It's Take a Breath Wednesday!

Ziggurat and the Sacred Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Breathing has its own rhythm. Breath comes in ebb and flow. Through breathing you come into the rhythm with your self. The generosity of air allows each object to merge and to be. John O’Donohue

Today is (drumroll please!) ‘Take a Breath Wednesday’! Yeah, I know today’s post is a bit late in coming and you had no forewarning about the significance of this day, so heck, let’s make tomorrow ‘Take a Breath Thursday’. Or how about ‘Take a Breath Week’?

Here in the U.S., we’ve just completed a string of days that have been given names, the majority aimed at our consumer habits. After last Thursday’s Thanksgiving, we woke to ‘Black Friday’ (Thankfully, Muse restrains me from commentary about the name and what it’s become in our culture.) which others have tagged ‘Green Friday’ or ‘buy nothing Friday’, a day to be in Nature and avoid the consumer craziness. Following that ‘Small Business Saturday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’, and, lastly, ‘Giving Tuesday’.

Together Muse and I wonder why the Friday after Thanksgiving isn’t Giving Friday. But our priorities and our thinking are not especially aligned with the priorities of commerce. We value community and we value coherence, unity within and unity without. Or as John O’Donohue suggests coming into the rhythm with your self.

Your Self. Conscious breathing takes us to a place of awareness and a state of being where heart and brain can align. A state of being that brings us peace within, peace to support us in navigating this chaotic, heart-wrenching time in a world where peace may seem out of reach. When head and heart are aligned, we know the truth of our interconnectedness with one another and with all life. We open ourselves to experience the interconnectedness that erases the false boundaries of nations, skin color, language, religion, cultural practices, political views and all that is designed to divide us. All Life.

Breathe and you know that you are alive.
Breathe and you know that all is helping you.
Breathe and you know that you are the world.
Breathe and you know that the flower is breathing too.
Breathe for yourself and you breathe for the world.
Breathe in compassion and breathe out joy.
Breathe and be one with the air that you breathe.
Breathe and be one with the river that flows.
Breathe and be one with the earth you tread.
Breathe and be one with the fire that glows.
Breathe and you break the thought of birth and death.
Breathe and you see that impermanence is life.
Breathe for your joy to be steady and calm.
Breathe for your sorrow to flow away.
Breathe to renew every cell in your blood.
Breathe to renew the depths of consciousness.
Breathe and you dwell in the here and now.
Breathe and all you touch is new and real. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Take a good, deep breath and let’s make EVERYday a day to breathe in the truth of our humanity!

Full Moon in the Trees

My Thanksgiving Prayer 2023

Snow on the Peaks!

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)

 As I do most every morning, I felt grateful when I woke (being ‘woke’ seems a good thing!) this day before Thanksgiving here in the U.S. Accompanying Zadie Byrd outside at dawn, my gratitude deepened upon hearing two Great Horned Owls calling to one another deep in the woods. Who … who, who … hoot. I am so very grateful to be in this beautiful place.

 A bit later, heading out for our morning walk, I looked up to find the sky to be a crisscross of chem trails. What? Who? Why do we do this, I wonder, anger rising. I need a few moments to breathe and return to gratitude.

I was reminded of a conversation yesterday with a friend as we were sharing the attention required to navigate life in this time of chaos, a time when we feel challenged to hold our center, our peace amidst war, cruelty, starvation, and other human experiences. She spoke of a teacher who once told her, “… care, and don’t allow your care to disturb your deep peace.” Sometimes easier said than done. Gratitude is a practice that helps clear the path.

Today, the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, has me remembering the classroom I was in when the announcement came over the crackling speaker that connected our room to the school office. I was shaken not just by the announcement but also by the teacher’s inappropriate chuckle and muttered words that sounded something like ‘he deserved it’. Little did I know that her muttered response was a harbinger of more and visible divisiveness to come.

This morning as I read the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World I reflected once again that, while it is good to have a special day to give thanks, the irony of Thanksgiving’s origins in this country deserves us to 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 2023, I remember all that I’m grateful for and my words then inspire my prayer of thanks for 2023:

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’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 the experience of abundance and that I’m able to share in my community and beyond. I’m grateful for those in my community and beyond toil daily to produce nutritious food and enrich the soil.

