Humility: Voice of the Soul

Tracking

Through prayer we learn to see with the eyes of the soul. … It refines your eyes for the unknown narrative which is quietly working itself through your words, actions and thoughts. In this way prayer issues from, and increases, humility. The normal understanding of humility made it out to be a passive self-depreciation in which any sense of self-worth or value was diminished. Humility has a more profound meaning. Humility is a derivative of the Latin word ‘humus’ meaning ‘of the earth’. In this sense, humility is the art of being open and receptive to the inner wisdom of your clay. John O’Donohue (essay in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong)

In the early morning quiet with warming fire in the woodstove on this cold morning, I rediscovered this O’Donohue wisdom that I’d  read sometime back. It shined light into the darkness that I’d been holding around humility. I understood that my story about humility held the limits of the “normal understanding” that he speaks of. A new story could now emerge in the light.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve made passing reference to humility here in The Pivot. The first was mentioning that I bristled when a bio-field scan suggested it as a priority. ‘What’s wrong with my humility?’ I bristled, ‘I have plenty…’. Then, as I wrestled with the teaching style of the leader in a class I’d just started, I recognized that a dose of humility might be an antidote worth exploration.

If not front and center in these early days of the new year, humility has certainly been highlighted in the soup of my reflections and musings with ever-gentle Muse nudging me along. Today, thanks to O’Donohue, I’ve come to better understand why the suggestion that humility needed to be addressed triggered my defensive reaction. Likewise, his wisdom further opened my heart and the door to create a new story.

Reading the scan results with fresh eyes and heart, I wondered if the language had changed since my first reading. There was no ‘problem’ with me that needed to be ‘fixed’. Rather I found an invitation to walk through a door opening as another closed. Endings and beginnings. Phases and stages. Dissolving and evolving. Life.

Muse and I chuckled as I read the scan’s introduction: As we start to recognize the greater forces at play in bringing us through a Choice Point, life often invites us to gain humility. As we end a cycle in our lives and begin another there is potential for some of our old world to dissolve (or collapse in some people’s experience). This is because nature follows cycles. As we are part of nature we can expect some aspects of our lives to follow the same kind of cyclic pattern. (NES Health - Personal Scan)

Muse nods with a smile as I recognize that these ideas are familiar. I am Nature. Nature is me. My soul speaking its wisdom and calling forth the new. Clay being placed before me for co-creating, discovering my part in bringing forth the new world that is gently cracking the shell to burst into new life.

I am not alone. Much of our world, our old stories, our systems, our thinking is dissolving and collapsing before us. What a time to be alive and co-create the new future rising!

This is my soul gently speaking her understanding of our connection to Gaia and to one another, indeed to all life. Soul has a better understanding of our true nature than either body or mind. The soul knows! And now I understand the necessity of humility to hear her voice.

Humility opens the way to let go of resistance, to surrender to the flow of life, to discover the freedom in non-attachment, and to relinquishing the quest to control that which is not mine to control.

The door of the old is not completely shut. Yet, as the door and light of the new are shining, an unknown, yet somehow familiar, narrative is taking shape within to guide the thoughts, words, and deeds of the days ahead. May that light shine gently and brightly for one and all. And may we each hear the voice of our souls.

Crestone Peak

Names Create Spaciousness (Or Not)

Blessed Snow in the Woods Out Back

We need to exercise great care and respect when we come to name something. We always need to find a name that is worthy and spacious. John O’Donohue (The Danger of the Name – essay in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong)

Oh, how O’Donohue speaks to my soul and kindles both memory and reflection this morning, connecting dots and opening a door to exploration as I sat with the weekly question: what do Muse and The Pivot want to point to this day?

As I re-read the essay that I’d landed in I was reminded of how my canine companion of nine, all to short years, Cool Hand Luke Skywalker, came to the name given him by his ‘foster mom’. Her story was perhaps my first conscious encounter with the importance of naming. She explained that she wanted to give him a name that “he can live into”. Given what little she knew of this pup’s life before the shelter, she was inspired by Paul Newman’s line in the movie Cool Hand Luke, “Sometimes no hand is the best hand of all.” In renaming him Cool Hand Luke, she opened doors of possibility for Lester, the name given him at the shelter.

