Treasuring Contradiction and Paradox

Springtime Snow - A Contradiction???

We need to rediscover contradiction as a creative force within the soul. … …to have greater patience with our sense of inner contradiction in order to allow its different dimensions to come into conversation within us. There is a secret light and vital energy in contradiction. John O’Donohue (Contradictions as treasures in Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World)

What do you notice about contradiction and paradox? Contradictions in the world? Contradictions between you and that world? Contradictions within? Do you/how do you value these contradictions? Could they be gifts, although perhaps in disguise?

Snow has fallen several times since the calendar announced the arrival of Spring. I wonder if ‘Springtime snow’ is a contradiction and what it may be telling us.

A somewhat startling contradiction in the world caught my attention this week: a letter signed by over 1000 folks involved in the development of artificial intelligence demanding a pause in AI development to identify and address AI’s risks to humanity. At the same time and in seeming contradiction to their demand, signers and companies with which they are associated apparently continue their profit-driven, competitive push to develop AI technology (at least I’ve seen no announcements or stories reporting such a pause).

I’ve long been curious about paradox, and I’ve probably mentioned being dubbed with the nickname ‘pet paradox’ by friends in college. Back then I’m sure I engaged in paradoxical behavior, though only a few witnesses remain who could verify. It was also during this time that I recall declaring that ‘living with and navigating paradox’ would be an increasingly important skill in living with the increasing complexities of life in the future.

Believing that to be quite true today, I was immediately drawn in as I began reading O’Donohue’s essay. His words resonate deep inside in a way that they couldn’t have back in my college days (heck, he didn’t even write them until 30 years ago, two plus decades after my college years). Today I sense that he is pointing to a skill that we need to rekindle in these days of contradiction, controversy, complexity.

For surely as we are more willing and better able to allow and nurture contradictions within, our capacity to be more coherent, more aligned with our values will expand and the skill that we bring to listening, to considering, and to collaboration with others will deepen.

Indeed, as we nurture contradiction, allowing in with care and acknowledgement negative and/or opposing ideas, thoughts, experiences, memories, our choices and our values are likely to become clearer.

In my own life I grapple with contradictions that rise between my desire for comfort and ease and my deep care for Mother Earth and her well-being; for my culturally supported need for financial security as the world defines it and that same care for the Earth and for my fellow human beings.

Such grappling challenges me to examine my beliefs about the nature of life, of Universal law, the true source of security, and such. Gradually, step-by-step, my understanding grows, and I pivot, discovering pathways that honor care and hold the potential, dare I say the probability, of the comfort, ease, security that I desire. In some strange way, my willingness to grapple in the muck of contradiction, leads me to plateaus of peace.

Muse says that about now you may be asking ‘what the heck does this have to do with AI and pausing AI development?’. Or with any other seemingly unstoppable train that truly needs to be examined (I’m sure we can all name a few!)?

Most always, pivots require a pause. Even the sun pauses for a few days as it makes its Solstice pivots. In our pauses, individually and collectively, rests the time, the energy, direction, and the possibility for inviting contradictions to rise and be acknowledged. In the pause is the opportunity to see contradictions with greater light, clarity, and wholeness. And, perhaps, to look beyond the drivers of competition, winning, and profit. In the pause is the opportunity to treasure contradictions and then to choose differently.

Morning View Through the Trees

New Doors, New Worlds

Angel’s Wing …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resting In the Doorways

Deep Stirring

Between Snow Storms — Colorado Blue Sky Beauty

The Earth itself speaks in myth. There is an aliveness in it. It speaks across species, a form of ecological communication that invites us into the unknown forest. Emergence Magazine Valemon the Bear: Myth in the Age of the Anthropocene (click here for a treat!)

Much is stirring deep within this blustery third day of Spring, the 500th week of ‘dates with Creation’ (aka Muse), of sitting to write and share. A cursory search for the significance of the number 500, brought a spectrum of possibilities, none of which resonated deeply, so I left that path for what seems more fertile ground.

On the search I encountered Peter, Paul, & Mary’s hit song 500 miles. But rather than the sad feeling that this journey of The Zone and The Pivot has taken me away from home, I sense it brings me ‘home’, wherever and whatever home may be. Thank you for being on the journey.

As I write, a strong wind blows and large blobs of melting snow slide off of the roof. Plop! More snow is forecast. The few signs of Spring rising from the soil are hidden for now, snow and wet earth nurturing them for the warmth and their growth to come.

