Pivot to a New Health Story

Glorious Crestone Peak

I don’t believe that humanity can vaccinate our way to health. Nature will not allow it. …

Health is the state of natural harmony producing optimum performance. Gregge Tiffen

The Sangres are glorious this morning. Fog and low hanging clouds drifting about change the scene moment to moment. Springtime’s clean, cool, crisp air after yesterday’s record-breaking snow and rain. Sun’s rays come, then disappear. Zadie Byrd is perky yet patient as I stop to take a photograph. Mind begins to clear. Heart and soul take in the beauty as nourishment.

Love. This is it.

With some encouragement, my earlier heaviness lifts. At the same time, I invite curiosity about what messages that heaviness, even a touch of angst, might be carrying to remain.  What the heck woke me from a peaceful sleep before dawn?  What drew me to open the computer before opening my journal and picking up my pen?

I felt as if something had happened overnight or was happening in the moment. And I felt a need to know. Nothing caught my attention as I quickly scanned the headlines, not that there isn’t an abundance of jarring events being reported. ‘Close the computer. Open the journal. Be quiet. Listen. It’s blog day after all.’ That wasn’t my inner voice speaking. It was my rational mind. I wasn’t able to do so and allowed my attention to drift through the subject lines of my inbox.

One, caught my eye – ‘Covid Vaccine Update’ via _____ (a political organization whose views mostly align with mine). What!? Why was a political organization sending a vaccine update? Like so many updates and news flashes from groups these days, it was a request for a contribution to their campaign to encourage everyone to get vaccinated for Covid. While they certainly aren’t the first to jump on the vaccine bandwagon, they are the first to ask for financial help to fuel their campaign.

Somehow that crossed a line for me. Anger flashed. How dare they! Now, ‘close the computer …’  I did. I opened my journal a penned a bit about my disappointment with humanity and my grappling with knowing who and what to trust in this seemingly post-fact world. I was also bristling about the push to vaccinate, the subtle and not so subtle pressures that I personally feel as someone whose body (and soul) has so far guided me to decline. Why is it that this very personal health choice has been dragged into the political arena? Who benefits from the further division this creates?

Unlike some, I don’t believe that I have a moral obligation to receive the vaccine in order to protect others and ‘stop the pandemic’. I have reservations about the ‘science’ that is being reported. And questions about science and results we aren’t being told. Where, for example, is the science, the education about the impact of the food we eat to be found in mainstream reporting? What about air quality? Water quality? The list goes on.

Most of all, I don’t believe that humanity can vaccinate our way to health. Nature will not allow it. Health by vaccine isn’t true health. It is merely the absence of certain symptoms that cause distress, and yes, even death.

For me the moral issue is to take a stand for a new health story. One that pivots from the disease avoidance and management approaches of current systems to creating a culture of health, as Gregge Tiffen suggests: natural harmony producing optimum performance for all. Creating a Culture of Health requires new stories across many sectors – agriculture, environment, infrastructure, social/economic justice and more.

First though creating a culture of health requires us to look beyond current definitions and practices to dream what natural harmony producing optimum performance for all may look link. There are people and organizations doing just that. Find them. Support them. Join them.

Blanca - Glorious as well!

Matriots for Mother Earth

Morning Beauty in the Sangres

Once you acquire planetary loyalty, you are loyal to everybody. You are way out of line if you try being loyal to people before you are totally loyal to the planet.  Gregge Tiffen

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. Baha’u’llah

As I began writing, I was experiencing one of those blog mornings with many thoughts and several themes seeming to want my attention. The beauty of the mountains captivated me on our walk this crisp morning, hinting that nature and the planet would appreciate attention. I sense these mountains, trees, and the wildlife that abound here want my attention, my care. I sense that their kin right where you live want and need the same.

