Making Life a Sacred Journey of Nonviolence

Neighborhood Street Signs Make Me Smile!

Fighting, cheating, and bullying have trapped us in our present situation; now we need training in new practices to find a way out. It may seem impractical and idealistic, but we have no alternative to compassion, recognizing human value and the oneness of humanity.  The Dalai Lama (2/3/21 quote from Pace e Bene Nonviolence Services Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey – more info here)

Compassion, human value, the oneness of humanity. These qualities sum up for me the first five days of the Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence which began on January 30, the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination and ends on April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I’m engaging in awareness of each day’s theme in my life with the intention of erasing tendencies I have toward violence. You can find the themes here and here.

Day 1 on Saturday seemed to appear out of nowhere. Could it really be the end of January already? Yes, and now February is well underway. The theme for Day 1 was courage, a necessary ingredient in nonviolence. The day’s message offered a deepened felt sense of unity with all that is. Oneness. I am a part of everything. Everything is a part of me. Everything we think, say, do matters.

When you discover that everyone is contained in you and you are contained in everyone, you have realized the unity of life … Then you are not just a person; you have become a beneficial force. (From AGNT’s daily mediation Day 1).

This is BEing the change I wish to see in the world. Simple to envision. Not so easy for most of us to live moment to moment, day to day from this place. Courage is needed to buck the violence in our culture and to break the arc toward violence of the habits I’ve developed along the way: seemingly small, yet costly, negative reactions to some of what crosses my path in the course of a day: a snap judgement about something or someone in the news or a post on social media; impatience with Zadie Byrd when she wants to stop and sniff and I want to keep going. Recognizing that these are acts of violence (toward myself more than others) is a sacred act.

Life’s events are just that: sacred acts giving us the sovereign choice of how we will react or respond. When I take a walk with Zadie as a sacred act of care for both of us, my impatience wanes. My teacher Zadie Byrd, like Cool Hand Luke before her, reminds me in her own way to ‘stop and smell the pines’ (no roses here in the woods you know!).

Recognizing Zadie Byrd as one of my teachers in nonviolence, brought a smile to my face on Day 2 when the theme was smiling. I chuckled as I realized that my impatience is the place where my experience of the peace of nonviolence ends. My life-long learning of tolerance – a key to experiencing the truth of unity – continues! Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us:

If in our daily life, we can smile … not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Everything we do matters. A smile from the heart is a sacred act of nonviolence. Smile!

The ‘season’ continued with Day 3’s theme, appreciation, which flowed easily from the awareness of Days 1 and 2. It reminded me that appreciation is one of the keys to heart coherence. Day 4, caring, offered a reminder of the importance of self-care as a demonstration of nonviolence.

Today is Day 5, believing, and poses the question: what do I believe about nonviolence? Do I believe that each moment of tolerance and patience, every smile (masked or not!), every experience of unity and connection matter, and that care for myself and others are sacred acts toward creating a culture of nonviolence? I do. I believe that is true for each of us. We can do this! Indeed we must.

Teacher Zadie Byrd Rolling in the Snow - Also Makes Me Smile!

Courage for Our Time

A Visual Feast Every Day

It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield. William Butler Yeats (Oct 13, 2020 - This Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey from Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service)

When I read this quote it seemed to both echo and expand last week’s musing about true power. It reflects much of what we are witnessing in the collective move to look more deeply at history and understand the dark side of our so-called progress. To do so requires courage, especially in the face of resistance, sometimes armed and violent.

Likewise, it reflects the personal courage that I’m discovering I need to look in the ‘dark corners’ of my lifestyle and habits of consumption where their true cost is revealed.  It takes courage to dare wonder about the cost of my choices and to ask who is paying the price of my choices.

These are the kinds of questions that present themselves as I explore the territory of greater awareness in spending and investing choices searching for avenues that are more fully aligned with what I claim are my values. And, wondering if I have the courage of those convictions.

Such musings seem magnified this week in the great divide between those who would celebrate the colonization of the Americas symbolized by Columbus Day here in the U.S. in contrast to the messages from indigenous people (who continue to pay the price) calling upon humanity to awaken to the consequences not just to their cultures but the very planet that we all share.

