Puddles & A Morning Walk in the Rain

A Welcome Puddle on the Morning Path

We wake into the Equinox: autumnal in the north, spring in the south. For three days the entire planet, and all of us with it, is in perfect balance and harmony. Day and night are of equal length in both hemispheres, even as each moves toward a different season. Here in the north, this is where we begin the trek toward winter, the outbreath of Earth herself. These marker moments are in our DNA. Since the beginning of humankind we rose and fell with the Sun's journey, and it has only been a handful of generations since we stopped. We even have a gland in the middle of the brain so sensitive to light that our bodies remember what our minds have forgotten. Dr. Michael Lennox – Daily Astro Alert September 23, 2026

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. Gary Snyder (quoted in Pam Montgomery’s Co-Creating with Nature: Healing the Wound of Separation)

A gentle rain fell briefly yesterday evening and later I woke in the night to the glorious sound of more rain on the roof. An Equinox blessing for this parched ground! I wonder if the rain will move the needle downward from the current ‘extreme drought’ and ‘exceptional drought’ designations here in the San Luis Valley and the southern Sangre de Cristo mountains.

As I sit early, pen in hand, I feel the balance of this Equinox more deeply than I did yesterday at the precise moment of summer’s ending, autumn’s beginning here in the northern hemisphere. I reflect on the reminder that our ancestors understood the equinoxes and solstices as multi-day events. Although their lives were much more aligned with planetary rhythms, indeed with Life itself, we each have this knowing deep within.

I often experience it as a longing for my knowing to be more present, more accessible in my life. The woods out back, the tree and rock beings, Mountain likely chuckle at my human lack of satisfaction and of wanting more. Perhaps though they and the unseen ones above and below ground are simply joyful that I recognize them as kindred. Kin who I want to know and experience more deeply.

As I felt the dampness and looked toward the shrouded mountains on my walk this morning, I thought of how many people would label this overcast day ‘dreary’. I recalled a line from a musician friend’s song back in my days in Lubbock, Texas: we pray for the rain, then we curse getting wet, and I noticed how joyful my heart felt as rain began to fall and a flock of pinion jays landed on the ground nearby, sheltering under the brush.

I wanted to sing in the rain, yet its sound kissing the Earth was so beautiful that I kept my song in my heart. I listened. I watched. I slowed my pace even as more drops fell, blessed by each reminding me of just how blessed I am. Let the rain fall!

As the world out there becomes more chaotic and uncertain may we remember our home and call upon the balance of this equinox time to remind us of where our true home is and of the harmony and balance that lives and breathes there, accessible to one and to all.

Shrouded Mountains — Will There Be Snow When They Break?

Dancing with Joy and Mama Bear Anger

Passionate Presentation by the ERA Team

Anger is the deepest form of care, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly, about to be hurt. David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)

Joy is a meeting place, of deep intentionality and of self-forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formerly seemed outside… . … joy is practiced generosity. … To feel a full and untrammelled joy is to have become fully generous; to allow ourselves to be joyful is to have walked through the doorway of fear, the dropping away of the anxious, worried self …  David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)

This blog day finds me riding a wave of joy and gratitude in the wake of participating in last weekend’s 37th annual Crestone Energy Fair and hosting the young, brilliant, creative, caring Earth Regeneration Alliance team here to share their vision of a thriving world aligned with Life. A vision near and dear to my heart.

In the midst of the joy my Mama Bear anger appeared as I both witnessed and later experienced personally what felt like a threat to a member of the team I care about and later another threat to the team and to my personal sovereignty and that of the home and land I occupy and steward. While disconcerting and uncomfortable, I discovered that Mama Bear’s anger can co-exist with my joy without dampening that joy. Unless I choose to allow Mama Bear’s care to do so.

