Being a Disciple

Every New Year we hear about resolutions and how they fall by the wayside in February or March.  It points to an apparent failure of discipline, an inability to follow through, when it comes to aspirations we have for ourselves.

Discipline is defined as the quality of being able to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules or standards.

When I  hear this, I resist!  Controlling myself by obeying a set of rules that I've set up for myself -- the whole idea evokes being disciplined by a scolding parent, the nuns at catholic school, or a micro-managing boss.  

No wonder we lack discipline!

In mental health or personal growth, the idea of controlling our behavior is problematic.  Working with people who are earnestly trying to heal, to overcome their conditioned behavior, reveals in short order that we are driven (controlled) by factors that are often unconscious.  Dynamics encountered in our early lives caused us to draw conclusions about ourselves and the world that we may not even be aware of.  These influences seem hard-wired, difficult to uproot and update to match who we are now.

So here's an idea.  Why don't we skip the annual attempt to discipline ourselves and consider becoming disciples?

Both words, discipline and disciple come from the same Latin word discipulus, meaning pupil.

When we hear disciple, we think of the followers of Jesus.  But what could this mean for us in the New Year of 2024?

If a disciple is a student, who do we choose to follow?

I've decided to become a disciple of my higher self.  My best version of me.

I find this expanded sense of myself on the meditation cushion and do my best to infuse it into my daily life.  Do I fall off the wagon?  Yes, for sure, all the time.  Constantly!  But I'm aspiring to align my will for myself with divine will for me.  

It's a practice of aligning with that dimension of being -- not forcing, failing, and recriminating.  It's a practice of remembering who I AM according to what I discover daily in my own experience and in the inner realms of revelation.

Our true nature, beneath the personalities we adopted, is as vast and infinite as the cosmos.  In truth, we are kind, generous and loving.  Our True Selves are unfragmented, unified in wholeness and integrity.  In truth, we are connected, through the energetic web of life, with each other, the planet, and the Divine -- whatever that means to you in your sacred heart.

When we acknowledge this dimension of being, our consciousness expands.  When we know ourselves as directly plugged in to the Source energy that created worlds, everything changes. 

We don't have to discipline ourselves to meet standards erected by forces that simply want to corral us into acceptable, appropriate behavior.  For our own good. To fit in.

Our choices are NOT based on what we mistakenly concluded about ourselves and the world as children.  Instead, we choose in concert with who we are today.  

My hope for the New Year of 2024 is that the massive awakening that is happening across the globe helps us realize the truth of who we are, unencumbered by the weight of all the false notions we adopted growing up, and embrace our higher selves.  

My hope is that we find quiet places -- the woods, an empty church, the back porch at sunset -- and recover this spacious dimension of presence and being.

You're invited to join me in exchanging discipline for discipleship.  Let us become disciples of the spark of the Divine within-- and dedicate ourselves to realizing it's unlimited vision for us in this New Year.

Summer Solstice 2023

At the Summer Solstice, I gave a talk at the local community center here in Longmeadow.  We have lived here for almost two years, newcomers to this lovely town. 

The blurb in the newsletter said:  Julie offers perennial wisdom associated with the summer solstice.  Astronomy, astrology and archeology illustrate why this day has been honored since ancient times.  Come learn about the great shift of ages we are in the midst of, and how aligning with the rhythms of nature lends a sense of stability in turbulent times.  Enjoy a guided meditation to awaken your inner light.

So I head over with my laptop and handouts, prepared to give this talk as I have done since 2012.  Back then, I sat with notes on my lap, in my living room, sharing the information with my newly-formed meditation circle.  Since then, my presentation has evolved into a PowerPoint; I tweak it every year, adding pertinent astrological info and current events that out-picture the archetypal energies at play in the heavens.

When I arrive at the community center, they point me to a large room set up with chairs in the front and tables in the back, as if lunch had been served.  There's a small stage.   

Am I supposed to sit on this stage?  

The activities director hustles in.  He sets up a card table for my laptop and connects it to a screen that, viola, lowers onto the stage.  This platform is about knee high off the auditorium floor, and I realize I have no other option but to sit there to deliver my talk.  He asks if I want a microphone and I decline.  I have never sat on a stage or used a mic for this kind of event so...no. Thank you, I think I'll be OK without it.

