Friendship: A Path to Peace

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

I love how Spirit (Life, the Universe, God or any name you wish to give the flow of energy moment to moment) works.   Ask. Expect. Receive. Simple, and not always easy.

Early this morning as I woke and picked up my journal, curious to discover what the focus of today’s post would be, I felt a pull between two seemingly opposite ideas: friendship and the violence occurring here in the US and abroad.

Although much of my week has been about friendship, I felt a deep need to speak to the violence that is front and center in the news. My heart said that I couldn’t ignore it. And, so I began to write about its roots, that through the ages we humans have built systems – governments and industries – that have fear at their core. The massive weapons industry relies on fear grounded in beliefs that one can destroy another who doesn’t have the force to strike first or defend. We fear death because we’ve lost our awareness that life is more than the body that our consciousness inhabits.

Where fear dwells there is little room for love. As I observe current events and the continued militarization of local law enforcement, I stretch my capacity to love and feel compassion for those who are so fearful that they believe taking another’s life will protect them. I seek to understand and feel love for those who hurt so much that they vilify others whose views do not match their own.

I imagine a world where peace and love prevail, and this morning’s quote, which landed in my ‘inbox’ compliments of HeartMath, brought me to see the connection that friendship is a path, a way to peace that violence can never create.

This week I am blessed with friends in abundance: visits from long-time friends [a 20+ year friendship that began at the first conference of coaches two years before the birth of the International Coach Federation], a shorter term friend [the amazing woman who fostered Cool Hand Luke out of the shelter and gave him the foundation for being the amazing canine companion that he is], and new friends with whom I have the honor of sharing the peace of Dragonfly House as they come to Crestone to study with their teachers.

These are easy friendships compared the relationships that are needed to forge peace. In my idealist heart and mind I see the beautiful possibility of befriending someone who is afraid. Of sending them love and compassion despite our different views of the world. I know that it will require ever more mindful choices of the words I speak and the choices that I make moment to moment, day to day, and beyond. May I be up to the challenge to contribute to peace in this way. What about you?

In the end I wasn’t required to choose between the two topics, but rather was gifted with a bridge that connected the two. Perhaps one path to peace is to be curious, open and seek bridges between seeming opposites and to allow what wants to emerge to present itself.

Seeds of Life

"Thoughts are the seeds of life." - Cindy Reinhardt

One year ago this week, I launched the The Zone blog. It seemed to come forth not from a single seed, but from many planted throughout life. Yet, perhaps somewhere inside me was a single seed that finally was ready to germinate.

When I penned that first blog, I promised an eclectic approach to life and success with a focus on reclaiming personal power and supporting a shift to creating more care, compassion, collaboration and community. I hope that I’ve fulfilled that as much for you as I have for me.

I said that I wanted to challenge our thinking (yours and mine!), poking around the edges of what’s possible, exploring how nature and ancient wisdom define and guide us to success. Only you know whether these weekly excursions have elicited that for you. For me, the discipline of this weekly post has sharpened my observation of nature and self, bringing forth a sense of personal satisfaction.

When I launched last August, I didn’t know that I’d soon be in the midst of moving. I had no (conscious) idea that the home I was offered as temporary housing by a friend would, like dog in a shelter looking for its ‘forever’ family, claim me as its steward. But somewhere, like the seeds that burst forth The Zone, different seeds were ready sprout in new ways.

Those seeds of home, quiet, nurture and nature brought forth this August’s launch of Dragonfly House Crestone. I welcomed my first guests to this place of peace last week. The next guests arrive later today. It seems that it is a part of my natural rhythm that seeds of change bring forth blooms in the form of new (ad)ventures in August. That’s a new awareness for me to reflect on as I look ahead.

Every seed has within it, the potential to develop fully into its full essence. The pine cone brings forth a beautiful tree. The pea pod, nutritious food; and marigold seeds, splashes of color and protection from tomato loving critters. These, like loving thoughts, deserve our care and nurturing.

Other seeds, like the tiny stickers that grab Luke’s fur to get a ride to fertile ground are like those thoughts that persist, yet don’t serve us at all. I think that I’m learning to be as meticulous with my thoughts as I am in combing Luke after each walk to remove those stickers, refusing to give them new, fertile ground to grow on next year.

Reflection for the Week: What thoughts do you need to comb from the fur of your consciousness?

Number 52!

