At Durham Friends Meeting on October 19, 2025, three women from the Meeting shared reflections on their experiences at the 4th Annual Global Matriarchs Gathering sponsored by the Land Peace Foundation.

from Linda Muller:

This August women gathered at the Land Peace Foundation in Monroe.  This was the fourth Global Matriarchs Gathering and my second. 

The spiritual influences on me are an amalgam of many interactions with indigenous women over the years, including the series of Healing Turtle Island gatherings some of you are familiar with and the recent Walk for Peace and Friendship. 

Much of this activity is now being framed as, “let’s create the world we wish to inhabit and pass down to our grandchildren”. And” let’s show our deep gratitude to our earth, for generously sustaining us from our very origins”.

At the Matriarchs Gathering-we first acknowledged that we humans are all one family and that women have a unique spiritual role across cultures.  We bring forth the next generation of children and we have a special responsibility to attend to that which sustains all aspects of life.

We acknowledged that we are confronted, now, with men needing our attention, in a manner that conveys self and mutual respect.  We noted that some tender hearted men we know are suffering under cultural influences to restrict emotional display to anger and violence, only. We see that their impulse to nurture, provide and protect is often thwarted by our economic system.

We acknowledged the concept of ‘rugged individualism’, which may lead us to to believe we’re to solve our own problems individually. This concept also specifies that if we do not succeed in tending to our own needs (with the limited resources of our nuclear families) the problem is due to our lack of initiative.

Special challenges for those of European ancestry were noted; that centuries of violence, feudalism (with its repression of workers on the land),  conquest and the forming of kingdoms left a trail of forgotten land grabs and trauma many generations deep. Periodic changes in attitude about religion and the role of women and earth based spirituality; the emergence of the institution of Christianity with its Inquisition, more conquest and displacement, witch burnings and torture generated fear and rejection of diversity. 

When our relatives immigrated to Turtle Island (North America) many ties to our ancestry were severed, no cell phones then. Many of us have lost the knowledge of our ancient ancestors, their community based celebrations, ceremonies and earth based spiritual practices. This can leave us feeling like we’re standing in a  open field with no protection but the naked knowledge of science. Balancing this with our spiritual, emotional and physical well-being requires community, ceremony, celebration, belonging, sharing  and caring for each other.

As we move forward now, rigid gender roles and rugged individualism (medicated by the temporary satisfactions of consumerism) are not supporting the mutuality and love we need to create the world we want to inhabit. 

I came away from the Matriarchs gathering with renewed hope that: 

• We can learn how to appreciate and benefit from all manner of human diversity. 
• We can reject dog-eat-dog type competition, cruelty and condemnation. 
• We can develop our emotional maturity and healing from historic trauma.
• We can cultivate patience, listen to each other and learn better cooperation.  We can recognize science AND the need for balance with sound values and communal spiritual practices.

Acting on the world we want to inhabit is our responsibility and we each bring valuable, unique gifts and talents to this.

Thank you.

References and links from Leslie Manning’s message at Durham Friends Meeting, October 12, 2025.

“Hold fast the Hope that anchors the soul, which is sure and steadfast, that you may sail above the world’s seas.” George Fox’s Letter to Friends in America (Epistle 314). [Note: Fox’s Epistle to Friends in America is based in Hebrews 6:19]

New England Yearly Meeting Called Meeting on Gaza   Sat. October 18, 3-6 PM on Zoom: https://neym.org/events-calendar/2025/10/called-meeting-gaza

 Statement from Eight Quaker organizations on Genocide in Gaza: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uOryTVQSzVIhsGfyvJC_Z0yeHy3QQN1F/view

Quakers and the Holocaust: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/quakers

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, September 21, 2025. That same day, Shelley Randall was welcomed into membership at Durham Friends Meeting.

Today, September 21, 2025 and tomorrow September 22, carry a few designations for the world at large and for me personally.

First of all – today has been deemed International Day of Peace by the United Nations. I don’t know where and how that came about but considering the current circumstances the designation seems almost laughable if not for the fact that the state of our world and its beings are in such desperate straits: on-going genocide, starvation, cruel injustice. It is all so very, very sad – almost too much to bear.

And tomorrow is the autumn equinox – a fleeting time of equal light and dark. We blink an eye and the balance, the equilibrium is gone – replaced by fading light into darkness.  That’s what it feels like to me now in the external world as I am bombarded by ever more bad news for our country, other countries and peoples and ourselves as individuals, buffeted about, lost in the chaos of it all.

