Remembering What the Current Paradigm Wants Us to Forget

Moon Over the Sangres

May we look up at that night sky. May we let joy in. For we will be someone’s ancestors one day. If we do this right, they will inherit not our fear but bravery born of joy. Valarie Kaur

Muse is patient with me today. Present and ready to engage when I settle in signaling it is time. A new pattern, perhaps one of winter, seems to be emerging in this weekly engagement. This morning my early morning journalling where The Pivot usually flows found me answering anew an age-old question: Who Am I?

Uncharacteristically I checked email before settling in to write. Curiosity about Georgia’s Senatorial election results got the better of my attention. Eyes quickly landing on a subject line that satisfied curiosity, I moved to close the computer but first, they landed on another: ‘Soul Medicine’. Being from a source whose focus on health and healing I’ve come to trust, aligned as it is with my beliefs about alternatives to the so-called ‘health care’ system, I felt guided to take a look.

Muse reminds that it’s no surprise that my attention landed here since I’ve been considering whether to engage with that system around a current health experience and, if yes, how to do so without abdicating my power.

The short video (you can see it here, but heads up – it is a teaser for a promotional piece) offered the powerful reminder that we are not who the world defines us as – our names, our roles, our accomplishments, etc. It ended with an invitation to write for five minutes in answer to that question: Who Am I? And so, I did.

Muse says I should let you know that I didn’t stop at five minutes and suggests that among several insights and avenues for further exploration, this is the one to share: I am a powerful being who does not consistently tap into my power, allowing the darkness of fear to creep in when I forget.

Our current chaotic and crumbling paradigm is chock full of abundant prompts to illicit our fear. For when we are in fear, we are vulnerable to the control of those whose game is power over. Our very sovereignty is at risk when we lose touch with who we are.

To maintain our personal sovereignty requires a force more powerful than the intelligence of our rational minds. It demands the intelligence of our hearts, the organ of this amazing body that holds the capacity to tap into the infinite wisdom of the Universe.

As I consider this and look to apply it more readily to my current experience, I’m reminded of my friend, author/activist Rivera Sun’s words in her powerful, telling novel, The Dandelion Insurrection: When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. (Find Rivera’s work here)

While I’m present to my own forgetfulness about using the power of my heart to discern, to sooth, to settle, to express my care, I’m keenly aware that the power of hearts collectively tuned in to the Universal station of connection, cooperation, care, and yes, love is what the current paradigm hopes we will forget.

So may we remember this power, OUR power, and find ways to tap into it more fully. If we begin to travel the path of amnesia, forgetting our power, may we open to a gentle tap on the shoulder to guide us home.

December Sunset over the San Luis Valley

Sacred Paths, Places and Peace

Meditation Corner

Fresh is the morning

Clear is the sky

Shiny are the rocks

Against the moist, dark Earth

Rain last evening helped quench the thirst of the soil and all who dwell in these woods. A morning after rain feels like an especially fresh start, much like a good, deep sleep when I’ve gone to bed weary. Rain and rest are balms for the soul quenching some of her longings.

Raucous raven’s cawing is dawn’s first sound as I settle in with Muse wondering where our journey will lead this morn. What wants to be revealed? Shared?

Much is stirring within and without, close to home and afar that warrants attention, reflection, care. Here at home new plants are thriving, feeding my spirit with joy as I gaze at the cheerful blooms and soft greenery with a heart full of gratitude. Afar, out there in the world, the new is being built on multiple and diverse fronts by visionaries, lovers of Earth and ALL her creatures, entrepreneurs, and others who know we must change and whose souls call forth life enhancing ways to do so: agriculture, food systems, health, energy, transportation, economies, and more. Activists are tracking and responding to what I pray are last ditch efforts to control rather than to nourish the dream of freedom and justice for ALL and the free will which we have been granted. They too are focused on multiple important fronts.

Their work inspires me. I cheer them on and lend support as opportunities to do so rise.

