Breaking Habits and Patterns

Blanca Peak in the Sangre de Cristo range

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

Rising early this morning I built a fire in the woodstove to break the morning chill. Settling in to my habitual weather check before beginning to write, I discovered the internet down – no local weather, no email, no access to Zoom. Hmmmm… Perfect conditions for experimenting with adjustments to the morning and daily routines, especially since I want to feed Zadie Byrd earlier in the day to increase the time between her meals.

‘Zades’ looks confused as I begin preparing her breakfast before our morning walk and at a time I’m usually quietly journalling by the fire. When breakfast is served this four-legged lover of most all things ‘food’ needs a bit of coaxing to eat.  It feels strange to me as well, but as I go about the tasks of preparation the adjustment feels just right. I notice the easy flow and I begin to think about the weekly post: What wants to be shared today?

I remember an email newsletter that I’d thought about quoting and expanding on its theme, something like ‘sometimes the answer is not finding the answer’. The essence is that there are times when we need to stop, give ourselves time to reflect before we can know how to respond – themes that run through many posts and, indeed, my life (apologies to the great folks at Regenerate Change if I obliterated your focus).

I suspect that the reason the article grabbed my attention is that it reflects my longing for the deep peace and quiet of cold, snowy winter days when the hours of daylight pass quickly and the nights are long and dark.

Perhaps that sort of longing is what inspires people to decorate early for the holidays … but that (declares Muse) is a path not to tread this day.

l sense that my current longing for winter stems from the depth of intensity I feel in all of life, different from intense times in my past. I’m certain that my observations of global and national events is also a factor.

I see the intensity reflected in turmoil, rancor, and violence around the globe. I see it in Earth changes and in the planet speaking her language: earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanic eruptions, along with the beauty of new growth, vibrant health of some ecosystems, and the cycles of birth and death in all species.

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

This time asks us to break habits and patterns – from the feeding and care of ourselves and our beloved animal companions to the trigger-happy, warmongering reactions that have become all too frequent.

It requires that we break patterns of abuse – self-abuse and abuse of others in our thoughts, our words, our deeds – and that we live knowing that every human and every living thing has worth, has value, has purpose even in the darkest of times and conditions. Even, perhaps especially, when we ourselves feel unworthy or undeserving.

It requires crystal clear clarity to help us see beyond our old stories and into the creation of new stories that reflect the truth of who we are.

It invites us to BE and embody who we truly are – not who or what we (or the world’s old stories) dictate that we should be – and to embrace that we are each living in this turbulent time at what is the perfect, divine time for our soul’s development on its unique, infinite trajectory.

Humanity is calling, the Earth is calling, the cosmos is calling. How will we answer the call?

Nature’s Beauty in the Woods Out Back

This New Moon Day - Attend to Intention

Mountain Morning Beauty This New Moon Day

Setting an intention is like drawing an arrow from the quiver of your heart. Bruce Black

Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future. Jack Kornfield

Our intention creates our reality. Wayne Dyer

I woke up this morning with a clear message this ‘blog day’: Attend to setting clear intentions for yourself on this powerful new moon/solar eclipse day! I was clear as well that this is the message to be shared in this week’s Pivot. Muse nods in agreement bowing to the power in you, in us all.

Ancient traditions recognized the new moon as a time of new beginnings, a tradition and practice that continues to this day. For many years I have recognized each new moon as a time for reaffirming intentions previously declared and for creating new ones, examining how I want to be in the world, my desires for self and others, how I want the world to be and my role in bringing forth that reality.

And so this day I invite you not to ‘take time’, ‘make time’, ‘spend time’ (old phrases long past their useful prime) but to give yourself the gift of attending to becoming clear about what you intend IN your life, FOR your life, for the environment that you inhabit (home, hearth, community), for our world, for humanity, for our planetary home.

Take stock not just of your desires and goals but of how you intend to BE in the world at this potent time of change.