Both/and not either/or. A delicate path on the road of nurturing relationships among those who are working to bring to life new systems as the patriarchal systems of the past that are not aligned with Life dissolve. And each of us operating within those systems, sometimes hanging on to them out of habit, conditioning, perhaps seeking what appears to be safe in an evolving time of change, as we seek to migrate to new ways of BEing and doing with one another and with Life itself.

The roads of change and creation are bumpy ones – individually and collectively. Seeking to be guided by and align with Life is not the way of the world that is crumbling. Yet, consciously or not, this is the path we find ourselves on, knowing that how we have been is not the way forward for ourselves or for future generations.

May we embrace the joy that is present when we are generous and grateful both in giving and in receiving. And in that joy may we walk too with the prickly feels that arise as we co-create a new world together.

Blessed Rain & A Double Rainbow at the Energy Fair’s Finale

From Conflict to CommUNION

Beauty - As Above So Below

While I’ve always felt a sense of being guided as the Ink flows onto the page, writing The Pivot feels different this week. As I sat under our star kin before dawn this morning a thought (? Or an insight? A message or just what??) came about losing our true power when we grasp for control.

The words feel like both a message of what I observe and experience in myself as I attempt to manage (or perhaps manipulate) something to an ego-driven outcome, to having my way. I observe it in our world where those who seek power choose conflict over communication and commUNION, where true power lives.

Here is what arrived before dawn this morning perhaps from the star beings I was blessed to be with:

As we grasp to control more and more in our lives, we lose our true power: the power of guidance from Life, the deep wisdom and knowing that comes from within, from our BEing in communion with All that IS. With the wise I Am. This is true individually and collectively, and as we drift further away from this communion divisive rises. Conflict within becomes conflict with others. This is the aberrated world we create in living as if the illusion of separation is the Truth.

The New Moon coming tomorrow seems to invite me to sit with these words both as a point of reflection and one from which to observe both self and world in the days ahead. Perhaps you’ll join me.

And More Beauty

Called to a Contemplative Reset

Tangles, Blooms, and Mountains

The jumps we make in our own thinking can create a leap in the overall consciousness of our planet. From the perspective of the quantum, the next step in humanity’s evolution is not to grow bigger, but to reclaim the transformational power of the small. Asia Suler (Mirrors of the Earth)

I opened Suler’s book to the page where these words did a leap of their own. From the page to my heart, they arrived amidst a week of contemplating an ever-present question: What is mine to do now? ‘Rest.’ The not surprising answer came quickly, followed by annoyance, resistance. ‘Rest? Really? But I have things to do.’

Things that apparently the time has not quite ripened to. Things on my list that perhaps won’t matter once I surrender to the call to rest and lean into the contemplative space that rest offers. I feel that I’m in a deep internal reset. Something that, by the way, is aligned with planetary movements and aspects over the past many months and is coming to some pinnacle of conclusion, so you might be feeling some of the same. (And, no, this does not mean that all the chaos and disruption in the world and in our lives is suddenly about to end and life will return to some mythical version of ‘normal’.)

Today finds me in contemplation of the possibilities and choices before us in this chaotic time of dissolution. I feel that what is being asked of us is to ‘serve Life’. This is of course not some sudden, aha moment of ‘oh, that!’ for me but rather a deepening of the question: How? What does it look like to truly serve and align with Life?

While we must each discover the answers that are unique to us, we find clues in the multitude of people engaged in answering through service as outgrowths and expressions of who they Be. Recognizing that we are all kin and that Mother Earth is our home, they serve that.

Small, random acts of kindness serve Life as do great acts of courage, creativity, and boldness. Acts of resistance against the oppressive, extractive, unjust systems that serve at the whims of the few and at the expense of the many and of Life itself. Acts of emergence, creating new, bold, Life-aligned systems. Imagine, for example, an economy based on all Life thriving, not just human life. It’s not only possible, such systems are being created now. One needs only open mind, open heart, and search as it won’t be covered on mainstream news.

