Greater Than Yesterday

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

My work has changed so many times over the years!

In one of the most unique and joyful chapters I worked with people primarily on the stage– finding their voices, unbinding themselves from their stories of the past.

This work was special.  People transformed in front of my eyes. I was shown how beautiful and shimmery we all are, before we learn what we are not supposed to be.

Sometimes I wish I could take people back to the stage, but from this awareness I have now. Knowing people’s Designs. Knowing how infinitely different we all are.

I still think this film has something to offer. I still desire for each of us to step into more of who it is we came here to be.  And to peel back layers of everything we are not.

 

Reading Rumi & Being

Posted on by Meredith

Reading Rumi—

This morning I woke up anxious and deeply sad.

I used to do all sorts of things about that. To change it. Used specific methods to make it go away.

Today I sat with it and watched the snow fall.

Then I went down to my sauna and sat in the dark. A meditation and prayer.

As I settled into an eventual stillness, I picked up Rumi to join me.

Rumi and I laugh a lot. We weep. We sigh. We fill back up.

I thought there was nothing better on a snowy Sunday afternoon than to invite you to tea with Rumi.

May I read to you for a bit?

I love this man.

The Books That Stole My Heart in 2017

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

Does anyone read anymore? Like actual books? 

I know over the years my own reading had fizzled to almost non-existent. 

In reflecting on my year, one of the things I am most grateful for has been my own rediscovery of those ancient page filled treasures known to some as BOOKS. 

In 2017, I really started to read.

With my reading this year has come the most incredible mentors, surprising friendships, new ideas, and amazing journeys through time. 

I wanted to give a shout out to the books and authors that have most shaped me this year. Many of them I consider to be dear friends, though most of them I have never met. 

I have divided these lists into categories. Much of my reading this year was dedicated to mystics and contemplative approaches to the universe and truth. There is also a list of authors I most admire as artists, books that have opened my eyes to important topics in the world and a little bit of random categorical gratitude.  

I can’t say these are the best books ever. Or of all time. They are just the particular titles that found me and whispered things I needed to hear at perfect moments. They held me.

See if any of these titles sparkle at you. See if opening any of them might add to your future and your life. 

Mystics & Guides – My greatest teachers of 2017
Rumi – I can meditate deeply… or read Rumi. Same/same. Weeping with beauty.  A Year With Rumi. Dude!
Richard Rohr – (Everything Belongs, Immortal Diamond, Falling Upward… I read like a library by him.) He caught me this year in free fall and said everything I needed to hear.
Paulo Coelho – Manuscript in Accra was a wonderful quick surprise.  Beautiful insight about friendship.   
Vernon Howard – Always yells at me when I need it.  And knows stuff. Mystic Path to Cosmic Power = worst book cover and amazing insight!
Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation) – A new friend who has discovered many things I want to know.
Joel Goldsmith (The Contemplative Life) – also knows stuff
C.S. Lewis – The Screwtape Letters are kinda genius! (Very different than reading them in high school.) 
Mother Teresa – Come Be My Light shook me.
Pema Chodron – The Pocket Pema fits in my pocket. What’s not to love there? 

Authors That Inspire Me – My New Best Friends
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things) – I want to write with that much bravery
Bob Goeff (Love Does) – I want to carry his suitcase around the world. 
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic) – My best friend who has never met me.
Rob Bell (Love Wins) – Just love all the things in his brain.  And he has guts.
Shauna Neiquest (Present Over Perfect) – So inspired by how she creates. 
Maya Angelou (Letter to My Daughter) – How have I not read her books until this year?! What!? 
Stephen King (On Writing) – Thanks for writing this book! So good. 
Forest Benedict (Life After Lust) – Congrats bro on your first book! Way to go!
 
Books That Have Most Opened My Eyes About the World
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr – About how the Internet is changing our brain. This booked changed everything about my life. Literally. 
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevensen – Just system. Must read this!
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari – Every human should have to read this! 
Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman – If you have interest in (or repulsion to) the Bible, check out his books. There are many. Such important and fascinating history. 
The Last Rhinos by Lawrence Anthony – unimaginable connection to animals and a wild adventure!
The Myth of Equality by Ken Wytsma – embarrassed I didn’t know this! My own prejudices explored. Uncomfortably good!