Create intentions that will anchor you as the winds of change blow stronger. Intentions that will support you to BE the change you want to see in the world. Intentions grounded in love that will buffer you from the fear that some will try to perpetuate. Intentions from the ‘quiver of your heart’.

May the winds of change be guided with love as they cleanse and clear and open us to the new.

Light and Shadow in the Valley

Winds of Change

A GREAT Book!

There is a peculiar courage required to dare to imagine a different world when our current reality is wracked with crises. It’s a daunting task to try to light up the dark when we’re huddled down trying to avoid monsters … Rivera Sun (from the Author’s Note, Winds of Change, 2020)

I sense many threads standing by perhaps wanting to be woven into the fabric of this week’s post. And I sense blustery winds of change blowing from many directions. Do I have the courage to trim my sails to catch the winds creating a future grounded in love and unity?

Over this past week I’ve experienced insights, mechanical breakdowns, curiosity about words and how we use them, pesky rodents, concepts and ideas that feel right yet are beyond my mental understanding, extreme winds, and a death in my extended family.

Over that same week the moon reached its phase of fullness. Venus and Jupiter were in an auspicious conjunction, adding beauty to the early evening winter sky as they call forth love, abundance, happiness. Saturn moved into the zodiac sign of Pisces. I’m no astrologer, but ‘change, big change’ is the theme that flows from those whose work I follow. In the words of one, we are shifting from the love of power to the power of love. That’s wind that I want to catch!

And somewhere between my life experience and these galactic events, the world continued to turn with all manner of mayhem and violence along with abundant acts of courage, creativity, and care around the globe.

Consistent in my awareness this week has been the phrase ‘the winds of change’. I feel that change deep within and I observe it in almost everything that is out there in the world beyond my door. I aim to not label these changes as ‘good or bad’, ‘right or wrong’ as I navigate, intending to choose winds that will point me to live in greater alignment with my values and my planet home.

As I dip into this soup pot of change what I find in the ladle is the importance of words and how we use (or should I say misuse?) them. Not a new topic or thread for these weekly musings, but important for our awareness and consideration now.

Wordsmithing has become an art, crafting messages to get attention, get results, incite action out there. The deeper root meaning of words all too often has been lost, changed over time to fit the narrative of those in power or of marketing and (so-called) ‘public relations’.

Two ancient words came into my awareness this week that fit this pattern. The word ‘abracadabra’ is mostly used as a term to describe magic, something that isn’t real. Yet it’s root meaning from myths and legends of the ancients is ‘I manifest what I speak.’ That’s the true power of sound, our power!

A word often used to evoke fear, ‘apocalypse’ means revelation, that which is uncovered and is rooted in a Greek word meaning to pull the lid off of something. Perhaps the winds of change are about to blow the cover of untruths … but Muse says that’s a topic for another day.

Perhaps it’s obvious, but it occurs to me that the words we use and how we use them are grounded in our perspective, our beliefs, and our intentions. Do we believe in unity or in separation? Love or fear? Are we consciously choosing our words to align with our beliefs?

What we believe matters. What we speak from those beliefs matters. Abracadabra! What I speak is what I manifest! What we speak is what we manifest! Perhaps the true apocalypse is that this and other truths understood and lived by ancient peoples are being revealed.

Do we have the ‘peculiar courage’ required to embrace and live from this perspective? To imagine and dare to speak a different world? To catch the winds of change toward harmony with Nature, Gaia, and one another? Do I?

Grainy Moon in Fullness

Creating Our New World from Inside to Out

Fuzzy, Snowy Morning Reflections

The mythic story of the earth and the gods whispers within us. John O’Donohue

May we increase the volume so that we can hear. Then, may we listen.

I found myself challenged to settle in, put pen to paper, and to invite Muse to join me this snowy, blustery morning. (Yes, The Pivot starts life on paper in my journal before making its way to the digital realm, cyberspace, and to you dear reader.)

