Pivot for the Planet: From Boundaries to Horizons

Horizons (photo from Emergence Magazine)

If you stay in this place out of fear you will not find the landscape that your imagination is yearning for. The effort of the imagination is to turn the boundary into an horizon because there’s no end point for you. The boundary says, ‘here and no further’. The horizon says, ‘welcome’. Barry Lopez

As the 52nd Earth Day approaches, I wonder what it will take for us to understand that we’re all in this together. That all 7.87 billion of us share this beloved planet, Mother Earth, Gaia, our home.

I’m deeply immersed in reading Anne Baring’s Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul. I find it a challenging read that is providing me with a better understanding of the long and deep influences that have separated us from revering Nature and one another. A deep and massive shift in our consciousness – individually and collectively - is necessary to move beyond the boundaries and barriers and conflicts that our cultural stories of separation have created and, indeed, continue to create.

As I pause, feeling the enormity of the shift toward recognizing our interconnectedness and interdependence and wondering how this shift can occur, Muse reminds me that the shift is simply from fear to love. That feeding the path of love and starving the path of fear is the way. Simple yes. And, not so easy in a world where fear is deftly used to manipulate, control, and dare I mention, profit. And, yet the shift IS happening!

More and more of us are following the advice of the indigenous grandfather who, when asked by his grandson which wolf would win the war between a good wolf and an evil one that was going on inside him, replied, “the wolf you feed.” While the story itself is one of separation and conflict, it offers a reminder that every choice we make is a vote for how life will unfold. Are we ‘voting’ consistent with the life and the planet that we desire? Am I?

Are we feeding our bodies the foods to create and maintain optimum health? Or are we voting for junk food? Are we feeding our minds information and ideas to create and maintain new horizons for the health of our planet, our society, our communities, ourselves? Or are we voting for defending boundaries and what the mainstream still considers ‘news’? Are we feeding our soul stories, imagined and real, of inspiration, compassion, and love? Or are we following the dictates of religion? Are we voting for fear or for love?

More and more, I’m turning away from the old, the tired, the stories and ways that no longer work. I don’t wish to feed these ‘wolves’ and look for ways to disconnect from them without disengaging myself. I want to nourish and nurture new ways of living and BEing here on Gaia, and this week, I’ve found some beautiful films to celebrate Mother Earth that offer both nourishment and inspiration to do just that.

Watching Earthrise, a short film about NASA’s Apollo 8 mission around the moon, I was reminded of those first profound photos of our home from space and that man’s artificial boundaries for nations are non-existent when Earth is viewed from space. You can watch it here. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to wonder ‘what if we saw our home this way?’. 

Barry Lopez quote above stopped me for several moments as I began watching the serendipitously discovered film Horizons (watch it here) on Emergence Magazine’s website. Soul food indeed!

 I’m ‘voting’ for films like these and others from both Emergence Magazine, Films for the Planet to nourish, inspire, support me in making and sustaining the seismic shifts that both planet and people need to survive and to thrive. Let’s make some noise for remaking what is ‘news’! Let’s create horizons of welcome in our hearts, our minds, and our imaginations! Let’s be Matriots for the Planet and Humanity!

Earthrise (from Emergence Magazine)

Invite All of Life In

Sunlight on the New Blanket of Snow

We are in a time of tremendous volatility, not just externally, but for many people internally as well. On a daily basis, it seems, the world is flipping from one timeline to another to another. The future looks dark; I blink my eyes and all is bright. A blue sky fills with clouds in a minute, then they are gone again. Multiple realities coexist on a single planet. Multiple realities coexist in a single person.

… if you have been fluctuating between elation and despair, you are not alone. If despondency colors the breaking dawn, you are not alone. If a single ray of light (like a warm hello) dispels the despondency, you are not alone. If that hope is so fragile that a mere ill glance shatters it, you are not alone. Charles Eisenstein (read the essay here)

I experienced ‘one of those days’ a few days ago. Feeling disconnected, irritable, unhappy despite a soft white blanket that had fallen on Mother Earth the day before. The foggy funk lifted for a brief moment as I watched Zadie Byrd roll joyfully in the snow. As quickly as she hopped up the dark cloud over me returned. Unlike Zadie’s ability to shake the flakes from her furry coat, my efforts to ‘shake’ the cloud weren’t so effective.

