Poetry As Prayer with guest Colette Lafia

Prayer can feel hollow or difficult when our lives get real. When grief lingers, desire stays unmet, or the words you used to say no longer ring true, you can start to wonder whether you’ve lost your way spiritually. We sit down with Colette Lafia, a creative and spiritual writer, retreat leader, and longtime school librarian, to offer another path: poetry as prayer, and prayer as a way of living from the inside of your own story.

Colette shares how her book Leaving the Shore emerged from falling back in love with poetry and discovering it as a “threshold portal” into divine presence. We talk through her contemplative approach to Lectio Divina, a sacred reading practice that invites you to slow down, notice the word or image that tugs at you, and let it move through your body and heart. You’ll hear poems read aloud and experience how a single line can become an honest conversation with God, mystery, and the holy without forcing a neat conclusion.

We also explore the spirituality of ordinary life: the dining table as an altar, the sacred traces held in daily objects, and the way longing can become a holy teacher. Colette reflects on infertility, accompaniment through illness, and why spiritual direction matters for people who sense “the more” but need a safe place to speak about it, including mystical experience. We close with a simple embodied invitation to begin with breath and trust an indwelling presence that is already here.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Colette Lafia

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices, and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit, and love. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm so grateful to be here in the studio with you today, Shelley, and our friend, um, Colette Lafia. Yes. Welcome, welcome, welcome. So excited. Welcome, welcome. Um, Colette is a creative and a spiritual writer and um a retreat leader and uh loves books and prayers and has been a school librarian for 20 years. How special is that? 25 years. Also, 25. All of heaven will honor that um gift that you gave those beautiful children by helping them to love books and the magic that is in books and the hope that is in books and opening other realms and other worlds to them by teaching them about books. And you just wrote um a new book, uh Leaving the Shore, which just the title alone had Shelly and I intrigued because our particular spiritual experiences have often been transcendent and often lead us to feel like we are in the deep, like we have left that that the shore, definitely, or the little area that they say this is for the beginning swimmers. So we have found spirit in the deep end. And so the just the title alone was so empowering and made us so interested in what you were saying. And then when we dove in, our spirits definitely said yes, yes, yes to all of this. So welcome. We're so glad that you're here.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Thank you so much. It is a real joy to be here with you, Heather and Shelly.

Why Leaving The Shore Now

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Tell us a little bit more about writing uh Leaving the Shore. What happened? Why this book? Why now?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Well, um, I had just finished my book, uh, The Divine Heart, which was uh more of a creative nonfiction. The three books I I wrote previously to Leaving the Shore were creative nonfiction, and I was at a loss about what to write. And so I um I had studied poetry in college, but became really disillusioned with it because at that time there was more of a poetry scene, and it really wasn't feeding my interior life at all. So I actually didn't pursue poetry after I left college. And yet something in me just was thinking, okay, I'll take I'll take some poetry classes. And I took this incredible online spiritual poetry writing class, and it just it just was the real word, it was fun, it was joyful, it was playing with language, and um I just loved it, and it was a place where I could uh write about spiritual things, but with uh more play, more play. And so I just started writing poems and and secretly like falling back in love with poetry, or maybe really falling in love with poetry. And um, I just kept writing them and writing them, and then the book started to unfold for me in that way.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

And one of the things that a reader will find is that this is not just simply a poetry book, but it's an invitation to not only to experience poetry as divine presence or a threshold portal kind of moment into maybe exchanging the way that we've seen it as just simply words or affirmation to prayer. And I was thinking of how hopeful this could be for people who have find themselves now not being able to pray like they used to be able to pray, or the things that gave them peace or comfort no longer fit. And so I was so excited about this idea of offering poetry as prayer, as an invitation into the conversation with the divine. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Falling Back In Love With Poetry

