Spring Snow & Seeking to Understand

Blessed Spring Snow in the Woods Out Back

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen R. Covey

Ah, Joy! Yesterday morning I woke up to a beautiful four plus inches of wet spring snow, an invitation to sit by the wood stove’s warmth and engage in a favorite activity: inner reflection and (hopefully) deep thought. Sometimes I think that had I been introduced to philosophy much earlier in my college studies, I might have chosen that as my career path. But I digress from what seems to want to be shared this 600th blog day. (Yep, another milestone on the weekly blog journey.)

One morning last week as I opened a friend’s car door to plop my ‘go to the hot springs’ gear in the backseat, a book on the seat grabbed my attention. Without seeing the full title, I knew I was meant to read it, and I asked my friend about it. “Oh, I’m taking it to the used bookstore. I decided not to read it because …” and she invited me to take it with me. Still not knowing why I was meant to read it, I accepted. At the very least, I was curious how the author would weave energy and consciousness into the political realm.

As I began reading a few days later I asked mySelf and Spirit, why? An answer came quickly: You must look into the darkness in order to know the light, a response that I didn’t experience as fully satisfying, as it seemed a bit too simplistic and empty of meaning.

More and more I aim to be mindful and purposeful of where I put my attention and to ask is this aligned with what I care about, with what I need to know, with what I am here to do, and who I am here to BE? Will this contribute to my living more fully aligned with the Truth of Oneness?

As I asked those questions, I sensed that reading would offer information that would support me to come to a better understanding of the current political landscape in the (not so) United States. More specifically, I’m curious about those with whom I’m not politically aligned. What information, world views, etc. do they hold that leads them to the conclusions and choices they make? What are their sources (beyond mainstream media yapping)? Sadly, my own ability and willingness has been lacking as have opportunities to engage in conversations with those at the other end of the political spectrum.

And so, I dove in, seeking to understand, curious about how the information would land, and how it would impact me. Would it make me nauseous or angry? Would it open to me to new possibilities for interpreting and understanding our world? Would it move me to greater understanding and compassion for those with whom I disagree. Would it open me to more deeply look at the dark aspects of history and current events and to remember that, just like you and me, so-called leaders throughout history and today are spiritual beings walking in the experience of being in a human body? Not an easy walk by any means.

In some sense, the book did all of that. Perhaps most importantly, it expanded my willingness and commitment to question the interpretations of others and to listen to those with whom I disagree rather than relying on the interpretations of others, even those with whom I agree and those I trust. In so doing, I feel a sense of taking a big step toward reclaiming my personal power and sovereignty. And with that, a sense of freedom that supports living in Oneness.

My prayer is that I do not seek to understand for the sake of justifying or convincing my ‘small s’ self or, indeed anyone, of what is right or wrong. Rather, that I seek to understand so that I may communicate with others on behalf of all Life and contribute toward building a world that embraces and works for all.

Snow Grass

From What Is to What Can Be

Lichen Heart in the Woods Out Back

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love is the residence of true power.

Power, love, truth, harmony, curiosity and more have been ever present in my dance with Life this week. Opening Hafiz book of poetry The Gift last night, this message landed in my heart and travelled with me in the realms of deep sleep.

Why Aren’t We Screaming Drunks?

Hafiz 

The sun once glimpsed God’s true nature

And has never been the same.

Thus that radiant sphere

Constantly pours its energy

Upon this earth

As does He* from behind

The Veil.

With a wonderful God like that

Why isn’t everyone a screaming drunk?

Hafiz’s guess is this:

Any thought that you are better or less

Than another man**

Quickly

Breaks the wine

Glass. 

*or she; **or woman or other being in any form

Hafiz words of warning about the dangers of comparison rang deeply true, having earlier ‘received’ a message that bubbled from within: “You must get beyond this patriarchal paradigm of right/wrong, power over thinking and choosing in order to call forth and co-create the new and ancient paradigm of care – the rebirth and restoration of matriarchal ways of being and doing.”