It takes courage to read and to think deeply about Nemonte Nenquimo’s message to the western world (click here).

It takes courage to listen to 2018 presentation (click here) that Nenquimo and other indigenous leaders made at the Bioneers conference and then to think deeply and do more than sign petitions.

I know this, because I am questioning how deep my courage runs to be better informed, to reflect AND then to ACT upon these and other issues of our time. I pray that it is deep enough and that I might earnestly adopt the words and spirit of a prayer that came my way this week.

It is said to be the Dalai Lama’s morning prayer, written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk of the Mahayana tradition who lived around 700 AD. He was a devoted practitioner who authored the Bodhicaryavatara or Bodhisattva Way of Life. Thanks to Nick Polizzi and the folks at The Sacred Science for this uplift to my week!

Bodhisattva Prayer for Humanity

"May I be a guard for those who need protection

A guide for those on the path

A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood

May I be a lamp in the darkness

A resting place for the weary

A healing medicine for all who are sick

A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles

And for the boundless multitudes of living beings

May I bring sustenance and awakening

Enduring like the earth and sky

Until all beings are freed from sorrow

And all are awakened."

… Enduring Like Earth and Sky …

Power and Possibility

Hints of Autumn on a Hazy Day in the Sangres

Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within.

These words came this morning as I engaged the muse, reflecting and stirring the pot of this week’s soup curious about what would emerge. I’ve felt the world try to pull me into its power struggle. Through my revolving door a wide range of emotions paid me visits.

Dancing the dance of ‘staying informed’ I watched a bit of news and the documentary the social dilemma (find it here). I listened to Shelly Acorn’s talk on the emergence of fascism  (click here) offered by Humanity Rising’s Global Solutions Summit (info here).

I felt the heaviness of the world while recognizing that ignoring current conditions was not a wise option. Seeking to restore my sense of balance and being grounded, I stepped away. Zadie Byrd and I walked. I walked the labyrinth. I took in the beautiful evidence of the changing season just up the road and on the vast expanse of the steep slopes of the Sangres. I watched a squirrel playing, magpies flitting and listened to jays squawking in the woods.

I let the tears welling inside flow forth.

I wept for the pain of the world, for the planet, for humanity. I wept for those who are suffering illness, fires, hunger, oppression, fear and so much more. I wept for our sleepiness, the lack of awareness on which the world’s agenda thrives. I wept for the gap between the world that could be and the world as it seems. And, I shed tears of personal grief, missing my dear cousin’s physical presence.

In the pause that followed, I began to remember that change necessitates letting go …

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

I saw power (true, lasting power) and possibility dancing together. I saw humanity rising to meet the challenges and opportunities of a crumbling world. Step by step. Minute by minute. Day to day. Person to person. I remembered my deep knowing that the Universe in its infinite wisdom offers a bigger stage on which to dance than the petty power struggles which capture headlines. I remembered that we are on this planet to learn from the events before us. I remembered Gregge Tiffen’s wise words:

We are constantly in a situation of applying the condition of re-adjustment. Our Earth is one of the most difficult laboratories in the vast Universe because of the utilization of three levels of energy. We know them as physical, mental, and spiritual. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Mysterious Investigations – October 2010)

Let us know beyond a shadow of doubt, that Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within. Let us embrace that change is upon us, a new world is not only possible she is birthing as we speak. Let us hear the peaceful breathing of a new day by standing tall in our personal power and guiding that change to unfold a world that works for all. Let us dance the dance of bringing light to the darkness.

A Pause in the Afternoon Glory of Autumn

Paradox, Discernment & Wisdom

Hints of Fall on a Beautiful Morning in the Sanges

We are being asked to discover what we think are our limits and to move beyond them, understanding our limitlessness.

One of the limits I experience in myself and I observe is rampant in our culture is the need to know, to be certain. We want guarantees that things are (or will be) this way or that before we allow those things (events, situations, people, products, etc.) to emerge and evolve. Although we might discount, even laugh, at the idea of seeing the future in a crystal ball, we would sure like to peek and to know.

