Dr. Janice Lundy
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Pure Presence 

                  Holding, Offering, and Being Presence
  for Yourself and Others 

Inner Stability - The Call of Practice

4/22/2022

2 Comments

 
Picture
As I continue to sit with others as a spiritual companion (director-guide) and listen to the ponderings of their hearts, the invitation to each of us is clear: stay steady. This is not easy when the nature of the energy flowing through the universe can be picked up as fear, worry or anxiety. These emotions are not unknown to me either. I know from experience how important it is to be able to access inner stability when everything around you and in you may feel tumultuous. 

I love trees. I believe trees are living, breathing beings who feel and experience life in its fullness in a unique way. I also believe that one of their highest purposes on the planet is to sustain life, including ours. Trees represent stability to me. Their roots go deep, holding them steady when the winds come and threaten to uproot them from their very core. 

Years ago, I began to imagine what it would actually feel like to be a tree when life felt frightening—more rooted than topsy Turvey. I crafted this practice to help me and I featured it in my book Portable Peace. I'd like to share it with you here because in times like these we can certainly use any help we can get, especially practices, if they can predictably deliver us to a place within ourselves that feels more steady and stable. I hope you find it useful. 

Breathe deep. May peace be upon you. 
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2 Comments
Suzie Roussel
4/26/2022 06:35:25 pm

Thank you for this helpful practice filled with so much to visualize and help us to ground us in stormy times. I also came upon a poem by Ranier Maria Rilke that tells me to surrender and trust.

.How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing --
each stone, blossom, child --
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.


[Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), 116 - 117]

Reply
Jan
4/27/2022 05:03:36 pm

Susie, thank you for this response and this wonderful poem. It is so fitting! Again, trees come into the message here. Trust and surrender are the two ultimate invitations of the inner (spiritual life), aren't they? Always inviting us to courage and to let go. May this be so for you.

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Dr. Janice Lynne Lundy (PsyD, DMin, MPC)
is The Gerald May Professor of Spiritual Direction & Counseling at the Graduate Theological Foundation. She is an  interspiritual director/mentor, educator and counselor who has been pointing people back toward the Sacred for nearly thirty years. 

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  • Home
  • About
    • About Jan Lundy
    • Speaking
    • Events
  • Spiritual Direction
    • Spiritual Direction with Jan
    • Group Spiritual Direction
    • Supervision
    • Testimonials
    • Spiritual Guidance Training Institute
  • Counseling Services
  • Pure Presence
    • Pure Presence Practitioner Training
    • Presence Blog
  • Writings
  • Resources
    • Courses
    • Podcasts
    • Vimeo
    • You Tube
  • This Sacred Moment
  • Gentle Reminders
  • Subscribe
  • Store
  • Contact