No Matter What ...

Padmasambava Stupa - A Place of Peace - No Matter What

It’s a radical act to stop. Thich Nhat Hanh

The clouds come and they go. … We need to practice to be aligned with these times. … Nurture that which is constructive not destructive. … We practice to release the reactivity that results in more polarization. Cynthia Jurs (pre-election meditation practice)

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense. Rumi

We, the people,
The ancestors of our great, great grandchildren
Call forth the deepest wisdom
And the highest compassion
From the heart and soul of America
For the benefit of the entire Earth community
And the next seven generations
May Wisdom Prevail in the USA
May Peace Prevail on Earth. (Wise USA)

Election day has arrived here in the U.S., and I felt guided to pivot to a Tuesday post before election results begin to roll in rather than wait until tomorrow/Wednesday when results are known whether final or not. No matter what, I pray that today and the days ahead be peaceful, individually and collectively and that no matter who wins we begin to repair the fabric of our ideals and values torn asunder by a crumbling system that has seemed to thrive on polarization. Costly polarization to each and every one of us.

As election day neared, I have been present to the deep wisdom being called forth, not by the conflict profiteers of mainstream media, but by the vast networks of communities engaged in the deep work of raising consciousness. I have been uplifted and inspired by their words and invitations to participate in conversations, meditations, and sharing. They remind me that the peace I desire in our country and around the globe begins right here with me, for without peace within, there can be no peace beyond.

Wisdom from many traditions, many avenues both spiritual and political. Wise words to calm and center our over-anxious selves at a time of change, dissolution, and uncertainty. This is what I seek out just a few hours away from polls beginning to close on the Eastern seaboard of the US this election day 2024.

These are the voices that remind me that ‘no matter what’ the outcome of today’s votes my job is to breathe, to be present, to be clear and grounded, to trust. For indeed while the stakes of this election seem monumental (and, I believe, that they are), there is something greater at play in our world. I trust that the hand of the divine is present, no matter the outcome.’

No matter what, we must end our reactivity to the world, to others, indeed even our reactivity to ourselves. Reactivity separates us from one another, from ourselves, and from Source. No matter what envision a future where we move beyond the reactivity of fear into the mindful choice of calm abiding peace, compassion, and love.

‘No matter what.’ These three words have resonated deep within me over this past week in the wake of an experience which led me to write a lengthy ‘no matter what’ letter to a family member to communicate the love I felt for them, no matter what they had done. As events unfolded over several days, I was present to maintaining a sense of calm despite moments of worry. I felt the power of being at choice rather than falling into the trap of reactivity lurking in such situations.

The depth of love and compassion I felt writing presenced the power of these three simple words, ‘no matter what’ as an opening to less reactivity and more mindful, thoughtful response. I realized that no matter what the outcome of this election is, we need that mindfulness, that thoughtfulness, that compassion and care more than ever in this evolutionary moment of choice. No matter what, we are invited to make our way into Rumi’s field beyond right and wrong, the field where peace abides, and a new world is waiting to be born.

No matter what, let us join together to co-create that field and to romp joyfully in the Oneness that is.

Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

The Eagle & The Raven - Magic in My Midst

Nature and the Flow of Life …

May we listen to everything the earth teaches us and trust it to lead us onward in our efforts of expression and growth. Jacqueline Suskin (A Year In Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression)

We must tune in to our ability to see beyond the physical reality that surrounds us, and awaken to the vast unseen world that exists. Then we can begin to see beyond sight and to hear beyond sound. We see the underlying structures that support our world, and life begins to take on new shape, new meaning. When we live as multisensory beings. Sherri Mitchell

May we listen to our Mother, the Mother we share, Mother Earth and all of her wisdom.

Yesterday on the road to one of the larger towns nearby, a friend and I witnessed a sight that neither of us had seen before: an eagle and a raven perched side by side on a powerline post. It felt magical, a metaphor for what is possible. Illumination of the deeper truths of our being. Healing wounds of past and present divisions. Creation and the magic of a new world coming to light. What, we wondered, might those two majestic beings be chatting about?

The question is especially poignant for me, as I’ve been intentional in my curiosity, focus, and desire to align more deeply with Gaia. I’ve been particularly offering my attention to the land that I’m blessed to occupy and to the abundant life all around these woods. I’ve asked and reflected on questions aiming toward aligning more fully with Nature. To learn what Nature offers to teach me as I relearn what we in this culture have lost: the deep knowledge and wisdom of our connection to Mother Earth. The wisdom of the ancients carried forth in indigenous traditions who still hold this knowledge today. The wisdom of the plants, the animals, the soil, and the life that lives beneath the ground on which we walk.

