04.27.2026. The Hum of Human
Hello dear Friends,
“Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor
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This wonder, this ache of stumbling into altars everywhere, around every bend, at every turn, cracking our shins on the sacred in this world. I love circling open this view, seeing from this wider lens, and the audible sounds that come along with it, too: the oof, ouch, ohh. Those elongated, single-syllable tones of wonder and holy lament emitted when we hear the thud of our own shins, toes, elbows, hip bones and hearts walking into corners, coffee tables, couches, and curbs.
Those tender aches of ahh and uhh…that stretch long, become tears when we hear the thump of our own heartbeat, the altar of the body pulsing, the hum of human. The hum of humble. The hum of the heart chakra, emerald green emanating pink, with love for self and others that we follow, that leads us to the possible: the sacred hum of the undefended self, the altars of the Divine in surround sound around us.
It seems so obvious — yes, there are invisible altars everywhere. Yet, like trying to catch a firefly, I seem to glimpse and glimmer its light and then it flickers away, blends with the dark of night, and I fall asleep again...and wake up to a gazillion fresh starts!
Perhaps this "missing it" is rooted in the sticky shiny web of duty and distraction, like Martha in the story of the two sisters. Martha, the sister who is in the kitchen huffing and puffing, preparing food, grinding salt, and doing dishes. Mary, the younger sister, seated at the foot of their teacher, the rabbi Jesus, listening to his teachings—unshakeable, following her ache, her longing for the Divine. And Jesus, only there for a very short visit, a brief time.
Martha, compelled and distracted by her list of tasks and to-dos — is scrubbing and cutting onions, garlic, and leeks, prepping the barley stew, perhaps even fuming with a racing mind and, perhaps like a good female at that time, her body holding a quiet road-rage mumble: How could my sister be so rude, me here with all the work and dirty dishes?
Of course this story places Martha in the "kitchen." In Jungian psychology, the kitchen is the symbol of the great alchemical transformation — the place where raw gets cooked, where hard gets softened, where the indigestible becomes edible. Where the poet Rumi's chickpea tries to leap out of the pot to escape the heat, but gets boiled and boiled some more, hit with the skimming spoon of the Cook, the Divine Teacher, and becomes cooked by Love.
When Martha ekes out a crumbling complaint, Jesus replies lovingly and kindly: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part."
I am not a well-studied scripture student, but this story keeps rolling forward in my heart, aware it comes as teacher. Mary has chosen the better (mic drop, of course).
Both these sisters belong to me; both live inside me. I know them intimately — perhaps you know them, too. Perhaps they live in all of us humans: one part bound by duty to the thick threads and threats of old, habituated patterns (maybe even ancient, generational, religious patterns: be good, be dutiful) and the other emerged from the awakened spaciousness of the altar of our heart, formed from deep devotion to awe, the wondrous, the sublime.
And then this, here, too, is the tenderest of true: the beauty of belonging to both, holding both like two baby birds in our upturned, cupped, offering hands. Feather soft with both — this kinship of being human, the difficulty and beauty existing as one that threads us back to our hearts, back to the ache of compassion and peace, back to belonging to ourselves and each other.
Holding both, our heads gently nod… a slow yes, yes, yes… and we return. We turn again and again towards beauty, towards kind, towards this Earth so thick with Divine possibility.
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Come Practice & Be In Community
Drop-in Meditation Today. All are welcome; no prior experience is needed—just an open tender heart.
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Closing in warmth and care, a heart of gratitude, and so thankful we are in this complex time together.
Love, Wini
PS: May the poems, quotes, and links below be sparks of inspiration for your soul.
♥️ and this closing song here ... oh my, holy amen!
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🌸 Two Poems. “Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.” ― Naomi Shihab Nye
The Lover’s State | Rumi
The lover's concern is passion and madness;
the charming game the Beloved plays is aloof detachment.
Learn the dance of light from the atoms;
learn to jump into the fire like the moth.
Learn to charge like a lion, not sneak like a fox.
Learn to soar like a falcon,
not flutter from flower to flower like a butterfly.
Spring water tastes sweet
but is incomparable to the majesty of the ocean.
Your being is the cup that holds all secrets;
do not let them leak through your eyes and ears.
Wage Love | Moudi Sbeity
Wage kindness. Wage peace.
Wage a livable wage. Fly an arsenal of
blossoms and drop the flowered blessings
from the sky. Gather your songs and sling
them like arrows into the heart’s bullseye.
Wage your eyes as witness, your tongue as
field, your chest as safe place. Wage a fist
full of seeds, a mouth full of rain, a cry
full of prayer. Wage your name as spoken,
your bones as testimony, your blood as
living river. Wage your sorrows as blankets
for the shivering. Wage your despair as feed
for the fire of hope. Wage your mouth to
mine, breathe. Organize the many grasses,
build an empire of green. Build houses for
the departed, build homes for the arriving.
