prayer | Bonnie Barnard - Part 2

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The Seven Spiritual Practices: A Path of Devotion

Mystics all share the common thread of having a direct experience of God that transforms them from one perception of the world to another; what Christians refer to as a born again experience. This experience includes a shift of living out of the mental realm of judgment, figuring things out, naming and organizing, linear thinking, living and projecting our thoughts onto the world to living from the Eternal Heart where Love directs the mystic. This shift happens in one of two ways — through Grace prompted usually by what we would refer to as a “tragedy,” like a near death experience or the death of a loved one. This is a wake up through a shock in the physical body which rearranges and completely changes how one sees their life on planet earth. The other way of transforming is a drip method where spiritual practice is engaged in as a discipline and little-by-little the individual becomes more attune to the Higher Dimensions and awakens as Buddhism would describe like...

Off to the Pharmacy

My right eye is swollen shut dripping with an infection that I continue to blot on and off and I’ve lost my voice. Six days ago I woke up with a sore throat. I began my regular treatment of homeopathic pearls, throat lozenges, local honey with lemon, lots of rest and lots of prayer. My sore throat continued. My routine continued. In the midst of this flair up, I was visiting family and friends who reinforced my well being as I did not have a fever, I had a lot of energy and I felt REAL good. Then last night in the middle of dinner with my writing partner, my right eye turned bright red, ached and itched and yellow discharge started puddling in my eye. I had to admit to myself that my body clearly required my attention. I am a prayer warrior. And, today I sit with my writing partner in a rented house out of town hearing words scratch forth from my throat when...

Healing a Culture of Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination

I have been riveted to the news about my brother-citizens who have sexually harassed or assaulted women for decades and are now being held responsible for their actions. And, I have witnessed my sisters who are brave and willing to claim their rightful place as equals and valuable contributor/creators in our culture. You and I are undergoing a cultural transformation. Albeit awkward and sometimes painful; extreme emotion exists as part of the process that happens in the middle — in the goo of the chrysalis. When I was in my early thirties I was sexually harassed by a boss in the workplace. My story is a very common one. I have yet to meet a woman who hasn’t been diminished in the workplace, on a date, in their family because of their gender. Isn’t the energy of diminishment interesting? In order to be diminished there needs to be a partner energy of dominance, superiority or entitlement. This polarization is part of the dynamic of psuedo-power. And, isn’t that what is being healed here at the core? So...

God Wants me to Party

My sweetheart and I have plane tickets to go to Bali. Yesterday we learned the island is being evacuated because of volcanic seismic activity. We’re thinking about changing our plans. On the news this morning the focus is Puerto Rico with the residents without water, electricity, and food. The newspaper still covers the last two hurricanes which reeked havoc in our country. As I sit here today feeling concerned over our president’s mental health and what looks like lack of stability; I get quiet and pray. I ask my Self what I can do in the world and for the world. Then I am reminded … Everything is God! Everything is Go(o)d. Another name for God is Good; or That Which is Good.I inhale and exhaled this realization. Everywhere I go God is. Everyone I see is a manifest form of God (whether they have awoken to this or not). The disturbance is in my mind reflected upon the world. It is my insides that are being called to...

In the Name of God

I took my Groupon or Living Social, one of my online coupons, to a neighborhood salon to get my hair done. I brought book Going Clear, an expose’ about the Church of Scientology, along with me to read. The hair dresser introduced himself and then walked me to his station. He asked me what I was reading and I told him adding my friend’s comment on the book “when you think it can’t get weirder, it does.” With his interest peaked, he asked me what made it weird and I proceeded to tell him about L. Ron Hubbard taking his followers to sea and for punishment when they didn’t “obey him” he’d throw them overboard, as one of the many examples. My stylist then confided in me that he had been in what he referred to as a Christian cult. At age 18 he was part of a year long internship program for youth where he was pushed to do strenuous labor like carrying logs from one part of a camp with another. The...