Magic and The Beauty of Life

Baby Pinecone

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. Roald Dahl

Yesterday morning I picked up a book that’s been on a nearby shelf for several years. It’s one of many that I’ve started over the years then set aside, pulled away by a shinier red ball or something that seemed at the time a more interesting or urgent trail. There wasn’t time to read in that moment, so I set it aside resolving to read later in the day.

When we returned from a lovely post-dinner walk, Zadie Byrd resisted coming inside. It was a beautiful evening, Sun moving through clouds on its journey to the western horizon, calm and quiet. Rather than insisting that she come in so I could read as planned, I grabbed the book and joined her outside. Ahh, the beauty of a Rocky Mountain evening.

Zadie explored the grounds where her long lead will allow, then pawed some earth and settled in. I settled into a waiting chair, taking a breath, scanning the landscape, and absorbing the serene beauty. A moment of gratitude for Zadie’s ‘suggestion’.

When I opened the book, I was greeted by the above quote. I read just a bit more, then read the quote again. Hmm… I closed the book, wanting to observe my surroundings with luminous eyes, ears, and all my senses. I thought of my desire to be a more keen observer of Nature, to hear and understand her messages. That being the topic of the book, I sensed I was receiving a new lesson, one that put my attention not on words on a page, but on Nature herself. I wondered if Muse was standing by.

I picked up a baby pinecone laying on the ground by my feet, probably knocked out of the tree in Monday’s hailstorm. It smelled of fresh sap and was gentle to my touch. I sensed that I was part of it and it a part of me. We were at once different AND of the same Source.

I felt deep gratitude as I wondered ‘who is that flitting in the pine?’. I took the challenge of seeing clearly in the fading light to discover western wood pewee, white breasted nuthatch, and violet green swallow. I ignored the gnat or small fly buzzing in my ear, to watch Sun’s last rays highlight the twists and turns of branches in an old pine that never fail to have me wonder ‘how/why do they do that?’

I sat, heart and whole being filled with gratitude for this place, this time, this planet, life. This gratitude grounds me in what is real beyond the world’s sound bites, stresses, and strains; its horrors and heartaches; its violence and injustice.

As the light faded, I realized how quiet this dusk is. I thought about an unidentified (so far) voice in the woods that I frequently hear summer evenings. As the thought exits, that voice – a deep, one note sound – enters. I chuckle and rise to move slowing in the voice’s direction. Maybe this day, I will see ‘it’. Not to be. ‘It’ is silent.

After a bit, I roust Zadie and we come inside to prepare for our night’s rest. Closing a back window, I see Moon in her fullness rising over the mountains and through the trees. Having spent time with Sun as she fell in the west, I’m drawn out back to be with Moon. Zadie declines to join me.

Moon mesmerizes as she shines through the trees, like Sun highlighting twists and turns in the pine branches. The unknown voice returns, speaks, moves, speak again, moves, speaks, moves … I sit in awe and deep gratitude for the magic of witnessing and participating in this life.

Muse smiles as I write this, knowing that my understanding and conviction of gratitude as a doorway to magic and peace has deepened overnight. Sun has just risen over the mountains and her rays into the woods. Cycles. Magic. Life.

As I prepare this post, I wonder about the symbolism of gnat and I ask ‘Dr. Google’. My quick search reveals such meanings as perseverance, transformation, change, and new perspectives. Sounds like more evidence of magic to me!

Moonrise in the Pines

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

Taking Time for Satisfaction

Labyrinth Rocks Seem Satisfied

It is the nature of stone to be satisfied. It is the nature of water to want to be somewhere else. Mary Oliver

Just as I was about to begin my search for a quote about satisfaction this morning, I had a little niggle for ‘a quote from Mary Oliver’.  So, I searched for just that. The little treasure found reminds me of two of my favorite things here the Rockies: beautiful conglomerate rocks and flowing mountain streams. Each seems quite satisfied with their nature, one solid and still, the other fluid and in motion.

