How BIG Are the Little Things?

Everything is a part of Everything else

Everything operates on behalf of everything else

Everything is interactive, interrelated, and interdependent/symbiotic, and with you

You are part of everything and everything is part of you

You operate on behalf of everything else, and everything operates on behalf of you (Myra Jackson)

Sorting through some papers this past weekend I came across a slide from sometime in 2020 or ’21, the Covid years. It seemed a good reminder on many levels and across all domains so I placed it where I would likely see it every morning.

This morning I needed it to remind me of how I understand our world, indeed the cosmos, to be. I also needed to remember that even though this is how the universe, our planet, and each of us IS, our awareness of our true nature is not automatic. Practice is required to fully embody the truth of who we are.

 I don’t know about you, but I need lots of practice. Of this I was reminded when Zadie Byrd and I popped outside as the day began to dawn. When she finished her ‘business’ I noticed plants with a thirst needing to be quenched.

Turning my attention to responding to that need and my desire to care for them in gratitude for reaping the beauty they contribute to my life; I discovered a hose had been moved and left disconnected by a wonderful helper who washed windows yesterday. Putting the system back together would require a bit more work than simply connecting the hose. ‘Annoyed’ is the gentlest term available to describe my instant reaction.      

But fairly quickly as I huffed and puffed, I realized that this wasn’t how I wanted to begin my day or experience the quiet, peaceful dawn. I wanted to align myself with the beauty that surrounds me, to remember that I am a part of that, and to be in alignment with Her. My huffy, puffy reaction wasn’t coherent with who I am, what I believe, or what I know to be true about life. I wanted to step into this day with full coherence, present to and grateful for my life, for ALL life.

 I paused, asking my heart to lead and my pulse to align with the pulse of Gaia, of the cosmos. Calmer, I reset the watering system and went inside to reflect. The quote above came to mind. I thought about how everything matters, even (perhaps especially) the so-called ‘little’ things.

 These little things grab our attention and sometimes evoke in us out of proportion reactions. They are potent with opportunities. Opportunities to be grateful. Opportunities to express care and love. Opportunities to make refinements, to learn, to grow. Opportunities to BE who we truly are.

These little things impact us personally, contributing to OR working against our health, our happiness, our overall well-being. Whether they are moments of gratitude and bliss or forays into drama, they impact us individually and collectively. They become part of the collective consciousness that is creating our world and how we experience that world moment to moment, day to day. We are responsible for choosing. And every choice matters.

Our heart knows the Truth that Everything IS a part of Everything else. May we invite her to remind us of that truth and to guide us in our choices whether they seem large or small. May I.

New Doors, New Worlds

Angel’s Wing …

Between every two pine trees is a doorway to a new world. John Muir

So many pines. So many possible new worlds. What worlds will we create? I wonder …

Winter’s grip is easing after a week of snow, sub-freezing, record-breaking low temperatures. I too still feel winter’s interior pull. Not yet ready to ‘spring’ into action, I hold on to the quiet solitude that is a favorite winter experience.

As I move more firewood in for the hearth, I imagine just below the surface of the soil dormant plants and grasses beginning to stir and to think of sending green shoots into the visible world. Soon they will pop here as they have already done in less harsh environs.

These plant beings like the bears that will soon stir out of hibernation will enter a world that may look like the one they left behind months ago when they retreated to their underworld. Likewise, the woods out back where I sauntered earlier this morning seem as they were before winter’s cold grip.

But the world they are waking to has changed. They too have changed. Change, visible and not, is a constant. Speaking of this nature of change, a wise sage once told me, “you cannot walk through a doorway without creating change.” Sometimes we forget how subtle change can seem and how every change ripples out through all the world.

Today I sense a different quality to change than that of a year or so ago. I sense change is deeper, wider, faster than most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. It’s easy fall into the trap of thinking that change is happening to us. Muse nods in agreement, adding that more humans are waking to how and what our choices contribute to change, to the shape and character of the world.