My Personal Spiritual Text Books of 2017
A New New Testament – Such good context & amazing insight into a book I was pretty much over for decades (the Bible). Beautifully done! Many new (old) manuscripts added that didn’t make the original Bible. Super insightful!! 
Christ Returns, Reveals Startling Truth – Perhaps my very favorite book of the year! It’s scrubbed by this Catholic nun in her 80’s who starts channeling Jesus. I LOVE this book! Online for free here.
A Course in Miracles – an old friend I returned to after a decade. Nourishment. 
The Sophia Code – a new friend with beautiful insight from 7 female masters over time.  

Super Inspiring/ Categories of Their Own
Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s Hamilton the Revolution. Beautiful book of the making of Hamilton. Don’t have enough words for this book, these lyrics, this man or this show! If you are an artist, you will love this book!
Beth Moon’s Ancient Trees Portraits of Time – Stunning photography of stunning subjects. Thank you Beth!
Seth Pitt – I just keep gushing about this artist. His paintings brought so much sparkle to my year! 
Seth Godin – awesome daily email blurbs

Best Fiction (I clearly don’t read much fiction) 🙂
Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert – My favorite heroine of all time!
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett— Just loved!

So many thank yous to all these beautiful, vulnerable, tenacious artists living bravely in the world. 

If reading has left your life, maybe 2018 is a year to wonder about it again? It has been super enriching to add back to mine.

A Room of One’s Own

Posted on by Meredith

The unveiling of my darling, impractical, delightful new creation.

A tiny room that makes me unspeakably happy.

A writing/ library room of my own.

There has been something so very life giving for me this year in purging and decluttering and filling the new spaces with things I find truly beautiful.

Things that I love.

The room is my gift from me to me. A creative space of my very own.

Is there a space that you could add to your life this year that would amp up your creativity, your relaxation or simply increase your capacity to breathe?

Or maybe you have a space that you just need to declutter and fill back up with beauty and love so it can nourish you rather than drain you?

There is so much to be said for the objects we surround ourselves with. For the spaces we create and how they make us feel.

May 2018 be a year of beauty and filling up rather than excess and frenzy.

May 2018 be a year of nourishing spaces, from you to you.

An Uncanny Change

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

I used to think I had an anxious horse.

I’ve since realized I have a very psychic horse, and I was actually a bit anxious.

In my recent season of more quiet and space, my horse has completely transformed!

I made you a video!

(Remember this is the horse that stepped on my head and would get so freaked in the woods she would occasionally rear and race home.)

Here she is today calmly learning to bow and graciously hosting Charlotte’s first ride on her back.

It’s easy to get so busy that you don’t even realize the energies you are being.

But as you choose peace and joy and ease… those around you will feel it. And like my horse, they just might change as well.

What can you gift yourself this season to have more of those energies?

The space filled?

Light filled?

Angst-less ones?

Are you willing to do less this season? And have and be more?

Blessings and gratitude to my FB friends and family this year. Merry Christmas to all!

P.S. For those following my horse saga…

This sweet horse was named Tormenta, and since my accident she has really wanted a new name. After months of wondering and many lists, she is now officially Maia.

Happy happy girl!

Including Inmates in Your Merry Season

Posted on by Meredith

Warning: I’m going to gush about a man today.

The first time I heard Bryan Stevenson speak was last summer at a leadership event. By the end of his speech I was on my feet, both incredibly moved by his story, and also incredibly shocked by my ignorance.

I heard him again last weekend at a service. And dudes! Get his book. Just Mercy. You will be so glad you read it!

He’s a ninja of kindness and tenacity (also a lawyer) who is working to make huge changes in the (deeply broken) prison systems in America.

He’s also an INCREDIBLE speaker!

You can watch a version of his talk here.

What’s been circling in my head this week since hearing him is…

2.3 million people are spending this holiday season incarcerated. And as many kids, spending Christmas without those parents.

I know… the prisons… one more broken thing to be overwhelmed by…

Or…

One more chance to lean in. To get close to a topic. To learn about something. And to wonder about what else it could look like and to care.

So I started wondering…

How can I include inmates in my holiday this year?

In my thoughts?
In my list of things I send warmth and love to in my meditations or prayers?
In my gift giving?

Did you know if you google prison penpal, there are many ways to send prisoners letters?