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Yeah, so what happened was, I mean, this book evolved. Um, all my books are like that. I'm sort of a collage artist when I write. I do one layer and then I sort of discover what's in it, and then I add more to it, and then I add more to it. So I wrote the poems initially, and then I just thought, oh wow, it'd be so great to pray with poems. And so my background is in contemplative practices, and so one of the practices that I do is called Lexio Divina, which is just a word meaning sacred reading. So it is drawn from the monastic tradition, but many people um have really brought it into the contemporary landscape, and it's a way of reading that allows you to um engage with it. So you're not really reading about something, you're reading with something. And so as you read, you invite the words into your heart, into your body, into your mind, and you let them meet you where you are, and you meet the words where you are. So it becomes a very personal way of praying. And so I thought, oh, this would be wonderful. This would be a doorway for people. And so the book is written with uh invitations for Lexio right there on the page. They're very simple, they're not instructive, they're more the way I do spiritual direction, they're invitational, they're soft, they're opening, and um they just really invite people to allow the poems to be a doorway into their experiences, they're a way to touch the divine in their heart, um, a way to let a word or phrase sort of move them and maybe create some wondering or curiosity. So I think you know, just allowing the poetry. What one thing I will have a side note is just I've been doing many, many workshops with this. And what's also been great is many people that have a lot of preconceived ideas about poetry and felt like I'm not a poetry person. And by doing the workshops and the retreats and inviting people to have the permission to just jump in, jump in where it's stirring in you, jump in at a line,

Lectio Divina As Sacred Reading

SPEAKER_03 6:55

jump in at an image, take it in. Because the idea with Lexio is actually you kind of like chew on the word, you let it kind of come into your body and your blood, and you just you you let it nourish you like food almost. So it's like, you know, jump in where you are. It's just like when I work with people in direction, it's like just where you are with God is so good. That's where you need to be, not somewhere else. And so that whole permission of just jump in where you are, and that's the right place, is so important. So combining the practices that I do in the book with the poetry just has created, I think, that pathway for people.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

I I'm wondering, um, Colette, if um if there's a favorite one that you might want to start with as we as we jump into some of our favorites uh here today. I I made I made a short list um so far through the book, but I'm wondering if there's one that we could um that you could share and we could experience this um this way of how you teach us to imagine or teach us to pray the words or yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Um well why don't I um so if I was doing this in a workshop, I would read it twice, but that this is for for the sake of this. Let's just say I'll do it once. So while I'm reading, I invite you to see if there's a word, a phrase, an image that kind of speaks to you, that draws you in. And then I'll give a few more just um guidance after I read it.

Poem Burning As Guided Prayer

SPEAKER_03 8:40

So the poem is called Burning and it's on page 24 in the book Burning. Thousands of stars burn in the sky tonight. I find myself empty, find myself homeless within myself. All night I am looking for a place to land, wanting, waiting to return to well worn space. Stars, take me into your mystery away from this clinging draped over me like an old coat. You are my only companions. You stir the fire, but please gently don't press me the way I press myself to settle into God somehow to arrive. Stay with me tonight in a love that won't separate itself from us, a love that lifts this old coat from my shoulders, leaving only light, particles of star dust. So whatever word or phrase or image kind of drew you in, just take a moment and let it settle a little more deeply. See what's stirring in you. Any thoughts, feelings, sensations Allow a holy conversation to emerge, or even a spontaneous prayer. Now let go and rest, allowing yourself to just be with what has come and trust you. So that's very, very fast. I moved through all the stages really fast, but that gives you a little bit of a flavor of how you could work yourself in a prayer-like way with one of the poems.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I did so much love the way that the book is curated and really

When Life Itself Becomes Prayer

SPEAKER_01 11:20

does not offer a specific direction, but offers an awareness, it felt like.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Like God watch over, God bless our food, protect, you know, those kinds of ways. But she said in her writing that um, you know, I'm not really sure that these are even prayers anymore, the way that I think about my relationship with God. And I I wonder if you could speak to them a little bit about how you combined prayer and um poetry in this way. And I know much of what I've read so far is about your own personal experiences and and that you've you've turned those into joy for people to read um and to learn from. So talk to us for a few minutes about that combination, about poetry, prayer, and and where this came from for you, where that deep place of connection began to happen.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