And so I allowed ‘it’ to be and allowed myself to be under ‘it’ with whatever curiosity I could muster to discover any message hidden within. I had little energy to focus or ‘do’ anything, despite several projects and tasks idly awaiting my attention. I’d love to say, ‘so I just sat quietly and listened’, but in my humanness, I tried to force some focus, get something done. Oh, how our culture values toughing it out to check some task off of our to-do list.

Failing culture’s strategy for the blahs, I turned to Nature, the labyrinth and a long, slow saunter in the woods out.

This is where my solace lives. The place where my sadness can be, and my tears can flow with abandon.  The place that is receptive, understanding, and listens as no human can. The place that knows, accepts, and allows. The place that dissipates the dark clouds when it is time for them to go.

I think about the clouds that bring moisture to the Earth’s surface just as clouds of sadness allow my cleansing tears to fall.

Cleansed by Nature’s beauty and softness, her receptivity and acceptance, and by the tears that fell as I embraced a beloved grandmother tree, the dark cloud lifted. I am those clouds, the snow and rain, and I am all the tears as well as all the trees.

I remind myself that we are in a time of great change and uncertainty, of vast opportunity, and of an invitation to invite in all of life. The bitter. The sweet. We are invited to remember what our hearts know, and our minds have forgotten: We are all one, each a part of the other. The entire ocean is in the drop. The bitter in the sweet. There is no separation in the reality that is life.

As the Muse and I settled in for this week’s journey, I thought about the plethora of inspiring quotes that have been shared this week in the wake of Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing. Many have landed deep, resonating as wisdom for this time. Responding to a gentle nudge to find a pithy one to share, I discovered a recording of Thay reading his poignant poem, Please Call Me By My True Names. The poem’s final verses resonate as a prayer for all humanity to understand that we are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

(listen and read it here)

In our sleepy forgetfulness, we cling to the illusion that we can allow some of Life in and keep some of Life out. Alas, we wake and remember that all of Life invites us to open the door of our hearts and invite in ALL of Life. Indeed, may we grant All of Life our gentle embrace.

Beauty Before the Snowfall

What Forms Us?

The Elk - Camerashy, unlike their deer cousins.

We speak a lot about information. What is information, really? It is that which comes in and forms us. Charles Eisenstein

These words stopped me, landing deep within as I read Charles Eisenstein’s recent essay, Wanna Join Me in a News Fast? several days ago. They’ve been with me, beckoning some call from within, the Muse taking note and applauding each time I hit the delete key rather than opening one of the news sources that I frequently scan.

I can’t say for how long I’ll join in fasting from news, but doing so feels like an act of empowerment, of more consciously choosing where to put my attention and focus. What constitutes ‘news’ anyway?

Much so-called ‘information’ seems designed to keep me ‘IN formation’ with what the culture bids, steeped in worry and fear about a cornucopia of concerns. Eisenstein’s suggestion that information is that which comes in and forms us evoked the reminder that ‘that which comes in’ is that which I allow in. I choose. And with that reminder, an awareness to look anew at what I allow to come in, what I invite to form me.

How will my choices shift when I take on the perspective that every click to open an email or follow a link (or open a magazine, a book, a piece of mail or watch a movie or documentary, listen to music, etc.) is an invitation to participate in forming me? The Muse challenges me to examine my choices about what and who is on my ‘invitation list’. ‘Just how selective are you,’ Muse prods, ‘in what you invite in?’ Of course, I like to think that I’m very conscious and selective about such things.

But am I really? How many of my ‘invites’ truly contribute to the wellbeing of my body, my mind, my spirit? To shifting so that I live in greater harmony with my values and with Mother Earth? To my happiness and joy?