As reflected in the decades-long work and writing of Wendell Berry who died this week, this is not new. His shared experiences of Nature invited us to engage with Her: And so I go to the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place. I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces....I am less important than I thought. I rejoice in that.

But Berry also went deeper into systems. Although I’ve not been a student of his work, of particular interest to me is his deep thinking and writing about economic systems and contrasting ‘The Great Economy’ with ‘the little economy’. It’s not what you might think, but that’s a pivot for another day. For now, I step back into the call for rest and reset, knowing that amidst tidal waves of destruction are waves upon waves of regenerative, Life-aligned possibilities emerging. Let’s ride those waves together!

Clark’s Nutcracker - Doing What’s Mine to Do!

Eclipse Time - Stepping Up in Revolutionary Times

Pinon Jays Pop in for a Drink!

Who are you in your being right now? What is the next layer of inner plaque that needs to be scraped off, so you can bring your full, authentic voice to a world that needs you to step fully into the spirit of revolution? … Speak up anyway, even if your voice shakes. Dr. Michael Lennox (Daily Astrology Alerts for August 25 & 26, 2026]

The winged beings have invited my attention in recent days. Nuthatch, Clark’s Nutcracker, and pinon jay in particular offered invitations by their presence that I didn’t attempt to ignore. ‘Observe. Listen. Reflect,’ each seemed to say in their own way.

Small Nuthatch moving through a pine almost always from high in the tree and moving downward with its beak in the lead. Wisdom comes down from above, quietly as Nuthatch moves. Clark’s Nutcracker, larger yet with the same gray/white/black coloring, is not so quiet. Raucous in my observation as they visit early morning and often during the day. I feel them urging me to use my voice, not louder, but with some yet to be experienced power. The pinon jays chime in.

I notice that all three species move about in flocks, and I wonder if they have some message that my hermit tendencies need more engagement. Community.

Being present to the energy and opportunities of this Eclipse season and the Lunar Eclipse tomorrow, I open my heart to the messages and guidance of these winged ones, I wonder what messages they carry as I reflect on Dr. Michael’s query about what needs to be scraped away in this potent Eclipse time. I wholeheartedly ask that anything from the past that holds me back be released and that I become aware of new choices that more fully align with Life.

As I write early this morning, The Ink feels as if it is delivering a prayer from my heart, through the page, to the cosmos. It is my desire to purposefully participate for whatever time I am given to remain on the planet in the revolution that is building new scaffolding grounded not in the separation of current, collapsing systems but in the reality that we are all connected in this Web of Life.

I’m coming to believe more deeply that in order to thrive, perhaps even for humanity to survive, we must pivot our priorities, our daily choices to serve Life. Yes, I’ve said it before and will continue to speak this thread however it comes.

I’m coming to more deeply understand that this is the thread that I am to weave. Hopefully not as angry reaction to all that is so very upside down in our world, but as opening pathways, invitations to think and choose differently. For me. For We. Rinse. Repeat. For I believe that this is what we must do for ourselves, for the winged ones, the furry four-legged ones, those with fins and gills. For the waters, the plant beings, the soil, and the stone beings. For self. For others. For our planet home. For Life.

On my walk this crisp morning, I began to imagine what choices I might make differently. What habits of consumption are luxuries that tax living systems rather than serve Life? Am I willing to let them go?

As I’ve said in the past (perhaps ad nauseum), each choice we make is a choice for Life. Or not. Each choice we make can be a choice for the revolution of regenerating Life. Are you ready to join this revolution? What layers of plaque are perhaps asking you to scape them away as tiny acts of revolution? What layers are ready to reveal themselves to me so that they can be released? Let’s step up together in this potent time!

Light and Beauty on My Morning Walk

Pivoting to Deeper Care

The Lioness

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. Mary Oliver (quoted in Asia Suler’s Mirrors in the Earth)

Guided to pick up a book that I haven’t yet read and opening it to a random page, this quote hit the nail on the head this morning. I was present to a sense of unsettledness that’s visited me recently with more frequency than I’d prefer. I was remembering that this week marks the beginning of the 14th year of this weekly post. And, as always on ‘blog day’, I was wondering ‘what is to be shared today?’.