But what about the ‘Skywalker’ part of his name?

I loved her story and Luke’s name as much as I loved the amazing dog. The importance of a name stayed with me. While observing Luke, I noticed some of his ways seemed Jedi-like, so naturally one day Cool Hand Luke became Cool Hand Luke Skywalker. I like to think that he lived into that name fully until the moment he took his last breath on this plane and that he continues to do so in the unseen world beyond the Rainbow Bridge.

I was also reminded that when ‘Sadie’ adopted me as her forever human three years ago, I wanted to give her a name to live into, one with greater possibility and potential that what I associated with the old comic, Sarge, Sad Sack, and Sadie, or Sadie Hawkins Day dances. I chose the name Zadie Byrd based on the feisty, loving, revolutionary character in Rivera Sun’s series, The Dandelion Insurrection. Ms. Byrd has her own way of living into that. Only later did I research the name Sadie and learn its Hebrew origin and meaning, princess. Perhaps she’ll become Princess Zadie Byrd someday. Hmm…Princess Leia she suggests.

Muse has patiently waited as I reminisced, eager to link my stories with recent experiences: my guidance to reflect on humility (mine and how I might tweak my engagement with it) and experiencing not having words (or that the old, usual words no longer fit) to describe something (several ‘somethings’ to be honest) in numerous conversations.

I’m coming to understanding that we/I are often so quick, and thoughtless Muse adds, to name things that we/I miss the richness of the experience. We limit ourselves to the known, the stories we hold about whatever name we’ve chosen. I’m often quick to name a feeling, an emotion so that I can move on, limiting my opportunity for reflection, deeper understanding, and, perhaps, even healing. What if the ‘sadness’ I named a few days ago was something else and had more to say had I given it space, time, and my lens of curiosity?

Perhaps that sadness held gifts like the ‘guilt’ that I carried deep inside (mostly unconsciously of course) for decades around an action against a family member when I was a child. Recalling the incident recently I discovered that the guilt named and put aside perhaps with some slight act of forgiveness long ago continued its life in me. It had gifts and insights to offer. When I dared dig deeper I discovered there had been no need to name and feel guilt at all. My action had been a blessing.

I sense we’re in a time where we need to give ourselves the skills, the time, the grace, and the spaciousness to name our experiences and our observations with greater care. How might our stories about disease, poverty, war, violence, etc. shift if in the darkness of their names and our stories we shined light? Light of possibility. Light of love. Light of care. What if we shunned the prisons that we’ve named ‘realities’ and bless them with new names?

I feel our world changing, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently. A new age is rising. How we name the changes upon us will determine just how those changes look in our world. And how we experience them. Let’s be care-filled as we do!

Nature’s Sculpting

New Year, New Stories

Full Moon Spiral

I am a person who constantly is trying to liberate myself from my socialization and the weight of the culture that I was born into . . . so that I can choose in every moment how I want to respond based on my values and care for the whole. Miki Kashtan (8 January 2023 – This Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey – Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service)

More and more I’m noticing places where my values, my dreams, my care are at odds with so much what’s brought forward in mainstream culture, so it was no surprise that this daily quote caught my attention. Its declaration of aiming to be at choice about how to respond in every moment based on values touched a resonant chord in me. That very idea itself is liberating.

As I began to explore, I wondered, ‘Do we need to struggle? For me, the language of ‘constantly trying to liberate’ suggests struggle.  Muse sighs and tickles another question or two: On what foundation is our culture built? What’s beneath the surface of our cultural habits and our socialization into that culture?

Stories. And stories about stories. Our stories. Old stories. Accurate stories and those that are not. Stories. Conscious stories. And those of which we are not aware.

I’m no stranger to how stories form our world, the culture, and ingrained habits of living and walking in that culture every day. Or to how our own stories about those stories (yes Muse, MY stories!) form the life we experience and how we experience it. Indeed, The Pivot is replete with stories as was The Zone, its predecessor. And with calls for new stories to create our world anew.

I believe that every thought we think and action we take is based on layers and layers of stories and beliefs, many of which we are aware of and far too many of which have been lost to our awareness. Yet conscious or not they inform our choices, build our world. And they inform our snap reactions, as I was reminded by an experience – and my reaction – this week. (‘Now we’re getting to it!’ encourages Muse.)