The ways of Nature are our ways. We are not separate from the birds, the bees, the trees, the grasses, the soil and the unseen life below. Although different in form, we are the same in essence. Each and all part of a greater whole: Mother Earth, our planet home.

As I listen more deeply and intentionally, I’m discovering that aligning with Nature encompasses all the choices that I make in life. The choices extend beyond choosing what I eat and my sources for food and other consumables. I’m taken to the very core of my being physically, emotionally, and spiritually and the choices that I make in caring for and tending to each.

I’m becoming aware that as the earth changes – for indeed Gaia is changing, adapting to conditions created by we humans and to the energy streams in and movement through the galaxy – my physical body must adapt and change.

This new awareness is dawning in me as I experience physical changes and symptoms that are different to me. They seem more than what we’ve come to call the ‘normal process of aging’.  As I listen, I sense that, at least in part, this physical vessel is adapting to and with a changing, adapting planet.

I’m listening with the intention of ‘hearing’ the earth’s teaching through all my senses and beyond them. As I ‘hear’ more clearly, I’m building trust in Mother Earth’s guidance to ‘lead me onward’ in deeper connection with her essence, her knowing, into the Truth of who I am.

In the choices we make each day, may we listen to our Mother, the Mother we share, Mother Earth and all her wisdom. May we adjust and adapt ever gently to align with her more fully, and indeed, more peacefully. May I.

Snow on the Peaks … Winter is on its way!

Co-Evolving with Mother Earth

Over a few years, I became aware that I felt as though these seeds were nourishing me and the food, I was growing was nourishing me differently than the food in the supermarket. … I became aware that the story of the plant … somehow went through me on a cellular level and began to affect who I was. Over the years that has become a key part of my understanding of the value of our heritage seeds … The seeds have taken me on this journey … They have the ability to connect with the life and the soil and the sky … Mother Earth. They have the ability to connect and communicate with the Life and the world around us. And then, they have the ability, if we have a healthy gut, to pass that information on to us. So, we are back in the process of co-evolution. And that process is what reconnects us to ourselves, to the Earth, to who we are; and it gives us a place to stand. So I’ve come to understand that heritage seeds are the only seeds capable of building life on earth and holding everything connected. Kay Baxter, The Koanga Institute

Read that again. Even better listen to the story of Baxter’s 40-year journey with heritage seeds in New Zealand. (you can see it here).

This week is a bit of a pivot for me and The Pivot. I find myself in my own personal process of evolving amidst the chaos of our world and Mother Earth’s evolution, a journey that is inviting me to deep rest for body, mind, and spirit. It’s this trio that collaborate each week to create a musing to share. Today the body says, “please rest”, so I simply wanted to share this element of my journey of exploration. It inspires my interest in local food and its importance even more deeply and has me curious about the seed sources of my favorite farmers and gardeners here in the San Luis Valley.

I share hints of Kay Baxter’s experience of becoming aware, noticing subtle differences between the organic kale in our local natural foods grocery and that from a friend’s local garden or a beloved regenerative farmer nearby. That awareness and the information offered are nourishment for my evolutionary journey and the choices I’m making along the way on a journey to align more deeply with Gaia, our planet home.

Harmony in a Disharmonious World

From the Valley to the Mountains

The bridge from disharmony/fear/worry to harmony and love is trust.

These words landed on the page of my journal yesterday morning as I was reflecting on a reckoning of sorts that I was presented with over the last several days.

I was experiencing disharmony in body, mind, and spirit, recognizing that heart and mind and body were in conflict with one another. Body was making a statement that attention was needed. Not unlike our precious planet and her ever more intense calls for attention and change, I thought. Mind was confused. Heart needed to be heard.

It was an invitation to look at judgements that I’d held and choices I’d made that had served me well in the past. And that might not be serving me now. It was an invitation to harmonize within – body, mind, and spirit. A call from the heart to ask for its wisdom and to set aside choices of the past that no longer serve. I sensed that my experience isn’t unlike the dissolution of so much in our world as we discover choices of the past that no longer serve, individually and collectively. Indeed, I seemed to be a disharmonious fractal in a fractured world mirroring that world. Not the fractal I want to be.

