Easing into Solstice 2023

Deer in the Woods

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

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

With the daylight shortening as we move toward the Winter Solstice here in the northern hemisphere, the longer nights can seem to reflect the darkness of violence happening around the globe. It’s good to remember that our friends to the south are experiencing the longest light of their year. So it is with our awareness that as so much of humanity is expressing itself in dark ways, there is also much light, much love, much joy, and much hope for a brighter tomorrow.

It seems that we’ve drifted in our understanding of this season. …the time … for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Breathe that in for just a moment. Breathe a breath of gratitude for the gift. May we put our attention on the light and live in awareness of love as we pray for peace to break out all over the globe.

As I enter this Solstice time, I feel deeply blessed to not be engaged in much of the busyness that has come to define this holiday season. I’m grateful that on cold mornings with a warming fire in the woodstove I can look to the woods out back through the eyes of a heart that knows no separation from my tree relatives, from the rock beings, the winged ones, or from the four-legged creatures of all sizes that dwell or pass through this sacred place. My heart knows this as surely as it knows my oneness with the unseen Life that thrives here.

 I’m tuning in to the sacredness of this time, to the station of Nature’s beauty, and to the bubbling of old and new deep inside.  At the same time, I observe so much and so many in the world who are unable to do so.

Divisiveness and angst have intensified exponentially in recent years. So too have the opportunities for personal growth and evolution, individually and collectively. It is on those opportunities that I want to focus my attention this Solstice time.

One of the sources I turn to at Solstice is Gregge Tiffen’s writings about this sacred time. I find the message below a gentle reminder of the choices I can make moment to moment in all the days of winter solitude ahead and beyond this winter into the spring:

Prelude (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time, I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

 In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. And so it is for each of us.

We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed our path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

We need not wait for the day of Solstice to take Heaven, to take Peace, and to Look at the radiance in the darkness within and without. Let us take them now and allow the potency of this time to fill us. This is our time to empty. This is our time to embrace seeds of the new; to be receptive.

As our planet celebrates her birthday, my prayer is that I align with all my relations such that my comfort, my safety, my Life is not at their expense. This is my prayer for Solistice, for the year ahead, for Gaia, for Life. May this be our song of Joy to the World with ALL of Nature singing in harmony with one another and with the Heavens. Hallelujah!

Let us honor Mother Earth by taking time to reflect the gifts of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way.

Icy Rio Grande River - Del Norte, Colorado

Completion: Physically & Meta-Physically

Looking Up Through the Mother Tree

Completion is the natural progression of the planet established out of the characteristic of the planet. … The esoteric meaning of the number nine is completion. An aspect of knowledge is now a part of you to such an extent that nothing can diminish it or be added to it. The learning has been completed up to the point you find yourself. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic: Completion)

Today, 8-30-2023, is a ‘nine’ day: completion.

Yesterday morning found me reflecting on cycles. Frustrated at being unable to move forward with a project that I very much want to complete, I wondered, ‘Where am I in the greater cycles of life that seems to make this hard? Is my timing off?’

Since the project is sorting through old files, records, and photos the timing in this period of several planets being in retrograde motion seemed perfect. It’s a time for rethinking, reworking, reorganizing, reexamining … “re- almost anything,” says a friend astute in planetary influences. What could be off?

As I examined my approach I saw chaos, disorder, clutter. I noticed that I wasn’t clear about what is truly important to me in these boxes of ‘stuff’. One side of the internal tug-of-war said, “toss it all!” as the other cautioned thoughtfulness, clarity, and care. Each time I’d opened a box, I was caught in the middle of that tug. I was stuck.

I began to see that I hadn’t prepared myself or the project for smooth execution. Rather I’d just dived in and was attempting to swim upstream against the tide. I’d missed a critical step in creating: preparation.

Recognizing that, I took a breath and a step back, then another breath to connect with my heart. I hit the rewind button. ‘How can I best prepare?’ The question rose in me as a breath of fresh air.

Muse cut through the confusion giving voice to my heart. ‘Create order. Clear the clutter,’ came the clear answer.

Having quite recently reorganized the garage, I quickly saw a clear path to establish order and summoned help to move the boxes out, organizing them for easy access when my inner preparation is complete.

