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

#520! - A Milestone

The sun sets on a decade of blog posts — The Zone and The Pivot …

Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome to The Success Zone, an eclectic place for your personal success!  I’m glad you’re here where each week…

With Emerson’s quote and my words of welcome this blog journey began 520 weeks ago, August 15, 2013. A decade of blog posts! A bit of celebration and reflection seems apropos for this milestone.

Little did I know that I would maintain the practice for a decade, keeping a weekly commitment to my, as a friend says, “date with creation”. A time each week to listen not to the mainstream but rather to the mainstays of Life: Nature, Spirit, My Heart. A time to ask, ‘what wants to be shared this day?’

 A decade, 520 weeks, of The Zone and our pivot to The Pivot in 2020 because as I said then, ‘a new story requires us to change’. Life has been a ride these 10 years for each of us!

Looking back, I’m grateful for rarely needing to push myself. Most weeks I’m excited to discover where the journey will lead. Some weeks I have a rough idea of the focus either because of an event in my life that I’m musing about, or something that has grabbed my attention seems worthy of sharing.

Days when I’m empty, clueless about the focus, yield surprises as I’m guided to open just the right book or Muse taps me on the shoulder, gently suggesting ‘This!’. Posts that come slowly or require more effort put me face to face with uncertainty and doubt. It’s often those posts that garner the most responses from you, dear readers, suggesting that we are often grappling with similar challenges each uniquely designed to our life path. I am grateful to each of you for allowing me to pop into your life each week and for reading and sharing your thoughts!

I feel a deep sense of gratitude for and satisfaction with reaching this milestone, although it was never a goal. Early on my purpose was to share ideas and strategies for personal success and to support building my coaching business. I enrolled in courses promising to teach me how to write the ‘great blog’ and to ‘grow my list’. Rarely, if ever, did the content or ideas resonate with me. ‘Emerson didn’t need a marketing expert to share his wisdom,’ I would sometimes grumble.

 Spirit seemed to have another purpose. The goal, if any, became to simply show up with curiosity and care, listen, write, and share. That intention holds today.

We’ve all been through a lot since August, 2013. I’ll spare you the history and share just a few highlights in my life.

Just as I began to prepare to launch The Zone, my computer crashed, and my landlord informed me that he was going to sell the house I’d been happily renting for several years. Somehow those potential setbacks didn’t delay the launch. And I kept my weekly date through some tumultuous time on the local water board, buying a home, and operating a bed and breakfast along with my coaching practice.

Shortly after posting #311 on August 1, 2019, Cool Hand Luke let me know that it was his time to cross the rainbow bridge. Post #335 was done on Zadie Byrd’s first full day here in her new, ‘furever’ home. Covid came on the scene a month or so later, and The Zone became The Pivot with issue #349. As I was completing post #360 on July 8, 2020, I received the call that my dear cousin had attempted suicide and was, at that time, ‘unresponsive’. After a three-day journey across five states during ‘lockdown’, Zadie Byrd’s first road trip, posts for the next six weeks were written in Washington state where I was handling her estate.

 I share these events not to brag, but rather to deepen my own understanding and acceptance of the satisfaction that grows from consistency and commitment. And from the willingness to follow my path, my heart. I’m a bit awestruck by its depth. And I’m most grateful!

Each of us has been committed to something (multiple somethings for most!). We are committed to something today. Let’s each be sure that our commitments are to that which is life generating, life enhancing. To mainstays, not the mainstream.  To coherence and peace, not tumult and chaos. To courage and love, not fear. To the truth of our Oneness, not the divisiveness of separation.

This felt sense of satisfaction does not mean that my weekly commitment is complete. The weekly journey continues with a renewed commitment to speak from my heart as I question the status quo, travel my own journey to life more fully aligned with Mother Earth, and live in the wonder that is this life in crazy, tumultuous times of uncertainty and change.

For how long, I cannot say. I’m clear that I will know when ‘I’m done.’ For now, eclectic musing, sometimes contradictory, will continue. The words will by MY words, not words from someone’s artificial intelligence program. And that’s a story for another day…

Although the sun is setting on a decade of posts, this morning’s encounter with bunny in the grass, points to fertile ground for future explorations.

