It's 5 pm on Friday. For most people the focus is the ending of their work week. For me this is also true but it's not my focus. My focus is the beginning of Shabbes. Shabbes has become something for me which is treasured and honoured. I'm yet to fully create my Shabbes ritual, but I know that as I slowly do I'm carefully selecting each action that I embed into the next 24 hours of time. My focus for this Shabbes is to begin my investigation into prayer as it is performed in the Jewish spiritual culture. For the past 12 or so years I have been using prayer in an indigenous manner as I learned through my Hawaiian spiritual cultural learning. My prayers have been in vocal chants and free prayers which consist of conversations with my mother mostly standing either side of our dimensional window.

This blog post, I'm going to share with you the story that illustrates where my learning to pray and my learning to listen to God began. And you may like to listen to the chant also. Keep an eye out for the link. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

When the depths of truth are spoken, they’re undeniable.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said in a low, slow voice.

When I heard the simplicity of this truth, I stopped needing to resist and complain. I understood, in this case, my behavior needed to be spiritual rather than ego-driven.

I had just sat down after a very difficult descent—a slippery pathway leading from the top of the valley where we had swum in the lake formed by the waterfall. That’s where we rested, where we shared our packed lunches. That’s where we chanted together—my singing voice sounding softly into the left ear of our teacher.

At the end of the chant, Kumu turned to me and exclaimed how beautiful my sound was. I didn’t know what to say.

I found out later that, all throughout the group chanting, he had been wondering who it was that held this magical voice.

The gratitude chant completed, and as a group, we began to file down the path—slick now from fresh rainfall.

It was that rain falling.  

It was the energetic charge inside me after swimming in the lake.  

It was the uphill climb to the ridge and my general lack of fitness.

It was all of these things—  

**but mostly** it was the rain.

As we stood in a small circle, a bit nervous, preparing to chant for our temporary teacher, we felt the rain begin to touch our heads, our faces, our shoulders.

And somewhere inside me, a thought rose:

“Oh gosh, what now? Could it get any harder?”

I said it quietly in my mind.

Then I heard the Kumu call the chant:

“OLI MAHALO MAKAUKAU!?”

“Ai Oli Mahalo,” we all replied together.

At that exact moment—as the rain soaked into my clothes—I let it all go.  

All the annoying worries bouncing around in my mind, the excuses, the complaints…

I told myself quietly:  

“F— it, just do it how it feels the best.”

And I did.
Listen to Oli Mahalo

I sang out with free abandon—  

Not one thought running through me.

The chant had become so habituated in my body that I could offer it and listen to it at the same time. I could feel the frequency resonating through every cell. The sound curved back into my own ears and I could actually appreciate the tone, the breath, the syllables.

In that moment, I discovered something:  

What it is to express oneself spiritually, in full flight.

And in that same moment, he—the Kumu—discovered who it was that carried that sound.  

I suppose that’s also when he realized something else:  

He now had the job of helping me accept this talent—  

That it was real,  

that it was valuable,  

and that it should be treasured and used.

---

Red-faced, exhausted, and thirsty, I sat in the tent, drinking water and taking the weight off my very unfit legs. I found myself seated next to the Kumu. He too was resting, sipping water. He was a large man—very strong, but very heavy.

And that’s when he spoke.

“JoAnna, I want you to chant ‘Oli Mahalo’ again.”

Listen to Oli Mahalo

I turned my head slightly toward him and asked:

“What?   -  Now?”

He smiled softly and nodded.

“Yes. Now.”

I made a face—it looked like I was saying “Please no.” But out of my mouth came the words:“But I’m tired!”

I heard him sigh—a deep, long breath. Almost like his whole body was saying, "Oh… not another one."

And then he spoke: “It doesn’t matter.” He said it slowly, calmly, in a deep voice.

In that moment, I felt God’s truth being spoken. I couldn’t have told you then that it was God's truth.

But I can tell you now:  

The feeling that surged through me, the moment he told me my complaint was irrelevant…  That feeling—I’ve heard it over and over for the past 17 years. It took the first ten for me to stop resisting—trying to impose my human truths.  But I’m proud to say the last seven, I've been a fully compliant participant in listening to and acting upon God’s truth.

---

This was the beginning of my training. The consent was unspoken. I could’ve refused, but apparently... I didn’t want to. I was on sacred retreat—and if this teacher decided I would chant alone for our group, or for any other soul he might find as we journeyed the island—then so be it. Did it make me tired? Yes.  Did I have internal complaints? Of course.  I was the only one making such an effort.  I was the one on display.

