Adama means ground in Hebrew

I am preparing for a course this term (Spring term) called Indigenous Theologies. I was given two text that need to be read prior to the May 11 start. I am in an interesting place in my life as I read these text. I wonder how everything seems to be sychronistic (not syncretic a new word I learned). I am forever aware.

I have changed, for the better, changed for good, I hope in the past few years. With eight years of sobriety I can now visit the old places where I used to live and see if I can make them right. I am blending the beliefs of my old religiousness, gathering them and then asking how can I make something new. That is syncretism. The blending of beliefs. Ahhhhh what a beautiful opportunity.

My friend asked me today “tell me some of the things you eat” and I had to stop and think, because what I ate prior to January 1 may be different than what I have been eating lately, because the journey is asking something different of me. I have been asked to set aside my old ways, my patterns, and then see what comes each day. In AA they say, “one day at a time” and this is not only where that should be honoured. Every day is important and needs to be noticed. At the end of it, lay your head and ask did I live today with integrity, kindness, awareness and spiritual wellness?

Be grateful when you awaken in the morning realizing you can have yet another day to do better, be better and care more.

We were created from “…fertile topsoil, with all its wiggling worms, decayed matter, and fungal filaments. The living soil, which has always been vital for producing fruitful plants, is the soil from which humanity is also formed. This reinforces the common creatureliness and kinship with the rest of creation and reminds the reader once again of the essential connection between humanity and the land.” (Hoklotubbe and Zacharias, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: Page 36 referencing the Genesis story from the Hebrew Scriptures)

So beautiful and life-giving at a time when life is waning for those I love

The key is in your pocket

Today I watched on YT one of my fav interviewers and he had a special video that was excerpts from past interviews. It is called Life Advice from 80+ Year Olds You Didn’t Know You Needed and has people I who I know their work well. He omitted their identity, (why I don’t know, oversight?) however I knew all of them on sight. One special one, is Dr. Edith Eger a survivor of Auschwitz. She talks about her time in the camp and how she has come to see we are all prisoners in our minds, and we carry the keys in our pocket. While her experience is horrific she teaches and leads one to realize we are able to rise above anything.

I am now eight years sober and it is one area of my life where I see how I finally pulled the key out of my pocket. I healed and soothed my soul so my ego could let go of the shell I had created.

I am halfway through a second masters and decided to quit because I felt it was unnecessary to finish. I was feeding yet again another prison I had created, telling myself I am not worth speaking my needs to finish this degree. Falling victim to fear and abandonment. Once again I pulled out the key and opened the door to potential.

Like this mushroom I am

finding a place to grow!

What keys are on your ring in your pocket that need to be reviewed? Maybe there are keys there that belong to doors you have already opened. Maybe pick one and see which door you are challenged to enter. The spirit will guide you.

I am on a new journey, canoeing down a new canal, swimming in a different lane and it has presented me with many keys and asked deeply provocative questions. I am listening. I am learning. I am loving.

We may reach the finish line

here and there, but we are

never finished!

The challenge of knowing

These pieces are all random and laying around my table. They represent a picture that will come together when I take the time to move them and match them up. Otherwise, this puzzle, in its scatter will simply remain scattered.

Our lives are a splat! A scattering of puzzle pieces according to Dr. Sue Mortar. Her theory is we arrive here after landing at the bus stop, speaking with source and challenging the soul to an earthly life to live lessons. Once the mission, is accepted onward the journey. We arrive, or splat, and then spend the rest of our lives seeking all our pieces.

It is our job to figure out how to live our soul’s mission. It is our burning desire, deep in our heart to fulfill that which we set out to achieve. Then the human existence gets involved. Ego (Edging Gawd Out) begins to play with us on a human level. Our need for soul’s fulfillment takes a silent back seat to the drive of the ego. This is where it gets tricky. Are we able to reconnect with the very heart of our own matter?

This brings me to the question, if you knew your death day would you live differently? In the work I do, I am now immersed in knowing too much. I know more than most people witness. That is not arrogance talking, it is fact. There are few who can speak up and say, “I have lived a journey of self or with others where I knew the death day.” I have been changing a woman in her bed, and while freshening up her dying body, she died. She took her last breath. It was not planned in that moment, not by me or my care mate, however it was planned by the body. The body gave out, took its last breath and beat its last beat. The blood took its final lap around the miles of vessels. I was at the bedside of my father, watching the Young and the Restless with my mother when he breathed his last. When his body said, “enough, it is finished!” My father a very religious man did not call out asking why he had been forsaken, or begged for the forgiveness of others. Nor did he commend his own soul to source. He simply stopped breathing. The vessel was left behind and that which I knew of as my father seemed to be gone. It was not planned or known when that moment would come, it just came.

