the Universe.

When we turn to gaze at God, nothing is held back; we are hit with an overwhelming sense of love, oneness, mightiness and in the face of that greatness, we are nothing. And yet…

Here we are, tiny little beings, living out our tiny little lives with these inexplicably grand visions of greatness. Something planted that sense of greatness in us, when we encounter it, unconstrained by our own consciousness, it inspires awe and wonder.

Dreams + spiritual direction= childlike wonder + mature command of our size difference.

We know who we are in relation to that vastness, and WE ALSO KNOW that we have a right to command it; to serve it by doing something with it.

The growth that emerges when we pair dreams + spirituality is an organic response.

It is what happens when you finally appreciate, the deeply personal language which God has devised for only the two of you.

It is because God speaks to me in my own symbolic language in dreams that I begin to wrap my head around what’s happening. I begin to understand with a sliver of dawning realization that God’s vastness is forever bending in loving humility to me, not in spite of my flaws, but in response to them. Even now I’m not sure how to completely explain what I mean.

I only know that the playful language of dreams is what makes me drop my pretense of self-righteousness and allow me to be real at the altar. And that’s when I relax enough to understand.

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Contemplative Practices

OMG the eclipse, y’all

August 22, 2017
by sweetgeorgiapam

I said yesterday that I was like, “meh” about the eclipse and I was. But then, OMG…the eclipse, y’all!

I totally was unconcerned about it until I was getting ready to leave work about a half hour before the event took place above me. The moon had already begun to slide in front of the sun, though it made no difference to the daylight outside. Someone from work had a pair of viewing glasses and was inviting each of us to go take a look.

I turned the offer down a couple of times…when I think back on it, I am pretty sure I turned her offer down because I was afraid that if it was really cool I’d regret not having my own glasses to watch the event.

Finally, as I was leaving the building, I got a third offer to take a quick peek. So I did. And Oh My Goodness. I got it, y’all. I understood the excitement in that moment. I was witnessing a rare astronomical event. It felt celestial, that’s the only way I can describe it.

“Oh!…that really is cool,” I admitted. And then I had to hand the glasses back and walk to my car without anything to watch the rest of the event. I didn’t regret getting a peak at the sky. I was grateful for it. But now I had to figure out what I wanted to be doing as the rest of the even unfolded. How did I want to experience the eclipse?

When I got home, I quickly rushed inside, set all of my belongings down and then went right back outside to sit in the sunshine and feel the experience.

Where I live, we had something like 98% totality. So, I sat outside for 20 minutes and witnessed the solar eclipse with simple presence. I sat right outside of my front door and felt the eclipse. I sat in its presence and I have to say it was….stunning.

St. Benedict says to listen with the ear of your heart-

“Listen carefully, my child, to the master’s instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”

Let me try and describe what was going on for me. I felt the silence of the moon sliding across the path of the sun as a weight that filled the very air around me.

I watched the sunlight’s intensity fade while still remaining in place. It was surreal.

I experienced a sense of evening time slide right on top of the afternoon time.It was like a lens sliding over a bright spotlight;

darkness and shadow co-mingled in the air with lightness and warmth.

I felt the air around me thinning. It never got dark, per se. But it got thinner and dimmer.

And then, just as I was getting used to the experience of thin light, I felt it begin to gradually strengthen up again.

People all across the viewing path of the eclipse reported that it was a very spiritual experience.

For me, what they were describing was a tangible spiritual experience. To have so many people describe what it’s like to tangibly feel a spiritual experience was so validating! Y’all, this is how I feel all of the time. Tangibly spiritual.

So I experienced the eclipse, I listened with the ear of my heart and I sat in presence with it- in contemplative awe and wonder. And now I wonder about you.

did you watch? were you viewing the whole thing on tv? was it spiritual for you? meh? both? neither? I’d love to hear about what happened yesterday from your perspective.

Until the next post,
Peace & sweet dreams!
~Pam

Contemplative Practices

Take your wins where you can!

August 12, 2017August 11, 2017
by sweetgeorgiapam

Geez y’all, this has been one crazy summer! I’ve been moving so fast that now that it’s time to get into rhythm again (Fall, school schedule, contemplative morning prayer time, regular blogging, la, la, la…) I sort of forgot how to slow down!

And, super great news, I’ve got a few brand-new exciting opportunities on the calendar for the upcoming months. So, that just adds more reasons not to slow down.

But, slowing down is how I access my center, it’s how I learned to rely on that thing that is Greater Than. Finding opportunities to just be… is what fuels me to keep going strong. When I am still and silent, I am #winning.

So, lately I’ve had to take my wins where I find them.

~That means as I climb into bed, I take 3 deep breaths and recite my favorite mantras and prayers.
~It means waking up from a dream and lying still long enough to re-tell the dream to myself 3 times so I don’t forget it when I get out of bed.
~It means staying in the car when I pull into the driveway after work for 5 solid (sometimes agonizingly slow) minutes and feeling my nervous system come down off of its work-high.
~It means sitting down and typing a blog post just because it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything from scratch.