Build bridges for the repentants, for the
returning. Yes, even them. Feed them and
don’t ask questions. Wage an open hand
in forgiveness. Wage yourself against the
evidence of dying, and give life to another.
🍃 This poem came my way through a beautiful website, Heart Poems. An offering by Janice Falls who is passionate about poetry: reading it; writing it; speaking it; sharing it. Lovely to know about, to subscribe.
🌸 Three Quotes | Howard Thurman. Mirabai Starr. Lisa Jensen.
“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”
― Howard Thurman, from the book Meditations of the Heart and this lovely discussion with Abbey of the Arts(49:21 min) a community and online space I love!
“Sometimes it is in our prisons that we find our freedom. In 1577, when St. John of the Cross was thirty-five years old, he was abducted by his own monastic brothers and incarcerated for nine months in a monastery in Toledo, Spain. It was there, as he languished, that the caterpillar of his old self dissolved and the butterfly of his authentic being grew its wings.”
―Mirabai Starr, Substack Exquisite Risk —A profound read. the many forms of 'our prisons', the dark nights of the soul we each encounter… “our only task is to say 'yes,' no matter how tentatively; to say 'thank you,' no matter how quietly."
On a dark night
Inflamed by love-longing—
O, exquisite risk!—
Undetected, I slipped away,
My house, at last, grown still.
—St. John of the Cross
“This morning, I made my third index card collage but only after I wrote my first index card poem. I’ve appreciated the constraint of an index card so much that I wanted to see how it felt to use those physical parameters to constrain/inspire/shape a poem. So I sat down with an index card and a pen, and I looked around me. My eyes landed on a patch of golden light, trembling on my bedroom wall.”
— Lisa Jensen,Wild Ground: "The Magic of Index Cards"
🍃 This is such a lovely offering to share—the magic of index cards and a pen. To pen a poem, to capture a prayer, to bow in praise, or to offer a holy lament—all on a 3" x 5" blank card.
Another offering to pen: for those who were able to attend Julie Walker’s event this past Saturday, she shared that one way to find your Divine purpose is to receive divine assistance through writing and asking:
“What I know today is…” “What does my body need next?”
🌸 Give A Listen | A "Wowza" ConversationKrista Tippett & Rabbi Shai Held
Krista Tippett is an interviewer I admire deeply. Her voice was a constant companion as I drove home listening to her on NPR, back when the show was called Speaking of Faith before it became On Being; it still remains a go-to source for my heart.
This interview—this complex and beautiful conversation of abiding, heart-opening Love—is one I keep returning to:
Click here to give a listen (1:17:09 min)
worth every ounce of time—one to put on while walking, driving, or spring cleaning your yard.
This quote I quickly wrote down as I listened struck me deeply: “reinserting the space”
“Loving-Kindness. A word that makes most people’s eyes glaze over. But if you reinsert the space between loving and kindness, you actually come upon something interesting, which is an emotion expressed in a way of being in the world. Love manifested as kindness.” – Rabbi Shai Held
Note: Rabbi Shai Held has written an epic theological work called Judaism is About Love.
🌸 Closing Song | Music to Weave the Heart
"The fastest way to still the mind is to move the body".
– Gabrielle Roth
Another door to the Beloved, to the still-widening heart like a dervish’s skirt spinning, spinning, spinning, uplifting, open–music.
The gorgeous ecstatic dance of Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors sound dropping us deep into the circling movement of breath, the body, the sacred dance of the heart.
Give a listen on Spotify here On The Other Side of Here (12:57 min) YouTube click here
“I want to meet you
In the silence of the soul.
Where the fragments are gathered,
And the heart is whole.”
🌸🙏Dedicate Merit | In all Mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer – prayers of blessing, gratitude and protection.
May you uncover your holy purpose, yours to do here, and offer it, thank you!
May your heart be soft with belonging
May you hold yourself, all of you like two baby birds in cupped hands, nodding a slow and sacred "yes" to the not so easy holy task of being human.
May all beings be safe and protected; this I wish for everyone.
May we awaken fully to help all beings.
– Love, Wini
Have a blessed day 💖
🌸 PS. You can find all the newsletters archived on my website.
These newsletters will always be free—and if you appreciate receiving these weekly sparks of tender-goodness please consider offering your support through Buy Me a Coffee, 🌸 venmo (Winifred-Nimrod) 🌸 or zelle (wininim@gmail.com) 🌸
Thank you, I am a one-woman, two-finger typing, unfolding her thousand-petal bloom.
✨ May we bloom more Light.
💞 May we grow more Goodness for the healing of all.
🌎 May each of us thread our heart-tenderness, our Beauty, into the fabric of our planet.
….Until next week. 💖 ✨
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
Website:https://www.wininimrod.com/