What I once knew is now uncertain and much of what I took for granted, in fact, is lost. In law school we studied and discussed “due Process rights and the constitutional right of free speech”. Now I wonder what is being taught since both seem to be a thing of the past.  Race based detainment has been upheld by the Supreme Court, at least temporarily.  ? What has become of the apparent guardrails in our democratic system I wail?!

My body, a source of strength and comfort has begun signaling I have lost track of equilibrium as I experience a constant dull achiness and outright sharp pain.

But I know there is good news here – if I begin with me and my body. And the ancient systems I return to when all seems to be lost.

In the 5 Elements theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine each season corresponds to earth elements, body organs and functions, emotions, foods, colors, sounds and more. The premise is the interconnectedness of all.

The Fall time corresponds to the element of metal, once used to forge tools to cut and slice away. Hatchets, swords, knives. These metal tools can be seen as a metaphor to cut away from my life that which no longer serves my best interests. Relationships, habits, foods, etc. When the cutting away occurs, we naturally feel a sense of loss and sadness, these emotions correspond to the Autumn and metal season. I like to think about the maple trees letting go of their leaves as they prepare for winter time, the most yin, quiet time of the year. The trees cannot sustain their leaves as their energy and nourishment fades.  So they let go and say good-bye, at least temporarily. And we mourn our losses of what once was. The long warm summer days that allowed us to spend hours outside. And we mourn the losses, even those habits that we give up because we must.  I taught Qi Gong at a 28 day residential program for addiction treatment and I used to talk about mourning the loss of our relationship to our addictions. Though in our best interest to let go of this relationship there must be a period of mourning and reflection around how they served us and why we need to say good bye. And what will take its place. And what can we develop to fill that place where drugs and alcohol once resided?

The saying good-bye part, the mourning and reflection is always the most painful. We have to look at how we got to that point squarely in the eye, being brave, feeling the agitation, sadness, the rage and the fear.

And I come face to face with my Self when I go through this process. This time around, my body was screaming at me, and I needed a professional to tell me – this pain is an issue of lack of mobility. And I was mad. At me, at my body. Why can’t I just relax now that I’m older, why can’t my body do what I want it to do without the extra time and effort to stretch and build strength. How did I forget that this practice needs to be part of my life?

And most importantly, Who am I now that I am older? What can I do and not do as a result? What are my limitations? And Who do I want to be going forward.

I am also cognizant that I am a person that feels deeply and the state of our country and the world affects me as it affects all of us deeply. How do we manage the sharp and overwhelming emotions that arise daily as we are bombarded with what seems to be more and more bad news, as we perceive that our country and our world as we know it is falling apart and what is our role now.

I come back to the premise of mourning. I know now that I must cry everyday in order to expel the grief that I experience every day, as I let go of what I thought were givens about how our government was supposed to operate and conduct itself. I can no longer hold onto the premises that I grew up with, that were instilled in me as a child. This is what is so shocking and so disturbing, along with what we know could happen if the guardrails in a democracy are completely destroyed. This potential is terrifying.

In the book Our Life is Love, The Quaker Spiritual Journey written by Marcelle Martin, she writes about Bill Tabor, “ a longtime teacher of Quakerism at Pendle Hill” and the pamphlet he wrote called Four Doors to Meeting for Worship. In it he recommends taking a period of “daily retirement” from the outward activity and business of one’s life. During such a period, Friends can contemplate a passage of the Bible, rest silently “in the eternal arms”, meditate, appreciate beauty, or pray for themselves and others.” (pgs. 147-148, Our Life is Love).

It is carving out time for this that creates the struggle in me. Is this enough for me to do? Shouldn’t I be doing more? The country is exploding in violence and I need to contemplate beauty? I ask myself. And then my body slaps me upside the head with that pain reminding me that I must take care of myself, first and foremost. I must give myself the time to mourn the devastating losses I am witness to. I must be in right relation with God. Only then can I be of service.

And this is a huge letting go for me. I was once a warrior, armored up, not needing anything but conviction and a facility with language to defend the violated and the oppressed.

But I am no longer that person. I have morphed, evolved into something else, something softer and more approachable. A body now with a heart that is open and strong and willing and filled with God’s love. A whole being that cares deeply. About myself as God’s child and about God’s other children and Mother earth and all her beings. And how can I maintain my equilibrium in order to be of service to this world that seems to be exploding around me. How can I utilize my skills and keep myself safe.