And I was also the one being targeted by my Australian teacher—her jealousy reacting to the attention I was receiving from the Kumu. But did I ever refuse to chant? No—not once. Not ever. And did I ever chant without 100% concentration and spiritual enthusiasm? No. I did not.

Every request to chant was received as if it came directly from God.  And my ability to do it—without anxiety, without striving—fascinated me. At first I thought: “It’s because my teacher is telling me to. Inviting me. Permitting me.” But later, I saw the deeper truth: It wasn’t the Kumu. It was God, all along.

---

Why is it important to identify God's truth?  Why be discerning—comparing it to man’s truth? Because when you hear God’s truth, you’ll feel it differently. God’s truth is the truth that makes man free again. And when you are guided by God’s truth—when you listen for it and act on it—  there is a kind of spiritual protection that forms around you.  You will recognize it—because you will feel just right.

You’ll also be relieved of a certain burden:

The burden that surfaces when a man (or woman) decides to become an individual—separate from God. As an individual, you can define truth. But then—you carry the responsibility of that truth.  You carry the responsibility of its outcome in the world.  And for many, that responsibility becomes quietly too heavy to bear.

Written by JoannaRuth

LET YOUR AM BE

A dear friend of mine just shared a story with me.

But when I say “story,” I don’t mean one conjured by effort or planning. I mean a story that arrived through her — unchosen, unhurried, born the way grass grows toward light, word by word, whisper by whisper.

She told me how it came while walking her dog through the park one morning. How it had followed the faint echo of a conversation, humming quietly behind her thoughts. How this is how it always begins for her — when divine instruction rises as inspired thought, she listens. She has for seventeen years now. No resistance left. She simply returns to the page. As she did this time. And the story bloomed.

It’s the story of a Girl cow.

She grazes with her family in wide open fields — in ways both ordinary and free, familiar and accepted. But then she notices something others don’t: a small pathway crossing the grasses. Narrow. Limited. But something about it gives her a palpable feeling — a feeling that returns each time she steps across. Eventually, she chooses to walk along it, then live on it entirely. It becomes her way. Her nourishment. Her life.

Her family doesn’t understand. To them, grazing is what cows do. Freedom is movement. The path seems unnecessarily small.

She stops trying to explain.

And then she meets a Boy cow.

What follows is not a tidy romance. It’s the far more delicate unfolding of two beings with different thresholds of belonging. He doesn’t live on the pathway, but he visits. Often. More and more. He enjoys both — his family out in the field, and this Girl, and this feeling he knows with her. He travels between.

But over time, something grows heavier on his heart: he can’t have both fully. The Girl cow has made her decision. The pathway is not a preference; it’s a consecration. And so when he brings her to see his family — to see if integration is possible — she goes kindly, graciously, but silently knows: his beloveds still cannot see. They cannot feel what she feels.

And this is where the story turns — beautifully, heartbreakingly — into something more profound than fiction. Something real.

The Boy cow returns to her days later with clarity.

“I seem to love two things that cannot be together,” he tells her. “You — and your life on the pathway. But I also love the familiar grazing life with my family. I love both. And I can’t give either up.”

The Girl cow smiles.

Not because she’s won something. But because she’s lived this truth before. And she knows: love is not control. Love is witness. And so she simply stands firm in her faithful presence. She doesn’t try to change him. She doesn’t try to make him choose. She just remains what she has already become.

Not because he might return. But so that if he does, she will be there. On the pathway. Whole.

'And so it was. Until it wasn’t'.

The story lingers in me.

Not because I want to know how it ends, but because it names something rare: the integrity of staying true to one’s path even in the midst of heartfelt connection. It’s a story about spiritual commitment, emotional maturity, and the ache that arises when closeness cannot bridge a foundational divergence in how two people walk the world.

It’s about how even love cannot compromise certain commitments — and how a deeper kind of love honours this.

And it’s about that wordless space we all meet eventually: when someone you care for finds the edge of your world, and cannot walk further with you.

So, she doesn’t begrudge him.

And he — to his credit — doesn’t ask her to change.

They simply bow to the difference.

For now.

And maybe always.