The message, not new, resonated with me in some new way, like an old fire being rekindled. The Truth of Oneness feels alive within me in this time of so much dissonance around the world.

I felt this Truth on an early morning walk, as I was deeply aware of the harmony IN Nature and present to my long-standing desire to live my life in harmony WITH Her. I see this Truth in the seeming small acts of kindness and care in community, choices that loom large in pointing the way forward and co-creating what can be. I see it in the ways of Nature – mothers birthing, feeding, caring, teaching their young. Families of elephants, flocks of birds, schools of fish. Families of trees and plants in the forest and grasses on the plains.

Individually and collectively, the natural world is a teacher and guide for how Life is designed to be on this small blue marble we call home. Gaia. Mother Earth. The power of love abounds in Her beings. I see it in the heart rocks I observe as I walk this territory I call home. Just this morning I saw it in the prints of deer hooves and the pattern of lichen growing on a rock. Clear guidance from our Mother to love.

Somewhere, somehow along our evolutionary path we humans turned away from this natural harmony of our planet’s design. We chose a path of ‘power over’, of violence and war, of win/loose, of control rather than paths of co-creation, collaboration, care. We dared think some are better than others; and that we are at the top. We’ve exploited Gaia’s gifts and one another in unsustainable ways that can no longer stand. We broke the wine glass.

Admirable, well-intentioned efforts to legislate care for humanity and the planetary being into a system of power over have had limited success at best. Sadly, such ideas have become mere pawns in the game, and, as we witness today, are being used to further divide us.

Our evolutionary call is not for more funding, more programs, more crumbs from the ‘power over’ table. Our evolutionary call is for a change of heart, a collective shift in consciousness where the ways of control and power over have no fuel to continue. It is time to go beyond what is and to attend to what can be, to leap to love and co-creation of a new world from the ways of love.

Just as Nature does each and every day. She’s waiting, though not so patiently these days.

Love is the residence of true power. Let’s abandon the noise of the world and listen to our hearts, trusting and following where they lead. Let’s break no more wine glasses. Rather let us sip the rich nectar of Nature’s harmony and follow Her lead.

Hoof Prints of Deer on the Morning Path

Who Will We Be?

A Friend in the Woods Out Back

I’m dancing and swimming in this question of who I will be in this time, this evolutionary blip in the cosmic timeline of all Life. Here’s what came this morning as I put pen to the blank page of my journal:

This morning I rose

mind swirling.

Curiosity.

Flurry of words

not white snowflakes I so long for.

What is needed now?

LOVE

Compassion

Wisdom

Patience, Care

Courage

Simple acts of creation.

Calling forth understanding not from mind and intellect

struggling to make sense of

what we are witness to and a part of

in this fragile, crumbling world

as one age gives rise to another.

Calling forth understanding from the Heart,

the depth and soul of our Being that knows the Truth

no matter what.

Not truth as accurate fact.

This fact or that in order to be ‘right’

and thus, declare the other

‘wrong’.

But Truth as sacred righteousness.

The Knowing held deep inside of us

Now Being called forth to make order from the chaos.

To commune and co-create.

To practice reverence as we regenerate

soil and self.

To fuel our evolutionary leap.

Not in the systems of the old.

But in the ways of the new and ancient wisdom

calling us forth.

Compassion, the word, the feeling courses through my being as I think about the choice point of this moment. Will we navigate this time as one only of crisis and destruction, attempting to forestall inevitable evolution, making choices from our old ways of being and choosing? Will we cling to the way it’s been, the patriarchal system, feeding it our fear through compliance, the very fuel that it needs to survive?

Or will we bravely sever the cords of dependence, embracing the evolutionary moment, stepping into a world view, however vague and foggy it is for us? Will we call on our new and ancient knowing to support the emergence of something new? Will we be the fertile soil from which seeds planted long ago sprout? Will we nourish ourselves so we can nurture and tend this new garden?

Who will I be in this sacred time? Who will we be?