We would like someone to tell us the ‘facts’, the ‘truth’ (the whole truth and nothing but …) about important matters in our daily lives. Take Covid-19 as one example among many. We want the facts, without contradictions and politicizing. Then we could easily choose what actions to take to maintain our health.

What we have instead in this era of competition is controversy, conflict, confusion, and chaos mixed with finger-pointing, blame, and (most destructive of all) fear mongering.

We are asked to choose sides as our health becomes a political football with elections to be won as more important than lives to be saved or personal freedom to be restored (yes, I said restored, not protected – but that’s a topic for another day).

We are told what someone ‘out there’ thinks we want to hear. Never mind that the message was totally different to another audience yesterday. And, that it will change yet again tomorrow. But, hey, who cares? Babel is the name of this frenzied game.

But Covid-19 and, indeed, most of the important matters in our lives are not so simple. There is no one size fits all approach to any of these concerns. There is no one set of cast in stone facts that are ‘THE facts’. We are being asked to discover what we think are our limits and to move beyond them, understanding our limitlessness.

Thus, it is up to us, individually and collectively, to examine the often paradoxical and contradictory information – both facts and opinions – and discern the best answer for us. To do so requires a commitment and vigilant practice to strengthen our discernment muscle (yes, you have one, even if it is a bit atrophied!).

We do so by turning off/tuning out the noise of the world.  We take time to sit and bask in the peace and quiet of the absence of that noise. Finally, we tune in to the quiet of our mind, our heart, our body, our nature. We invite the quiet to break its silence and speak gently to the core of our being. We allow its gentle nudging to stir up what we already know and to blend that with the new. We discern.

In the quiet, as we release our addiction to knowing, we come to know ourselves. We discover what is true for us. As we follow our truth, we honor that our knowing, our truth may not hold true for others. In the quiet, we come to understand that the source of deep knowing is not ‘out there’.

In the quiet, we build our capacity to accept the paradoxes and contractions of the world’s ways. We begin to discern from the inside out rather than relying on others to discern for us. Our wisdom builds. And, from that wisdom, we glimpse our limitless nature.  

Indeed! It IS a Beautiful Morning!

Discovering and Creating The Ways Between

There’s always a Way Between … Think about it until you see it clearly. Shulen, the Old Warrior challenging his apprentice Ari Ara (Not This, Not That), a young orphan girl, in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Way Between. https://www.riverasun.com/

The Way Between must have been with me early one morning a few days before the Summer Solstice when this flow of words landed on the journal page in front of me.

I love being awake to watch the day dawn.

Dark mountain against the lightening sky.

First sounds of life

Winged beings flit about

Singing, not quite – testing their voice in preparation to

Greet the Day.

Hummingbird buzzes.

And, yet these woods are oh so quiet in their waking.

Gentle

in the cool morning air,

reminding me

Gentleness is the way – MY way.

Gentle with self.

Gentle with others.

Ah, ‘others’ …

Solstice Sunrise in the Woods Out Back

That particular morning I was thinking about creatures that we label as ‘pests’ – ants, mice, mosquitoes (it’s THAT season here in the mountains) - and, how often I mindlessly swat a ‘skeeter’ or squash an ant that, perhaps with at least equal mindlessness, has dared to crawl on my arm while I’m engaging in a Feldenkrais lesson. I think about this as I observe myself and others in our relationships and our conflicts with one another. I think about it in relation to working with my canine companion, Zadie Byrd, when I become frustrated or confused. I know that there are better ways.

Discovering and creating those ways, then practicing and following them with conviction and commitment is a sure path to creating a more peaceful and just world. This, my heart knows. These better ways? Most start with listening – listening to others, to nature, to self, listening within.

Shulen’s quote above is from a scene where he has told his apprentice in Azar, The Way Between, to put an end to the bullying she has been subjected to by another orphan. She is challenged to not fight (she’s committed to peace and, besides, she’d likely loose) or flee (report the perpetrator to the Head Monk at the orphanage). She must find The Way Between for this situation.