Perhaps their beauty and the sunshine in these woods was more than a hint. In this week following Earth Day I’ve noticed how easy it is to honor Gaia on the day we’ve proclaimed hers and then, like the day after Christmas, to forget. As I reflected a bit more, I recalled a post I wrote several years ago suggesting that we become ‘matriots for the planet’ [read it here]. I remember thinking that I was cleverly making up a word, then happily discovering that the online Urban Dictionary defined ‘matriot’ this way: A person who loves, supports, and defends the earth and its interests with devotion.  Of country, patriot. Of earth, matriot

Last week as I listened in via Zoom to the Global Freshwaters Summit, I was awed and inspired by the activism – public and private – addressing the wide range of issues in the watersheds of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers here in the U.S. I felt gratitude that the event, originally planned as a conference to be held in St. Louis Missouri, was virtual so that I could easily attend. And, I had a sense that the planet was grateful as well that the 400 people from around the globe who participated were doing so with a minimal carbon footprint.

At the same time, I get that there is another side to this story: revenue, jobs, etc. lost in the travel and hospitality industries; people suffering as a result. We need innovative, integral ideas and creations to bridge such divides. That, for me, is the ‘stuff’ of matriotism. We need to question EVERYthing as well as ourselves.

In the rush to return to our pre-pandemic ‘normal’ will we simply ignore the impact of our ways of life on our planetary home? Or will we take account of how our systems and the choices we make reflect what nature has shown us, particularly over this past year? Author, activist, and friend Rivera Sun shared a documentary that premiered on Earth day – The Year Earth Changed – detailing how nature has responded to our human ‘pause’. Having watched the trailer, (click here to watch) the film is at the top of my ‘must watch’ list. I want to more deeply understand my/our impact on the planetary being upon which my/our life depends. I take a moment to distinguish ‘life’ and ‘lifestyle’, wondering what lifestyle changes I/we can make to demonstrate matriotism: loving, supporting, and defending the earth and its interests with devotion?

Rather than ‘returning to normal’, I wonder how we might pivot to integrate greater consideration for the planet in making decisions?  Perhaps before deciding to engage in business travel for meeting with or speaking to others at a conference, we matriots will ask and evaluate the cost to the planet of a pending decision. Perhaps we’ll learn to better compensate Gaia for her life giving support, offsetting the costs to her well-being of our choices.

I’m not advocating that we stay totally ensconced in our homes and our local communities. Indeed (full disclosure), this week I’m making a day trip to town about 80 miles away to celebrate a friend’s birthday and to pick up some auto parts and supplies that I can’t get locally. I recognize that we need each other. We need play. We need connection. At the same time, we need to recognize and integrate the planetary costs of meeting those needs into our consciousness more consistently and powerfully.

Valley of Contrasts

The Web and Flow of Life

Good Morning Sun!

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Chief Seattle

Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force. Lao Tzu

Last night as I was easing into sleep the words ‘web of life’ popped into my awareness, seeming to indicate both the title and focus for this week’s muse.  Having received a generous and unexpected gift earlier in the day, I was filled with gratitude not only for the gift and the givers, but for the web of life that I am a part of. The people. The places. The events. The flow. The mystery. The web that is woven moment by moment, choice by choice, ever evolving, ever changing. Infinite.

This morning as I began my usual morning routines and practices, Zadie Byrd caught my attention, signaling that she needed something different – to be outside and go on our morning walk before my routines. I’m paying close attention to her these days, as she’s showing some new behaviors that may indicate increasing pain. My job is to observe and listen to Zadie’s flow and to mine.

Responding to what I sensed she needed took me out in the early morning light, one of my favorite times of day. As we walked, I thought about the flow of life. How at times I flow easily with what life presents. And, how I sometimes resist. I saw clearly not just what feels better in the moment, but how the energy of flowing with what life offers me weaves a web of ease, of peace, of abundance, of generosity, of acceptance. And, perhaps, even a touch of grace.

Now as I write, the phone rings. Recognizing the number, I answer the call (it’s my neighbor and I want to be sure that she is okay). As we begin to close our quick conversation, she asks the question that seems to be top of mind for many people: ‘did you get a shot?’.  Curiously, I noticed that unlike many others, she didn’t ask if I got ‘my shot’, as if there is one (or two) out there with my name on it.

When I first started being asked the later question, I bristled a bit. My internal reaction (‘it’s none of your business!’) pointed to a deeper sense of the conflict between what the culture says that I ‘should’ do and what my body and my intuition have to say about what is right for me. I hadn’t yet reached a firm commitment to listen to my body which, at least for now, says ‘no’.  

