Invite All of Life In

Sunlight on the New Blanket of Snow

We are in a time of tremendous volatility, not just externally, but for many people internally as well. On a daily basis, it seems, the world is flipping from one timeline to another to another. The future looks dark; I blink my eyes and all is bright. A blue sky fills with clouds in a minute, then they are gone again. Multiple realities coexist on a single planet. Multiple realities coexist in a single person.

… if you have been fluctuating between elation and despair, you are not alone. If despondency colors the breaking dawn, you are not alone. If a single ray of light (like a warm hello) dispels the despondency, you are not alone. If that hope is so fragile that a mere ill glance shatters it, you are not alone. Charles Eisenstein (read the essay here)

I experienced ‘one of those days’ a few days ago. Feeling disconnected, irritable, unhappy despite a soft white blanket that had fallen on Mother Earth the day before. The foggy funk lifted for a brief moment as I watched Zadie Byrd roll joyfully in the snow. As quickly as she hopped up the dark cloud over me returned. Unlike Zadie’s ability to shake the flakes from her furry coat, my efforts to ‘shake’ the cloud weren’t so effective.

And so I allowed ‘it’ to be and allowed myself to be under ‘it’ with whatever curiosity I could muster to discover any message hidden within. I had little energy to focus or ‘do’ anything, despite several projects and tasks idly awaiting my attention. I’d love to say, ‘so I just sat quietly and listened’, but in my humanness, I tried to force some focus, get something done. Oh, how our culture values toughing it out to check some task off of our to-do list.

Failing culture’s strategy for the blahs, I turned to Nature, the labyrinth and a long, slow saunter in the woods out.

This is where my solace lives. The place where my sadness can be, and my tears can flow with abandon.  The place that is receptive, understanding, and listens as no human can. The place that knows, accepts, and allows. The place that dissipates the dark clouds when it is time for them to go.

I think about the clouds that bring moisture to the Earth’s surface just as clouds of sadness allow my cleansing tears to fall.

Cleansed by Nature’s beauty and softness, her receptivity and acceptance, and by the tears that fell as I embraced a beloved grandmother tree, the dark cloud lifted. I am those clouds, the snow and rain, and I am all the tears as well as all the trees.

I remind myself that we are in a time of great change and uncertainty, of vast opportunity, and of an invitation to invite in all of life. The bitter. The sweet. We are invited to remember what our hearts know, and our minds have forgotten: We are all one, each a part of the other. The entire ocean is in the drop. The bitter in the sweet. There is no separation in the reality that is life.

As the Muse and I settled in for this week’s journey, I thought about the plethora of inspiring quotes that have been shared this week in the wake of Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing. Many have landed deep, resonating as wisdom for this time. Responding to a gentle nudge to find a pithy one to share, I discovered a recording of Thay reading his poignant poem, Please Call Me By My True Names. The poem’s final verses resonate as a prayer for all humanity to understand that we are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

(listen and read it here)

In our sleepy forgetfulness, we cling to the illusion that we can allow some of Life in and keep some of Life out. Alas, we wake and remember that all of Life invites us to open the door of our hearts and invite in ALL of Life. Indeed, may we grant All of Life our gentle embrace.

Beauty Before the Snowfall

3D: Damsels, Dragons, and Doggies

Dragonfly takes a little rest to enjoy a fading bloom

Light always lightens the load.

Recent experiences of life in 3D on planet earth here in the woods of the Sangre de Cristo range have found me focused on Zadie Byrd, in particular calming her during stormy weather (we’re in week two of our ‘monsoon’ season – more thunder than rain, though grateful for every drop) and at night when I turn out the lights.

So, what do damsels and dragons have to do with that, you might ask? Are there really dragons and damsels in the woods out back? Well, no (at least not visible to me in this 3D body), but during this time of exploration and experimentation with Zadie Byrd I’ve been blessed with several damselfly and dragonfly visits. These amazing creatures of nature symbolize light, in particular the power of light.

And light is what I want to shed on Zadie’s reactivity. Clarity to define a path to easing her tension and reactive nature is my aim. Lightening my load in the process is my intention.

About the same time as I began to seek the advice of experts, explore options, including the possibility of finding her a new home, dragonfly and damselfly began to ‘visit’. My first sighting was a dragonfly resting in a hanging basket while I tended the flowers. I took note and welcomed it, since, after all my home is the Dragonfly House.