With order restored and clutter removed, I’m prepared to do the inner, meta-physical preparation. A first step is to review my hesitancy (Muse says ‘resistance!’) to release old things. And I need to ask what seem to be key questions:

·        What choices will help me simplify and create more ease and flow in life?

·        What choices support my growth?

·        What do I value and choose to care for?

Once again, I’m reminded of the potency and richness lying in wait in the mundane tasks and choices of life. Not overworking them or making something a ‘big deal’, rather using them as gifts of life that support awareness and remind me that everything is creation and creation is a process. Skip a step and I’m out of step in moving toward completion.

Perhaps as a reward for engaging in this re-examination and adjusting to strengthen my ability to act, a remodeling project here at the house, delayed by a contractor not being available, was completed yesterday evening. WooHoo! A definite cause for celebration and for evaluating what I learned and discovered in that process. Also, a reminder of the satisfaction that comes with completion and inspiration for the project ahead.

Engaging with awareness and clear choices, I experience ease. Blundering through obliviously, I struggle. Cycles teach me this.

Humanity and Mother Earth – of which we are microcosms of the macrocosm – are engaged in their own cycles coming to completion. May our participation in Life support us all to do so with ease.

Looking Up Through the Grandmother Tree

Easing into Solstice

Solstice Light

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

 What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

 How far we’ve drifted in our understanding of this season. …the time … for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Breathe that in for just a moment. Breathe a breath of gratitude for the gift.

 As I enter this Solstice time, I’m so very blessed to not be engaged in most of the busyness that has come to define this holiday season. This cold morning with a warming fire in the woodstove I look to the woods out back through the eyes of a heart that knows no separation from my tree relatives, from the rock beings, the winged ones, or from the four-legged creatures of all sizes that dwell or pass through this sacred place. My heart knows this as surely as it knows my oneness with the unseen Life that thrives here.

 Although I have year-end tasks and projects to wrap up, I feel in tune with the sacredness of this time. I’m tuned into the station of Nature’s beauty and to the bubbling of old and new deep inside.  At the same time, I observe so much and so many in the world that are not.

Divisiveness and angst have intensified exponentially in recent years. So too have the opportunities for personal growth and evolution, individually and collectively. It is on those opportunities that I want to focus my attention this Solstice time.

One of many sources I turn to at Solstice is Gregge Tiffen’s writings about this sacred time. I find this particular message a gentle reminder of the choices I can make moment to moment in all the days of winter solitude ahead and beyond this winter into the spring:

Prelude (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time, I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. And so it is for each of us.

 We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

 And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

We need not wait for the day of Solstice to take Heaven, to take Peace, and to Look at the radiance in the darkness within and without. Let us take them now and allow the potency of this time to fill us. This is our time to empty. This is our time to embrace seeds of the new; to be receptive.

 As our planet celebrates her birthday, my prayer is that I align with all my relations such that my comfort, my safety, my Life is not at their expense. This is my prayer for Solistice, for the year ahead, for Gaia, for Life. May this be our song of Joy to the World with ALL of Nature singing in harmony with one another and with the Heavens. Hallelujah!

 Let us honor Mother Earth by taking time to reflect the gifts of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way.

Nature’s Table

My Prayer of Thanks 2022

Morning Dance of the Fire Faeries

The power of giving thanks gives life its vitality! The power of giving thanks comes through your awareness that you are always in a position to receive all the elements the Universe has to offer. Everything is available to you.  Gregge Tiffen (The Power of Giving Thanks, November 2007)

 I’m thankful for the muse that visits at least weekly with some message that seems to want to be expressed. My weekly practice for over nine years now is one of the highlights of my week, in part because I rarely know what’s going to show up, until the words hit the page. It’s also been my practice to rest the muse on occasion and revisit/reprise a prior post. And, so it is this Thanksgiving (here in the U.S.) eve, as I reflect with a grateful heart on all this year has offered.

Last week in sharing the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World, I shared my belief that, while it is good to have a special day to give thanks, the irony of Thanksgiving’s origins in this country deserves a pause for thoughtful consideration. As you give thanks, I’ll leave that consideration to your heart and soul. I’m grateful that as a society we are beginning to acknowledge, understand, and hopefully, move beyond the dark choices that haunt our past.