Perhaps it’s a good time to go beyond ‘delete this email’ to click the ‘unsubscribe’ button on some sources.

Do my choices invite sources that inspire and provide intelligence for creating a new story for humankind and the planet or evoke deep introspection from which new insights can emerge? Are they aligned with my purpose – planting and nurturing seeds of change?

Or do I all too often simply feed an addiction to be ‘informed’ so that I seem intelligent to myself and others? Or as entertainment?

How much and what kind of information do I really need? Who will I invite to ‘inform’ me on this journey called ‘Life’?

As I write these last words Raven lands in a pine just outside my window, its ‘caw’ a reminder that Nature has much to offer IN forming me when I invite and listen. Likewise Raven offers confirmation that there is magic to be discovered in looking anew at what I choose to form me. I’m reminded of a small elk herd that wandered through the woods a few days ago and of the buck who brought his extended family to the labyrinth after last week’s post. How does the natural environment form and inform me?

Family Member on Her Way to the Labyrinth

ALL We Need IS Love

Snow! On the Labyrinth Bell

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need … John Lennon - The Beatles (click here for a 3 minute ride down memory lane)

As I move beyond the hustle and bustle of what we call the ‘holiday season’, I’m present to the pleasure and satisfaction that came with choosing to engage in holiday activities with others more than I usually do. I’m grateful for the opportunities to gather and share with friends. And as this fifth day of the new calendar year dawns, I’m also present to a deep pull to go within, to withdraw, bear-like, into a state of torpor. To rest. To hear with clarity the whispers of my heart, a heart that is calling for trimming the sails and making course corrections to more fully align the activities and choices in life with that which I say I value.

The Muse muffles a chuckle, knowing this will necessitate investing more time in sitting quietly, resting, napping. It will require that I let go of trying to control the flow of life and that I build muscle to allow changes and projects to flow in their time, divine time, not my time. The Muse’s chuckle gives way to a gentle embrace, a reminder that Muse nudges and wisdom are available 24/7. Like Zadie Byrd, the Muse is oh so patient with my humanness.

Although I feel this pull to draw inward every winter, this year seems different. While much of our contemporary Western culture declares the ‘holiday season’ over when the new year is celebrated, other cultures – those more in tune with Nature and her cycles – dedicate this time to inner journeys, to rest, to envisioning what wants to come forward. They rest and gather within that which will be needed to burst forth in spring. They listen to the heart whispers and invite the heart to have its full voice.

 And that is what I’m easing into in the early minutes of this new year: investing more time in contemplation and consideration, being with the stars and all of Nature to discover what wants to unfold, to jettison that which no longer serves, and to gather what I need for the journey ahead.

While discovery, jettisoning, and gathering will require me to breakthrough more layers of my own habitual muscle memory and to develop stronger immunity to the pull of a culture that wants me to conform, the deep potency and possibility that I feel for humanity and our planet home, Mother Earth, in this year provide sustainable, renewable fuel for the journey.

Although this time finds our world chaotic, we need not be in chaos with it. My choices, indeed, our choices, minute by minute in the remaining 519,120 minutes (more or less) of 2022, hold the potential to contribute positively to the new that is unfolding as the old falls away.

In the quiet time and in the active time each day, I’m deepening trust in the voice of my heart to shine light on the path and to support me step by step in the uncharted waters ahead aiming to expand my capacity to BE the love I want to see in the world. For indeed, love is all we need.

New Years Snow on the Mountains

Easing into 2022 with Rest

A White Christmas Labyrinth!

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterwards. Proverb

The only real rest comes when you’re alone with God. Rumi

As I began to update what has become my ‘Auld Lang Syne’ final post of the year, the online countdown clock indicated that it’s 2 days, 14 hours, 41 minutes, 56 seconds until the new year is rung in here in the Colorado Rockies. But, hey, ‘who’s counting?’ wonders the Muse.

As was the case at the end of 2020, many – perhaps most – await the turning of the clock to 2022 with bated breath, wishing to bid adieu to another tumultuous year. We want to turn the page. We long to dive deeply into the fresh start that began with the Solstice promise of our personal newness and culminates as we replace our 2021 calendars with new pages of promise and possibility that the coming year has the potential to bring forth.