Simply writing that sentence takes me on a quick journey through the vast technological developments in my lifetime and reminds me of the current pace at which technology is advancing. Muse smiles reminding me of recent exploration and reflections about just that.

With much of our cultural context continuing to focus on conquest, colonization, competition, comparison, and control unaware of new scientific discoveries that debunk those approaches, I wonder how we will apply new technologies such as artificial intelligence to all areas of life. I wonder how we might be more informed and mature with these advances than we were with the discovery of atomic energy? Will we make choices from the wisdom or our souls? Or will we …?

As I reflect on such questions, Muse reminds me of the wisdom in a recently read essay from a current inspiration, John O’Donohue: There is a labyrinth within the soul. What we think and desire often comes into conflict with what we do. Below the surface of our conscious awareness a vast unknown rootage determines our actions. … Outside us, society functions in an external way, its collective eye does not know interiority, it sees only through the lens of image, impression and function.

Individually and collectively we have separated our inner world from the choices that the set our direction. We fail to call forth the wisdom in our souls, the wisdom of Nature, of Gaia, and of the cosmos of which we are a part. And yet, as O’Donohue further nudges: The mythic story of the earth and the gods whispers within us.

May we increase the volume so that we can hear. Then, may we listen.

That story, that wisdom, that knowing is not new rather it is ancient, known to our ancestors, and imbedded within our DNA, and accessible to us. We access it in any number of ways: meditation, time in Nature, inspirational reading, connection with others, practicing heart coherence and deep gratitude. The list goes on.

My favored paths to connecting with my inner wisdom include time in the woods, walking with Zadie Byrd, heart coherence, and gratitude. Each offers a welcome mat and friendly environment when I invite wisdom in.

To help expand possibilities and to bring insights into daily life, I seek out those who are telling new stories about life. Those who are innovating new systems and structures to build a world grounded in the truth of who we are and our interconnectedness with one another and with all life. Those who challenge the mainstream and inspire me to let go of my old stories and the choices I’ve made based on them by offering a delectable menu of new ideas and discoveries. Gregg Braden, Nassim Haramein, and Woody Tasch/Slow Money are among my current areas of interest and exploration. Along with the plethora of individuals and small groups worldwide creating the new, these luminous beings help me maintain my curiosity, open new doors for exploration, and point to a world being created from the inside out.

Snowy in the Woods Out Back

Pivot to Wonderment

Fuzzy Mountain Moonrise

Wonder enlarges the heart. When you wonder, you are drawn out of yourself. The cage of the ego and the railtracks of purpose no longer hold you prisoner. Wonder creates a lyrical space where thought and feeling take leave of their repetitive patterns, to regain their original impulse of reverence before the mystery of what is. John O’Donohue (Wonder Awakens Us to the Magic of the World – essay in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong).

Oh, what deep appreciation I have for the places O’Donohue explores, allowing us to join him through the legacy of his poetic, heart-felt words. Wonderment, that comforting (for me) state of awed admiration and respect, is what spending time with the writings of this man of the soul evokes. I’m reminded always to be present to whatever is in front of me. And, to wonder.

Wonderment seems to follow wonder. Not in a logical, sequential way, but rather as a doorway. Without wondering, without engaging my curious self, whether I’m looking out at the world or journeying within, the absence of wonder separates me from the sheer joy of wonderment, of life.

I’m reminded of yesterday’s conversation with a friend as we drove past a herd of yak on the Chok-u-rei Ranch here in the valley. My friend observes that some of these magnificent creatures stand close to one another as they graze. She wonders ‘what do they talk about in their closeness?’ I scan the herd looking for the youngsters and wonder at their playful romping, chasing one another before returning to their munching.

It is wonder that gifts us with the presence to notice the herd on this route we’ve each travelled hundreds of times over the years. The regenerative soil practicing ranch spans the only road from our community to the main highway, a 12-mile road through the flat valley floor that without a sense of wonder could be (and admittedly sometimes is) a blur.