I hope, Lovely, that your spirit is in good shape lately, in rhythm with your quiet center. And I hope that you are taking your wins when you can; that you’re allowing those brief moments in stillness to be enough. I hope that you’re not basing your bar of spiritual success on quantity, but on quality.

I hope that your brief wins are like mine…not perfectly executed dives, but random, last-minute wild plunges into the cool, deep pool of the Divine.

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Contemplative Practices

unconsciously un-committing to things

April 17, 2017April 29, 2017
by sweetgeorgiapam

That’s what came up in my last session with my spiritual director. I periodically have been “unconsciously un-committing myself to things without telling myself” (my own words).

In session, I discovered realized I have a subtle pattern of being ‘absent-minded’ during some significant moments in my life. I genuinely forget about certain commitments. It’s like I go momentarily blind to important responsibilities at seemingly random times.

My spiritual director suggested that I sit with the question about why I might do that or what motivation that unconscious part of me might have to decide suddenly to withdraw us (me) from something we had committed to. It seemed like a very interesting query. I was excited to get started on it. So after the session ended, I did spend some time holding that question out in front of me.

I have several tools that I use for this task. I surrender the question to God, I consult my dreams, I sit in contemplative (prayerful) silence and wait, I journal an internal dialogue and I invite that part of my unconscious to help me understand the situation more clearly.

So far, my efforts have been only partially rewarded with some glimmers of better understanding. But, it feels as slow as staring at the hour hand of a clock and waiting for it to move from 9 to 12.

This morning I was reminded that, as far as unconsciously un-committing to things, I’m still in the dark about it and so I am still vulnerable to being caught by surprise when I do it to myself once again.

I had read an article by one of my favorite current contemplatives, Carl McColman. His post, “Is it possible to be a “Do It Yourself” Christian Mystic? Evelyn Underhill would say “No” — and I agree with her” was spot on in line with my desire to live into the balance between mysticism and a structured daily religion practice.

So, I bravely hit the “share on fb” button and proceeded to add my commentary on top of the link to the article. I read over my post, felt the vulnerability of sharing a truth about myself that might draw out a fb discussion (because, God forbid I insight deep discussion that may possibly perhaps include differing opinions on the matter from people), took a deep breath and hit “Share”.

The window that popped up confirming that I had just successfully shared my view, made me laugh out loud. “What?! No, that’s not what I meant to do. Dammit,” I said out loud to only me. I had inadvertently shared my vulnerable post to the OLD fb page for my spiritual direction practice; the old page that was no longer visible to anyone! I had unconsciously un-committed myself to posting it publicly!

That, my friends, was my reminder this morning that doing inner work to bring my shadows and their motivations into the light is work that is 1. important to do if you want to be who you think you’re being, and 2. hard to do because hidden agendas like to stay hidden and are very slick operators!

I will continue to open up and explore this pattern I have in the hopes that by understanding it consciously, I can avoid being blind-sided by it unconsciously.

Contemplative Practices

the quickest way to drop into silence

March 28, 2017May 2, 2017
by sweetgeorgiapam

This is all you need to do in order to begin cultivating a practice of silence in your daily life.

Pick a time during the day when you are alone in your own space. It might be when you are getting dressed in the privacy of your closet, or in the car while sitting in traffic, or while brushing your teeth, or whatever time is routine for you where you are alone.
Turn on some source of sound. I turn on the radio in the car or the news when I am in the kitchen/living room. When I am putting on make up in the bathroom, I will turn on the sink faucet or the tub faucet. If I am no where near sound, I will sing a song (but not one that is slow and sweet, one that is upbeat like pop or rock, etc). The point is to introduce some loud background noise.
Consider silence for a moment, in the midst of the noise. Don’t do this for too long- just a few breaths. Try and pay attention to your internal silence while the background noise is going on. (NOTE: I often begin this process here at step 3. The first 2 steps don’t have to be intentional. Sometimes I will realize suddenly while I am doing my daily routine that I am alone and that there is background noise and that interior silence is present.)
Turn off the source of the noise and pay attention to the transition! That’s the sweet spot, y’all. In the first moments when you notice that there is an absence of noise, silence is amplified. It won’t last because your mind will quickly take over and fill the empty space with mental noise of it’s own. That is ok and normal. I usually turn the noise back on after only a few minutes because the sweet moments of amplified silence fade so fast.

The point is not the length of the silence. The point, y’all, is the quality of the silence. If you do this once or twice today, you’ll be gaining brief moments of stillness that have the potential to draw you in, to draw you closer to the source of stillness and to entice you to pause more often.

Try it and then come back and let me know about your experience. I would love to hear if it works as well for you as it does for me. And maybe you have other ways you introduce silence into your life. What else works?

~Sweet Georgia Pam

Contemplative Practices

why does it fall apart like that?

September 27, 2016
by sweetgeorgiapam

My seven year old asked me this morning, as he watched the pieces of the Vidalia onion I was cutting fall apart on the cutting board, “why does it just fall apart like that?”

My answer was quick and factual, “because the skin is what holds it together; and when I cut the skin away, the inside is just layers and there’s nothing holding them to each other.”

He took that at face value and then followed up with, “Mom, what is an onion made of?”