It is, as always, up to us – individually and collectively – to bring promise, possibility, and potential to fruition. As sure as the sun’s light is returning day by day here in the northern hemisphere, we will have opportunities to do just that in the hours, days, weeks, and months ahead. What if we trusted the opportunities to come forth at just the right divine time rather than pushing to ‘make’ them happen?

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

Although the onset of a new year signals the end of the holiday season in our culture, Winter has only just begun. The dark, the cold invites me inward (more snow would help the cause!). The Muse smiles a happy, knowing smile. The season that began fewer than 10 days ago has a 12-week run before it gives way to Spring. Yet our cultural habit of a new year is to make plans and spring into action with goals and commitments to DO more.

What if we took more time for rest and renewal as Nature does in the season of cold? Inward to rest, to renew. Inward to commune with the sacred and to gather all that is necessary to burst forth in Spring. While certainly there is life and livelihood to maintain, jobs to go to, businesses to tend, political action to be voiced, stories to be told, I wonder how the world might be if we began the calendar year in greater alignment with Nature?

What might be possible for us individually and collectively if our first goal for the new year was intending rest and renewal of body, mind, and spirit?

As I reflect on saying ‘Goodbye’ and refrain from saying ‘good riddance’, my year end reflections first written at the end of 2016 seem as apropos (with a few additions) today as they did five years ago.

At year end, we tend to look back on joys, sorrows, what we accomplished, where we may have fallen short. Hopefully our review list includes acknowledging all that we discovered about ourselves and learned from the opportunities and events life presented.

As 2021 ends, many will breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally over along with a breath of hope for better days in the year ahead.  The world we live in is chaotic and uncertain. It IS! Those who put attention on that world forgetting that it is the world we live IN, NOT the world we are OF may look ahead with dread or fear.

That need not be.

Within each of us is a seed of understanding who we truly are. Nurturing that seed grows our faith in our capacity to be resilient in the face of the world’s chaos. In this year ahead, I have a sense that we will need to tap into our spiritual strength in ways we may not have done before.

This seed of faith is within us all. It is not faith in anything outside of us. Rather it is faith in who we are, each as an individual, integral part of an intelligent Universe. It is a reminder that life is so much more than we experience and observe in our daily routines.

As you ring in 2022, I invite you to join me in nourishing your seed of faith in each of the 365 days ahead and to remember how important your presence and your ray of light is at this moment on the planet.

With that intention top of mind and heart, I’ll be participating in a global event 7 Days of Rest and Sacred Renewal during the first week of the new year. The event’s introductory words drew me in with their reminder of the power of intention and clarity and the potent possibility that alignment and collective action call forth:

7 Days of Rest is an annual, open co-creative event inviting individuals and groups around the world to initiate and join local and online events for the healing and thriving of Earth and all her inhabitants. During the first 7 Days of 2022, we unite in seeding the New Year with a sacred field of intention and blessing for a thriving world for all of Life.​ Together we co-create a collective space for renewing ourselves and our sacred bonds with each other and with all of Life. Through rest, deep listening, wisdom sharing and compassionate action we amplify the emerging global culture of peace, health, cooperation and wise governance.

I’m deeply grateful for this discovery/resource (the website -click here - is chock full of nourishing offerings daily!) and I’m looking forward to diving in daily with each of the daily themes. Join me in whatever way best fits your schedule, your life, and your intentions for the year ahead.

Happy New Year!

I hope you’ll join me in participating in this global gathering!

Into The Deep

The Deep

Just as there is unseen beauty and life in the deep of the ocean, there is beauty, life and meaning in our own, sometimes dark, silence.

I find myself using the word ‘deep’ quite a lot these days. It’s an interesting word that, depending on how you use it, can be a noun, an adjective, or adverb. (No, I don’t intend these posts to be a weekly grammar lesson, but I’m fascinated by words and their power – perhaps the Muse will engage there one day.)