The world’s disharmony it seemed was pointing to my personal disharmony. I saw clearly that when I’m not in harmony I worry. Fear travels with me, and is not a travel companion I want to embrace. In harmony, love is present accompanied by ease, a fractal in a more harmonious world.

I thought about fears in my past, like worrying over not having ‘enough’ money and how over time my disharmony around that was harmonized.  I noticed that the bridge, sometimes a long, winding road with scary curves, was trust. Moving through my fear was grounded in trust. The more I trusted, the stronger my trust grew. Trust in myself. Trust in a loving Universe. Coming more and more to know that the Source of all my good is far beyond the world and its systems.

In remembering that experience I was shown the bridge to shift out of fear, judgements, and stories about the issue at hand and guided to  trust. To cross the bridge from disharmony to harmony, however long and winding that road might be and whatever curves are thrown my way. To trust that I will be shown the path.

May we each find our way to our own bridges to harmony. And may our world be in harmony as we do so.

Yak - At Home on the Range

Why? A Deep Dive

Why? What Is My Deepest Motivation?

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche

One early morning as I was journalling, reflecting on a desire to participate in local food and regenerative agriculture initiatives, I became present to a bit of tension, a niggle. Something was ‘off’, not quite aligned. ‘Something’ wanted my attention.

Curious to discover what the tension was about I yielded into the query. What did I need to attend to? What adjustments might I be invited to consider? When no quick direction came as I continued to write, I turned to a nearby divination deck, Colette Baron-Reid’s Wisdom of the Oracle. Might a card offer up a resonate message to prompt my inquiry?

A clear question formed as I shuffled the beautiful deck: What do I need to know about my interest and desire to participate in local food initiatives? I asked before drawing a card.

Although reversed, the card I pulled was easy to read. It simply said ‘Why?’ The question resonated, and the source of my niggle became clear. Am I aware of all that motivates me to participate? Then I read the Oracle’s message for the upside-down card:

Sometimes subconsciously denying the truth may drive you toward a specific outcome that actually aligns with an intention hidden from your awareness. … Now is the time for deep soul-searching of the “why” that drives your choices. What you uncover will set you free and bring you ever closer to the happiness you seek.

As deep sigh emerged, curiosity replaced the earlier tension. I didn’t have ‘the’ answer (or even ‘an answer’). Rather I was shown a clear arrow pointing to a path inviting exploration, an exploration that at once I recognized I needed to attend to. The source of my tension wasn’t ‘out there’ in another person, project, etc. It was right here at home. IN me.

And so, my self-inquiry began. What personal motivations might be lurking underneath my interest in everyone in our community having access to nutritious locally produced food, in caring for our farmers and food producers, and in regenerating the soil in kindness to Mother Earth? Could unconscious reasons or hidden expectations offer up a repeat of uncomfortable, unsatisfying engagements I’ve experienced in the past?

I’m not rushing to discover answers. I’m observing in new ways. Questioning self and tempering my tendency to rush to conclusions. Coyote has been active and visible, visiting just this morning to munch pinon nuts under a pine. What hidden wisdom does she bring? What folly might I need to be aware of?

My soul-searching inquiry continues with a knowing that I want to participate only with full awareness of my deepest Whys and that each aligns fully with my heart and the deepening of my knowing the truth of Oneness. As I journey, I think of James O’Dea and his poignant Soul Awakening Prayer:

Soul Awakening

Heart Opening

Light Shining

Love Flowing

Wounds Dissolving

Peace Radiating

May that higher calling guide me in this inquiry and the choices that follow.

Coyote’s Morning Visit — Wisdom? Folly?

Intention & Living In Harmony

Autum’s Grasses, Evergreens, and Ziggurat

We either live with intention or exist by default. … It's not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities. Kristen Armstrong

This new moon day I’m declaring my intention to live in harmony. In harmony with myself. In harmony with others. In harmony with Gaia and all Her beings. In particular I’m focused on the power of our intentions, individually for ourselves and collectively for all, and on the rhythms of Nature. I’m revisiting each of my intentions with the overarching question: Is this intention aligned with valuing ALL Life?

With today’s new moon and solar eclipse arriving just a short 10 days after the equinox (autumnal here in the northern hemisphere, spring in the southern) the seasonal changes to cool, crisp mornings and splashes of brilliant colors on the mountains finds deep resonance in my body and spirit.

In many traditions the new moon is honored as a time to set new intentions and to revisit, revise and reaffirm or release those created on new moons past. The new moon is a time for seeding, and today’s new moon feels especially auspicious in this regard.