In a world today when we might know our death day, what makes that different? My beautiful friend and guide, Linda F. Hochstetler, has a book from a Canadian perspective that talks about dying and death. In it she has a meditation asking this very question beginning with eight years (I think) and then meditating down to eight seconds. I have done it, however, now I have a very different view since I have watched it happen in real life. The challenges, the questions, the anger, the fear, the unknown …. they all surface in real ways, in real challenges and in real pain.

Most of us live our lives never considering our death day. Not one minute of living is spent thinking about dying, other than to joke about it or throw out platitudes. Just today, on the news, a father of one of the boys killed in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash was speaking about his son. He was talking about the lives made better and saved because they donated their boys organs. He shared how one day, while on the back deck he and his son were talking about someone donating their organs. His boy said he wanted his organs donated if possible. That was the simple seed planted that assisted the family in a time of dire sadness.

Pretend one day that you know your death day. Set a date in the future as your own death day. See what it is like to plan beyond it, focus on the future, and ask yourself, “am I looking at my family differently?” Just because you create an awareness of living by setting a death day does not mean you will die, it means you will live because a new awareness will grasp you. An awareness that cannot honestly be fathomed until you truly are facing your death day.

I am changed. My work will change going forward. Thanks be to my own soul for its choosing to learn beyond the depths of what surfing or skimming the surface will bring. I am so grateful for all the joy, pain, suffering and hope I have witnessed. Truly I feel I am living. Living fully. Deeply aware. Hungrily understanding a soulful journey.

A poem by Mary Oliver ….

“Where there is life there is hope.”

This title is a quote from my favourite show, Downton Abbey, of course. If you have followed my writing at all I am sure you know that. I was standing at the front window looking to the east as the sun was appearing and thought to myself how blessed I am. Where there is life we can find hope, or as Mrs. Hughes said, there “is” hope. The question is what does hope look like. Hope to one is different than hope to another.

I am on a journey of hope right now. In the moment, I asked the question, “are you afraid of dying?” and was told no. That brought me hope. Hope that people can, even on their death bed, can reassure and remind me fear and hope are both found within.

Most recently I had a very restless sleep because I was fearful. My imagination was running away with me. I had latched onto a thought, and this thought had turned from a passing wonder into a dark, scary monster. I was lying in bed, in the darkest night, and this monster just took me over. My breathing quickened, my heart rate increased and my head felt like it was going to explode! Honestly, our thoughts are so dangerous.

Funny tho’ as the next day I was listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book Your Erroneous Zones and it helped me with that dark night of thinking, thinking, thinking. Thoughts are just that, thoughts. We set up fears, hopes, dreams, actions on nothing but thoughts. Everything in our lives is driven by a thought! It is how we direct these thoughts and what thoughts we allow into our world that matters. When the neighbour’s great aunt dies, we never even give it a second thought, and yet, something happens in our world we give it second, third, fourth ….. fifteenth thoughts! So much real estate is taken up with the “what if’s” , we about drown. The key to releasing my biology from the ravish of the stress was to change my thoughts. Now don’t get me wrong….. this is hard. The thing is tho’ it is possible!

Where there is life there is hope, reminds me each day we are given a day of life and then we can choose what to do with it. Watching my children and grandkids reminds me of how much can be done in a day. Sitting at the bedside of the dying reminds me how to live the one beautiful life I am given. On the death bed, there is no do-overs, no going back, nothing in the past can be changed. So, where there is life there is hope you will live with integrity, honesty, and love.

Start a plant from a clipping and watch it grow. Think about that when your mind takes off. Study a bird in the sky, dipping and soaring, and when a thought takes you down the 400 series highway, jump on the wings of that bird in your mind and take to the skies, let go of the spiralling thought downward and find hope in the positive. This is a practice, not a gift.

My life is about to change yet again. Previously, I would have felt shame that yet again I am migrating, pulling up stakes, re-rooting my soul, but plants remind me we can flower and grow anywhere when we have the right conditions. Where there is life there is hope. Hold on to that!