She does so, first by connecting to and acknowledging the boy’s pain and by listening to his angry, heart wrenching story. Then,

The moment opened like a door. Ari Ara saw his leap coming in slow motion. She stepped through the possibilities between fighting or fleeing and entered The Way Between. As Brol sprang at her, Ari Ara turned his momentum in midair. Softly as a snowflake in Shulen’s hand, she leveraged his flying weight into a flip and brought his body to the ground. ‘It ends here, Brol,’ she warned him in a low voice as his shocked eyes stared up at her. She held his gaze for a moment, until she saw something shift in his face. Then she stepped back and strode out of the monastery without another word. Rivera Sun, The Way Between

Ari Ara came to this strength and capability, not in a moment of sheer luck, but with months of study and training, of trials and tribulations. (Get the book, read the story, be inspired).

My own dive into exploring nonviolence and peace this summer is deepening my understanding that peace and nonviolence won’t happen ‘out there’ in our chaotic, violent world until we each create peace within and craft our lives and our systems from that place, from finding and creating The Way Between in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Listening. That is the opportunity, perhaps the necessity, of this time.

Acts and approaches that exemplify The Way Between abound in our world, often are ignored by a media seemingly trapped by the dark aura of violence and chaos. We are steeped in this culture by our language (think ‘war on poverty’); by products designed to rid us of pests of all kinds; by books, movies, games, cartoons and more. Activism can be as simple as unplugging from the systems and products that brought us to this place: being more mindful of what and from whom we purchase goods and services, and where we invest our time and our money.

I’m imagining a world where we relate, create, and make choices from The Way Between: a just and caring economic system, love for our precious planet, wellness and health systems that honor the body’s intelligence …

These are the pivots inviting us forward. What are you imagining? What are you wanting and willing to create?

Sunset - Day is Done, Rest for the Days Ahead

Inviting Curiosity Amidst Chaos

A New Day Dawns - Curious What It Will Bring

You can apply curiosity to all your experiences in life. … Your own life is the parameter of your experience which is your own world. To begin to accept this provides you with the incentive to take responsibility for the power you have over your own world. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: An Air of Optimism – May, 2011)

I started my morning feeling a touch of sadness and worry. I wondered what wanted my attention other than writing this weekly muse. As quickly as I asked, answers came: a strange dream of someone being humiliated publicly (ugh!), concern about Zadie Byrd, a memory of discovering Luke’s tumor about this time last year, and addressing the issue of mice in the house (more ugh!). Nothing earth-shaking or life threatening, just life. Let them go for now.

As I turned my attention to the muse, my first thought was of the world’s chaos and the battles being waged over power, power that is powerless when our agreement is taken away. Underneath the drama of the news, our individual power often lies wasted (to the glee of those “in” power, I imagine).  As we wake up and understand the world anew, any power over us is surely at risk.

As I gaze into the woods out back, I see beyond where I could just 10 days ago. The same is true out front. With the fire mitigation’s removal of undergrowth, I experience openness, an expansion of what’s now visible.

That goes both ways of course. Passersby on the road out front can see more of the Dragonfly House. Mentioning this to a dear colleague earlier this week, she suggested that it is a metaphor for my becoming more authentic and transparent. Now there is something for the muse to chew on for a bit!

The idea surely deserves consideration as I think about building a visual barrier of some sort out front. If my intention is to become more of my true, authentic, soul self, do I want to screen that off? Do I want to limit my ability to see what’s out in the world? My how a single suggestion invites curiosity!

Besides, ‘who am I?’ anyway? Now there’s a question to be curious over!

Asked through the ages, that question is fundamental to understanding our stories and the structures and institutions that we’ve created from those stories. They are imbedded in us, paradigms comprising the so-called ‘reality’ that we walk through each day.

As I gaze out at the world beyond these woods, that ‘reality’ is in chaos. Much of it is crumbling before our eyes, obsolete in the face of new discoveries about our true nature. Yet fighting to hang on. Known. Familiar. Comfortable, even with its discomforts.

We humans do that in life – hang on to habits and ways that no longer serve us. I smoked cigarettes and stayed in a marriage well beyond the time I knew that each was no longer good for me. Even today as I long for and open to a new, unfolding world, my invitation has conditions: I hold on to old habits and ways that are comfortable on some level, even in knowing that they inhibit the new from coming forth.