My desire is to weave threads of health and well-being that are more grounded in nature, the planet, and Universal law. I want to flow as the energy of life flows, naturally.  I want to make choices from a better understanding of the reality that we alone are not weaving the web of life.

Just as she is speaking through earthquakes, extreme weather events, and volcanos, Gaia speaks through the virus. What messages might it offer in support of humanity’s evolutionary growth? How might we question and listen from this perspective? How might we pivot toward greater consideration of our planetary home?

May we listen anew to the web and flow with life rather than endlessly trying to avoid some of its greatest gifts. May I.

A Bit of Fresh Spring Snow on the Mountains

Honoring World Water Day 2021

The Water of Cottonwood Creek Trickling Through the Snow

Water IS Life!

Honor the water today (and everyday!). The theme for World Water Day 2021 is ‘Valuing Water’. Each time you pour a glass from the pitcher, make a cup of tea, boil and egg, turn on the tap, flush your toilet, take a moment to value the water.

This morning as I mixed my ‘tea’ of Chinese wellness herbs with warm water, I thanked not only the water in my mug, but the water that sustained the plants as they grew and the ocean waters across which they travelled. I thanked the water in which I cooked my oatmeal and the water the helped grow those grains. As I write, I’m aware that I missed thanking the water that was required to make the dishes from which I eat. Look around you and consider for a moment the role of water in everything. Water is indeed life!

Gaia’s waters are connected. Streams to rivers. Rivers to lakes and oceans. Oceans to one another. The water that flows through each of us, connects us to Mother Earth and to one another. Water IS indeed life!

Last week, I sat with the waters of Cottonwood Creek near my home. In preparation for joining others to celebrate and honor water, I asked the waters ‘what shall I say?’ about you, my favorite body of water. Water’s response came in the form of the poem below. Flow with her wisdom!

I FLOW WITH THE SEASONS

No matter where you are,

Without regard to what you do,

Or even how you be,

I am the water of a nearby mountain stream.

I flow with the seasons.

As the last aspen and cottonwood leaves fall along my banks

in the crisp autumn breezes,

I flow gently along

Knowing that even with the coming freeze

I will flow beneath the ice and snow that covers me.

I am the water of Cottonwood Creek.

I flow with the seasons.

Gentle and restful

Beneath the frigid surface

I silently – to your ears – honor the darkness

And winter’s oft unrecognized beauty.

I am the water of a stream in the woods.

I flow with the seasons.

As winter breaks her icy grasp, I surface from time to time

Preparing for the spring melt, my offering of greater flow.

Yet preparation is not required

For as the trees begin to bud new leaves

I am here, ever in tune with these changes in the ecosystem of life.

I am the water of Cottonwood Creek.

I flow with the seasons.

As my frozen waters melt I flow,

Extending beyond my banks, claiming whatever space I need

For the water that flows beyond my usual bounds.

This is when I speak my fullest voice.

I do so with joy for the verdant flora that thrives in my wake.

Leaves of the trees shadow me and the creatures that come to drink:

Families of deer, a bear, lynx, mountain lion,

An American piper bobbing at water’s edge.

Even your pup who comes to take a drink of my cool water

 as you, Dear Human, drink in my beauty through your ears and eyes.

Can you taste me?

I am water in the constant, yet ever changing, mountain stream.

I flow with the seasons.

Even as I flow I notice your presence, your reverence,

Your recognition for water’s music in the symphony of life.

I am the water of Cottonwood Creek.

I flow with the seasons.

Allow awareness of my rhythm to permeate your being.

Feel me in your bones and the flow of the veins in your body,  

Breaking through the oh so human impulse to deny

These cycles of life.

I am water, moving from peak to valley to clouds and back.

I flow with the seasons.

Will you?

Water, like all of nature, the seen and unseen life, the flora, the fauna, deserve to not only experience our expressions of gratitude for the life they sustain, they each and all deserve a voice and to be heard as we go about making decisions in daily life. May we listen! May we hear! May it be so. And, So It Is.

