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

Zadie Byrd's Zinger

Sun Setting on a Very Full Day

When we see difficult circumstances as a chance to grow in bravery and wisdom, in patience and kindness, when we become more conscious of being hooked and we don’t escalate it, then our personal distress can connect us with the discomfort and unhappiness of others. What we usually consider a problem becomes a source of empathy. Pema Chodron (daily quote for Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service’s Daily Inspiration for Your Nonviolent Journey – 24 January 2022)

As I began to think about today’s post, Muse, ever wise, sensing my weariness and knowing that my primary focus this day is caring for and keeping my eye on Zadie Byrd who had eye surgery yesterday, gently tapped me on the shoulder and suggested ‘go easy this day. Share Zadie’s lesson, you know, the one where she turned the tables on you …’.

I readily agreed. Her lesson was potent, playful, and caught me just as I started down the road to criticism and judgement. You know, the one I shared last week? (click here if you missed it). Zadie’s Zinger stopped me in my tracks, elongated the choice point of discernment, and ultimately gave me a chuckle. I suspect that Muse was chuckling too – if not in outright guffaw mode.

Out for our walk one rather cold morning this week, I heard, at some distance from us, the unmistakable voice of someone speaking loudly on their cell phone. Ugh! I suspected that meant they were paying no attention to their canine. Then, just as judgement was about to kick in full blown, Zadie Byrd looked at me, and I heard my voice speak, ‘not yours!’, a cue I use with Zadie when she begins to react to something that we don’t need to tend to. In a flash, my well-practiced litany of criticism stopped. Zadie had zinged me at that choice point of discernment where the opportunity for love waits patiently. In doing so, she gave me the opportunity to pivot from my costly litany to a laugh and to love and appreciation, sprinkled with compassion and care for those missing the morning’s beauty and the joy of canine teaching and connection.

After a full day of travel and waiting when we arrived home from the veterinary hospital late yesterday, I just wanted to come inside and unpack all our ‘stuff’ from the trip, but wise Zadie Byrd had a different plan. ‘Let’s catch the last rays of sun before it disappears,’ she seemed to say as she plopped down facing the fading light and resisting my coaxing to come inside. So, I joined her and, after a few moments, realized that I was basking not only in the sun’s healing rays but in the success of the day and in all that love offers when we are open to receive.

I’m truly, truly grateful and feeling very blessed as Zadie Byrd sleeps nearby. And I may just join the chorus of snores soon.

Catching Some Healing Rays!

Life: Opportunity For Love

Heart Rock Love from the Woods Out Back

Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth.  . . . This is the real message of love. Thich Nhat Hahn

Muse chuckles and says to let you know that this post isn’t your quick fix guide to romantic love as we approach Valentine’s Day here in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Though its origin and history are somewhat mysterious, my cynic’s view is that it has become yet another day where the opportunity for sincere ritual has been coopted into a capitalistic ritual of buying and consuming. That said, I can love my Fair Trade, Organic chocolate and appreciate all who contribute to putting on the shelves.

Setting aside the cynic, the day offers an opportunity to look more closely at love as a way of being. A way of being that is the underlying requirement for creating a world that turns its back on the culture’s bias toward separation and fear mongering and puts attention on unity, oneness, the whole of which we are each a part.

We don’t tend to think of love as a process or, perhaps more aptly, a learning curve (steep and never ending). We’ve forgotten that love is our essence. Love in its essence is pure and simple, but today we engage in histrionics and fantasy more than in being true to and allowing life to flow from that essence.

We separate good and bad, winning and losing, right and left, right and wrong, ill and healthy, et cetera forgetting that love is the essence in each, indeed love permeates ALL. You, me, us, them, bad, good, … So, despite being our essence love requires experimentation, learning, practice, commitment: the learning curve of life.

Thinking back on a few prickly events this week, I wonder ‘how might I have engaged differently?’ What would Love have done in that instant of beginning to feel the slightest irritation, a crossroads missed as I hurdled toward the path of loveless reaction?

Love would pause, breathe. Love would look both ways before choosing which road to take. Love would offer a reminder that the road of reaction and judgement is barren of love. Having found myself on that dismal alternate route from time to time (indeed more frequently than I’d like), I know its barrenness, its discomfort, its treachery.

I know too that I can create new crossroads and choose different paths, paths of love. I can replace judgement with loving discernment. I can restore trust, knowing that cancelled appointments and unreturned calls are guideposts to change direction. I can remember that ‘everyone has their story … we are all different, we are all the same’. While trusting a positive outcome, I can relax into curiosity about what will be revealed as Zadie Byrd faces a health challenge.

Reflecting on these little blips stirs deeper questions from which new possibilities can emerge as I/we co-create our world: What if I/we practiced love and allowed life rather than resisting and insisting that life be ‘my/our’ way? What if I/we looked at every interaction, every relationship, indeed everything as an opportunity for love? How beautiful will our world be when we can truly be love and embrace love for ALL?

HEARTY Welcome!

ALL We Need IS Love

Snow! On the Labyrinth Bell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Years Snow on the Mountains

Easing into 2022 with Rest

A White Christmas Labyrinth!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That need not be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy New Year!