Coming back from our journey we drive toward the mountains and quietly share our wonder at how their appearance shifts with various angles of light. Soon the moon, just past its fullness and being eclipsed by Mother Earth, will rise over the Sangres, offering another spectacle inviting wonderment of this place.

The wind blows strong and steady as I write this morning. I turn my wonder within as I aim to remember to do when weather is not to my liking. How might I embrace the wind as an element of the greater winds of change blowing all around in this cycle of time? Surely this element of air and its time of rapid movement has purpose in the ebb and flow of life. What might it be blowing out? What is the wind ushering in?

This seemingly simple flow of words eases the dread I was beginning to feel about the morning walk with Zadie Byrd. Embracing wind for what it is – a necessary element of Nature, unseen yet powerful – eases my need to ‘brace’ for stepping outside.

Muse nods with a smile, acknowledging my pivot, shifting from my early morning look at election returns to see if the unexpectedly tight race in my Congressional district has been called (it hasn’t – hope springs eternal!) to turning within to discover what wants to be shared in this weekly sacred space.

It occurs to me on this morning after midterm elections here in the U.S. that pivoting to wonderment offers a pathway for bridging the vast gaps that divide us. How might we shift from disdain, disagreement, ‘my way is the only way’ thinking and ways of being to genuine, heart-felt wonder about one another? How might we see that indeed there is no ‘other’, just the One. How might I?

I’m grateful for those engaged in the political, policy, and governance realms who are working towards bridging these divides. I’m grateful too for the wonder and beauty of Nature that surrounds and informs me in Her way. As the winds grow stronger this day, I’m reminded that wonderment is a path to embracing all of life even, perhaps especially, the wind.

Cottonwood Creek - Leaves Fallen, Ice to Come

To Witness the Beauty of Earth

Beautiful Morning On the Trail

The beauty of the earth is the first beauty. Millions of years before us the earth lived in wild elegance. Landscape is the first-born of creation. Sculpted with huge patience over millennia, landscape has enormous diversity of shape, presence and memory. There is poignancy in beholding the beauty of landscape: often it feels as though it has been waiting for centuries for the recognition and witness of the human eye. John O’Donohue (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)

 I’ve been on a bit of a retreat for much of the last week. New awareness rising. Love of the land I occupy deepening. Something (perhaps, some ‘things’) stirring, bubbling, shifting. Not good or bad; simply a sense that change is afoot.

 Change in me amidst. Change in our structured world. Change on (and in) Mother Earth. And beyond.

In this emerging awareness few words rise to be shared. Reading ( O’Donohue’s essay (The Affection of the Earth for Us) and reading again feeds the stirring, tapping my shoulder with a call to see beauty, acknowledge beauty EVERYwhere. Especially in the beauty of my place on the planet.

With Muse concurrence I simply leave you with O’Donohue’s closing words, along with the beauty of this sacred place I’m blessed to call home, and with an invitation to open to and embrace the beauty of your place on our marvelous blue marble.

We were once enwombed in the earth and the silence of the body remembers that dark, inner longing. Fashioned from clay, we carry the memory of the earth. Ancient, forgotten things stir within our hearts, memories from the time before the mind was born. Within us are depths that keep watch. These are the depths that no words can trawl or light unriddle. Our neon times have neglected and evaded the depth-kingdoms of interiority in favour of the ghost realms of cyberspace. Our world becomes reduced to intense but transient foreground. We have unlearned the patience and attention of lingering at the thresholds where the unknown awaits us. We have become haunted pilgrims addicted to distraction and driven by the speed and colour of images.

Sacred Mountains, Sacred Place

Two Bucks and a Raven

A Buck and the Bell

What does Nature say?

A few days back in the early morning the temperature at dawn was only a couple degrees colder than the normal high temperature for that day. As I opened my journal and picked up the pen this was the stream of words that came. “Mild morning – 30 degrees, house chilly, no fire last night – VERY unusual. Fire going now – warming and lovely.”