I notice my use of the word in all those forms in my thoughts, conversations, writing (duh!), and, especially in my awareness. I feel deep gratitude for my life, for life, for being here with Mother Earth in this body at this moment in time. I feel a depth about life and in life that is new to my being. I feel excited, curious, and trepidatious, all of which I’ve experienced before, yet they feel different now. That difference doesn’t have (and may never have) have words. The Deep. Deeper.

I sense we humans – individually and collectively – are in a deep shift, a transformation, a leap forward in consciousness as new knowledge, new scientific discoveries make their way into our awareness. This calls forth my curiosity and excitement. New knowledge, new discoveries are emerging into our awareness with ‘slim to none’ (and, as the saying goes ‘slim is out of town’) help from the so-called mainstream media or our storied institutions of education and government, most of which seem to be on increasingly shaky ground.

Coming to grips with this recognition that what we’ve been told and encouraged to believe is ‘the truth’ and necessary for our security stirs trepidation as we recognize that we too are on that shaky ground. We’re reckoning on many fronts: the Earth will no longer tolerate our reckless choices; the history most of us were taught is, at best, incomplete and written from the perspective of the so-called winner; our health and healthcare needs are personal and individual; and new scientific discoveries are expanding our understanding of who we are. Indeed, sometimes it feels like we are in ‘deep doodoo’.

As I’ve written before, I often find myself exploring and asking how I can live in greater alignment with Nature. I’m aware that I do so with the unspoken proviso that my comfort level isn’t diminished – I suspect most of us, knowingly or not add such a condition to our questioning. I’m also wrestling with a bit of history from my early teens: the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963. I wonder how that event, which happened just 30 miles from my home, has influenced me. I wonder when – if ever – the ‘whole truth’ will be released. A recent Charles Eisenstein essay has helped my understanding

I’m learning to be with that ‘deep doodoo’ feeling, to allow it, to accept that there is much that I do not know, even to be with sometimes feeling impotent to make a difference. That is part of being in The Deep. Christian mystics would call it ‘the dark night of the soul’. I’ve come to more deeply appreciate that just as there is unseen beauty and life in the deep of the ocean, there is beauty, life and meaning in our own, sometimes dark, silence.

Eventually, from the darkness of The Deep, light follows. I remember that knowledge begets awareness and the wisdom to choose differently. I remember that truth tellers and discoverers of our past have been maligned and then, eventually revered. Their discoveries shaped history, the lives we live today, and our very being. May we remember that as new discoveries far beyond those of history surface.

In the light, it feels as if we are on the cusp of new discoveries which will bring forth greater awareness of our potential in a Universe that is infinite. Not our potential to have more, do more, etc., but our potential to know more, to understand our access to vast stores of knowledge, and to BE what/who it is that we truly are.

Sunset Beauty’s Prelude to The Dark

Being The 'Listening Heaven' on Earth

Sun and Shadow. Rain and Rainbow.

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. Rabindranath Tagore

Last week I shared the question that my heart heard as I was walking in the woods out back (click here): What would I do if I loved the earth unconditionally?

I’d love to say that I’ve reflected on the question each day and made many adjustments in daily life to live more fully aligned with Gaia. Reflected? Yes. Daily? Not quite. Adjustments? Few.

And yet, I feel an expansion, a deepening in my capacity to listen and to hear the voice of our home. Listening and hearing are the pivot points for change whether heard through the ears as sound or the heart as a felt sense of truth.

With so much dark and heavy noise in the world, I’m tuning my inner radio to the sounds of the earth, listening to ‘stations’ where the voices share information not just of the head, but also of the heart.

No surprise that much of my ‘listening’ to Mother Earth is visual. These sacred mountains and the woods out back whisper, “beauty, consistency, harmony, change and adaptation, peaceful presence.” Yesterday afternoon as I headed out the door, I discovered that along with the bright sunshine, it was raining lightly. I raced out to an opening where I could see the rainbow that I knew for sure would there. This morning the Muse and I walked the labyrinth, curious about how today’s message would unfold. Greeted by the sun’s first rays on the pines, I was reminded that light always follows the darkness.