Despite a good amount of work and attention to shifting over the years, I discovered that a long-held story that I’m not enough still lingers in layers of my being, popping in at inconvenient times without invitation or conscious choice.

I experienced such a ‘visit’ several days ago when I received results from a recent body scan, a tool intended to provide insight, direction, and support. But rather than seeing my results as they were intended, I reacted as if they were a personal affront, criticism, clear evidence to support the old story that I’m not enough.

I spiraled (‘downward’ notes Muse) for a bit, holding the results as an indicator of something ‘wrong’ in me that needed to be ‘fixed’. It was familiar, if uncomfortable, territory until a different story rose in me. That story invited a different view, a view that the results are an invitation, not to fix, but to grow, to learn, to deepen understanding and awareness. I embraced the invitation into new territory or to familiar territory in a new way, opening curiosity about what I might discover. A path of exploration became clear.

New stories. We need them individually and collectively in our chaotic world that is crying for a remodel, a reboot. No current writer/thinker that I’m aware of groks and writes about the importance of stories more cogently than Charles Eisenstein. And, given my experience this week, it’s no surprise that he published an essay a couple days ago outlining his ideas contrasting the old stories of separation with new, emerging stories of interbeing: What is the Next Story? (I encourage you to read or listen here).

With each choice, thought, and action we are following the old or making way for the new, supporting its emergence. I know which path I choose. May my choices be conscious, clear, and consistent with calling forth the new.

New Snow on the Peaks!

Making Home in New Territory

Snowy Mountain Morning

It is like a voyage of discovery into unknown lands, seeking not for new territory but for new knowledge. It should appeal to those with a good sense of adventure.  Fredrick Sanger (English Scientist)

Words are slow to organize themselves this first ‘blog day’ of 2023. Yesterday I said to a friend that I feel myself in some new ground that invites exploration, some inner terrain presenting itself, not yet clearly, rather shrouded like the mountain peaks here in the sacred Sangres. A few days earlier another long-time friend voiced something similar and laughing said ‘where’s the instruction manual for this?’

Her humor evoked a quick, simultaneous response, a duet from the two of us ‘there is no manual; YOU/we are writing it.’ I’m certain Muse chuckled and recognized the fodder for this and future Pivots.

I’m blessed that from the cozy comfort of home, I can voyage into unknown lands, uncharted inner territory dependent not on an instruction manual but on trusting my own internal GPS as signposts present themselves for discovery. While I feel quite at home here in this place I love, I wonder how I will embrace this new territory. What will I need to unpack, to resolve, to discover in order to make this new territory ‘home’?

So far each of the 7 Days of Rest and Return to Essence have offered up much to reflect upon, starting with day 1 and its theme, Presence. What is the Essence of Presence? And the Presence of Essence?

As I sink into exploring Essence, I discover it as a felt sense beyond any words – lofty or otherwise – to describe. In this new territory, it seems that logic is invited to sit quietly on the bench rather than actively playing on the field. Perhaps that is what makes way for Essence to emerge and inspires me to explore.

Each day’s offering of reflective questions (offered by 7 Days creator Shelly Ostroff) are nourishing not only exploration of this new territory, but its future development.

Day 2 Resonance -- What would it look like in your life to make choices that resonate with the core of your being and the wellbeing of the all? What are the stories, the noise, habits and the distractions that need to be to shed for this to happen? What practices and behaviors want to be amplified? What wants to be transformed, and what potential pathways reveal themselves as you slow down, simplify and attune to the language of essence?

These questions resonate deep within, not as new, but expanding territory where the surface has been scratched. An invitation to deepen.

Day 3 Radiance -- Invite in the consciousness of radiance to be present with you. What are the images and sensations that arise? Imagine yourself embodying the essence of radiance in the moment - how does radiance feel, how does radiance move?

I find myself tiptoeing into these questions, looking out to find radiance more than looking within. Muse takes note, and nudges that perhaps some excavation may be required to develop acceptance of my radiance in this territory.