Tree Art Heart

Heartfelt Resistance

The Blessing of Morning Mountain Snow

Since last week’s post on embracing the mystery, resistance has been top of mind and heart. As my day has began to unfold and attention placed on what to share, I peeked within at my own resistance to change while holding a heartfelt desire for change within and change without. That, I suppose, is the nature of paradox and of life in this chaotic time. It is my personal experience these days.

In this time while we each walk our individual walks, it is important to remember that every thought, word and deed ripples into the collective. Robert Kennedy, an early political hero of mine, whose assassination I watched unfold in the summer of 1968, said it well.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Robert Kennedy

May I be ripple for love in the world. Love of humanity. Love of all beings on the planet. Love of the cosmos. Love of Life.

There is an aspect of trauma in which we are all intertwined, whether with awareness or not. Whether in this lifetime or accumulated from our past. I find myself in this soup today with a desire to know, to learn, to release and heal. For me, this inner exploration is an act of resistance, as it is sourced in curiosity and love and counters the fear mongering that I observe as I look out at the chaotic landscape.

At the same time, our times invite us to action in that landscape. To nonviolently resist the oppression we witness around the globe and right here at home in the United States. To co-create a new landscape in community with others that is fair, just, regenerative, and honoring of all Life. If, like me, you find the ways of the world’s systems today, not reflective of the world you want, then I invite you to explore avenues of resistance and change.

I find inspiration and ideas for resistance in Nonviolence News, edited my dear friend and author Rivera Sun. Her prescient series beginning with The Dandelion Insurrection is a worthy read for inspiration and hope. She weaves a story of resistance to what is with the co-creation of what can be, a tapestry for all Life.

In future Pivots, I’m aiming to share resources and discoveries in the domains of new systems of finance, community building, regenerative agriculture, and more, as this is where my heartfelt resistance seems to be calling me.

Meanwhile, it is (at least for me) helpful to remember that we are in the crucible of a new age, only a blip in what we call time as far as the cosmos is concerned. Even our home, dear Gaia, has been through such epochal changes before. And, likely, so have we.

For me personally, astrology supports me to navigate this time from a different perspective. I’ve long followed cycles of the moon and observed their impact on me. Today’s Full Moon is no different, and offers an opportunity to look at current events from a broader lens. Dr. Michael Lennox says it well about this day and this time.

We have entered the Age of Aquarius, leaving the unconscious Age of Pisces behind us. The forces that were able to forge a patriarchal world two thousand years ago are evolving out of existence. Aquarius is generating the next two-thousand-year Age, one in which Peace for Humanity reins, and all human beings are cared for. What we are experiencing now, especially in the United States, is an extinction grab. The masculine principle, terrified of its perceived demise, is generating a powerful explosion of effort to keep the old ways intact. But the old ways are already dead, and we must bridge the gap between the old world and the new. And we do that by each of us reaching for personal excellence (Leo), and sharing what we create with the world that needs what we have to offer (Aquarius).  Dr. Michael Lennox

Discovering a new world view is another act of resistance. Let’s explore!

Mountain Morning Snow

Embracing the Mystery

Snow at Last!

There is one sin I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And, therefore, no need for faith. Cardinal Lawrence (character in the movie Conclave)

In reality, life does not often conform to our wish for certainty, and there are few examples in the natural world of things staying certain, fixed, knowable, stable, definitive or enduring. Ambiguity and ambivalence are more natural states of being that no one wants to talk about with most things moving in and out of balance and flux every second of the day. Our bodies are constantly seeking adjustment, the planet is constantly cycling through stages of creation and decay, and even our human-made empires come and go … In a world full of transition, flux and fluidity, the logic of pinning things down and conquering is to bring order and sanity. … To want to compartmentalise, categorise, objectify and organise isn’t surprising or pathological, but the to the extent that it seeks to obliterate grey areas, transitional states, contingency, ambiguity and ambivalence, it is troublesome. Life shows no fixity in service to our anxieties … Ruth Allen (Weathering: How the earth’s deep wisdom can help us endure life’s storms)

Like the vibrant life underground awaiting the signal of warmth to emerge, I began to stir a bit more as we passed the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and March’s Spring Equinox. Yet, silence and stillness, quiet walks in the woods beckon as does the dark, starry sky on cold, clear nights and before dawn breaks.