The last words I read yesterday evening weave with the practical wisdom of Pace e Bene’s daily inspiration several days ago:

At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul. John O’Donohue (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)

and

If peace is what every government says it seeks and peace is the yearning of every heart, why aren’t we teaching it in schools? Colman McCarthy

Seemingly disparate at first read, Muse nudged me to read again, deeply. The Irish poet and the journalist each speak to our path and to paths forward. They point to paths in need of nurturing, focus, love, care. Paths that are sacred, as the journey to peace is a journey of each and all souls. Why aren’t we teaching peace? Why isn’t there a Department of Peace in each and every government from local to global?

The fearmongering of a crumbling world that is desperately trying to hang on to power and control will not stand as one by one, community by community, step by step, moment to moment we choose to recognize life’s sacredness and attend to learning, teaching, and practicing peace within and without all along the way.

The world’s woes are but reflections of darkness and pain calling out for light and healing. What world is calling to be created as we cultivate and nurture the light in our souls?

These are the musings that rise from my deep longing for a world where my stepson doesn’t feel the need to let me know that he and his family were not at the parade where a mass shooting occurred. A world where all children are safe, nurtured, nourished. Indeed, where all of us are safe, nurtured, nourished. A world where freedom and justice are the foundations of our way of life.

May we hold the challenges of this time as sacred places on our journey that enlarge and enrich our souls. May I?

Mountain Morning Mist

After the Pause: Pivot

Light, Shadow, Grasses in the Morning Sunlight

If you do not change direction, you may end where you are heading. Lao Tzu

You must unlearn what you have learned.  Yoda

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

A crisp, fall-like morning drew me into the woods and then to the deck to enjoy the rays of morning sun. The Muse was there with me along with the unseen elementals that thrive in these woods. Zadie Byrd rested nearby. No other creatures or critters were about.

Quiet. Deep Quiet in the woods.

In that quiet, mind wandered to several activities, projects, and possibilities asking for attention. Setting them aside, I heard a gentle nudge: the Muse reminding me of stories and how our stories create our reality.

I was drawn back to a couple of posts about just that, one of them when The Zone pivoted to become The Pivot in April 2020 [you can find it here]. Much of that post feels apropos for where we find ourselves today and the fundamental shifts that we need to continue to make, individually and collectively. In our shifts we create the possibility for new stories.

From new stories a new future rises, a future that Charles Eisenstein calls “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”  Perhaps that’s what Albert Einstein had in mind when he said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

It is as sobering and humbling today as it was 18 months ago to consider that ‘we’ created ‘this’. We’ve ‘ended up’ where we have been heading for quite some time living in our world created from the underlying stories of competition, right/wrong, good/bad, win/loose, have/have not. Language that separates and generates fear in humanity. That fear has led us to plunder the planet to a point that she proclaims, “Enough!” It has led we humans to injustice, polarization, and war over points of view different from ours.

As Yoda so wisely suggests, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” I can imagine Yoda observing our world today and advising us from his deep wisdom to create new stories.  Our stories come from our thoughts and our beliefs. Stories strengthen our beliefs, even those that don’t serve us. Then, we wake up to find ourselves mired in difficult challenges, worry, or fear and looking outside for the cause.  But when we have the courage to look within, we create an opportunity to find the real cause and, if we choose, to shift it.

Over the past year of change, personally and globally, I’ve tossed much of what I learned and what so many of the systems of our world continue to perpetuate (or would that be perpetrate?). I’ve shifted my thinking with more attention to how to align what’s good for me with what’s good for all, the human collective AND the planet to which I belong.

Although I hold ownership of the property where my home is, I can create different stories and make new choices when I embrace the true perspective that I belong to the land more than it belongs to me. When I embrace the earth as the source of the food that nourishes my body, I can seek to do business with those whose practices honor mother nature.

From our pivots, new possibilities emerge, and new stories can be crafted. Revisiting my ‘pivot’ to The Pivot this morning has renewed and strengthened my intention to inspire my own personal change and to plant seeds of change beyond.