Day 4 Gratitude is a personal favorite and territory that seems very familiar having developed practices of gratitude for many years. I’m grateful for recognizing that I’m in new territory and curious to discover how gratitude will guide the way. Among several beautiful reflection questions, Ostroff offers this: How do you experience the relationship of generosity and gratitude and how does this relationship manifest in your life? How does expressing and receiving gratitude cultivate loving sacred relationship?

Collectively and individually, we are in new territory, indeed many new territories in a plethora of domains. I’m discovering signposts resonant with my internal GPS along with some that challenge me to adjust course as I navigate to feel at home in new territory.

May we each find the signposts we need within and without to navigate and be at home in the new. Perhaps this lively, poignant tune, shared by a fellow explorer in her own new territory, will lighten your spirit for the journey ahead (Phillip Phillips Home).

Nature’s Patterns

Pivot to Essence 2023

Sunset over the San Luis Valley — Solstice 2022

Let's sense into Essence

Into the Essence of Essence

Each Essence a consciousness all of its own,

A quality, a wavelength, a wisdom, a tone, 

A unique vibration, an exclusive sensation,

A pulsating partner in all of Creation.​

​~ Shelley Ostroff, from "IS"

 As I began to update what has become Muse and my annual ‘Auld Lang Syne’ post, the online countdown clock indicated that it’s 4 days, 11 hours, 58 minutes, 34 seconds until the new year is rung in here in the Colorado Rockies. ‘Who’s counting?’ wonders Muse.

 As was the case at the end of 2021, many – perhaps most – await the turning of the clock to 2023 with bated breath, wishing to bid adieu to another tumultuous year. We want to turn the page. We long to dive deeply into the fresh start that began with the Solstice promise of our personal newness and culminates as we replace our 2022 calendars with new pages of promise and possibility that the coming year has the potential to bring forth.

 It is, as always, up to us – individually and collectively – to bring promise, possibility, and potential to fruition. This year let us bring our Essence, the intrinsic nature and indispensable quality of ourselves fully into Life. How might our world be if we enter the new with that as our intention?

 As sure as the Sun’s light is returning day by day here in the northern hemisphere, we will have opportunities to do just that in the hours, days, weeks, and months ahead. What if we trusted the opportunities to come forth at just the right divine time rather than pushing to ‘make’ them happen?

 While 2022 held much tragedy and darkness, lights of love continued to be shined in dark corners needing our attention and care.  May the light of our Essence shine the light of love in all the days ahead. May we tap into the countless sources of light available beyond the chaos of the mainstream and its ways. May we receive whatever light we need as we add our unique rays to loving constellations of light and life.

 Although the onset of a new year signals the end of the holiday season in our culture, Winter has only just begun. The dark, the cold invites me inward (more snow would help the cause!). Muse smiles a happy, knowing smile. The season that began a mere seven days ago has a 12-week run before giving way to Spring. Yet our cultural habit of a new year is to make plans and spring into action with goals and commitments to DO more.

 What if we took more time for rest and renewal as Nature does in the season of cold? What if we put our attention on nurturing the deep, true Essence that is you? And me? What if we followed Nature’s lead and snuggle into ourselves to commune with the sacred and to gather all that is necessary to burst forth in Spring. While certainly there is life and livelihood to maintain, jobs to go to, businesses to tend, political action to be voiced, stories to be told, I wonder how the world might be if we began the calendar year in greater alignment with Nature? Our Nature?

 As I reflect on saying ‘Goodbye’ to this time gone by, my year end reflections include bundles of gratitude for what I’ve learned and discovered, how I’ve grown and changed. Muse called forth other questions for exploration:  

• What do I want to cultivate in the year ahead?

• What essence do I want to bring to the world? To relationships? To my care for self and other beings?

• What do I want to be able to say with conviction when 2023 is done?

 What do you bring to your year-end reflections?

 As 2022 ends, many will breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally over along with a breath of hope for better days in the year ahead.  The world we live in is chaotic and uncertain. It IS! Those who put attention on that world forgetting that it is the world we live IN, NOT the world we are OF may look ahead with dread or fear.

 That need not be.