Stepping out before dawn this morning and gazing upward to the vastness above, I felt the clarity and connection of the cosmos, a deep knowing that I, we, ALL are from that same stardust. We are all different; we are all the same.

I feel that internal knowing more and more frequently these days. As I walk in Nature’s bounty and beauty, I observe what seems to be the ease with which She changes, a clear reflection of our ever-changing evolution. Buds to blooms to fruit to seed. A tiny green sprout to tall waves of verdant grasses and grains to fall waves of golden browns. Daylight shortens as the sun moves south only to pause and return, beginning yet another new cycle. Humming birds depart and nutcrackers arrive to enjoy the bounty of pine nuts.

I weave my observations of her seeming ease and flow as potential into my intentions for who I am becoming, indeed, who we are becoming. For surely change is afoot in our world and with it our potential to sprout the unique seed that lies within and to align ourselves with the nature of Nature.

At the same time, I recognize the challenges Nature faces – some a simple part of her natural eco-system, others imposed upon her by our human foibles of living in separation and our quest to control. She faces untold challenges and intrusions on the path, just as we humans do. Nature though seems to go with the flow, with her own ways and rhythms of response. We humans attempt to control it all to conform to our comforts, our profits, and our ways. Perhaps Nature has a more advanced view of what harmony truly is.

In the wake of the havoc and destruction of fires, floods, drought, storms, quakes, and volcanic eruptions, Nature seems to be inviting us to pivot, to shift our perspective, to reset our individual and collective eco-systems to align with our planet home.

As I revisit my intentions this day, I wonder, can we calm Gaia by calming ourselves and by moving away from our addiction to control and war as we move toward understanding and love and the Oneness that IS our true Nature? That, it seems to me, is the essence of harmony.

Seeds Ready to Fall

Pausing for Integration & Rest

Sticks, Stones, and Pricklies

REST is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. … To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavour, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting, and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back, literally or figuratively, from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner, static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange. (David Whyte – Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)

This blog morning I find myself saturated like a dripping sponge. I don’t want to wring the excess out of myself, rather I want to be with all the new that has come with this week of high activity and interaction. I feel the need to pause for the kind of rest that allows integration of the abundance of new ideas, new information, new opportunities, new possibilities that have emerged and are emerging in my world.

And so today, I yield the open and lovely white page on my writing desk to nourishment from David Whyte’s words that guided me into deep sleep last evening.

What to Remember When Waking

In that first

hardly noticed

moment

in which you wake,

coming back

to this life

from the other,

more secret,

moveable

and frighteningly

honest

world

where everything

began,

there is a small

opening

into the day

that closes

the moment

you begin

your plans.

What you can plan

is too small

for you to live.

What you can live

wholeheartedly

will make plans

enough for the vitality

hidden in your sleep.

To become human

is to become visible

while carrying

what is hidden

as a gift to others.

To remember

the other world

in this world

is to live in your

true inheritance.

You are not

a troubled guest

on this earth,

you are not an accident

amidst other accidents,

you were invited

from another and greater

night than the one

from which

you have just emerged.

Now, looking through

the slanting light

of the morning window

toward the mountain presence

of everything that can be,

what urgency

calls you

to your one love?

What shape

waits in the seed of you

to grow and spread

its branches

against a future sky?

Is it waiting

in the fertile sea?

In the trees

beyond the house?

In the life

you can imagine

for yourself?

In the open

and lovely

white page

on the writing desk?

Calm Flow on the Rio Grande - Del Norte, Colorado

Pain: A Way In

I wonder how the pine cone feels when it opens to let its seeds fall on fertile ground …

Pain is a doorway to the here and now. Physical or emotional pain is an ultimate form of ground, saying to each of us, in effect, there is no other place than this place, no other body than this body, no other limb or joint or pang or sharpness or heartbreak but this searing presence. Pain asks us to heal by focusing not only on the place the pain is felt but also the actual way the pain is felt. Pain is a form of alertness and particularity; pain is a way in. David White, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

A thread woven into my life in the week past is rest, deep rest. I’ve been both resting deeply and observing what arises from such rest, and I thought it would be the focus of today’s post, so I turned to David Whyte’s Consolations, remembering an essay on the topic. On the way, pain intervened.

Not felt physical or immediate emotional pain, but in Whyte’s essay, I discovered a gift that stirred the depths of another thread weaving in my life recently: health, more specifically my fear of ill-health. The stirring invited me in to shine a light on a recent health event and my reactions to it.