In Our Life is Love, Marcelle Martin writes about our Quaker forebears that sacrificed their lives for us to worship as Quakers. I applaud their heroics and am grateful that they led the way for me to stand in front of you today.  And each of their stories demonstrate a knowing that God was with them up until the end and they were calm.

So as I let go of the warrior I once was and fill that space with quietude to connect with God’s beauty. I can fill my heart with God’s loving strength and know that I am led and will always be led to where I am most needed. And I know also, that because I am filled with God’s strength and courage if I am called to do more than what I am doing now, I will show up. But in the meantime I must respect what God has put in front of me to do and continue my daily practices of respite.

This knowing and trusting that God will show me the way when I remember, alleviates the fear and the anxiety when my ego screams at me that I am not doing enough. This knowing and trusting comes from the “daily retirement” that Bill Tabor speaks of that provides me with strength to move forward just as I am.

So I let go of the hard wiring for action that has so defined me. And I mourn this loss and mourn the losses and suffering currently being experienced by so many humans, animals and ecosystems on the planet and I wait for the way to be opened.

And I’m painfully aware that a “daily retirement” is a luxury provided to me. I am not starving to death, or in the midst of a civil war or getting bombed out of my home and country. And again, what do I make of this? What is my responsibility in this midst. How can I contribute to Peace nationally and internationally on this International Peace day.

I try to return to my body and my heart. Am I at peace with myself? If not, how can I get there? Usually I need to recognize a resentment about someone or something, or a fear about something or someone – neither of the someones or situations I can control, so it has to be an internal shift towards understanding and compassion towards the someone or situation.

This is internal shift towards Mercy, a seemingly “old fashioned” word or biblical term has been lodged in my brain of late. The dictionary definition of “mercy” is Compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is in one’s power to punish or harm.

Mercy. The Spanish name Mercedes references Mercy. Girls in the U.S. were also once named Mercy. This a reminder that Mercy was not only found in our daily vernacular of old but also it was a name attributed to girls and women.

So when I hang on to a desire to punish myself or others, perhaps I can conjure the word “Mercy”. Mercy with a capitol “M”. Because as I know and have experienced, hanging on to the anger and the desire to harm can create its own discomfort in my body, my mind and in my heart.

The lack of mercy propelled me in my job as a warrior. The urge to punish those that I believed had oppressed another or were being unfair or who did actual harm. As a Child Protection Lawyer, I could understand and have mercy for the parents who harmed their children knowing that they had been harmed by their parents and the harm followed generations. What I held onto was the anger and desire to punish those in power who were oppressing vulnerable populations. This desire to punish was borne from my own sense of powerlessness operating within a skewed and unjust system.

It was my the lack of mercy by the government that is what I could not get past. And I suffered for it. I was a body charged and crackling, emanating anger and resentment and people were afraid of my energy and punished me. Ultimately, I was ejected from the very system that I was convinced I could help and contribute to. It was this urge to punish and hurt in the face of injustice that I had to let go of, it was eating me up, diminishing me and isolating me.

I realized I had not done the internal work necessary to find that place of balance to work towards justice without succumbing to the urge to punish and do harm. I had to find another way which required removing myself from the situation – of course, the system gave me a little nudge – and diving into the inner recesses of my being to uncover what – I did not know.

And as I’ve delved deeply internally, with God’s help, I’ve come face to face with two things: the infinite power that is Love and my own finite limitations. So it is here that I rest in a state of readiness to heed God’s call. It is here that I retire daily to connect with whatever God’s message and direction is for me. This trusting is a daily practice and this daily practice brings me to a sense of peace and rightness with the world that I can share with others. And that is enough. Right now, that is what God is calling me to do. There is peace in the sense of enoughness.

And now that I have let go of the should and mourned the loss of my old ways of being and make sure to take my daily retirement, I can go out into the world and carry peace with me to others, knowing it is enough and praying my favorite peace prayer.

Peace, peace, peace.

May I have peace in my heart,

Peace in my speech and

Peace in my mind.

May all beings know peace, as I wish to know peace.

