The Miracle of Mother Mary's Monastery, Pt 1 | Guest: Kimberly Braun

This week, Evolving Humans  host Julia Marie interviews Kimberly Braun, a former Carmelite nun who built a 17,000 square foot monastery with no prior experience.
She was the youngest nun at that location when Mother Mary visited and declared it was time to build a permanent home.

 Braun shares her journey of faith, trust, and surrender, explaining how she was inspired to build the monastery after a deep longing for silence and solitude.

She emphasizes the importance of saying "yes" to the divine and allowing oneself to be an instrument through which grace flows.

Braun also discusses her evolution in her relationship with the divine, moving towards a pathless path and a more implicit intentionality.

The podcast highlights the power of faith and surrender in achieving seemingly impossible tasks, and  provides evidence that with Spirit, all things are possible. We just have to do our part.

Gratitude to Pixabay artists for the music beds on today's episode:
Relaxing Time - soothing music 120090 and
Nature's Eye-Gentle Piano meditation 9692

RESOURCES:
https://www.kimberlybraun.com/events/discovering-self-summit/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJBZQ744 Miracles in the Naked Light

Thank you for listening to Evolving Humans!
For consultations or classes, please visit my website: www.JuliaMarie.us

Transcript

This transcript was created using ai, and therefore may contain some errors.