"Time and clocks are not of nature. Energy is."

This post marks my 52nd weekly post. I noticed that I started writing it at 7:07am on this 7th day of the month in a year, 2014, in which the numbers add up to seven. In my bit of study of mystical numerology, the number seven is about knowledge and wisdom. In the creation story, the 7th day represents the end of a cycle. Likewise, this post completes a one year cycle of creating a post each Thursday morning. What have I learned from the experience that I will take forward into the next?

I’ve learned to trust that inspiration is always present to tap into. Sometimes an idea is born before Thursday morning. Some Thursdays the tap flows just as I wake. Other times, like today, it comes after our morning walk. My ‘job’, I’ve learned, is not to force, but to observe and allow. There is no ‘deadline’ other than a promise to myself to honor this Thursday morning creation. I’ve created the opportunity to call forth what wants to be said and to use my energy (along with the blessing of technology) to complete the task.

I’m learning that when I work with a clear intention, focus and an awareness of energy requirements rather than time, projects and life flow with ease.

That has been my experience this month as I’ve engaged in numerous projects in my home. My intention: to create a comfortable, nurturing place for myself (Luke too!) and to share with others who come here to experience the beauty and quiet of this place. My focus: gratitude and joy as I take on each task, whether I’m doing it myself or engaging someone else. The results: projects completed with joy and ease, and a home, Dragonfly House, almost ready to receive her first guests later today.

An annual cycle completes, to begin anew next week. New cycles and their adventures emerge. Such is the energy and flow of life.

Awareness for the Week: Notice and enjoy the cycles in your life!

Reflections on Nature and Remodeling

"The mind within does the real seeing, the real interpreting of what the eyes look upon. The eyes can truly be called ‘the windows of the soul’." - Ernest Holmes

I always thought that the bible verse about the eyes being windows of the soul meant that when you look into another’s eyes you can see their soul. Until reading a selection from The Science of Mind that included the above quote, I’d never considered the idea that how I see the world, more particularly the events that I manifest into my life, is a reflection of my soul. Duh, of course it is. And, yet this BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) deepens my awareness that I am always at choice about how/what I see.

In the earthen dam that was washed out on Sunday in a deluge of rain and hail, I can see a huge problem that I inherited when I bought the property and that someone else is to blame. Or, I can see an opportunity to commune with my land and the surrounding land as well as with others who know more about drainage than I to create the best course of action. Do I choose fear and anger? Or, do I choose faith and love?

If I truly believe that every event in my life is there for me and my learning and if I am aware of that belief, then most likely I will choose faith and love. Then I’ll throw in a dash of curiosity: what’s possible now?

Perhaps I would more closely reflect how nature deals with challenges, including those brought to her courtesy of we humans. Remember the western wood peewee nesting outside my front door a few weeks back? Last weekend, just before starting construction of a new deck right below her nest, I thought she’d abandoned it and there were no babies. I climbed up to remove the nest and to my amazement there were two small furry gray beings pulsing. I climbed down and ‘momma bird’ soon arrived to warm her babes. A few days later, two beaks appeared and momma began to feed them. Yesterday they were more active as construction in and around them continued. This morning, the nest is empty, the babies fledged, out of the nest to make their way in the world.

Observing momma and her nestlings living above the chaos of construction noise, people coming and going and hollering back and forth all day for a week, made me present to how I’m navigating the remodeling projects in my new home. My eyes are seeing beauty unfold in the new tile, fresh paint and little touch ups that I’m choosing to do. And, for the most part, my being has danced with the unexpected oversights in planning (mine and the contractor’s) or his (and my) idiosyncrasies.

Luke too has simply observed as his quiet home became a beehive of activity.

Thus, I’m not only experiencing the pleasure of the fresh, new look in my home and the joy of preparing her to receive and nurture guests, I am filled with joy and personal satisfaction about the process. What could be better that that?

Reflection for the Week: How would your life shift, if you knew that everything holds the potential to serve your learning and growth?

The Things We Take For Granted

"We take for granted electricity, water, even concerts. Count your blessings." - Damian Marley

I was looking for a quote from some ancient wise sage or at least someone that we think of as wise. But none fit the topic quite like reggae musician Damian Marley’s words. Have you ever considered what it takes to pull off an awesome concert? What about turning on the tap and receiving clean water? Or flipping a little plastic switch and, voila, light? Are you grateful not just for the water, the electricity, and the music, but for all the people and resources that are required to provide them?

