Rituals & Spirituality Archives - Page 9 of 9

Centering in the Midst of Chaos

by Valerie Gillies

“CENTERING: that act which precedes all others on the potter’s wheel. The bringing of the clay into a spinning, unwobbling pivot, which will then be free to take innumerable shapes as potter and clay press against each other. The firm, tender, sensitive pressure which yields as much as it asserts. It is like a handclasp between two living hands, receiving the greeting at the very moment that they give it…” – from “Centering – In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person” by M.C. Richard. […]

The Queen Mother

by Donna Henes

Excerpts from her book, “The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife:”

Sometime, usually between about forty-five and fifty-five, we lose our monthly blood and hormonal balance. No matter how much we might have minded the fuss and muss of our periods, there is an alarming awareness of irrevocability when they stop. It is, after all, the end of a thirty or forty-year way of being in the world. Menopause marks the termination of our participation in the bottom-line, bigger than we are, biological imperative of our species. Our reproductive potential is now no longer an option. Whether or not we chose to use it when we had it is not the point. What is crucial is feeling that our choices have narrowed. […]

In Praise of Older Mothers

by Rabbi Stephen Fuchs

The fifth of the seven traditional blessings recited at a Jewish wedding proclaims: “May the (Akarah) barren woman rejoice with happiness in the company of her children.” The blessing is an acknowledgement and an affirmation of the recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible of the woman beyond normal child bearing age who has children. While the term Akarah means “barren woman,” it is used exclusively – and in no fewer than seven cases – in the Hebrew Bible to refer to a woman who has children well beyond the normal child bearing age. […]

Gratitude is just a nine-letter word

by Cyma Shapiro

For many years in my yoga classes (pre-children), I had trouble finding the ‘gratitude’ that the teachers requested of us, especially during our parting word, “Namaste” (meaning: the light/spirit in me acknowledges the light/spirit in you). While I knew that it was necessary to acknowledge the goodness in my life; the people who had sustained me; the loves I had found; and the joys that I experienced, the truth was that I was always just surviving the day only to run home and find solace and peace in the solitude of my home, alone. The truth was that I was rarely happy. […]