— Georgie Field

The Grassy Field (The Story)

There was a Girl cow who found herself grazing in a field with her family of cows and bulls.  As she grazed she looked around and saw other families of cows doing the same thing. Sometimes they would graze together and sometimes they would wander off to graze further a field. They never went too far but they didn't have to stay so close either. Every once in a while they will all come together. Have a little talk and then wander off and feed themselves.

One day this girl cow walked close to a small pathway. She noticed as she stepped over that same pathway that if she were to turn onto the pathway she could still graze either side but her options would be very limited compared to the grazing in the field. And she would have to walk much further to find what she believed was the only form of sustenance. She is a Girl cow and all cows must graze for sustenance.

In her young years she ventured further and further and came across this same pathway and she stepped across the pathway many times with her attention on the grass which grew on the other side. She did realise one day that as she came upon the pathway one more time she anticipated a feeling as she would step over it. And surely enough, the feeling came to her. And then departed as she stepped onto the grass on the other side. While grazing the grass she contemplated that perhaps she'd need not graze as much as she has been used to and perhaps next time she happens upon this pathway she may give herself the experience of walking along rather than across.

She had mentioned to her family of cows how she had happened upon this pathway in her grazing journeys. And she asked them whether they had also. They had but they mentioned nothing about what they felt as they walked across to the grass on the other side. And when she prompted them about these feelings, they had no reference to respond with. After many years of venturing and grazing this Girl cow had begun to look forward to grazing while on the path. It mattered not to her that her family of cows did not enjoy the same experience. What mattered to her, as time went along, was that she could find that pathway again and continue her grazing while walking along and feeling that special feeling the entire time. She enjoyed it, so much so that, she would only return to her family when she felt they would begin missing her. Indeed, if she stayed longer on the pathway they did ask her. Where has she been? How far did she go? She told them that she was enjoying where she was grazing. She needed not mention the pathway as she knew they didn't understand.

This girl cow had reflections on how she felt so very different to her cow family. Purely because she had an appreciation for the pathway. She believed she could be sustained by remaining on the pathway. However, they did not. They had no recognition of the pathway. They had no recognition of a special feeling. Their priority was to graze.  Their priority was to have freedom to graze. And so it was.  

One day, of course while on the pathway, as this is where you would find the Girl cow now each day, she discovered a curious thing.  This curiosity was a bull who made his way to the path and back again to the field and then back again to the path and then back again to the field, and always to his family of cows, a very small group. It was as if he must be present and accounted for.  The Girl cow pondered how lucky he was that his family, which he obviously enjoyed spending time with grazed so closely to the path. How else would he manage to enjoy both? She noticed that he did and she noticed that he did this each and every day.

It happened to be one day, He was grazing on the path while She was also grazing on the path. They met as their mouths intended to graze the same patch of grass. Breath to breath, eye to eye, they said hello and introduced themselves. He of course stepped to the side so that the Girl cow could continue grazing along the path. And so it was that the Girl cow was able to observe the behaviour of this Boy cow running to and fro all day long.  One day the Girl cow noticed that the boy cow was returning to the pathway much closer to her even though she had been grazing that area already. It seemed that he enjoyed her company as well as the company of his family. And they grazed and they spoke and she watched and and she welcomed him as he returned to the pathway each time.

One day as he returned to his family the Girl cow decided the grass was a little thin and she would do more walking along the pathway until she found a thicker patch. Her priority was the pathway, she knew she would find the grass. When the Boy cow returned to where he had left her on the path, she was no longer there. It was in that moment that the Boy cow realised how this Girl cow, in his mind, had become regular. Something a little like family. He surveyed the grazing area and realised she must be further up on the pathway. And so he decided he would walk further and find her. He did and also decided to make one less trip back to his family group that day, because they were much further away now.

In the coming days and weeks he found himself thinking about this Girl cow when he was communing with his family group. He found himself returning a little less often to his family group and remaining on the pathway with her for a little longer than usual. His family group noticed and began asking him questions about where he goes when he is away from them. And does he go to the same place? And perhaps is there more grass there?  He answered but perhaps not as fully as he could. They'd never wanted to have discussions about the pathway in the past. He had those discussions with the Girl cow. She understood the feeling. His family of cows could talk about these things, but it wasn't the same. They were never encouraged to join with him to travel across to the pathway. The pathway was for him and the Girl cow.

When with his family he thought of the Girl cow. When with the Girl cow he only occasionally thought of his family. This was usually a thought that would creep from the back of his mind to the front, eventually, after spending a little extra time on the pathway with the Girl cow. The reminder would come in the voice of his mother cow or his father cow in the form of questions which he had no true way of answering. He rehearsed answers, which he knew would not satisfy their minds. 