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 and teacher. 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 CHEERFUL Be Your Way!

Breaking Habits and Patterns

Blanca Peak in the Sangre de Cristo range

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

Rising early this morning I built a fire in the woodstove to break the morning chill. Settling in to my habitual weather check before beginning to write, I discovered the internet down – no local weather, no email, no access to Zoom. Hmmmm… Perfect conditions for experimenting with adjustments to the morning and daily routines, especially since I want to feed Zadie Byrd earlier in the day to increase the time between her meals.

‘Zades’ looks confused as I begin preparing her breakfast before our morning walk and at a time I’m usually quietly journalling by the fire. When breakfast is served this four-legged lover of most all things ‘food’ needs a bit of coaxing to eat.  It feels strange to me as well, but as I go about the tasks of preparation the adjustment feels just right. I notice the easy flow and I begin to think about the weekly post: What wants to be shared today?

I remember an email newsletter that I’d thought about quoting and expanding on its theme, something like ‘sometimes the answer is not finding the answer’. The essence is that there are times when we need to stop, give ourselves time to reflect before we can know how to respond – themes that run through many posts and, indeed, my life (apologies to the great folks at Regenerate Change if I obliterated your focus).

I suspect that the reason the article grabbed my attention is that it reflects my longing for the deep peace and quiet of cold, snowy winter days when the hours of daylight pass quickly and the nights are long and dark.

Perhaps that sort of longing is what inspires people to decorate early for the holidays … but that (declares Muse) is a path not to tread this day.

l sense that my current longing for winter stems from the depth of intensity I feel in all of life, different from intense times in my past. I’m certain that my observations of global and national events is also a factor.

I see the intensity reflected in turmoil, rancor, and violence around the globe. I see it in Earth changes and in the planet speaking her language: earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanic eruptions, along with the beauty of new growth, vibrant health of some ecosystems, and the cycles of birth and death in all species.

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

This time asks us to break habits and patterns – from the feeding and care of ourselves and our beloved animal companions to the trigger-happy, warmongering reactions that have become all too frequent.

It requires that we break patterns of abuse – self-abuse and abuse of others in our thoughts, our words, our deeds – and that we live knowing that every human and every living thing has worth, has value, has purpose even in the darkest of times and conditions. Even, perhaps especially, when we ourselves feel unworthy or undeserving.

It requires crystal clear clarity to help us see beyond our old stories and into the creation of new stories that reflect the truth of who we are.

It invites us to BE and embody who we truly are – not who or what we (or the world’s old stories) dictate that we should be – and to embrace that we are each living in this turbulent time at what is the perfect, divine time for our soul’s development on its unique, infinite trajectory.

Humanity is calling, the Earth is calling, the cosmos is calling. How will we answer the call?

Nature’s Beauty in the Woods Out Back

Pivoting to Rest

Cozy Fire to Chase the Morning Chill Away

There are days in life when you just need to pull the covers over your head … Gregge Tiffen

Early this morning after settling in by the warming fire I found myself challenged to focus on writing this week’s Pivot. The week has been eventful. Body, mind, and spirit active, with insights, curiosities, and musings to share. Yet none drew me in or pointed to ‘this’ as a focus.

As I sat, I felt deep sadness for the turmoil and suffering in the world – globally and right here in my community. I was present to adjustments I’m making to support Zadie Byrd in health challenges typical for senior canines and to my own process of recovery still underway several weeks after a fall.

As I wondered ‘Yes, but what about today’s post?’, Muse popped in and reminded me of Gregge’s words. Words heard long ago that have stayed with me as guidance on days when I’ve simply felt ‘off’. Words that remind me of the importance of rest, so often forgotten in our culture where doing and accomplishing often reign supreme.

And so, this day while I’m not pulling the covers over my head, I am pivoting to rest. Body needs time of minimal activity to heal its inflamed rotator cuffs. Mind and Spirit need reflection and integration time to dance with the deep changes underway – personally and cosmically.

Muse says we’ll be back next week and invites you to enjoy these quotes [compiled by Jennifer Healey in a 2019 blog post] about the benefits of rest and to assess your own need for rest at this intense time.

