Mountain Morning Beauty

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Glorians are reaching out to us inviting us to dream a new world into being. Terry Tempest Williams

She saw beyond what is and generously nurtured what is possible in a world where all know that we are not separate from one another, from Nature, from Life.

What to do with this time of chaos and dissolution, of conflict both personal and global, and of difficulty discerning what is true is a question that lives in all of us on some level.

For far too many it is a question of survival. Of finding safety in a war zone. Of having enough food. Of surviving through unwarranted detention. Of access to medical resources. Of having access to shelter. For the very few at the other extreme, it seems to be of fueling the chaos to accumulate more – money, power, control.

What about we who find ourselves somewhere between these extremes? Extremes resulting from generations of systems and choices built on the false notion that we are separate from one another and from Life. Colonization. Property ownership. Artificial borders and boundaries with no relationship to the natural world. And so much more.

How do we awaken the latent knowing that we are not separate from Life? How do we live in greater alignment with this truth? These questions have become my exploration and personal quest in recent years, and this week I began to sense it as the legacy I wish to leave behind when this incarnation is complete.

I generally don’t think of my legacy as I make choices about what to attend to each day. Mostly I simply aim to be more aligned with Life. But the convergence of several things including reading Terry Tempest Williams The Glorians and a conversation with a leader in my local community in which he shared how he wishes to be remembered inspired me to reflect on just that.

‘Might doing so deepen my commitment?’ I wonder as I emerge from an extended period of hibernation and ‘hermiting’. In this emerging, I observe what attracts my attention and interest: regenerative systems and projects; watershed restoration; local food sovereignty and security. Even in the enjoyment of tenderly caring for plant beings as I move them outdoors (they hibernate inside with me in winter!) and being awestruck at the beauty that greets me each morning as I walk a nearby trail, I notice a familiar thread: the possibilities for a world where separation is no longer a driver in life’s systems – individually and collectively.

Observing this thread, I’m reminded of a verse in The Agreement Beneath All Names:

We do not begin with treaties.

We do not begin with borders.

We begin beneath language,

where breath remembers breath.

Here the Earth is not divided –

She is listening.

 I’ve been speaking The Agreement each evening outdoors since I received it in early January. Now many mornings as I sit in the dawn light looking at Crestone Peak, I speak it to The Mountain. In the cold of winter, it kindled that place in me that knows we are not separate. Now the daily practice nurtures and feeds that same place. Deepening my knowing that I am not and we are not separate. From one another. From Nature. From All Life.

In deepening my remembering of this Truth, I ask ‘what is mine to do that will nurture its manifestation on Mother Earth for All Beings, All Life?’ Perhaps that is legacy in the making.

Raven Waking and Watching