THIS is what really invites my curiosity! Even in my hesitancy, I invite the unfolding of a new world by exploring. What IS possible in a universe of infinite possibility? What are the worn out, disproven stories that continue to hang on until, with awareness, we stop using them as frameworks for our choices? How do I live in this world, yet withdraw my energy from systems that no longer work (health care, financial, etc. etc.)? I AM curious! You?

When things fall apart, the hopelessly radical becomes common sense. Charles Eisenstein (The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible)

This week, I invite you to be curious and “hopelessly radical” about the deeply imbedded stories, the paradigms, of our world. What is our responsibility – individually and collectively - for using our personal power to lay the old to rest and invite a new world with new realities into being? How can we make radical the new “common sense”? In short, where will we pivot?

I found this episode of Gregg Braden’s Missing Links series a thought-provoking place to engage in this exploration. I hope you will as well!

Onward! Upward! Pivoting Into the New!

Openness and Expanded Visibility in the Woods Out Back

Life! The Adventure Continues ...

Early Morning Beauty in the Sangres - The Adventure Continues!

Living well is, after all, the most important task that lies before every one of us. Gregge Tiffen (Life in the World Hereafter: The Journey Continues)

Gregge continues: … As most of us go about our everyday lives, what we experience is really more “doing” than it is living. There’s a big difference. In just doing it is impossible for us to know that we are a part of Omnipotent Intelligence. Yet eventually each of us comes to a time when, as a result of events or experiences, we reach out to the Universe – whether we call it God or something else – as the source. When we do, we awaken that part of ourselves that recognizes the fundamentals of life, and we start to feel alive. We then manifest that feeling into action, and that action moves us to embrace the infinitude of the Universe by becoming an aware, living part of that reality.

That “feeling alive” that he speaks of is what I think of as ‘being’. And, most of us are familiar with the ‘doing vs. being’ distinction.  Some suggest that we are either being or doing. I believe however that, whether with awareness or not, we are always in some state of being.

Who am I ‘being’ when I ‘do’? For instance, when I’m engaging in tasks of converting from winter mode to spring/summer mode here at the Dragonfly House, what am I feeling? Am I approaching each task as a burdensome chore that must be done and checked off my list so that I can do something else? Or am I connecting with my gratitude for living here and joyfully engaging in each task as an opportunity for my unique creative expression?

Watching a short video preview posted by Gregg Braden (view it here) I realized (in a ‘duh, of course, moment) that, just as our understanding of death (read last week’s post here) is foundational to our stories, so too is how we define life. Braden shared a common chemistry textbook definition of life: Life is a behavior pattern that chemical systems exhibit when they reach a certain level of complexity. Say what? Sounds classic, brain-based, and very limiting to me.

If I/we accept such a definition (and Webster’s first 10 are in a similar vane!) how likely am I/are we to see daily life as a joyful, adventurous, creative, generative, process? Is it any wonder that our culture finds itself in a morass of confusion and conflict? Our creative power is sucked out of us by such definitions that become prevailing stories in a culture. Ugh!

What’s possible if I/we embrace life as vastly different and far beyond behavior and chemical processes – something that science is rapidly discovering (AND that you won’t see reported in the daily news)? What if life is an infinite continuum – a spiral perhaps – encompassing many dimensions; forms, seen and unseen; formlessness; physical, mental, spiritual planes of existence?

I smile and feel tingles of joy just thinking about expanding our stories in this way. This generative perspective allows new discoveries to create new stories rather than forcing such discoveries into old paradigms.

Isn’t it time for scientific discoveries such as those of the HeartMath Institute to be mainstreamed? The folks at the Institute have been researching the heart/brain connection for almost 30 years, developing tools for creating heart coherence, an important key to health and well-being. Here’s a great offer!

YES! IT IS time for NEW stories, NEW paradigms, NEW systems that honor the adventure that life is intended to be?