Deep stirring. Seeds ready to burst and sprout. In time, their time. Nature’s time.

My deep stirring feels like a call from and for new futures rising, and it is sprinkled with rich curiosity about the old, ancient times when our ancestors were in deep reverence for and clear communication with Earth, with ALL her beings, and with the cosmos.

I don’t recall my German and Irish ancestors telling me the traditional stories of their peoples, their roots, the myths that live on through such handing down through the generations. Despite the lack of early kindling of this interest, today I find myself curious about such stories in this time when ‘something’ is definitely ‘on the move’ in me, in my immediate environs (aka ‘the woods out back’), and beyond in most every aspect of life all around the globe … and beyond.

I wonder what mythology is alive today that can inform this new future. Perhaps that is why I find the myths emerging from astrologers today so fascinating and why I’m fascinated with the stories from indigenous Earth Keepers. Perhaps that is why I found this offering from Emergence Magazine insightful and inspiring. I hope you’ll make yourself a special cup of tea and enjoy the gift.

The unknown forest is inviting us in. Will we embrace the invitation to enter and forge the new futures yearning to be birthed? Futures that we too long for deep within. Or will we cling to that which is crumbling and no longer serves? Will I?

Before the Equinox Storm

Imagining a New Reality

Winter Vistas …

You represent and unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice. … The imagination is committed to the justice of wholeness. … Imagination is the most reverent mirror of the inner world. John O’ Donohue (The Body is Your Only Home in Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World

Once again, I’m challenged to settle in and focus attention, to put pen to paper, words to paragraphs on the page. O’Donohue’s words draw me deep within as they invite me to bring voice to the world I alone represent.

Winter’s gifts of soul time and precious solitude are giving way to a spectrum of activity that ranges from the mundane of tax preparation and heater repair to the magical, mystical realms of imagination. Winter’s embrace nurtures the later, holding seeded ideas until their time to sprout. The world I give voice to seems scattered, unformed like a bonus seed packet of ‘surprises’.

As the first shoots of green are breaking through the soil, I’m in awe of their response to some inner voice that knows and guides: Now! This is the time. These plant beings are tuned into the greater energy force field of our planet home. They listen. They know. They ebb and flow, go dormant then grow in tune with rhythms lost to most of us in our culture as we attend to the outer world more than the inner.

It is these greater rhythms that I am drawn to tune into more deeply in this phase of life. Observing them sparks something inside, a seed gone dormant long ago perhaps, and expands my capacity to imagine and contribute to a world far different from what we label ‘reality’ today.

This week I found myself returning to the childlike nature I remember as a toddler growing up in the country and breaking the bounds of home to head to the pasture and commune with the cows. Oh how I wish I could remember cow wisdom. The family canine, Sweetheart, a Lassie-like Collie, came along and would nudge me homeward before our escape became a worry to parents whose ‘reality’ was vastly different than mine.

I walked these woods with what of that nature I could muster and I ‘heard’ and ‘saw’ the land in new ways that don’t yet have words. A felt sense of deeper connection, more confidence in my capacity to sense the land’s needs as well as its sacredness.

The labyrinth is guiding some gentle adjustments and inspiring creations to strengthen the energetic flow and the contribution of this land to the greater whole – community, continent, Gaia, and beyond.

I feel as if I’m writing a dream. The ‘adult’ me wondering ‘will this make sense?’. The childlike me inviting you to come play on the playground of creating our world anew.

Listening to and holding sacred this vortex of energy in the woods out back

Winds of Change

A GREAT Book!

There is a peculiar courage required to dare to imagine a different world when our current reality is wracked with crises. It’s a daunting task to try to light up the dark when we’re huddled down trying to avoid monsters … Rivera Sun (from the Author’s Note, Winds of Change, 2020)

I sense many threads standing by perhaps wanting to be woven into the fabric of this week’s post. And I sense blustery winds of change blowing from many directions. Do I have the courage to trim my sails to catch the winds creating a future grounded in love and unity?

Over this past week I’ve experienced insights, mechanical breakdowns, curiosity about words and how we use them, pesky rodents, concepts and ideas that feel right yet are beyond my mental understanding, extreme winds, and a death in my extended family.

Over that same week the moon reached its phase of fullness. Venus and Jupiter were in an auspicious conjunction, adding beauty to the early evening winter sky as they call forth love, abundance, happiness. Saturn moved into the zodiac sign of Pisces. I’m no astrologer, but ‘change, big change’ is the theme that flows from those whose work I follow. In the words of one, we are shifting from the love of power to the power of love. That’s wind that I want to catch!