 Despite the disgust and sadness I feel for the atrocities we force upon one another and on our dear planet, I’m grateful for this life and for the opportunities to learn and grow that are ever present.  Despite the irony of the holiday’s origins, I celebrate, grateful for my conviction that, despite history and the current chaos and cruelty worldwide, justice and light will prevail.

 Several years back, sitting quietly by the fire on a cold morning, I began to write in my journal. The words that came surprised me and took me to an unexpected place: gratitude for being me.  As I ease into Thanksgiving Day, I remember all that I’m grateful for and my words then inspire my prayer of thanks for 2022

 I’m grateful for the challenges and changes this year has thrust upon me personally and on all of us as a community of humans. I’m grateful for my friends and friends of my cousin who surrounded me with love and support in the wake of her sudden, unexpected death two years ago. I’m grateful that she entrusted me with the sacred task of handling the affairs she left behind and rewarded me for doing so. I’m grateful for the abundance that I’m able to share in my community and beyond.

 I’m grateful for how I live my life, the choices I make, the insight and curiosity I experience, my love of quiet and of Nature’s beauty. I’m grateful that I take reasonably good care of myself. I’m grateful that I take time to ease into the day and enjoy the morning quiet. I’m grateful for introspection and for how I see the world unfolding perfectly in this human experiment despite events that are horrific beyond my understanding. I’m grateful for this year’s events and for those individuals whose actions continue to challenge me to hold this light.

 I’m grateful for all the beings who are holding light in the midst of darkness.

 I remain grateful for nine years with Cool Hand Luke Skywalker and for all that he taught me about patience, forgiveness, rest, play, listening and so much more. His ongoing presence reminds me that life is a continuum not a finite event. I’m grateful for Zadie Byrd carrying the torch of being my canine companion. Her sweet presence in my life is a constant blessing that grows each year.

 I’m grateful for how I’ve faced the challenges in my life, even those where in hindsight I saw a different way for me to be. Each offered a gift and I did my best to accept it.

 This year I’m especially grateful that I enjoy my own company as well as the company of others. Both are so very important, yet we humans so very often shun being alone for fear of being lonely, forgetting that in our aloneness we hear Your voice and feel Your presence.

 Thank You for always being with me/in me. Thank YOU for allowing and guiding me to be me. I feel so close You, God, in these quiet moments and I am so very grateful.

 When we give thanks for being who we are, we tap into the vitality of life. Wherever this week finds you, may you feel a depth of gratitude that goes deeper and further than any you have felt in your past. May this special Thanksgiving prayer from Gregge Tiffen contribute to transporting you to that place.

Icy Cottonwood Creek Winds Through the Woods

Flowing with Nature in the Season’s Glow

Solstice Hike to the Ziggurat on a Colorado Blue Sky Day

The beauty of Winter Solstice is courage in itself. It is the courage to know that to be new is not necessarily going to be accepted by those expecting the commonplace. … You accept rejection from humankind. You accept rejection from your family and those around you. You move yourself to where there is no rejection: which is the reality of nature all around you. Gregge Tiffen – Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story

So it was with Mary and Joseph. Rejected by the mundane world of the inn, they were offered Nature … Rejoice! In rejection is a gift of direction, of invitation.

This blog day after the Winter Solstice finds me immersed in Solstice newness. Fully present in this moment, I’m tingling to discover what ‘Santa’ will bring forth as opportunity emergent from the chaos of our crumbling mundane world in this new cycle. I’m grateful for the Solstice reminder of courage.

Living life not as a series of goals to be achieved and tasks to be checked off a list, but as the flow of energy, clear with intention and presence in each moment NOW.

The Muse, silent, smiles. ‘Savor this’. The Muse’ silence speaks loudly. It needs no words or deeds in this moment. Savor the quiet. Be still. Turn away from the world and dwell in ‘your’ world. Sing. Dance. Play. With Creation. Embrace open-hearted fullness and satisfaction. Satisfied not that all is how I would have it be, but that I am.