“I feel Nature’s confusion … ‘tis the season of winter,

And no snow on the ground

Chilly not COLD

Other than an occasional blast (for a day or so)

Then warming with low temps as high as the normal high and

High temps reaching towards records.

My heart feels the inward pull

Of the season – ‘Snuggle in, Rest, Read, Contemplate.

The warmth and sun pull me out.

Like a see-saw, tug-of-war on the playground of Life. DoBeDoBeDoBeDo…

I don’t know how to be in these woods in this season without snow,

The Earth without her white blanket. Is She patiently confused?

What might She know that I do not yet ‘hear’, my untrained senses trying to make sense of the season that doesn’t match my mountain experience?

But is more like the experience from another place, another time this life,

Sea level in Houston or the Llano Estacado in Lubbock – warmer winters.

I break my writing flow to tend the fire. The beauty and warmth of the slow burning logs and multicolored flames draw me in and

I feel a wave of warmth, of depth, of gratitude for all that makes possible my comfort.

Logs added with a full heart, I notice the sky – brilliant orange, red, pink on the horizon and I step outside to the distant sound of Raven – ‘the Magic is Love’ –

Yes, Raven, I remember . These words of your ‘Caw’

Will not be forgot. And I will listen as you speak for other wisdom you may impart.

Flowing in the morning stream is a joy that settles and soothes

Offering a way of Being in the Doing of this day.

I move with gratitude,

Still curious about the confusion that sits in me …

What does Nature say?”

When one asks a question it’s polite to listen to/for the answer. Raven brought this home to me on our morning walk shortly after this journal entry and its ending question: What does Nature say? Raven was raucous, louder than usual and flying about in the treetops and near the ground seeming to want to be heard, not seen.

I noticed. And I didn’t take my observing deeper or connect it to the question I’d posed less than an hour before. Rather rude to ask and not listen. Later, when I finally made the connection, Raven seemed to be sounding a ‘caw’ to heed Nature, to listen with all my senses. Duh! Ask and it is given. But you must be aware and willing to receive. Sometimes it takes a brassy Raven’s ‘caw’ to open me up.

The following afternoon after a lovely walk with Zadie Byrd (who has her own ways of getting my attention and teaching), I headed into the woods out back to walk the labyrinth and commune with the pines. As I approached the labyrinth, a handsome four-point buck was in the outermost circuit grazing seeds fallen from the bird feeder above. I stopped. He looked up and after a few moments looking may way, turned his eyes and his muzzle to the ground, apparently finding the seed more interesting and nourishing than me.

After a few more moments I slowly eased closer, step by step, present to his gentleness and grace. Aware that he was aware of my presence, yet not threatened.  After a bit he began walking slowly toward me through the inner circuits of the labyrinth. My gaze focused on him, his on me; each of us seeming to say, ‘thank you for sharing … we are safe here.’ I let him know that I am listening, and I sense he was conveying a reminder of the importance of increasing my capacity to adapt. Deer thrive in part because of their capacity to adapt to changing conditions. And gentleness is a part of their way.

As if to confirm (or perhaps to see if I was continuing to listen) and to remind me that adapting and change require rest, he returned yesterday with a friend. Just before heading out for a walk, my eyes were drawn to the woods where two bucks were resting, heads up and observant, about 15 yards apart.

This winter the variety of birds in the woods and at my feeder is abundant, each carrying their messages in response to my query.

I’m listening. What does Nature say?

Resting with Awareness in the Woods Out Back

Into The Deep

The Deep

Just as there is unseen beauty and life in the deep of the ocean, there is beauty, life and meaning in our own, sometimes dark, silence.

I find myself using the word ‘deep’ quite a lot these days. It’s an interesting word that, depending on how you use it, can be a noun, an adjective, or adverb. (No, I don’t intend these posts to be a weekly grammar lesson, but I’m fascinated by words and their power – perhaps the Muse will engage there one day.)

