SNOW!

… So we choose again. Each morning, each meeting, each moment of heat, to respond instead of react. To include instead of conquer. To listen long enough for the deeper truth to surface. … Excerpt from The Agreement Beneath All Names.

I’ve been reflecting quite a lot on what divides us and feeds the appearance that we are separate. I hear things like ‘… we all want the same things…’ yet many, perhaps most, of us feel a great divide as we witness violence around the globe and right here at home.

I personally experienced the divide this week in conversation with someone who I both know well and trust. That conversation that revealed one candidate for a local office had misrepresented (the kindest word I can use) the positions of their opponent, and my friend seemed to accept the erroneous position as truth, becoming what I experienced as defensive when I questioned them and shared what I know the candidate’s position to be based on hearing them speak publicly about the issue.

For myself, I felt both frustrated and angry in that moment, unable to engage in the kind of conversation and listening that was called for to surface the deeper truth of where we each seemed to stand. Later, upon reflection and moving from anger to anguish, and finally, grief, I realized that the event had brought the great divide that I witness ‘out there’, all too close to home. I felt the deeper truth that when I can’t talk with another, I am separating myself and I feel the depths of that separation even while knowing that none of us a separate from anyone else.

Beyond the obvious politics of division designed to do just that what has so many feel so separate, so isolated that we lash out with violent words, actions, and war? What is happening to our deep care for ourselves, for one another, for community, for Mother Earth and all her beings, who are our kin?

I’ve been thinking about this in light of technology and the current concerns and debates around AI and data centers, observing and sensing that technology is widening the separation we feel and experience. Where is the sense of connection when an AI bot solves a problem we’ve encountered?

I take a breath and pause the Ink and look up toward the Mountain. The clouds have lifted to reveal Mountain white with snow! My heart, heavy in the exploration of separation, fills with gratitude and warmth that lift me beyond the separation. I know that I am not separate from this! My heart sings the gratitude I feel for the nourishing moisture that has fallen over several days.

I’m aware that as I’ve opened into greater, deeper interest and curiosity of what we call Nature, my knowing the Earth, my recognition of Her and Her family of Life as kin has become a part of who I Be. I know that I am not separate and that all Life are my relatives. How do I live more fully into that with my fellow humans?

While I didn’t expect that digression, I find it carries me right back to the threads of whether or not we will choose to allow our differences and technology to further separate us from one another and from all Life. The agendas of those who profit from the lack of care that separation breeds seem clear: divide in order to conquer; and squash care.

So I wonder, how will we regenerate the deep care for ourselves, our communities, and All our Kin that restores our knowing the truth of who we Be? How will I listen long enough for the deeper truth to surface?

More Snow Under These Clouds?? I wonder …