The Water of Cottonwood Creek Flowing Free in the Morning Light

Blessed Solstice 2020

Sunset on the Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

Winter Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the new awareness within you and the new person within you. (Gregge Tiffen, December 2019 newsletter)

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

I’ve been feeling the energy of the Solstice for several days. Monday’s New Moon felt especially powerful here in the snowy woods, almost as if it were the Solstice day.  I was called to walk the labyrinth in the early morning cold and again as the sun began to set across the valley. I’m walking it daily and taking long slow walks with Zadie Byrd in the afternoons. Mild weather of a week ago has given way to winter weather. Eight plus inches of snow over the weekend and another inch overnight Monday. The beauty and the quiet that snow brings are tonic for the tumultuous frenzy that the world seems to be spinning in. Grateful! I am THAT!

Winter Solstice is a time of natural transformation, newness that comes forth with or without our awareness. It is the time when our receptivity is heightened in consciousness. Is it any wonder that with fewer hours of daylight, we are drawn inside into our homes and into ourselves at this time of year?

Solstice is the birthday of the Planet. It was celebrated as such with reverence and respect in ancient times by our ancestors who lived in close harmony with the Planet’s rhythms.

Solstice is the time of completion and of new beginnings. The old cycle is done. We are presented with the opportunity to declare completion and move on with awareness of the seeds of newness planted inside. A new ‘you’ with its potential to bring wondrous change in the cycle ahead is ready. Are you willing to claim it?

In keeping with my understanding of ancient traditions, once again this year I will take time at Solstice to create a personal ‘silent night’, a time to harmonize my rhythms to those of Mother Earth. With love and gratitude I let go of everything from the year behind and acknowledge the seeds of newness inside. I invite you to create quiet time amidst the tensions of the world outside of you and the hustle and bustle of the season to do the same.

A good place to start is by harmonizing with nature. If you are blessed as I am to live in nature’s beauty, take a walk. Observe and honor the rhythms of nature, whether the slow steady growth of a tree or the daily cycles of ocean tides. This year the planets will offer quite a show as Jupiter and Saturn come together and appear as one bright star in the night sky on Solstice.  

If nature is not outside your door, then sit quietly and imagine your favorite peaceful place in nature. Feel yourself in that place and allow its rhythms to bring you the quiet peace of the season.

In that atmosphere embrace an attitude of gratefulness. Let go of everything that has come to you in the cycle ending. Empty and prepare space for the new. Let go of not only what doesn’t serve or suit you, of those things you consider ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’, but of everything: every attitude, your wants and desires, your fears, your hopes, your stories about the events of the year ending, the people in your life.

Finally, when you are ready (perhaps after only a few moments, perhaps a few hours), evoke the sound of newness with the declaration “I am new”.  Speak it boldly.  Be still and feel this newness. This is the place where heaven and earth come together in you, as you. The place where ‘heaven and nature sing’. The new you is ready to meet, greet and receive the gifts of the new cycle.  On this dark and silent night, let us sing with the angels and call forth love and light and peace. Then, in all the days ahead, let us BE the love, light, and peace that is our true nature.

May the blessings of your unique newness follow you into and throughout the year ahead!

A Protective Blanket of Fresh Snow Cradles Grasses and Seedlings and Mother Earth Herself

Leadership in Urgent & Emergent Times

The Lands Between … Mountains and Valley

Every time you open your mouth you are charging atomic particles, arranging them and setting them into a pattern of action. Consequently, everything you say, everything you say, is putting some energy effect into action. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: An Honest Performance - June, 2011)

Last night as I watched and listened to the so-called ‘debate’ here in the U.S. I was reminded of my post back in June that started with the above quote from Gregge (http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/speaking-with-care). I cringed as I felt the darkness of the words, the tone, and the behavior try to pull me down into the morass of uncivility that has, sadly, become the trademark in far to many arenas of politics and, indeed, life.

I noticed the stark contrast between this event and seeing and hearing 70 world leaders come forward just a day earlier to pledge action in support of the planetary being, Mother Earth addressing the urgency of climate change. I encourage you to watch the #NatureforLife Leaders Event and consider what and whose leadership speaks to you in these urgent and emerging times.

I ping-ponged back and forth between despair and optimism, disgust and appreciation, rage and love, confusion and understanding, turmoil and peace. I recognized that I could grab the ball and stop on either side of the net. Choice. I knew what I wanted to choose, but how would I maintain it?