While many are waking to and embracing new doorways, new possibilities for creating a world beyond the world of separation where we live into the truth that there is no ‘other’, some cling to the so-called security and comfort that separation, differentiation, and win/loose competition.

Yet the doors between the pines in the woods invite us to listen to Nature’s ways of living in harmony. Indeed all of Nature invites us to listen, to discover her ways, her truths. The rivers invite us to explore flow. The oceans ebb and flow with the moon. The stone beings hold deep memory for us to tap into, and the plant beings offer nourishment and an opportunity to more align with Mother Earth’s seasons.

Muse gently pulls me back to choices, to the thoughts and actions about where our attention goes and to the importance of aligning those choices with doors to the world we want to create, the world we want to engage in. What do we care about? What are we committed to? Are those the focus of my attention? My actions? My choices?

Rigor in our thinking and aligning what we speak and the actions we take with our beliefs requires attention, commitment, and care. These are the keys to open the doors to new worlds, co-creating with Creation and cooperating with one another each step of the way. This is being the change we want to see in the world.

Resting In the Doorways

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

Irony and a Thanksgiving Prayer

The Haudenosaunee Flag (image from Naraya Cultural Preservation Council website)

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one. Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address – Greetings to the Natural World

So continues the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. It begins in this way

Words Before All Else: Greetings to the Natural World

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., it is ironic that for some the way to end Covid and prevent future pandemics is to impose vaccines on everyone yet our ancestors brought disease from Europe to these shores as colonizers centuries ago.

Muse startled me awake with that thought this ‘blog’ morning, one day after I’d both read a news clip about the possibility of renewed interest in mandating Covid vaccines for all, and I’d retrieved the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address – Greetings to the Natural World – with the intention to read it aloud each morning before Thanksgiving and perhaps beyond. If you’ve been with me for a while, you may remember last year’s post about this sacred, indigenous gift (find it here).

There are of course many ironies around this holiday that we Americans have morphed from a time of giving thanks for all that is and for what we have to a time of plugging into the consumer culture of getting more. Muse and I will leave such ironies for another time (or not).

Honoring the awareness that what my attention feeds is what grows, I put aside thoughts about vaccines and events of the past, and focus on the Thanksgiving Address, a beautiful prayer encompassing ALL life, reading each verse aloud.

Tears fell as I recited the prayer, touching that place of knowing that all too often in the ‘doing’ of life, I forget the interconnectedness and interdependence that makes life possible. Tears fell too for the treatment of indigenous peoples from the time our ancestors landed on these shores to today, for the agreements/promises made and to this day not kept. Tears for all who experience injustice in its many forms.

I’m grateful for the awareness Muse’s thought brought me and even for the sadness evoked. I’m grateful for how the ironies seemed to both broaden and deepen in me as I read each verse and opened to that sadness. Sadness for our culture’s lost connection with the Natural World of which we are but a tiny part. Sadness that we continue our colonizing ways, not just of lands and peoples, but of the very gifts of Mother Earth, Gaia herself. Sadness for cultural ways that try to colonize us each day of our lives.

The sadness lifts giving way to wonder as Zadie Byrd and I embark on our ritual morning walk this cold morning. The sky is bright blue, and the air, crisp and still. All is quiet except the occasional squawk of a Clark’s Nutcracker. Zadie picks up a scent of interest and we zigzag across the road and then off road into a grassy meadow.

As I often do, I wonder first how I might deepen my awareness of ‘all my relations’ and honor that in the daily choices I make. And I wonder how might our world be if everyone could connect with the beauty of place in a deeper way?

The Naraya Cultural Preservation Council says of the Thanksgiving Address:

When one recites the Thanksgiving Address the Natural World is thanked, and in thanking each life-sustaining force, one becomes spiritually tied to each of the forces of the Natural and Spiritual World.  The Thanksgiving Address teaches mutual respect, conservation, love, generosity, and the responsibility to understand that what is done to one part of the Web of Life, we do to ourselves.