I’m present to a deep need to be grounded in this chaotic and uncertain time. At the same time, I remember that this time and its events, like every other before, are a tiny blip in the evolution of the cosmos. And that we are at choice in how we evolve.

And yet, this is the time we are in, the time we are navigating. A time where deep polarization asks that we choose which side is ‘right’ and make other binary (yes/no, this/that, good/bad, boy/girl, black/white) choices. While reading Allen’s Weathering (a grounding read in itself!), I began to think about how our quest for certainty leads us to make such choices, and how in doing so we limit the palate of possibilities open to us for creating our shared future.

I’m present to my own uncertainty about what and how to write as well as overall uncertainty about how to navigate what is unfolding. Like many others, I feel a sense of angst and unease. Sometimes even the feeling of powerlessness creeps in.

At the same, I believe that how and what each of us thinking and choosing moment to moment is influencing what and how we evolve. When I remember that, I can ask with an open heart, what is mine to do today? What do I need to know today? How do I need to BE today? Aiming each day to embrace this time as mystery, perhaps ‘The Great Mystery’, and to imagine the emergence of a peaceful world that works for all.

Embracing life as mystery, not be solved, but to be lived in harmony with all Life indeed requires faith and great care in where our faith is placed. And perhaps that’s a Pivot for another day.

The Melt … the snow didn’t last

In the Silence

Old, Mighty Pine

Yes. Silence. Again. Still.

Just five weeks into winter and in mild, almost spring-like weather, I continue to be drawn to winter’s ways. Slow movement. No movement. Rest. Quiet. Reading. Sauntering. Thinking and inviting my thoughts to silence. Reflecting. Observing. Wondering …

Today I’m drawn back to David Whyte’s poem, The Winter of Listening, and especially to his commentary about it. … A time when to name anything would be to give it the wrong name, most especially refusing to name ourselves, a radical sense of letting ourselves alone, without even the most subtle, internal self-bullying or coercion…

As I read the poem again, I’m drawn to these verses …

All this petty worry

while the great cloak

of the sky grows dark

and intense

round every living thing.

What is precious

inside us does not

care to be known

by the mind

in ways that diminish

its presence.

What we strive for

in perfection

is not what turns us

into the lit angel

we desire,

what disturbs

and then nourishes

has everything

we need. (excerpt from The Winter of Listening in David Whyte: Essentials)

My worry – or is it ‘worry’ or something to which ascribing another name may be more true? Concern? Care? Grievance that wants to be grieved? Despair? Denial? I chuckle as I attempt to name something that doesn’t want to be named, thinking that naming is a way of understanding and putting this puzzle piece in its right place.

I’m present to my subtle self-coercion to maintain consistency, remembering that I do love this process, even when I struggle with getting to what wants to be said. Even when events seem beyond my comprehension. That too is worthy of my awareness. Perhaps some things are meant to live beyond our comprehension, merely inviting us to accept that they are what they are (whether we like them, and especially when we don’t). Winter’s ways nourish that.

Then, after our listening within, we know how and when to act. And, nourished, we are able to follow that guidance.

Today marks the first new moon of 2025, a good time to review intentions and to set new ones. What to I intend in this time? Today is also the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Wood Snake, which in 2025 represents wisdom, transformation, and personal growth, with the Wood element adding flexibility and renewal. It is also said that the year emphasizes shedding negativity and embracing change. What do I need to shed? What changes long to be embraced as intention and acted upon? The Wood Snake is associated with intelligence, perseverance, and strategy, making 2025 a year of significant opportunities.

In the silence, let us weave and tap into that!

