Here are the links to new / old blog posts

I started with a recollection from a conversation years ago that led me to connect Rumi and country western music.

Then I went on a fruitless Google hunt for the perfect image of Divine Love.

I reflected on gender and the Spirit - which led to another search on Google images (and a Russian icon of St. Sophia and her daughters, Faith, Hope, and Love).

And the last posting of the "secret" (e.g. unvisited) blog was a long-poem reflection on loss, grief, and the search for connection, accompanied by photos from my favorite local nature sanctuary. (Note - pictures enlarge if you click on them.)

Then - I started over with this blog, and now it's all in one place.

No more blogging today - I need to get outside!

I went out onto Google-images to find an image I could use in place of the blank face in the profile of this blog, and on an impulse, typed in "Divine Love." There were an amazing number of things that came up. Some commonalities: many of them were images of glowing-ness (if there is a word like that): fractals pulsing with rainbow light, glowy angels, Hindu dieties (often entwined in ecstatic union); hearts pulsing with rays of light. There were a couple of nature scenes, but one of them seemed doctored to have some of this same kind of supernatural glow coming from off the side.

So, what are MY images of divine love? Much more homely, in the archaic sense of the word, I would guess. Something that would capture the nitty-grittyness of it all. The memory of poopy diapers. The similar experience of our creaky old family dog with his undependable digestive-eliminative system. A handmade Christmas card from my niece, with a photo of herself, her dog Daisy, and her wonderful boyfriend all standing in the winter snow - but rather far away in this scene, so I have to take off my glasses and hold it close to my eyes to see their faces. But an image of the source of all that is tender and true? In some ways, trying to visualize the Source feels like a distraction from noticing the light deep within this world and the beings living and dying within it.