#breakingstibah

spiritual awareness

It’s been a while since I put fingers to keys to write anything beyond a short post. I have not blogged or vlogged on our DanCyn’ Adventures channel either. I have been on sabbatical. It was not really planned, it just happened AND it was not paid, other than my regular older adult income. That said it is a beautiful time. I moved as many know to the northern community called Elliot Lake in July 2025. I moved there for financial reasons alongside of the knowing it is marketed as a retirement community. I was there 6 months and settling in only to be invited back with family to help care.

For the past 8 weeks or so I have been living in caring for a loved one. Humbling work of service that reminds how life can get away. I have been doing this kind of work for 20 years, working with people dealing with grief, loss and sadness and, also working hands on care, providing service to those who need help with daily activities of living. These hands, sometimes cold, thankfully more often warm, massage, wash, tend and hold others with compassion and love.

Most recently I watched a $50 bill travel from hand to hand over a few hours as one provided it to another, saying, “give this to …” then the second recipient turning it over to another saying, “here treat yourself to something nice.” Then knowing the nice might be donating it to help a charity. It reminded me how all things in life are a currency. We often think of money as the only currency however there are so many currencies in our day to day lives that we overlook and take for granted. In helping someone, you offer your currency of care and love.

I am reading a book called Sun House by David James Duncan and it is profoundly written in story form bringing the serendipity of life to the forefront. I am currently completing level 2 of Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy where we are learning how to care for the soul or spirit as part of the overall psychological living we do. The training is finally speaking to my own heart as it teases out how we are spiritual beings first and religious second. Religiosity is a way of living out our spirituality (outward expression of an inner need) and one can live a full spiritual life without ever touching any traditional religious institution. It takes my breath away how this is finally being taught and seen.

There is so much to life we miss when we are anchored in the social norms or mainstream media and falling beneath the waves of internet searching. We are dumbed down and anaesthetized, or rendered desensitized, to pain and life’s light when we spend time on screens.

Touching the skin of my loved one, holding hands, washing face, cleaning up after a bowel movement are all acts of love so deep that this can be only a currency of spiritual awareness and a humble heart. There is so much more to be grateful for that most people miss. Are you missing out? Reach out to me and let me help you find your spirit and bring your soul into the light.

“if only I could just get up to pee …”
“I would love to have a shower …”
“To be able to feel the cold on my face while I take a walk …”

If you can do any of these be ever so grateful ….

#breakingstibah
#dancynadventures

multi-tasking or multi-convoluting?

I have so many projects on the go right now because I like to have variety of crafting. I need to challenge myself to pick up the project and decide where I am and what it is I need to do next. This keeps me “busy” in my mind. What keeps me busy in my heart?

The holidays and once again over for another year and January is upon us. This is the time of year when everyone believes it is a fresh start and a time when we can resolve to do better, be better and achieve more. Funny how the marketing has taken on the message about the drop off of resolutions and working on getting people to figure out how not to quit their hopeful change.

Multi-tasking is a way of avoiding digging deep into one project. When we have more than one project on the go when we get bored or lose interest we can switch. That has been the story of my life. Changing lanes when the dew is off the rose, or the brass is tarnished. Life is boring … boring because our deepest happiness is in doing little other than witnessing the wonder of our world. Right we all live in fear and anxiety as to what is going on in the world, gone are the days when our world view was maybe 10 miles deep.

We know too much. Too much for our current evolved brain to compute. Technology has brought to our desks, in our homes, the troubles of the whole. Alongside those troubles are fears and anxieties for which we can never soothe.

So here’s my 2026 thought …. I am going to stay more focused on what I can manage and work with. I am going to make it my mission to not be shamed into caring about the world’s problems every minute of every day from the 24 hr news channel and, while checking in, looking up now and again, I am going to focus my attention on my own heart and health. If we all spent a little time loving ourselves then love would be more of our focus.

If you don’t hear from me … that’s why! Take care and take charge … of loving yourself because if you do not love yourself no one else will.

Choose JOY

“Except in the moments when I worried about being okay with being alone – moments when I was suffering over not suffering. I worried that I’d simply gotten too tired to care, had just given up.”  The Dance (pg 68.) OriahMountain Dreamer

Another holiday season is in the books. Satisfied for another year. I always think of it as a monster that stews, frets, self-promotes, propagates and reaches into the very darkness of the soul to test this desire for the human ego to be noticed. We witness weeks of ads, promotions, and messages telling us what to buy, who needs the latest and asking children over and over “what is Santa going to bring you?” In the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, the 1994 edition, a child asks for a poly-wog. The mother calls Santa aside and asks him not to promise because she cannot afford it. The Santa directs her to a store where it is discounted. She is grateful, in itself, a gift, a break on the cost of a toy. 