To that end, I invite you to pause for a moment and ask your heart ‘what pivot do I need to make?’ Yep, it’s the thought that’s been niggling you for a while, perhaps a prickly place you know is ripe for change. What new story is possible?

Get your juices flowing with this song from the amazing singer/songwriter Jenny Bird. Put a joyful tempo in your heart and share it all around!

Gazing into the Woods Out Back

Calling Forth Unity

Crestone Peak Peeking Through the Treetops

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

This is week three of what has emerged as a theme of the weekly muse, consistent with observations and concerns about our world and with my heart’s deep longing that I live more fully into the reality of unity with each step I take and every choice I make.

Reading some new/old material from Gregge Tiffen, one of my greatest teachers, reminded me that our sojourn on this earth is not an easy ‘school’.  We are tasked with the challenge of working with/working on three levels that are often in conflict: body, mind, spirit. It was an important reminder as I seek to practice unity – inside and out – in a world that seems hell bent on division and separation.

As I sat in the quiet of daybreak this morning, it occurred to me that dark and light are not separate. Opposites, yes; but light and dark coexist, cooperate, and flow from one to the other and back. Whether in the dark of night of a new moon or in the light of a ‘Colorado blue sky’ day, the ‘woods out back’ are ‘the woods out back’. The degree of light or dark simply changes my experience of seeing the woods.

Perhaps we might consider the same of other ‘opposites’: good/evil (every time I write this word, I’m reminded it is simply ‘live’ spelled backwards); we/they; pro/con (vaccine, life, war, and the list goes on).  We are different, yes. We each have our stories that differ, sometimes widely. And we are the same: humans navigating a tough learning school at this seemingly pivotal point in time.

As I further engaged the muse, I wondered what all the aspects of the growing (and troubling to me) ‘vaccine divide’ and a recent movie, A Wrinkle in Time, have in common. Each presents the opportunity to ‘choose the path of love with conviction’. Yet each in their own way perpetuates separation: the movie with its classic ‘good vs. evil’ where one or the other must ‘win’.

The vaccine divide doesn’t look much different. Each side choosing language to vilify the other, claiming they alone are ‘right’ and the other is ‘wrong’. Neither side recognizing the truth in some aspects of the other’s story. The noise from both is deafening and the damage to families and friendships, heart wrenching (AND avoidable!). Much of the ‘information’ from both sides is fraught with assumption (at best) and both are guilty of fear mongering. Each seemingly wants to usurp my free will to choose what is right for me, my body, my mind, my spirit.

Is anyone reminded of the acrimony of the ‘choice’ vs. ‘anti-abortion/right to life’ divide? It’s enough to bring out my inner contrarian rebel and allow her to dance beyond the words of the weekly muse. I’m reminded of a favorite line from Rivera Sun’s awesome novel, The Dandelion Insurrection: When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have consistently expressed the idea that the best path forward is to build our individual immune system in whatever ways best serve the body we inhabit, as well as align with our individual, intelligent understanding of available information, and consistent with our personal spiritual beliefs. This should be front and center of public health policy and media attention. It isn’t.

Where is the love and care that providing such information widely would demonstrate? Why does it seem increasingly more difficult (and sometimes lonely) to follow this path? Where is our humanity in this great divide?

Why is it that those who offer information about this path must be cautious about how they speak about covid, natural health, etc. lest a ‘bot’ label their words ‘misinformation’ or worse yet, prohibit others from seeing it? How is such censorship any different than burning books – indeed entire libraries throughout history – to suppress views that challenge our own?

My aim is to not add to the babble of the divide, what a friend calls part of the ‘debris field’ of these times. Rather it is to shine light in the darkness, to rebel with love, sharing that which I find helpful in navigating the choices of this time with solid information, with love, and with care.