I intend to recite it as part of my morning practice each day until I feel it more deeply in these bones. I invite you to join me.

Mother Nature (image from Naraya Cultural Preservation Council website)

BEING: The Work Within

Fall Beauty in the Neighborhood

Our greatest contributions to life are not found in what we do, but rather in who and how we BE in the walk of our doing.

I feel winter slowing creeping in here in the Sangres. Cooler temperatures brought the turning of leaves, some now beginning to let go and make their way to the ground in gentle autumn breezes. The season’s first freezing temperature was felt this week. The abundant harvests of summer fruits and vegetables shifts to the harvests of fall: apples, potatoes, winter squash, the makings of warm, nourishing soups.

Although I begin to feel the pull within to the slow, quiet, inward time that winter brings, there are tasks to complete before winter weather settles in. She’s only flirting with us now, gently reminding me that it is time for the baskets of geraniums to be tended and prepared to come inside and for the kindling box to be filled. There are shutters to paint and reinstall and winter supplies to be purchased and stored. Yes, there are tasks to do.

Sidelined from those tasks for several days last week, my energy was redirected to healing a shoulder that called for my attention using the language of pain. As I engaged in the process my first actions were directed toward relief, then to correcting whatever was out of alignment and opening the flow of any blocked energy.

I felt deep gratitude for the Chinese herbs I have on hand and for the local healing professionals who worked me into their schedules. As the pain eased energy was freed up to engage curiosity. I’d noticed a pattern – same pain, same time last year. Hmm…what might I need to see, to explore, to understand? In the questioning I was opened to an exploration of old ancestral habits and patterns of the women in my lineage – mother, grandmothers, great grands, and beyond. The insights brought some understanding and a desire to more deeply explore. That will be part of my winter’s ‘work’.

Right on time the information found its way to me and Muse to support the process. Cycles cycle in just that way when I am open, observant, curious, and allow them to emerge. I was reminded yet again of the importance of tending to who and how I BE in the process of doing whatever is before me. Muse suggests that the choices of Being are ultimately far more important that what we choose to do.

The work of Being is an inside job that reflects wide and deep into the world. I was reminded of this by the words I read last night shortly before making my way to dreamtime, words from a book that I pulled off the shelf as the result of a conversation earlier this week. Curiosity, synchronicity, allowing, cycles, life.

The outer work can never be small

if the inner work is great.

And the outer work can never be great

if the inner work is small.

Meister Eckhart 

Our world – humanity and our precious planet home – need the best of our Being now. We need to not simply understand, but to know and live the interconnectedness, the Oneness of all that is. I’ll be tuning in to several sessions of Humanity’s Team’s 2022 Global Oneness Summit, Birthing a New World. Because indeed we are birthing a new world and her nature will be determined by who we BE. https://www.humanitysteam.org/Global-Oneness-Summit

And Beauty in the Mountains

Pivot for the Planet: From Boundaries to Horizons

Horizons (photo from Emergence Magazine)

If you stay in this place out of fear you will not find the landscape that your imagination is yearning for. The effort of the imagination is to turn the boundary into an horizon because there’s no end point for you. The boundary says, ‘here and no further’. The horizon says, ‘welcome’. Barry Lopez

As the 52nd Earth Day approaches, I wonder what it will take for us to understand that we’re all in this together. That all 7.87 billion of us share this beloved planet, Mother Earth, Gaia, our home.

I’m deeply immersed in reading Anne Baring’s Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul. I find it a challenging read that is providing me with a better understanding of the long and deep influences that have separated us from revering Nature and one another. A deep and massive shift in our consciousness – individually and collectively - is necessary to move beyond the boundaries and barriers and conflicts that our cultural stories of separation have created and, indeed, continue to create.

As I pause, feeling the enormity of the shift toward recognizing our interconnectedness and interdependence and wondering how this shift can occur, Muse reminds me that the shift is simply from fear to love. That feeding the path of love and starving the path of fear is the way. Simple yes. And, not so easy in a world where fear is deftly used to manipulate, control, and dare I mention, profit. And, yet the shift IS happening!