I thought about what a journey this weekly writing ritual has been and continues to be; of how the world has changed since August 15, 2013. Of how I and we have changed as well. And of how our evolution individually, collectively, planetarily, and cosmically marches on at seemingly quickening paces.

That initial post, indeed the early years of what was then SuccessZone, focused on personal and business success, just as my coaching practice in those days did. My focus was never solely measuring success on the world’s terms but rather aimed toward measures of success beyond them. I suppose in some sense, I’ve always had some awareness that the world and its systems don’t quite measure up to the true nature of Life, and in the spring of 2020 amidst Covid lockdowns and global fear, my attention was called to how Nature was responding to our collective pause. She was restoring. SuccessZone was laid to rest and The Pivot was born.

It began like this on April 22, 2020:

If you do not change direction, you may end where you are heading. - Lao Tzu

Yes, that’s right ‘Happy Wednesday!’ Happy Earth Day! Happy New Moon! And, welcome to The Pivot, a new name and a stronger intention for my weekly musings to provide inspiration and intelligence to support a shift in consciousness – mine, yours, and OURS.

My intention has not changed, rather it has deepened as I’ve come to know and begin to understand how disconnected our world is and we are from Life. The Pivot has become somewhat of a journal on my ongoing journey to reconnect with Life and the pivots that I make and those I see that I (and we) need to make along the way. Recently I’ve come to holding this as being in service to Life, to that which is “Life generating and Life enhancing” to use the words of an Earth elder whom I’m privileged to learn from.

And just what does this have to do with ‘pivoting to deeper care’ you may be wondering.

This walk down memory lane and a recent conversation with a dear friend took me to a place of feeling heaviness, grief for the lack of care in our world, especially in its systems. We need deeper care for one another, for the Earth and her waters that give us Life. We need care for Life itself. Our collective lack of care and those places where my own care is lacking is more unconscious than conscious. We live and navigate systems that don’t include care for Life, much less have it at their very core. We go along to get along simply because that’s what we’ve learned.

But what if more of us made more conscious choices to refuse this ruse and turned our attention from entertainment and distraction to care and building new systems that prioritize Life? Rather directing our resources toward the illusory safety of accumulating more, what might putting more our time, our energy, and our financial resources to work on behalf of All Life, nurturing and supporting those who are already on this path and who need our support – regenerative farmers, ecological restorationists, healers, regenerative economic system thinkers and builders, those who care for the ones unable to care for themselves … and so many more. What if we trusted the flow of Life rather than fearing and guarding against its ebbs?

This is the house and the community that I want to be a part of building. In what house will you put your nail?

Mountain Dawn

Eclipse Time - Receive the Reset

Nuthatch Fledgings at Play - Bringing Wisdom from Higher Realms

Eclipse Time – Receive the Reset [#674 – 8-12-2026]

The I Am That I Am at the personal level is directly reflected by this eclipse, helping us all attract more love and joy by living centered in our hearts. …  The instability, amplified chaos, and the broken beam of consciousness are incompatible with manifesting, but better spent in receiving the reset. … Eclipses are fated and transformative. … To meet the world at the level of its changes is to transform ourselves to meet these chaotic and revolutionary times. So let this eclipse have its way with you. The invitation is to transform, not eventually, but right here in the wormhole of shadow and light. Center yourself in your heart, know who you are all the way to the bones, and let the old Leo shadow fall into the abyss where it belongs. Then turn that certainty outward and serve, because a world in revolution is waiting for exactly what only you can bring. Fly into the unknown with the confidence that comes from knowing who you are. You are ready. Now go be seen, and have at it! Dr. Michael Lennox

I’m pivoting this day to share the ink and to ‘let this eclipse have its way with me’. Not as ceding or handing my power to the day, but rather to claim my power to dance with the energies this eclipse offers and BE with integrating the energies of this time into my daily choices. In reading this unusually long post, I invite you to read beyond the technical astrological aspects and into the energies, the opportunities of this day.