Neither I, nor the muse, nor anyone outside of you knows what choices are best for you. But each can offer information, insight, perhaps even inspiration to take the best care of you that’s possible and to be a part of bridging and healing the divide, not furthering it: to call forth unity from within and promote unity in our world. Toward that end, I found this recent video informative and rebellious in a most loving, caring, and unifying way: Strange Virus …

Whatever your choices, may this and other information in your field support you in unifying body, mind, and spirit and calling forth that unity in our fractured world.

Day Fades in the Sangres as the Sun Sets in the West

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

Mitigation with Love - Round Two

Mitigation with Love - a great crew of professionals caring for the land

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us. 

Shortly after I purchased the Dragonfly House almost six years ago, I had some mitigation done on the property and shared the experience in an early post of The Zone. You can read it here.

Mitigation is on my mind once again this week as I engage in another round of stewardship to protect my home and the old growth trees of these woods I love, and, to ease the touch of angst I feel about drought conditions and this year’s early start of ‘fire season’.

As I discovered six years ago, mitigation is both personal and impersonal, internal and external. This week’s events reminded me that it is also a path of discovery and personal growth.

Defined as ‘lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant’; ‘the act of making a condition or consequence less severe’; and ‘the process of becoming milder, gentler, less severe’ (thank you dictionary.com), life presents many opportunities for us to engage strategies of mitigation.

We mitigate numerous forms of danger, pain, pressure, tension, unpleasantness in every spoke of the wheel of life. In doing so, either love or fear is usually our incentive, and that incentive lives in the background as the foundation of our strategic choices, whether or not we are conscious of it.

Mitigation can start as a fearful reaction to an event or condition. Fear and its allies (anger, victimhood, etc.) generate resentment, resistance, confusion, and stress. Love, on the other hand, generates appreciation and acceptance and allies like creativity, ease, and flow. I experienced this difference contrasting two events this week. It was palpable.

I consciously took the property mitigation project on with love: a healthy respect for the drought-enhanced potential for wildfires, along with my love of all nature, especially these woods where I’m blessed to live. Despite loving each tree and wanting no harm to any, I accepted the reality of the fire danger and that sacrificing young trees would protect many older ones. I spoke my appreciation to each tree before the sawing began.

Although my heart held some sadness, I was at peace. I soon discovered that with love and care as motivators, the noise of the chainsaws was not as jarring as it might have been. Later, as I took my first look at the altered landscape, I felt an unexpected lightness and openness rather than the shock I expected. I was reminded that clearing creates space and opens the way for the new. The mitigation experience was becoming deeply satisfying, serving as a reminder of the beauty and power of action grounded in love.

In stunning contrast that I didn’t see until afterwards, the second event did not emerge as an expression of love. I found myself reacting unlovingly to Zadie Byrd exhibiting extreme fear as a thunderstorm approached. I reacted to my seeming inability to ease her discomfort as well. Double trouble! Although I love this new canine companion dearly, I allowed fear to take the wheel. The resentment, frustration, and stress I felt was painful for us both. In loosing awareness of my love, I was unable to accept her experience and meet her there with an open heart. 

Have I mentioned that our animal companions are amazing teachers? Be a student!

Only in hindsight did I realize that I could choose differently with love and acceptance of the reality of her experience. In that pivotal moment, I knew what to do, who to call for support, and, most importantly, how I needed to be with her in stormy weather. From that place, a plan is forming for immediate support and to mitigate her fear response in the future.

When you accept the reality of what is you increase your capacity to deal with it creatively. Myra Jackson

And, it seems that my pivot to love is already having an impact. The weather began to shift while I was writing this post, so I took a break and moved into action. Although my actions weren’t that different from the earlier event, I shifted my way of being to act from love and I accepted the reality of Zadie Byrd’s rather than resisting it. We weathered several hours of dropping barometric pressure and stormy conditions much more peacefully.

Pivoting from fear to love, from resistance to acceptance, from grudging to gratitude are acts of personal mitigation that start within and grow to impact all that is around us.  Indeed, our animal companions, along with the trees and all of nature, do teach us much about life. Be a student!