More and more of us are following the advice of the indigenous grandfather who, when asked by his grandson which wolf would win the war between a good wolf and an evil one that was going on inside him, replied, “the wolf you feed.” While the story itself is one of separation and conflict, it offers a reminder that every choice we make is a vote for how life will unfold. Are we ‘voting’ consistent with the life and the planet that we desire? Am I?

Are we feeding our bodies the foods to create and maintain optimum health? Or are we voting for junk food? Are we feeding our minds information and ideas to create and maintain new horizons for the health of our planet, our society, our communities, ourselves? Or are we voting for defending boundaries and what the mainstream still considers ‘news’? Are we feeding our soul stories, imagined and real, of inspiration, compassion, and love? Or are we following the dictates of religion? Are we voting for fear or for love?

More and more, I’m turning away from the old, the tired, the stories and ways that no longer work. I don’t wish to feed these ‘wolves’ and look for ways to disconnect from them without disengaging myself. I want to nourish and nurture new ways of living and BEing here on Gaia, and this week, I’ve found some beautiful films to celebrate Mother Earth that offer both nourishment and inspiration to do just that.

Watching Earthrise, a short film about NASA’s Apollo 8 mission around the moon, I was reminded of those first profound photos of our home from space and that man’s artificial boundaries for nations are non-existent when Earth is viewed from space. You can watch it here. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to wonder ‘what if we saw our home this way?’. 

Barry Lopez quote above stopped me for several moments as I began watching the serendipitously discovered film Horizons (watch it here) on Emergence Magazine’s website. Soul food indeed!

 I’m ‘voting’ for films like these and others from both Emergence Magazine, Films for the Planet to nourish, inspire, support me in making and sustaining the seismic shifts that both planet and people need to survive and to thrive. Let’s make some noise for remaking what is ‘news’! Let’s create horizons of welcome in our hearts, our minds, and our imaginations! Let’s be Matriots for the Planet and Humanity!

Earthrise (from Emergence Magazine)

Pivot to Global Oneness - The Work of Loving All

Crestone Peak Peeking Through the Treetops

Building Beloved Community isn't just about loving the people who are easy to love. Friends, family, community, those with similar value systems, similar cultural or political perspectives. No love is ALWAYS easy, but if we're not struggling to hold love for those that are different than us, those that we don't hang out with, don't work with, don't see eye-to-eye with, then we're not doing the work of building Beloved Community. —Kazu Haga (This Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey, October 18, 2021)

It's no secret that I hold a deep curiosity about how we can fully live into the reality (the Truth, if you will) of our Oneness, our interconnectedness, our interdependence in a world that is built on separation and continues to feed (and prosper from) that lie. Fortunately, the Muse shares my curiosity as well and, when not guiding (the Muse says ‘sometimes prodding’) the exploration, seems delighted to go along for the ride.

As you may recall from last week’s post (click here if you missed it) I was listening to Humanity’s Team’s Global Oneness Summit (if don’t know Humanity’s Team, now is a good time to ‘meet’ them and discover the vast array of thought leaders forging paths to a world that works for all). I’ll be listening to some presentations again and catching others that I missed. So, yes, you’ll be hearing more.

Last week I was also navigating a situation that I found gnarly …  I’m still in the throes of it, holding the intention that step by step a gap will be bridged, and allowing guidance to come rather than taking action precipitously before its time. Patience. Not my strong suit but growing in me/of me. That is key in the work of loving all. Yet I differ from the suggestion in the quote that struggle need be an ingredient. Effort? Yes. Commitment? Yes. Contributing to ‘Beloved Community’ around an issue I care deeply about. Yes! Effortless effort? YES, please – let’s play and practice that!

Effortless effort is work of the heart that is deeply needed in our world. It is the work of my heart, listening for where it calls, where it nudges, where it demands attention. Transforming deep work into play and experiencing the joy in that state of being.