Kimberly Braun (00:00):
I think as we evolve a throw to your name, evolving humans, we discover that ineffable beauty is right before our eyes and we're still waking up to it. Truth that sets us free is right before our eyes, and we're still waking up to it.
Julia Marie (00:20):
Today's conversation is about faith, trust, and following spirit. If you've had doubts as to whether you could surrender to the call of your soul, my guest's story will truly inspire you. Welcome to Evolving Humans, the podcast for Awakening Souls. I'm your host, Julia Marie. Settle in and get ready for another spirited conversation.
(01:03):
Kimberly Braun lives to inspire others to connect to and live from divine love at their center. She has a master's degree in theology and was a former meditation faculty member at Omega Institute. She has served thousands through her writing, speaking retreats and online courses. Miracles In The Naked Light is the inspiring story of her journey as a Karma Light Nun who found herself being in charge of building a
monastery with no experience, but with the support of the divine. We'll talk about some of the lessons and insights she gained from taking on a multi-year project and stay tuned to hear about the free gift this guest has for you today. Welcome to Evolving Humans. Kimberly, you've had an incredible journey so far and I can't wait for you to share it with us.
Kimberly Braun (02:02):
Thank you so much for having me. I can feel the presence of spirit even as you were speaking. I feel very, very blessed to be here, so
Julia Marie (02:11):
Ever two or more. Yeah,
Kimberly Braun (02:14):
Amen.
Julia Marie (02:18):
I'm already full of goosebumps.
Kimberly Braun (02:20):
I know, me too.
Julia Marie (02:23):
So I always start with the same question, so here we go. What was it like growing up as Kimberly?
Kimberly Braun (02:35):
I felt that I was straddling many dimensions all the time. Growing up as a young girl, I grew up in Ohio, a mom, dad, and a sister. A brother came way later and we lived in a very typical Cincinnati town. We went to St. Savior Church. What was really strong in our family was a spirit of prayer. We were part of a charismatic movement, and so being open to spirit was part of my formative time, which I think led me to have an even more magnified capacity to surrender into the unknown. I think we come into the world
with certain qualities, and one of the qualities that I've always had is this sense of adventure, of stepping into the unknown. That the unknown is benevolent, that the unknown is unconditionally loving, that the unknown is a place where freedom is found. So there are all these things that the unknown or the mystery felt safe for me and honestly with some of the challenges in my early life that my family had,
that we navigated with love and integrity, but nonetheless, they were there. I actually felt that other realms were more safe than this from necessarily.
(04:17):
So I was really, really open. I had experiences all the time of angels and beings and a sense of reality pulling back veils and having a deep essential, mystical experience of what was really happening on a soul level. And that situated me in a worldview that's never changed in my life, even in my darkest moments, that worldview has remained a constant wherein I find myself held and embraced. Yes. But in addition to that, called and invited in and fired up with desire. So to a very rich, rich childhood in a lot of
ways.
Julia Marie (05:04):
Well, that kind of almost answers my next question. How did you go from that to living as a carmelite nun in a monastery for over a decade? Kind of can understand it now, but would you please elaborate a little bit on that?
Kimberly Braun (05:19):
And you just said it so perfectly, and even though it may seem confusing at times to hear that because it's such a dramatic choice of life. I mean, you leave your family, you get to see your family once a year and you get to write letters, but you're leaving the rhythm of what the normal progression of life normally has. And you're right, it was the natural step. And the only interlude in that that propelled me with even more fire in the monastery was that I through a deep, deep, dark night in my late teens, and
then I had this break open breakthrough. And in that breakthrough spiritually, which was complete grace, I mean it wasn't me seeking, I had actually given up because the dark night was so deep in that breakthrough. My mystical experiences went off the charts. I mean, I was being consumed in love every day for hours I would find myself with rushes through my crown chakra and phenomena and all sorts of
things. And it was during that time that I was looking for friends and who fell into my lap, Theresa Avila, Jonathan Cross Teresa of this year. And if you're listening, you don't know who all these people are, and I've got a lot more of 'em. They're all CARite. And they all came into my life at that time and they felt like friends. And so I just wanted to be with the beloved and to be with what were showing up as my closest friends. So that led me down the CARite path, specifically
Julia Marie (07:11):
Theresa of Avila was a visionary. I mean, they were all mystical in their orientation anyway, so it does again, seem like a natural progression for you to move along that pathway.
Kimberly Braun (07:27):
Yes, yes. Thank you. I can tell you grasp that
Julia Marie (07:33):
I was raised Catholic. Theresa is my confirmation name. I have a residence with her too.
Kimberly Braun (07:42):
Oh wow. Right before the lockdown, I let a retreat in Spain where I took everyone to places. She wrote her mystical poetry, she and John, I coupled it. Oh
Julia Marie (07:54):
Wow.
Kimberly Braun (07:55):
You would have loved it. It was, I'm going to do it again. It was out of this world.
Julia Marie (08:00):
I, as a young child was open to those kinds of experiences, but because of the household I was in order to survive, I had to suppress it more. So I didn't get reawakened until I was in my thirties. But it's wonderful to hear that sometimes we can live a life where our connection to the divine is fostered and nurtured. And it just seemed to me as I was reading your book, it led you down an incredible path. And