 Within each of us is a seed of understanding who we truly are, our Essence. Nurturing that seed grows our faith in our capacity to be resilient in the face of the world’s chaos. This seed of faith is within us all. It is not faith in anything outside of us. Rather it is faith in who we are, each as an individual, integral part of an intelligent Universe. It is a reminder that life is so much more than we experience and observe in our daily routines. In this year ahead, may we each tap into our Essence, our spiritual strength, anew.

 As you ring in 2023, I invite you to join me in nourishing your Essence in each of the 365 days ahead, remembering how important your presence and your ray of light is at this moment on the planet.

 With that intention top of mind and heart, I’ll be participating in a global event 7 Days of Rest and Return to Essence during the first week of the new year. As they did at year end 2021, the event’s introductory words drew me in with their reminder of the power of intention and clarity and the potent possibility that alignment and collective action call forth:

7 Days of Rest, January 1-7, is an annual, open co-creative event dedicated to the healing and replenishment of the planet and all its inhabitants. All are invited to enjoy the rich array of offerings, including wisdom teachings, meditations, music, inspirations and more, that are generously offered by the global community.

 The theme for the event is 7 Days of Rest & Return to Essence. Together we will seed the intention and experience of relearning the language of essence and bringing our energy and resources to that which is most nourishing and vitalizing to all of Life.

 The website - https://www.7days-of-rest.org/ - is chock full of nourishing offerings each day. I’m looking forward to an encounter with each of the daily themes. I hope that you’ll join me in whatever way best fits your Essence, your schedule, your life, and your intentions for the year ahead.

Blessed Essence and Happy NEW Year!

Thank you Kelly Sikkema - Unsplash

Blessed Solstice!

In the quiet darkness of this Solstice time may you experience

A sense of deepening.

A sense of knowing.

A sense of deep satisfaction.

Your Wisdom.

May you know Peace.

Peace within.

Peace without.

Peace with ALL.

May you be Peace.

Easing into Solstice

Solstice Light

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

 What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

 How far we’ve drifted in our understanding of this season. …the time … for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Breathe that in for just a moment. Breathe a breath of gratitude for the gift.

 As I enter this Solstice time, I’m so very blessed to not be engaged in most of the busyness that has come to define this holiday season. This cold morning with a warming fire in the woodstove I look to the woods out back through the eyes of a heart that knows no separation from my tree relatives, from the rock beings, the winged ones, or from the four-legged creatures of all sizes that dwell or pass through this sacred place. My heart knows this as surely as it knows my oneness with the unseen Life that thrives here.

 Although I have year-end tasks and projects to wrap up, I feel in tune with the sacredness of this time. I’m tuned into the station of Nature’s beauty and to the bubbling of old and new deep inside.  At the same time, I observe so much and so many in the world that are not.

Divisiveness and angst have intensified exponentially in recent years. So too have the opportunities for personal growth and evolution, individually and collectively. It is on those opportunities that I want to focus my attention this Solstice time.

One of many sources I turn to at Solstice is Gregge Tiffen’s writings about this sacred time. I find this particular message a gentle reminder of the choices I can make moment to moment in all the days of winter solitude ahead and beyond this winter into the spring:

Prelude (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time, I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. And so it is for each of us.

 We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

 And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

We need not wait for the day of Solstice to take Heaven, to take Peace, and to Look at the radiance in the darkness within and without. Let us take them now and allow the potency of this time to fill us. This is our time to empty. This is our time to embrace seeds of the new; to be receptive.

 As our planet celebrates her birthday, my prayer is that I align with all my relations such that my comfort, my safety, my Life is not at their expense. This is my prayer for Solistice, for the year ahead, for Gaia, for Life. May this be our song of Joy to the World with ALL of Nature singing in harmony with one another and with the Heavens. Hallelujah!

 Let us honor Mother Earth by taking time to reflect the gifts of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way.

Nature’s Table

Remembering What the Current Paradigm Wants Us to Forget

Moon Over the Sangres

May we look up at that night sky. May we let joy in. For we will be someone’s ancestors one day. If we do this right, they will inherit not our fear but bravery born of joy. Valarie Kaur

Muse is patient with me today. Present and ready to engage when I settle in signaling it is time. A new pattern, perhaps one of winter, seems to be emerging in this weekly engagement. This morning my early morning journalling where The Pivot usually flows found me answering anew an age-old question: Who Am I?