                                                      Author unknown

This meditation was Joyce Gibson’s opening reflection at Durham Friends Meeting on August 31, 2025

Thoughts on The Spiritual Journey

On the drive from Massachusetts this morning, my thoughts turned to my work with my first spiritual advisor Dr. Margaret Benefiel, now head of Shalem Institute, who taught me how to stop and discern how God was leading me; in the middle of our hourly sessions, which were focused on my efforts to stay on the path of my spiritual journey, she would ask that we take a few minutes to be silent for guidance.  Figuring out what God would want from me in the everydayness of my life was new to me then. Being present with Him at any time of day was also what I was not doing, or practicing!    I now make an effort to be present to God, yet it is ever the struggle.

Today I would like to introduce two of my special people, Father Thomas Keating, known as the Father of Contemplative Prayer, someone I actually experienced in one of his presentations in Boston, and Father Richard Rhor, a Jesuit who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, (CAC) based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and whose work I follow in daily meditations and through his books. meditations@cac.org

This excerpt is from a lecture Father Keating was invited to give as part of the 1997 lecture at Harvard Divinity School– the Harold M. Wit Lecture on Living a Spiritual Life in the Contemporary Age, and was published by St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado in 1999. The book is The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation. Father Keating was the former Abbot of the Trappist Monastery in Spencer, MA, and one of the foremost teachers of contemplative prayer in the Christian world.  He begins his lecture with a question, “Where are you?”

The spiritual journey, writes Thomas Keating, is not a career or a success story.  It is a series of humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound.  These make room inside us for the Holy Spirit to come in and heal.  What prevents us from being available to God is gradually evacuated.  We keep getting closer and closer to our center.  Every now and then God lifts a corner of the veil and enters into our awareness through various channels, as if to say, ‘Here I am.  Where are you?  Come and join me.‘(back cover, 1999)

Today’s meditation from Richard Rohr, Choosing to Become Present, connects quite well with Father Keating’s message in his lecture.  

He writes:

Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I believe that immediate, unmediated contact with the moment is the clearest path to divine union.  Naked, undefended, and nondual presence has the best chance of encountering Real Presence.  I approach the theme of contemplation in a hundred ways, because I know most of us have one hundred levels of resistance, denial, or avoidance….

In my novitiate I was exposed to an early method of silent Franciscan contemplation called pinsar sin pensar or no penar nada as described by the Spanish friar Francisco de Osuna.  I didn’t totally understand what I was supposed to be doing in that silence of “thinking without thinking” and probably fell asleep on more than one occasion.  Yet it had the effect of moving me away from the verbal, social, and petitionary prayers I had been taught almost exclusively up to that time.

Prayer is indeed the way to make contact with God/Ultimate Reality, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or about events.  It’s primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us. (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, Week Thirty-Six:  Practicing the Presence, Sunday, August 31, 2025)

As we move into waiting worship, consider, “Where are you?”

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, August 15, 2025, by Lisa Steele-Maley 

Each summer, I noodle over the idea ~ and the experience ~ of Interdependence. 

I know this is spurred on by a desire to create counterbalance to the annual celebration of independence every July and I suspect it is sustained by watching the plants and insects of the garden interact with each other and the waxing and waning of sun, rain, and wind. 

I, perhaps like many of you, was raised in a family and culture that values independence. As I have grown older, I have seen how the idea of independence creates a separation that contributes to environmental and human exploitation, consumerism, competition, overwork, and dominion over creation rather than responsibility to it. 

The ideal of independence also keeps us from asking for help, leaning on friends, and fostering community, no doubt helping to create the epidemic of loneliness. 

To be fair, Independence does have its place – it allowed this country to originally become independent from the greed and control of a ruler king. It allows children to grow up and into their own lives. Because we are independent, we make up our own minds on matters of moral and ethical consequence. We love. We dream. We create. We can, in fact, choose to live our way toward a more whole, just, and loving world. 

But independence also creates a scar. You have heard of the idea of original sin? I think of separation as our original wound… and many of the wounds we experience in our lives and inflict on others stem from that original hurt. 

Interdependence is our true nature. Our brief lives on this Earth are truly interwoven, intermingled, and interconnected with all other beings throughout time and space…. 

We can not actually be independent of each other. We are wholly interdependent on each other, on the Earth that sustains us, and on a holy living truth that is greater than ourselves. Whether they name this unifying divinity God, Buddha Mind, Universal spirit, Brahman, Pachamama, or Holy Mystery, most traditions point to a sacred that is both immanent (within us) and transcendent (all around us). 

It is this holy weaving ~ around, within, above, below, and between that assures and reminds me that we inter-are. 

Inter-are comes from the word inter-being, coined by the buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He says “ I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.” This concept of interbeing really gives our American minds, bred on independence, something to chew on.