The idea of satisfaction is with me as this week marks the anniversary of my cousin’s death last year and finds me approaching completion of the details of her estate, tasks that fell to me as the ‘personal representative’ named in her will.  With only a few details remaining, mostly to be done by her attorney and CPA, I began to take stock of the process, my engagement in it, and the changes in my life since receiving the call that Marty had departed her body for the world hereafter.

Taking stock offers the opportunity to choose whether to be satisfied with my participation or not and to declare that satisfaction or examine the source of any dissatisfaction. In doing so I find that I am satisfied, self-appreciative for my walk through the process. Not only the legal matters of executing her wishes, but also the honoring the promise I made to myself at the outset: no rush, no push, no stress. My pace. My way. Self-care is not an option.

Yes, there were difficult choices, surprises, obstacles along the way. I’m satisfied for how I met each and every one. There was learning, discovering, growing along the way – not all of it cushy and fun.  I’m satisfied with my openness to the lessons that crossed my path.

The year has been one of change and transformation for me. Her death was an unexpected jolt. I opened to receiving in many new ways. As the door closes on this chapter, I find myself in a field of new opportunities for stewarding not only financial resources but also my very life force energy. Fresh potential exists for creating more ease in life’s choices about where to focus my energy and attention.

Just as a new world has emerges for me, so it is with each of us in this time where the old and tired is falling, making way for the new and offering pivot points of choice. Will I/will we cling to the old? Or will I/will we lovingly send the old on its way and participate in creating and embracing the new? How will we choose?

I aim to make my choices from a place of satisfied, rock-solid conviction that the universe is a friendly place unfolding perfectly. And to do so with the fluidity of a mountain stream, knowing that flow and change are the nature of nature in an ever-changing cosmos. I AM the rock. I AM the water. What about you?

Cottonwood Creek - In the Flow of Life

The Pivot Power of Observing

Good Morning Sunshine!

What assumption am I making, That I’m not aware I’m making, That gives me what I see?  The Art of Possibility – Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

I’ve appreciated this question (and the book it comes from) for more than 20 years. I remembered the quote a bit differently: What am I believing, that I don’t know I’m believing, that gives me what I see? Yet, another take emerged as I engaged the muse this morning:

 What am I observing, That I’m not aware I’m observing, That gives me what I see?

We take in billions of data points, perhaps even more, each day. As I sat looking to the woods out back this was my visual observation: dawn breaking bringing light; pine trees, close and distant; stumps of dead trees; fallen branches; rocks, pine needles and twigs on the ground; cacti and grasses in the sandy open area.

All that and more paints a picture that is beauty to these eyes of mine. The addition of gentle bird song (the ravens have yet to wake), the sound of Cottonwood Creek’s spring flow in the distance, and the sensory stillness of the morning air bring harmony and peace to the fore in this simple act of observing.

Too often in our rush through life we miss these moments, not giving ourselves the gift of slowing down to observe what surrounds us, much less allow it to permeate our being in ways that support us, sustain us, call forth and maintain our health and well-being.

Rather we put our attention on that which needs to be changed, corrected, fixed, improved: the dishes in the sink, the firewood to be stacked, the deck that needs refinishing, plants ready to move outdoors … Our lists go on (and on). Maintaining life is a constant. Self-observation offers a pivot point that can lift us up or drag us down as we engage in our ‘darn dailies’ and in the midst of humanity’s greater chaos (a colleague calls it ‘debris’ and most days that feels all too accurate).

Observation with awareness, taking time to ask the question ‘what am I observing, that I’m not aware I’m observing, that gives me what I see?’ brings us to valuable points of choice.

Blessed to live in these woods with rugged mountain peaks above and a vast valley verdant from late spring rains below I could simply ‘see’ them every day to the point of not seeing, not acknowledging all that the beauty has to offer. I aim to make a different choice. What am I observing that I don’t know I’m observing that gives me what I see? Some days I observe a vast seen and unseen network of nature operating and cooperating in and of its design. Other days, I see beauty. Every day  I feel harmony, happiness, peace.

Taking in what is outside of me prompts internal observation aimed at understanding or at least coming to terms with events in life. Observing myself in events gives meaning and adds to my knowledge. It opens doorways of possibility and choices of perspective.

