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

Life's Cycles

Morning Beauty Never Ceases to Amaze and Touch My Being

I have been saying, as have all astrologers, that this month and notably the lunar cycle we just entered is the biggest, most transformative energy we have ever moved through in current living memory. Dr. Michael Lennox, Astro Alert – July 15, 2026

What a time we are living in and navigating through! While the Gregorian calendar tells us that this 15th day is the middle of the month, planetary cycles, Life’s cycles tell a different story. In terms of planetary cycles, yesterday’s New Moon harkened a new lunar cycle on our planet home.

For the past several days I’ve been tuned in to and influenced by this new lunar cycle as it began, exploring possibilities for creating the future I’d prefer to live in and for my grandchildren and future generations to experience. My preferred future will require lots of pivots, individually/personally and collectively in community with others. I wonder about my readiness to make them and about our collective readiness. Do we have the will to let go of control and co-create with Life?

Sadly, we humans have lost much of our capacity to flow easily with Nature’s cycles. We’ve lost awareness of the Moon’s pull on our internal waters as we engage with human-made clocks, calendars, devices, and demands rather than the very cycles of Life to which we belong. Sometimes I feel a tug-o-war between the two.

I wonder what we are losing as we humans develop more tools that we are told help us become more efficient and productive. Indeed, what have we lost already? I think of how our so-called efficient agricultural practices are destroying soil as we worry about chemical additives like fertilizers being caught in the Strait of Hormuz. What do we not understand about Life?

Would the oceans be more efficient and productive if each drop decided to act independently rather than as one of the One? If one drop decided it was king and tried to control the tides? If a drone in a bee hive decided it was wiser than the queen and declared it was king?

In our/my attempts to control circumstances we/I separate ourselves/myself from the flow of Life. In this duality we/I suffer as we grasp for more control of that which isn’t controllable because it simply flows as Life. Perhaps our/my individual authoritarian efforts to control our environment being reflected in the rise of authoritarian regimes around the world.

I am certainly not immune from efforts to manipulate/control how circumstances around me unfold. That is the gift and the curse of free will. But when we/I use our individual free will for only our own benefit, without consideration of the whole, of our community and the community of Life, we suffer. We separate ourselves from the cycles of Life in favor of the cycles of (hu)man.

So, although the day of the New Moon is behind us, its energy, the energy of the new, the energy of intention and possibility is still available. It is a good time to reflect on our intentions and to wonder what is possible if we intend to connect or reconnect with the cycles of Life and evaluate our daily choices from that place of connection rather than from (hu)man’s disconnected systems of control? What is possible when we act from these Life-centered intentions?

How will we/I use the gift of the transformative energy that we’ve given by the cosmos in this blip of timeless time?

Sunrise over the Stupa

Revisiting Gratitude As Presence - Presence As Gratitude

Smokey Morning in the Mountains (3 July 2026)

Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. … Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)

I wake this day feeling a deep sense of gratitude and more at ease than I’ve felt over the last several days. As I take a breath, I realize the air is not smokey as it’s been in recent days. Dawn breaks with a clear sky and no smokey haze obscures The Mountain.

Settling in with gratitude in heart and pen in hand, the first words that come are ‘gratitude as presence’. The phrase has a familiar ring, but I set that aside for later and open to what The Ink wants to reveal. It responds quickly. Later, a quick search of past Pivot posts reveals Gratitude As Presence – Presence As Gratitude just a couple months back.

 Over the years and especially since last summer as I’ve paid closer attention, this Mountain, Crestone Peak, has become a Beloved guardian, messenger, and friend. I feel its watchful presence over me, over this piece of Earth that I’m blessed to occupy and steward, over the Cottonwood Creek watershed that this land is a part of and into the sacred San Luis Valley beyond.

I sense its guardianship as an invitation to deepen my presence, to listen, and to engage in stewardship and regeneration of the watershed ecosystem as a call to witness, to listen to The Mountain, the land, the water, the plant beings below as emissaries of Mother Earth, of Life. To recall, remember, restore the knowing that deepens alignment of my life with All Life. To recognize that merely observing and enjoying is but the doorway to deeper understanding and stewardship of that ‘something’ which we are each miraculously a part of.

This moment, this time invites me to witness and in that deeper presence to open to being called into action. Not impulsive, fiery, ‘solve the problem no matter the consequences of the solution’. Rather thoughtful, wholistic, integral action that emerges from listening to Life and cooperation with what wants and needs to emerge in service to Life. Listening to Mother Earth and to fellow humans who hear and heed her guidance.

This is the gratitude that rises to awareness as surely it lives in me as presence to Life. How can I not be in awe and gratitude for that?

The Mountain - Guardian, Messenger, Friend

Alignment From the Inside Out

Mountain Morning Beauty - Smoke, Clouds, Rays of the Sun

When doctrine ceases to be regarded as something external to one’s inner experience, it becomes at once the living principle of conduct. Kenryo Kanamatsu (quoted in Terry Tempest Williams’ The Glorians)

What might it mean to conduct ourselves in accordance with life, rather than in opposition to life in all its manifestations? It is this kind of natural conduct that I wish to embody in a soul-life supported by faith in the sensorial authority of Earth: what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. I trust the process of life. Some may call this God, some may bow to Allah, others may speak the name of Amida Buddha or Elohim. We can name this force field for ourselves as we celebrate each moment when our interior and exterior landscapes fully meet and merge in a story of humble accomplishment. Terry Tempest Williams, The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary

I’ve been deeply moved this week by the spectrum of Life that I’ve encountered. Like Williams, I aspire to embody a life of choices aligned with Life as a co-creator.