We each have something this world needs right now. Give yourself and our world the gift of finding and expressing yours. As Dr. Mike frequently says, “Have at it!” Here’s Dr. Michael Lennox:

Today is the Total Solar Eclipse in Leo, perfecting at 10:37am PDT. There are several things that elevate this eclipse over others. It is the first eclipse in the new paradigm of North Node in Aquarius leading us to service. The South Node in Leo helps us release the shadow of too much or too little self, so we can know who we are (a Leo construct) and how we serve (invented by Aquarius). The close proximity between the Nodes changing signs just two weeks ago and this first eclipse has to count, and it is likely to amplify this particular lunar cycle. And of course, it's being held by a pattern in the outer planets that is absolutely unprecedented.

This is a South Node eclipse, as the Sun in Leo is Conjunct the South Node that holds our past. There is a slight misunderstanding about this, as even though this is a New Moon, it's not about setting intentions for the future; the whole cycle is about releasing the past in order to start up anew. In Leo, the centering of the Self is organic, like the Leo-ruled Sun that burns brightly and consistently in the center of our collective experience.

The I Am That I Am at the personal level is directly reflected by this eclipse, helping us all attract more love and joy by living centered in our hearts. Traditionally, eclipses are not thought of as a good time to focus on manifesting new things. The instability, amplified chaos, and the broken beam of consciousness are incompatible with manifesting, but better spent in receiving the reset.

In Leo, it's easy to tap into this self-centered consciousness and rest back into knowing who you are. And while this is not a Full Moon, so we are not in that release mode, we still want to approach this New Moon with the mindset of recognizing which shadow of Leo you are meant to release in this eclipse wormhole. It's either too much of you in the room, led by a narcissistic wound that leads to a need for attention. Or the contrast of not valuing yourself enough when who you are is all that and a bag of chips.

The Sun and Moon meet up at 20° of Leo, so if you know your chart, you can see where this fits into your world. Any planets or points you have between 16° and 23° of any sign are being hit directly by this New Moon. There is a loose Trine to Saturn in Aries, so there's a grounded sense of importance in this moment. I say grounded because Saturn reflects that idea, but in Aries we learn our lessons and meet our responsibilities through fire and action. This also provides something that Saturn is known for, which is the reward for a job well done.

This easy geometrical connection to the Teacher says we have his blessing to expand and grow because of past lessons learned. This reminds me of how I end any conflict or criticism that feels like projection. The other day on social media, someone remarked on how alarming the #redrobeastrology video was. Others came to my defense since they know me as not a fear mongerer. But my response was simple: I know who I am. And as a Leo Sun and Venus, it has been a long life lesson to do this from the center of my heart. Not above it, where I am the shit, or below it, where I think who I am to stand in this confidence? We take this in as we move through this lunar cycle, letting go of the ego that can get in the way of service.

Mercury is in Leo, so our mind and thinking have access to boldness and ease in centering the self through our voice. We have just come out of a deep excavation of feelings that hold us back or cause us to feel unready for the fast pace of the new Earth. Mercury is now at 5° Leo, close enough to Jupiter to fill our minds, voice, and perceptions with boatloads of confidence and optimism. But notice the degree point. Venus is at 5° of Libra, so a Sextile between the mind and heart is loving out loud. On the other side, Mercury will also Sextile Uranus at 5° Gemini. Pluto is at (almost) 4° of Aquarius, so not quite precise, but darn close.