Feeling let down after an appointment earlier in the week, I put my attention on just such self- observation and reflection. Observing my disappointment had me be present to my (sometimes unrealistic) expectations of others. Further observation opened me to the territory of recognizing all that I know and sense, giving me a strong dose of self-trust.

The simple act of choosing to hear and heed the call of a question in my feeling of being let down gave me the kind of gift of awareness that comes when I deeply observe these mountains, woods, indeed, any part of the landscape that I am a part of.

Deep inside I sense that is why we are here – not to tackle the ‘to do’ list, walk the dog, or even to right what we see as the world’s wrongs or write the next solve-it-all ‘self-help’ book or best-selling novel. Rather whatever events and tasks are ours to do are for our benefit, our learning, our growth, giving us knowledge and wisdom to carry beyond this life, into the next, and beyond. What could be more purposeful than that? And what would the world look like if we each carried that perspective into everything we do – from the dishes, to our activism, to our work in the world?

Dog’s Eye View of the Landscape

The Web and Flow of Life

Good Morning Sun!

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Chief Seattle

Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force. Lao Tzu

Last night as I was easing into sleep the words ‘web of life’ popped into my awareness, seeming to indicate both the title and focus for this week’s muse.  Having received a generous and unexpected gift earlier in the day, I was filled with gratitude not only for the gift and the givers, but for the web of life that I am a part of. The people. The places. The events. The flow. The mystery. The web that is woven moment by moment, choice by choice, ever evolving, ever changing. Infinite.

This morning as I began my usual morning routines and practices, Zadie Byrd caught my attention, signaling that she needed something different – to be outside and go on our morning walk before my routines. I’m paying close attention to her these days, as she’s showing some new behaviors that may indicate increasing pain. My job is to observe and listen to Zadie’s flow and to mine.

Responding to what I sensed she needed took me out in the early morning light, one of my favorite times of day. As we walked, I thought about the flow of life. How at times I flow easily with what life presents. And, how I sometimes resist. I saw clearly not just what feels better in the moment, but how the energy of flowing with what life offers me weaves a web of ease, of peace, of abundance, of generosity, of acceptance. And, perhaps, even a touch of grace.

Now as I write, the phone rings. Recognizing the number, I answer the call (it’s my neighbor and I want to be sure that she is okay). As we begin to close our quick conversation, she asks the question that seems to be top of mind for many people: ‘did you get a shot?’.  Curiously, I noticed that unlike many others, she didn’t ask if I got ‘my shot’, as if there is one (or two) out there with my name on it.

When I first started being asked the later question, I bristled a bit. My internal reaction (‘it’s none of your business!’) pointed to a deeper sense of the conflict between what the culture says that I ‘should’ do and what my body and my intuition have to say about what is right for me. I hadn’t yet reached a firm commitment to listen to my body which, at least for now, says ‘no’.  

My desire is to weave threads of health and well-being that are more grounded in nature, the planet, and Universal law. I want to flow as the energy of life flows, naturally.  I want to make choices from a better understanding of the reality that we alone are not weaving the web of life.

Just as she is speaking through earthquakes, extreme weather events, and volcanos, Gaia speaks through the virus. What messages might it offer in support of humanity’s evolutionary growth? How might we question and listen from this perspective? How might we pivot toward greater consideration of our planetary home?

May we listen anew to the web and flow with life rather than endlessly trying to avoid some of its greatest gifts. May I.

A Bit of Fresh Spring Snow on the Mountains

Graciousness in the Face of MIMEO

Woke to a Surprise Snow This Morning …

There is hardly a more generous gift we can offer someone than to accept them fully… Elizabeth Gilbert

To which I would add: that includes fully accepting YOU for who you are. But I digress from the exploration of graciousness that I experienced and the insights of this sixth week in the Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence.

The theme of graciousness moved me most deeply this week among the many beautiful threads being woven into the fabric of nonviolence during this 64-day period marking the dates between when Gandhi and King were each assassinated.