After my walk with Zadie Byrd on this glorious, cold, Colorado blue sky morning, I felt called to the walk the labyrinth in the woods out back. I walked with both curiosity about today’s post (what the heck wants to be shared?) and with the intention to hear the voice of Mother Earth more clearly. As I walked the rock-lined labyrinth path taking in the beauty and feeling the freshness of the day, a question bubbled from my heart: What would I do if I loved the earth unconditionally?

The Muse may have chuckled about then as the question didn’t seem to have a place in the musings and questions that have had my attention for a few days (one of which would surely emerge as ‘the’ focus): how context shapes our views, how our views shape context, and how our choices create context; unpacking an event from my early teens to discover how it has shaped my choices in life (the event’s 58th anniversary is coming soon); the despair and division in our world; and all the good, the love, the care that is being poured on humanity and the planet from and by one another.

After I completed my labyrinth ritual of gratitude to the six directions, I felt called to BE in these woods. Setting aside the Muse’s chuckle (or perhaps that chuckle was the call of the woods) and my ‘I have to get the blog written’ push, I spent a glorious hour ambling slowly and communing with the pines, the cacti, the rocks, and a pair of does whose rest I, apologetically, disturbed. BEing with the question.

As I settled in to write and the words began to flow, I understood that ‘the question’ wasn’t a question at all. Rather, it was the gift of deepened clarity that loving the planet unconditionally is fundamental to all the other questions and musings. Indeed, it is fundamental to loving all. To building Beloved Community locally and globally. My work, our work continues. Let us PLAY!

Gentleness in the Woods Out Back

Making Choices Without Choosing Sides

Sunflower ‘Volunteer’

So, while I really appreciate your support, I'm asking you not to take sides. Charles Eisenstein

Yesterday’s email with its subject line ‘Peace: Important plea to readers’ marked the second time over three or four days in which individuals whose work and lives typically align with my values used the clear, direct language: “don’t take sides”.

The first, a recorded message mostly addressing earth changes and their impact, inspired me to think about the difference between making choices and choosing sides. Eisenstein’s email confirmed my hunch that the Wednesday muse would explore just that. The topic seems a logical (although logic is rarely my primary aim!) extension to last week’s muse that suggested:

It’s time to pivot: calling forth and practicing unity, oneness, the interconnected nature of life. Time to cooperate and co-create.

As I suggested last week, more and more it seems that the world wants us to choose sides rather than simply making choices that are best for each of us based on what we know, what we have yet to know/learn, and what we sense. Sadly in the collective many have taken the bait.

Sharing a point of view that differs from others is seen by some as divisive rather than collaborative. Or, in Eisenstein’s case, when the point of view he expressed was attacked, many of his supporters took up the banner to defend, attacking the attackers. His email yesterday was an impassioned plea to his readers to “abstain from that pattern… Respectfully disagree with their views if you feel so moved, but don’t make it about the personalities.”

Eisenstein’s plea reminded me of a kinder, gentler time when then presidential candidate John McCain challenged a questioner at a town hall who labelled Barrack Obama an “Arab”. “No he isn’t …” McCain said urging his supporters to stop hurling abuse against his rival for president and saying that he admired and respected Obama. Such a move is a powerful choice. If a side is chosen by such an act, it is the side of love, of harmony, of peace, of something bigger than the campaign for president.

All this combined with a deep concern about the toll our divisions are taking on each of us individually, all of us collectively, and on our home, Gaia, Mother Earth stirred my pot of curiosity to wonder just how I might make choices without contributing to the divisiveness. Or worse, being a part of the source. That led me to begin exploring the distinction ‘choosing sides and making choices’.

Distinguishing choosing sides and making choices is, at least in part, a matter of perception and of intention.  What do I aim to accomplish when I choose sides? What is my intention when I make a particular choice? All too often in our ‘on demand’ culture, we leap over considering our motivation. We need to make our point or join the chorus of the herd (but not heard) and move on to the next thing.