I spent time in the woods and on the land that lies between the woods and the valley below. I walked and shed tears in the labyrinth out back. I hopped onto a Zoom session with a group of caring explorers from around the world and heard the kind of words of leadership that are so desperately needed right now: governance that listens to the planet, the need to understand links between the climate crisis and violence, a reminder that borders are of human doing not the planet’s being.

My colleague’s words and deep, integral thinking were just the salve I needed to anchor me in the optimism, appreciation, love, understanding and peace that I was choosing.

We have work to do dear ones. Inner work and work in the world, a world that needs our thoughtfulness and care.

As I have said before, and will no doubt repeat (hopefully not ad nauseum) as we navigate our individual and collective paths ahead …

… the work of pivoting to a new paradigm in which humanity along with all of nature on our planet can thrive …is deep and personal, each of us contributing to a larger collective. … Our work is work of the heart. Commitment, discipline, and consistent awareness are required. Being counter to much of our culture, using words of peace will require acts of courage, different, yet no less demanding, than engaging in battle (click here to read that post)

May we take each step forward with the self-leadership and keen awareness that everything we think, we say, we do is contributing to the quality of life on the planet. The darkness calls us. May we be the light that we are.

Day Breaks in the Sacred Sangres

Revisiting Living True to Our Roots

Gentle , Nurturing Beauty of Cottonwood Creek

Every celestial body has definitive root characteristics. The root characteristic of this particular planet is that it is a receptive womb. Planet Earth is female and produces a mothering, nurturing base. Gregge Tiffen (Learning Without Experience Is A Bell Without A Clapper – September 2008)

We ARE the Planet. The Planet is US.

As I settled in with the muse this morning, I thought about a response someone shared about last week’s post: Female energy is nurturing and we need more of that right now. It reminded me that the earth is a feminine planet. Her nature is receptive, nurturing. 

I recalled a comment I made in conversation earlier this week that current events are asking us to discover what we think are our limits and move beyond them, understanding our limitlessness. We tend to think of going beyond limits as a masculine thing, pushing beyond limits. That led me back to a post from three years ago. For me it captures the essence of the opportunities before us today. It seems a logical next musing after exploring nature’s extremes last week. And, so today, I share it again …

The visual beauty of the earth here in the southern Rocky Mountains where I’m blessed to live lies in stark contrast to the visual appearance of the devastation we’ve witnessed over the past month. Forest fires, hurricanes, floods, drought have ravaged the earth and seriously impacted millions around the globe.

Here, it’s easy to experience the nurturing touch of the Planet through my senses. Some days the smell of the pines is so strong that I can taste it. To touch a tree is to feel its strength and at the same time its vulnerability. The gentle flow of a mountain stream has been one of my favorite sounds for decades – long before I moved to these mountains. And, the landscape – from the valley floor to the top of the soaring 14,000 foot peaks – is a visual feast every day, every season. Here, even on the coldest, windiest days, I feel the receptivity and nurturing that is the way of Earth.

Likewise that same root – receptivity, mothering, nurturing – is present in the midst and wake of so-called ‘natural’ disasters. Beyond the sense that something old is making way for something new, we witness some of the best in ourselves. Neighbors help neighbors. Strangers help those in need, both up close and personal as well as from afar. These expressions represent the best of our living true to the root characteristics of our planet.

And, that - living true to our roots - is a requirement. It is necessary if we are to ever have a chance at creating lasting peace among all peoples of the planet. It is necessary if we as a species are to continue to inhabit Mother Earth. A sturdy pine does not grow from roots of tender grass. Only grass grows from those roots. Here are the root characteristics that I believe we are meant to live from:

We are meant to have dominion – loving, nurturing, receptive dominion – over the planet. We are not meant to dominate the planet or one another.

We are meant to be fed from the abundance that the earth provides. We are not meant to be gluttonous or to attempt to nourish ourselves with fake food or man’s laws disguised as laws of the Universe.

We are meant to manifest and to understand that everything we think, say and do manifests. From that understanding we can align ourselves with the true nature of the planet. We are not meant to suffer, rather we are meant to learn.

We are meant to adapt, to embrace change as a natural characteristic of the planet. We are meant to evolve. We are not meant to keep things, including ourselves, as they are or to try to return them to something that we or they were in the past.

As you go about your week, consider the roots that Mother Earth gifted you with when you came to the Planet. Are you aligned and living true to your roots?