‘Am I willing to make gracious concessions on things that do not matter while I also stand firm in my convictions about those things which do?’ was the essence of the question posed on day 37, graciousness the theme.  Doing so invites (indeed requires) me to detach from my opinions. Say what!?? ‘But my opinions are my armor, my protection …’ I reacted. Then, taking in a breath I realized ‘… and my opinions maintain the illusion that I am separate from, maybe sometimes even better than, another.’

For me that can take the form of stewing in unspoken words of criticism or popping off a snarky comment for what I perceive is someone else’s mistake, a MIMEO: Mistake In My Eyes Only. And, although whatever I observed may indeed be in error, it is unimportant in the grander landscape of life. When I detach from my opinion, letting go of my need to be right, I open the door to allow graciousness to enter. I embrace that grander reality that we are not separate and, although we are each unique, we are all the same.

This is not in any way to suggest that we look the other way and maintain silence in the face of those values and convictions that we hold dear. Graciousness is not about sweeping under the rug or ignoring injustice, inequality, racism, poverty, dishonestly, etc. It is about speaking to those very things from a grounded, clear place with care.

To me, Meghan and Harry demonstrated graciousness in their interview this week with Oprah – speaking their truth, sharing their experience, and revealing aspects of the Royal Family and the British Monarchy that are generally hidden from view. Such revelations about influencers and institutions are likely to continue and to point us to changes needed to sustain human life on the planet. May we reveal with grace.

A commitment to graciousness invites us to speak and act on what we wish to change in the world from a place of love not fear; dialogue with rather than spewing our views at another; choosing mindful kindness over unconsciousness animosity; and seeking understanding instead of our own sense of righteousness.

This week’s themes or threads – love, kindness, mindfulness, dialogue, understanding and graciousness – add to the strong and beautiful fabric of nonviolence. Each are concepts and ways of being that model how I want to participate in life and how I dream life can be on the planet and we move step by step toward creating a world that works for all. And they point us to the theme for today: unity.

And Had a Beautiful Warm Fire to Break the Chill - Grateful!

Vigilance From the Inside Out

Majestic Mountain Magic

If thou wilt be observant and vigilant, thou wilt see at every moment the response to thy action. Be observant if thou wouldst have a pure heart, for something is born to thee in consequence of every action.  Rumi

As I sat with the muse earlier this morning, I was thinking about a question I’ve been holding for some time:  what science are we to believe? There is after all enough conflicting scientific information, especially in the domain of health, to make one’s head spin and to foment individual and collective confusion.

Science isn’t my wheelhouse. Not even close. Looking at scientific data and reading articles replete with same is torture for me. Yet, I want to know and to understand alternatives so that I can make good choices. ‘Good choices’ being defines as choices that are right for me. I don’t subscribe to the notion that one size fits all. Not in terms of health, nutrition, or any set/subset of ideas and ideologies.  What is best/right/etc. for me may not be the same for you in science, in health, and, yes even in politics.

To be clear, there are facts. Yes, there are observable results. From them conclusions are reached that are then labelled ‘the truth’.  I’m old enough to remember that science was used to claim cigarette smoking was safe. Few would make that argument today.

All too often, it seems to me, that ‘truth’ has an agenda: to entice us to buy and consume, to convince us to go along with and accept conclusions to be part of the crowd. Something, be it a product or a candidate or an idea, is for sale. We are the target audience.

Frequently there are conflicting scientific facts, differing approaches and studies to the same question, and, sadly agendas that compete with one another. We hold warring views of what is in the common, public interest and how best to honor that.

Navigating this environment requires our vigilance: keen awareness of how we are being and what we are doing in the world. After all we are creating that world by our thoughts, our words, our deeds. The world, other people, nature, the planet herself are responding to us. We are responding (and reacting) to one another. Conflicts ‘out there’ reflect our inner conflicts.

The world as it is now will not hand us clear answers to the decisions and choices we will face in the days, weeks, months, and, possibly, years ahead. We will argue over ‘this’ and ‘that’/’us’ and ‘them’/’right’ and ‘wrong’ until we can embrace the pure-hearted truth that there is no ‘this’ and ‘that’. No ‘us’ or ‘them’. No ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.  There is but one unified field of which we are all a part.

