My vision has changed many times over the years, but now I’m 99 percent sure I’ve settled on my main vision: a think tank of animal rights activists building an umbrella network, with local chapters that support every person and group working for animals without competing with any of them. The heart of it is a cooperative community on land held in a land trust. People who share this vision and live together can be far more effective, because we’re together so much and can get more done. We can also model a vegan cooperative community, which is much needed. It will start with me living on the land or nearby and reaching out to people who share my vision and values, who will eventually join me in living here. As we live and grow together, the vision can evolve. These articles, written over the past thirteen years, let you get to know me and my history along the way.

Lately I have felt drawn to the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I came across this monastery, and this short video is inspiring to me.

One of the prayers that the founder of this monastery, Elder Ephraim, recommends highly–is the Jesus Prayer, which seems to be one of the foundational prayers in the Orthodox Church. There a various versions, the simplest being, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

I’ve been playing this version almost all the time during my waking hours as background music. The beautiful melody and non-English words remind me to pray and I’m sure the vibration is helping me to draw closer to oneness with God.

I have long been drawn to the church fathers and mothers who started monasteries, often in the desert, when Constantine made Christianity a state religion. Those who took refuge in these communities wanted to keep their practice of following Jesus pure. I understand that they also served near by villages and the relationship between monastics and non-monastics were synergistic.

I’m continuing to live a prayer-filled life, mixed in with political activism, and seeking how to balance the two. I am doing things that purify my body, soul and mind with the hope that when I am ready, the other monastic women will come and join me.

This story , the Rabbi’s gift serves as an inspiration to me. The monastery was shrinking because new people were not coming. The love for each other and for God was stagnant. But something happened that inspired the monks to treat each other with great love and respect, which drew more younger monks so that the monastery became a thriving community. Here is a video version.

Robert, my former husband, and I are cooperating now. After almost 3 decades of struggling to work together harmoniously, we are finally learning how to treat each other with great respect and love. Maybe in a similar way that the monks learned how to create a beautiful vibration which attracted others, we are learning to do the same.

Robert doesn’t have aspirations to start a monastery, yet his desire to help with the farming, building, creating infrastructure and other essential things that I need help with gives me so much hope. Together, we live in a home where we have separate living spaces, giving us a monastic-like existence which nurtures us both. He has helped me create a protected garden space with an electric fence and green-house tunnels so that I can grow greens year around.

The list of how Robert has supported me in having a life where I can focus primarily on my spiritual life and becoming the person I believe God wants me to be, is very long! I feel so grateful to him, and to God who has bestowed so many blessings on both of us.

I am still figuring out what spiritual practices will be most conducive for spiritual growth which includes physical, mental and emotional health. Daily Examen, Lectio Devina, Jesus Prayer, singing, meditation, and nurturing the vagus nerve are all important. I wrote this article about the vagus nerve which give numerous suggestions as to how to obtain optimum health for the vagus nerve.

On Thanksgiving 2020, I helped host a large family gathering where I realized that having many people around me was not going to bring me happiness. I loved each person who was present, and yet I also felt their pain and their need for God. This experience sent me into a deep need for solitude, repentance, and prayer, Sometimes I felt so much pain for all the suffering in the world–including my own–that I could hardly stand it.

At times, I begged Jesus to let me slip into heaven and help people from a place where I could live without so much pain. I have such a yearning to serve others, and yet so many times I think I have escaped doing my own inner work and cultivating my relationship with God.

I will tell the story of what happened in another post. For now, I will say that I hope that experience has been my answer to prayer–to help me be ready to be the founder of the Wellspring Monastery.