Real rest feels like every cell is thanking you for taking care of you. It’s calm, not full of checklists and chores. It’s simple: not multitasking; not fixing broken things. Jennifer Williamson

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

Your commitment to your wellness is part of the revolution. Danielle LaPorte

Early Morning Sky

Awakening to Our Complicity

Along the Road - A Curious Cow

Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. Frances Moore Lappé

Lappé’s words landed in a deep place a week or so ago when I first read them in our local food hub’s newsletter. They came on the heels of words spoken by an associate during a Zoom call early one morning. “We’re all complicit,” she shared, not referring to any particular crisis or issue.

I was reminded that EveryThing we do, think, speak matters in this interconnected world that we are each a part of. And of how many choices -some conscious, others not- I make every day, each a vote for something. Am I voting for what I truly want – the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible? Or …

I thought about the motto of our local Valley Roots Food Hub that each week aggregates and delivers locally grown and produced foods from dozens of farmers, ranchers, and producers in our region: You have three votes every day!  

The choices we make about what to eat each day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner (not to mention snack time) – are votes we cast that make a difference in our personal lives, in our community, and beyond.  Each vote says something about the quality of health that we want for our bodies. Each vote says something about what we want for the vibrancy of our local community. Each vote says something about how much we care about our neighbors, the soil and, indeed, our precious planetary home.

As much as possible my food votes are for local, organic, regeneratively grown foods and products. I see them as votes for my health; a more vibrant, sustainable local economy; and for the health of the soil on which we depend.

But what about other areas of maintaining and navigating life? What do our purchases of clothing, household goods, and such say about the world we want to live in? What do they say about the degree of care, fairness, and economic justice we want for workers in the world? About our care for the environment and our planet? About our tolerance and acceptance of war and violence? What do our investments say about these issues?

In asking questions such as these, I awaken to my complicity in how the world is. It’s easier to blame others for the world’s multiple crises. I wonder whose interests are served by our finger-pointing divisiveness? Do we want to live in a world of blame with each side aiming to punish the other in endless cycles of war? What choices might I be making that unknowingly support the terrible suffering that the world of blame and separation create?

I find in these questions a deep spiritual essence. Questions that are integral to raising my level of consciousness and to clearly align my daily choices with the values which I claim are important to me.

The choices go far beyond economic choices of course. We choose to smile or not. To be patient with another or not. To be generous, kind. To listen deeply. To be curious. To be willing to learn. And more. Every thought, word, deed is a choice - a vote for how we want our world to be.

What world are you voting for in the choices you make today?

In the Woods …

Vulnerability - Are We Willing?

Nature’s Art on the Trail

When you become vulnerable, any ideal of perfect image you may have had of yourself falls away. Many people are addicted to perfection and in their pursuit of the ideal they have no patience with vulnerability. They close off anything that might leave them open to the risk of hurt. … With the revelation of corruption in so many political and religious domains, our perception of ideals has become tinged with cynicism. Yet no society can endure without the sense of honour, dignity and transcendence enshrined in its set of ideals. John O’Donohue

Writing in my journal several days ago I found my thoughts wander to the current array of political theatrics in the United States. ‘How do they get away it?’ I wondered, ‘they’ not being limited to a single political party or group, rather many elected officials and those who serve them. The ways of politics have become habitual rather than thoughtful, and we have become accustomed to ignoring them or watching as if they are entertainment. Disengaged. Enraged.

The journal stream ended with these words: Beyond blaming the other, we must face ourselves.

Reading O’Donohue’s words early this morning by the fire, the stream came back. It continued: And to face ourselves requires that we become vulnerable.

The absence of our openness to vulnerability breeds fundamentalism, self-righteousness, blame, and hard-heartedness. We fight and die to stave off the threat of being vulnerable.

Opening to vulnerability nurtures an open heart, compassion, curiosity, understanding, forgiveness, and creativity. Vulnerability is a pathway to peace.

What does vulnerability ask of us? What doors might more willingness to become vulnerable open for us, individually and collectively?