Navigating that road and making choices along the way demands our vigilance step by step, moment by moment, day by day.  Navigating that road requires that we be clear about what we believe at the same time we are open and adaptable to other possibilities. Navigating that road requires both strength of our convictions and the nimbleness to adjust. Navigating that road invites us to know more deeply who we are and what our true purpose is at this moment in time on the planet.

Early Morning Moon in the Sangres

Envisioning a Collective Pivot to Love

Snowy Morning in the Sangres

Everyone has their story – good and bad. We are all different. We are all the same.

One week from today will be the ‘morning after’ what feels like a monumental presidential election here in the U.S. We may or may not know the result when we wake from our slumber, if indeed we slumber at all. Yet, whether we know or not, we are unlikely to experience a huge sigh of relief that ‘it’ is over. (Yeah, that bums me out too.)

Although election day itself will be behind us, the acrimony and divisiveness will surely make their presence known. The divide may even be deeper. Each ‘side’ will stoke its core to react; some with fear and hate, others with love and care. Fingers of blame will be pointed. This is how political machines and pundits thrive. This is how the machines of war and weaponry get funded.

But this is not the way of nature nor the true way of human nature. My heart aches when I consider the very real possibility of massive violence in the streets stoked by fear of ‘the other’.

That same heart bursts with joy at the possibilities that lie within and beyond a pivot to non-violence, to understanding, cooperation and to peace. Science is discovering more and more that this is the nature of we humans. That we each are an integral part of a whole, cells in the body of life on this planet, and, perhaps, beyond. May we come to know more deeply that everyone has their story – good and bad. We are all different. We are all the same.

No path forward from where we find ourselves today will likely be an easy one. We have much work to do starting with an honest look at our own habits of separation. Collectively, we need to review history and somehow make amends for the crimes of our ancestors. From our sincere efforts a framework for living fully into the truth that we all were, are, and will forever be created equal. Everyone has their story – good and bad. We are all different. We are all the same.

It will not be easy to bid adieu to the structures and forms that have never served this higher truth. Like all creative acts the process will be messy, chaotic and require courage and commitment. Our ‘willingness to change’ muscles are sure to be tested and strengthened in the process. Then, beyond the chaos and messiness, a new world, one that works for all, can emerge. Like our precious Mother Earth, she will require diligent nurturing and care for generations to come. We can do this!

We are built for this time, this change and for the sake of humanity and the planet, pivot we must. By our thoughts, our words, and our deeds we are each creating the present moment and each moment beyond. May we think, speak, and act from open-hearted love for self, for humanity, and for the planet.

Frozen Morning Landscape

Fertile Ground

Past their peak, but there is still much beauty in this aspen grove.

What we need is not another doctrine, but an awakening that can restore our spiritual strength. What made Mahatma Gandhi's struggle a great success was not a doctrine—not even the doctrine of nonviolence—but Gandhi himself, his way of being. A lot is written today about the doctrine of nonviolence and people everywhere are trying to apply it. But they cannot rediscover the vitality that Gandhi had, because the ‘Gandhians’ do not possess Gandhi's spiritual strength. They have faith in his doctrine but cannot set into motion a movement of great solidarity because none of them possess the spiritual force of a Gandhi and therefore cannot produce sufficient compassion and sacrifice. Thich Nhat Hahn

In the midst of the muse reflecting on the insights and inspirations which have crossed my path this week I was looking to discover if there is a common thread or theme. Then, life popped in unexpectedly.

It has been my practice for most of the 370+ weeks to ignore all incoming calls, emails, etc. Wednesday mornings are devoted exclusively to musing and discovering what wants to be shared in this week’s post. Today I needed to break from that pattern to handle a time sensitive issue regarding my cousin’s estate.