now hearing about your early raising, it explains why you were so open to the guidance that came as a nun, you're put in this situation, whereas you said you're taken out of the rhythm of the ordinary world.
And I believe that's one of the most important things anyone can do or experience in order to open their connection to the divine is break their pattern somehow, some way, even if it's only for a short period of time to give spirit the chance to step in.
Kimberly Braun (09:19):
I love the way you put that. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, and it definitely affirms one of my own beliefs and that I put forward in the book is how much everything is grace. And it allows us to touch upon that possibility with great tenderness for ourselves because oftentimes human beings have some real trauma to work through in a world that's already uncertain and volatile at times. And in the face of
that to entertain the possibility that everything is grace doesn't bypass the circumstances and the need to be held heard, felt seen, but it provides a way that that can actually happen and be a healing process.
So I'm a hundred percent with you.
Julia Marie (10:12):
Well, as I said to you before we started the formal conversation, I did read the book and it is literally, the title is Perfect, one Miracle after the other, clothed in a massive building project that basically Mother Mary said, will you build this building for me? Okay, just I need a building now. And you say in your book that you're telling a story, these stories of miracles for the sake of inspiration. And so I want to ask you
about some of those more compelling insights and stories just to give people a taste of what they'll find in the book. Where did you find the inspiration for the book's subtitle and what prompted you to use it?
Kimberly Braun (11:04):
So miracles, and I don't write this in the book, but it's a wonderful story, that word. Now it makes sense.
So it's not that I wouldn't have come to that word in another way, but one of our subcontractors when I built the monastery, and if you're listening as a young Carmelite nun, I ended up building a 17,000 square foot monastery with no experience. So that in and of itself is a miracle. Yes.
(11:35):
But one of my subcontractors, his name's Don Otto, and he's passed away when he, I and one of the other nuns walked into his place and he was a supplier, door jams and things like that that are construction, not the materials, but not the finished product. They're kind of the in-between piece. He was so taken by spirit and he started writing articles. I have mean letters, I have his letters. And he's really writing about his own experience. He's not writing to us to us, but he called our project The Miracle in the Wilderness. And he pointed to the reality we were in desert. We weren't in wilderness.
But there is a great metaphor that wilderness as wilderness can have a sense of where do I go? Where do I belong, where do I anchor in? How do I get out? What's going to happen here?
(12:38):
Is it safe? So his felt sense was that we were emerging as a miracle in the world. That's like a wilderness. And if you have any Christian background, and I'm not of any tradition anymore, you have this beautiful phrasing attributed to John the Baptist, a voice crying out in the wilderness. Wild. Yeah, so powerful.
And he experienced that I was the voice because every time I spoke, spirit kept moving. So the word miracles is actually a side loving gesture of gratitude to him because he adequately named what was happening. And in the Naked Light came as I was taking a hike. I live in Boulder, Colorado, so I hike a lot and I was listening to Sounds of Silence and it's so beautiful. And in the Naked Light I saw, and even as I was hearing that phrase, I also felt like I was walking with Caber, a beautiful poet from many years ago, a
mystic.
(13:52):
He talks about being naked in the marketplace. And that project, I was naked and what was happening was everything was happening all around us in the bright light of day. But you needed to be naked to be in it, to know it, you needed to be to some degree filled with faith, surrender, like you said, trust. You needed to have some level of vulnerability or purity or innocence. And so in my book, you see that not
everybody was open to it. And I think it was because whatever was happening for them shrouded the miracles that were right there. But it doesn't mean that they weren't happening in the naked light right before our eyes. I think as we evolve a throw to your name evolving humans, we discover that ineffable beauty is right before our eyes and we're still waking up to it. Truth that sets us free is right before our eyes and we're still waking up to it. All these things are right here, right here in the air we breathe, and
the beautiful process in some mysterious ways that we actually get to wake up to it and don't come into this life already awakened in it or to it necessarily. So that's where the title comes from. It's powerful,isn't it?
Julia Marie (15:27):
Yes. As I'm reading in the book, I got goosebumps when I read Isaiah 55, 11, I will send forth my word to the earth and it will not return to me void, but will accomplish all for which I sent it. That juxtaposed against the massive undertaking that you were assigned, but you stepped up to it as the word being sent to the earth and the word did not return void. And it was just an incredible series of watching how with
your presence and the presence as you spoke, people were moved to do incredible things. They were moved in the spirit by whatever that ineffable thing is to be a part of this project. There's no way that could have been accomplished otherwise. At least not in the timeframe, even though it did take years in Texas, you lived in a little house, a small house, if I understand it, converted in some way with your other nuns, and that was your mon monastery. Monastery was a small home and you are talking about
meditating in the garage I think, or something like that. And I'm going