An American Dipper doing her thing: Dipping in the Creek

Nature's Extremes

SNOW - September 9, 2020

You are to live here with a sense of the planet and you as a vital unit because, in effect, you are that vitality. Nature will not sit back and allow you to set it aside like a poor relation with you living in isolation from it. Pay Attention! … Your body is nature, and nature is you. Your consciousness is the Universe, and the Universe is you. There is no separation between nature and you. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic: Completion – September 2009)

Zadie Byrd and I have been back home in the mountains for six days. Weather records have been broken on four of those days. On two days record high temperatures were recorded. Yesterday nine records were broken here: low temperature, lowest high temperature, most snow, earliest snow and more. A note on our local weather website, indicated that as of 3 a.m. today, two records had already been broken.

Extreme? Yes. Extreme change? Most certainly.

I look out on the eight or so inches of snow that fell overnight recalling that in the pre-dawn hours just yesterday I wrote in my journal Life is not ‘me and nature’ or ‘nature and I’. Rather nature is ‘we’ in this cycle of life. I am Nature. Nature is me. Yesterday, I was reflecting on the changing season and on how I the darkness and deep quiet of winter call me to rest deeply as nature rests.

Today I’m aware that underneath the snow, leaves on the trees are still green. Summer is barely beginning to give way to autumn. And yet, the landscape is a winter wonderland. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

What I’m witnessing here at home is not an isolated weather event. Extreme weather in multiple forms is responsible for vast devastation and suffering all over the globe. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

Could it be that she is reflecting the extremes in our own thoughts, our words, our deeds? Is she inviting us to look anew at our fractured culture and our reactions to one another, especially those who are different from us? Is she saying ‘Enough ready! I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore’?

She is wise our Mother, our Nature. Is she calling for us to fall in love with her, recognizing that as we do so we are loving ourselves and reconnecting to the deep knowing we share about the oneness of all life?

Is She reminding us that every thought we think matters in the grand plan of life? Is she inviting us to awaken to the reality that each choice we make and every action we take contributes to, indeed determines, the quality of nature, her health, her vitality, AND to ours, collectively and individually in the whole that is Nature?

In how we see, reflect, and respond to today’s extremes, both natural and man-made, we are co-creating the future. May we see with clarity. May we reflect with deep awareness. May we respond with love. For surely those – clarity, awareness, and love – can bring some balance to the extremes.

We Are HOME!

Mitigation with Love - Round Two

Mitigation with Love - a great crew of professionals caring for the land

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us. 

Shortly after I purchased the Dragonfly House almost six years ago, I had some mitigation done on the property and shared the experience in an early post of The Zone. You can read it here.

Mitigation is on my mind once again this week as I engage in another round of stewardship to protect my home and the old growth trees of these woods I love, and, to ease the touch of angst I feel about drought conditions and this year’s early start of ‘fire season’.

As I discovered six years ago, mitigation is both personal and impersonal, internal and external. This week’s events reminded me that it is also a path of discovery and personal growth.

Defined as ‘lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant’; ‘the act of making a condition or consequence less severe’; and ‘the process of becoming milder, gentler, less severe’ (thank you dictionary.com), life presents many opportunities for us to engage strategies of mitigation.

We mitigate numerous forms of danger, pain, pressure, tension, unpleasantness in every spoke of the wheel of life. In doing so, either love or fear is usually our incentive, and that incentive lives in the background as the foundation of our strategic choices, whether or not we are conscious of it.

Mitigation can start as a fearful reaction to an event or condition. Fear and its allies (anger, victimhood, etc.) generate resentment, resistance, confusion, and stress. Love, on the other hand, generates appreciation and acceptance and allies like creativity, ease, and flow. I experienced this difference contrasting two events this week. It was palpable.

I consciously took the property mitigation project on with love: a healthy respect for the drought-enhanced potential for wildfires, along with my love of all nature, especially these woods where I’m blessed to live. Despite loving each tree and wanting no harm to any, I accepted the reality of the fire danger and that sacrificing young trees would protect many older ones. I spoke my appreciation to each tree before the sawing began.

