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Memories
Changing Paths challenge day 29—memories. One of my earliest memories is looking up at the constellation of Orion. I’ve always loved it. This amazing photo of Orion is from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. In the early days of the internet I used to visit this site every day. I should get back into…
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At the crossroads
Changing Paths challenge day 28 — the crossroads “Only one heart had to find its true position and travel on from there and all the rest would follow, for no matter how isolated the one felt itself to be, in the deeps of all life all were united and no one could move accurately without…
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Change
Changing Paths challenge day 27: change My favourite times of year are the transitional seasons of spring and autumn, when everything is changing rapidly. In spring there are new blossoms and new leaves emerging, and the days lengthen rapidly. In autumn, the leaves turn red and yellow and orange and are blown away in the…
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Wobbling
Changing Paths challenge day 26 — wobbling Spiritual wobbles can happen when your spiritual path becomes out of synch with your religious community. They can be dry spells, when it feels as if the source of your spiritual life has dried up, or the wobble can propel you out of your old path and into…
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Emotional vocabulary
Your emotional vocabulary matters! A better emotional vocabulary — all by itself — can help you develop better emotional skills! Researchers are finding that a better emotional vocabulary can help you identify, work with, and regulate your emotions. A rich vocabulary helps you understand yourself and the world around you, and it helps you understand…
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Longing, Sehnsucht
Changing Paths challenge day 23 — longing. There are various words in other languages that can be approximately translated as longing or yearning. Sehnsucht (German), a longing for a person or a place. Saudade (Portuguese), melancholic longing for a person or a place. Hiraeth (Welsh), a longing for home, possibly unattainable since we cannot revisit…
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Anger is valid
I said that anger is valid because it helps to propel us out of dangerous and abusive situations in Changing Paths (the book). I love that Jo Luehmann has talked about the neurological aspects of processing your anger in this post, and most importantly talking about it—absolutely brilliant. I think that if you turn anger…
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Check your baggage
Changing Paths: unexamined baggage🧳 🎒💼👝👜 This is an excerpt from my book, ‘Changing Paths’: “Changing your religious or spiritual path can result in unexamined spiritual, emotional, and intellectual baggage from your previous tradition, which can cause all sorts of issues from depression to anger. We all need to unpack and deal with our unexamined baggage.…
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We are family
Changing Paths challenge day 21 — family There are two types of family — the one you were born into, and the one you choose. If your birth family is problematic for some reason, you can create your own.
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Seven fires
Changing Paths blogging challenge day 20: hopes and fears. When I chose this prompt, I was thinking of the position in the solar cross Tarot spread that corresponds to hopes and fears. But now, with the news that we will be crossing the 1.5°C global warming threshold in the next few years, I’m reminded of…
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Jungian dreams
Changing Paths challenge day 19 — dreams. Once I dreamed that I was walking across a rocky sandy landscape (the bedrock was reddish sandstone) and saw an old church.
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To the library!
Changing Paths challenge 18 — throwback Thursday. This was my local library when I was a kid. It’s where I discovered Greek mythology, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn-Green, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, and many more. I was introduced to Cynthia Harnett by a teacher at…
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Interfaith relationships
Great new post from John Beckett on interfaith relationships. Our wider society tends to assume that couples will follow the same religion, and generally they do. But interfaith marriages have been a thing for a very long time, whether between Christians and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, or any other combination – including Pagans and people…
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Deep magic
Changing Paths challenge day 17 — deep magic The deepest magic that I know is love. Not sacrificial love, not romantic love, but the everyday magic of connection, nourishing and soul-satisfying.
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Stories
Changing Paths challenge day 16 — stories. The power of stories to change and challenge a person’s worldview is immense. My worldview was definitely informed by reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, The Writing on the Hearth by Cynthia Harnett (now sadly forgotten by…
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Wibbly wobbly
Changing Paths challenge day 14: changing paths. Changing paths is a wibbly-wobbly thing. During the process, I was all over the place. It was like having the bends (you know, the thing where a diver rises too quickly to the surface and gets cramps) or being on a giant scary roller coaster ride. That’s why…
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Things I miss
Changing Paths challenge day 13 — things I do miss about my old path. Unitarian hymns — specifically the earth-based ones like Peter Mayer’s “Blue Boat Home” (which doesn’t get sung often enough in the UK), “Mother Spirit” by Norbert Čapek, and nature-based ones like “Daisies are our silver” and “Spirit of Life” of course,…
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Things I don’t miss
Changing Paths challenge day 12 — things I don’t miss about the traditions I have left.
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Review: The Devil May Care
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Escape to freedom
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Healing through reclaiming
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Made up Christian doctrines
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Double standards
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Ways of talking about faith
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Tenth anniversary edition of All acts
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Meditation is powerful
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DARVO
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Do you fear death?
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Discerning good theology
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