Tag Archives: storytelling

Imagining into the Sacred Season


When I was a little girl, my December ritual was to sit alone in our living room beside the twinkling tree lights and imagine myself into the coffee table manger scene. I visualized myself with the shepherds underneath a Bethlehem sky full of angels. I sat there until the angels and the tiny God lying among the ox and cows felt real, became real to me. I wasn’t spiritually advanced, I had a similar ritual with the Santa’s Workshop pop-up scene that sprang to life when I opened our Ronco Christmas album. Both these imaginings were how I made myself feel “The Christmas Spirit”

When I grew up, I experienced some heartbreaks that made the Christmas Season feel too painful and I avoided much of it. Becoming a mother and getting to play Santa for the first time dissolved those pains. That first year, I allowed myself to turn on the Christmas radio station. I listened to O Holy Night in the car and cried through the whole song. I understood myself as part of the weary world who at long last was given a thrill of hope.

photo credit below

I resumed visualizations with the same manger scene from my childhood, but this time the rich metaphors of the annunciation, nativity and epiphany stories unveiled truths from my own life. These Christmas stories – together with long winter nights and longing for the sun – are a powerful gateway into a deeper part of my psyche. The part that holds my most painful wounds, my most naked need to be seen, valued and loved as well as my deepest capacity to fully love those closest to me.

This Christmas I go deeper still, as I am a brand-new grandma with a precious baby, a daughter and a son-in-spirit to love until my heart explodes. I recently held my newborn grandson fresh from the womb and angels singing at the Bethlehem birth became real for me in a whole new way, as did the desperate love of the parents and onlookers at that manger. My wounds still hurt, my needs still poke me with longing, my capacity for love keeps expanding – and the stories of Christmas and the returning sun still offer me new ways of exploring these truest elements of being human.

It is from this experience with the stories of Christmas and Winter Solstice that I am creating the Spiritual Imagination and the Nativity Advent Retreat at Loyola Spirituality Center in St Paul on Dec 1st, 2018. My intention is to carve out a time and space for participants to explore their own Christmas imaginings this season. Click the link for more info and to register.

If you’re not in the Twin Cities, I invite you to spend some quiet time with the sacred stories of the season exploring the rich metaphors they offer.

Middle Photo Credit: Cosmic Birth/Sacred Moment in Time ©Mary Southard marysouthardart.org      Courtesy of MinistryOfTheArts.org                All rights reserved

What If Every Time You Saw a Nativity Scene…

Mary Southard, CSJ

What if…

…every time you saw a nativity scene, you visualized the baby as a metaphor for a mysterious, beautiful energy that is constantly birthing itself  into the world?

…every time you heard a song about the nativity, you used lyrics such as ‘o come let us adore him’ as a reminder to honor this energy that is already alive within yourself and within everyone you meet?

…every time you encountered any version of the Christmas story, you allowed it to serve as a reminder that although this beautiful energy is “forever being born in the human soul,” we must constantly make room in our awareness for it – emptying our minds of the clutter, opening to the reality of the present – because otherwise “there is no room in the inn for such a mystery?”

What if the point of the Christmas story has always been that:

1) this mysterious, beautiful energy is already present “hidden inside of everything”

2) yet we’re still always waiting (longing!) to see it revealed in the world because we’re too clouded from the reality that this energy is everywhere and already birthed inside of us?

Try listening to the story and all of its details – angels singing in the sky, refugee woman giving birth in stranger’s shed, lowly field men approaching in awe – as a metaphor for a moment when suddenly the universe stops and loudly announces that this energy of love is here! alive in the world! incarnate!

Behold! I bring you great news! The beautiful energy of love is here! Alive in the world! Incarnate!

And when an evil king tries to snuff out this loving energy  – be like the wise person who followed their intuition and enabled the energy to prevail.

May each of you fully know the beauty that is already birthed inside of you.

Merry Christmas!

(All quotes come from Richard Rohr’s Advent Message video which can be found here.)

Telling Your Story To a Spiritual Director

Telling your story matters.

YOUR story.

The ups and downs and moments that are significant to YOU. Like the times you felt a stirring in your heart and you aren’t sure why or if it even matters. You want to tell your story without being judged or given advice or diagnosed.

You just want to tell your story and see what unfolds: the memories, themes, strengths…

Who knows what gifts from your own life are awaiting your renewed attention, your discovery? 

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You want to see what unfolds from your story because you are a Seeker: someone who seeks meaning in why you are here, what you have been through and whatever you decide to do next. Going through the motions of life just doesn’t cut it for you. You want to really LIVE.

Spiritual Direction is an ancient practice of deep listening to another person’s sacred story.

I have a Spiritual Director and she asks about my life in a way that opens my heart to the meaning that is all around me. She does not direct me, she is simply present with me in a way that leaves me feeling a little more certain of who I am and what I want to do next.

I am being trained in Spiritual Direction through St. Catherine University. It’s an intense process that involves taking fascinating graduate level classes such as the Art of Discernment and Holistic Spirituality, going on silent retreats, studying the texts of both ancient and modern day mystics, and providing 100 hours of Spiritual Direction under supervision. The supervision process trains us to attend to our own issues and ego as they arise so that it truly is the sacred soul of our client that leads the way of our sessions.

If you are interested in arranging a (free) introductory Spiritual Direction session with me, please send an email to Carolyn@SpiritFullDirection.com

To find a different Spiritual Director, or learn more about more about the process, visit the website of Spiritual Directors International.