Then, yesterday, I observed a damsel(fly) in distress – inside the kitchen window, flying into the glass in an apparent effort to get back to its world outside that window. The rescue and relocation were simple – a nearby yogurt container and a piece of paper provided just the vehicle needed to secure and transport this amazing creature to the door. Upon release, I wished it well and the damselfly quickly flew into a nearby pine where it landed, seeming to look down and offer a nod of thanks.

Damselfly in Distress

This morning after a walk in the labyrinth, I saw a brief flash of light as I sat on a log in the nearby ‘circle of elders.’ After a few moments, I decided to investigate the end of the log where I’d seen the flash. Voila! There was a (the?) damselfly. Reminding me yet again to bring the power of light to every project, every issue, every concern.  Light always lightens the load.

Yesterday’s rescue and this morning’s encounter remind me of a woodpecker that I saw tangled in a mess of fishing line in a bush many years ago. After calming the bird and painstakingly disentangling it, it flew to the top of the bush and landed. We looked at one another for a bit, me amazed that the being could still fly and the woodpecker seeming grateful for its freedom. I saw that woodpecker frequently in the days that followed.

The muse carries me to these tales (tails?) giving pause (paws?) for reflection and to remember that amidst change, especially change from the inside out, letting go of that which no longer (indeed may have never) serves us we sometimes take several steps forward, then falter or even take a step back. This part of the process offers the opportunity to take stock of where we are, where we’re headed, and make adjustments.  It can also be a pause for gratitude for whatever gifts the event is bringing us and a reminder that while nature is in service to us, we are best served when we honor and serve the nature on which we depend.

Although Zadie Byrd can’t speak human words to tell me what’s going on, like all canine companions she speaks through her actions, her eyes, and her body language. She takes me to that place of listening with my eyes and registering with my heart, a pause (paws) that refreshes.

Source of Light - Damselfly at Rest on a Log

Taking Time for Satisfaction

Labyrinth Rocks Seem Satisfied

It is the nature of stone to be satisfied. It is the nature of water to want to be somewhere else. Mary Oliver

Just as I was about to begin my search for a quote about satisfaction this morning, I had a little niggle for ‘a quote from Mary Oliver’.  So, I searched for just that. The little treasure found reminds me of two of my favorite things here the Rockies: beautiful conglomerate rocks and flowing mountain streams. Each seems quite satisfied with their nature, one solid and still, the other fluid and in motion.

The idea of satisfaction is with me as this week marks the anniversary of my cousin’s death last year and finds me approaching completion of the details of her estate, tasks that fell to me as the ‘personal representative’ named in her will.  With only a few details remaining, mostly to be done by her attorney and CPA, I began to take stock of the process, my engagement in it, and the changes in my life since receiving the call that Marty had departed her body for the world hereafter.

Taking stock offers the opportunity to choose whether to be satisfied with my participation or not and to declare that satisfaction or examine the source of any dissatisfaction. In doing so I find that I am satisfied, self-appreciative for my walk through the process. Not only the legal matters of executing her wishes, but also the honoring the promise I made to myself at the outset: no rush, no push, no stress. My pace. My way. Self-care is not an option.

Yes, there were difficult choices, surprises, obstacles along the way. I’m satisfied for how I met each and every one. There was learning, discovering, growing along the way – not all of it cushy and fun.  I’m satisfied with my openness to the lessons that crossed my path.

The year has been one of change and transformation for me. Her death was an unexpected jolt. I opened to receiving in many new ways. As the door closes on this chapter, I find myself in a field of new opportunities for stewarding not only financial resources but also my very life force energy. Fresh potential exists for creating more ease in life’s choices about where to focus my energy and attention.

Just as a new world has emerges for me, so it is with each of us in this time where the old and tired is falling, making way for the new and offering pivot points of choice. Will I/will we cling to the old? Or will I/will we lovingly send the old on its way and participate in creating and embracing the new? How will we choose?

I aim to make my choices from a place of satisfied, rock-solid conviction that the universe is a friendly place unfolding perfectly. And to do so with the fluidity of a mountain stream, knowing that flow and change are the nature of nature in an ever-changing cosmos. I AM the rock. I AM the water. What about you?