Love.                  

The Great Sand Dunes, Blanca Peak, and the vast Wildlife Refuge — Nature’s Beauty Glows from the Ziggurat

Preparing for Solstice 2021

A Blustery Morning and SNOW on the Peaks

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

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself – December, 2007)

The Muse is challenged to settle me down to focus this blustery morning. With sustained winds exceeding 15 miles per hour and gusts into the 50-mph range, Zadie Byrd and I were challenged to get in a short walk so she could take care of her morning business. It’s not a day for walking in the woods or grounding myself with a labyrinth walk. One close call with a falling tree is enough for this life.

I have other year-end distractions as well, opportunities and projects that warrant my attention and a promise to myself to finalize personal decisions around financial and health matters – the paperwork our legal system demands in order for our wishes to be followed. So, the Muse suggested we revisit Solstice posts past and see what might be relevant to where I find myself today. Good call Muse!

Six years ago, amidst a community controversy in which I was involved I wrote this:  I’ve felt out of sync with the season and out of sorts with myself.  I want to stop. I want to stop not just for a few minutes to catch my breath, center myself and move on to the next task or conversation, but I want to STOP and BE the winter. Quiet. Still. Peaceful. Yes, yes, YES!

I continued: My time for that will come. I feel her on the horizon. Until then, there are ‘miles to go before I sleep’ in these last days of autumn before that moment when heaven and earth synchronize at the Winter Solstice. I know without a doubt that I will be there.

I know too that I alone am responsible for choosing how I walk through the tasks along those miles. I choose calm, confident, clear, kind as my foundation. These are grounded in love.  My choice is simple; implementation, not always easy. Often when I’m challenged, fear interrupts and invites me to its prickly path of tension, harshness, unkind words spoken and not. Too much of the world is on that path. I don’t want to be a part of that crowd. And so, I pause.

The divisiveness and angst in our world have intensified seemingly exponentially in the six years since I wrote those words. So too have the opportunities for personal growth and evolution, individually and collectively. It is on those opportunities that I want to focus my attention this Solstice time.

Just as I did then, I turn to Gregge Tiffen’s writings about this sacred time. I find this message perfect to remind me of the choices I can make now and moment to moment. Before my time of winter solitude and beyond winter into the spring:

Prelude (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time, I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

I need not wait for the Solstice to take Heaven, to take Peace, and to Look at the radiance in the darkness within and without. I take them now and allow the potency of this time to fill me. Yes, my time for the quiet of Solstice is on the horizon. That is my time to empty. That is my time to embrace the seeds of the new. To be receptive. 

In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. So it is for each of us. We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

As our planet celebrates her birthday, let us honor her by taking time to reflect this gift of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way. JOY to Our World … WE Have Come!

… Just Sayin’…

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

Call of the Rising Feminine

Joyful Hummers Feeding Out Back

Everything is operating on behalf of everything else. Myra Jackson

Everyone has their story. We are all different. We are all the same. Gregge Tiffen

I have frequently said that those things – people, actions, ideas, beliefs, etc. – that we rail against or criticize have a purpose in the unfoldment of life – individually and collectively. I’m reminded of this principle daily (and some days hourly) when my ‘critical eye’ reacts to something or someone in the world or even to me with a quick judgement.

This is not to suggest that we set aside our opinions, beliefs, and such but rather that we recognize that the opinion of other has value to whole. Everything is operating on behalf of everything else.

As the muse and I were putting those words on the page this morning, the melody and some of the lyrics of Pete Seeger’s Turn, Turn, Turn based on verses from Ecclesiastes (3: 1-8). I easily found The Byrds recording that made the song a hit back when I was sweet-16. I rocked along listening for a bit, then discovered a softer version, more suited to my mood, possibly my age (smile!), and more aligned with today’s journey with the muse (click here to listen).

Just as everything is operating on behalf of everything else, so too there is a time and a place for everything – EVERY purpose under heaven. Our world – its ways and its systems built primarily on the masculine story of separation – are crumbling. That world is in its final acts as our planet calls our attention to the reality that this way has had its time and is no longer sustainable. A new way is calling.