Although my heart held some sadness, I was at peace. I soon discovered that with love and care as motivators, the noise of the chainsaws was not as jarring as it might have been. Later, as I took my first look at the altered landscape, I felt an unexpected lightness and openness rather than the shock I expected. I was reminded that clearing creates space and opens the way for the new. The mitigation experience was becoming deeply satisfying, serving as a reminder of the beauty and power of action grounded in love.

In stunning contrast that I didn’t see until afterwards, the second event did not emerge as an expression of love. I found myself reacting unlovingly to Zadie Byrd exhibiting extreme fear as a thunderstorm approached. I reacted to my seeming inability to ease her discomfort as well. Double trouble! Although I love this new canine companion dearly, I allowed fear to take the wheel. The resentment, frustration, and stress I felt was painful for us both. In loosing awareness of my love, I was unable to accept her experience and meet her there with an open heart. 

Have I mentioned that our animal companions are amazing teachers? Be a student!

Only in hindsight did I realize that I could choose differently with love and acceptance of the reality of her experience. In that pivotal moment, I knew what to do, who to call for support, and, most importantly, how I needed to be with her in stormy weather. From that place, a plan is forming for immediate support and to mitigate her fear response in the future.

When you accept the reality of what is you increase your capacity to deal with it creatively. Myra Jackson

And, it seems that my pivot to love is already having an impact. The weather began to shift while I was writing this post, so I took a break and moved into action. Although my actions weren’t that different from the earlier event, I shifted my way of being to act from love and I accepted the reality of Zadie Byrd’s rather than resisting it. We weathered several hours of dropping barometric pressure and stormy conditions much more peacefully.

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us.  Indeed, our animal companions, along with the trees and all of nature, do teach us much about life. Be a student!

Storm? What Storm?

Optimistic By Nature

Morning in The Woods Outback

Every thought leads to the next thought. … Optimism infuses your life with an aura of dignity and invites in harmony. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: An Air of Optimism)

Harmony. Ahhhh … As I look into the woods out back as the day dawns, I hear the early morning songs of avian awakenings and I watch a humming bird hover outside my window, perhaps curiously wondering what is this wall that separates her from the blooming plant just inside. Zadie Byrd sleeps peacefully nearby. Harmony.

I feel the optimism in that harmony deep in my bones and deeper still in my being. I feel the dignity that optimism imbues. These woods, these creatures reflect the true nature of life. I ask for guidance to do, to be likewise.

In these woods I witness cycles – timeless yet timely. Sunrise. Sunset. New growth. Death. Movement. Stillness. Flow. Surely these must represent the essence of optimism.

Nature is intimately partnered with us in the physical experience, and that is perhaps the greatest boon of our incarnate existence, as nature is directly connected to and informed by the Universe. Gregge Tiffen (Life in the World Hereafter: The Journey Continues).  Harmony.

It occurred to me that my optimism is grounded in nature – what I know and what I can learn from nature’s teaching. Harmony.

Yet, I (indeed we all) live in the world, a world in which harmony is hidden and disharmony appears to reign. Divisiveness is wielded as a tool to maintain control. All around are the cries of polarities that, ignorant of harmony and nature’s ways, invite me to choose sides, to select who or what I should depend on to sustain my life. Pessimism fuels their games.

When I look beyond the headlines and drama screaming for attention, I see that world dissolving. In that dissolving we are called forth to create anew. To ‘do’ life differently. To ‘be’ and express the true nature that we are: harmonious, beautiful, joyful, loving, intelligent, alive, peaceful, powerful beings in an abundant Universe. To live from optimism.

At first I thought ‘no one is optimistic by nature’.  Then as I realized the nature of optimism, it became clear to me that our true nature is indeed optimistic. Yet, while optimism is our true nature, to live optimism requires attention, awareness, and nurturing. Moment to moment we are called to awaken to this, our true nature. When the world succeeds in distracting us with its pessimism and fear, we are called to reawaken to the optimism that is our true nature.

Be willing to awaken while the world dissolves before your eyes. Call yourself forth, call yourself by your true nature. Susa Silvermarie 2018

Optimism thrives on curiosity. Optimism requires courage.  Optimism is not something to ‘do’, it is a way of being true to self and true to nature.  How will you rise to the call of optimism this moment, this day, this week? 

FLOW! Crestone Creek at Colorado College