And somewhere between my life experience and these galactic events, the world continued to turn with all manner of mayhem and violence along with abundant acts of courage, creativity, and care around the globe.

Consistent in my awareness this week has been the phrase ‘the winds of change’. I feel that change deep within and I observe it in almost everything that is out there in the world beyond my door. I aim to not label these changes as ‘good or bad’, ‘right or wrong’ as I navigate, intending to choose winds that will point me to live in greater alignment with my values and my planet home.

As I dip into this soup pot of change what I find in the ladle is the importance of words and how we use (or should I say misuse?) them. Not a new topic or thread for these weekly musings, but important for our awareness and consideration now.

Wordsmithing has become an art, crafting messages to get attention, get results, incite action out there. The deeper root meaning of words all too often has been lost, changed over time to fit the narrative of those in power or of marketing and (so-called) ‘public relations’.

Two ancient words came into my awareness this week that fit this pattern. The word ‘abracadabra’ is mostly used as a term to describe magic, something that isn’t real. Yet it’s root meaning from myths and legends of the ancients is ‘I manifest what I speak.’ That’s the true power of sound, our power!

A word often used to evoke fear, ‘apocalypse’ means revelation, that which is uncovered and is rooted in a Greek word meaning to pull the lid off of something. Perhaps the winds of change are about to blow the cover of untruths … but Muse says that’s a topic for another day.

Perhaps it’s obvious, but it occurs to me that the words we use and how we use them are grounded in our perspective, our beliefs, and our intentions. Do we believe in unity or in separation? Love or fear? Are we consciously choosing our words to align with our beliefs?

What we believe matters. What we speak from those beliefs matters. Abracadabra! What I speak is what I manifest! What we speak is what we manifest! Perhaps the true apocalypse is that this and other truths understood and lived by ancient peoples are being revealed.

Do we have the ‘peculiar courage’ required to embrace and live from this perspective? To imagine and dare to speak a different world? To catch the winds of change toward harmony with Nature, Gaia, and one another? Do I?

Grainy Moon in Fullness

REST: Pathway to Self-Trust

Fresh Snow on the Peaks

Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

It's very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems. Thich Nhat Hanh

I woke one morning this week after a good sleep with an acronym for rest:

               Rest

               Elevates

               Self-

               Trust

The message was clear, as if a printed card had been taped to my bathroom mirror. It resonated deeply as rest is a key ingredient in how I design my life during the cold, inward winter months. I was aware that my rest has looked different this winter: fewer naps during the day and longer periods of sleep at night. ‘Am I getting the rest that I need?’, I wondered.

The question seems on target, aligned with my strong sense that self-trust is needed now more than ever to navigate our changing world, a world which some have declared is ‘post truth’. In a world where ‘alternative facts’ vie with ‘just the facts, ma’am’ who among us doesn’t wonder what’s the truth? What’s accurate? When I’m rested, my craving for accuracy and knowing gives way to resonance, an inner sense that I am ongoingly learning to trust.

The message was also timely, arriving while I was providing background support for a group of college students who had come to Crestone for a short retreat. A return trip for most, they had planned quite an agenda for their short time here. I learned from their faculty advisor that at some point, as if tapping into the wisdom that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar speaks of, they realized what they needed most was rest. Recognizing that the pressures of their intense courses of study, health challenges experienced by some, along with the ups, downs, and stresses of life on the planet had drained them, they spoke their truth and they honored it as their time here unfolded.

When you rest, you catch your breath and it holds you up, like water wings… Anne Lamott                     

We need not just the rest that comes with sleep, though that’s important, but the restoration called forth by relaxing, creating and playing with others, communing with Nature. We need the rest of daydreaming, of settling in with a good book and letting ourselves doze. We need breaks from technology and the addictive power of our devices. We need to put on our water wings and float.

 We need this kind of deep rest, not to make sense of the world as it is (I gave that up long ago) but to navigate that world as a we create a more beautiful one. We need rest to give us the strength to make choices that support our health and well-being individually, collectively, and for all of life. We need the clarity and focus that comes with rest to discover what resonates as true for me and to honor that what resonates for me may not be resonate with you, but that both can (and must) coexist in a world where our differences held in love are the strengths from which the ultimate truth of unity arises from the ashes of conflict.

 Let’s rest in that!                   