In shining the light, I discovered that my fear of ill-health is but a veneer for deeper fears lurking within. Weeds in need of plucking after being exposed in the light of new awareness. Weeds that upon being plucked open the potential for a transformational pivot from fear to a higher frequency. The pain of fear opening a way in.

The soil holding those ‘weeds’ seems rich with nutrients desiring to serve a different crop. Underneath each deeper fear, the soil offers up an invitation to plant that new, higher frequency crop. Like the nuts, seeds that fall from an opening pine cone.

An invitation to surrender found within the envelope of fear around losing control to a system in which I have little trust. A reminder too that ‘control’ is itself an illusion.

An invitation to trust awaiting the light of discovery in the envelope of fear of needing help and that help not being there, coupled with a fear that I didn’t do enough of the ‘right’ things to maintain my health.

Shining a light on my ego-driven fear of humiliation offered up an invitation to deeper self-love and self-acceptance. And, an invitation to compassion in the envelope of judgment that sometimes surfaces around the choices of others when they experience ill-health.

Pain, a way in? Yes indeed! Pain, a way into shining light on fears lurking, fears that have no place for permanent residence in a life that aims to live into the truth of Oneness and conscious co-creation with Source. And yet fears that when I allow them to visit, hold gifts, invitations to pivot into the very life I desire for myself and for all.

On my altar are three stones naming qualities that I aim to create in my life. They are my friends, ones I invite to take up permanent residence: Serenity, Harmony, Curiosity. This day it seems that my friend Curiosity has opened pain as an exploration on the path to establishing that permanent residency for the others: Serenity and Harmony. Paving the way with invitations to surrender, to trust, to acceptance and self-love, and to compassion. Perhaps a walk on the yellow brick road is at hand!

Friends on the altar …

From Villainizing to Compassionate Questioning

The Mycelial Nursery Begins

Evil is always committed in the name of something good. Evil believes itself to be good. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. … The world is in great peril and we have to step away from us-versus-them thinking NOW. … The mindset that demonizes one's political opponent is the same one that demonizes a foreign enemy to make war, or that demonizes a population to facilitate ethnic cleansing. Charles Eisenstein (Shades of Many Colors – read it here)

This September finds me on an inward journey much like that of winter when I snuggle in with myself (and, in years past, a canine companion) by a warming fire, hearty soup simmering on the stove. Yet this week while I’m inwardly focused – asking deeply about myself, our world, and myself in that world, I’m drawn out into Nature, to the woods out back, Cottonwood Creek nearby; opening to Her knowing. Her wisdom. For surely, She has medicine to heal the toxicity of our fractured world.

In the wake of last night’s presidential debate and on this 23rd anniversary of the events of 9/11, my attention gravitates to the political realm, to what is in the belly of the whale of our ‘us vs. them’ political discourse. I look within, wondering what choices I may be making that contribute to the toxicity, the villainizing each of the other.

This inward-outward focus is reflected in a project that I began on the September 2nd new moon: constructing a mycelial ‘nursery’, an experiment to support the mycelial network of these woods. And, hopefully, to yield some tasty blue oyster mushrooms just outside my door.

I sense that I/we need this deep work within to support Life thriving above ground to help us come to more deeply know, understand, and live into what I’ve called ‘the truth of our Oneness’, a focal point in my life that’s shared and reflected here in The Pivot.

I believe the knowing of Oneness is in us all, an untapped well waiting to be tapped, so that its nectar can flow into our lives. As the sweet nectar flows, we navigate daily choices through an ever emerging and evolving lens that helps us align those choices with the whole of which we are a part. Choices that invite, nurture, support the more beautiful world we long to live in and leave behind for generations to come.

I’m saddened by the toxicity I encounter – both that within me and in the world. Toxicity that seems to permeate every aspect of life. I think of the toxic chemicals, created after deeming that certain pests are villains that must be eliminated. Chemicals that kill our soil and pollute our water and our air. We are starving with full bellies as we ignore that Nature knows better than we the ecosystems She needs. And, She knows how to create them.

This same villainizing infects our body politic, with each ‘side’ taunting and demonizing the other, choking out thoughtful, reasoned deliberation and civil discourse.

If we are willing to look beyond the surface, we can see that toxicity rises from believing we are separate – from one another, from our planet, from the cosmos. For when we know that we are One, we will, I believe, begin to unwind and set aside our toxic choices.

