In a world that needs more kindness, the sweet, endearing Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood can be excellent soul companions. They show us how we can be together when things feel like they are falling apart and offer timeless wisdom for living together in community. Here are a few heartwarming themes from A.A. Milne’s classic stories:
Each one of us carries unique gifts and characteristics that are needed in the world
The attributes of true friendship
Ways to find peace in the middle of unexpected life events
Insight into getting unstuck and out of the gloominess
The joy of doing small things with great love
Spiritual companions are essential for spiritual well-being. It’s been delightful and uplifting to work with three spiritual friends and colleagues (Donna Mollenkopf, Terri Smith, and Maggie Lears) to prepare the upcoming Women at the Well spiritual companioning series.
Women, PLEASE JOIN US for our six-week journey beginning on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. We have an in-person group and an online Zoom group for those unable to attend in person. Each week we will pre-read a classic Pooh story and delve into a spiritual theme with time for reflection and meaningful conversation. Here’s the link for more information http://wellforthejourney.org. (on the program calendar)
Whether you can join us or not, consider spending time with stories that offer you kindness and perspective. They can warm your soul and boost your spiritual well-being.
May you have soul companions to support you in your journey and catch you when you fall (or jump) from trees!
As we live through rapid changes, it’s easy to feel caught up, swept away, and powerless. However, we always have choices. We can always choose where to focus our attention and intention. Positive intentions help us to be agents of love and healing amid the tumult of any kind.
One concrete way to care for ourselves and others is to gather in small groups with others who share an intention to strengthen the goodness, love, and light in us and around us.
Science reveals that when we come together with others with the specific intention for healing, we have the capacity to heal and transform ourselves and the world. Lynne McTaggart is a journalist and researcher who spent decades exploring the science behind intention and its transformative impact on individuals and communities. Bridging spirituality and science, her work reveals the extraordinary capacity for connection and healing when people come together with a shared positive intention. Her first book, The Intention Experiment, compiled scientific research about intentions and invited others to participate in the experiments. Then, she scaled down the research to create small groups of eight people (“Power of Eight” groups) from across the globe who met regularly. People were instructed to send a healing intention to a person facing a challenge. The results, published in her second book, The Power of Eight, revealed that those who sent their intentions as well as their receivers were positively impacted in unexpected ways. A few quotes from her books are below.
It is reassuring that science confirms what many faith traditions have practiced for thousands of years, and what many intuitively know.
I’ve been reflecting on the power of intention and my experiences with small groups at Well for the Journey (Women at the Well and other groups ( http://wellforthejourney.org) and the Ignite Your Light team ( https://ignitecm.com/). When I gather in small groups with the desire to nourish my soul, reconnect with my inner light, and remember the goodness within and around me, I feel stronger, lighter, more joyful, and better able to give and receive love. It impacts all my relationships.
Nurturing our soul and spirit is not only good for us but is also good for the world.
Small groups of people have life-giving potential for these times. When we gather with the intention to bring more goodness, love, and light into the world, the energy field strengthens and expands. Renewing our own soul brings renewal to our world; reconnecting with our own light brings more light to all around us.
Friends, I encourage you to find companions to nourish your soul, reconnect with your inner light, and bring healing to our world. See the invitation below:)
Sending love,
Mabeth
Note: A portion of this writing is adapted from Gathering 5 of “The Modern Dilemma: How to Be Human & Soulful in a Rapidly Changing World,” a Women at the Well program that our collaborative Women at the Well team created in 2024.
“Research demonstrates that living things are constant transmitters and receivers of measurable energy…Intention appears to be something akin to a tuning fork causing the tuning forks of other things in the universe to resonate at the same frequency.”
-Lynne McTaggert, The Intention Experiment
(When people became part of a Power of Eight group, there was something McTaggart called a “mirror effect” on the senders of the intention….) “If they prayed for peace, their lives became more peaceful. If they tried to heal someone else, they experienced a healing in their own lives. Focusing on healing someone else brings on a mirrored healing.”
-Lynne McTaggert, The Power of Eight
“Don’t play small when it comes to healing yourself or healing the world. This is too big an enterprise to attempt by yourself. Find your truest self and your greatest power in numbers.”
Nesting in Wonder 