In my first career as a city planner, I worked a lot with infrastructure needs for communities. Today, as President of our local water and sanitation district board, I’m back in touch with just what it takes for the tap to flow and the toilet to flush at my command. After all that’s what most of us expect several times each day. Right? We simply don’t think about where our water comes from and what keeps it flowing to (and from) our home.

An event in our community this week evoked the thought that a bit more awareness could remind us that water is a precious resource. And, that knowing a bit about what is required to operate a water system could give us pause to be grateful to those who keep it flowing.

As a result of a series of equipment failures, our community awoke Monday morning to a “Water Use Emergency Warning”. We had lost the ability to pump water into the system. We had only the amount of water already in storage, two or three days at most, to keep the taps flowing. Residents and our summer visitors were urged to limit water use to drinking, cooking, and limited flushing.

In crisis is opportunity and the opportunity I found for myself personally was three-fold: awareness, choice, and gratitude.

I quickly observed numerous wasteful habits, mindless use of water that I needed to correct not just in the emergency but permanently. I became aware of how much water I can reuse and how little water I can comfortably get by on.

I recognized a choice to worry about the outcome or to sit back and allow those who know so much more than I to do what they do best. I hope that I was successful in doing the later, in helping with communication, in raising questions for us to consider as we look back and asses this event, and, perhaps most important of all, cheering on this amazing team.

I’m grateful beyond measure to the men and women who went far above and beyond the call of duty to get our system back in operation. Their efforts kept an emergency situation from becoming a serious community crisis.

Today we live in reliance on systems like the water system in my community and on the individuals who keep those systems running. I hope you’ll take a few moments when you turn on the tap to feel gratitude for their contributions to your life, and that you’ll consciously count this as one of your many blessings each and every day.

Mitigation With Love

"There are lots of things, including changing the kind of inner dialog, that can mitigate anxiety." - Scott Stossel

Mitigation is on my mind this week as I commissioned an awesome crew to help me mitigate the property surrounding my new home. I took on this project with a healthy respect for the potential that exists here for wildfires and, more importantly, with love for the land and the trees. I wanted to give them new life, something that removing dead branches does for a tree. I want to be a good steward of this land.

As I began thinking about this week’s post, I wondered ‘just what does mitigation have to do with life’?

Mitigation is 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).

Early this morning, I noticed that unlike the 48 weeks prior to this one, I felt tense about what to write. I tossed in a dash of ‘should’ (really Cindy, you should start thinking about this earlier). The trust I feel each week about the message revealing itself waivered. Breathe.

Then, as it always does, the message began to come clear: ‘mitigate the pressure on yourself’. Ahhhh, yes, that. First step: the morning walk. This morning the air is clean, crisp, and cool after thunderstorms dropped blessed rain. Breathe that in. Notice how happy the earth feels under my feet, soft with the new moisture. Smell the freshness. Be grateful. Give thanks. Nature has her ways of mitigating tension and pressure. When we allow her to she shows us the way.

Thoughts and ideas began to flow. The process of becoming ‘milder, gentler, or less severe’, personal mitigation starts within. At its best, love is the foundation.

Like the fire mitigation project I completed this week, thoughts anchored in love not fear make life flow with ease. In choosing loving thoughts, I’m better able to walk through life with grace. Love, patience, gratitude, compassion are just a few of the seeds I can use to mitigate from the inside out.

Unlike the fire mitigation project, personal mitigation is an ongoing process. It requires my presence and awareness to notice when dead branches show up as thoughts that don’t serve me. For only with that awareness can I make the choice to replace fear with love, impatience with patience, loathing with compassion, and ungratefulness with deep reverence and gratitude.

Reflection for the Week: Look deep inside to discover any thoughts that need to be mitigated. Insert love to replace each and every one.

Deeply Touched

"All of love, happiness, and freedom are available in the ocean of consciousness." - Gregge Tiffen

This morning, the fourth anniversary of the death of a beloved dog, Ellie, I’m feeling deeply touched by the beauty and flow of life.

I’m so blessed to live in a place of quiet, natural beauty. These mountains and trees and wildlife have opened me to a deeper, more consistent awareness of the love, happiness and freedom that are available to us all when we allow ourselves to receive their bounty. I’ve come to notice and appreciate the so-called small things in life: the ripening of the first tomato, a nesting western wood peewee outside my front door, the sun breaking over the Sangres bringing light to the day, or an unusual action by Cool Hand Luke.