About 20 people filter in.  Only two men.  I introduce myself briefly and indicate that there is  information about me and Blue Heron Healing at the table in the back.  If they are interested in being notified of upcoming special events they can leave their email addresses.  

Can they hear me ok?  No, a couple of heads shaking no.  So I hop off the stage to get that microphone.  

Distinctly out of my comfort zone.

But maybe the mic is a good idea because I've had an oddly long-lingering head cold.  My throat is still a little raspy.  I'm concerned about straining my voice or having it give out altogether, which of course is not a good look. I ask my audience to excuse the lozenge I have tucked in my cheek.

So here's me:  Testing, testing.  Hearing my voice through the speaker system  reminds me that I spent many years in local politics, in my former life in Wethersfield, speaking into a mic.  This is not a big deal.

I give my talk sitting at the card table on the stage, right hand at my laptop, left hand holding the mic. This deprives me of gesturing; I feel oddly handcuffed, but forge ahead. Things proceed smoothly, except for one guy who appears to be napping, lol.  The rest are engaged.  Once or twice I get up to point out something on the big screen.

I speak for 40 minutes, then suggest a break before we settle for the guided meditation.  A woman raises her hand, reminding me that I haven't asked for questions or comments.

She says, in a flabbergasted kind of way, 

Who are you?  

Where have you been? 

 What's your story?

The esoteric info in my talk clearly resonates with her.  She says something along the lines of, this stuff is meaningful to me, but I rarely see out here in regular life.

I love this response!  

So I tell them how, many years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  How I was in Barnes and Noble after this distressing news, and found Louise Hay's little book, How to Heal Your Body:  The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them (heads nodding in the audience).  I look up: breast, left side of the body, and cancer.  

My diagnosis was a revelation: I wasn't nourishing myself.  

I was busy raising two daughters and volunteering in the community.  No one ever taught me the importance of taking care of myself. 

 Better to give than to receive and all that.

I've come a long way since then.  

All the women are nodding their heads.  They get it.

I describe my decision to study energy medicine as a result of that eye-opening moment.  It was a four-year program -- six long weekends from September to May every year, with plenty of assignments in between.  I have always been fascinated by energy dynamics, wellness, mind-body-spirit connections, the nature of reality and human nature:  Who are we?  Why do we do the things we do? How do things  get created?  Who/what is God/Source/the Life Force/The Great Creator/The Spirit of All Life?

I told them how I received reiki while undergoing radiation treatments at Hartford Hospital and it felt so good  I resolved to learn how to do it.  That led to the discovery of a local school of energy medicine.

I tell them I have a lovely healing space in my home and amazing clients that inspire me every day. They ask where I live.  It's a small town; everyone knows where our house is located.

Any other questions?  Another woman raises her hand and says, this is going to sound weird, but...and asks about extra-terrestrials (because they may have had a hand in some of material I presented).  In my world, this is not a strange question.  I elaborate a bit and then we take a five minute break.

A couple approaches and the woman says, Julie, you're not going to remember me but....  It turns out she is the sister of two dear friends from high school.  We both grew up in Utica, NY and now live in Longmeadow.  She has family news to fill me in on.  This connection is a joyful surprise.

And it turns out the mic is great for guiding the group into meditation because, at times, I almost want to whisper, and my quiet voice can still be heard.  Everyone is sitting with eyes closed, shoulders relaxed, journeying inward to their own light-filled core essence.

Afterwards, everyone makes a point to express their appreciation.  They leave their contact info for future programs.

As any speaker knows, this is gratifying.  In the weeks leading up to my talk, I spent time reviewing my presentation, making it more fluent and concise. I added relevant material I've come across since the last time I gave it.  I updated the design of the slides themselves.  All the while wondering if it's worth the effort.

It almost always is!

It's my practice to pick an oracle card on the solstice and 2023 is no exception.  From the Spirit of the Wheel Meditation Deck, I pick Freeze Up Moon.  Hmm, seems opposite the themes of the day of longest sunlight.

But the message is spot-on.  The keywords are:  Identity, Self-discovery, Vulnerability.

Like the snake shedding its skin, Freeze Up Moon represents letting go of outworn roles to reveal your true identity.  