I’m reminded of an essay Charles Eisenstein posted earlier this week (click here to read) sharing the story of Raquel who dared to take a peaceful stand around a contentious, divisive issue and the stages she traveled to arrive at that place. I invite you to read it with an open heart and open mind, for surely like me, you find yourself on one side or the other of the issue she faced.

What if our political leaders could exhibit Raquel’s level of maturity, thoughtfulness, willingness to be vulnerable as they address issues of war? How can we create and hold this space, this possibility for them to step into? Are willing to step into this space ourselves? Are we willing to invite them?

O’Donohue’s words opened me to possibility. They point to the tricky, challenging path that making peace requires. Moving beyond blame to face ourselves and our shortcomings (past and present), forgiving ourselves and others. All for the sake of peace.

Simply asking the questions helped me shift from the anger, sadness, and disbelief at the continued war-mongering choices of my country’s leadership that I woke with this day. No matter what the question, war is not the answer. Love is.  Am I willing to step into the vulnerability of that? Are we?      

The Ziggurat on a Hazy Morning

Imagination-Creating Possibility in the Unthinkable

Autumn Mountain Morning

The imagination is capable of kindness that the mind often lacks … it does not engage in things in a cold, clear-cut way but always searches for the hidden words that wait at the edge of things. The mind tends to see things in a singularly simple, divided way: there is good and bad, ugly and beautiful. The imagination, in contrast, extends a greater hospitality to whatever is awkward, paradoxical or contradictory. … The imagination is always more loyal to the deeper unity of everything. It has patience with contradiction because there it glimpses new possibilities. And the imagination is the great friend of possibility. …this is what beauty is: possibility that enlarges and delights the heart. John O’Donohue Beauty-The Invisible Embrace

In the midst of the unthinkable, of horrors and hatred, of rancor and disrespect, turning from mind to heart offers a doorway of passage into a field of brighter possibilities.

Earlier this week I was given an opportunity to imagine the future, my future, three years out. The conversation inspired me to reflect more deeply on what a world of unity, peace, compassion, and integrity look like. How would we/I be in our responses to today’s multiple crises and violence? How would our leaders BE and what choices would they make in a world truly committed to peace? How might we shift?

The following day Charles Eisenstein shared his thoughts on those very questions (click here to watch). His answer in short: forgiveness, shifting from blame and revenge to forgiveness and seeking to understand. Not an easy or simple path, as any of us who have been ‘wronged’ and sought to forgive another know from our experience. Yet might we dare to allow our hearts to dream what our minds will surely declare is ‘impossible’?

In the midst of the unthinkable, of horrors and hatred, of rancor and disrespect, turning from mind to heart offers a doorway of passage into a field of brighter possibilities. Can we imagine a different future than where the arc of history seems headed? Dare we dream and endeavor to bring such dreams into reality, creating sacred spaces and fields of possibility?

I’m reminded of Rumi’s wise words:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.

Even in the comfort and relative safety of home it is not always easy to imagine such a bright future. Life’s daily details and our habitual keeping up with today’s dramas, horrors, and predictions of the next scary thing may trap us in dead-end, worn out thinking and lead us to forget our power to imagine and call forth a different future.

Yet imagine a new world we must. Seeking those whose ideals resonate with ours and joining them in community to call forth and create the new. Creating new pathways and ways of being and doing right where we are.

Moment to moment we choose where to focus our attention, where to devote our precious life energy. What might be possible if, beyond our compassion and empathy, our sorrow and grief, we tapped into the kindness of the imagination to dream a future where we’ve grown our capacity to listen (deeply listen) to one another along with our willingness to engage in this way. Where we have the capacity to forgive past deeds (our own as well as those of others) and to imagine and create a new world together. And then to trust that such a world is possible even when that seems not so and despite history’s evidence to the contrary. How much beauty can we imagine?

To be sure, I have work to do. Let’s dance!