Storm? What Storm?

Sacred Fare for Cultivating Health

Sunset in the Woods - Waiting on the Full Moon to Rise

Health is the state of natural harmony producing optimum performance. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: The Hidden Wealth of New Worth – April, 2011)

A different morning pattern emerged today. ‘Walk first,’ I heard as I rose and began to move about. Usually I sit and, on blog day, write the post before the morning walk. But the nudge felt right. We geared up and headed out.

The morning air was crisp; the sky, a bit hazy. Still. Quiet. We walked slowly. That is Zadie Byrd’s way. I’m grateful. She reminds me of my pace and to stop, observe, use my senses as she tunes her nose into the corner ‘doggie-net’ to discover who has already come by.

Although today’s musing was but a bundle of seed thoughts in my mind, I relaxed into the patterns of our walk, knowing that one of the seeds would sprout, wanting to be shared. No rush!

What emerged once we returned home and I settled down, pen and journal in hand, was what has been a theme for many of us these past few weeks: maintaining health.  I was reminded of Gregge Tiffen’s definition of health that I wrote about several years ago (read it here - http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/healthy-thinking)

Creating and maintaining our health is a personal, individual path. That’s true today amidst the pandemic, and it will be true beyond this event.  The choices we have are, perhaps, more pronounced today, but boil down to choosing between love and fear. Which will we feed?  Will we tap into the raging fear or find a fare that better serves us? How might we reorder the letters of ‘scared’ to create this as a sacred time and feed ourselves a fare that cultivates health of body, mind and spirit? How can I acknowledge fear when it is present, without giving it my power?

These are the questions I’m asking myself from day to day. And, then I’m listening and observing and exploring.  What dietary fare does my body need and want this day?  What supplements?  What dietary advice is out there that will support my health?

I’m struck by what an individual journey diet, exercise, rest, and such are. There is no ‘one size fits all’.  It has me wonder, beyond current events, how with a better understanding of our individuality we can create a true ‘health care’ system rather than our current disease management system that seems stretched beyond its capacity.

But I digress. I find myself doing so frequently these days, putting attention on ‘from this, what else is possible?’ personally, locally and globally. While there will be an ‘after this’ that I’m curious about, today I want to put attention on our health, yours and mine, and share a bit more about the path I’m choosing.

I’m aiming each day to remember that there is a Universal hand in this experience and all events. That the qualities of the Universe (spirit, God, or whatever you choose to name it) are ever present and available: abundance, beauty, harmony, joy, love, light, life, peace, power. Where one is present there be them all. Find one wherever you are.

I’m being gentle, VERY gentle, with myself as I aim for more awareness and mindfulness in my choices. As I carefully choose food for my body, I’m choosing information and spiritual food that will support my mental and spiritual health. I limit news to reading (not watching or listening) what is current in my community so I can adjust as warranted. Beyond that, I scan for trends that may inform my choices in all domains of life and feel that politically curious part of me with a scan of headlines and staying informed about social, economic and environmental issues and movements that I care about.

But my main fare in keeping this journey sacred is spending time in the beauty of nature that surrounds me (I am so very, very blessed!) and reading or listening to thought leaders presenting thoughtful, uplifting ideas and tools to consider and practice. Among the many that have move me this week is Sounds True founder, Tamy Simon, interviewing Michael A. Singer (author of The Surrender Experiment). Find it here along with many other good listening experiences on Simon’s podcasts) https://product.soundstrue.com/resilience-in-challenging-times/?_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJjaW5keUBzdAWNjZXNzem9uZS5jb20iLCAia2xfY29tcGFueV9pZCI6ICJKTURnYXEifQ%3D%3D.

If you’re challenged to dance with fear and transform it, my colleague and friend, Kathy Wilson has written an informative series over the past three weeks in her newsletter The Journal of Spirited Coaching (click here for a list on her website) http://www.warrior-priestess.com/Newsletters/#archives

All that we take in must be digested and either absorbed for our health or eliminated. That’s true of our food as well as the fare we feed our hearts and minds. Be care-filled in your choices.