I would say one of the things I'm thinking about as you're saying this is um how important it is to see our lives as prayer itself, to see our experiences as prayers themselves. So, for example, I talk about um you know accompanying my sister um in cancer and leading to her death. I talk about my infertility journey and not being able to have my own children. I talk about being um with my um father in Parkinson's. You know, so I think it's the more um we see our lives as the place where we really meet God, like inside of our experiences, not outside of them, not just praying about them, but trusting that the tears are prayer. The night not being able to sleep is my prayer. Um, the the hurt and the disappointment and feeling held in that, that's the prayer. That tenderness, that love, um, that receiving love and being loved in our own experiences. So I think what helped with the poetry is I wasn't I wasn't praying about my life or I was praying inside of my life. And I don't know if that makes sense, but when you write something, you at least for me, that was the beauty of it. I could go inside of it, I didn't have to stay outside. So many of my poems feel very experiential because I was really going into the experiences. And as a result, for me, writing has always been a healing journey. I started writing, you know, I wrote all through my um a lot of my books, you know. One of my books is called Seeking Surrender. It was really about my experience of journeying with not being able to have children and what that experience, but I write about it. See, so writing for me has been a way to meet God intimately in my experiences, to pray with them, and has been a way for me to experience some healing with them. So I think I think what's so important, and I always tell the people I work with in spiritual direction, um, to let God meet us in our life right where it is. Because really that's the only place the holy can really meet us anyway. So try to be over here and meeting, try, yeah, you know, so I think the journey of of saying, yeah, my life is a prayer, my life is a poem. What am I what I am truly experiencing? I'm I'm I I'm meeting with with the holy one right here. And the holy is meeting me in my real actual life, and that is a holy place.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

And what comfort it is for us to be reminded that we are not alone, not separate, not apart from the presence of our source of that divine love of Christ in the illumination of that. So, again, so beautiful. What an incredible invitation. And I loved that you actually named it. Like poetry is prayer in these things. And I think that, you know, I've heard that danced around, but I just loved that very human experience of going, this is what I'm calling it. This is prayer. This is an invitation into conversation with something so much bigger and an awareness of something so much more than what I would have had if I had to use other language, if I couldn't use this layered language or this way of turning the prism and looking at it this way. So I was so grateful for that again, like the naming, but also the beautiful um experience. I was hoping that you um could read another poem. I don't know which one it was that you wanted to share because all of them are so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

Yeah, I think I'll read uh every morning because I know we talked about sort of the holy and the ordinary, and also um the journey, the journey of of of um trusting in that presence that permeates all our life and all we experience. Uh, this is called every morning, and the title flows into the first stanza. Every

Ordinary Altars Around The Dining Table

SPEAKER_03 19:49

morning on my way to make my cup of tea and slice of toast, I pass our cherry wood dining table, covered with scratches, dents, and water stains, rounded edges worn to the raw wood. Our table is an altar where my husband and I have for three decades offered our appetites, our love, our devotion. At our wedding, the Unitarian minister read in our vows Many days you will sit at the same table and eat and drink together. The young woman I was with radiant skin never could have known what coming to this table day after day, year after year would create. The other chairs are empty of the children we had hoped for. But we have built something together by returning here daily as life does what it will a weather pattern beyond our control. Yellow roses and a glass vase, silver candlesticks, home cooked dinners, moments of silent ingratitude. We sit next to one another, not across sometimes reaching over during a meal to touch this table holds us wood grain traces that bring us home to each other. And so it was just and I I invite people, you know, see your life, the objects in your life as sacred as the ones you've been journeying with, the ones that hold your story, the ones. Where the Holy has been sharing the meals with you and through you and in you, and how your life um holds sacred traces everywhere. So I guess my message is so much, it's kind of like um God's, and I use the language of God, mystery, the divine, the holy, the origin, the source. It's right here, right now. It's not like another life. Your spiritual life is not another life that you're looking for. It's happening right, and it's so poignant, just and and beautiful and important, like it's happening right here, right now. Right now. It's it's so important. I I just so that's partly, I think, what I always do in my writing, you know, before I I write anything, and as I wrote each one of these, I did pray before I wrote. I offer like one thing in my writing, my writing feels like an offering. And so there's something really important to me about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionisttheology.com. I also love that you named your table an altar. I think very often there are places or things that people have said, like an altar is in a church, and you named our altar, the actual table in our homes. And I loved that invitation into this is where our devotion is expressed. This is where our hospitality is offered to ourselves and to the world. And the table in its imagery is important to Shelly and I. And uh something that we want to do is help people understand that the table is bigger and wider and longer than we could have ever imagined, and that God invites us to the table wherever we are, whoever we are, at the moment that we are willing, or that we find our hunger driving us to the table. Um, but finding the sacredness of it also being the altar. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

