Pathways Home
by JoAnne Dodgson
excerpt from Walking the Spiral Path: Awakening Power and Passion
It was all a rather unexpected retreat. The circumstances of my life were radically rearranged and I stepped back from my work for awhile. In this new time and place, hourly appointments, calendars, and clocks no longer structured my days.
I had none of the familiar labels which had for so long defined me ~ teacher, counselor, therapist,
psychologist, program director, project coordinator, social activist, college professor. I couldn’t rely on these respectable titles to figure out just where and how I fit into the world.
There wasn’t an office to go to. There wasn’t even a desk in the tiny bungalow the three of us shared. When people asked, “How are you?,” I could no longer say I was busy or attempt to prove the value of my existence by describing all the Very Important Things I was scheduled to do. There was hardly anyone around who even knew my name.
Amidst the joy and wondrous simplicity of my life, my mind wrestled with questions about who-I-am and what-I-do and the meaning and purpose of my life. Without my usual forty-plus hours of work every week, I wasn’t quite sure how to measure my accomplishments or where to look for reassurance that I was making some kind of meaningful contribution to the world.
But as it turned out, it was without alarm clocks and deadlines, without rushing onto the next thing while trying to change the world, that I became vividly aware of all the time and energy I’d spent leaving myself behind. And so there appeared a remarkable invitation. To remember. To embrace my own soul. To get reacquainted with me.
It was in a one-room house with my beloved partner and our spirited dog where I experienced rich abundance. There I discovered the spaciousness of love and the vastness of being, within me and all around.
It was in wearing the same tattered clothes everyday that I found out about freedom from the search for love and acceptance through the lure of external facades.
Without television and newspapers, it was our spiritual journeys, the colors of sunsets, the sightings of quail, the baking of marionberry pies, the first brush of paint on a canvas, the songs of tree frogs and crickets, our conversations with family and friends, the finding of feathers, the return of the June bugs, and nights spent out under the stars that became the headline news.
With walks in the woods rather than work-outs at the gym, with nourishing foods rather than diets, I contentedly settled back into my body in a balanced and nurturing way. It was in visiting with ravens and lizards and trees, with mountains and rivers and rocks, that I felt my connection and reclaimed my belonging in the extraordinary web of life. It was in easing the wars that waged within me that I contributed to peace on earth.
There inside the potent healing of compassion, I found what it is that I want to share. In the sacred space of my own remembering, I discovered I’d found my way home.
© JoAnne Dodgson
JoAnne Dodgson, Ed.D., is a healer, teacher and author whose work is centered in the ancient Peruvian tradition Ka Ta See, “living in balance from the heart.” She has been involved in holistic healing, counseling and teaching for over twenty years. She has a doctorate in counseling psychology and has been on the faculty in holistic health, transpersonal psychology and women's studies programs.
For more information, please visit www.pathwaysforhealing.net. JoAnne can be reached at joanne@pathwaysforhealing.net or 1.888.846.6412.
JoAnne's writings include medicine stories and five books: Unleashing Love, MoonDance Journal, Walking the Spiral Path, Gifts of the Grandmother, and Cocooning.
UnLeashing Love
A Collection of Medicine Stories to Feed the Spirit and Awaken the Heart
Written by JoAnne Dodgson
Medicine stories are shared with the intent to evoke healing and inner reflection, to feed the spirit and awaken the heart. Unleashing Love is a beautiful collection of unique medicine stories filled with rich and compelling experiences to delight the senses and expand awareness, to nourish personal quests and invite connections with unseen worlds, to awaken the passions of life within us and all around.
$12.95 plus shipping
some Stories by JoAnne Dodgson
Order UnLeashing Love in our Bookshop
WALKING
the SPIRAL PATH: AWAKENING POWER
and PASSION
by JoAnne Dodgson
is a collection of medicine stories, each distinct yet
connected, all sparked by inescapable callings to delve
deeper for understanding, to see the unseen and give
voice to the unspoken, to unravel bindings in the quest
to be free.
Price: $14.00
Order this
book in our Bookshop
GIFTS
of the GRANDMOTHER
by JoAnne Dodgson
is the captivating true
story of a woman's spiritual quest which unfolds as she
explores high desert canyonlands. Her compelling story not only gives us a view of the incredible beauty she had discovered within herself but provides us with the promise that this beauty is within each and every one of us waiting to be discovered. 160 pages, color illustrations, 5 x 8" paperback, comb binding)
Price: $16.95
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book in our Bookshop
.
MOONDANCE JOURNAL
MoonDance Journal is a one-of-a-kind journal ~ handmade,
lovingingly printed and bound by JoAnne Dodgson.
a unique sacred space for exploring your inner journeys, spiritual quests and life path throughout thirteen moon cycles of a lunar year. Celebrate the rhythms and seasons of your life.
Retails for $19.95
Order MoonDance Journal in our Bookshop
