Good Morning Sun!
Words are my matter. I have chipped one stone
for thirty years and still it is not done,
that image of the thing I cannot see.
I cannot finish it and set it free,
transformed energy. Ursula K. Le Guin (The Mind Is Still – 1977)
As I sit in the pre-dawn quiet, I wonder what words meet this moment, this time in which we find ourselves. A time that is challenging beyond what perhaps we could have imagined. And a time that we chose to be here.
Tried and true words don’t seem adequate. We need new ones just as we need new stories, new beliefs, new ways of understanding and of being to align us with Mother Earth, one another, and all Life.
Today’s weather everywhere is reflective of these times. Here in the mountains, the overnight temperature was warm and today the forecast is ‘hot’. Perhaps we need to cool ourselves off from within, chill out on many levels. Not ‘them’, those who we think are the ‘problem’ or the cause of it all, but all of us, me, you, everyone. I’m not suggesting the chill of escape or denial. Not chill as in lounging under a fan at the beach sipping pina coladas, munching on bonbons, while reading fluffy love stories. Although we do need to relax and play, laugh and sing and dance, we need to do so in the spirit of transformation, community building, and care for Life.
For all those faults that we see and decry in the ‘other’, we are being called to find where those same faults dwell in ourselves and to choose whether or not they remain. We need to transform now, because what we’ve accepted, created, sustained, and maintained not only doesn’t work, but it is also killing us and endangering all Life. We, not ‘them’, but me, you, each of us by our thoughts, our words, our deeds are contributors to what is happening in the moment. And we have the power to shift what is happening by making choices in thought, word, belief, and action that are aligned with Life. Bringing ourselves into alignment with Life is the opportunity of our time.
Our choices are the proverbial elephant in the room, yet we need not focus on the weight of guilt and blame. We need not eat the elephant one bite at a time as we’ve been told. Rather we have the opportunity, and yes, the responsibility to tune in and listen to the wisdom of these majestic beings and all their kin, including the Earth herself.
Despite the claims and clever marketing of individuals, groups, institutions, etc. that theirs is the only right way, there is no single path or one right way for we are all different, each with our own path to discover, to create, to travel.
Increasingly my path is one that moves between quiet, stillness and active exploration, engagement. In stillness, I’m often sauntering in the woods, sitting by a creek or the nearby stupa, humbly and simply asking for the wisdom that lives there to reveal itself. Indoors, the pen often comes out as I consider choices I’m making and whether they reflect reverence for Life.
Recently I found myself troubled by a decision to live trap and relocate squirrels and chipmunks that have found a way to enter the attic of my home. I grapple with my choice as I see clearly how it reflects; indeed it is, the thinking that has led to the inhumane treatment of immigrants today and of indigenous peoples in this country’s past. And yet I need to care for the safety and integrity of my home. And that is just the kind of rationalization used, consciously or not, in creating many of the conditions that we are attempting to grok, navigate, and change.
On the path I’ve chosen, I need to reckon with issues like this. Perhaps we all do in some way so that we recognize our part in the moment.
In active exploration and engagement, I’m discovering and connection with those who are creating new systems, new ways of doing that are more aligned with Life. Community building, regenerative agriculture, and other regenerative systems grounded in social and economic justice.
I’m chipping at my own stone of remaking our world. Thought by thought. Word by word. Step by step. Each hopefully designed for transformation, the remaking of me and of the world we share.
What about you? What are you thinking? What are you attending to? How does it nurture Life?
Good Night Sun …