Put these together and you have a Grand Air Trine (Venus, Uranus, and Pluto) with Mercury splitting that Trine into a small triangle that sits on top of the bigger one. This shape is called a Kite because it looks just like one. It's a truly powerful pattern that suggests movement forward, in this case led by Mercury, so our brand new perceptions lead us into the cycle. The tail is the death and rebirth that's behind us, thank you, Pluto. And as we remain loving in our hearts (Venus in Libra) and stay graceful with sudden change (Uranus in Gemini), you can use the wings of this Kite to fly into an unknown future with the confidence that comes from knowing who you are.

Mars has just entered Cancer, so our sense of action is a bit underwater for this entire cycle. Mars doesn't like it here, but we have an exact Sextile between Mars and Chiron that tells us that, if we pick up some tools (Sextiles require behavior), we can move forward more gracefully because we have been releasing so much wound and shadow from the past. This Sextile imprinting itself in the New Moon means we can now go deeper into healing fear, hesitation, and the feeling of being unready for the work ahead. You are ready.

Neptune at 4° of Aries is not part of the Kite formation, but it is at the magic degree point. As such, Neptune is in Opposition to Venus, so there are confrontations with love, relationships, and intimacy that could result in confusion and uncertainty. It can also reveal things that have been hidden from your heart by delusion, impressionability, and blind spots. Venus will go retrograde in Libra, though she's not in that cycle quite yet. But this eclipse is so dialed into Venus that we are being set up for a more transformative Venus retrograde than ever before. Venus in a Grand Air Trine with Uranus and Pluto also tells us that the heart at the personal level is meeting the revolution of changes on Earth. We are emotionally excited with Venus and Uranus, and the Pluto Trine brings the gravitas and intensity of deep change that all eclipse seasons bring.

Eclipses are fated and transformative. What I love about this next chapter of the Nodes in Aquarius/Leo is that it fits the narrative that I've been teaching for two years now. To meet the world at the level of its changes is to transform ourselves to meet these chaotic and revolutionary times. So let this eclipse have its way with you. The invitation is to transform, not eventually, but right here in the wormhole of shadow and light. Center yourself in your heart, know who you are all the way to the bones, and let the old Leo shadow fall into the abyss where it belongs. Then turn that certainty outward and serve, because a world in revolution is waiting for exactly what only you can bring. Fly into the unknown with the confidence that comes from knowing who you are. You are ready. Now go be seen, and have at it!

Your Ambassador to Conscious Embodiment,
Dr. Michael Lennox (https://michaellennox.com/)

From Using to Cooperating With

Inspiration from a Messenger of Nature

…I find myself cringing every time I hear how someone ‘uses’ a particular herb. To me this implies taking advantage of the plant, in the negative sense of that expression. My suggestion is to replace the word ‘use’ with ‘cooperate’. To cooperate implies that you are participating in your own healing process and that you …are working in concert. When you use, you are engaging in ‘colonizer mind’ … a resource or commodity instead of your kin. When you cooperate with, you recognize the beginnings of a collaboration … Pam Montgomery, Co-Creating With Nature: Healing the Wound of Separation

Something drew me back to this passage last evening as I began thinking about ‘blog day’ with a curious mind inquiring what wanted to be shared. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the language I use and how loaded it is with separation and all the ills that have grown from that. Language has embedded separation in us like toxic weeds that take over a garden.

I thought of my mealtime gratitude prayer of giving thanks to the animals, the plants, the soil, the Sun, the waters, the Earth, the air; to all the hands that brought the ingredients to my table; and to my body for receiving, digesting, and using the food for my health, immediately noticing ‘using’ and sensing the subtle separation that implies when I take a moment to honestly reflect.

While my ritual calms me and brings me to being present with the food and touches into how life and lives are intertwined, I’ve often sensed something was missing or ‘off’. The porridge wasn’t ‘just right’. This morning I experienced the difference this subtle pivot of thanking my body for ‘cooperating with’ the nutrients, deepening my gratitude and feeling my prayer more closely reflect how all Life is interconnected. The porridge, my prayer, finally feels ‘just right’.