I mentioned my former life in Wethersfield.  All those roles?  Gone. Only wife, mother, and friend remain.  New role?  Grandmother.  A role I embrace wholeheartedly.

Courage and patience are required to let go of the roles that have been smothering your inner light.  This is exactly what our meditation was about -- uncovering our inner light.

Shedding old skin may leave you feeling somewhat vulnerable.  The people around you, who are accustomed to your old roles, may resist this change.  

This one merits its own blog post!  Let's just say this dynamic has been up in a big way recently.

As you allow...your true identity to emerge you will feel your spirit lighten.  There is real freedom in true creative expression.

In my experience, this is absolutely true.  While nothing in my PowerPoint is original, what is original is how I pull it all together.  Arcane information from many fields of study, arranged to make the summer solstice as relevant to us as it was to indigenous cultures who honored the cycles of Nature in ways that we simply do not.  We rob ourselves of the richness of archetype and myth that pervade perennial philosophy when we are out of tune with Mother Nature.

I also highlight the tremendous transformative shift we are undergoing.  I describe it as fast and furious.  Does it feel like this to you?  Like circumstances that might have happened over the course of months or years are now coming at us at such an accelerated rate we can hardly keep up?  I provide archeological evidence of The Great Shift, foretold by more than one ancient culture.  I don't know how people manage the rocky times we are living through without this contextual knowledge. 

Finally, the oracle card says:  Now is the time to let go of the roles that limit your potential and take up the call to explore and express your true self.

This reflects the potential I spoke of at the center of the galaxy and the center of ourselves.  The principle of as above so below applies as I explain how the galactic center and our deepest core essence are described in remarkably similar terms -- a velvety black void, empty and yet teeming with unlimited potential.

The deepest place within us and the far reaches of  the Milky Way mirror one another.

Identity.  Self-discovery.  Vulnerability.

How do these resonate for you?

For me, they tie together like this:  

Self-discovery reveals that we are far, far more -- identity-wise -- than we were ever taught to believe.

 And self-discovery depends upon one's willingness to risk ever-so-tender vulnerability. 

Like putting together decidedly non-mainstream material that could easily be dismissed as woo-woo...

And stepping up onto a stage in front of a bunch of strangers...

And magnifying my voice.

Are you on a voyage of self-discovery?  Willing to risk vulnerability in the venture?  Where are you called to  magnify your voice?  What talent might you step up and share it with the world?

These are the invitations of the sun as she peaks in her annual arc across the sky. 

At the summer solstice energy culminates.  From this day forward, the days gradually become shorter until it becomes noticeable in the mellow light of Autumn.  Until then, enjoy the long, light-filled days  and the summer stars when night finally falls.  Most prominent is the Big Dipper, part of the Great Bear, Ursa Major.

May the blessings of the Summer Solstice 

Spill from the celestial dipper 

Onto your home and into your heart 

As we venture forth on the path toward Oneness

Into the unity of All That Is

 

Spring Equinox 2023: Endings and Beginnings

The sun enters Aries on Monday, March 20  at 5:24 pm (EST) marking the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere.  The prevalent astrological energies are endings and beginnings.

I've  been following astrologer Pam Gregory on YouTube.  She discusses the spring  equinox 2023 with Davyd Farrell here. They do a lovely job of expressing what the various planetary placements on and around the equinox signify for us humans on Earth.

I think of the planets as the chakras of our solar system -- each expressing it's own multi-faceted,  multi-dimensional characteristics.  How they express in relation to each other is similar to how our own energy systems operate within us.  How planets express in the houses of the zodiac is similar to how we manage our energy when under the influence of certain circumstances, life's challenges and opportunities.

Since the spring equinox marks the beginning of the astrological year, it sets thematic tone for the next 12 months.

Pam begins by noting the extraordinary surges of light coming at us.  Solar storms and auroras are creating electromagnetic instability (they may make you feel ill) but they are also upgrading every cell of our bodies. Davyd chimes in on the importance of doing our spiritual work, like venturing into the shadow psyche, as a way of clearing our energy bodies to receive the benefits of the incoming light.

These equinox energies are all about cleansing, clearing and purification -- shedding the old you in every sense.  

This is not the usual spring cleaning! These sweeping energies are of an entirely different magnitude.