Beyond these woods and the peaks above, I’m tuned in to Listening to the Earth’s daily ‘moments of mindful connection’ (find them here) offered by representatives of Indigenous peoples and cultures around our beautiful globe in support of bringing heart and soul to the science and politics of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26). I wonder what’s possible as more and more leaders and negotiators listen with heart as well as head (and the latest poll numbers)? How might the stresses on our planet and ourselves (our cells!) be eased as we listen to the trees seeking to listen as deeply as heaven surely does?

Inspired by the wisdom in this morning’s ‘moment’, I felt my heart open and connect with the heart of the earth. The felt sense of oneness with Mother Earth was palpable. I ‘knew’ that there was no separation between my body and Gaia, a knowing of the heart not just of my slippery mind. And I knew that this is true for each and every one of us – those with whom I’m in solidarity on many issues of the day and those whose views and actions are not aligned with mine. There is no separation.

The Muse reminds me of a question posed by Gregg Braden in a recent interview: Do you love yourself enough to listen and give your body what it needs? (The Muse also says to let you know you’ll be hearing more about what that interview stirred.). Since I and the Earth are ONE, do I love myself and the Earth, to live more fully in alignment with her/with me? What would I do if I loved myself unconditionally? What choices would I shift? Where would my free will carry me? Do I have the courage to find out?

Curious about COP26 beyond what you hear in the media? Here are a few places to explore: https://nature4climate.org/nature-positive/

https://unfccc.int/conference/glasgow-climate-change-conference-october-november-2021

The earth has music for those who listen. George Santayana

First Rays on the Labyrinth

Pivot to Global Oneness - The Work of Loving All

Crestone Peak Peeking Through the Treetops

Building Beloved Community isn't just about loving the people who are easy to love. Friends, family, community, those with similar value systems, similar cultural or political perspectives. No love is ALWAYS easy, but if we're not struggling to hold love for those that are different than us, those that we don't hang out with, don't work with, don't see eye-to-eye with, then we're not doing the work of building Beloved Community. —Kazu Haga (This Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey, October 18, 2021)

It's no secret that I hold a deep curiosity about how we can fully live into the reality (the Truth, if you will) of our Oneness, our interconnectedness, our interdependence in a world that is built on separation and continues to feed (and prosper from) that lie. Fortunately, the Muse shares my curiosity as well and, when not guiding (the Muse says ‘sometimes prodding’) the exploration, seems delighted to go along for the ride.

As you may recall from last week’s post (click here if you missed it) I was listening to Humanity’s Team’s Global Oneness Summit (if don’t know Humanity’s Team, now is a good time to ‘meet’ them and discover the vast array of thought leaders forging paths to a world that works for all). I’ll be listening to some presentations again and catching others that I missed. So, yes, you’ll be hearing more.

Last week I was also navigating a situation that I found gnarly …  I’m still in the throes of it, holding the intention that step by step a gap will be bridged, and allowing guidance to come rather than taking action precipitously before its time. Patience. Not my strong suit but growing in me/of me. That is key in the work of loving all. Yet I differ from the suggestion in the quote that struggle need be an ingredient. Effort? Yes. Commitment? Yes. Contributing to ‘Beloved Community’ around an issue I care deeply about. Yes! Effortless effort? YES, please – let’s play and practice that!

Effortless effort is work of the heart that is deeply needed in our world. It is the work of my heart, listening for where it calls, where it nudges, where it demands attention. Transforming deep work into play and experiencing the joy in that state of being.

After my walk with Zadie Byrd on this glorious, cold, Colorado blue sky morning, I felt called to the walk the labyrinth in the woods out back. I walked with both curiosity about today’s post (what the heck wants to be shared?) and with the intention to hear the voice of Mother Earth more clearly. As I walked the rock-lined labyrinth path taking in the beauty and feeling the freshness of the day, a question bubbled from my heart: What would I do if I loved the earth unconditionally?