Cottonwood Creek - In the Flow of Life

Gratitude and a Piece of Humble Pie

Mountains and Trees and Sunbeams - Oh My!

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. Meister Eckhart

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Melody Beattie

 … friends, family, home, garden, labyrinth, the woods out back, pine trees, Cottonwood Creek, Zadie Byrd, Luke, health, computer, comfort, cool breeze, hummingbirds, flowers, neighbors, Elephant Cloud, Merc, helping hands when I need them, teachers/guides, awareness, remembering … These are just a few of the abundance of ‘things’ (including feelings, situations, etc.) that I quickly noted I am grateful for once I stopped and remembered to BE grateful.

I woke this morning with the word gratitude front and center and the message ‘return to gratitude’. Hmmmm… As one who aims to live in gratitude, I was humbled to need a reminder to ‘return’. When did I set gratitude aside? When did I forget?

Heartmath Institute’s ‘Quick Coherence Technique’ (click here for a 2 minute practice) took only a few moments to bring me to that familiar, visceral feeling of appreciation and love for all of life. My heart that had been burdened by a combination of irritation, regret, and confusion about the reactionary funk I’d been in, immediately felt lighter. I was more ready to meet and greet the day than I’d been for several days. Best of all I didn’t feel ‘grumpy’.

Grounded in gratitude I can begin to create some order in the chaos of my confusion around how I’ve handled several recent interactions with others and even with myself. I can pivot from confusion and irritation to curiosity. In the spirit of Nietzsche (see last week’s post here), I can seek to uncover what meaning I made unconsciously about the event, person (or canine 😉) that triggered my reaction.

From the ground of appreciation and gratefulness I can feed the version of reality that I want to experience and call forth in the world: the reality that we are indeed all one. In this reality the vices of separation – irritation, regret, anger, fear, confusion – are cast aside for there is no need for the false protection that we perceive them to offer.

Being grateful for the gifts of insight these irritations offered to me, I can forgive myself for the forgetfulness that contributed to the false reality of separation. As I let them go, I can be curious about what other messages the irritations may hold, what they point to in terms of what I care most deeply about.

Thank you. Thank You. THANK YOU. Let this be my prayer moment to moment, day by day, event by event.

Mountains and Trees and Clouds and Haze on a Lazy Sunday Morning

The Fabric of Nonviolence

Nature’s Art: The Beauty of Fresh Snow

To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. There can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace. Jiddu Krishnamurti (Daily Inspiration for February 2, 2021 from Pace e Bene - Campaign Nonviolence)

Perhaps this is what is so difficult about creating a culture of nonviolence: ultimately it is up to each of us, to our personal commitment to create peace within so that the threads we weave in our lives are threads of nonviolence. That concept is what drew me into my commitment to explore nonviolence each day during the 64 days of the Season for Nonviolence, honoring the legacies of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. https://gandhiinstitute.org/season-for-nonviolence/

While the themes for some days inspire me more than others, I recognize each as an important thread in the fabric of a nonviolent culture. This past week, I made the decision to watch much of the impeachment trial live. I revisited the shock, disbelief, and sadness I felt when violence broke out that fateful Wednesday just as I finished my weekly post. I wanted to witness the proceedings rather than rely on some reporter’s summary. I was curious and I felt a sense of civic duty to engage in that way.

In the wake of the trial, I began to question our system of justice and how it may discourage, even act as a block, to nonviolence. What threads might that system, indeed each of our public systems and structures, contribute to building a culture of nonviolence? What threads need to be dropped? These bigger, systemic question provided a backdrop for my personal musing on each day’s theme.

Today (day 19) the theme, acceptance, offers the opportunity to reflect on that which we find difficult to accept both in ourselves and others. I wonder how I might go beyond my judgements and resistance to fully accept the true essence of others, especially those whose words and deeds I experience as offensive or wrong.

I consider this as I look at the decisions and actions of political leaders and activists on all ‘sides’ as well as when I encounter a disheartening post on social media, especially those written by people I know. How do I/we accept ‘what is’ while holding the possibility for change as well as advocating and participating in bringing change about? Isn’t this what a commitment to nonviolence asks of us?

Other threads likewise offered points of reflection, questions to explore within. Reverence (day 15) brought me to a question that I’ve mused before: how can I deepen my reverence for ALL life? What do I most deeply revere? What is sacred? I began to imagine a world where we speak and act from this place.

