Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics

Modern Western culture conditions us to step away from that precipice as quickly as possible. We are conditioned to see death and painful longing as problems to be solved rather than as sacred landscapes to be revered.

Her recognition of her own vulnerability has deepened—and more deeply integrated—an already profound practice, grounding her Earth activism in the full reality of the human experience.

Participating in the human condition can be bewildering. It is just not always cozy and easy—rather, it’s humbling at best, downright humiliating when it’s not flowing.

Women have internalized our own devaluation. No wonder many women with the privilege of making the choice are choosing not to have children. Child-rearing is arguably the most difficult path possible, a hero’s journey that leads us on harrowing adventures but for which we receive almost no credit.

Over the years, our communal Shabbat practice at Lama has morphed into something only vaguely Jewish. But it draws on the contemplative essence of the ancient ritual and adapts it to meet both the spiritual thirst and the wariness of organized religion that characterize our times.

we can cultivate our intimacy with these sacred spaces. It takes some effort and courage to consciously break through the veil that Western society has spun around death. We are conditioned to see death as a failure rather than as a pilgrimage.

Both unity and diversity are equally sacred realities. Finding our rightful place in this glorious web of mutuality is a cause for celebration.

In Spanish, giving birth is called dar a luz, “to give to light.”

When someone close to us dies, we get to be creative about how we honor them. We don’t have to follow the funerary practices of mainstream society. We can mourn our loved ones according to our inner directives.