Kimberly Braun (17:02):
Converted garage.
Julia Marie (17:03):
Okay, alright. Then something happened one day and it changed your life forever. So will you please share that story?
Kimberly Braun (17:15):
Sure. Right. And if you walked in, the house doesn't exist anymore, but if you were to walk in it, theyredid it well enough that it looked like a little chapel, but it really did feel as simple as though, wow, we just converted this. It was really sublime in its simplicity. And one of the challenges that I had, and I think what's such a beautiful grace about this is I so loved silence and solitude and I had really undone into the
elements when I stepped into the monastery and going through formation. So I had become, there was a certain point in my own life in formation that's being a novice where things shifted. And I had this experience that has never stopped even since then that I was literally walking in the pulsing silence and I was part of it, but I was also some mysterious expression of it too.
(18:19):
And that charmed me by the beloved. It drew me in even more and it connected me psychically and intuitively and expansively to all creation. So in that state, and I'll just say quickly, that still exists now even being out in the world. But in that state, I went down to Texas and I was in new vows and I'm a new nun and I'm totally blissed out all the time. I was longing for the silence and being on the edge of town, we just weren't able to have it in the same way. We had a beautiful monastic life, beautiful. Our
friends loved us. It was beautiful. So there wasn't anything bad happening, but we weren't able because we weren't rural to maintain the same level of silence. I yearned for it and I let go and I let the certain amounts of extra sounds become part of the tapestry. So I was able to really let go. But I had moments where then I came back into my own resistance and I'm like, oh, what I really want. It burned in me one
day. It was burning
Kimberly Braun (19:32):
In me. We had this moment where it was like the doorbell kept ringing. I'm like,
Kimberly Braun (19:36):
Inside, I'm like, please. And I went out for evening meditation and when I was out there, what I did is what I think is a model for agency, for every human being. I entrusted my longings and my desire and I released them. Now for me, I was releasing them to what I call as the beloved. You don't have to have a beloved to do that. And in that, the beauty of it was that I was heard and felt and honored, but then I had the unexpected. I was standing there in the silence with this rising fire of desire for solitude. And
then out of nowhere I heard from the center of my being, but coming from beyond me, build the permanent monastery. Now the phrase had an energy to it that was so consoling that I automaticallygave a massive, I was like, yes, but I didn't hear it.
(20:48):
Sister Annunciata, why don't you build the monastery? Hear it. I only heard this was the answer to the longing. My beloved loved me, wanted to fulfill my longing, and somehow we were going to build the permanent monastery that, so my big yes was just to that another example, what I think happens for all us humans, we are inspired in a certain moment. And when we give this big yes, we step into the unknown because honest to goodness, we don't know what we're saying yes to ever. It takes us on this unexpected journey, and that's what happened. I said, yes, and you've got the rest of the book, and it
plays out how that happened and how my responsibility grew and how my capacity was instantaneous. I was downloaded with the skills and faculty to, or it was awakened in me, and maybe it was always there to do just what happened.
Julia Marie (21:52):
But it was incredible how your longing prompted a response from the field or the universe or the beloved as you call it. And then your answer back was yes.
(22:07):
And the thing that I loved the most was you didn't concern yourself with how it's going to happen. You just allowed yourself to be the instrument through which grace flowed. I feel like that's one of the most important lessons of the book itself. We just need to do our part and know that the spirit, the universe, the beloved is going to do its part. Our part is being the instrument through which it flows into this world. I really appreciated the lack of, oh, I have to sit down and I have to do a budget, and now we have
to raise money to buy land and all of that. And no, you just started talking about this project and supplies came out of the woodwork. We don't have to do anything except say yes, just say yes. In your story, you addressed a paradox that we can often feel as a human who's saying yes to spirit. I haven't had it to the degree that you have, but I recognized that, okay, my ego or my personality level is kind of
getting involved in here and I'm starting to feel maybe a little uncertain or I'm confused or I'm afraid.
How has your interaction with the divine evolved over the years?
Kimberly Braun (23:34):
I would say what has evolved for me, and I know this may not be consoling to a listener, I am more and more on a pathless path. And there is a mysterious way that there is a containment and an organizing principle to my service in the world, but it is less perceptible. For instance, when I had the call to be karma light, it's clear like saying I'm a carmelite has a clear containment to it that you can speak to, that
you can identify with, that you can rest into my vows. And the vows come up in the book a lot. I loved them and I leaned into 'em. And then with the monastery call building it, there was a clear, I will send forth my word and it's going to be this. There was a clear movement to something I had the vision of. So I saw the end even as I was in process. So everything about me that needed to evolve was butting up
against a lot of certainty, not certainty in the how but certainty in the call. There was a clarity there. And what remains for me today is a clear fiery certainty that I'm meant to be of service to this awakening.
(24:59):
But what is almost completely gone is the form. I mean, you can look at my website and I offer a retreat.