The Portal on Cordial

Places of Solace

Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back - My Anchor Place of Solace

Anger is a great flame of presence. It is difficult to mistake or ignore an angry presence. John O’Donohue

 All you need is love. John Lennon/The Beatles

As I woke and moved into this day, I felt a deep sadness coupled with a touch of anxiety. Although I’m far away from the most recent violent atrocities, the war mongering words following those events feel closer. I notice I’m a bit ‘edgy’. Observing interactions with Zadie Byrd for the last few days, I see myself being sometimes snappy, impatient, and moving to impose a sense of control. I sense it’s not about Zadie Byrd. Hmm…

Words don’t come quickly as they often do in the morning quiet. I’m restless. Words that do come seem inadequate to how I feel, what I sense, and to this time of violence, unrest, and change on a scale beyond our prior experience.

I needed time in a place of solace to grok the world and my feelings: the woods out back. I needed to lean into Grandmother Pinon and allow my tears to flow as waves of anger joined the sadness and anxiety that rises when I dare ask, ‘could this happen here?’

I know the answer. I see under currents in the vitriol of our so-called leaders and others who declare to ‘defend their position to the death’. I hear saber-rattling and war-mongering language coming from all sides.

‘What will it take for us to heal these vast divides?’ I ask as I enter the labyrinth that, for me, is the anchor point for the solace of these sacred woods.

Walking the first circuit feeling gratitude for THIS place, I drop more deeply into my heart and its knowing. ‘Love’. The answer echoes, having been spoken by Grandmother Tree minutes earlier. I wonder, ‘how do we channel our anger, our outrage into Love? How do I?’ I hold these questions as I continue to walk to the center. They seem to ease the sadness and angst, and I can express heartfelt thanks to the four directions, to Mother Earth, and Father Sky with a sense of peace.

As I acknowledge Father Sky, I invoke a prayer that sky above be traversed only by actions of peace. May all our places and spaces be used only for purposes of peace.

As I begin the slow walk from the center, my questions remain, yet love’s presence brings light and curiosity to the heaviness of the sadness, anger, and anxiety that I carry as I wonder about my role, my actions, my choices.

I need to visit these places of solace to keep love and light in the soup of this heavy, violent prone world. Perhaps we all do.

Where are your places of solace? Where do you take your deep cares for self, for others, for our world to lighten the load and maintain love’s presence?

As we move closer to Saturday’s powerful solar eclipse and its intense energy, I invite you to inhabit a place of solace for a while. Whether long or short, give yourself the gift of acknowledging how you’re experiencing the chaos and horrors of our world. Then, when that feels complete, add all the elements of love and light you can muster for yourself, for humanity, for the planet, for our world.

For this is how we shift – individually and collectively – acknowledging what is without allowing ‘it’ to drown out who we BE as we move ever closer to living the Truth that we are all One.

Pathway in the Woods Out Back

From Control to Flow

Autumn and Winter on Display in the Mountains

How can we uproot the desire to impose our will upon the living worlds around us? How do we become more receptive to nonhuman languages and ways of being? Gavin Van Horn (Kinning: Introducing the Kinship Series)

This question has been with me since first reading it a week or so ago when I dove back into Volume 1 of fascinating series (Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations). The essence of the question isn’t new to me (or to you, if you’ve been ‘pivoting’ with me for a while), but the language landed deep when I revisited it this morning as Muse and I began the weekly exploration of what to share here.

Though Van Horn’s question is intended as a query into deepening our relationship with Nature and recognizing all of Life as our kin, it seems apropos as well in this time of social and political upheaval, when we don’t seem to have the capacity or willingness to get along with one another, much less to hold nonhuman life as kin. Our embeddedness in separation runs deep and wide. In separation we endeavor to control (Muse smiles, noting that hasn’t worked so well for humanity over the eons); in unity we flow with life. Flow, hmm…

Perhaps my attraction and attention to rivers and our local mountain streams these days is because they flow. Their flow is visible and audible, gifts of sight and sound that nourish this being. Toes feeling the movement of the chilly water, a sniff of the air’s freshness … dare I put the water to my lips for a taste?

All my senses point to flow when I’m in the presence of a river or stream. Shoulders drop into gravity’s ease and I sigh deeply … Ahh…..flowing with life.

I aim to walk through life in ITS flow rather than trying to schedule and control every moment. I want to do so in a grounded way, listening to all life – that of this body, mind, and soul as well as to life and the energy of life that surrounds me.