Feminine wisdom is calling for us to listen differently, to put our attention not on the crumbling of the old, but to the potent possibility of a future built on feminine principles, including principles and practices of ancient wisdom and the caring that comes with that wisdom.

What are you listening to? Who are you listening to? What are you listening for?

I’m listening to and for those whose work and words support this shift – individually and collectively – for it is only through shifting our focus and attention that the life conditions of this time will be met in ways that sustain life – ALL life. I’m listening not to the mainstream with its doom, gloom, conquest, and competition, but for paths of forging a different future. The projects, people, and possibilities available for us to tap into with ease are right there – like the water we believe will be there when we turn on that tap.

I’ve suggested some of these resources in previous posts (Yes! Magazine, Non-violence News and Pace e Bene, HeartMath, the Shift Network, the practice of Feldenkrais for support embodying change – to name a few). Today, I invite you explore another, Humanity Rising’s Global Solutions Summit and, in particular, to a presentation (their 294th!) earlier this week: Feminine Intelligence for a Regenerative Future (click here to watch– start around minute 8 if you want to skip the preamble and brief centering meditation).

Here you will hear five inspiring women who have answered the call of the feminine and are calling on others to join in bringing the intelligence of the feminine forward. Among them is Lynne Twist (author of The Soul of Money and a co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance) who shared the news, unlikely to be found in the mainstream (and it will delight me if you do!), that a small number of billionaires from both ends of the political spectrum (evangelicals on the right, spiritual folks on the left) have been in dialogue around their shared concern for the future.

This is an example of dialog across vast divides that I’ve envisioned for many years. It is a sign of change, of hope, and of the emergence of awareness that more of the same is not an option on which to build a future world that works for all.

We can do this! Indeed we must!

Stairway to Heaven (Ziggurat) from the Woods Out Back

Pivot to a New Health Story

Glorious Crestone Peak

I don’t believe that humanity can vaccinate our way to health. Nature will not allow it. …

Health is the state of natural harmony producing optimum performance. Gregge Tiffen

The Sangres are glorious this morning. Fog and low hanging clouds drifting about change the scene moment to moment. Springtime’s clean, cool, crisp air after yesterday’s record-breaking snow and rain. Sun’s rays come, then disappear. Zadie Byrd is perky yet patient as I stop to take a photograph. Mind begins to clear. Heart and soul take in the beauty as nourishment.

Love. This is it.

With some encouragement, my earlier heaviness lifts. At the same time, I invite curiosity about what messages that heaviness, even a touch of angst, might be carrying to remain.  What the heck woke me from a peaceful sleep before dawn?  What drew me to open the computer before opening my journal and picking up my pen?

I felt as if something had happened overnight or was happening in the moment. And I felt a need to know. Nothing caught my attention as I quickly scanned the headlines, not that there isn’t an abundance of jarring events being reported. ‘Close the computer. Open the journal. Be quiet. Listen. It’s blog day after all.’ That wasn’t my inner voice speaking. It was my rational mind. I wasn’t able to do so and allowed my attention to drift through the subject lines of my inbox.

One, caught my eye – ‘Covid Vaccine Update’ via _____ (a political organization whose views mostly align with mine). What!? Why was a political organization sending a vaccine update? Like so many updates and news flashes from groups these days, it was a request for a contribution to their campaign to encourage everyone to get vaccinated for Covid. While they certainly aren’t the first to jump on the vaccine bandwagon, they are the first to ask for financial help to fuel their campaign.

Somehow that crossed a line for me. Anger flashed. How dare they! Now, ‘close the computer …’  I did. I opened my journal a penned a bit about my disappointment with humanity and my grappling with knowing who and what to trust in this seemingly post-fact world. I was also bristling about the push to vaccinate, the subtle and not so subtle pressures that I personally feel as someone whose body (and soul) has so far guided me to decline. Why is it that this very personal health choice has been dragged into the political arena? Who benefits from the further division this creates?

Unlike some, I don’t believe that I have a moral obligation to receive the vaccine in order to protect others and ‘stop the pandemic’. I have reservations about the ‘science’ that is being reported. And questions about science and results we aren’t being told. Where, for example, is the science, the education about the impact of the food we eat to be found in mainstream reporting? What about air quality? Water quality? The list goes on.