It seems subtle, perhaps inconsequential, to some and yet our words and language matter. Every shift we can make away from extracting, colonizing language feeds the collective a step toward recognition that we are kin with one another and with All Life. A step away from domination and toward cooperation. A step away from conflict and toward understanding that holds the potential for peace.

Montgomery shares a beautiful exercise to experience this pivot:

Open your heart, breathe deeply, and listen to the following sentences.

‘I’m going to use Dandelion to clear my sluggish liver from toxins in order to restore my liver to health.’

Continue to breathe and listen even more deeply.

‘I’m going to cooperate with Dandelion to clear my liver from toxins in order to restore my liver to health.’

How do you feel when you ‘use’ and how do you feel when you ‘cooperate’?

 I especially appreciate Montgomery’s use of ‘dandelion’ in the exercise as it reminds me of author, activist Rivera Sun’s Dandelion Insurrection the first book in her Dandelion Trilogy, an eerily prescient and inspiring story written for the time we are navigating now and demonstrating the cooperation required in revolutionary times. Time where we have opportunities to make the kinds of pivots toward co-creating a society that honors, respects, and cooperates with All Life.

I’m aiming to incorporate this language of ‘cooperating with’ wherever I observe myself ‘using’, not just food, herbs, supplements, and such but cooperating with water to cleanse my body and water my plants. I sense it will deepen my recognition of and gratitude for all my kin. I’m curious to explore more places to experiment and to discover where ‘cooperating with’ will be challenging – perhaps the unhelpful ‘customer service representative’ who doesn’t seem to grasp the concern I’m trying to resolve.

Let’s cooperate with every breath we take!

And more inspiration!

Honesty - Stepping Into a Deeper Truth

The Road of Life is Sometimes Rocky

Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another, or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing, and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life. David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.)

The first words that I wrote early this Full Moon morning long before the Sun rose over the peaks were ‘deep thought’, ‘honesty’, ‘deeper truths’. I thought of The Agreement Beneath All Names and its call to “listen long enough for the deeper truth to surface.”

What are the ‘deeper truths’ of our time that we need to excavate? Or are these truths perhaps right in front of us inviting our willingness to see? How might we face that which invites our reckoning with vulnerable, open-hearted honesty and care? Are we willing? Am I?

Surely you have felt or sensed that ‘things are different now’. Perhaps you have felt an intensity or a sense of unease that is both familiar and, yet, distinct.

That has been my experience particularly in the past week or so as I have been immersed in the annual activity of preparation for evacuation in the event of wildfire. Such readiness is an important part of life in the wildland-urban interface zone where I live. Each year my readiness includes checking that my ‘go bag’, important papers, and emergency supplies are current and ready in the event I need to go and reviewing my checklist of ‘what to do when you leave’ and my community’s emergency evacuation plans and map of routes. Same this year. Except …

This year feels different, more intense, and I’m responding by being more thoughtful, more thorough because, yes, in the intensity of this time I feel more concerned, more vulnerable than in previous years. I’ve added additional steps for coordinating with friends and pre-arranging for lodging if that need arises. After a couple weeks of attention and action, I feel prepared, at least physically.

And from that place I can relax into preparing all of me. What is different? How am I different? Who/how do I need to BE if …?

And that is where honesty joins the party. I am not who I was when I last engaged in this annual ritual of preparation. None of us are. Our home planet, Mother Earth, is not. She is simultaneously shaking and rumbling, spewing, flooding, and burning to extremes. So too are we humans quaking in our boots as we grapple with the honest truth that we are here as a part of Life to unfold with it not to control it. To reckon with not knowing and in that reckoning make peace with our not knowing, personally and collectively.