Perhaps you've been letting go of old roles and identities, left and right?

Pam and Davyd share the archetypal mythology associated with dwarf planets featured in the astrology of the equinox.  These legends give us a feel for the very human dynamics at play.  Sedna is one such planet, named after an Inuit goddess.

According to legend, Sedna and her father were caught in a terrible storm at sea.  To save himself, her father tosses Sedna overboard into the frigid waters of the arctic.  When she grasps the side of their canoe, her father cruelly chops off her fingers.  Sedna and her fingers drift into the depths of the icy sea where they are transformed into beautiful sea creatures.  

Cruel ending, completely unforeseen new beginning.

Sedna shows us how terrifying it can be to leave traditional notions of safety and security behind -- only to be re-born as an exquisite and entirely new being.

Another dwarf planet, Manwe, is at 1 degree of Aries at the equinox.  Pam calls this the creator degree.  According to myth, Manwe and his wife created the cosmos.  He is the highest archangel, closest to the  mind of God.  Manwe's orbit around the sun is 289 years; his position at 1 degree of Aries on the equinox signals the beginning of the new earth.

Humea, another dwarf planet, is named after a Hawaiian goddess.  Humea represents fertility and connection to the Earth.  She uses her rebellious energy to save her partner, who was imprisoned for picking bananas (!) before the elite had chosen what they wanted for themselves.

Humea summoned the power of her ancestors and the community to return authority to the people vs. the elite  She teaches stewardship vs. ownership of the land by a few.  Humea shows us how inequity is unjust and unsustainable as a socio-economic model.

Humea's right relation to nature is being revived now in grassroots movements around the globe where humanity's relationship with nature is becoming the centerpiece of an evolving new spirituality.

We can also expect continued disclosures regarding elite financial and medical interests like big banks and big pharma. What has been hidden, toxic, or criminal (not mentioning any names) will continue to be revealed in the coming months. 

These endings are the death throes of the old paradigm.

Although this year's spring cleaning may expose some difficult truths, we are encouraged to move forward in love (Venus).  When triggered, upset, or disillusioned, Pam and Davyd recommend refraining from reacting and choosing our responses wisely.  

In addition to endings and beginnings highlighted at the equinox, we have a new moon in Aries the following day, Tuesday March 21.  As always, the new moon is a time to begin anew.  So whatever you're ready to begin working on, creating, or taking to the next level, let the potent combination of spring equinox and new moon energies fill your sails with the inspiration to take those exciting first steps.  

We are invited to release everything that doesn't reflect who we are becoming as citizens of the New Earth.  What has ended (or needs to end) for you?  Where have you found closure, resolution, or forgiveness?  This is the difficult spiritual work we are engaged in!  Congratulations if you have navigated the end of something.  You may have clung like Sedna to the side of her canoe, hoping to maintain the status quo.  Letting go, or being forced to let go, may have been painful.  Yet you may find yourself acclimating to a new sense of relief, freedom, and beauty on the ever-evolving path of your soul.

May the seeds of re-birth gestating within bring a re-birth of your True Self in all its grace and power. May every choice help you to realize (make real) the multi-faceted and multi-dimensional truth that you are a divine child of the Universe.  You are here at exactly the right time.

The more inclusive your perspective, the more loving your responses, and the more compassion you embody -- the greater your contribution to the massive evolutionary leaps that are highlighted in the celestial dance of the cosmos on the spring equinox. 

May the  many blessings of the spring equinox be yours!

 

Re-Opening after a BIG Transition

Most boxes are unpacked, the overwhelm is subsiding, and my healing space is ready.

I appreciate the clients I've already seen in my new space; are you ready for your next session?

This looks familiar, yes?

As you can see, we're in a historic home with many charming features.

Here's my consulting room!

These continue to be times of rapid transformation.  I'm finding that life is full to the brim, even overflowing, with what needs healing.  

What has been hidden -- in our psyches and in the collective psyche -- is being brought to light in order to be re-known in new ways.  

What's arising for you?

If your life is overflowing, let yourself receive some ease, balance, and soul-level perspective that can help you ride the waves of  ever-expanding consciousness.   

As we move toward the Fall Equinox, we're reminded of balance -- equal day and night.  Nature is always gracing us with her perennial wisdom.