I have watched multiple Hallmark movies where the plot and story are so cookie cutter style, I can usually say the dialogue as the movie unfolds. A young woman in her overly charged apartment, filled with typical décor answers her cell. I say, “Hi MOM” before she does. I feel cynical however, this year I feel satisfied. No leaking or draining of energy into a wayward hole of “if only” and “did I miss this boat?” I have lifted my foot off that step. 

In my studies as a spirituality geek, I have learned we spiral our way forward into new and exciting places to live. Emotionally, mentally and spiritually we seek to alleviate suffering. That said, though, do we ever let go of suffering? The age-old question, why do bad things happen to good people, is asked repeatedly. Tragedy strikes in December and so many say, “To have it happen at Christmas!” My thought is to have it happen any time of year.

Suffering is a condition we self-impose. Most people do not want to realize this truth, and it is a truth. We are conditioned to suffer and, often we hold on to our suffering like we would a warm cloak or blanket, because in truth who are we without our suffering?

There is profit in suffering. Not only at Christmas does the marketing play on this suffering, but day in and day out on social media and advertising. We are suffering because there must be something we are missing out on. FOMO Fear of missing out.

I watched the movie, Letters to Juliet with Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried on Christmas Day. I had seen it before however, each time I watch something a second, third or fourth time I look for new understandings and lessons. In watching this time, I realized I have love that is over 50 years old. I have regret of what might have happened if my metaphorical letter had been answered. I wonder if that 19-year-old girl had seen through the pain and haze of perceived suffering might I be celebrating almost 50 years of marriage? In looking back and in review I ran away, I was no more responsible than a 2 year old that walks into traffic. I had no wisdom in my life then to help me to see the journey unfold. I only now have the wisdom of looking back. My hindsight could be my suffering. 

The quote here reminds me I can only suffer the past and the future. While my hindsight could be the source of my suffering, if I choose to carry it along with me as a cloak or a blanket, I could tell my story like so many do and get sad looks and pity. My story is what made me who I am today and that is a good thing. I also have learned to let others suffer so they too can grow wise. It is in suffering we gain compassion and true heart. We gain compassion not only for others who are suffering, but for ourselves when we let go and realize it was a journey. 

Suffering need not exist as one’s only arena of life. When it is used as a tool to know in this moment, at this time, today, in the present we are okay joy can be found. Happiness is different than joy. Joy is a deep settled gratefulness for surviving all that we have endured. Happiness is a choice. Choose to be happy and reach into your heart and find joy. May I take this time to wish you well as you turn your face to the new year, a fresh start and may 2026 be the year you find joy. If you need someone to hold your hand, who has been there, reach out …. My hand is open and offered. 

Puzzling ….

Have you ever stopped and thought to yourself this is puzzling? What is it to be puzzled? How can we use this experience of being puzzled as a positive and grow through it to complete the picture?

I am listening to some great podcasts and YT video recordings talking about values, beliefs and rock-bottom thinking. Living life to the fullest is much like a puzzle. It comes in a box, called a tiny body, and then we must grow into it and find all our pieces.

Dr. Sue Morter talks about this in her work. She discussed her thoughts about how our soul waits for the bus at the stop and then is transported to this earthly experience. When we land we “splat” she says, and then we seek to put the puzzle pieces together for the rest of our days on earth.

Personally, as I have learned how to navigate my splatted self and gather, tender, and carefully pull this puzzle together, I have been given so much opportunity to test the process. One of the things I seemed to harvest first, early on in my life, was impetuousness and impatience. Now at 66 I have realized they were key pieces to my puzzle. The hard lessons I have endured have been teaching how to find both contentment and patience.

Often all the pieces of our lives make little sense. We can see some semblance and we can match colours, lines and nuance – it does not mean they fit. Fitting only works when the right pieces are put together. This takes patience and contentment to continue working at it. Some call it “trying”. There is no such concept as “try”. We either do it or we do not. Take a piece and if it does not fit, take another piece and see if it fits. With trial and error the right piece will eventually be found. Even if you make a plan of elimination, eventually you will find the right piece. It is not about trying, it is about doing, action, and perseverance. When we take action, have experiences, gain data, we learn and we process. The pillars of wisdom! Learning and Experience.