I offer a lot of specific things so I can be of service in a specific way, but I have, it's like the poem in John of the cross, deep in the wine ball I drank, and when I came out upon the open field, I had lost my flock and my one ministry was love. It's kind of like I've lost the flock. So
Julia Marie (25:35):
You still have the ministry.
Kimberly Braun (25:41):
So the trust is reaching into new levels of adventure, and my evolution continues unwinding in new ways and creation aware that it's very multidimensional. That's how I have evolved. And even though that may not sound very consoling, if you're listening, there's even a greater stability in me. There's an intentionality that is even less explicit and a hundred percent implicit in everything. I'm just still growing.
But I would say in large part, that's the direction that's evolving for me.
Julia Marie (26:24):
Well, as long as we're in a human form or inhabiting a human form, we're continue to grow. Well, that's just part of being human is growth. That's just my own personal opinion. I've only ever asked two questions. What do I need to know? What do I need to do next? Because it is not for me at my personality level to determine what I'm to be doing in the world. At least I've come to a place where I
understand there is a greater intelligence at work here, and my job is simply to put myself where I need to be doing whatever it is I'm being asked to do. And I agree with you. It's way more stable than trying to figure it out for myself.
Kimberly Braun (27:16):
I love that. Thank you for giving such a great witness to your own path.
Julia Marie (27:21):
Thank you for sharing your path with us. It's inspiring to me. It very much is uplifting, so I appreciate that. Now, your confidence in the divine was built upon as we spoke a little bit earlier, a succession of yeses. Once you said yes, things really lined up quickly. And would you mind giving people just a brief overview, pick whichever one of those events or a few of those events. I don't want to make the list. I want you to tell people just how this unfolded. And it seemed to start very quickly
Kimberly Braun (28:10):
Right after I gave that big Yes. I didn't tell anybody about it. I just wanted to kind of marinate in it and unexpectedly, the next meeting, we had a weekly meeting as nun. It's called a chapter meeting. And at the next meeting the idea of building our permanent monastery came up
(28:33):
And everybody voted. So everybody was on board with that as something to aim for. Up until that point, the community was small and challenged, and it was more of how do we make it? How do we even get a rhythm going? How do we stabilize? So the very fact that coming from the whole of us that emerged was a powerful sign to me. And then I think it was within a month that one word was spoken in our visitor room called a speak room and unknown to us that one word spoken, seeded a conversation that
within a couple weeks, so we're talking a span of two months, a couple came back and offered us 640 acres of land and offered us to choose what land we wanted.
(29:26):
And then that then gave stability. And what started happening then is every time I was, and for some reason I was put in this role of speaking about it a lot. I don't know how that happened. I wasn't the leader in the community. I was kind of like a right hand person, and I was really young. There would've
been no reason for me to have been entrusted with being the spokesperson except spirit saw it. Yeah, there would be no other reason. That's correct. Qualify that there should be no, there was no other reason other than spirit. There's no monastic reason I should have turn to, but it was undeniable. Every time the words came through my mouth, people were touched and people started stepping out of the
woodwork. One story that I think is very beautiful that I tell at length in the book is the story of how we
got power.
(30:20):
Because the land we chose had no underground. Now you have to think of this. This is out rural an hour outside of San Angelo. No power, no plumbing, no underground facilities of any sort, no grayfield, nothing. There was a well there. When we settled on that property, I needed to find out about power.
So I called the local co-op and on came the phone, Jim Martin Sr. And he's passed since now. And I weirdly introduced myself, sister Marinette, ADA, and he's so warm. And immediately I can feel the friendship with him. And I said, well, look, this is where we are and we're going to need power. And I let him know the size of the facility. We had a sense of what we were going to be building, though it wasn't set in stone yet, literally.
(31:17):
And as we were talking, he recognized that we were going to need three phase power, which is a lot of power. And he offered on the spot, verbally no contract, no in-person meeting to run that power for 10 miles for free and to put it right where we want it, and to pay for the massive posts that would go 30 feet up in the air and I don't know how many feet into the ground and bring the digger to dig for the pole to go in. I mean, he offered the whole thing in this 15 minute conversation, and he was inspired by
us coming to the area. But very quickly, he said, over time, this power is going to be needed anyway. So it was kind of coupled to a practicality, but it was straight inspiration. Now, that story was what was happening just about every day on big and small levels. So I didn't have support to archive things, but my memory shirt. So these books, and I've cut out some of the stories so that people don't have to read
an encyclopedia. I had only my memories and my blueprints to go on. But it gives you a sense of what's possible when we're in our, yes, Carl Young says, we're meant to live a synchronized life.
Julia Marie (32:40):
Yes,
Kimberly Braun (32:42):
Right. That we're not surprised, but we're in wonder, childlike wonder.
Julia Marie (32:47):
Well, that's our time for today. Thank you for continuing to support evolving humans with your ratings and reviews. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with two other people so we can bring more light to the planet.