I notice my use of the word in all those forms in my thoughts, conversations, writing (duh!), and, especially in my awareness. I feel deep gratitude for my life, for life, for being here with Mother Earth in this body at this moment in time. I feel a depth about life and in life that is new to my being. I feel excited, curious, and trepidatious, all of which I’ve experienced before, yet they feel different now. That difference doesn’t have (and may never have) have words. The Deep. Deeper.

I sense we humans – individually and collectively – are in a deep shift, a transformation, a leap forward in consciousness as new knowledge, new scientific discoveries make their way into our awareness. This calls forth my curiosity and excitement. New knowledge, new discoveries are emerging into our awareness with ‘slim to none’ (and, as the saying goes ‘slim is out of town’) help from the so-called mainstream media or our storied institutions of education and government, most of which seem to be on increasingly shaky ground.

Coming to grips with this recognition that what we’ve been told and encouraged to believe is ‘the truth’ and necessary for our security stirs trepidation as we recognize that we too are on that shaky ground. We’re reckoning on many fronts: the Earth will no longer tolerate our reckless choices; the history most of us were taught is, at best, incomplete and written from the perspective of the so-called winner; our health and healthcare needs are personal and individual; and new scientific discoveries are expanding our understanding of who we are. Indeed, sometimes it feels like we are in ‘deep doodoo’.

As I’ve written before, I often find myself exploring and asking how I can live in greater alignment with Nature. I’m aware that I do so with the unspoken proviso that my comfort level isn’t diminished – I suspect most of us, knowingly or not add such a condition to our questioning. I’m also wrestling with a bit of history from my early teens: the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963. I wonder how that event, which happened just 30 miles from my home, has influenced me. I wonder when – if ever – the ‘whole truth’ will be released. A recent Charles Eisenstein essay has helped my understanding

I’m learning to be with that ‘deep doodoo’ feeling, to allow it, to accept that there is much that I do not know, even to be with sometimes feeling impotent to make a difference. That is part of being in The Deep. Christian mystics would call it ‘the dark night of the soul’. I’ve come to more deeply appreciate that just as there is unseen beauty and life in the deep of the ocean, there is beauty, life and meaning in our own, sometimes dark, silence.

Eventually, from the darkness of The Deep, light follows. I remember that knowledge begets awareness and the wisdom to choose differently. I remember that truth tellers and discoverers of our past have been maligned and then, eventually revered. Their discoveries shaped history, the lives we live today, and our very being. May we remember that as new discoveries far beyond those of history surface.

In the light, it feels as if we are on the cusp of new discoveries which will bring forth greater awareness of our potential in a Universe that is infinite. Not our potential to have more, do more, etc., but our potential to know more, to understand our access to vast stores of knowledge, and to BE what/who it is that we truly are.

Sunset Beauty’s Prelude to The Dark

Pivot to Invest in People and the Planet

Sunset in the Woods Out Back

Your vision will become clear only when you look inside your own heart. … Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung

What is your vision for our world? For humanity? For the planet on whose health we depend? Do you envision a world of peace? Of prosperity? Of social and economic justice? Do you envision, as I do, humanity learning to thrive in cooperation with one another and with Mother Earth? This is the future I want for my grandchildren, indeed for ALL the children around the globe and for future generations.

I found Jung’s familiar quote in a wonderful little book of large ideas and possibilities, Integrating Money and Meaning by Maggie Kulyk, a theologian turned financial advisor (https://chicorywealth.com/). She tells the story of a pivotal question asked by her 11-year-old daughter as she was researching possible stock trades to “make a little extra money”. Maggie recall her daughter wondering “if it bothered me that the way I was making money had no meaningful social purpose”.

The youngster’s awareness and questioning reminded me of a question my young stepson asked me once: “if you’re so interested in being healthy, how come you smoke?”. Wisdom often cuts to the core and James Michael’s question invited me to acknowledge that my choice to smoke was not in alignment with valuing my health. (I quit sometime soon thereafter.)