One day as he and the Girl cow vented further and further from the location of his family the Boy cow decided to ask the Girl cow, would she like to come and meet his family? She replied that she could if that was important to him. She continued to tell him that she didn't really need to leave the pathway, nor did she desire to leave the pathway. But if it was important to him, she would do it this one time. And she would be more than happy to have his family join them on the pathway at any time.  

At the end of this day she followed the boy cow home to meet his family group. She found it nice enough. They seem to be good cow people but there was something very familiar to her. It was the lack of recognition of what her life had become on the pathway and what it had come to mean. She lived full-time on the pathway. And they were unable to understand why a cow would decide to not have free grazing capacity. She had been in these conversations before. She made the decision to remain quieter about her life. This was not her family, no matter how similar it felt to her. She left it to the Boy cow to try and explain, again and again, over and over. She knew, just like with her family, which she had left a long time ago, his family would also require more explanation than he could effort. The next day they both happily woke and travelled back to the pathway.

It took him a week or 2 to ask her to visit again with his family. And he knew why. It was hard to share what their lives had become about. He didn't want to ask her to leave the feeling of the pathway, not too often, perhaps deep down not at all. But he had not broken away from his family like she had done many years before, so he returned to his family a little less but always knowing he must try to give answers to their questions which would never be quite enough. While with his family he yearned deeper and deeper for the company of the Girl cow, but not only this he yearned for the company of the pathway. While he was in the company of his family, which he still enjoyed thoroughly, he also knew that he was not in the company of the pathway and he was not in the company of the Girl cow, and the Girl cow was in the company of the pathway.

It was a very auspicious day, that day he returned with much understanding. He had come to this while on his grazing journey back to the pathway where he found the Girl cow. He returned with an understanding of the difference between his life on the pathway, where he enjoyed the feeling and the company, and his life off the pathway where he enjoyed the idea of returning to his family and speaking of familiar things in familiar ways. The greater understanding that he had come to would be made visible when he met again with the Girl cow to contemplate their lives and their feelings of living along the pathway.

“I can't seem to give either up!” said the Boy cow.

“Whatever is it that you mean?” asked the girl cow.

“I seem to love two things that cannot be together. I know I cannot ask you to leave the pathway, nor do I want you to change from the decision that you have made. I wish to not sway you from your commitment. I understand how you have worked and struggled and sacrificed emotionally to come to that commitment. I see your commitment in your actions. I'm grateful that you’ve ventured with me to meet my family. And I am also reluctant to ask you to leave the pathway to do so again. I see that you have made your way further forward in your life. You have been through the stage which I find myself in. And you found a right way to come out the other side. It is in your decision and commitment to stay on the pathway.

The girl cow smiled with understanding that came from what she’d lived through. Remaining firm in her pleasing commitment to live always on the pathway and always be there when the boy cow decided to return. It was important to her that the boy cow understood why she chose to not leave the pathway. And she needed not explain to him how she would always be there but she would never agree to belong to his cow family while they could not experience the pathway and her pathway life could not be shared and appreciated. And it is not a punishment that she was giving him. It was a commitment to how she had decided to live her life. 

The Boy cow understood. He understood he was being given absolute freedom to continue to live on and off the pathway. And yet he also was being expected to appreciate the Girl cow’s absolute freedom to continue to live only on the pathway.

And this is how it was, until it wasn't!

Written by JoannaRuth

He Returns Again (The Song)

Chorus

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

To love. 

Verse #1

Living in two worlds now 

I haven’t quite discovered how 

To explain how

It relieves the pain. 

Chorus

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

To love. 

Verse#2

I can never ask her to leave

And she won’t ever make me stay

is this how I live?

does something else give?

Chorus

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

To love. 

Bridge

Life on the path

That is my way

Theres no need to ask them

They wouldn’t stay

And I can’t seem explain

I just won’t refrain

I hope they don’t feel

That it’s a shame

I hope they don’t feel

That it’s a shame

Chorus

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

To love. 

Verse#3

She found what sustains her

Have I found a new lover?

How do I explain?

That it relieves my pain

Chorus

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

He returns and 

He learns and 

He yearns. 

So he returns again

To love

Take Care

xxx JoannaRuth
LET YOUR AM BE