Looking back at my approach this year, I acknowledge fear and wanting to know that which cannot be known as drivers. I ask myself to stand in trepidation at the doorway of acknowledging that I simply don’t know and how fearful and powerless I feel in that not knowing. And I recognize this doorway as an invitation to step thorough it into the unknown where my true power resides. And as I imagine taking that step, I relax a bit, imagining that all of me is prepared for whatever comes in the unfolding vulnerability of existence.

Could accepting that we don’t and can’t know be one of the deeper truths that needs to surface and be given its due, its time of reckoning to guide us forward in this, our own time of transformation?

Baby Pine Cone Dripping With LIFE!

A Dance with Anguish in Anguishing Times

Morning Sky - Mountain Sunrise

Anguish is the emblem of our helpless love, felt fully in every cell of the body; felt fully until it overflows, in a cry, in tears in words that try to negate, powerlessly, what is occurring. Anguish is our foundational cry against the unjust taking away of what we feel should be forever ours. … Anguish is always waiting for us: beyond our refusing to care, or our unwillingness to feel fully how helpless we often are … . Anguish is not debilitation: anguish fully felt, is a sign that we are fully awake at last, through our own pain, to all the heartbreaking losses and goodbyes involved in the drama of human life… David Whyte, Anguish – an essay in Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

David Whyte’s writing, in particular his reframing of everyday words, often has a way of helping me understand challenging events that I’ve experienced, expanding my awareness and sometimes pivoting my point of view. What in the moment felt like grief I now recognize and appreciate as anguish.

In hindsight I can call the experience a dance with anguish that carried me deeper into myself and to what I most deeply care about: Life, All Life. Yeah, no surprise, I’ve said and you’ve read this before. Yet in the wake of this dance a clarity and a depth arose that hasn’t been present before in my desire to reconnect the awareness that my/our little lives are inseparable from the greater whole that IS Life. AND to make conscious choices in daily my/our little lives that serve that greater whole.

With this awareness we do so not to create new ways of exploitation and extraction that destroy Life. We aim that our creations are in service to Life, for when we serve All Life, we are in the highest service to self, to all our kin, to Mother Earth, and the cosmos. We choose in alignment with our belonging.

 Yes, this is not a new topic here in The Pivot but it is where my heart, The Ink, and this week’s experience guide me.

I think most of us are feeling some level of anxiety about the time we are navigating, the uncertainty, the constant flow of fear-based news of war, discord, division, violence in many forms including unlawful arrests and murders. The reality of thousands of wildfires burning across Turtle Island impacting millions with smokey air and, in my own case, heightened preparedness for ‘what if…’ amidst the drought here. Along with devastating flooding in some areas and heightened earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the globe.

Not to mention current planetary alignments and influences, many of which offer the opportunity to open up into understanding Life and service to Life in new ways. We are, after all, in the Age of Aquarius fully now. And the acceptance of uncertainty and transformation that will require can likewise bring forth anxious moments. We want certainty in a world that is not. We want the world to be different, but we prefer not to change.

But change we must. The story that triggered what first was anger and grief that I now understand as anguish wasn’t from any of these mainstream events although they certainly offered up the context. It was instead a story of yet another way we crafty humans seek control and convenience: approval for launching yet another technology into the sky, one that will mirror sunlight back to earth at night. It was a WTF moment, feeling a dagger pierce my heart. I, who love the dark AND appreciate its role, its necessity for Life and Life’s rhythms, felt that I and Life are about to be robbed yet again of something precious, something necessary for Life to continue. Because in the ways of separation we have lost our capacity to act in harmony and service to Life.

Several planetary alignments helped me to allow my deep feelings to have their expression – an almost full day of tears, sobs, pleas to guide us back into harmony with one another and with Life. A humble request to guide me in expanding my capacity to think and choose differently about where and how to direct my energy in each of its forms. This dance with anguish brought to a deeper sense that THIS is my question and the quest is my north star. Do I have the courage to follow wherever it leads? Do we have the courage to tap into anguish as a guide? Those are the questions!

A Path of Enlightenment