The wisdom of youth often sees those places where our choices, our words, our actions are not aligned with what we say that we believe and what we want for ourselves and our world. Bless them for their voices. When we are willing to look inside, question ourselves with courage, and listen, we are likely to hear an inner voice that, like the children, points us to opportunities for realignment. May we hear and consider the wisdom of both.

Doing so in the financial arena has been an area of interest for a long while. Over a year ago, I began to ask the question: how can I do greater good with the money in my IRAs while also growing and protecting it for my later years? My small nest egg had been invested in ‘socially responsible’ funds for years, but I was curious: what else is possible?

What about you? Are you willing to ask: What is my money doing in the world? What are my investments contributing to? What are the practices of the companies I invest in? Is my money in alignment with my values? What adjustments am I willing and able to make?

In asking such questions, I’ve discovered a number of resources and possibilities that I want to share this week in celebration of Earth Day:

• Watch the story of Marco Vangelisti’s journey from investment banking to a commitment to “aware and no harm investing” (https://ek4t.com/marco-vangelisti/). If this theme resonates and you want to learn and act on more, I highly recommend Marco’s website resources and his classes.

• Wake yourself up to the cost of investing solely for the sake of wealth accumulation and see how RSF Financial supports community building  (https://moneytransforms.com/).

• What about investing in underserved communities to create an economy that works better for all: (https://www.mycnote.com/). [Small Print/Disclamer:  I’m providing these resources for you to check out and, if interested, do your own due diligence.]

Humanity is at a pivotal point. Examining our money, including why and where we invest, and our values can lead us to make personal pivots that are not only good for us, but also for our communities and the planet.

A Place for Going Within - Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

Pivoting to the Feminine

The Beauty and Softness of a Winter Morning

Western women will save the world. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Several threads woven through my week focus on the idea, the necessity really, of integrating feminine principles and energy fully into our culture. Wikipedia lists the following as traits of the feminine:  nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection, tenderness, and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding. Who among us would not agree that more expressions of these qualities will make the world a better place?

Women as well as expressions of these principles were, from my perspective, front and center in both the Inauguration of President Biden last week and in the new President’s first week of executive actions and his communication with we the people.  I found that refreshing, inspiring, and hopeful.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is famously quoted for saying that 'Western women would save the world' at the Vancouver Peace Summit in 2009. He went on to say "Some people may call me a feminist...But we need more effort to promote basic human values — human compassion, human affection. And in that respect, females have more sensitivity for others' pain and suffering."

Those words came to mind instantly when Alice Walker’s poem 'Calling All Grand Mothers' published in 2010 landed in my inbox, giving further voice to the urgency of this pivot. 

Calling All Grand Mothers

We have to live
differently
 
or we
will die
in the same
 
old ways.
 
Therefore
I call on all Grand Mothers
everywhere
on the planet
to rise
and take your place
in the leadership
of the world ….

You can read the rest of this timely, poignant poem from Hard Times Require Furious Dancing here:

The feminine is not solely about what we DO, but rather how and who we BE.  It is not about gender or sexual preference. Men, women, LGBT, straight, all of us have access to the energy that is feminine. 

It is about the perspectives we hold in life and the beliefs and actions that follow. A few days ago a Facebook post shared by a friend related a conversation between two men talking over a beer. One got up saying he was going to go 'wash the dishes'. The other seemed surprised and said "I don't help my wife." The man going to wash the dishes replied that he wasn't 'helping his wife', that he lived in the home and had a responsibility to participate in its care. That represents collaboration, cooperation, empathy and so many other feminine principles in action!

A deep knowing that ‘we have to live differently’ has long been a theme running through these weekly muses and my life in general.  I often ask myself ‘what do I need to shift to be a better partner on and to the planet?’.  Powerfully weaving more feminine threads into my expressions of life seems to be an element of the answer. Join me?

Zadie Byrd’s New Friend