Not only that, it’s also far easier to attack, for example, the fossil fuel industry and blame ‘it’ for environmental crises, than it is to look in the mirror of our own habits and consider our role and what we might change in our individual choices. It seems that for the mainstream media, it’s easier to blame the unvaccinated (or another country, or ….) for the pandemic rather than look at the bigger picture of nature/viruses/the planet and recognize the interconnectedness of ALL things and then to make choices aligned with creating health for all.

Blame is the game of the world of division. Responsibility and respect are the badges of honor in a world moving toward restoring unity and connection to our awareness.

May we take time and make the necessary effort that enables us to make responsible and respectful choices for ourselves, for one another, and for our planet home. May I. If a side must be chosen, let us choose the side of power with not power over.

Old Juniper Greets the Sun

I Am That I Am

Sunflower Sea on a Smokey Day in the Sangres

I Am That I Am Exodus 3:14 (King James Version of the Holy Bible)

This week I’ve felt a deepening sense of the truth of unity along with a heightened awareness of how subtle yet rampant the story of separation is imbedded in our culture and, indeed, daily life.

There are the obvious divides perpetrated and perpetuated by media and exploited on all ‘sides’ ‘by profiteering and fundraising using fear of ‘the other’, anything outside of us really, as the primary reason. “Give us your money so we can fight him/her, them, it, etc.” is their constant plea.

I’m pivoting away from giving to such ‘causes’ – even groups and individuals whose views align with mine. Earlier this week I cancelled a small monthly donation to a Congressional candidate because of the onslaught of fundraising emails each of which found a new way to bash the incumbent and proclaimed that I should donate for that reason. No more. Time to pivot. Time to reimagine and create our political system anew.

Continuing a trend that I’ve noticed for quite some time, environmental, natural health, and other organizations that hold positions I agree with seize upon recent disturbing climate and Covid news to ask for donations using fear and the need to fight as the basis for their plea. No more. Time to pivot. Time to dream. Time to create structures and systems that recognize our interconnectedness.

Want my support? Tell me what you dream of creating. Share a bit of your soul. Damn the current system – BE bold in unconventional ways. Hear the deeper longings of humanity to call forth unity. Lead from YOUR heart, not from polls, advisors and others who want you to believe they know the best formula to ‘win’.

Time to recognize that we are each part of a greater whole and that all is in each of us just as we are each in all. I Am That I Am.

Time to sharpen awareness of the choices we make and language we use that perpetuate the separation story in subtle ways we mostly don’t notice. Take, for instance, the term ‘common sense’, a seemingly innocuous term we use share our views and enroll others. I might say, “It’s common sense to drive slowly on wash-boarded, curved dirt roads.” The implication being that those who drive fast lack ‘common sense’, thus separating me from the drivers that I find not just annoying but dangerous. Yet, I Am that driver as surely as I Am me.

When I check in on social media, I see posts using common sense and other such terms to promote their point of view (heck, I’m sure I’ve done so as well) to get vaccinated, eat organic, become vegetarian, invest in gold, … and the list goes on (and on). Most likely there are elements in this musing that separate rather than unify, despite my best effort and intention not to do so. This is what we’ve come to practice: division, separation. It’s time to pivot: calling forth and practicing unity, oneness, the interconnected nature of life. Time to cooperate and co-create.

During a coach training conference some years ago, I participated in an exercise appropriately named ‘I Am That’. (Yes, some of you reading this were there!). The exercise was to be outdoors for a particular amount of time and to notice what attracted my attention. It could be anything – a tree, a bird, grass, a bloom, a car in the parking lot, a bench, etc. Then, looking at it, to declare “I Am That I Am” and to simply BE with that being or object. I recall being deeply moved by a tree (no surprise that I love the woods out back!). As I stood in its presence, I felt the deep connection of being at one with the tree. My core being knew it was so.