Most of all, I don’t believe that humanity can vaccinate our way to health. Nature will not allow it. Health by vaccine isn’t true health. It is merely the absence of certain symptoms that cause distress, and yes, even death.

For me the moral issue is to take a stand for a new health story. One that pivots from the disease avoidance and management approaches of current systems to creating a culture of health, as Gregge Tiffen suggests: natural harmony producing optimum performance for all. Creating a Culture of Health requires new stories across many sectors – agriculture, environment, infrastructure, social/economic justice and more.

First though creating a culture of health requires us to look beyond current definitions and practices to dream what natural harmony producing optimum performance for all may look link. There are people and organizations doing just that. Find them. Support them. Join them.

Blanca - Glorious as well!

Matriots for Mother Earth

Morning Beauty in the Sangres

Once you acquire planetary loyalty, you are loyal to everybody. You are way out of line if you try being loyal to people before you are totally loyal to the planet.  Gregge Tiffen

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. Baha’u’llah

As I began writing, I was experiencing one of those blog mornings with many thoughts and several themes seeming to want my attention. The beauty of the mountains captivated me on our walk this crisp morning, hinting that nature and the planet would appreciate attention. I sense these mountains, trees, and the wildlife that abound here want my attention, my care. I sense that their kin right where you live want and need the same.

Perhaps their beauty and the sunshine in these woods was more than a hint. In this week following Earth Day I’ve noticed how easy it is to honor Gaia on the day we’ve proclaimed hers and then, like the day after Christmas, to forget. As I reflected a bit more, I recalled a post I wrote several years ago suggesting that we become ‘matriots for the planet’ [read it here]. I remember thinking that I was cleverly making up a word, then happily discovering that the online Urban Dictionary defined ‘matriot’ this way: A person who loves, supports, and defends the earth and its interests with devotion.  Of country, patriot. Of earth, matriot

Last week as I listened in via Zoom to the Global Freshwaters Summit, I was awed and inspired by the activism – public and private – addressing the wide range of issues in the watersheds of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers here in the U.S. I felt gratitude that the event, originally planned as a conference to be held in St. Louis Missouri, was virtual so that I could easily attend. And, I had a sense that the planet was grateful as well that the 400 people from around the globe who participated were doing so with a minimal carbon footprint.

At the same time, I get that there is another side to this story: revenue, jobs, etc. lost in the travel and hospitality industries; people suffering as a result. We need innovative, integral ideas and creations to bridge such divides. That, for me, is the ‘stuff’ of matriotism. We need to question EVERYthing as well as ourselves.

In the rush to return to our pre-pandemic ‘normal’ will we simply ignore the impact of our ways of life on our planetary home? Or will we take account of how our systems and the choices we make reflect what nature has shown us, particularly over this past year? Author, activist, and friend Rivera Sun shared a documentary that premiered on Earth day – The Year Earth Changed – detailing how nature has responded to our human ‘pause’. Having watched the trailer, (click here to watch) the film is at the top of my ‘must watch’ list. I want to more deeply understand my/our impact on the planetary being upon which my/our life depends. I take a moment to distinguish ‘life’ and ‘lifestyle’, wondering what lifestyle changes I/we can make to demonstrate matriotism: loving, supporting, and defending the earth and its interests with devotion?

Rather than ‘returning to normal’, I wonder how we might pivot to integrate greater consideration for the planet in making decisions?  Perhaps before deciding to engage in business travel for meeting with or speaking to others at a conference, we matriots will ask and evaluate the cost to the planet of a pending decision. Perhaps we’ll learn to better compensate Gaia for her life giving support, offsetting the costs to her well-being of our choices.

I’m not advocating that we stay totally ensconced in our homes and our local communities. Indeed (full disclosure), this week I’m making a day trip to town about 80 miles away to celebrate a friend’s birthday and to pick up some auto parts and supplies that I can’t get locally. I recognize that we need each other. We need play. We need connection. At the same time, we need to recognize and integrate the planetary costs of meeting those needs into our consciousness more consistently and powerfully.

Valley of Contrasts