Another Storm Building …

Spiraling Kindness

Cool Hand Luke Skywalker (2008-Aug 1, 2019) in the Labyrinth

Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty. Anne Herbert

Kindness is top of mind and heart this blustery, snowy morning in the sacred Sangre de Cristo mountains. I’ve been spiraling through numerous thoughts and stories about kindness since last evening. Muse seeming to go happily along wherever the journey leads, including sidetracking to talk briefly with a visiting friend. ‘Hey, we could even simply share random quotes about kindness …’, Muse suggests.

Oh Muse, I like that. The day moving from wind and clouds to sun back to more clouds to blowing snow seems random in a way. This day I notice my own thoughts and energy following that pattern.

That individually and collectively our world would benefit from more expressions of kindness is so obvious that I wonder why the words land on the page. ‘Reminders,’ offers Muse. ‘Everyone needs a reminder from time to time,’ adding ‘and, intention. What if kindness was intentional not simply random?’

Hmm…, seeds of kindness spread randomly with intention. How might that spiral through our lives, our world, our planet home? The idea aligns with, perhaps flows from, seeds planted earlier this week, acknowledging a new moon cycle on Monday. Walking the labyrinth with the intention of planting seeds of peace, love, joy, I found the varieties of seeds growing as I walked and gently chanted. Each time I chanted ‘peace, love, joy’ a new seed presented itself to be added to the mix: courage, gratitude, curiosity, laughter, and kindness among them.

I felt myself planting these seeds anew in the garden of my heart, in the spirit of these woods, and in the consciousness of the fields of activity where I put attention. Today intentional kindness seems to be rising to the top of where I’m guided to focus my choices, my deeds.

That’s not surprising as this week I’ve experienced two seemingly random stories of kindness that loom large in my awareness. It seems not so random that each touched my heart and has stayed with me. One was a friend’s beautiful story about rescuing a turtle that was on a heavily travelled road and a later encounter with the person whose pet that turtle is. The depth of my friend’s kindness didn’t surprise me, rather it served as a beautiful example of the magic that flows when we follow guidance as we receive it.

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. John O’Donohue

Kindness in the midst of heavy traffic. No question that would serve humanity well.

My second powerful encounter with kindness brought home how we simply don’t know how our kindness will land, the impact it will have. In this case it was my own, a choice in 2010 to open my home to a young canine, Cool Hand Luke Skywalker. If you’ve been reading for a while, Luke was sometimes front and center of a weekly Zone or Pivot post. For me he was that kind of teacher. He crossed the rainbow bridge in 2019, but often seems present as I walk through life. While I knew that he was beloved by all who met him, this week, another friend’s story of her encounters with Luke Skywalker first while he was still a vibrant physical presence in my home and later when she encountered him in service to others in the etheric realm, poignantly reminded me that all our choices seed the future. Not just our individual future, but our futures collectively.

With every choice me make, with every thought we think, with every word we speak WE are seeding the future. This is our power.

The steps we take now make new earth grow beneath our feet. The steps we take now decide what kind of earth that will be. In every moment we have the choice to find the fight or to make delight. We have power. Anne Herbert & Margaret Paloma Pavel (Random Acts of Kindness & Senseless Beauty)

As I’ve reflected on kindness since hearing these stories, it seems clear to me that intention supports us in touching the kindness that dwells deep within, a natural part of our design and our being. While most, if not all of us, would never intend to be unkind, do we intend to express kindness in life? Do I?

Be kind. Be connected. Be unafraid. Rivera Sun

Let’s spiral kindness randomly, intentionally, individually, collectively in all that we do. I’m intending a world of kindness. What about you?

P.S. Did you know that February 17 is Random Acts of Kindness Day every year? A little late this year, but already on my calendar for 2024!

Creating Our New World from Inside to Out

Fuzzy, Snowy Morning Reflections

The mythic story of the earth and the gods whispers within us. John O’Donohue

May we increase the volume so that we can hear. Then, may we listen.

I found myself challenged to settle in, put pen to paper, and to invite Muse to join me this snowy, blustery morning. (Yes, The Pivot starts life on paper in my journal before making its way to the digital realm, cyberspace, and to you dear reader.)

Simply writing that sentence takes me on a quick journey through the vast technological developments in my lifetime and reminds me of the current pace at which technology is advancing. Muse smiles reminding me of recent exploration and reflections about just that.

