Ten Lessons in 2020: Faith

“Make your life a prayer,” he said the last time I surprised him by showing up in Stockholm to practice with him at Yoga Games in February. He said it in the way he says most profound things, simply and with his heart-filled faith and love for God.

I had just returned from a sudden visit to San Francisco to be with my sister, the last time we would all be together, and I had a special rosary from my trip to Bethlehem to gift him. I was in a tender spot and my heart needed his grace.

He gifted me this mantra without even knowing it. When I heard his words I just started crying, this has come to be the way that I know I am connecting directly to Spirit.

The truth is Rusty became my teacher when I needed Bhakti to be something tangible, an affirmation for what I have known and practiced my whole life. I can remember conversations with God and the holy realm when I was a little girl, I have always felt surrounded.

In the last decade, as I’ve been making the world my home, I have been answering a deep yearning to study theology. From the temples of Thailand and Bali to the cathedrals of Greece and Italy, I have answered this call time and time again. Something in me stirred last year in Akko when I heard The Call to Prayer and wandered in to my very first mosque visit. The same remembering happens when I visit a synagogue here in my Jewish neighborhood of Paris, and every week as I step into the Saint Paul Church to light candles. I follow my heart on pilgrimages, the latest one to feel Mary Magdalene wherever I go and to study her newly discovered gospel. The holy place matters not, it is the spirit there that I feel drawn to - and I always have.

There is nothing more beautiful than witnessing someone in their devotion.

This year gifted me with a beautiful collection of things that have helped me to deepen into my faith - aside from being a big year of trusting faith in general and finding big peace in the faith I have.

“To be devoted means to lie forever in the lap of the Divine.” - Richard Rudd

The 29th Gene Key with the Siddhi of Devotion is in my chart, I was gifted this affirmation this year on my map of purpose. I also started crying during my very first Kabbalah class a few months ago when the first Spiritual Law was shared and something I’ve always known to be true was affirmed through this belief system.

So many pieces came together for me in my faith this year.

Just days before Ramadan began I sent my dear sister Aisha in Bahrain a message and she agreed to teach me about her faith as I observed Ramadan with her and a circle of women of all faiths. She and I also held prayer circles this year: two Bhaktis of different faiths holding space for women of all faiths, it was one of the most beautiful blessings of the year.

My faith was tested in the biggest way possible this year in August when I lost my sister, and it was what saved me in the end. I was surrounded by prayers and people who have never met my sister were praying for her. Rusty helped me sing her home on her last day, and then he comforted me with his God-filled grace and I will never forget it.

When the pain is unbearable I turn to my faith and I know that “the ache in my heart is holy.” As Meggan Watterson shared recently in an interview with Guru Jagat, “the body is the soul’s chance to be here,” what a beautiful reminder.

It was no coincidence that I created my Moon Lodge this year, a virtual place for women all over the world to come together to embody the fullness of their Shakti, or feminine essence. In this space we explore the energies of Goddesses, and it was in this circle that The Radiance Sutras dropped in my lap.

To say that I have been mesmerized by this translation of the ancient Vijnana Bhairava Tantra text is an understatement, this holy book has inspired me to share 112 Days of Radiance in a recorded daily practice each day with a community of people who are taking the most important pilgrimage of their lives: into the temple within.

The more I learn about the various faiths in the world the more I realize we are all connected; I felt this pure consciousness deeply this year.

Thank you 2020.