A New Story for Zadie Byrd — A Brief Moment Off-Leash

Nurturing Resiliency 2020

Sacred Beauty in the Sangres

Knowledge is strength. Strength is knowledge. … If you realize that your strength is in knowledge, which is your experience and the resiliency of your consciousness, no one can affect you. Not even the Universe can diminish that one whit.  Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: Mystical Longings)

As it did three years ago when we here in the U.S. were in the midst of a new, chaotic presidential administration, the muse takes me to revisit personal resilience, the resilience of consciousness. As I look out at the chaos and discord in the world systems of man and the dramatic reactions of mother nature, nurturing resiliency might be a worthy priority for each of us.

We must each choose whether and how to observe, to engage, and to act in these times. As such, resiliency, defined as the ability to recover readily from illness, adversity or the like, seems worthy to consider in the face of the discord and challenges that are growing in worldwide. How do we build our personal resiliency?

Resiliency is not nurtured by hibernation or closing yourself off from the world (as appealing as that idea sounds some days!).

Resiliency is nurtured when we seek knowledge, in particular knowledge about how life works. This includes both the laws of the jungle, life ‘out there’ as the world defines and dictates, and Universal law, life - up close and personal, you to you and you to the Universe.  We learn a great deal through our participation in the world: relationships, business, politics, finance, health, etc.  We learn through observation, awareness and experience.  We learn when we succeed as well as when things don’t go as we wanted them to.

The lens through which we view life is a key factor in our capacity to ‘bounce back’ as well as to be strong in the face of any challenge.  Think of the stories of the people who face medical challenges, of those who survived concentration camps, of those who lose a loved one to violence only to bounce back and turn the tragedy into a positive movement. We see this today worldwide in movements of non-violence (check out Non-Violence News here - https://nonviolence.com/news/), climate action, and even in some of the drama of presidential campaigns. We see it as well in personal acts of caring, service, warm smiles to strangers.

This is a time to build personal resiliency. As you reflect on your own resiliency, think of a particular challenge that you’ve faced in life.  In what ways were you resilient? In what ways was your resiliency hampered? What did you learn that built your resiliency for future challenges?  What are you curious to learn now?

The Ziggurat - Stairway to Heaven

Strike!

Day breaks in the woods out back.

So many of us believe that we’re impotent when it comes to solving the larger problems of the world. Yet there is nothing impotent about the human mind. Even if you’re not the type of person to write letters or join protests, if you feel deeply about an issue, you can dedicate a period of time every day – five or ten minutes, sixty seconds even – when you sit still and send out your objections in a thought process. Then hold in your mind a feeling of appreciation of, respect for, and harmony with the Earth. Gregge Tiffen (Life in the World Hereafter - The Journey Continues)

I started to do something, take action, try to make a difference instead of sitting in despair. That changed my life. It gives your life meaning... To know you can have impact, it makes you feel a lot better. Greta Thunberg

Among other reflections, experiments and adventures this week, I’ve continued to consider how I will cooperate more fully with Mother Earth.  I started to write ‘how can I’, but that’s a cop-out. There are unlimited ways that I ‘can’, but what ‘will’ I do gets to the heart of the matter.

‘What will I do?’ is a question for each of us to ask. It matters not how big or how small our actions are. EVERY action we take, EVERY thought we think matters.

While Gregge Tiffen imparts the wisdom of the ages, Greta Thunberg inspires with her youthful caring and wisdom. She’s turned despair, fear, and anger into love in action. Listen! I chuckle as I notice that both share the initials GT. Then, I return to what really matters: their calls to action. And, to the Global Climate Strike, a focused week of action beginning tomorrow, September 20, 2019, and continuing across the globe through September 27.

How will I honor, not the event as an event, but the heart (and the future) of these young people, who are boldly challenging the establishment (and each of us enabling that establishment) to take action?

The nearest climate action event is some 60 miles away, so it would be quite incongruent to drive 120 miles to participate. I don’t have a ‘job’ and I’m not in school, thus I can’t walk out. So, how will I strike?