‘Where does the energy want to flow?’ becomes the primary question, overriding ‘how do I control this to go my way?’ and the stress that follows when my control efforts are foiled.

The question bubbled in me as my plan and schedule was thwarted by a technology breakdown earlier this week. The issue was beyond my limited capacity to solve tech issues, so I engaged a favorite computer techie to resolve the issue. I’d planned to schedule time with him later in the week for some technology upgrades and, in the process of dealing with the breakdown, learned that he wouldn’t be available at the time I’d planned. Ugh!

Present to becoming frazzled and irritated, I paused. Taking a deep breath, it was clear that the energy was guiding me in a different direction. Would I push through to stick with my plan? Or would I go with the flow of the energy?

I chose to flow. The result? The technology upgrade that I’d set aside (Muse says ‘avoided’!) for some time is now complete, opening the way for greater ease in several other activities and plans. The learning curve I’ve avoided doesn’t seem as steep as I’d feared. And I’m much more at ease.

Letting go, allowing, flowing with the energy in these daily events, places where often we may not recognize the presence of a choice point, become my doorways to listening more deeply to self and to all of life, especially the thriving life that surrounds me in this sacred land I inhabit. Relating to the details of life in flow rather than control seems to be an indication that Nature has much to share. An invitation for me to simply listen.

Could this be a tiny step on the path to deepening my kinship with all Life, choosing to flow with rather than control Life that is not mine to control? Perhaps a bit more uprooting is underway…

The Season’s First Morning Fire

Honoring the Veins & Arteries of Our World

The Rio Grande River Near South Fork, Colorado

Rivers are the veins and arteries of our world, and they are essential to all life. In the U.S., we depend on our 3.5 million miles of rivers for our drinking water and the food we eat. Rivers provide crucial habitat for fish and wildlife, opportunities for recreation, and spiritual and cultural connections for us, our families, and our communities. Rivers make life possible, yet we are losing them. Amy Souers Kober, American Rivers (www.americanrivers.org)

Heading out early on the morning of the autumnal equinox to explore and honor the headwaters of the Rio Grande River, little did I know that the following day was World Rivers Day. Recently engaged in global activity to honor fresh waters, I simply wanted to get to know this river at the place where she begins her long (and oft interrupted) journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

Enroute to the headwaters, high in the San Juan Mountains 130 miles or so away, we crossed the Rio Grande numerous times, stopping at a couple of particularly beautiful Colorado State Wildlife Areas to touch the River below her genesis point. Our day of awe and beauty had only just begun.

Arriving at the Rio Grande Reservoir, more beauty to behold, beauty that touched my heart and brought feelings of deep gratitude for this River, for all Rivers, for all Life. During our slow meandering of the area, the sense of what it might have been in the days when indigenous peoples lived there in harmony with the River, the Earth, Life. Before my European ancestors brought what they believed was ‘progress’, what I now hold as colonization and control that has led us to feel we are separate from one another and from Nature.

 I think of the Lakota phrase “Mní wičhóni” (“Water is life”) that came powerfully into our consciousness as the protest anthem from Standing Rock. I remember that it also has a spiritual meaning rooted in Indigenous world views. Water not only sustains Life, Water is also sacred.

A key element in honoring the waters is to ask and to listen.  In doing so recently with rivers in the eastern United States, I have ‘heard’ their sorrow for the division and bloodshed of the past and their wish that this be healed. And I have sensed the rivers’ desire to flow freely.

In our culture of control, we view water on the move as disruptive and thus needing to be controlled. In nomadic times Rivers and humans moved freely in what I imagine to be a dance. ‘The River will rise soon … we need to move to higher ground.’ Listening to Nature and dancing with her. Today we demean such lifestyle choices. Countries, political boundaries, ownership have fenced us in to the ways of separation.

How shall we become free? How shall Life and Nature regain their natural freedom? Musings for now. Questions with mere hints of possibility. A call for greater awareness. For honoring. For asking. For listening. For gratitude. And not just out in the wild, beauty of Nature, but right here with each turn of the tap. Ask and allow the water to inform. Remember the sacredness. Respect and respond.

Marshy Headwaters of the Rio Grande River