Today’s morning encounter with bunny suggests fertile ground for future explorations. Onward!

Reverence Unbound Informs and Inspires

Blanca Peak and the Great Sand Dunes provide background for Orisons Flying Rain Sandhill Crane sculptures.

I wanted to collaborate with all the living beings who were living there or passing through. The land is the artwork, and I wanted to celebrate it and every being on it, as well as reconnect it and all its inhabitants with their presents, pasts, and futures. Marguerite Humeau, Artist, Orisons (www.orisons.art)

Imagine for a moment (or linger longer) the possibilities that would emerge if each of us took such a reverential approach to co-creating our life experiences. How might we be informed and even inspired if we held each of our multiple environs reverently and collaborated with them? Our homes and the lands they occupy. Our places of work, of worship, of play. What if we celebrated all that is, all that has been, and all that is to be?

In the wake of attending the opening of the vast earthworks installation, Orisons, and hearing the artist and curator speak about their three-year collaboration to opening day, such questions have risen in me from a deeper place than I’ve experienced before. The questions feel both informed and inspired by the artist, Marguerite Humeau, and her deep reverence for the land – its present, its past, its future. I witnessed that reverence in the care and thoughtfulness of the 160-acre installation itself and in Humeau’s presentation to the opening day audience along with curator, Cortney Stell.

Humeau is a French artist who lives and has her studio in London. Her understanding of and reverence for land 4,700 miles from home is inspiring. Cortney Stell, Executive Director of the Denver-based Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum which commissioned the work, curated the installation.

My own reverence for the land, for the vast San Luis Valley, for Gaia and her beings continues to be fed by my Orisons experience, by possibilities rising, by questions that continue to emerge, by the very nature of reverence itself. Reverence, Muse gently reminds me, kindles curiosity.

There is a quieting, slowing that I experience when reverence rises. Noise and speed do not blend well with reverence. I wonder about the nature of reverence itself. I so want to say ‘herself’ as reverence feels very soft, feminine, much like Humeau and the strategically placed Orisons sculptures. This is in contrast to the outward, ruggedness of the land which the sculptures occupy.

Sandhill Crane Songs - One of 84 Orisons sculptures

I wonder how reverence can help us navigate life in this chaotic time when so much seems out of balance, out of sync with the wholeness that is life. What can I learn from visiting and contemplating this art? Might cultivating reverence inform us of how to live in greater alignment with one another and with our planetary home? How might reverence call forth the wholeness that is life?

What if we asked, as artist Humeau does, “How would it feel for us as humans to truly merge into the biosphere?” I taste, I sense a morsel of the answer when I saunter in the woods out back. I felt the possibility as I navigated prairie dog and kangaroo mouse burrows in the Orisons landscape on opening day. The land and its beings – present, past, future – have much to share. Will I learn to listen deeply enough to hear?

All too often we reserve reverence for that and those with whom we agree, those we love, things important to us – hardly reverence for ALL life. But what if we cultivated our capacity to feel reverence as deeply for the land we occupy, for Gaia herself, for ALL beings, ALL life as I experienced that Marguerite Humeau expresses in Orisons?

Indeed, what if …?

Horseweed Pendulum

How BIG Are the Little Things?

Everything is a part of Everything else

Everything operates on behalf of everything else

Everything is interactive, interrelated, and interdependent/symbiotic, and with you

You are part of everything and everything is part of you

You operate on behalf of everything else, and everything operates on behalf of you (Myra Jackson)

Sorting through some papers this past weekend I came across a slide from sometime in 2020 or ’21, the Covid years. It seemed a good reminder on many levels and across all domains so I placed it where I would likely see it every morning.

This morning I needed it to remind me of how I understand our world, indeed the cosmos, to be. I also needed to remember that even though this is how the universe, our planet, and each of us IS, our awareness of our true nature is not automatic. Practice is required to fully embody the truth of who we are.

 I don’t know about you, but I need lots of practice. Of this I was reminded when Zadie Byrd and I popped outside as the day began to dawn. When she finished her ‘business’ I noticed plants with a thirst needing to be quenched.

Turning my attention to responding to that need and my desire to care for them in gratitude for reaping the beauty they contribute to my life; I discovered a hose had been moved and left disconnected by a wonderful helper who washed windows yesterday. Putting the system back together would require a bit more work than simply connecting the hose. ‘Annoyed’ is the gentlest term available to describe my instant reaction.      

But fairly quickly as I huffed and puffed, I realized that this wasn’t how I wanted to begin my day or experience the quiet, peaceful dawn. I wanted to align myself with the beauty that surrounds me, to remember that I am a part of that, and to be in alignment with Her. My huffy, puffy reaction wasn’t coherent with who I am, what I believe, or what I know to be true about life. I wanted to step into this day with full coherence, present to and grateful for my life, for ALL life.

 I paused, asking my heart to lead and my pulse to align with the pulse of Gaia, of the cosmos. Calmer, I reset the watering system and went inside to reflect. The quote above came to mind. I thought about how everything matters, even (perhaps especially) the so-called ‘little’ things.

 These little things grab our attention and sometimes evoke in us out of proportion reactions. They are potent with opportunities. Opportunities to be grateful. Opportunities to express care and love. Opportunities to make refinements, to learn, to grow. Opportunities to BE who we truly are.

These little things impact us personally, contributing to OR working against our health, our happiness, our overall well-being. Whether they are moments of gratitude and bliss or forays into drama, they impact us individually and collectively. They become part of the collective consciousness that is creating our world and how we experience that world moment to moment, day to day. We are responsible for choosing. And every choice matters.

Our heart knows the Truth that Everything IS a part of Everything else. May we invite her to remind us of that truth and to guide us in our choices whether they seem large or small. May I.

Living Into Sovereignty

Art in the Afternoon Sky

There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain. Tara Westover

Muse woke me before dawn this morning with this gentle nudging: Sometimes one must get in a box to know just how that box doesn’t fit. For only when one knows the details of how something doesn’t fit can one begin to design and create what does.

Hmmm … I knew almost instantly what Muse was referring to: a box of the legal/medical system I’ve recently experienced.

I’m in the process of attending to some life decisions that I need make, updating wishes and instructions for when my time in this vehicle is complete. For a while I’ve been ‘trying on’ (actually, trying to make fit) the language presented as choices by the legal and medical systems (no, I’m not about to hop on my soapbox about that, so stay with me).

None of their choices felt ‘just right’, so I chose the ones that seemed to fit the best, settling for less than the perfect fit I desired. I did so because I wanted to be done AND because I didn’t see any other possibilities. I was in the system’s box, compromising my sovereignty and my wishes to fit so that I could check the ‘completed’ box on my ‘to do’ list.

Somehow it didn’t occur to my inner rebel to look outside that box for other possibilities.

That prompting came in a conversation with a trusted friend and advisor who with deep conviction challenged me to, “write your own words!”. Gulp. Say what? I can do that?

I was at once embarrassed (Why didn’t I think of that? How could I allow myself to get so trapped in the system’s box?). And I was relieved. With her words, the possibility of ‘having my cake and eating it too’ opened.

I could execute the ‘close but not a perfect fit’ documents as written, thus relieving the pressure that what I had in place didn’t reflect my wishes at all.

And I could declare that executing these documents doesn’t close the door to creating that ‘just right’ fit. I can take time to explore, co-create, and discover how to implement language that’s ‘just right’: language that fits my understanding and beliefs about life and (so-called) end of life, as well as my desires for comfort as I exit this physical body. Then I can work with my attorney to add whatever legalese is necessary.

In choosing to live more fully into my sovereignty, I feel the fresh air of empowerment and freedom. This is how life is intended to be but doing so is not easy in a world that prefers we choose from its boxes, boxes designed not to honor our free will and sovereignty as universal beings, but to control. I’m excited to explore and discover in what other life domains I may have boxed myself in, not remembering that I am the co-creator of this life.

Muse gives a nod and posits a query about the collective: Is it any wonder that there is such anger and angst in your world? No matter how conscious one is, this conflict is ever present in all. It seems that the more conscious we are of the conflicts and constraints imposed by our systems the more at choice and sovereign we can be. Perhaps as we raise our awareness, we’ll be better able to build sustainable, sovereign community systems. And that, suggests Muse is a story for another day.

Cheerful Morning

Reminiscing As Year 10 Begins

Morning Clouds Bring Beauty & the Possibility of Blessed Rain

Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

So began The Success Zone 15 August 2013. I described my intention for weekly posts as “an eclectic place for your personal success!”. I don’t recall precisely what prompted me to use these particular words from Emerson, but I do know that they hold true for me today: what I think (feel, sense, know, etc.) and say today may not be what I think (feel, sense, know, etc.) and say tomorrow.

For indeed we change as does the world we navigate, those humans with whom we share our planet home, Gaia herself, and the cosmos in its entirety. Moment to moment. Day to day. Year to year. Lifetime to lifetime.

When I started the weekly blog, I was steeped in the growing profession of coaching, (re)building a coaching business and finding/creating my place, my purpose, my role(s) in life. Today, no longer in the business of coaching, I aim to bring the best of my coaching presence and skills into life and (with support from Muse) to these weekly musings. Today I recognize and accept more deeply that finding/creating place, purpose, role(s) in life is a journey, not a goal or a destination and that success is a matter of satisfaction, contribution, and fulfillment more than of money or acquiring more ‘stuff’.

Place, purpose, role(s) pivot with new circumstances, new knowledge, and insights. Awareness, agility, and adaptability are skills to strengthen. New thinking that leads us to personal and collective pivots is the order of the day (and, likely, for many tomorrows).

Who among has not made significant pivots in the last nine years? Who among us has not rethought and pivoted again as life conditions change and as heart and soul tap our being and point us to new possibilities or a new way? Who among us is the same today as we were then (or, heck, even yesterday)?

Certainly not moi. In the early days of the pandemic, The Zone pivoted to become The Pivot (120 weeks ago – if you be counting). A change in name and focus had been bubbling in me for some time. Clarity came as I saw the need to make changes in my own thinking, my beliefs, my habits and as I witnessed the Earth’s responses to our collective global pause. For me it was the beginning of reexamining EVERYthing, of exploring wider avenues of thought and possibility, and of seeking out those people, places, and pockets that are building the new, a process that’s likely to happily engage me for the duration of this lifetime.

In sharing my engagement, discoveries, and curiosities I aim to offer introspection, inspiration, insights, intelligence, and information for your journey of discovering and navigating your own pivot points. As Muse reminds, surely much change is afoot. Perhaps some wisdom will emerge along the way.

As it was in the beginning, The Pivot will continue to be eclectic. My curiosity runs both wide and deep. And one belief that isn’t likely to shift is that ‘one size does NOT fit all’. Likewise, The Pivot continues to support individually and collectively reclaiming personal power as a right and a responsibility and seeks to challenge your thinking and mine.

As it always has been, there is rarely an ‘editorial plan or calendar’ for what will come. The Pivot emerges weekly in response to the promptings – internal and external – of life and to (mostly) gentle nudging from Muse.

I (WE! – suggests Muse) aim to bring more beauty to light and life. Beauty not just of the visual sort, although certainly I’m steeped in the natural beauty of place (and not likely to pivot away from sharing that), but beauty of the heart, the soul, the spirt of life. Beauty that is of sight, sound, and all our senses. Perhaps beauty that is beyond our senses, yet ever present when we are open to receive.

A deep bow of gratitude to you for being with us on the journey and some beautiful words to remember as we engage in the days ahead.

Being here is so much. Rainer Maria Rilke

The human mind is in itself a world with huge mountains, deep valleys, and forests of the unknown. John O’Donohue

Morning Moonset over the San Luis Valley

Gifts of an Unexpected Pivot

Early Morning Fire on a Blustery, Cold Day

What would life be like had my ancestors chosen to live in harmony with the indigenous peoples here? Would we live in greater harmony with Mother Earth? With one another? What a pivot that would be!

When I looked out upon waking this morning my heart sank as the multiple of inches of snow forecast had yielded barely a trace. Mother Earth so needs a thick white blanket. I too would relish a snowy day by the fire.

Muse whispered blog thoughts as I began to stir and go about the morning ritual of building a fire. Rarely a routine, mindless task, I build the fire as sacred action – a blessed way to begin each winter day, literally on my knees as if kneeling in prayer. This brings me to deeply felt gratitude. Appreciation for the trees and the forests, the cycles of life, and all those who had a hand in getting these logs to my door.

As I settled in to write I thought of an African tribe’s practice of keeping a fire burning for generations as an unbroken connection to their ancestors. It is the wife of the tribal chief who carries this sacred responsibility. A feminine role of care connecting past to present and being present to the utilitarian gifts of the fire: warmth and cooking. Simply living. Simply life. Connection with those who have walked before. Connection with Earth. Being present now. Care. Simply living. Simply life.

I say a silent prayer that we so-called civilized humans won’t impose our “civilized” ways on them as has been done so often in history. Muse wonders with me: what would life be like had my ancestors chosen to live in harmony with the indigenous peoples here? Would we live in greater harmony with Mother Earth? With one another? Herstory would weave a different path. Can we truly pivot to live from the feminine? What a pivot that would be!

These are the wonderings that stir in me in this time of turning, of death, of rising new. Crevices of exploration that come when I step off the treadmill of doing, of accomplishing and simply allow myself to be. Muse nods in knowing agreement. These are the swings in my soul’s playground when I allow Muse to push the swing and simply sit and observe Zadie Byrd, sleeping in her ‘cone of courage’, allowing healing. Stillness and gratitude add to my warmth on this cold, blustery morning.

These are the gifts offered up as I break my decades old habit of saying ‘yes’ too often, jumping in to participate in activities that bring me no joy and are not in service to my Becoming.

Muse smiles, happy to observe the dots I’m connecting and, I suspect, impishly wondering how I will live into these choices in the days (weeks, months, years) ahead. I’m curious as well.

That’s where this post was going to end. Draft written, it was time for our morning walk. As I’m preparing to head out, the phone rings. Finally, a return call from our vet, who I’d called a couple days ago when I noticed redness in Zadie Byrd’s eye. I wanted to know if this was normal after surgery.

“No,” said the vet. We should look at it …” Although she said it wasn’t urgent, I sensed that for Zadie’s well-being and my peace of mind, we should go in today, regardless of the winter storm advisories and warning and reports of icy roads.

I fell into a bit of a spin. Mind warning me of the weather and associated risks. Heart saying, ‘go anyway’. After a few breaths and a short walk, the inner knowing rose: All will be fine it affirmed.

And it was just that: ‘fine’. Perhaps our angels cleared the way. Icy road conditions reported earlier had cleared. Two and a half hours and 120 miles under our belts, we are safely home with drops for Zadie’s eye and confirmation that the issue is minor and should clear in just a few days. I had pivoted from the morning plan, Wednesday morning’s blog commitment, to care for my sweet pup.

On the drive home, my thoughts returned to the blog. Muse pointed out that I’d done more than a simply pivot from plan. My early disappointment around the lack of snow held no regard for the hazardous driving conditions that such snow brings. Hey, I’m home by the fire, no problem. But, as I met the need to care for another, my disappointment shifted to gratitude for the clear roads that made our journey safe and easy. Such is the way of an unexpected pivot. What is dark in one moment becomes light in the next. This IS life.

Let Sleeping Dog Heal

Two Bucks and a Raven

A Buck and the Bell

What does Nature say?

A few days back in the early morning the temperature at dawn was only a couple degrees colder than the normal high temperature for that day. As I opened my journal and picked up the pen this was the stream of words that came. “Mild morning – 30 degrees, house chilly, no fire last night – VERY unusual. Fire going now – warming and lovely.”

“I feel Nature’s confusion … ‘tis the season of winter,

And no snow on the ground

Chilly not COLD

Other than an occasional blast (for a day or so)

Then warming with low temps as high as the normal high and

High temps reaching towards records.

My heart feels the inward pull

Of the season – ‘Snuggle in, Rest, Read, Contemplate.

The warmth and sun pull me out.

Like a see-saw, tug-of-war on the playground of Life. DoBeDoBeDoBeDo…

I don’t know how to be in these woods in this season without snow,

The Earth without her white blanket. Is She patiently confused?

What might She know that I do not yet ‘hear’, my untrained senses trying to make sense of the season that doesn’t match my mountain experience?

But is more like the experience from another place, another time this life,

Sea level in Houston or the Llano Estacado in Lubbock – warmer winters.

