Summer

About Summer

artist, minister, yoga therapist

Reflections on the Practice of Love

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. November 25th, 2018 This week—in the pause between Thanksgiving and the many December holidays—I thought we could take a look back at the recent sermon series on love. If you missed one, now's your chance to catch up! Or maybe there's a message that you need to hear again. Or maybe you want to browse the thoughtful comments of our community (I've highlighted a few here, but there's so many more on the actual sermon pages). However you interact with these reflections I hope they nourish your heart and help you do ... (Continue Reading)

By |2020-02-26T18:14:24-08:00November 25th, 2018|Books, Meditation, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Community|0 Comments

Gratitude is a Quality of Being | Thanksgiving (2018)

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons November 18, 2018 | Happy Thanksgiving! We're officially heading into the holidays. Are you excited about this? Anxious? Both? I know it can be a complicated time of year. In my work as a yoga teacher and yoga therapist I teach people how to transform difficult emotions and one of the main tools I use is the practice of awareness. If holidays cause you stress, try this: Set a goal to pay attention to what’s real. Take little mini check-in moments throughout the day. You don’t have to leave the room and no ... (Continue Reading)

By |2020-11-28T08:35:02-08:00November 18th, 2018|Books, Cooking, Creativity, Holidays, Recipes, Relationships, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|7 Comments

The Labels We Hold

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. November 11, 2018 — Sending Gratitude & Peace to all Veterans This week I sat down to write about the spiritual quest. And I did. But the focus ended up on how the labels we hold (the words we use to define ourselves) shape our character and action. This is an important sermon and I hope you'll take the time to engage with it and the reflection questions I've offered below. The sermon's important because we've forgotten how to talk to people different from ourselves. We're all locked in our own story. We're attached ... (Continue Reading)

By |2018-11-10T13:23:36-08:00November 11th, 2018|Art, Books, Creativity, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|3 Comments

Love as an Inner Sanctuary (love – part 4)

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. November 4th, 2018 Back in September, a yoga church community member asked me how we can love people we have contempt for. If you've been following along then you know her question sent me down a rabbit hole of exploration... This week I have the fourth, and final (for now!), sermon about love. I seriously didn't mean to write a 4-part series about love. But my heart just couldn't leave the topic. If you follow me on instagram, you may have seen the photo I posted last week of a huge maple ... (Continue Reading)

By |2020-02-26T18:27:52-08:00November 4th, 2018|Art, Creativity, Meditation, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|7 Comments

Love as the Practice of Attention (love – part 3)

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. October 28th, 2018 This week I had to re-up my CPR certification. I was late to the class and sat down in the only available seat, quickly realizing I was next to the "strange" guy. It'd been the empty seat for a reason. Embarrassingly my first reactions were judgement and envy. I was judging the man for being loud and missing the social cues of the moment. I was judging myself for being late. And I was looking around the room envious of all the partners I could've had if I'd been on ... (Continue Reading)

By |2020-02-26T18:19:58-08:00October 28th, 2018|Art, Books, Embodiment, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|8 Comments

Love & Sacrifice (love – part 2)

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. October 21st, 2018 {psst: there's downloadable art farther along in this post, so be sure you make it all the way to the bottom!} Love is a word that means SO many different things in our culture. It can be utterly casual—almost to the point of meaninglessness. But it's also a word powerful enough to change our lives. Sometimes it's the word we deeply need to hear. Sometimes it's the word we're terrified to say. I know that we all need love. I know that we want to be loving people. And I ... (Continue Reading)

By |2020-02-26T18:07:50-08:00October 21st, 2018|Art, Books, Creativity, Meditation, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|5 Comments

The Yoga Church Community

Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons. October 14th, 2018 Three years ago, while backpacking high up in the mountains, I turned to my husband and said: “I want to start a church.” It sounded like a crazy thing coming out of my mouth, but the dream had been shouting so loud in my heart that I couldn’t hold it back any longer. Unfortunately, the dream wasn’t the only thing shouting within me. So was fear. Lots of it. I don’t know what your inner fear voice tells you, but mine was saying things like: “What kind of person ... (Continue Reading)

By |2018-11-04T11:46:49-08:00October 14th, 2018|Creativity, Embodiment, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Retreats, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Community|2 Comments

The Middle Ground Between Love & Contempt (love – part 1)

After listening to the sermon “Who, or what, is God?” a few weeks ago, Pam wrote: “As soon as you asked what opposites I feel in my life I thought of the command to love everyone and yet I find myself disliking our country’s leaders. Without getting political, how do we feel love towards someone who we don’t respect? For me this is a constant push and pull struggle. How do I reflect God’s love in my life if I have contempt for someone?” These are important personal reflections and wise questions. Thank you Pam for sharing them with ... (Continue Reading)

By |2021-07-29T13:40:30-07:00October 7th, 2018|Art, Embodiment, Meditation, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|12 Comments

Keeping Time (fall equinox part 2)

As promised, here’s part 2 of the fall equinox sermon. Last week we rooted ourselves on the ground. And this week we explore the practice of keeping time. One of the ways we mark time at our house is by greeting every new season with a morning fire. We take a moment out of regular life to pause and notice the energetic shifts happening in the natural world and to notice how these shifts are showing up in our own lives. We reflect on the intentions of the past season and set new intentions for the months ahead. ... (Continue Reading)

By |2021-07-28T17:49:59-07:00September 29th, 2018|Art, Autumn, Books, Creativity, Meditation, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|6 Comments

the Ground of all Being (fall equinox part 1)

Yesterday—in the northern hemisphere where I live—was the fall equinox and it was my full intention to offer you a sermon in celebration of the season change. But when I sat down to write, something else entirely poured out of me... The fall equinox feels like a very earthy thing and apparently something inside of me needed to root us on the ground before I could actually begin writing about the season change. So you're getting the fall equinox sermon in two parts over two weeks. The Ground of all Being (fall equinox part 1) ... (Continue Reading)

By |2021-07-28T17:44:50-07:00September 23rd, 2018|Art, Autumn, Books, Creativity, Embodiment, Meditation, Nature, Practice, Relationships, Religion, Scripture, Spirituality, Yoga, Yoga Church Sunday Sermons|4 Comments
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