This is where you will meet God. Absolutely, and where you meet God in your desires, in your commitment, in your longing, where you get nourished. Um, all those things are so important to remember. You know, it and I love I love playing with people in the workshops that I do. It's like uh exploring where is your altar, and then people naming that and what that means to them. And so um, if you're listening, I invite you just even thinking about that today when you're looking around and being in your space. Um, where's the altar? Where are the altars of your of your life?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That's beautiful. You mentioned something just a moment ago, and so I would like to circle back around to it that desire is also met at the

Desire In Unmet Longing

SPEAKER_01 25:18

table. Can you talk a little bit about how desire draws us into the presence of the holy and what that looks like in the way that we pray or in what it looks like? I was so moved by um your the the poem that you just read, in that idea of unmet desires also can drive us into the presence of the holy. It can also, you know, put up a barrier for us. But when we have those unmet desires, if we'll find the true song of desire or the deeper desire, that there can be a holy connection in that as well. Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Yes, because um, you know, I I you know desire is our voice expressing a longing that I think is so important. Um, and you know, in um we we often can hear that so much in the Psalms, which I which is why I I love, I do love reading the Psalms. Um so much longing in that, so much desire. So I think for me, where I really started to taste that was really in meeting my desire of not being able to have a child. And I how was I gonna meet God in that? You know, that usual like pray for something and then, you know, be one of the blessed people where it happens, you know. So that whole paradigm, well, I was really confronting that. And what I found was um in my tears and in my longing, I had such a desire to meet the holy there. So in my unmet fulfillment, when I dug deeper, there was a desire to meet this, to meet God there. And so what I started to see was my desire, my deepest desire over time has been to really meet the divine in all in all that's happening in all of my life, and to trust in that loving presence and grow a relationship with that loving presence that is right there with me, meeting me in my unfulfilled um moments in my unfulfilled life. You know, things that in my wanting, my unfulfilled wanting. Um so a lot, uh a lot of desire um is is what I've grown in over the years, um, which is why I love to read mystics, because they have so much uh desire that drives them. It's so so much permission to just go with the that deep desire. So I hope that helps. You know, I um I hope I hope that answer can open a door for people that that I because I know that feeling of feeling like I didn't I didn't get what I wanted. Like on a very human level, I didn't get what I wanted. And um to to to sit with God in that and and to let the love, to let the deep love in. There's so much love that can be met in in pain, actually, in sorrow, in moments of sorrow.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Could we extend that a little bit? Um I I don't know what page I lifted this from um in the book, but this this leaped off the page, and I think it has to do with longing a little bit and um maybe desire, but you mentioned um just a few minutes ago that the mystics they were sort of uninhibited to allow their their passion and their desire and their longing uh to be heard. And um this stuck out to me in your book. What is your long song, Child of Life? I yearn to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Yes, that is in my poem. Um that is yes, uh called Oh, a plea from the beloved. Um so um you know that and it is um why don't I read it? A plea from the the a plea from the beloved come here, come here, feel the warmth gathering inside you. Child of life, awaken to yourself. Look into your own eyes, listen to your to your own voice, feel your heart beating, know that your life is a blessing to the great wholeness. You are a shaft of light, a radiant heart, an arrow piercing time. A sparrow spoke today in his long song, a song that did not limit itself. What is your long song, child of life? I yearn to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yes. Yes, and yes, and amen. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for reading that. I'm also curious as to um were these journal entries? Did you start the poetry as journaling, or

How The Poems Took Shape

SPEAKER_00 31:45

um were you just writing these as as life happened? How how did that evolve?