When something touches me these days it does so more deeply,  awakening a curiosity that wonders 'just what in me is touched by this?' This morning, checking Facebook to see what new pictures of precious Annie-Kay might have been posted (none yet today, darn), I found that I’d been tagged in a post “In The Final Minutes of His Life, Calvin Has One Last Talk with Hobbes”. I can’t type the title without getting teary-eyed. I encourage you to read it here: http://www.tickld.com/x/this-guy-just-changed-the-way-we-seecalvin-and-hobbes

I’ve been a fan of the feisty Calvin and his sidekick, Hobbes, for as long as I can remember. The creativity, inventiveness, and imagination of Calvin, coupled with his devil may care approach to life and love of his friend hooked me into many hours of laughs, smiles and pleasurable reading. This poignant post and Calvin’s last act of love (with a touch of his trademark mischievousness) touched my soul in a way that I don’t have words to share.

It speaks a truth that though the body dies, life and our great next adventure continues. But I sense that it touched something else in me. Something that isn’t quite yet awake. I’m curious to explore and discover just what that is.

And, what about Luke’s unusual action that I mentioned earlier? Two nights ago as I was reading in bed with him snoozing nearby, Luke awoke, jumped off the bed and headed to a corner of the room that’s not particularly dog friendly. As he was coming back, I noticed that he dropped something from his mouth before hopping back up on the bed. What was that something? My very own Hobbes, a stuffed tiger that Luke learned early on is not his toy. He’s honored that training for years, and it was clear that he didn’t put it in his mouth to play. Looking back, it seems he was reminding me of Hobbes in some gentle way and preparing me to receive the message.

Invitation for the Week: Notice what touches you deeply this week. Be grateful for your awareness.

Independence Is The Law

"Dependency is a basic violation of Universal law." - Gregge Tiffen

There is no question in my mind that the radical, revolutionary visionaries that founded the United States were deeply in touch with Universal law and sought to create this nation aligned with Universal principles.

I also believe that we’ve strayed as a country and as individuals from living fully into the independence that was a pillar of their creation and still is immutable Universal law. Taking responsibility for operating from independence requires attention, awareness, and (gulp) courage.

I’m coming to experience (and thus to deepen my belief) that at any moment, in any circumstance I have the power, the free will to choose differently. The rewards for making those choices are vast and deep, the most important being the joy of self-satisfaction and its deepening to self-love. These are not selfish, self-centered ways of being. Rather, they are what we are meant to experience as we chart the path of our lives in alignment with the unique blueprint that we each came to this life with.

The process of purchasing a home provided many opportunities to do just that. I did my best to rise to each occasion (and I forgive myself for not always doing so or for being less than gracious through part of the process). As I look back at the hoops that I jumped through and the amazing support that I received, I’m aware that at every turn, every hurdle I remained at choice. I never felt a sense of being a victim or of ‘having to do’. I chose with each hurdle to act from ‘okay, here’s my next step, let’s see where it leads’ rather than ‘I have to do this because, if I don’t, they will (or won’t) …’.

Either way, my actions might well have been the same. But the gift of making them from a place of choice protected me from any sense that I could lose or be hurt. I was willing to ‘let the chips fall where they may’. At its core that is the promise and the gift of independence.

Today, I not only own a home that I love (and look forward to sharing with others who need and want respite from the busy, noisy world), I have a deep sense of gratitude and satisfaction for how I walked through the process. The home and other material things I can’t take with me when I’m complete with this life, this body. But, the satisfaction, the gratitude and whatever wisdom I gained from the experience are forever a part of my consciousness.

Invitation For The Week: As you bask in the stars and stripes, the red, white and blue, enjoy a burger and your beverage of choice, take time not just to be grateful for the promise of independence, but reflect on the attitude you bring to your life’s choices and the freedom those choices represent. Are you operating as you are meant to: independent of all others? Rinse, repeat, and ask again.

Stepping Up To The Plate

Life is a game to be played, not a fight to be won. 

Swinging at curve balls is part of the fun.

If you’re willing, you learn a lot before you’re done.