I’m used to his amazingly simplistic and yet strikingly interesting questions, so I didn’t miss a beat, “onion is made out of onion. It just grows in nature as an onion.”

So, y’all, he was satisfied and went back to his breakfast. I, however, was left hearing those questions echo around in my mind.

Why does it just fall apart like that? What is it made out of?

My deeply spiritual-self has been soaking in those questions since then. I managed to sit in prayer for a solid 1o minutes this morning, which is rare for me lately. I am a pretty poor practitioner of stillness these days. But I did do it, finally, today.

Immediately, when I closed my eyes, I began to sift through all the layers of mental and physical chatter that are held together underneath my skin.

When I sit in humble silence, without expectation, just to be sitting in the practice of presence before the Greater-Than-Me (the Cloud of Unknowing, God), my layers fall apart. They just fall apart.

And, as long as I don’t try to actively keep them together, as long as I don’t hold onto them, they’ll just slide right open and what I am made of seems to be just layers of myself.

Truly, y’all, I have no grand aha! here. All I am sharing is a couple of questions floating around and disrupting the certainty of what I think I am.

Why does it fall apart like that? What is it made of?

Sweet readers, to let me know this post has reached you, please like, share, comment or send me good, loving vibes. Thanks! ~Sweet Georgia Pam

Bio

The Practice of Pausing

August 15, 2016
by sweetgeorgiapam

I have found so much peace in my life just by setting aside a few minutes of devotional time in the morning.

The form of devotion changes but the affect is the same. I am able to pause more often in the day and check in with no judgement or expectation.
It’s nice 🙂

Conversely, when I do not take time to center in the mornings (I mean really set aside purposeful time just for centering and nothing else), I find it nearly impossible to pause throughout the day.

Taking time in the morning helps me remember during the day to pause, to breath, to center down, to let go of anxiety. When I practice in the mornings, I automatically pause more often. It’s quite simple and at the same time, surprisingly difficult to do!

Book Reviews

Recipe for Spiritual Progress

August 5, 2016
by sweetgeorgiapam

Wake up, empty yourself out, give yourself over to grace. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Wake up– nourish the stirring desire in you to go deeper, to ‘know thyself’, to examine your behaviors, your beliefs, and your motives; it doesn’t mean get to work, it just means turn your attention to the desire that is stirring within you.

Empty yourself out– as you settle your gaze inward, wait and watch all the thoughts, all the body sensations that flood your attention; once we turn inward, we create a little space between us and the outside world; that empty space gets filled in almost immediately by mind chatter and body discomfort; watch all the flooding that happens and wait patiently (sometimes up to 20 minutes) for it to subside. It may not completely disappear, but it will settle into the background leaving stillness and silence in the foreground of your mind.

Give yourself over to grace– resist the urge to fill in the emptiness on your own once you realize that it is present; instead, insert one single syllable word or sound as your substitute for thoughts (like “grace” or “om” or “ah”); by leaving your mind empty, you’re giving yourself over to grace and allowing Divinity to work within you. It’s not about you knowing, feeling or even sensing the work being done; its about the practice of giving yourself over to grace.

This practice will bear fruits in your life that come from a greater source than yourself.

The idea and inspiration for this post came from Alan Jones’ book Soul Making: The Desert Way of Spirituality (find it on Amazon).

Sweet readers, please follow this blog and like this post if it strikes a cord with you. Thanks!

Contemplative Practices

Soul Gazing in art

August 4, 2016
by sweetgeorgiapam

I found these images to be striking. Think of what is being offered, of what is available to people who soul gaze with these! Do you think soul gazing with an inanimate object (like a painting or statue) would elicit the same vulnerability as if you were doing the same with a person?

Do you remember in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” where they go into the Chicago Museum and soul gaze with the artwork?! Here’s a very cool clip of that with commentary from the director, John Hughes, about the symbolism. Listen at the end when he talks about Cameron’s soul gazing with the child in the image. Fascinating.

Contemplative Practices

Soul Gazing event in Miami

August 3, 2016
by sweetgeorgiapam

Someone in Miami is inviting the whole town to soul gaze. Whew! That challenges my notion of what’s comfortable. As a highly sensitive person, it feels overwhelming to me. I am always cautious when going against the norm. It’s an area of growth for me. But seeing these people open up to it and to be so accepting makes it feel safer to me (at least for them).

How about you? Is this something you’d ever do? What if you came upon it while you were going about your normal day, would you join in?

sun-sentinel.com/features/eye-gazing-event-miami-20160627-story.html

Spiritual direction, then, is learning how to be in dialogue with that which is vastly beyond us.

I only know that the playful language of dreams is what makes me drop my pretense of self-righteousness and allow me to be real at the altar. And that’s when I relax enough to understand.

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“Listen carefully, my child, to the master’s instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”

For me, what they were describing was a tangible spiritual experience. To have so many people describe what it’s like to tangibly feel a spiritual experience was so validating! Y’all, this is how I feel all of the time. Tangibly spiritual.

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But, slowing down is how I access my center, it’s how I learned to rely on that thing that is Greater Than. Finding opportunities to just be… is what fuels me to keep going strong. When I am still and silent, I am #winning.

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