I begin to design my actions, starting with Day 1, September 20. I’ll unplug from all electronic connection for the day (no email, no Facebook, no phone).  I’ll spend time (at least two hours) in the woods out back, listening to the trees, the rocks, the land. I’ll thank the Earth.  I’ll return to reading Charles Eisenstein’s Climate: A New Story. I won’t shop or engage in any business activity. So far, it’s a pretty easy list. I add that I’ll eat raw (no cooking on the gas stove), and I’ll turn in when the sun sets.

Then, as I decide that I won’t use the car, I remember a physical therapy appointment scheduled weeks ago. I find myself face to face with how my schedule, my habits, my consumption, conflict with my desire to participate and to be more collaborative with the Earth. I’m reminded again that my choices contribute to Mother Earth’s stress. EVERY thing matters. We hit such conflicts whenever we aim to change. They are the places that can stop us, and the places where we get to choose what we value most.

In this case, I choose my health and well-being. I recognize that today, it’s a conscious choice, while most days I choose based on habit and convenience and with little awareness. I wonder about possibilities for future choices that honor both my well-being and the planet.

I’ll add this to my reflections in the week ahead. I’ll spend time each day reflecting on my commitment to collaborate with Mother Earth. I’ll find more places to shift, where I ‘will’ act. I’ll participate virtually in this event created by Listening to the Earth [Listening to the earth meditation] just before the UN Climate Summit begins. You can learn more about this group here.

Most of all, I’ll aim to make choices with greater awareness, doing my best to mitigate the negative impact and expand the positive.  However you strike (or not), hold in your mind a feeling of appreciation of, respect for, and harmony with the Earth. That’s a positive contribution no matter what other choices we make.

Grateful for the water, the trees, the rocks, the sky … the beauty along the Arkansas River

Discernment in Our Chaotic World

Early Morning Haze in the Sangres

Truth and spiritual awareness need no trumpets or drums. Gregge Tiffen (Do The Angels Take a Vacation? – August, 2007)

What is true for each of us is that which inspires and deepens our awareness of our true power.

As I have a few times recently, this week has me calling forward a previously written post – updated what I’m observing currently.  The message seems especially appropriate given the political climate and, in my view, dearth of moral leadership in that arena.

Over the past several weeks as I’ve watched current events unfold and heard far too much fear-based rhetoric, I realized (not for the first time of course) just how disempowering the world’s messages are. The so called ‘news’ with its negativity, discord, confusion, conflicting information and disparate opinions that scream their version of what is true often fails to inform much less inspire or empower.

Beyond the news, everything in the world seems to calls for our attention jobs, family, friends, politicians, people in business who have something to sell. Take a look at your email in-box, your social media account, text messages, voice mail, and advertisements in places too numerous to mention. 

Are you inspired or empowered by what you see?  Or does the vista contribute to a sense of angst, confusion, chaos about conditions ‘out there’ beyond your control?

So, how the heck do you begin to know what’s ‘true’?  Within that question is perhaps one of the great opportunities of this time: learning the fine art of discernment – not what’s true ‘out there’, but what is true to you and for you. What are your criteria for discerning what to allow to enter your space (yes, you do have control over that!)?

If you know your criteria, are you rigorous in honoring them? (I’ll be taking some action in this regard this month!).

If you aren’t sure or your criteria could use buffing up (I’ll be doing some of that too!) give some attention to identifying the knowledge/tools/skills you have to guide you.

A great starting point is remembering the truth of what Gregge suggests in the quote above: truth is not boisterous or external, rather it is quiet and inside. The goal is to find your truth. What is true for each of us is that which inspires and deepens our awareness of our true power. What inspires you? What deepens your awareness of how powerful you truly are?

Here are some other ways to develop and sharpen your discernment:

• Engage curiosity, letting go of the need to know, understand or be right

• Be open to other possibilities – open mind, open heart

• Develop your instinct/conviction and listen to it while being open to making adjustments

• Befriend paradox – in a world of infinite possibilities two ideas that appear contradictory may each be true even when they seem to be polar opposites

• Be gentle (with yourself and others)

• Avoid win/loose conflict, competition, and confrontation

• Look to nature, her beauty, her rhythm

  Enjoy the journey to discovering and expanding all that which is truly you AND true for you! 

The Labyrinth - One of My Places for Finding What Is True for Me … Luke agrees!