The Muse may have chuckled about then as the question didn’t seem to have a place in the musings and questions that have had my attention for a few days (one of which would surely emerge as ‘the’ focus): how context shapes our views, how our views shape context, and how our choices create context; unpacking an event from my early teens to discover how it has shaped my choices in life (the event’s 58th anniversary is coming soon); the despair and division in our world; and all the good, the love, the care that is being poured on humanity and the planet from and by one another.

After I completed my labyrinth ritual of gratitude to the six directions, I felt called to BE in these woods. Setting aside the Muse’s chuckle (or perhaps that chuckle was the call of the woods) and my ‘I have to get the blog written’ push, I spent a glorious hour ambling slowly and communing with the pines, the cacti, the rocks, and a pair of does whose rest I, apologetically, disturbed. BEing with the question.

As I settled in to write and the words began to flow, I understood that ‘the question’ wasn’t a question at all. Rather, it was the gift of deepened clarity that loving the planet unconditionally is fundamental to all the other questions and musings. Indeed, it is fundamental to loving all. To building Beloved Community locally and globally. My work, our work continues. Let us PLAY!

Gentleness in the Woods Out Back

Pivot to Global Oneness - Love for ALL Beings

Home Sweet Home

Until there is a sense of solidarity among the peoples of the world, all of our efforts for peace and security will go nowhere. Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury

I’m always curious to discover where the Muse will begin and where our weekly reflective journey will lead. This morning I remembered a meditation about loving self/loving all beings/embracing oneness that I experienced years back. I don’t recall its source or even the specific language, but I was aware of how valuable it would have been to remember earlier in the week when I found myself unable to feel the feelings of the frequency of love.

I wanted to infuse love into a situation about which I felt gnarly and confused, misunderstood and sad. Yet, for a period of time, I felt blocked from the energy and flow of gratitude, appreciation, love. Looking back, realized that I’d experienced a deep-felt sense of separation – separation from others, from planet, from Source, from self. At the same time, I knew that what I felt wasn’t and isn’t true. Yet I couldn’t access the deep feelings of truth: of unity, connection, wholeness; of gratitude, appreciation, love.

The Muse reminds me that our systems are built on this false story, hence we are steeped in it daily, consciously, or not. Thus, we need the nourishment of antidotes: stories that speak our deep truth. I’m grateful for the growing number and quality of such sources, one of which is front and center this week: Humanity’s Team and the week-long 12th Annual Global Oneness Summit: Opening to Your Universal Self, culminating in Global Oneness Day on Sunday, October 24. (https://www.humanitysteam.org/global-oneness-day). You only need invest your time to watch, listen, and be inspired by a vast array of thought leaders.

I’ve only taken in a few presentations so far. Doing so strengthens my understanding of and conviction about the truth of our being. It helps me remember to be ‘in the world and not of it’ and lifts the heaviness of the separation story. Indeed, it helped me put aside my ‘gnarly’ situation and to attend to daily life-sustaining tasks (you know, the ‘darn dailies’ that all too often seem like burdens) with a lighter heart. Zadie Byrd ‘chimed’ in, retreating to a favorite spot for a nap, reminding me that rest is as important as any other ‘task’ (especially since the body is still in healing mode). I notice that loving attention is easily focused on this canine teacher. The Muse has many voices.

The gnarly situation attempted to get my attention a few times, and even succeeded in getting me spinning for a bit. But each time I set it aside, confident that its time would come and along with it love, care, and clarity. When that time came, I was able to act with greater ease and a softer heart. I settled in with pen and paper to explore with Creation the highest and best course of action for all concerned. As clarity came and my course of action emerged, heaviness and any remaining sense of separation began to lift. As my truth began to reveal itself, access to love, gratitude, unity, wholeness – the truth of our being – returned.

The Muse chuckles, reminding me that the truth of our being is ever present. ‘It’ doesn’t ‘return’ to us. Rather ‘we’ return to love. And, as we do so the truth of our Oneness lifts our spirits and gently reminds us of our capacity to fly, sprinkling seeds of love wherever we go.