I discovered a love of baseball when my stepson, James Michael, started playing Little League and wanted to go watch the Houston Astros. The game’s pace fits mine. Baseball is amazingly strategic. And, every player is required to step up to the plate to have a chance to score.

Life is like that. We step up to the plate in countless ways as we go through each day. Then, life throws us a curve ball and suddenly we’re aware. I’m at the plate. It’s the bottom of 9th inning and the outcome rests on my shoulders. Do I tense up, feel the burden, the responsibility of solving the problem at hand? So, often that’s our habit, developed with years of unconscious practice. Or, do I take a breath, see an opportunity to loosen up, adjust my approach and confidently swing away?

I had the chance to make such a choice this week as I rounded third base moving toward closing on the purchase of a home. Two curve balls back to back were pitched my way. I took a breath (several actually!), relaxed and stepped in to swing.

The first challenged me to quickly get a repair done, including negotiating with the seller who would pay. The second required me to explain (yet again) self-employment income in a way that corporate folks who receive a paycheck regularly could understand and accept that really I can make the payments.

I put aside the idea that ‘if I don’t do this right I’ll lose the home’ along with the stress of that story. I stepped into curiosity about what I might learn and discover in the process of being at bat. I got clear about how I would approach each, starting with my attitude. This was not a fight to be won, but a learning opportunity to be embraced.

That foundation served me well. I quickly found a talented construction guy who was available immediately (unusual here in the summer) and we were able to purchase the needed materials right here in town (a year ago, getting them required a 120 mile round trip drive or waiting a few days for a delivery). The repair was done within hours and, best of all, I discovered an inventive, economical approach to another project that I need to do on the house when the purchase is complete, and I added another competent resource to my network.

Explaining my finances deepened my confidence and conviction that buying this home is the right move for me on many levels.

In every curve life throws our way is opportunity and possibility. When we are willing to let go of the drama and look beyond the pitch and within ourselves to discover just what that can be, I trust that it will always be there.

Reflection for the Week:  How do you swing at life's curve balls?

Summertime in the Cycle

"Be aware of yourself. If you are not doing what you want to do and where you want to do it, you are out of your cycle." - Gregge Tiffen, Impatience Fishes and Empty Pond

In two days we reach the midway point in the earth’s annual cycle. We’ve come a long way from the shortest day of light, Winter Solstice, to the longest, the Summer Solstice. In those six short (or long, depending on your perspective) months dark has given way to light. Stillness and quiet stepped aside and invited us to dance and engage more fully in life outside of us. The light, vibrant, active energy of summertime that lay dormant under a blanket of snow has come alive yet again.

Flora offer a wonderful illustration of the contrast between the seasons and this coming of the time of growth and vitality. As winter approaches trees drop their leaves and turn inward. In spring, new leaves appear. And, now dressed fully in their new green, trees provide shade. They bear fruit for our nourishment and eating pleasure and for their own procreation. Flowers, dormant in winter, have their own cycles that bring them out into the light to show their colors, like this cactus on our morning walk.

Elsewhere in nature, streams frozen in winter, begin to trickle in spring and now flow fully in summer’s warmth. And we, though we have lost so much of our connection with the nature’s cycles, somehow naturally follow this pattern.

This year especially I notice that I am. Ideas and projects given quiet, thoughtful attention in winter have come to life. In the cold, dark of winter they were but seeds of possibility, dreams, ideas. Like all seeds though they contain the full potential of what they can be and with the light and warmth of summer, they are bursting forth.

Some days they seem to carry me rather than me having to move them along. Those are the days of magic, flow and synchronicity. When I look back on them, they are the days when I listened and followed whatever my internal compass seemed to say.

Nature’s cycles remind me that everything has its divine right time. The more deeply I’m aware of and in touch with those cycles, the more patient I am with cycles outside of me. My gratitude for the tomatoes on the vine feeds my patience, knowing that one day I’ll taste the wonder of that gift. I’m more accepting and patient when I’m in tune with my own rhythms. I hear those inner nudgings to take action ‘now’ as well as those that suggest I wait, allow things to unfold in their time.

That’s the dance in which the experiments of life and experience of curiosity become an increased capacity to adjust and to adapt without losing who I am. In the longer light, warmth, and outward flow of summer with all of its activity, as I reach out in many directions, let me not forget my own rhythms and cycles in this larger dance that life presents.

REFLECTION FOR THE WEEK: Are you doing what you want, when and where you want?