05.12.2025. Heavy Pockets
Hello dear Friends,
‘Be nourished by the wisdom of the ancients.
There are so many present here to guide you.”
—Christine Valters Paintner
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A teaching about rocks, about pockets, about letting go. A teaching my meditation teacher shared with a dear friend and me during a retreat walk years ago — a teaching my friend recently reminded me of. (I am so grateful too).
Between meditation sessions, the three of us meandered the retreat grounds in the late afternoon sun. Its warm golden light bathed the red Arizona desert rocks, intensifying their stark, otherworldly beauty. When I travel, I often bring home a treasure or two—a stone, a shell, some echo of the land. That afternoon, my friend and I were doing just that, absorbing the retreat's magic-light and the natural beauty, our pockets filling with treasured rocks. As our walk continued and our pockets grew heavy, my teacher quietly observed, "To make room, you'll need to put down some of your treasured rocks, emptying your pockets to make room for something new."
We know this place of accumulating–gathering experiences, possessions, and relationships, holding them like treasures. But, how often does the fear of loss and the grief of letting go keep our grip too tight? Our pockets, too full. And how often does this fear make us settle for what no longer serves, even harms, simply because we're afraid of the emptiness, afraid we won't find something new? We cling, we worry, we tell ourselves, “this is fine, this will do,”, and in time, what we treasured transforms to clutter.
Sometimes, the most powerful remedy lies in the emptying—the quiet act of setting things down, especially our overthinking busy minds. Clearing space for the Sacred unknown heart treasures to be found and for new seeds to bloom.
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Today is Metta (loving-kindness) & Calm-Abiding Meditation Practice
All Welcome. No meditation experience needed.
Come as you are, open heart and all.
2 - 3pm: Drop-in Meditation Practice
3 - 4pm: Conversations on the Practice of Meditation–what it means, how it feels, and how it supports your life.
Where: 1765 Glenview Road, Glenview in the Patio Shops
Cost: No Fee. Donations and poems appreciated.
So grateful we are here together.
Love,
Wini
🌸 This newsletter is full of inspiration, resources and links to linger in. Made with ♥️.
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🌸 Two Poems to Share
May-Flower | Emily Dickinson
Pink, small, and punctual,
Aromatic, low,
Covert in April,
Candid in May,
Dear to the moss,
Known by the knoll,
Next to the robin
In every human soul.
Bold little beauty,
Bedecked with thee,
Nature forswears
Antiquity.
Beginners | Denise Levertov
Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla
“From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea--”
But we have only begun
To love the earth.
We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
-- so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?
-- we have only begun
to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision
how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.
Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?
Not yet, not yet--
there is too much broken
that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.
🌿 ‘So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture’; we are here in the insistence, the unstoppable of spring where so much greening of life is tipping out from each bud on the trees and up through concrete parking lots; so much life force energy is pulsing up through each one of us – our gift to the world, our essence, our imprint that must complete its gesture, too. That is our holy amen!
🌸 Three Quotes | Jaiya John. Macrina Wiederkehr. Rubin Museum.
“What is the freest thing you know? Make that your teacher.” – Jaiya John
“It does seem a strange thing to count suffering as joy, yet there's a truth here in that suffering helps to build one's character. Some of the most beautiful people I know are those who have passed through the flames and come out strengthened. If it happens to clay, why shouldn't it happen to us.” — Macrina Wiederkehr, Open Wide My Heart: A Journal of a Prayer Life
🌿 "If it happens to clay, why should it not happen to us?” That's a statement worthy of pondering. It's this very heat that makes each of us more exquisite, more tender. However, this realization is hard won when we feel like ‘the chickpea’ in Rumi’s poem, “Chickpea to Cook,” being boiled and softened in a stock pot.
“With April showers behind us, May flowers are coming into bloom. In Buddhism and Hinduism, the lotus flower is a sacred symbol associated with purity, awakening, transformation, and compassion. These flowers grow in murky waters then rise and bloom above the surface. Lotuses teach us that even from the muck and the darkest circumstances, moments of beauty and light can emerge.” — Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art The Lotus Flower: Sacred Symbol of Transcendence
🌿 May we root this reminder deep in our tender bones—a truth I am sure each of you also knows: from the muck, the darkest circumstances, and the muddy waters of our lives, we rise and grow our bloom towards the light….and, our muddy path is our greatest gift to share.
🌸 Something to Listen 🎧 | 'All There Is' Podcast
“The grief I've tried to keep buried for so long has finally risen. It's banging on my door, but I don't yet know how to face it.”
— Anderson Cooper
For those who are grieving now, and for all of us tender souls who will feel grief at some point, there's a beautiful podcast to nestle into: All There Is with Anderson Cooper
I was drawn to listen to Anderson Cooper's April 25, 2025 interview with religion professor Elaine Pagels (31:02 min) from Rome after the death of Pope Francis. Not only was this episode powerful, but I then stumbled upon the season three finale, and it was beyond stunning, moving me to tears with each share.
On one hand, it's difficult to listen to – each voice, each story, each name spoken of a loved one passed, evokes the gravity of grief. On the other hand, it's profoundly beautiful, highlighting the enduring love that remains within us and walks with us always, the veil between worlds so thin– and a reminder that grief will touch everyone.
“What will survive of us is love.”
— Philip Larkin
Here is the episode, January 29, 2025, the season three finale, of the All There Is podcast, where Anderson plays some of the more than 6,000 voicemails he has received from listeners about what they have learned in their grief that might help others
(41:33 min). Listen on Spotify here
“The wound is the only route to the gift.
The grief and the loss are the only route to the vitality of being alive.”
— Andrew Garfield
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🌸 Sign Up ✍️ | Healing Vessel: A Sacred Energy Circle
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” –Rabindranath Tagore
Join us for Healing Vessel: A Sacred Energy Circle, a meditative healing prayer experience designed to nurture your heart with love, healing, balance and light.
The Conversation is Silence Tonight:
In the gentle embrace of silence, listen to the dance language of your soul.
Energy healers Julie Fedeli & Wini Nimrod will facilitate the flow of prana through gentle touch within the circle, amplifying the individual intentions held in each heart. The circle will be beautifully held by the harp music of Margaret Pasquesi using sound to heal.
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Time: 6:00 pm–8:30 pm
Come Sit is Sacred Space.
Rest in Silence.
Tend to Your Heart.
🌿
“When we make a place for silence, we make room for ourselves. By making room for silence, we resist the forces of the world which tell us to live an advertised life of surface appearances, instead of a discovered life — a life lived in contact with our senses, our feelings, our deepest thoughts and values.”
— Gunilla Norris
🌸 Closing Song 🎶 | Arms of Love ❤️
This song and musician came into my life through my spiritual director, Simon deVoil. Many of Alexa Sunshine Rose’s songs beat in my heart as prayer, as mantra, and her song ‘Arms of Love’ is one of these – a song to play on repeat, especially on those days when you feel tumbled apart and lost, needing to remember the truth of who you are: an expression of the Divine.
Lyrics:
Come now child, lay it down
Just breathe
Just be
Come be cradled in the arms of love
Just breathe, just be.
Listen on YouTube (5:00 min) or Spotify (5:00 min)
🌿
“May you open to the sacred pulse within–
the sacred feminine offering you her nectar to bloom your Beauty.”
May rest in the arms of the Beloved—
Let your holy tears weep, the holiest form of water.
May you know your life is a blessing.”
Have a blessed day,
Love, Wini 💖
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✨ may we bloom more Light together.
💞 may we grow more Goodness for the healing of all
🌎 may we stitch more heart-tenderness into the fabric of our planet.
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….Until next week. 💖 ✨