So like knitting, puzzles, sewing or hiking there must be a plan. A plan to implement what it is you hope to achieve. We are now at the threshold of 2026 and it is a time when many look to see if life is coming together like a well knitted blanket, a complicated puzzle or the journey on a trail. It is not January 1 the decision for a better life is made, it is today, this minute, this hour.

As you look to 2026 and beyond may you begin today to be happy, healthy and content.

Put together your life …. it doesn’t have to be puzzling….

#dancynadventures

#breakingstibah

What’s EARLY!?

Today … and the past week or so I have been up before 6 AM! Why because I am staying with my family and there are two young men in my world daily! One morning I was wakened at 5:45 AM! He stood at the edge of the bed and said, “Gramma, I kind of wet the bed!” How does one “kinda” wet the bed? I went up an he showed me the exact spot that his pull up had leaked! So we began to strip the bed. He quickly hopped up and started pulling the fitted sheet and said, “I know what to do Gramma!” and he did. He knows it is not a sin to wet the bed and is realizing it is his stage of life. He might be a bit late in some people’s timeline but for him, it is simply something that needs to be managed.

As I helped him prepare for the day, cleanup and dry clothes he mentioned something about “being a baby” since he cannot go through the night without wetting. I suggested it has nothing to do with being a baby, he just has not developed that skill yet and his body is still growing and developing. He smiled. He smiled a million dollar smile that told me he was appreciative that I seemed to understand and seem to have a reason for this late bed wetting problem.

In the work I do, I assist aging adults with their “pull ups”. Many call them “diapers” however in the world of PSW work we are trained to call them “briefs”. Diapers are for babies we are told. This labeling is important to the aging adults just like it was important to my grandson. Are we up early in the morning? Are we late? Should we have grown out of something? or are we old and have grown into that stage of life? The idea we tag our years on the planet with bodily functions or with labels has gone by the wayside I hope. Many cannot understand this distinction of “labels” and I try to deeply understand it.

Recently, I walked with a friend and she shared how she was told how someone who has always had a grandson shared how this grandson is now a grand-daughter. Her friend is adjusting to this label change, gender change and this news. The “grandson” no longer exists and so the label of “grandson” needs to be grieved and welcome a grand-daughter she never had before. During their life this child, growing into being an adult, has changed who they are and adjustments need to be made.

It is mid-November and so many people are lamenting the snow has come “early” this year. Is it early? Or is Mother Nature changing her identity? Has she decided now is the time to blanket herself with the masculine energies of wind and bluster? “She” is exercising her right to call us to attention, holding out a poppy in November, remembering winter is coming. It is not early nor is it late, it is simply doing what our seasons do, changing.

One of the greatest gifts and lessons I learn when I spend time with my children and their families is the fact they live their lives their own way. It may not be my way, so that is where I must learn to keep my thoughts to myself, watch and appreciate, while stepping out of their way. As a mother, I often wish I was a bear or a wolf or a bird …. I wish I had the instinct where I birth my children, then when the time is right, move on and let them go. As humans I think we hold on much too long.

Last night, over a puzzle, my daughter and I had a short conversation. I was sharing and she looked at me and said, “Am I wrong that I feel compassion and yet some complacency?” I was touched because I feel the same. I have raised her to realize life moves on and it is in this human holding on we create mass suffering. When is it too early to realize we are born, we grow, we have kids, we age and then we DIE. It is the way it is. We can have compassion and then we can exercise complacency and find joy again.

Being early or being late is relative and objective to one’s life. Where are you on your timeline? Are you early or are you late? I am happy to talk with you about this concept, it just might relieve your suffering!

Is there really no music

There is a story I tell and I have no idea where it came from. I just tell it. It is about a person who argues there is no God! They stand up with fire and fight and say, “I am an astronaut and I have been to the reaches of space and I can attest, there is no God!” Another person in the crowd, a musician, stands peacefully and quietly, turns to the same group of people, holds up his violin, and says, “That is like saying, I have taken apart this violin piece by peace and can attest there is no music!” Believe, joy and witness is not in the factual evidence of our lives but in the living, believing and trust of it. God is not a noun-like tangible presence, God is that which takes you on a journey of faith and love of your life. God is a verb.

I have been talking about being prompted to pull a book of my shelf to read it after carrying it with me for many years. Today I found the purchase receipt inside. It is faded and hard to read however I can see I purchased it October 7, 2008 and am further in awe of the great spirit and the journey I am on. It was just this week I pulled it off the shelf, 17 years later, almost to the day of purchase.

The wonders of spiritual awareness. I am in awe every day!