Amidst the discord and divisiveness present in our world, I’m adopting the exercise as a new practice. I long to feel that deep connection more consistently. I long to hear the tree, the land, Zadie Byrd, the planet on which I walk, friends, and associates, as well as those with whom I’m not aligned in a way that reminds me “I Am That I Am”. I have a hunch this practice can move you/me/us in that direction as well as supporting our navigation, individually and collectively, through the mine fields of these current times.

What is your heart yearning for? What ideas and practices do you employ to honor your heart’s yearning?

Smoke Clears - A Blue Sky Sunset with Beautiful Clouds Begins

Boundaries and Bridges

Full Moon Rising Over the Woods Out Back

I DESPERATELY want a movement space that knows that compassion is not a zero-sum game. Where we have compassion for people’s ignorance. Where we are allowed to be messy and to make mistakes. Where accountability is an act of love and the word “holding” is the key word in “holding others accountable.” Where the sanctity of all life and our interdependence to everything that exists is so deeply known and felt that no person will ever question their sense of belonging. Where no matter what any of us has done, that we all know that there will always be space for us here. That no matter what we have done, we will trust our circle enough to grieve the harm that we caused and to say “yes, I did that” and know that we will not be cast out of humanity. Where we can learn to respond to even the most egregious harms without letting our sights off of the North Star of healing. Kazu Haga (quote of the day for May 5, 2021 – Pace e Bene’s This Nonviolent Life)

With one hand I say, ‘stop.’ With the other I build a bridge. Veronica Pelicaric (Pace e Bene’s podcast exploring Kazu Haga’s words - https://paceebene.org/soul-of-nonviolence-podcast/2021/5/4/soul-of-nonviolence-north-star-of-healing)

Violence against the Earth and interpersonal violence are two sides of the same coin. We now unite as a planetary community to stand together for the sacred; to midwife a transition to a world in which humanity will no longer dominate but cooperate with all life. Though it is difficult to see, there is an emerging and different vision for humanity. This vision foresees a world without violence as the next chapter of our collective evolution. It shows a future humanity inhabiting this planet as a network of interconnected, autonomous communities of trust. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (quote of the day for May 12, 2021 – Pace e Bene’s This Nonviolent Life)

On this full moon eclipse day, I find myself reflecting deeply about my relationships with others and with Gaia. My reflections extend beyond the field in which I operate to the whole of humanity – our relationships with one another and how we relate to the global being, Mother Earth. Today’s quotes resonate deeply both personally and globally. They hold the essence of what I want to share, so my words will be brief, hopefully interweaving how these wise expressions are emerging for me.

I’m overjoyed that a recent encounter with neighbors to be (that is, folks who will soon be building a home nearby) offered up an opportunity to preserve the beloved ‘woods out back’ and added two lovely humans to my community of friends. The chain of events reminded me of the rewards – inside and out – of following my instincts and ‘going with the flow’. In this case, both hands building bridges. This is how I want to contribute to birthing what Charles Eisenstein calls “the beautiful world that our hearts know is possible”, a world where we live from the truth of our interconnected nature.

In other situations, as a friend poignantly reminded me a few days ago, we need to establish, honor, and yes, even enforce boundaries in our relationships with others and in our relationship with the planet. At these times we are called to consider ‘what is acceptable in my life?’ and ‘what is not?’ Integrity calls us to speak our truth, even at the risk of loss, since what is unacceptable to me may not be unacceptable to another and, using one hand to set a boundary may foreclose the opportunity to use the other hand to build a bridge. Navigating such events with conscious awareness of our interconnectedness, I don’t lose my mind to the frenzy of whatever I’m experiencing or observing. The hand saying ‘stop’ may simply invite a pause, open a heart, and with it a look to a bridge wanting to be built.

As the potent energy of this full moon eclipse lingers with us over the next several days, I invite you to pause and imagine the world you want to call forth moment to moment, day to day and to align your thoughts, your words, your actions with that dream.

The Flow of Life in a Mountain Creek