And that Angel Tree is a really cool organization getting gifts to prisoners’ kids?

What gift could you be in a stranger’s life? Especially one the world has kind of forgotten about?

I was really touched someone brought this to my mind last week.

And thus, I bring it to yours.

We have so much. Where else can we a spread a bit of that joy? And what gift might that unleash in your own heart as well?

(And read that book! Just Mercy. Seriously, it’s so good!)

Glorious & Wretched: Including It All

Posted on by Meredith

A friend sent me an email the other day. She’s having a really hard time right now. She moved to Europe and is struggling with her family, with feeling alone, with finances crumbling, and plans not going as planned.

But even more, she’s struggling with not having it all together.

I think that’s one of the big lies we feed each other. That we should have it all together. That life should always be glorious. That something is wrong if it is not.

Another friend sent me this poem by Pema Chödrön the other day that has struck me deeply with revelations about myself.

May I share it with you?

LIFE IS BOTH WRETCHED AND GLORIOUS
By Pema Chödrön

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the
gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger
perspective, energizes us. We feel connected.

But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down
on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being
really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness
becomes tinged by craving and addiction.

On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up
considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there
for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right
into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–
you’re just there.

The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only
wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed,
discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat
an apple.

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the
other softens us. They go together.

This year I have been looking deeply at the fact that I have lived most of my life focusing entirely on the gloriousness. Sweeping the wretched out of sight.

“We get arrogant and start to look down on others.” I had.

This last year has rocked my world and knocked me off kilter. My first walloping dose of wretchedness in a long time.

And in this intensity, as Pema predicts, I found myself more real.

More humble.

More willing to sit with people who are in pain and not have to spoon out platitudes, fix it or help them figure it out.

I started to see all the fake both around me and even within me. First with judgment. Then with sadness. Then with a touch of grace. And curiosity for what is beyond that falseness and those barriers and walls.

I found myself drawn to people I had written off. And broken open by things I cannot change. Also comforted by things I would have found unproductive or worthless before.

As I have sat with this energy (wondering dramatically if I would ever create anything ever again), I have realized that I will connect with the gloriousness as and when I am ready.

And slowly I have been becoming ready. And gloriousness is peeking into my space once again.

“The world needs real people.” I told my friend. “Even people who need help and don’t have it all together. Perhaps especially.”

What if it’s not just ok to have seasons of both, what if it’s actually required? What if it’s part of what gives us beauty and richness and depth? Dare I say, is sometimes deeply beneficial? And exceptionally real?

I do think there are shimmery things for us on the other side of hard. That doesn’t make them less brutal to be with.

And that doesn’t mean that the shimmery will be glorious. It might surprise us. We might shimmer with raw wretched aliveness for a time.

But I wonder… Couldn’t the world use more of that too?

A Whole Chapter About Not Judging (Hidden in the Bible)

Posted on by Meredith

So the other day I got into a particularly precarious conversation with a group of people I really respect who have a very different opinion of what I think is a pretty important, humanitarian topic.

It was a predominantly Christian group of people and the conversation was about how the Bible called us to handle this particular thing.

Now I haven’t actually read the Bible thoroughly. Maybe like 20% if I’m being generous with myself.

But I had a pretty strong opinion on this point.

“I really just think that if we are talking about loving each other, the commandment of Jesus, the first thing we are called to do is not judge each other.” I said. “I just cannot see how it is our job to judge.”

My theological argument pretty much ended there.

With a piddly “You know, judge not, lest ye be not judged” thrown in for good measure.

Everyone nodded politely.

But I KNEW this was a key. And that there must be more than that.

So fast forward a week.

And randomly I pick up the Bible and start reading Romans. A book I have never read.

And I get to chapter 14 and my jaw drops.

The whole freaking chapter is about how we are not to judge our neighbors.

How we are to support them in doing what they believes connects them to god.

The whole freaking chapter!

It’s kind of about food. But it’s about WAY more than food.

To me it is about everything. About condemning each other for the way another worships or expresses herself or loves or interprets her own whispers from whatever name she have given any presence bigger than herself.

I’ll read you parts of it in this video. Because it is so good!

It says:

“Always receive them as friends, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on their scruples.”

and…

“Nothing is defiling in itself. A thing is defiling only to the person who holds it to be so.”

and…

“Happy is the person who never has to condemn himself in regard to something he thinks is right.”

