I’ve been leading more meditations lately, I may have mentioned. There were 2 today – a guided meditation group that happens weekly, and my monthly full moon crystal singing bowls group. I tend to channel my guided meditations, so I rarely know much in advance about what we’re doing… For the Full Moon bowls, I’ll so a little reading of my favorite astrologers to see what’s up, and set a focus accordingly.

There definitely seemed to be a theme today. It has been a hectic past few weeks, and I didn’t even get to do my reading until the break between the two sessions. And yet…

My guided meditations are frequently journeys; journeys of discovery, journeys of healing, journeys of enlightenment… The point is, we go somewhere. This afternoon’s meditation was very internal, and it was all about releasing and strengthening the heart center.

For the singing bowls, I invited people to gather up those parts of themselves they had “othered” and to reintegrate them into themselves, to gather up those people and groups they had “othered” and to reintegrate them into their idea of humanity. It’s interesting, we’re in a Gemini moon, and the pull, for me, is to honor the differences in each of our experiences while accepting that we are all part of the Divine All.

I keep looking at the stated goals of the terrorist organization Daesh, and they’re so divisive. To respond with more divisiveness strikes me as playing right into their plans. If we respond with love, with inclusiveness, with compassion, if we make room at the table for people whose experience might differ greatly from our own, we get to define our world. We take our power back.

So this Thanksgiving, or Thursday if you’re not into the holiday, find someone whose experience is different than yours. Listen to their story. Just listen. Allow them the gift of being heard. And include them in your world, in some way. Acknowledge that they are part of the same Divine All as you are, as we all are.