Smells Good Enough to Drink on a Warm Spring Day!

The Power of Our Thoughts

His Holiness, The XIV Dalai Lama

The history of humanity is, in some respects, the history of [human] understanding. Historical events, wars, progress, tragedies, and so on, all of these reflect the negative and positive thoughts of [humankind]. All the great personalities of history, the liberators, the great thinkers, all such people reflect positive thinking, whereas tragic events, tyranny, and terrible wars have resulted from negative thinking. Therefore the only thing that is really worthwhile is to increase the power and influence of positive thinking and to reduce the occurrence of negative thinking. If you let anger and hatred run loose, you are lost. And no sensible human being wants to be lost.  Tenzin Gyatso, The XIV Dalai Lama

Seventy years ago this day my consciousness accepted this vehicle to navigate life on planet earth. What a journey it’s been. What a journey it continues to be! What a journey it is in this moment!

Just over six and a half years ago (346 weeks, but who’s counting?) I began this weekly practice of sharing ideas, musings, challenges and such. I’ve written, though not published/shared, throughout the decades of my professional life, especially my almost 30 years as a coach. 

I share this to provide a context for the essence of today’s message, which was written almost two decades ago on September 13, 2001 when our country was gripped in shock, fear and grief as a result of the events two days earlier.  I can imagine that similar fear swept the country in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and in the depths of the Great Depression as well as other tragic events.  I find myself longing for leaders that utter positive words of conviction as Franklin D. Roosevelt did in his first inaugural address:  So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. (emphasis mine!)

Yet as I look deeply at my longing, I realize that I have a responsibility to go within. To find my own conviction, and to act from that alone as, like each of you, we navigate multiple new terrains. The Dalai Lama’s words above strengthen my belief in the power of our thoughts as the starting point that sets direction.

His wisdom echoes the message that I wrote just after 9/11. It’s title: Most Important Now is What We Think. Here’s what I said then and what I believe even more strongly today:

Our strength as a nation and as a worldwide community lies in our beliefs. Each of us contributes our individual thoughts to that belief. While governments will take the actions deemed appropriate and necessary, our individual thoughts are part of the collective consciousness that will set the direction. We will move either deeper into hatred and anger or out of conflict and into peace. Each of us has the opportunity by our thoughts and intentions to bring light into this darkness. By our thoughts we each have a role, a responsibility, to determine whether the responsive actions that are certain to come lead to a world of hope, peace and freedom or to revenge which fosters more hatred.

As individuals, our greatest challenge today and in the days ahead is to wake up, to become aware of and to choose our thoughts carefully. We need courage, stamina and time to go beyond our reactive anger and to explore what we believe, what we want for our country and for the greater global community of mankind of which we are a part.

How can you meet this challenge? First, don't get sucked into the drama and repetition of media reports. Take from the media information that you need to make intelligent decisions for yourself, your family, your business. Then turn the media off. Don't let anything outside of you determine how or what you will think. Give yourself time to be clear about your beliefs and your thoughts. Take time to go beyond your anger and the desire for revenge. Take time to go beyond even your thoughts and prayers of comfort to those most directly impacted by the events. Take time to have bold, courageous, clear thoughts about the good that may follow.

Each thought you think is a powerful thing. Today more than ever in recent history, is a time to become aware of that reality and to take responsibility for thinking thoughts that contribute to the peaceful world we all desire. The collective thoughts of all of us will establish the direction of the future. What thoughts will you choose?

Our opportunity as we navigate the current pandemic is to find the information we need to make decisions on a daily basis without getting hooked into the media fear factory. That requires not denying when we feel afraid, but rather acknowledging and working with our fear until we can put it to rest. The choices that will serve us best, individually and collectively, are those flowing from positive thoughts grounded in love and care, not fear.

We can do this, my friends. Indeed, we must.

I gain strength from all of nature, especially these mountains