Creativity (day 13) reminded to be aware of my ways of being, my thoughts, words, and deeds. What am I creating with them? Humility (day 14) and Gratitude (day 16) offered opportunities to reflect on my willingness to acknowledge when I err, to be humble in the face of life’s opportunities (often disguised as problems and challenges) AND to be grateful for those circumstances and people who offer up such opportunities.

Freedom (day 18) had me continuing a long-held question about the true source and nature of freedom. On day 17, integrity offered up the opportunity to explore how to live more fully aligned with my heart, what it knows to be true and its desires for the future I want to contribute to.

These seven threads, the 12 before and the 45 that remain are points of exploration and possibility for imagining a world where I/we speak and act to weave a culture of peace. May our weaving continue!

Nature Highlights Art

Mitigation with Love - Round Two

Mitigation with Love - a great crew of professionals caring for the land

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us. 

Shortly after I purchased the Dragonfly House almost six years ago, I had some mitigation done on the property and shared the experience in an early post of The Zone. You can read it here.

Mitigation is on my mind once again this week as I engage in another round of stewardship to protect my home and the old growth trees of these woods I love, and, to ease the touch of angst I feel about drought conditions and this year’s early start of ‘fire season’.

As I discovered six years ago, mitigation is both personal and impersonal, internal and external. This week’s events reminded me that it is also a path of discovery and personal growth.

Defined as ‘lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant’; ‘the act of making a condition or consequence less severe’; and ‘the process of becoming milder, gentler, less severe’ (thank you dictionary.com), life presents many opportunities for us to engage strategies of mitigation.

We mitigate numerous forms of danger, pain, pressure, tension, unpleasantness in every spoke of the wheel of life. In doing so, either love or fear is usually our incentive, and that incentive lives in the background as the foundation of our strategic choices, whether or not we are conscious of it.

Mitigation can start as a fearful reaction to an event or condition. Fear and its allies (anger, victimhood, etc.) generate resentment, resistance, confusion, and stress. Love, on the other hand, generates appreciation and acceptance and allies like creativity, ease, and flow. I experienced this difference contrasting two events this week. It was palpable.

I consciously took the property mitigation project on with love: a healthy respect for the drought-enhanced potential for wildfires, along with my love of all nature, especially these woods where I’m blessed to live. Despite loving each tree and wanting no harm to any, I accepted the reality of the fire danger and that sacrificing young trees would protect many older ones. I spoke my appreciation to each tree before the sawing began.

Although my heart held some sadness, I was at peace. I soon discovered that with love and care as motivators, the noise of the chainsaws was not as jarring as it might have been. Later, as I took my first look at the altered landscape, I felt an unexpected lightness and openness rather than the shock I expected. I was reminded that clearing creates space and opens the way for the new. The mitigation experience was becoming deeply satisfying, serving as a reminder of the beauty and power of action grounded in love.

In stunning contrast that I didn’t see until afterwards, the second event did not emerge as an expression of love. I found myself reacting unlovingly to Zadie Byrd exhibiting extreme fear as a thunderstorm approached. I reacted to my seeming inability to ease her discomfort as well. Double trouble! Although I love this new canine companion dearly, I allowed fear to take the wheel. The resentment, frustration, and stress I felt was painful for us both. In loosing awareness of my love, I was unable to accept her experience and meet her there with an open heart. 

Have I mentioned that our animal companions are amazing teachers? Be a student!

Only in hindsight did I realize that I could choose differently with love and acceptance of the reality of her experience. In that pivotal moment, I knew what to do, who to call for support, and, most importantly, how I needed to be with her in stormy weather. From that place, a plan is forming for immediate support and to mitigate her fear response in the future.

When you accept the reality of what is you increase your capacity to deal with it creatively. Myra Jackson

And, it seems that my pivot to love is already having an impact. The weather began to shift while I was writing this post, so I took a break and moved into action. Although my actions weren’t that different from the earlier event, I shifted my way of being to act from love and I accepted the reality of Zadie Byrd’s rather than resisting it. We weathered several hours of dropping barometric pressure and stormy conditions much more peacefully.

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us.  Indeed, our animal companions, along with the trees and all of nature, do teach us much about life. Be a student!

Storm? What Storm?