It is in letting this concept integrate into my body and heart that I can really live into it, creating a counterpoint for my mind that can get stuck in habitual loops that reinforce the myth of separation. 

In our bodies, we have no choice but to know that we inter-are. After all, we require air every minute, water and food each day. The living, breathing world quite literally sustains us. 

We breathe in because our bodies require oxygen. We breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees take in the carbon dioxide that we exhale and release oxygen. We are co-breathing with trees all of the time. This is perhaps the simplest and most profound example of interdependence that I both know and also pay little attention to most of the time. 

But paying attention to the many ways that I am in fact connected to All That Is has been particularly helpful this summer amidst the fullness and frantic pace of the news cycle that keeps my lizard brain on high alert. 

Paying attention with my whole body, letting my senses inform and bless me re-members me to my true belonging to this living world. I don’t need to do anything to be worthy of it. It is simply already true. 

I’ve had the opportunity to swim a bit this summer. Every time I get in the water, I lay back and float for a while, feeling the water hold and suspend me while the sun warms my face. It’s been really nourishing to remind myself that I am always this supported. 

During a humid morning a few weeks ago, I was startled by the intoxicating dream-like fragrance of the blooming milkweed. I smelled it before I saw it. As I drank in the smell, I noted that the flowers are offering themselves to the pollinators of the insect world and I am an adjacent beneficiary. Later that day, when I noticed the monarch butterflies fluttering from stalk to stalk, my body recalled the morning’s fragrance. I could actually feel the butterfly’s attraction to the flowers as an expansion in my own heart. 

I said a minute ago that I don’t have to do anything to be fully integrated in the web of connection. That is true, and it is also true that I can actively work to tend and weave the web of connectivity with my actions and sacred imagination. 

When I introduce one friend to another, I am weaving a web of connection by bringing together two people whose lives may be enriched by knowing each other. When I usher a fly out of my house instead of swatting at it, I am supporting and enhancing the life of another being. When Leslie broke her ankle and put out a call for help, she was building new strands of connection. When I responded to her invitation, I reinforced the integrity of the web. We are co-weaving with one another. 

We are, in fact, always giving and always receiving. As I attune to interbeing in this season, I recognize reciprocity everywhere. As Robin wall Kimmerer says, “All Flourishing is Mutual” 

A few nights ago, the night was humid when I laid down for sleep. The window beside the bed was open but the air felt still and the night sky was silent. It was calm. Peaceful. Yet, as I lay there, a thought intruded, “this is the kind of night that bombs are dropped on.” 

I brought my hand to my suddenly racing heart. (Studies have shown that this simple touch activates the vagus nerve which plays a role in regulating the nervous system.) My thoughts went to far away lands – to Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and Iran – and it felt abundantly clear that the safety that I was enjoying in that moment was not guaranteed. It does not have to be this way and it can change in a heartbeat. 

Laying in bed with my hand over my heart, I let my sacred imagination weave a connection to another mother in another land, a mother laying in bed with fear in her heart, and hunger in her belly as the night sky rang with the sounds of destruction. 

I prayed with her for peace, for the safety of her children, for space to grieve the immense losses that she has already suffered. I prayed that she might wake to a quiet sky and a table graced with fruit and bread to nourish her family. I prayed that the planet will recover from the devastating pollution and destruction of war. I prayed that humanity will someday heal from this violent separation that is created by distinguishing “us” and “them”. As I drifted from prayer toward sleep, I felt a touch of peace born of connection and faith. 

In just a few minutes, laying in bed, I moved from isolation and desolation to profound connection and peace. It is all so much bigger than I can know. 

I’d like to close with the words of Joanna Macy, a brilliant thinker and activist who developed the Work that Reconnects. She died on July 19 of this year at the age of 96. 

Trusting the Spiral 
Active Hope is not wishful thinking. 
Active hope is not waiting to be rescued 
By the Lone Ranger or by some savior. 
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life 
On whose behalf we can act. 
We belong to this world. 
The web of life is calling us forth at this time. 
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part. 
With Active Hope, we realize that there are adventures in store, 
Strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with. 
Active hope is a readiness to discover the strengths 
In ourselves and in others; 
A readiness to discover the reasons for hope 
And the occasions for love. 
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, 
Our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, 
Our own authority, our love for life, 
The liveliness of our curiosity, 
The unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, 
The keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead. 
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk. 

– excerpted from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone