Being Grounded is Key to Nonviolence

Sturdy Old Pine in the Woods Out Back

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King’s words touched me deeply when I read them on Monday, day 8 of the Gandhi King Season of Nonviolence with its theme of faith. I have faith that this dream can become a reality.

This week with the impeachment trial and revisiting the January 6 violence here in the U.S. it seems especially important that I’m taking time each day to tune in to the day’s nonviolence theme. We need not just a ‘season’ of nonviolence, we need to make nonviolence our predominate way of life. Not the ‘other’, those with whom we disagree or worse, but weeding out the roots of nonviolence in our own hearts and minds. This is great potential of our time.

I continue to find those roots as they show up in the events and interactions of daily life, each an opportunity to pause, breathe, and remember what my heart knows to be true: that we are all connected and that everyone has their story; we are all different, we are all the same.

I find that each day’s theme resonates differently, some more than others. As I began to reflect on today’s theme, groundedness, I recognized how important being grounded is to my ability to practice – indeed to live – from the powerful stance of nonviolence.  How do I/we stay grounded in a world where all too often chaos reigns?

As those who’ve been reading these weekly muses for a while know, I’m blessed to live in the quiet, grounding beauty of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado. Simply looking out into the woods that surround me grounds me in the reality that Gaia, Mother Earth, is my home/our home.   Peaceful daily walks with Zadie Byrd help me stay grounded. The impatience with her sometimes slow pace that I mentioned last week [click here if you missed it] melted this week when I learned that her vision has become impaired and that she’s developing arthritis, both contributing to her need to slow down and frequently stop.

As my impatience with her gave way to care and compassion, I set an intention of shifting other triggers of impatience to remembering oneness, to care, to compassion, knowing that I don’t know the story of why, for example, some folks drive at what I consider to be speeds way to fast on our rural, unpaved roads. As Dr. King reminds us, nonviolence is first an inside job.

I thought about that as I watched video on the first day of the impeachment trial. I wondered about the groundedness of those who participated in the violence of January 6 at the Capitol. Could someone grounded in Mother Earth and remembering that we are each one part of a greater whole perpetrate violence of any sort?

I ask that question without judgement and from a deep curiosity about how it is that we humans have for so long chosen the path of ‘power over’ rather than the truer path of calling on the ‘power within’.

Perhaps, as Gandhi suggested, we have forgotten who we are:

To forget how to dig in the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves. Mohandas Gandhi

And Black Elk further reminds us of grounding in the earth, our home:

Some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.

More importantly, I wonder how we cross this great divide between power over and power within, and thus land in where our true power lies?

Being grounded seems key, a starting point, foundation if you will, for examining our habits, our words, our choices and for changing them, with the intention to build our capacity for nonviolence.

As I look out at the pines in these woods, witnessing their height and their sturdiness, I think about the vast root systems through which nutrients and cooperative communication flow. How might we who walk here on the surface of this hallowed earth operate more like the trees that make our living on the planet possible?

Being in such questions with the deep belief that we can create our world differently helps me maintain my groundedness. I take the questions on my walks and carry them in me when I join friends to work in their winter growing dome. The questions live in me, not with pressure to find or know the answers, but with curiosity and a dream that one day nonviolence will prevail from the strength of practicing it in our hearts and our souls in daily life, lifting the consciousness of ourselves and all on the planet.

A Grounding Sight - Gentle Deer Resting in the Woods

Pivoting to the Feminine

The Beauty and Softness of a Winter Morning

Western women will save the world. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Several threads woven through my week focus on the idea, the necessity really, of integrating feminine principles and energy fully into our culture. Wikipedia lists the following as traits of the feminine:  nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection, tenderness, and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding. Who among us would not agree that more expressions of these qualities will make the world a better place?

Women as well as expressions of these principles were, from my perspective, front and center in both the Inauguration of President Biden last week and in the new President’s first week of executive actions and his communication with we the people.  I found that refreshing, inspiring, and hopeful.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is famously quoted for saying that 'Western women would save the world' at the Vancouver Peace Summit in 2009. He went on to say "Some people may call me a feminist...But we need more effort to promote basic human values — human compassion, human affection. And in that respect, females have more sensitivity for others' pain and suffering."

Those words came to mind instantly when Alice Walker’s poem 'Calling All Grand Mothers' published in 2010 landed in my inbox, giving further voice to the urgency of this pivot. 

Calling All Grand Mothers

We have to live
differently
 
or we
will die
in the same
 
old ways.
 
Therefore
I call on all Grand Mothers
everywhere
on the planet
to rise
and take your place
in the leadership
of the world ….

You can read the rest of this timely, poignant poem from Hard Times Require Furious Dancing here:

The feminine is not solely about what we DO, but rather how and who we BE.  It is not about gender or sexual preference. Men, women, LGBT, straight, all of us have access to the energy that is feminine. 

It is about the perspectives we hold in life and the beliefs and actions that follow. A few days ago a Facebook post shared by a friend related a conversation between two men talking over a beer. One got up saying he was going to go 'wash the dishes'. The other seemed surprised and said "I don't help my wife." The man going to wash the dishes replied that he wasn't 'helping his wife', that he lived in the home and had a responsibility to participate in its care. That represents collaboration, cooperation, empathy and so many other feminine principles in action!

A deep knowing that ‘we have to live differently’ has long been a theme running through these weekly muses and my life in general.  I often ask myself ‘what do I need to shift to be a better partner on and to the planet?’.  Powerfully weaving more feminine threads into my expressions of life seems to be an element of the answer. Join me?

Zadie Byrd’s New Friend

War Is Not The Answer

Winter Clouds Over the Sacred Sangres

The power of nonviolence is not circumstance-specific. It is as applicable to the problems that confront us now, as to problems that confronted generations in the past. It is not a medicine or a solution so much as a healing process. It is the active spiritual immune system of humanity. Marianne Williamson (The Healing of America - 1997)

The above quote popped out at me one recent morning after experiencing a deep sense of the need to shift consciousness, individually and collectively, around what we call ‘disease’. The message came through loud and clear:

War and fighting are not the paths for ending the current pandemic OR future ones. Rather than attack diseases as enemies, reach out with love and curiosity to discover what messages they hold for healing, growth, and humanity’s evolution. Just as we have the potential to cultivate peace with one another, we hold the potential to cultivate health - physically, mentally, and spiritually.

As I reflected on that message and as Williamson’s words suggest, nonviolence holds the potential to address the myriad of 'ills' that individual humans and humanity collectively suffer: poverty, racial discrimination, hate, conflict, injustice, inequality, etc. etc.

We need to stop. To listen with mind, heart, and gut. We need to hear ourselves, our bodies and we need to respond to their pleadings to create health not simply fight off disease when it occurs or vaccinate ourselves against it. The body has vast capabilities to heal and to stay healthy IF we will create an environment within which it can do its job. Clean water; nourishing organic foods; exercise; reducing stress and fear; and maintaining a positive outlook on life can do wonders to create the magic of health in our bodies. This is the foundation of a nonviolent approach to health.

We need to listen to one another.  We need to listen to those with whom we agree and, especially, to those whose views are contrary to our own. We need to hear one another from the heart, not just the head. We need to seek not victory as the paradigms of war and competition promote, but unity. We need to more deeply understand that we are all connected, indeed that everything is connected; and to develop new systems and approaches to thriving lives on our planet. This, for me, is the nature of nonviolence that both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King suggested in their words and in their deeds.

Perhaps now as a new year begins is a time to commit or to re-commit to learning, practicing, and engaging nonviolence in ALL aspects of life. The 24th ‘Season for Nonviolence’ beginning on January 30th and ending on April 4th offers one approach to such engagement.

Established in 1998 by Arun Gandhi to honor his grandfather and Dr. King, the ‘season’ begins on the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination and continues for 64 days, ending on the anniversary of the MLK’s assassination. Now convened each year by the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT), this year’s theme is ’64 days, 64 ways’.

I haven’t yet chosen my path for expanding my commitment to and practice of nonviolence, so I invite you to join me in learning more here and finding a path that fits your schedule, your style, and the personal commitment you wish to make to our individual and collective evolution.

Ending Note: As I complete this post, peaceful protest in the nation’s capital seems to be giving way to violence. May the power of peace and love prevail.

New Year Sunset

Blessed Solstice 2020

Sunset on the Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back

Winter Solstice is the time when you give up what you have and accept what is being born as the new power within you, the new awareness within you and the new person within you. (Gregge Tiffen, December 2019 newsletter)

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

I’ve been feeling the energy of the Solstice for several days. Monday’s New Moon felt especially powerful here in the snowy woods, almost as if it were the Solstice day.  I was called to walk the labyrinth in the early morning cold and again as the sun began to set across the valley. I’m walking it daily and taking long slow walks with Zadie Byrd in the afternoons. Mild weather of a week ago has given way to winter weather. Eight plus inches of snow over the weekend and another inch overnight Monday. The beauty and the quiet that snow brings are tonic for the tumultuous frenzy that the world seems to be spinning in. Grateful! I am THAT!

Winter Solstice is a time of natural transformation, newness that comes forth with or without our awareness. It is the time when our receptivity is heightened in consciousness. Is it any wonder that with fewer hours of daylight, we are drawn inside into our homes and into ourselves at this time of year?

Solstice is the birthday of the Planet. It was celebrated as such with reverence and respect in ancient times by our ancestors who lived in close harmony with the Planet’s rhythms.

Solstice is the time of completion and of new beginnings. The old cycle is done. We are presented with the opportunity to declare completion and move on with awareness of the seeds of newness planted inside. A new ‘you’ with its potential to bring wondrous change in the cycle ahead is ready. Are you willing to claim it?

In keeping with my understanding of ancient traditions, once again this year I will take time at Solstice to create a personal ‘silent night’, a time to harmonize my rhythms to those of Mother Earth. With love and gratitude I let go of everything from the year behind and acknowledge the seeds of newness inside. I invite you to create quiet time amidst the tensions of the world outside of you and the hustle and bustle of the season to do the same.

A good place to start is by harmonizing with nature. If you are blessed as I am to live in nature’s beauty, take a walk. Observe and honor the rhythms of nature, whether the slow steady growth of a tree or the daily cycles of ocean tides. This year the planets will offer quite a show as Jupiter and Saturn come together and appear as one bright star in the night sky on Solstice.  

If nature is not outside your door, then sit quietly and imagine your favorite peaceful place in nature. Feel yourself in that place and allow its rhythms to bring you the quiet peace of the season.

In that atmosphere embrace an attitude of gratefulness. Let go of everything that has come to you in the cycle ending. Empty and prepare space for the new. Let go of not only what doesn’t serve or suit you, of those things you consider ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’, but of everything: every attitude, your wants and desires, your fears, your hopes, your stories about the events of the year ending, the people in your life.

Finally, when you are ready (perhaps after only a few moments, perhaps a few hours), evoke the sound of newness with the declaration “I am new”.  Speak it boldly.  Be still and feel this newness. This is the place where heaven and earth come together in you, as you. The place where ‘heaven and nature sing’. The new you is ready to meet, greet and receive the gifts of the new cycle.  On this dark and silent night, let us sing with the angels and call forth love and light and peace. Then, in all the days ahead, let us BE the love, light, and peace that is our true nature.

May the blessings of your unique newness follow you into and throughout the year ahead!

A Protective Blanket of Fresh Snow Cradles Grasses and Seedlings and Mother Earth Herself

Digging Deep

Morning Fog Over Blanca Peak

In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity. Albert Einstein

The sun will come up tomorrow … This song from Annie popped into my head this morning immediately following the fortunately fleeting and rather silly thought: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off. (Perhaps there’s something about movies I need to pay attention to …)

I don’t, of course, want to ‘stop the world’ and ‘get off’ despite this time of turmoil and angst. For that angst and turmoil is ripe with opportunities to learn and to grow, to dig deep inside, into your core to discover more of who you are and who you are uniquely designed to be.

Being ripe with opportunity is the nature of crisis. Our task is to choose to feast on the ripe fruit of what is at hand and discover points of learning, points of pivot. Crisis demands adaptability: a willingness to change. Do what you must to navigate, to survive, to thrive. In no way does embracing opportunity minimize or, as some might suggest, deny hardship or despair: the very issues of survival that are faced each day across the globe. Opportunity invites us to embrace challenges as our teachers. As surely as those who stand before us to share what they know, life’s events have within them the potential for learning knowledge that becomes wisdom. That wisdom we carry forward in our BEing FOREVER.

The knowledge that becomes wisdom does not cease to exist when this physical body takes its last breath. That wisdom lives on in consciousness, that part of our BEing that is infinite.

As surely as this is true, then we must have within us and available to us, the knowledge and wisdom of our past. Pause, let that sink in. Each of us know more than we are aware that we know.

We, you and me and all who are walking this earth, were made for this time. Perhaps we have faced crises, turmoil, or upheaval akin to today’s life conditions.

As I reflected on this idea, I began to wonder and ask: what about today’s world feels familiar? What do I KNOW that will support me in navigating this time? What pivots do I need to make to honor and align with my wisdom?

What about you? In the deep quiet of introspection, meditation, dreamtime, or walking in nature I invite you to join me in beginning to ask and discover:

·        What inklings of familiarity do I have about this time?

·        What does my heart KNOW that will guide me?

·        What hunches have I ignored that I need to pay attention to?

·        What pivots do I need to make for the sake of my learning, growing, and Being all of who I came here to be?

Notice what arises as you simply take the bold step into curiosity. Let’s see what this wild and crazy life has to offer as we wind down the current cycle and prepare to usher in a new one that will dawn very soon.

The Sun is definitely shining on the Ziggurat this beautiful morn!

Power and Possibility

Hints of Autumn on a Hazy Day in the Sangres

Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within.

These words came this morning as I engaged the muse, reflecting and stirring the pot of this week’s soup curious about what would emerge. I’ve felt the world try to pull me into its power struggle. Through my revolving door a wide range of emotions paid me visits.

Dancing the dance of ‘staying informed’ I watched a bit of news and the documentary the social dilemma (find it here). I listened to Shelly Acorn’s talk on the emergence of fascism  (click here) offered by Humanity Rising’s Global Solutions Summit (info here).

I felt the heaviness of the world while recognizing that ignoring current conditions was not a wise option. Seeking to restore my sense of balance and being grounded, I stepped away. Zadie Byrd and I walked. I walked the labyrinth. I took in the beautiful evidence of the changing season just up the road and on the vast expanse of the steep slopes of the Sangres. I watched a squirrel playing, magpies flitting and listened to jays squawking in the woods.

I let the tears welling inside flow forth.

I wept for the pain of the world, for the planet, for humanity. I wept for those who are suffering illness, fires, hunger, oppression, fear and so much more. I wept for our sleepiness, the lack of awareness on which the world’s agenda thrives. I wept for the gap between the world that could be and the world as it seems. And, I shed tears of personal grief, missing my dear cousin’s physical presence.

In the pause that followed, I began to remember that change necessitates letting go …

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

I saw power (true, lasting power) and possibility dancing together. I saw humanity rising to meet the challenges and opportunities of a crumbling world. Step by step. Minute by minute. Day to day. Person to person. I remembered my deep knowing that the Universe in its infinite wisdom offers a bigger stage on which to dance than the petty power struggles which capture headlines. I remembered that we are on this planet to learn from the events before us. I remembered Gregge Tiffen’s wise words:

We are constantly in a situation of applying the condition of re-adjustment. Our Earth is one of the most difficult laboratories in the vast Universe because of the utilization of three levels of energy. We know them as physical, mental, and spiritual. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Mysterious Investigations – October 2010)

Let us know beyond a shadow of doubt, that Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within. Let us embrace that change is upon us, a new world is not only possible she is birthing as we speak. Let us hear the peaceful breathing of a new day by standing tall in our personal power and guiding that change to unfold a world that works for all. Let us dance the dance of bringing light to the darkness.

A Pause in the Afternoon Glory of Autumn

Nature's Extremes

SNOW - September 9, 2020

You are to live here with a sense of the planet and you as a vital unit because, in effect, you are that vitality. Nature will not sit back and allow you to set it aside like a poor relation with you living in isolation from it. Pay Attention! … Your body is nature, and nature is you. Your consciousness is the Universe, and the Universe is you. There is no separation between nature and you. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic: Completion – September 2009)

Zadie Byrd and I have been back home in the mountains for six days. Weather records have been broken on four of those days. On two days record high temperatures were recorded. Yesterday nine records were broken here: low temperature, lowest high temperature, most snow, earliest snow and more. A note on our local weather website, indicated that as of 3 a.m. today, two records had already been broken.

Extreme? Yes. Extreme change? Most certainly.

I look out on the eight or so inches of snow that fell overnight recalling that in the pre-dawn hours just yesterday I wrote in my journal Life is not ‘me and nature’ or ‘nature and I’. Rather nature is ‘we’ in this cycle of life. I am Nature. Nature is me. Yesterday, I was reflecting on the changing season and on how I the darkness and deep quiet of winter call me to rest deeply as nature rests.

Today I’m aware that underneath the snow, leaves on the trees are still green. Summer is barely beginning to give way to autumn. And yet, the landscape is a winter wonderland. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

What I’m witnessing here at home is not an isolated weather event. Extreme weather in multiple forms is responsible for vast devastation and suffering all over the globe. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

Could it be that she is reflecting the extremes in our own thoughts, our words, our deeds? Is she inviting us to look anew at our fractured culture and our reactions to one another, especially those who are different from us? Is she saying ‘Enough ready! I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore’?

She is wise our Mother, our Nature. Is she calling for us to fall in love with her, recognizing that as we do so we are loving ourselves and reconnecting to the deep knowing we share about the oneness of all life?

Is She reminding us that every thought we think matters in the grand plan of life? Is she inviting us to awaken to the reality that each choice we make and every action we take contributes to, indeed determines, the quality of nature, her health, her vitality, AND to ours, collectively and individually in the whole that is Nature?

In how we see, reflect, and respond to today’s extremes, both natural and man-made, we are co-creating the future. May we see with clarity. May we reflect with deep awareness. May we respond with love. For surely those – clarity, awareness, and love – can bring some balance to the extremes.

We Are HOME!

Ponder THIS Possibility

Water’s Response to Love and Gratitude

To give your positive or negative attention to something is a way of giving energy. The most damaging form of behavior is withholding your attention. … Water records information, and while circulating throughout the earth distributes information. This water sent from the universe is full of the information of life... … If we consider that the human body is a universe within itself, it is only natural to conclude that we carry within us all the elements. Masaru Emoto - Hidden Messages in Water

You operate beyond negativity when you are in control of you not by attempting to control conditions. We live in the ocean of consciousness that is boundless. All things in the ocean have available to them the same things. All of love, happiness, and freedom are available in the ocean of consciousness. Gregge Tiffen – The Language of a Mystic: Awareness

Throughout the time since March when Covid 19 was declared a pandemic, I’ve been curious about what messages, what lessons the event and the virus itself might teach us. I’ve observed our fear and how it is being used to divide us and further our sense of separation. I’ve explore my own fear as it has arisen and invited me to put it to rest.

I’ve observed and experienced love, the best within us supporting one another showing our care and love. Being masked and keeping our distance without allowing those masks or physical distance to isolate.

Indeed we are navigating a different world and in so doing we are creating the world that will be in the future. This time is ripe for reflection, consideration of new perspectives, especially ones that challenge the mainstream thinking seeking to control conditions rather than gracefully ride the waves.

A thought-provoking idea crossed my path last week. What if the coronavirus is an evolutionary driver?

Viruses like all life contain information. What if we became curious about what this virus has to teach us? What if we loved rather than feared it?

Thinking about that reminded me of Masaru Emoto’s powerful work and images demonstrating the power of our thoughts and the impact of sending love and gratitude to water. I first heard of his work in the film What the Bleep do We Know? The film’s website (click here) has some of the stunning images of from Emoto’s work. Take a look. Contrast water’s response to love, gratitude, Mozart to its response to ‘you make me sick’.  Then consider, what perspective you choose to hold about this virus?

What if, like water as it circulates through the earth, this virus (perhaps all viruses?) imparts information as it moves through our body?

When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. Rivera Sun – The Dandelion Insurrection

Let’s spread some new thinking. Keep wearing our masks while we unmask new possibilities for creating life in harmony with all of nature.