I break my writing flow to tend the fire. The beauty and warmth of the slow burning logs and multicolored flames draw me in and

I feel a wave of warmth, of depth, of gratitude for all that makes possible my comfort.

Logs added with a full heart, I notice the sky – brilliant orange, red, pink on the horizon and I step outside to the distant sound of Raven – ‘the Magic is Love’ –

Yes, Raven, I remember . These words of your ‘Caw’

Will not be forgot. And I will listen as you speak for other wisdom you may impart.

Flowing in the morning stream is a joy that settles and soothes

Offering a way of Being in the Doing of this day.

I move with gratitude,

Still curious about the confusion that sits in me …

What does Nature say?”

When one asks a question it’s polite to listen to/for the answer. Raven brought this home to me on our morning walk shortly after this journal entry and its ending question: What does Nature say? Raven was raucous, louder than usual and flying about in the treetops and near the ground seeming to want to be heard, not seen.

I noticed. And I didn’t take my observing deeper or connect it to the question I’d posed less than an hour before. Rather rude to ask and not listen. Later, when I finally made the connection, Raven seemed to be sounding a ‘caw’ to heed Nature, to listen with all my senses. Duh! Ask and it is given. But you must be aware and willing to receive. Sometimes it takes a brassy Raven’s ‘caw’ to open me up.

The following afternoon after a lovely walk with Zadie Byrd (who has her own ways of getting my attention and teaching), I headed into the woods out back to walk the labyrinth and commune with the pines. As I approached the labyrinth, a handsome four-point buck was in the outermost circuit grazing seeds fallen from the bird feeder above. I stopped. He looked up and after a few moments looking may way, turned his eyes and his muzzle to the ground, apparently finding the seed more interesting and nourishing than me.

After a few more moments I slowly eased closer, step by step, present to his gentleness and grace. Aware that he was aware of my presence, yet not threatened.  After a bit he began walking slowly toward me through the inner circuits of the labyrinth. My gaze focused on him, his on me; each of us seeming to say, ‘thank you for sharing … we are safe here.’ I let him know that I am listening, and I sense he was conveying a reminder of the importance of increasing my capacity to adapt. Deer thrive in part because of their capacity to adapt to changing conditions. And gentleness is a part of their way.

As if to confirm (or perhaps to see if I was continuing to listen) and to remind me that adapting and change require rest, he returned yesterday with a friend. Just before heading out for a walk, my eyes were drawn to the woods where two bucks were resting, heads up and observant, about 15 yards apart.

This winter the variety of birds in the woods and at my feeder is abundant, each carrying their messages in response to my query.

I’m listening. What does Nature say?

Resting with Awareness in the Woods Out Back

Where Can You Do Less?

Autumnal Sunrise Over the Sangres

Notice where you can do less. Jill Van Note

You don’t have and ‘Aha!’ moment. An ‘Aha!’ moment has you. Woody Tasch

Happy Autumn! After greeting the Autumnal sunrise in the labyrinth, the muse niggles that perhaps a better title this first day of a new season might be ‘Falling Into Doing Less’. Cute. I smile at the idea and decide that I like the title as a question. ‘Where can you do less?’ is one of my favorite elements in the Feldenkrais method. I appreciate that it’s posed frequently in most every lesson.

The question gently calls forth awareness. Last week it did so in a profound, expansive, and most unexpected way, when, calling attention to a limb that wasn’t involved in the movement we were doing, Jill, my Feldenkrais instructor, said the phrase I’ve heard countless times: “notice where you can do less …”.

Suddenly, I was aware of holding tension in the ‘uninvolved’ leg. I hadn’t fully relaxed my leg muscles to allow the floor’s full support. I was doing ‘work’ that was already taken care of. Expending energy that I had no need to expend. Wasting energy. My precious energy.

Aha! The question isn’t just about doing less with the parts that are moving! Aha! It’s about the whole body and the support available to be received. Aha! Wow, it’s about all of life: body, mind, and spirit. Aha! The moment ‘had’ me. It’s had my focus and curiosity since.

