Dear Friends,

I used to dread the snow and cold. I brought that attitude with me from Buffalo, NY. And in the words of the 1970s rock band, Guess Who, “Seasons change, and so did I.” Partly, its that Covid parked me in a spot in my house looking out a window through a screen of trees and over both Spring Lake Park as well as the North Mankato Recycling Center. The view—as it changes and as it stays the same—has had a major impact on my daily spiritual practice. Not just an impact really—gazing into the middle space is now itself a regular spiritual practice. It takes time to do this, and discipline. Discipline, because my busy schedule and monkey mind would have me doing and active and generally agitated and productivity-oriented.

Lately, I have been learning more deeply that gazing into this middle space out my window is a big doing. And I have more vocabulary for describing it since I embarked on a class called “The Labyrinth and the Dancing Floor,” offered online through The Dark Mountain Project. The class encourages me to see the labyrinth of Western Civilization clock time layered over the dance of earth time evident in the rhythms of animals, the movement of clouds and moon phases, and overall season change. I am learning anew what many of you already know. And I am inviting all of you into a practice of slowing down, of resting the mind and opening to feeling and sensations. North American winter is, indeed, a good season for this rest.

I look forward to hearing about your practices of connecting to earth time, as you remember also that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.

Blessings and warm wishes, Rev. Rita

You can read more about Dark Mountain here https://dark-mountain.net/about/