This week I’ve experienced Life through the senses as I’ve walked each morning. Smoke gathering in the mountains as the Sun rose over the peaks. A bunny literally hopping on the path. A small copper colored dragonfly. Lively birdsong one morning; eerie quiet the next. The smell of smoke from fires scorching parts of the west. The taste of fresh local organic produce. Grandmother Moon in Her fullness hanging in the western sky before dawn. Stuffy nostrils in the extremely low humidity, smoke, and high grass and tree pollen. A fallen nest on the front porch, eggs shattered.

Our senses bear witness to all of Life. As I become more alert and aware as a witness, the question deepens in me, I feel nudges, mostly gentle, to more fully align my daily life and choices with Life. I behold the sacred question: How?

In the midst of a drought that is now categorized as ‘extreme’ and nearby areas categorized as ‘exceptional’, I capture gray water in all my sinks and carry it to a nearby pinon. The same with water in the tub after each very quick shower. If I find myself grumbling about the time and energy expended or thinking ‘well maybe today I won’t …’ I think of those whose access to clean water requires hauling it miles on foot each day. I use minimal water for the basil and a few decorative plants, and I’ve turned over an area seeded with native wildflowers this spring to the bunny who munches there at dawn and dusk.

The car will remain dusty and dirty and a maintenance project that would require a lot of water use is on hold. I’m moving forward with planning to slow down and even retain some water flow when the rains finally come as surely they will.

I share this not to brag, but to sound the call that I believe we can no longer do life in the unconscious ways that most of us have done in the past. My actions don’t seem like much, so I lean into trust that this is enough for now, and that new possibilities will emerge in their time. Something greater than this, than I, is unfolding.

I witness what others are doing to align with Life here in my community and actively look for inspirations in what others are doing in the world. A couple weeks back I noticed a long snakeskin that had been shed near the Stupa down the road, and I saw the hole where the snake enters and exits its den under the Stupa. A few days later, workers installing edging around the perimeter had marked the snake’s home and drilled a hole in the concrete edging so the snake can come and go from its home. For me, that’s the type of awareness and intention that exemplifies aligning with Life.

What is deep in your inner world that may be calling for greater alignment in your daily walk through life?

Thoughtful Alignment in Support of Life

What If We Asked Life?

Smokey Morning Sunrise

If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. Jessie Potter

The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. Albert Einstein

Life on our planet is in trouble. … Our planet is sending us signals of distress that are now so continual they seem almost normal. …stern warning signals that we live in a world that can end, at least for conscious life. This is not to say that it will end, but it can end. … Just as lovers seek union, we are apt, when we fall in love with our world, to fall into oneness with it as well. Joanna Macy (World as Lover, World as Self)

This blog morning I wake to quiet, an eerie haze, smoke from fires hundreds of miles away has settled in these mountains and the valley below. I smile, recalling musing several days ago in my journal about learning to read smoke signals, recognizing the possibility that obstacles aren’t placed in our paths just to be overcome, but rather to inform. What might the obstacles be saying? What might they be asking of us?

What does Life need? What does Life want? I’ve been beholding this query perhaps for longer than I’m even aware. It’s embedded in asking my physical body what it needs from time to time when I experience some unfamiliar symptom or the recurrence of something familiar and uncomfortable. The query provides the context and intention in which I walk this land I occupy and steward. And this week, after engaging in several community meetings, I began to wonder what Life is telling us and what Life is asking of us as we dive into the complex problems in our community and our world.

What does Life need? Want?

Thinking of the idea often shared as a quote from Albert Einstein, we cannot solve problems with the same thinking (or consciousness) that created them, I wondered how we might think about community concerns and problems as ‘smoke signals’ or messages from Life that, in our culture and systems of separation, we have forgotten how to ‘read’. In looking for Einstein’s actual quote, I discovered that there’s no record that he spoke or wrote those words, but he did write that, the formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution.

I began to wonder ‘what if we framed our ‘problems’ in the context of Life?’ What if, in the multitude of problems our world is faced with, we begin to ask, ‘what does Life tell us about this concern?’ What if we shift our perspective of obstacles as something to overcome and ask ‘what is Life saying about this?’ What does Life need? Want? In reframing, reformulating problems and creating solutions, what might be possible if we ask, ‘How does this serve Life?’?

What if we invite Life to prioritize and guide us in formulating the nature of the problems we face in community? Might we begin to see these concerns differently and in doing so put Life ahead of our individual ego wants and needs?

What if we remembered that we live in an interconnected web of Life, connect to one another and to All Life? What if we co-created solutions WITH Life?

Deep inside – or perhaps not so deep – I feel Mother Earth and Life calling us, individually and collectively to pause and pivot, to slow down, to listen, to love. What call are you hearing and answering in this chaotic time?

Mountain Evening - Before the Smoke