The Ziggurat on a Colorado BlueSky Day

Pivot to Silence

Clouds and Sun on a Winter Day

Last evening as I was moving toward dreamtime, I was drawn to David Whyte’s poem, The Winter of Listening, about which Whyte says, within this poem is an ancient intuitive understanding of winter as a time to leave things alone, to let things remain hidden, even to themselves. … It is the intimate experience sitting alone by a fire, in silence and reverie, with both a simplification and a growing clairvoyance of what is just beginning to be made known. Of course, his words resonated deeply with my love of winter and longing to align with the rhythms of Nature.

This morning, I woke with the heaviness of worry, a sense of despair (about which Whyte thoughtfully and eloquently explores in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Meaning of Everyday Words). As I sat with, vocalized, and allowed despair to move in and through me, I realized that this blog day finds me with no words, no inspiration, no wisdom for how we each navigate this time. That this day is calling me into silence, into winter’s listening. And so, this day, I share a bit of Whyte’s poem and another poem from a poet who I discovered, quite magically, on the Winter Solstice. Then I’ll return to the silence by the fire and in the woods out back.

All those years

forgetting

how easily

you can belong

to everything

 simply by listening.

And the slow

difficulty

of remembering

how everything

is born from

an opposite

and miraculous

otherness.

Silence and winter

have led me to that

otherness.

So let this winter

of listening

be enough

for all the new life

I must call my own.

(excerpt from The Winter of Listening - David Whyte)

What the Silence Says – Marie Howe (from Magdalene poems – 2017)

I know that you think you already know but –

Wait

Longer than that.

even longer than that.

An Afternoon Walk in the Woods with Clouds, Blue Sky, Sun, and Snow

Weathering the Storms of Life

Coyote — Wise One or Trickster?

In short, stuff must be lost for everything to keep rising. This tells me two fundamental truths: one, that in order to evolve and grow, we must be prepared to face the erosive aspects of life. Two, it’s the weathering that creates the finest landscape of our lives, shaping us and defining us over time. Ruth Allen (Weathering: How the earth’s deep wisdom can help us endure life’s storms)

Waking to three ‘caws’ of Raven flying nearby and to a sense that I’d dreamt about new ways of Being with Life, I thought about the pinon pines in the woods out back. ‘They don’t fear fire,’ was the clear, deeply felt message. Indeed, if we would train ourselves to listen to the tree beings, we would likely learn that, in their deep wisdom and understanding, they welcome fire as an essential element to all Life.

Each morning over the last week as I’ve built the morning fire in my wood stove, I’ve felt the spectrum from gratitude to horror and sorrow. I’m grateful for my fire contained in a box of metal and stone designed to safely bring the warmth of burning wood into my home. I’ve recalled seeing evidence of long past fires that over time have maintained Nature’s balance in these woods. Fires that burned themselves out. Earth’s knowing. Earth’s ways.

Then my awareness shifts as I recall the devastation of nearby fires in recent years and, once again, witness devastating fires in California, now in Los Angeles. My heart is heavy for the suffering and the loss. I wonder how much destruction and devastation we must witness and experience before we see ourselves, our choices, our ways as an element in the ignition and gestation of such disasters. How much time and how much more futile effort to control natural systems will we waste?

When will we awaken to the reality that we are part of those systems? That all Life depends on cooperation within them and learning from them/with them?

I think similar thoughts about wars – past and present - and all forms of our inhumane, yet human, attempts at domination. How, I wonder, do we break these corrupt systems, each reflecting our own corruption, the rupture of our hearts disconnected from Nature, from the truth of our interconnectedness, our Oneness with All that is?

And as I wonder, I’m quickly reminded of the abundance of wise threads being woven into the fabric of Life around the globe, co-creating WITH Life a world that reflects these Truths. Although you aren’t likely to find them in the fear-mongering divisiveness of mainstream news, such choices and actions are ever present, building new scaffolding and creating opportunities for those willing to seek and for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Inviting us to play and to understand that Mother Earth has the wisdom and the ways of weathering Life’s storms.

As this new year unfolds, I’m looking and listening. Let’s BE and DO this!