SPEAKER_03 31:50

No, I would say um not journal entries, but a lot of free writing. So I did a a lot, a lot of free free writing. So um where I might just time myself, might just you know write and then go back in and sort of pull pieces or words that that started to unfold, or um, and then I would go back and do another and do some more free writing and allow it to shape itself from that. Um so that that was part of it. And then a group of these poems also come, and this is a wonderful exercise I give to people. I was in um it was called a soul food writing uh course. And you would take objects from your life that had been significant. I think that's where the table came from. So you go through periods of your life, and before you wrote, um uh you might just brainstorm, like let's say five objects from the ages 40 to 45, just five five objects that kind of feel like they symbolize or they represent or they speak to that period. And then you would take one and do some more writing. So um that was just, and I I wrote quite a few poems um with using very specific objects because I do love um specificity, as you can see. I I love like storytelling in my poems as well. So I would say mainly it came from a lot of note, what I call notebooking, not necessarily journaling.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Um, but you know they overlap for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, yeah.

Discernment Through Vulnerability And Surprise

SPEAKER_01 33:34

I had a question about um discernment and your process of what that looks like. Um, you clearly are discerning different things that are happening or an awareness of something. And did that come from prayer? Is that because of prayer, or is there a discernment that leads you to the prayer? I think all of those. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

And and I'm I and I think too, as I was writing these poems, um, one thing I was I was very interested in it, and because I am also trained as a spiritual director, I'm very interested in listening. So I would listen to the poem, I would listen to the thread, I would listen to um sort of what is emerging here. Um how does God want to be revealed in my journey that I'm speaking about in this poem? So I was discerning um all throughout, and and as I said in the beginning, I I did um very intentionally uh pray before I wrote the poems um so that what was coming through felt like um it was um kind of God and me together because I I really love creativity where creativity and spirituality uh touch. I just I love that relationship so much. Um I'm very like interested in that. Does that is that feel like it answers your question or helpful? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah, there's no no necessarily right or wrong, but yeah, I'm interested always in the discernment of what does it look like to learn to hear God in ways that maybe you weren't trained before or you've experienced God?

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Yeah, I'm glad. See, I'm glad I asked you the follow-up because I'll tell you what I love about that. And I did learn this in spiritual direction, and I love it. Um, where I'm surprised, like, ooh, like when I said something, when I wrote something, I'd be like, ooh, that's really risky, that's really vulnerable, that's really raw. Go with it, trust it. So it's that kind of feeling, like learning to learning, learning to be more vulnerable, I think for myself is is a way of of um hearing the movement of spirit more and more. And I would say also uh places of surprise, wow, is also a place of of hearing spirit, and um when uh when a feeling might really get stirred up, like ooh, you know, this is tender, but there's some healing here, or there's something honest here, and then risk, like risk, like do I dare say that? Yes, you know, I would go with it like that. So I think those are those are those are some new places, yeah. So I'm glad we asked the follow-up because it um I think I think that's I love I love that, and I think discovering, we're always discovering how to hear the Holy One. And if we take that perspective of discovery, exploration, openness, a lot can open up with that.

Spiritual Direction And Common Blocks

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I know we're we're coming up on our upon our time here, but I I did I I am curious about spiritual direction, if you could share a couple of things um that you maybe have seen over the years um or note or have noticed that um that blocks our openness to this holy oneness or keeps us from getting closer to something like a Mech Tild or a Hildegard experience. Um talk to us a little bit about that. I I know everybody's spiritual journey is is different, um, it's unique, you know, to them.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Um, but do you notice things that well I think uh even what you just said, spiritual journey. So that's a certain way of looking at your spiritual life that's very different than I know it, these are my belief systems. You know, so already that's so different when you even use that kind of language when you think about it. One as a journey and one is journeying, one is discovering, there's an unfolding, there's a not knowing, there's change there, versus, you know, I've arrived kind of attitude. So I think a lot of people come to spiritual direction because um they're seeking what we call in spiritual direction the more. They're sensing there's something else, there's something more. I've kind of break, I've broken out of this, but I don't know quite what to do with it, you know. And so we create like an environment where, okay, let's talk about it. Um and not to be afraid of that, um, to talk about it, to um to let it kind of get messy, like in the creative process, you know how you let everything get kind of messy for a while, and and that's that's sort of how you create something, and um just the freedom for that. So I think uh what can block people is um number one, not number one, but one way is I notice for people, they um they don't see that their own life is their spiritual life. It's still this sense of something else. I go to church, I go outside of myself, and that's where spirit is. So once people can sort of bring it home, I mean, really bring it home, um, I think a lot starts happening in that they can start to see their lives as holy places, sacred places, and um allow themselves to be met right where they are. And also the freedom to challenge, to explore, to not know, to be curious. So all I think, I think all these things, I think, and then sometimes people are having experiences like I have nobody to talk to about it, like mystical experiences, like you know, having a safe place where they could start talking about this and um creating an environment um where they can talk about their spiritual experiences also I think is really, really helpful. Beautiful, thank you. Yeah, I love spiritual direction.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Yeah, yes, yes. Yay! Can you give us a few uh of the mystics that you're inspired by or top five?