Uncharacteristically I checked email before settling in to write. Curiosity about Georgia’s Senatorial election results got the better of my attention. Eyes quickly landing on a subject line that satisfied curiosity, I moved to close the computer but first, they landed on another: ‘Soul Medicine’. Being from a source whose focus on health and healing I’ve come to trust, aligned as it is with my beliefs about alternatives to the so-called ‘health care’ system, I felt guided to take a look.

Muse reminds that it’s no surprise that my attention landed here since I’ve been considering whether to engage with that system around a current health experience and, if yes, how to do so without abdicating my power.

The short video (you can see it here, but heads up – it is a teaser for a promotional piece) offered the powerful reminder that we are not who the world defines us as – our names, our roles, our accomplishments, etc. It ended with an invitation to write for five minutes in answer to that question: Who Am I? And so, I did.

Muse says I should let you know that I didn’t stop at five minutes and suggests that among several insights and avenues for further exploration, this is the one to share: I am a powerful being who does not consistently tap into my power, allowing the darkness of fear to creep in when I forget.

Our current chaotic and crumbling paradigm is chock full of abundant prompts to illicit our fear. For when we are in fear, we are vulnerable to the control of those whose game is power over. Our very sovereignty is at risk when we lose touch with who we are.

To maintain our personal sovereignty requires a force more powerful than the intelligence of our rational minds. It demands the intelligence of our hearts, the organ of this amazing body that holds the capacity to tap into the infinite wisdom of the Universe.

As I consider this and look to apply it more readily to my current experience, I’m reminded of my friend, author/activist Rivera Sun’s words in her powerful, telling novel, The Dandelion Insurrection: When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. (Find Rivera’s work here)

While I’m present to my own forgetfulness about using the power of my heart to discern, to sooth, to settle, to express my care, I’m keenly aware that the power of hearts collectively tuned in to the Universal station of connection, cooperation, care, and yes, love is what the current paradigm hopes we will forget.

So may we remember this power, OUR power, and find ways to tap into it more fully. If we begin to travel the path of amnesia, forgetting our power, may we open to a gentle tap on the shoulder to guide us home.

December Sunset over the San Luis Valley

Soul Stirring of Winter

Beauty Abundant

The geography of your destiny is always clearer to the eye of your soul than to the intentions and the needs of your surface mind. John O’Donohue (Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong)

As winter weather continues to settle in and we move closer to the Winter Solstice, I find myself more pulled within. Much of what I read stirs something in this soul. I feel a choice point coming, a gestation of something that as of now has no words, no form, no clarity. Certainly, no certainty. I wonder how ‘it’ will emerge or even whether ‘it’ is an ‘it’ at all.

Muse gently reminds me to embrace the stirring and all that isn’t known, then guides me back to an experience that seems to point toward some shift on the horizon.

As I was putting away an abundance of leftovers a few days after my Thanksgiving feast with friends, I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer reading her essay The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance in an Emergence Magazine podcast (find it here -- https://emergencemagazine.org/podcast/). She was speaking a topic near and dear to this heart while picking serviceberries: an economy based not on scarcity as it is now but on abundance, reciprocity, flow, a gift economy.

I listened, aware of the irony, the juxtaposition throughout: I’m packing and storing as I listen to a wise woman’s words about giving, sharing, and flow. Beyond the leftovers, I’m reminded of the abundance of pinon nuts that I harvested in the woods. Except for those shelled by a friend and enjoyed with our Thanksgiving feast, they sit on the pantry shelf waiting…

Abundance, flow, reciprocity, using, gifting … These ideas are not new. They resonate deep within as the truth of who we are, who I am. They point to possibilities some of which are emerging worldwide.

This, I think, is foundational to a level of consciousness needed to grapple with the issues of our time. Perhaps a part of Einstein’s admonition that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.

Then I wonder ‘what needs to shift in my thinking, my being, and my habits of doing?’ so that I more fully align with what I say I believe? What habits of choice do I hold and follow that are of the systems of scarcity? As I pose these questions to self, I do so in hopes that only remnants remail. Yet I know our systems have imbedded their ways, their thinking in us, in me to keep the lie of scarcity alive: ‘there isn’t enough, hang on to what you have’.