A Bit More Snow on the Peaks

Winter Longings

Snow On Grandfather Juniper

No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter. Kenneth Grahame

Ah words that ring deep in my animal self on this first blog day of the new year. I hear the trees in the woods out back cheering, YES! Us too!

I begin this new calendar year much as I ended 2024. Longing for the deep snow, deep rest, deep reflection, and deep curiosity for exploring new territories via the stack of diverse books that found their way to me just in time.

This blog day I’m grateful for the snow that fell overnight Monday and into the day yesterday. I cherish yesterday afternoon’s meandering through the woods out back. Walking slowly. Pausing. Observing. Listening. Noticing where the snow lands and collects on the limbs, branches, needles, and cones of the Pinion pines and other tree beings. Smiling at the old tree stumps offering up ‘sculptures’ for those with eyes to see. Transformed by the snow, tortoise hides, while dragons, dinosaur, elephant, and a fairy castle catch my eye.

Hearing and feeling the soft crunch underfoot, I notice the absence of tracks in the fresh snow. No evidence that deer, rabbit, coyote, or bobcat have wandered through. No flitting of winged ones in the treetops as I take care with each step to land on firm ground rather than a slippery rock being or tender cacti.

I saunter in grateful awe of the quiet, although, like the snow, it’s not as deep as I imagine Mother Nature would prefer. Not as deep as I wish in my longing to more deeply snuggle into winter’s call for deep rest and reflection.

I notice in my longing that human habit of not being satisfied, of wanting more (or less, if the snow is too deep), a habit that seems all too deeply imbedded in our culture, separating us from Nature’s rhythms.

Deep. That seems to be my word for winter and for this day. Deep quiet. Deep snow. Deep rest. Deep reflection. Deep longings that, for my rhythm, are at odds with a shallow world that has turned the page into a new year, beckoning one and all to spring into action.

I resist the world’s call. Whether or not deep snow falls, my BEing, body/mind/soul-spirit, need the deep rest of winter to prepare. For in my time of rest and reflection, I connect with Gaia. With the cosmos. With Source, deepening my trust as I listen, moment to moment, day to day, to the call from within.

Spring, with its longer daylight, will come soon enough. The planets will align for more active, focused engagement in the world. For now, I’m blessed to listen and respond to winter’s call.

Tortoise Hides

Blessed Solstice 2024

Solstice Altar

The beauty of Winter Solstice is courage in itself. It is the courage to know that to be new is not necessarily going to be accepted by those expecting the commonplace. … a new you is ready … that will carry you through the new cycle. … Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the awareness within you, the new person within you. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

As we move closer to the Winter Solstice Day, I feel myself – my cells – beginning to settle, quieting in preparation for the deep quiet of the longest night. Recognizing that here in the northern hemisphere, a cycle is complete, and a new one will follow, while our friends in the southern hemisphere are at the midway point of their journey.

This is a time for going within to ‘be with Heaven without interference’ provided I can tune out the internal noise that all too often interferes with being fully present in the moment. As a time of completion and preparing the way for new beginnings, Solstice is a time for releasing everything. Farewell wishes and wants. Adios pain, worries, discomfort, and the stories that accompany them. Goodbye fears, hopes, and judgments, as well as all who have crossed my path whether in peace or discord.

I release all with deep peace and with knowing that which serves and all that is aligned with my Being and higher consciousness is always accessible to return when called.

As I write, I feel the gates opening for this release along with a hint of receptivity to the new, to what will emerge in this cycle to come. And I notice that this opens me to a Solstice Prayer …

May we release all that is not service to Life. May I.

May we each know peace within so as to walk in the world as peaceful Beings. May I.

May each of our paths be lighted with Truth, inspiration, and guidance to restore harmony among ourselves (and our cells) and respectful relationship with all of Nature and the cosmos beyond.

May we follow our paths to create a world is Life generating and Life enhancing. May I.

May we hospice and release all systems that are not in service to Life as we co-create new systems that honor and respect ALL Life.

May ALL Beings awaken to the Truth of who we BE.

Moonrise Over the Sangres