There is no single right path or solution. We must each begin with where we are, questioning with care, to discover our own personal pivot points and evoke our will to pivot, not for ourselves, but for the greater good of All.

I’ve long decried the degeneration of civil discourse anchored in demonization. Yet this day finds me contributing to that which I decry, observing myself silently cheering for what seems to be a victory of one villain over the other in last night's presidential debate. I challenged myself to watch and to watch with as much non-judgement and open-mindedness as I could muster, desiring to bring forth my lens of Oneness in whatever way I could. And I did so having read Charles Eisenstein’s timely essay, a long, challenging read that invites us to look beneath each side’s demonizing the other, into the very belly of the whale that calls be transformed. Then, having looked and questioned our motivations and our  questioning, to ask compassionate questions that may help us get to the root causes of our multi-crises. He says,

The revolution we are seeking has compassion at its core. Compassion asks earnestly, “What is it like to be you?” “How did you come to be as you are?” “What is your story?” “What are your circumstances?” “What are your hopes?” “What are your fears?” “What do you want?” “What do you need?” And, as Orland Bishop says, “How must I be, so that you may be free?”

Such questions are for me like rich compost for soil and soul, restoring and regenerating healthy ecosystems outside and in. Are we willing to pivot to such deep, personal questions and care – not to change our vote, but to cast our old habits of separation on the compost pile of that which is decaying, and in doing so is growing nourishing new life of possibility? Am I?

Gentle Flow

The Ubiquitous SOULution

Grandmother Spider, The Weaver of Life

Move yourself into the idea of unity in the universe thereby allowing yourself to become fluid to all the experiences of the universe. Gregge Tiffen

The threads of wholeness, oneness, unity wove tightly into my week as I was reminded that the unity I seek in and for our world lies within my own journey to knowing that I am One with all Life. It’s as if every event that life presents points to this truth. Within the discord that I experience internally and witness in the world lies the potential to know.

Among the many threads in the weave was a reminder, sent by a dear advisor and friend, of a transcript from a talk that Gregge Tiffen offered decades ago, ‘United You Stand’. Much that I encountered reading and from varied media echoed the theme.

In a world whose systems are built on the rocky foundation of separation and division it is challenging to move beyond unity being more than just a concept that sounds and feels good but isn’t ‘realistic’. Yet in the words of Anodea Judith, “We can no longer afford the old, tired wars of you and me, us and them, this and that, instead of celebrating the amazement of each other’s differences. We must no longer see Heaven and Earth as separate concepts, as if the cosmic mother and father had filed for divorce and were splitting up the property, instead of being the ultimate lovers of eternity that gave birth to everything we know.”

She continues, “A world chosen for love is evolution’s next enterprise.” Love, it seems, is the path to unity just as recognizing unity is the path to love. Unity and love. Wholeness and Oneness. All is One. One is all. Time to upgrade realistic.

There are countless paths to bring the reality of the truth of unity to fruition here on our planet home. While each is different, the paths begin at the same choice point: Here. Now. Me. You.

As just one way to bring the idea of unity into practice, Tiffen suggests an experiment imagining oneself as the true nature of water. Think ocean. Think drop of water. He says, “It is a matter of saying to yourself, I exist everywhere. I do not only exist here. Then allow yourself to pull apart and become like a drop of water in the ocean.” He concludes, “You are the ubiquitous soul.”

Living in the high desert mountains, sand is a more apt and accessible metaphor for me. I am a grain of sand. I am the sand. Putting my bare feet in a sandy wash deepens this connection. Simply being present to the wonders in the woods that present themselves each day: the wispy gossamer of a spider web strand, nuthatch revealing a tiny hideaway in a tree trunk, a spider with barely visible legs, the twists and turns made by limbs over time. Each an opportunity to remember, ‘I am that. I am.’

Another of my practices is to intentionally seek and tune in to messages and examples of individuals and groups who choose this path. Examples abound, like the intrepid 96-year-old woman who shares the wisdom and awe of her “second childhood” in this short video To Be In Awe. (Watch it here.) As I watched and listened, I felt a sense of awe wash over me. She is living, fully it seems, into the unity, the Oneness that is Life beyond the illusions of division and separation that are all too often labelled ‘reality’.

For me, in her wisdom she knows that she is the ubiquitous soul, demonstrating her SOULution, with each choice she makes and step she takes.  

I am the sand … AND the ubiquitous soul …