With much of our cultural context continuing to focus on conquest, colonization, competition, comparison, and control unaware of new scientific discoveries that debunk those approaches, I wonder how we will apply new technologies such as artificial intelligence to all areas of life. I wonder how we might be more informed and mature with these advances than we were with the discovery of atomic energy? Will we make choices from the wisdom or our souls? Or will we …?

As I reflect on such questions, Muse reminds me of the wisdom in a recently read essay from a current inspiration, John O’Donohue: There is a labyrinth within the soul. What we think and desire often comes into conflict with what we do. Below the surface of our conscious awareness a vast unknown rootage determines our actions. … Outside us, society functions in an external way, its collective eye does not know interiority, it sees only through the lens of image, impression and function.

Individually and collectively we have separated our inner world from the choices that the set our direction. We fail to call forth the wisdom in our souls, the wisdom of Nature, of Gaia, and of the cosmos of which we are a part. And yet, as O’Donohue further nudges: The mythic story of the earth and the gods whispers within us.

May we increase the volume so that we can hear. Then, may we listen.

That story, that wisdom, that knowing is not new rather it is ancient, known to our ancestors, and imbedded within our DNA, and accessible to us. We access it in any number of ways: meditation, time in Nature, inspirational reading, connection with others, practicing heart coherence and deep gratitude. The list goes on.

My favored paths to connecting with my inner wisdom include time in the woods, walking with Zadie Byrd, heart coherence, and gratitude. Each offers a welcome mat and friendly environment when I invite wisdom in.

To help expand possibilities and to bring insights into daily life, I seek out those who are telling new stories about life. Those who are innovating new systems and structures to build a world grounded in the truth of who we are and our interconnectedness with one another and with all life. Those who challenge the mainstream and inspire me to let go of my old stories and the choices I’ve made based on them by offering a delectable menu of new ideas and discoveries. Gregg Braden, Nassim Haramein, and Woody Tasch/Slow Money are among my current areas of interest and exploration. Along with the plethora of individuals and small groups worldwide creating the new, these luminous beings help me maintain my curiosity, open new doors for exploration, and point to a world being created from the inside out.

Snowy in the Woods Out Back

In Search of My Political Home

Morning Shadows in the Labyrinth

With the sense of hearing, we listen to creation. … It is lovely to have the gift of hearing. John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World)

Mourn what no longer is and call forth that which wants to be birthed from the heart.

This morning finds me a bit wobbly, not unlike when I overindulge in food and adult beverage. Yet last evening I indulged in neither. Rather, feeling a sense of civic duty along with curiosity, I plugged into the mainstream/legacy political scene to listen to President Biden’s State of the Union speech, the Republican response, and just a tad of post speech commentary.

In hindsight I wonder how my feeling might be different if I’d chosen to just listen and not watch. But alas I watched, enjoying the splashes of color worn by many of the women members of Congress amongst the drab suits of the men and trying not to get caught up in the political theater of who clapped and stood for what and when.

I listened, hopefully with care, to both speeches. While I lean more toward one ‘side’ than the other, I found both empty of vision, of new ways forward in our rapidly changing world. A world barely recognizable from the world I grew up in and the world I expected. Today I’m struck more by what I didn’t hear than by what I did hear. I’m struck too by the hollowness I feel as this day dawns.

Each side touts and promises freedom, each claiming theirs to more and better yet both promote policies that limit our sovereignty and the choices we make in walking through the world. Each claims their freedom is better than the other’s.

I want more from our leaders. I expect more. I expect better, honest, truth, integrity from the inside out. WE deserve it! I expect and long for the new stories that are emerging within so many individuals, groups, communities to be sought out and shared so that all may know, participate, thrive. WE deserve it!

I long to hear leaders speak about the truth of who and how powerful we humans are and for them to envision creating frameworks, scaffolds, support for tapping into this potential  to heal, to create, to live truly free, at peace and in peace. I long to hear political leaders address the necessity of clean, toxin-free, nutritious food in creating and maintaining health and offer a vision for creating, sustaining, and maintaining life enhancing food for all. I long to hear leaders speak to what science is revealing about our true nature and the nature of Nature and to recognize that we are not victims of our genes, but rather that we hold the potential to master them from the inside out rather than controlling from the outside in.

Yet while I long to be inspired by our leaders, I find inspiration in the grassroots. In the farmers practicing bio-dynamic farming and soil regeneration. In movements such as slow money, providing zero interest loans for such efforts. In local health initiative and healers who practice natural medicine first. In innovators and entrepreneurs who are shucking the cloaks of the old to create the new.