Julie

Julie Montinieri

Energy Medicine Practitioner

Blue Heron Healing

​664 Longmeadow Street​

​Longmeadow, MA​

We Were Made for Times Like These

To celebrate crossing the threshold into 2021, I am sharing an essay written by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a Jungian psychotherapist specializing in trauma recovery.   She is the author of Women Who Run With the Wolves:  Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.  Dr. Pinkola Estes is recognized for her  scholarship, teaching, writing and advocating for social justice. I don't know when she wrote this essay or where it was originally published, but her message is exactly right today, New Year's Day 2021.

She writes:

My friends, do not lose heart,  We were made for these times.  I have heard from so  many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered.  They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now.  Ours is a time of daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to caring, visionary, civilized people.

You are right in your assessments.  The luster and hubris, the bald-faced audacity that some are engaged in while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people -- the poor, the unguarded, the helpless -- and this mother earth, is breathtaking. Yet I urge you, ask you...to please not spend your spirit bewailing these difficult times.  Especially do not lose hope.  Most particularly because, the fact is, we were made for these times.  For years we have been learning, practicing, been training for, and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. 

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one.  Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the water than there are right now, across the world.  They are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look over the prow; there are millions of righteous souls with you.  Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a great forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand even the fiercest storms.  To hold together.  To hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world.  Do not focus on that.  There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be.  Do not focus there.  

We are needed, that is all we can know.  And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know when they appear.  Didn't you say you were a believer?  Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a greater voice?  Didn't you ask for grace?  Don't you remember that to be in grace is to submit to the greater voice [rising up from within you?]

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but at stretching out to mend  the part of the world that is within our reach.  Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this suffering world, will help immensely.  It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of [such] acts.  We know that it does not take everyone on earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second or hundredth  gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene is to stand up and show your soul.  Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.  The light of such a soul throws sparks, sends up flames, builds signal fires, causes the proper matters to catch fire.  To display the lantern of the soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.  If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged.  I, too, have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it.  I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. 

The reason is this:  In my uttermost bones I know something as you do.  It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to earth, who you serve, and who sent you here.... In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall:  When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt.  

But that is not what great ships are built for.

Special Delivery

It's the morning after the presidential election here in the United States.  Like so many others, I got very little sleep last night.

When the flurry of texts and calls subsides, I turn everything off and settle on my meditation cushion.  I sit at my kitchen slider facing the rising sun.

I'm listening to the Dalai Lama chanting OM. Following the rhythm of my breath, rolling in and out like ocean waves, I am gradually unmoored from election tension and sailing into silence.

When I sit like this, eyes closed to the sun, my inner vision is a field of undulating gold light. I'm reminded of a prayer I read recently in The Book of Runes by Ralph H. Blum.  I interrupt my meditation to retrieve this little volume.

I turn to the page with the rune I picked on Halloween. Sowelu looks like a jagged  S or a bolt of  lightening.  It's the Rune of Wholeness, Life Force, and the Sun's Energy.

Blum says this prayer, called the Gayatri, embodies the spirit of the Rune of Wholeness:

You who are the source of all power,

Whose rays illuminate the world, 

Illuminate also my heart

So that it too can do Your work. [1]

 

I recite these sentences in silence, inviting the Divine into my heart.

After a few rounds, they repeat themselves of their own accord as my inner space opens and brightens.

Behind the resonant voice of the Dalai Lama, there's the sound of something spiraling through the air, end over end, like a delivery from the ethers hurtling toward me.

I don't know exactly what happens in moments like these, but it feels as if the rays of the November morning sun are streaming into my chest. 

Suddenly, my energy field expands exponentially.  It's radiating like a great halo from the nucleus of my heart.

As if the Source of all power is activating my heart, illuminating my inner world.

      

After a while, my inner vision fades to purple and I take it that this transmission is over.

I draw a an oracle card, The Lady of Lightening.

The Lady of Lightening brings powerful forces of change into your life.  She tells you to expect a sudden shift in your circumstances.  Perhaps a situation you weren't anticipating arises and offers you the opportunity of a lifetime, or a series of Aha! moments culminates in a pivotal flash of insight causing everything to change just like that.  Maybe someone enters your life and pushes you to new heights.  You may have a brilliant idea that hits you like lightening.  