Which is just what the meditation exercise* is all about:

• Starting with self, feel love permeate your entire being every cell and into the biofield beyond your skin

• Take a step back to envision your home (or wherever you are) and sprinkle love to all beings therein (don’t forget the plants, the paws, the gills, the wings, even the beings in the web up in the corner)

• Float upward, envision your neighborhood, sprinkle love

• Upward again to envision your community, sprinkle love

• Upward again to your geographic region or watershed, sprinkle love

• And again, and again step by step (region, state, country, whatever areas you see), sprinkling love at each vision along the way until you are floating in space picturing the blue dot that is our beloved home, Mother Earth. Sprinkle love in every corner of this planet that sustains life.

• Go beyond the Earth, as far as you’d like, then return, step by step, vision by vision, to your Self, your Cells, your Love.

*I’ve taken what I remember from the meditation long ago and put my words, hoping to capture its essence and offer us each a platform and process for remembering our Oneness and sprinkling love for all beings.

Halo Moon

Pivot to A Culture of Care

Storm Clouds In the Sangres

Greed is the absence of care.

Zadie Byrd and I took a short overnight trip to a nearby mountain community earlier this week to meet our trainer and support her in learning to be a calmer canine. It was our first trip away in over a year, and in our short 30 hours away I experienced a wide spectrum of care (and lack thereof) that has me reflecting on how our culture and the economy we support have made greed a part of our unconscious standard operating procedure as we navigate life’s choices.

Before you react with your ‘I’m not greedy!’, as I did when the Muse started me on this exploration, take a breath, open your heart and mind. The Muse didn’t take me on the path of blame, rather invited me to simply consider choices I make around what I purchase and where, where my nest egg is invested, and the like and to look at the bigger picture beyond my individual choices.

Now back to that triggering word: greed (pretty charged, eh?).  Merriam-Webster defines greed as a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed (emphasis mine and the Muse’s). I’m guessing that no one reading would define themselves as greedy. Heck, I don’t define myself that way. And yet, I how often do I want more than what I need? How frequently do my purchases and other choices I make? More importantly, what is the impact of my choices on the greater whole of which I am a part? How often do my choices consider only the ‘bottom line’?

Take for example my quest to find the ‘best rate’ at a hotel in the area we visited. Good for my ‘bottom line’, but how does my choice impact the ability of hotel management to pay its service staff a reasonable wage … reasonable enough to afford living in a community where real estate values are soaring?

I share this example from an experience at the hotel which demonstrated to me a lack of care on the part of management in fully cleaning and preparing our rooms for occupancy. I’ll spare you the details, but in part the situation was a result of being understaffed because there isn’t a supply of affordable housing available to service workers in the community.  Although the manager apologized, he also expressed the attitude that ‘if you don’t like, leave and I’ll rent the room for full price’. It was a disheartening experience reflecting, to me, a lack of care.

In looking more deeply, beyond the moment and my disappointment, I thought about my own role as a bargain hunter, looking for a deal on that which I purchase. I thought about how investing in real estate solely for financial gain undermines community. The Muse and I won’t pick on folks who buy a house and convert to overnight lodging because they can make a lot more money than renting longer term to a community member – service workers, educators, others on whom quality of life depends. Yet such choices are squeezing communities throughout these Colorado mountains and beyond. They’re made with care predominately around money and/or our own personal comfort (not that these are not important – they are!) but without care for people or the planet…

Like the other end of the spectrum of care we experienced from our trainer (providing healthy dog treats from companies with sustainable practices and sharing that info so that we too have the resources) and from a small local eatery that sources much of their food locally and did an exceptional job of cleaning each table (and all the chairs!) after each party departed and the next arrived.

This week I invite you to notice where you witness and experience care or a lack thereof. Join me in considering the choices you make. Did your bargain jeans come from a source that exploits labor and disregards its environmental impact? Examining such choices is rich territory for creating a fundamental shift to a culture of care not just for profit, but also for people and our planetary home.

Breaking for a Healthy Treat!