Wondering ‘where can I do less?’ became a personal ‘energy audit’, discovering where body, mind, and spirit habitually engage where they need not engage, leaking energy like worn out weatherstripping around a door or window. I’m discovering more deeply my habitual tendency to do more than what’s needed. Yes, Cindy, the floor will support you. Indeed, it does.

I discovered (yet again) mental energy wasted thinking of things that I’m not engaged in at that moment (and may not need to engage in at all, at least in the near term). I noticed the monkey-mind of worry creeping in, thinking about how, for example, to word an email when I was far from the computer and not ready to respond, or whether to participate in an event not occurring for quite some time.

I’m reminded of a metaphysical teacher who has on occasion asked me, “are you giving this more energy than it needs or deserves?” Busted! Gratefully busted! I notice the inefficiency, the waste of taking awareness away from the present moment how doing so not only requires more time and energy to complete the task, but likewise reduces the joy and satisfaction that full presence and attention bring.

I’m reminded too of the support provided by the Universe, requiring only that I have the courage to trust and the willingness to receive.

Aha! No wonder the subtitle/subtext of the Feldenkrais Method (and others) is ‘awareness through movement’.

Labyrinth Bell Greets the Morning Sun

Making Choices Without Choosing Sides

Sunflower ‘Volunteer’

So, while I really appreciate your support, I'm asking you not to take sides. Charles Eisenstein

Yesterday’s email with its subject line ‘Peace: Important plea to readers’ marked the second time over three or four days in which individuals whose work and lives typically align with my values used the clear, direct language: “don’t take sides”.

The first, a recorded message mostly addressing earth changes and their impact, inspired me to think about the difference between making choices and choosing sides. Eisenstein’s email confirmed my hunch that the Wednesday muse would explore just that. The topic seems a logical (although logic is rarely my primary aim!) extension to last week’s muse that suggested:

It’s time to pivot: calling forth and practicing unity, oneness, the interconnected nature of life. Time to cooperate and co-create.

As I suggested last week, more and more it seems that the world wants us to choose sides rather than simply making choices that are best for each of us based on what we know, what we have yet to know/learn, and what we sense. Sadly in the collective many have taken the bait.

Sharing a point of view that differs from others is seen by some as divisive rather than collaborative. Or, in Eisenstein’s case, when the point of view he expressed was attacked, many of his supporters took up the banner to defend, attacking the attackers. His email yesterday was an impassioned plea to his readers to “abstain from that pattern… Respectfully disagree with their views if you feel so moved, but don’t make it about the personalities.”

Eisenstein’s plea reminded me of a kinder, gentler time when then presidential candidate John McCain challenged a questioner at a town hall who labelled Barrack Obama an “Arab”. “No he isn’t …” McCain said urging his supporters to stop hurling abuse against his rival for president and saying that he admired and respected Obama. Such a move is a powerful choice. If a side is chosen by such an act, it is the side of love, of harmony, of peace, of something bigger than the campaign for president.

All this combined with a deep concern about the toll our divisions are taking on each of us individually, all of us collectively, and on our home, Gaia, Mother Earth stirred my pot of curiosity to wonder just how I might make choices without contributing to the divisiveness. Or worse, being a part of the source. That led me to begin exploring the distinction ‘choosing sides and making choices’.

Distinguishing choosing sides and making choices is, at least in part, a matter of perception and of intention.  What do I aim to accomplish when I choose sides? What is my intention when I make a particular choice? All too often in our ‘on demand’ culture, we leap over considering our motivation. We need to make our point or join the chorus of the herd (but not heard) and move on to the next thing.

Not only that, it’s also far easier to attack, for example, the fossil fuel industry and blame ‘it’ for environmental crises, than it is to look in the mirror of our own habits and consider our role and what we might change in our individual choices. It seems that for the mainstream media, it’s easier to blame the unvaccinated (or another country, or ….) for the pandemic rather than look at the bigger picture of nature/viruses/the planet and recognize the interconnectedness of ALL things and then to make choices aligned with creating health for all.

Blame is the game of the world of division. Responsibility and respect are the badges of honor in a world moving toward restoring unity and connection to our awareness.

May we take time and make the necessary effort that enables us to make responsible and respectful choices for ourselves, for one another, and for our planet home. May I. If a side must be chosen, let us choose the side of power with not power over.

Old Juniper Greets the Sun