From Domination to Love

Sangres Sunrise

For thousands of years, Western culture has become increasingly obsessed with the idea of dominance: with dominance of humans over nonhuman nature, masculine over the feminine, wealthy and powerful over the poor, with the dominance of the West over non-Western cultures. Deep ecological consciousness allows us to see through these erroneous and dangerous illusions. Bill Devall, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered

This week finds me immersed in a personal family event, so the weekly muse is taking a break from writing my usual post. Yet even with much of my attention elsewhere, the need for laying old systems to rest and bringing forth new ones is ever present in every aspect of our lives.

This week I invite - no, I encourage - you listen to Humanity’s Team co-founder Steve Farrell interview conscious business pioneer, Hazel Henderson. Find it here.

Then, think about, indeed dare to imagine an economy that is fair, just, equitable. One where dominance has no seat at the table. And, deep ecological consciousness has a voice.

What is possible? What will you do to contribute to the pivot toward this possibility?

Cottonwood Creek Nearby

Sprouting Seeds of Change: A New World View

In the Flow of Life and Change

… the work of pivoting to a new paradigm in which humanity along with all of nature on our planet can thrive …is deep and personal, each of us contributing to a larger collective. … Our work is work of the heart. Commitment, discipline, and consistent awareness are required. Being counter to much of our culture, using words of peace will require acts of courage, different, yet no less demanding, than engaging in battle. Read last week’s post here.

If you threaten someone’s worldview, they will often react to you as if you were threatening their physical body. … a worldview can function like a force field … Paul K. Chappell, A New Peace Paradigm: Understanding Our Human Needs

We live in a worldview that separates from our wholeness – body, mind, and spirit.  This paradigm separates us from one another and from nature, the planet that birthed and sustains us. Is it any wonder that that masks and ‘social distancing’ are this paradigm’s answer to slow the spread of Covid 19, and that strengthening one’s immune system is not front and center to the strategy and conversation?

My point is not to get into the controversy over the effectiveness of masks and other approaches, but to invite us to look at the challenges and deep work required to sprout and nurture a new worldview. As I discovered (again, for the first time) this week in a blinding flash of the obvious, the worldview of separation is so deeply embedded in our being that we are often unaware of how it guides our choices. It, like water to the fish, is transparent. For the fish, awareness may not matter; for us, awareness is required.

My discovery came from a story that a member of the faith community, an activist herself as well as a counselor to those on the front lines of activism and service.  It deepened my understanding of why the drive to succeed at all cost has never felt quite right. It invited me to look back at my years of workaholism in a new light.

She told of a conversation in which she was counseling a young man who had been loading food all day on an assembly line. He was so focused that he forgot to eat, hydrate, or go to the bathroom. He slept only three to four hours over five or six days. In our culture we tend to praise and admire such dedication. We might add some words suggesting some self-care.

We rarely look more deeply to the root, the worldview from which these choices arise. We accept, even honor, the dedication and commitment. It seems required in times of urgent need such as these.  I too acknowledge and honor those who serve in so many ways. In acknowledging, we might say something like ‘I had no choice … it had to be done.’ Who among us has not spoken those words?

But the minister took a deeper look. She saw a deep awareness that (and I’m paraphrasing/semi-quoting her words here) ‘this system of individual performance without connection to mind, body, spirit is white, male, supremacy, domination, capitalist thinking … it is the disconnection from mother … and, we will not move from this place in the consciousness that created it.’ 

The connection of our performance-based approach to so much of life and this worldview seems obvious in hindsight. The minister’s story resonates deeply in my being. It shines new light on the choices I’ve made to withdraw and live quietly connecting with myself and nature. And, on how blessed I am to be able to make those choices.

It reminded me of the challenges of making personal change. And, more importantly, of the historical context of how difficult birthing a new paradigm, a new view of the world is.

The seeds of a new paradigm are sprouting all around as the old worldview fights to hold on to its old, outmoded ways. Chaotic and messy is the nature of creation. Pivoting to the new is not easy. It will often seem as if we are going against the flow of life. It is work of the heart and work in the streets. We can do this. Indeed, we must.

Nurturing Seeds Inside and Out