The Mystic and the Muse in the New Moon

 I have taken the past three months so just listen to my soul and spirit.

It has been a wild ride to be silent with one's thoughts, to let them ruminate and formulate - all while still engaging in the world as she unfolds. To sit in the envelopment of quiet and solitude.

In so doing, particularly from the standpoint of being in touch with my soul, has opened me up to all the ways The Holy Spirit, in all her wisdom, has been present with me.

The work I do, sitting with the near-dying, is deep and intentional. It means I have to be assured of my own sense of identity, mortality, spirituality, and self in order to help guide others going through a chronic and life-ending-disease come to terms with their precious few moments remaining days. It has shifted my perspective.

My living away from my family for the past four months has opened my awareness.

I am and have always been comfortable in solitude. In the quiet. I am an introvert, and truth be told, so is half my family. We have enjoyed together-aloneness for years. So in a lot of ways, my day-to-day is not all that different.

My husband and I have each a calling and presence different, yet complimentary, to one another. They are demanding vocations that can sometimes be all-encompassing. One must have a partner that is confident and assured of the other in order to give publicly the way we both do. For that, I am grateful for the thirty years we have been together, supporting one another's dreams and being the biggest cheerleaders.

What is different for me, though, is in some of the moments when spontaneity is not possible, moments when he may come in from a long day with a dinner he picked up, or moments when he has an event and I am free to attend. 

The biggest adjustment for me has been in ways of attending.

But in learning that, in him attending at our home, we have both grown in this next third of our lives.

He and I are both with more years behind us than in front of us, so we have an outlook on life that reflects that.

We sat with joy as our last child graduated college and celebrated exuberantly with the family. 

He has always been the one to hear the whispers of my heart desires and finds a way to make it happen. That was no less than what he did a month ago when the family all gathered together in New Orleans, when. my table was full with all the olive plants that make my soul sing. I was filled.

The gift I received, more than the treasures he and my children gave me for my birthday and Mother's Day, was the simple gratitude of laughter. We laughed so much that weekend. 

It is what I embrace now.

Just joy.

Just gratitude.

Just happiness.

I have lived life and in reflecting during the passing of the season and entering this new moon, I looked up to the night sky and spoke my prayers out loud. 

Being present with my soul has blessed me, last night to this morning blessed me. 

The feeling is the same as when I stood at the ocean, looked up at the mountains, felt the sun, or looked at trees. 

We may not know what the coming days will be, what I do know is that it will be amazing.

My wonderment at it all feels free and like a kid with a brand new box of Crayola 64 crayons and a tablet of drawing paper.

It is all waiting for me to create.

The beauty is is that we all get to do that.

Every day we open our eyes is new, fresh, possible.

What can be.

I strongly believe in the ways that The Holy Spirit moves through and in time, through seasons. We have been gifted those for understanding.

It was the stars and the moon that guided the Wise Men to that sweet little baby who became a revolutionary leader who changed the world - Jesus Christ.

It was the same sky that led a mystical little Black woman to guide others North to freedom - Harriet Tubman.

It was the same night that guided a Black man to write the mysteries of faith and invite us in - Howard Thurman.

It was the same presence that gifted a little boy with laughter through pain, melodies through loneliness and welcomed us to think of a better world - Michael Jackson.

One doesn't always know when and how their purpose will show up, one just has to be open to the ways She does.

That is where I am.

Embracing myself - fully, completely, unapologetically.

Happy New Moon.

©2026. All Rights Reserved. All Photos are Taken by a Human Being. No AI Involved at all in the writing or creating of this muse.

Sipping a lavender latte French Press in South Burlington, Vermont, looking out with wonder at life.