The issue addressed (at least for a bit), I gently returned to the muse and the message.  Noticing the broad scope of ideas and events that sprouted to take root in my attention this week, the phrase ‘fertile ground’ came to mind. I was aware of all that screamed for attention that I mostly gently (and sometimes not) turned away. What about my fertile ground guides me to make those choices?

I’m aware of and embrace the idea that deep change is underway individually and collectively for humanity and throughout all of nature and our precious home, Mother Earth. (Beyond this earth, I suspect that the same is true – but that is perhaps a muse for another day … As Above, So Below … As Below, So Above …). What about my fertile ground has me see life in this way and to be curious about the thresholds that are before me/us in the days, weeks, years ahead?

From what fertile ground does my conviction that how we choose to BE as we walk through this change is, moment to moment, determining how that change will be? What cultivated my deep knowing that ‘by our thoughts, our feelings, our beliefs and our actions we are co-creating our life, our future – individually and collectively’?

I think that somewhere along this 70-year path of my life, I embraced building my spiritual strength (you wondered, didn’t you, what the heck the quote had to do with this muse?).  Decades ago, weary after years of political activism and hard driving in my profession, I was exhausted and fearful that I couldn’t keep up (whatever the heck that meant at the time). A seed of metaphysical curiosity sprouted as I took time off to figure out what to do with my life.

I’ve nurtured that ground (not always consistently) since it sprouted. I’d like to think that I have some measure of spiritual strength as a result. As I choose how to navigate and BE in the changes upon us, I aim to make choices from a place of spiritual knowing rather than from some prescribed doctrine (religious, political, etc.). That is the fertile ground on which I stand from which the seeds of my expression flow. That is the ground I choose to nurture and grow.

What about you? What is your fertile ground? What is your state of being in the world? What attention is needed so that you can meet the thresholds before you with strength, conviction and with love?

A Quiet Hike in Nature’s Beauty

Courage for Our Time

A Visual Feast Every Day

It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield. William Butler Yeats (Oct 13, 2020 - This Nonviolent Life: Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey from Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service)

When I read this quote it seemed to both echo and expand last week’s musing about true power. It reflects much of what we are witnessing in the collective move to look more deeply at history and understand the dark side of our so-called progress. To do so requires courage, especially in the face of resistance, sometimes armed and violent.

Likewise, it reflects the personal courage that I’m discovering I need to look in the ‘dark corners’ of my lifestyle and habits of consumption where their true cost is revealed.  It takes courage to dare wonder about the cost of my choices and to ask who is paying the price of my choices.

These are the kinds of questions that present themselves as I explore the territory of greater awareness in spending and investing choices searching for avenues that are more fully aligned with what I claim are my values. And, wondering if I have the courage of those convictions.

Such musings seem magnified this week in the great divide between those who would celebrate the colonization of the Americas symbolized by Columbus Day here in the U.S. in contrast to the messages from indigenous people (who continue to pay the price) calling upon humanity to awaken to the consequences not just to their cultures but the very planet that we all share.

It takes courage to read and to think deeply about Nemonte Nenquimo’s message to the western world (click here).

It takes courage to listen to 2018 presentation (click here) that Nenquimo and other indigenous leaders made at the Bioneers conference and then to think deeply and do more than sign petitions.

I know this, because I am questioning how deep my courage runs to be better informed, to reflect AND then to ACT upon these and other issues of our time. I pray that it is deep enough and that I might earnestly adopt the words and spirit of a prayer that came my way this week.

It is said to be the Dalai Lama’s morning prayer, written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk of the Mahayana tradition who lived around 700 AD. He was a devoted practitioner who authored the Bodhicaryavatara or Bodhisattva Way of Life. Thanks to Nick Polizzi and the folks at The Sacred Science for this uplift to my week!

Bodhisattva Prayer for Humanity

"May I be a guard for those who need protection

A guide for those on the path

A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood

May I be a lamp in the darkness

A resting place for the weary

A healing medicine for all who are sick

A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles

And for the boundless multitudes of living beings

May I bring sustenance and awakening

Enduring like the earth and sky

Until all beings are freed from sorrow

And all are awakened."

… Enduring Like Earth and Sky …