And so, I pack and store, having on some level bought into the lie of scarcity. Yet I hold a knowing that this is one of the ways of the past that is in hospice, moving toward laying to rest so that new ways can emerge, be nurtured. How that will look in this life I’ve created and in the world beyond is ours to determine, ours to co-create. May we do so in harmony with one another and with dear Gaia, Mother Nature, our home.

Mossy Love in the Woods Out Back

My Prayer of Thanks 2022

Morning Dance of the Fire Faeries

The power of giving thanks gives life its vitality! The power of giving thanks comes through your awareness that you are always in a position to receive all the elements the Universe has to offer. Everything is available to you.  Gregge Tiffen (The Power of Giving Thanks, November 2007)

 I’m thankful for the muse that visits at least weekly with some message that seems to want to be expressed. My weekly practice for over nine years now is one of the highlights of my week, in part because I rarely know what’s going to show up, until the words hit the page. It’s also been my practice to rest the muse on occasion and revisit/reprise a prior post. And, so it is this Thanksgiving (here in the U.S.) eve, as I reflect with a grateful heart on all this year has offered.

Last week in sharing the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World, I shared my belief that, while it is good to have a special day to give thanks, the irony of Thanksgiving’s origins in this country deserves a pause for thoughtful consideration. As you give thanks, I’ll leave that consideration to your heart and soul. I’m grateful that as a society we are beginning to acknowledge, understand, and hopefully, move beyond the dark choices that haunt our past.

 Despite the disgust and sadness I feel for the atrocities we force upon one another and on our dear planet, I’m grateful for this life and for the opportunities to learn and grow that are ever present.  Despite the irony of the holiday’s origins, I celebrate, grateful for my conviction that, despite history and the current chaos and cruelty worldwide, justice and light will prevail.

 Several years back, sitting quietly by the fire on a cold morning, I began to write in my journal. The words that came surprised me and took me to an unexpected place: gratitude for being me.  As I ease into Thanksgiving Day, I remember all that I’m grateful for and my words then inspire my prayer of thanks for 2022

 I’m grateful for the challenges and changes this year has thrust upon me personally and on all of us as a community of humans. I’m grateful for my friends and friends of my cousin who surrounded me with love and support in the wake of her sudden, unexpected death two years ago. I’m grateful that she entrusted me with the sacred task of handling the affairs she left behind and rewarded me for doing so. I’m grateful for the abundance that I’m able to share in my community and beyond.

 I’m grateful for how I live my life, the choices I make, the insight and curiosity I experience, my love of quiet and of Nature’s beauty. I’m grateful that I take reasonably good care of myself. I’m grateful that I take time to ease into the day and enjoy the morning quiet. I’m grateful for introspection and for how I see the world unfolding perfectly in this human experiment despite events that are horrific beyond my understanding. I’m grateful for this year’s events and for those individuals whose actions continue to challenge me to hold this light.

 I’m grateful for all the beings who are holding light in the midst of darkness.

 I remain grateful for nine years with Cool Hand Luke Skywalker and for all that he taught me about patience, forgiveness, rest, play, listening and so much more. His ongoing presence reminds me that life is a continuum not a finite event. I’m grateful for Zadie Byrd carrying the torch of being my canine companion. Her sweet presence in my life is a constant blessing that grows each year.

 I’m grateful for how I’ve faced the challenges in my life, even those where in hindsight I saw a different way for me to be. Each offered a gift and I did my best to accept it.

 This year I’m especially grateful that I enjoy my own company as well as the company of others. Both are so very important, yet we humans so very often shun being alone for fear of being lonely, forgetting that in our aloneness we hear Your voice and feel Your presence.

 Thank You for always being with me/in me. Thank YOU for allowing and guiding me to be me. I feel so close You, God, in these quiet moments and I am so very grateful.

 When we give thanks for being who we are, we tap into the vitality of life. Wherever this week finds you, may you feel a depth of gratitude that goes deeper and further than any you have felt in your past. May this special Thanksgiving prayer from Gregge Tiffen contribute to transporting you to that place.

Icy Cottonwood Creek Winds Through the Woods