Be prepared; change is imminent, and a total paradigm shift may be upon you. [2]

 

 

This flash of insight penetrates the cloud of uncertainty that's been hovering for weeks as I navigate the pandemic, the election, and life generally turned upside down.

Later in the day my daughter sends a video from the OBGYN's office.  I hear, for the first time, the beating heart of our first grandchild.  It's pure joy to hear that steady rhythmic whooshing behind Meredith's happy voice.

It reminds me of something though....  That sound I tried to describe earlier -- like something spiraling through the air, end over end, behind the Dalai Lama's chanting.

It's the sound of a beating heart!

I don't know how to tie the synchronicity together like so many iridescent pearls on a string.  

But there are these moments when the flow of time opens, like a river to the sea, into eternity.  

Special Delivery

Illuminated by the Source of all power, 

My heart

Finds its way

Through the eye of the needle.

Slipping through that slender opening,

Into an infinite field of grace

Reverberating with the heartbeat of the cosmos.

As a baby's heart beats

Underneath the heart of her mother

My heart beats 

Within the heart of the Great Mother

And the love of each for the other

Through the great chain of being

Sparks creation.

1.  Philip H. Blum, The Book of Runes A Handbook for the Use of an Ancient Oracle:  The Viking              Runes (New York:  St. Martin's Press, 1993), 140.  This prayer is known as the Gayatri.

2.  Colette Barron-Reid, Wisdom of the Hidden Realms Guidebook (Hay House, 2009), 97

I Can't Breathe

This morning's news was no worse than any other.

Or maybe it was.

All I know is it hit me hard today.

Lead story -- Minneapolis is on fire.  Arson, looting, tear gas, riot gear, and pepper spray on full display as protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, erupt into violence.  Protesters gathered in Memphis and LA as well. 

Minneapolis intersection near Floyd's tragic death

I witnessed the last moments of his life.

I heard his last words, I can't breathe....

The police officer who pinned Floyd's neck under his knee has been identified as Derek Chauvin.  It appears he was putting his full weight into that knee.  I don't care what Floyd did, no one should ever be restrained so lethally and inhumanely.

George Floyd was unnecessarily murdered.  Chauvin is a murderer.  The officers who stood by and failed to intervene are complicit.  As of this moment no one's been charged.

As if that story were not literally sickening enough, the NBC anchors' next story is the Coronavirus death toll:

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND 

A deadly pandemic takes root in our country and Trump wishes it away like a miracle.
 
But when Twitter calls him out?  Full assault on social media.

Third news story.

Peter Manfredonia, UCONN student suspected in two homocides, has been arrested in Maryland.

Manfredonia allegedly hacked to death Ted DeMers, 62, with a machete.  He allegedly shot and killed Nick Eisele, a former high school classmate, and kidnapped Eisle's girlfriend, who was found uninjured in NJ.

Nick Eisele

The reason this story is heart-wrenching for me is that I know one of Ted's family members.  My friend is Ted's wife's sister.  She was on the news a couple of mornings ago, describing him as generous, helpful to everyone, a good neighbor.  His obituary says he was a craftsman of fine wood furniture, an outdoorsman, and looking forward to the birth of a grandchild that he couldn't wait to take for walks in the woods.

Ted DeMers

My friend is a sensitive soul. I cannot even imagine how horrified her family must be.  According to news reports, Ted DeMers was helping Manfredonia in his last moments on this earth.

Ted's loss leaves a gaping hole in a close-knit family that will never be filled.

These three stories took 15 minutes, a long time in TV news.  At 7:15 Hoda and Savannah finally turned to some good news.

The relief was plain on their faces.  Time for the weather with Mr. Roker.

But there are some days when I can't file it away and go about my day as usual. Injustice, unspeakable sadness, presidential irresponsibility, and tangible grief hover like the drizzle outside as I load the washing machine, unload the dishwasher, and pour a mug of tea.

As I take a deep breath, I remember George Floyd's final plea.

One of the protesters, a young black woman, asked reporters: 

When is it going to change?  When is it going to stop?

When will this litany of horror end?

And I realized that as long as I remain silent, I'm complicit too.

Impromptu memorial on the green in Willington, CT, Ted DeMers' hometown.