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Because yeah, definitely Mechil, the Magdeburg, uh Julian the Norwich is somebody I've really loved, Teresa of Avila, I really, I really kind of love as well. So I would say those three are definitely my trinity in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Preach, preach that.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

That's beautiful.

Breath Prayer And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Talk to us about one thing that you would um maybe invite someone who's interested in having an embodied experience or a relational um moment with the creator, with our center, with the spirit who is inviting us into more. How would a person set the stage, or what would consent look like, or what would that invitation include?

SPEAKER_03 41:56

The invitation really includes um trusting, or or just even dropping in. Like you don't even have to go right to trust, just dropping in and connecting with an indwelling presence that is in you. So as simple as the breath breathing in, breathing out, I am breathing with the divine one, the divine one is breathing with me. Just as simple as that. I am here, you are here, we are here together, and just starting to just even through the gift of this body and this breath and this heart, just knowing it's right here, it's right here. So simple, you could light a candle, you could just sit for a few minutes with yourself, just in breath, and bring your feelings. Like many times for people, just you know, bring bring a tear, bring a desire, bring a feeling, bring a gratitude, bring, bring a joy right into the moment. But I would say a really a simple immediate way is connecting with the breath and the body as that embodied place that you are not separate, you are made of divine DNA, and it is breathing in you, through you, and as you, and just connecting with that, just connecting with that.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Thank you so much, Colette. This was rich. This was beautiful. Thank you so much. Blessings on the book. I hope that everyone buys it. We'll put it in the show notes. Um, they it's a wonderful gift, too. I was thinking it also as a gift book, like somebody could buy it for themselves, but then if you didn't know what to buy someone for a birthday or Christmas, this is a lovely um invitation into a deeper or richer, truer spirituality in each person's journey. So I thank you so much for your time. Um, would you like to leave us with one more poem?

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Um, absolutely. I'll I'll I'll do a short one because I'll do this one because I was just at my school yesterday visiting my students. It's called In a Breath of Time. The school is never quiet. The constant chatter and pitch of voices swirl and whirl, filling the air, bursts of laughter and shouts bubbling up. I am walking down the hallway at a slow pace, cradling my small bowl of soup just heated up in the teacher's lounge, when something begins to shift. Each distinct presence, this child, that adult, her voice, his footsteps, ascends, rises, lifts, and fuses together into a collective hymn flowing over me like vapor. This is what love is doing in our daily labors, collecting and binding us into holy belonging, holy becoming, a continuous exchange, everything circular, rising and descending, bringing me all the way back to the six-year-old girl, asking me in her husky voice, what is in my bowl? It's leek and potato soup, I say. She looks up at me, smiling. I like soup too.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Thank you, Colette. Beautiful, thank you. Thank you so much. That was perfect.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Perfect, perfect.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

I know because we spent our time in this holy belonging, holy becoming together during our time together. So I think this is this is what love is doing. This is love and action, just what we shared together.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

So it's beautiful. Thank you for leaving the shore with us today. It's been a real gift.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and thank you for affirming to us that it's safe to leave the shore. We appreciate your time. Peace and peace to you.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

You too, Heather and Shelley. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

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