I am in love with Romans 14 today.

And I continue to remain passionate about the idea that if we are to bring light and beauty onto this earth, that one of our core jobs is to give up judgment of each other.

To listen to the whispers in our own hearts and souls and minds and to honor others by allowing and inviting and even celebrating that they are doing the same.

As we jump into holiday parties and gatherings and difficult family conversations… what if we kept this in mind?

What if we focused on judging each other less? And loving each other more?

Permission Granted

Posted on by Meredith

So this writing workshop I went to last week with Elizabeth Gilbert & Cheryl Strayed… It was soooo juicy.

We did a lot of 5 minutes writing exercises. Stream of consciousness. Just whatever came out.

One was to write yourself a permission slip, written by the principal or ultimate authority of your life, as though they are writing yourself the ultimate hall pass.

Permission to do and be absolutely anything you have ever been waiting for permission from anyone for.

I thought you might want to take 5 minutes to play with it yourself. I found it really freeing and fun.

I’ve posted mine below.

Feel free to share yours in the comments. Or just share what came up for you.. if you wish.

What is it you desire to be or try or seek or change?

Permission officially granted!

———————————

Dear Blossom,

I am your authority. And this is your permission slip:

You no longer have to explain yourself…
To anyone.
Again.
Ever.

No why.
Ever.

You know. You choose. You did. You are.
That is all.

You now have a license to enter all conversations happening on this planet. Without invitation. Without credentials. Without permission. Without apology. To comment. To question. To contribute. To poke.

You may say what is true for you and let others work out their own discomfort. Or not. Their choice.

This slip comes with unapologetic carte blanche to:

Love your body
To stand alone
To fuck things up
To have nothing to say
To change your mind
To not be sure
To get it wrong

To disappear from the path of great importance.
And reappear on the path of wherever you are.
To accomplish nothing noticeable.
To sing off key songs.
To sit very still.
To wear yoga pants
Anywhere

To pay change fees on airlines because you have changed your mind.

To break all rules that never applied to you in the first place.

To compare yourself to nothing.

To care. Or not care.

This pass comes with total credence to be all the “toos”: Too happy, too lucky, too confident, too rich, too connected, too enthusiastic, too talkative, too too too.

Consider this a hall pass to do whatever the fuck you know you must do with this beautiful life.

For it is yours.

And you know.

I trust your instincts.

I trust your heart.

You can’t get this wrong.

Permission to play!

Yours Truly,
The Principal

A Snotty Mess Over the Caring In the World?

Posted on by Meredith

So I don’t think I’ve ever made a video where I was such a snotty mess…

It’s the good kind. I swear.

My hometown is on fire this week. Massive, out of control, raging fires. So I’ve been watching the story closely.

And this morning I woke up to a Facebook post that sort of wrecked me.

It was just a list.

But a list of businesses donating food, offering clothes and free bowling and pet boarding and miniature golf and internet and housing…

and the list just kept going and going…

I guess I was just really touched by the caring. By the spirit of love in the face of catastrophe and despair.

The last few days I have been undone by that energy again and again. My eyes just keep welling up with tears.

I’m in Birmingham this morning— having traveled up from New Orleans to Jackson and heading to Atlanta.

The last four days have been confusing and opening and inspiring in so many unusual ways.

Teachers who have given their lives to breathe into kids and believe in their futures…

White folks who moved here as teens to ride busses and lay on floors during the Civil Rights movement…

Pastors and storytellers and organizations that are championing goodness and change.

And that in the face of a really ongoing disaster. One that started hundreds of years ago and has not really changed.

It has me wondering if it sometimes takes a tragedy for us to come together?

It makes me wonder if these natural disasters are in some strange way gifts from the earth to challenge us to see we are part of something together?

It also makes me aware of the disasters that just get so drawn out that they lose our attention. That we forget about the radical need. Or that caring still brings out the best of us. And is part of what we can always choose.

It’s easy to turn on the tv and forget that. To think that humanity is one big mess and there is nothing we can do.

But there is so much we can do!

Open our homes. Our hearts. Our conversations. Our resources. Our questions.

Gratitude for everyone in California who is reminding me of that today. And so many in the South.

And what role can each of us play in that journey along the way?