Having been deeply engaged in politics for many years in my younger days, I’ve long had an interest. Today, as the political game’s dark side comes more to light and highlights the darker side of our humanness, the upside is that we are becoming more aware and with that awareness comes greater potential for change. We need to acknowledge the world that no longer serves to create a world that does. Gregg Braden suggested in a recent talk that we need to learn to mourn and let go of what no longer works so that the new can rise. For surely, a new world IS rising.

So I’m without a political home, something that I’ve had, participated in, and even cherished throughout much of my adult life, starting as a Young Democrat years before I was old enough to cast a vote. Somewhere in my memorabilia is a hat autographed by Hubert Humphrey during his 1968 presidential campaign. I was present at the 1992 Republican National Convention when President George H.W. Bush gave his acceptance speech (a Clinton-Gore button in my pocket).

Just last year, I supported a friend’s campaign for County Commissioner, not because of her party affiliation, but because of her commitment to a positive vision, to justice, to fairness, and to local foods. Earlier this week I chuckled upon receiving an invitation (with words sounding more like a plea) to a meeting to ‘reorganize’ the county party. Not me. I’m no longer a party animal.

Since I no longer desire to be identified or to participate as ‘this’ or ‘that’, it seems I’m mourning what no longer works and that my search for a political home isn’t the search that’s needed. Muse reminds me that the same is true for me in other of life’s domains. Health care, financial, etc. The old stories, the old molds, the old ways no longer fit. My search is for those creating the new.

Mourn what no longer is and call forth that which wants to be birthed from the heart. That is where home truly is.

Full Moon on the Rise

Sea of Expectations

A Colorado Blue Sky Day

Expectation is resentment waiting to happen. In contrast, friendship liberates. John O’Donohue

The attachment to our expectations is the obstacle … Myra Jackson

We swim in a sea of expectations. Befriending our expectations means releasing our attachment to life unfolding in the ways we expect. It is indeed befriending all of life.

Exploring the idea of expectations and indeed examining some of my own has been ‘up’ for me in recent weeks. I’ve long had curiosity about how expectation weaves into life and has been an occasional thread woven into these weekly musings. One explored the distinction between expectations and promises (read it here).

Settling in with Muse this morning I recalled O’Donohue’s words that caught my attention some time back. While he was writing about relationships in particular and our expectations of others to be/do certain ways/things, Muse guides me to consider that perhaps expectations might become our friends.

In response to my quizzical look, Muse winks and prompts, awareness as a first step. We swim in a sea of expectations. Our lack of awareness of what we expect in the details of life is where the potential for resentment hides. Curious, I took a few minutes of self-inquiry: what do I expect in life/of life? In less than 10 minutes I’d listed 26 expectations, many of which are multifaceted (e.g. I expect my health care provider, my attorney, etc. to have my best interests) and all of which underlie daily life, actions, choices.

Until I took those few minutes to bring them to awareness it seems that my expectations were lurking in the darkness, resentment waiting to happen, ready to kindle a spark of anger should an expectation not be met.

Let’s say for example the internet connection is down, my computer crashes, the car won’t start. Or it’s raining on a day you’d planned a picnic … you get my drift here of all the things we expect to go a certain way without being aware that we expect it UNTIL something doesn’t.

What is your habitual response? A fiery reaction of anger? Springing into action to ‘fix’ the ‘problem’? Curiosity that the Universe seems to be redirecting you? Do you perhaps journey through all the above?

While I strive for the later (curiosity), I’m inclined to leap into action. Muse reminds me that sometimes the fiery Aries tiger reacts, suggesting that the trigger is that I’m attached to things being a certain way, to MY expectations being met. And to a tendency to ascribe some fault to myself when they aren’t. What did I do wrong? What error in my thinking ‘caused’ this?

Just as developing and maintaining friendships requires the nurturing care of awareness and to not being attached to our friend being/doing certain ways/things, perhaps expectations can be nurtured as friends with the same awareness and releasing of attachment to them. Muse says it more clearly: Befriending our expectations means releasing our attachment to life unfolding in the ways we expect. It is indeed befriending all of life.

As we put a cap on this week’s musing a few thoughts and queries dance into awareness:

• Gratitude is a key to releasing my attachment to how and what I expect life to be.

• What is the relationship between expectation and intention? Is there a pivot from expectation to intention?

• Innovation, calling forth and being open to the new, requires releasing any attachment to the details of how life unfolds.

It seems a door has opened … fodder for musings another day.

Last Light of Sunset