August 12, 2023

The name didn’t register. Not when I opened the email notification from PayPal letting me know someone had ordered my Crone book. It was her personal email that followed immediately. Is this the same Judy Nilan who went to WSU?

OMG!!! Wanda! The fabric of time snapped and folded back on itself. I was again on campus at Washington State University fifty years ago. I was living in the former fraternity house with so many other campus radicals. I was protesting the war, boycotting grapes and lettuce in support of Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers, I was fighting for women’s rights, black rights, and gay rights. I was on fire with a passion for social and environmental justice. And I was called Judy. 

Wanda was with me in all of that. And we were a formidable force. Then we lost contact, as too often happens after university, and it was when she was exploring her Irish spiritual heritage that she found my book. After one zoom call, she signed up to go to Ireland.

We immediately slipped into a very familiar relationship and rhythm. Fifty years of time became no time. Others said it was like we had known each other all our lives. And apparently we have. Our separate paths have lead us back together to stand deeply rooted in a knowing of our spiritual and sacred purpose. And we are again a formidable force. While we are no longer stomping grapes, we are merging with cosmic and otherworld  energies to amplify the Light in the world. The Light that emanates from Ireland’s sacred sites and landscapes. We are again on fire. This time with a passion for spiritual awakening. 

Wanda tried to call me Judith. But it didn’t fit. So I asked her to please call me Judy. In that naming of me, I love the symmetry and full circle of the passing years. I love that we are back together. I love that Judy is back. And I love that she’s back with Wanda. 

Watch out, world!

Beannacht,
Judith

August 3, 2023

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest,
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion
is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task
must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein

Compassion was not my first reaction. When we discovered bags of trash dumped along the road in the undergrowth, I wasn’t surprised. It happens often out here. This is just our first experience of this at MossTerra. But when we discovered that one of those trash bags held a litter of dead kittens, I was furious. How could anyone…

I’ve heard of this happening out here. It’s likely those kittens were alive when they were thrown into the bushes. I can’t get the image of their suffering out of my mind and heart. How could anyone…

How could anyone!? I had to step beyond the statement of moral outrage and sit with the question in order to release myself from the prison of delusion and judgement.

The judgement is perhaps obvious. But the delusion is thinking that others hold the same sense of honoring all life as I do. So many don’t. And the tragic truth of that screams at us in newspaper headlines every day. It goes well beyond kittens.

I remind myself there are really no ‘others’. We are all part of the divine. It just seems the divine is a bit hidden in some. So I consider what truly their lives are about that they could do such horrific acts. What journey are they on that holds them in a prison of separation from divine consciousness? And what will it take for them to free themselves from that prison? I don’t know. But what I can do is send them compassion. And sometimes it’s a huge test for me to do that. 

Beannacht,
Judith

August 1, 2023

Men do not accept their prophets and slay them,
but they love their martyrs and worship those
whom they have tortured to death.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The words of the prophets are written
on the subway walls and tenements halls
and whispered in the sounds of silence.
Paul Simon

“Fight the real enemy!” These were the words Sinéad O’Connor spoke as she tore up a photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live in 1992. So many in Ireland and around the world could not accept the truth about the abuses of the Catholic Church. It was a truth Sinéad knew from personal experience. And she was vilified for speaking it.

“Fight the real enemy!” This past weekend in Ireland, thirty years later, those paying tribute to Sinéad were carrying placards with her image and this statement. Now they know the truth and are worshiping this woman once tortured by their hatred.

I’ve been reflecting on her courage and the courage of so many who have spoken truth to power and the world and been vilified and even killed for it. Yet seeds are sown and they flourish in the shadow of greatness, within the sounds of the silence left behind when we lose a prophet. Thank you for being a seed, Sinéad, for your courageous prophecy. 

I don’t consider myself a prophet. But I do resonate with the definition of one gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight. Through my experiences in Ireland, I continue to be gifted with increasing spiritual insights. Insights that come to me from the land, the ancestors, and entities in other realms. There are signs and prophecies that the ancient ways of wisdom are returning and I am humbled to be part of that awakening. For it is an ancient wisdom filled with spiritual and moral insights for these times.  

And, as many of you know, the Gatherings in Ireland are now about merging with this awakening and this wisdom. We are nurturing seeds sown long ago. And they are flourishing.

Beannacht,
Judith