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

Making Choices Without Choosing Sides

Sunflower ‘Volunteer’

So, while I really appreciate your support, I'm asking you not to take sides. Charles Eisenstein

Yesterday’s email with its subject line ‘Peace: Important plea to readers’ marked the second time over three or four days in which individuals whose work and lives typically align with my values used the clear, direct language: “don’t take sides”.

The first, a recorded message mostly addressing earth changes and their impact, inspired me to think about the difference between making choices and choosing sides. Eisenstein’s email confirmed my hunch that the Wednesday muse would explore just that. The topic seems a logical (although logic is rarely my primary aim!) extension to last week’s muse that suggested:

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

As I suggested last week, more and more it seems that the world wants us to choose sides rather than simply making choices that are best for each of us based on what we know, what we have yet to know/learn, and what we sense. Sadly in the collective many have taken the bait.

Sharing a point of view that differs from others is seen by some as divisive rather than collaborative. Or, in Eisenstein’s case, when the point of view he expressed was attacked, many of his supporters took up the banner to defend, attacking the attackers. His email yesterday was an impassioned plea to his readers to “abstain from that pattern… Respectfully disagree with their views if you feel so moved, but don’t make it about the personalities.”

Eisenstein’s plea reminded me of a kinder, gentler time when then presidential candidate John McCain challenged a questioner at a town hall who labelled Barrack Obama an “Arab”. “No he isn’t …” McCain said urging his supporters to stop hurling abuse against his rival for president and saying that he admired and respected Obama. Such a move is a powerful choice. If a side is chosen by such an act, it is the side of love, of harmony, of peace, of something bigger than the campaign for president.

All this combined with a deep concern about the toll our divisions are taking on each of us individually, all of us collectively, and on our home, Gaia, Mother Earth stirred my pot of curiosity to wonder just how I might make choices without contributing to the divisiveness. Or worse, being a part of the source. That led me to begin exploring the distinction ‘choosing sides and making choices’.

Distinguishing choosing sides and making choices is, at least in part, a matter of perception and of intention.  What do I aim to accomplish when I choose sides? What is my intention when I make a particular choice? All too often in our ‘on demand’ culture, we leap over considering our motivation. We need to make our point or join the chorus of the herd (but not heard) and move on to the next thing.

Not only that, it’s also far easier to attack, for example, the fossil fuel industry and blame ‘it’ for environmental crises, than it is to look in the mirror of our own habits and consider our role and what we might change in our individual choices. It seems that for the mainstream media, it’s easier to blame the unvaccinated (or another country, or ….) for the pandemic rather than look at the bigger picture of nature/viruses/the planet and recognize the interconnectedness of ALL things and then to make choices aligned with creating health for all.

Blame is the game of the world of division. Responsibility and respect are the badges of honor in a world moving toward restoring unity and connection to our awareness.

May we take time and make the necessary effort that enables us to make responsible and respectful choices for ourselves, for one another, and for our planet home. May I. If a side must be chosen, let us choose the side of power with not power over.

Old Juniper Greets the Sun

Practicing The Way of Love

Champions for Love (PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Fitch Photography Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries)

Nonviolence is based on the assumption that human nature … unfailingly responds to the advances of love. … An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.  Mohandas Gandhi

Nonviolence is an absolute commitment to the way of love. Martin Luther King Jr.

Many threads and thought bubbles dangle in my awareness this morning as I sit with the muse: endings and beginnings when, in the reality of Universal law, all life is a continuum; how the planet is responding to our oh so human choices; my own oh so human choices; grieving destruction in the woods nearby; the power of language; transforming self and beyond with the practice of love.

Of all these, the transformative power of love and making love a sacred practice in life are the threads I want to weave this day as the 23rd Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence nears completion.

My heart is filled with gratitude for having discovered this annual ‘season’ beginning on January 30th (the anniversary of Gandhi’s death) and ending 64 days later, April 4 (this year, the 53rd anniversary of Dr. King’s death).  Sixty-four days each with a theme to consider and incorporate into creating a culture of peace, of love, of nonviolence.

Seven weeks ago at the outset of the ‘season’ I suggested making life a sacred journey of nonviolence. Today I invite us to make life a sacred journey of love, of peace, of truly transforming ourselves and our culture with the power of love.

Each of the 54 themes bringing us to the final 10 days offers a clue, a path, an idea to weave into daily life. The final 10 themes do the same: responsibility, self-sufficiency, service, citizenship, intervention, witnessing, release, peace, commitment, celebration.  

Of all the daily themes, love and peace are two that come forth as overarching elements. Without love, responsibility can become blame (others) or burden (self). Without love, service, intervention, witnessing can be acts of butting in.  Without love, citizenship can become battle for who is right; release, an act of insincerity; and self-sufficiency, a path to greed and fear of not having enough. Without love, peace is ever elusive.

Love is the power, the transformative energy that both Gandhi and King called forth in their words and their actions. While the idea is simple, using love’s transformative power is not always the easy choice.

As I was reminded while listening to Josh Reeves, Lead Minister at Mile Hi Church in Lakewood, Colorado, in a beautiful talk this weekend: love is a practice that requires practice.

In his talk, Love Like That: Love That Reveals, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5sl5HeeSg0&t=70s] Reeves shares his personal mantra for practicing love to transform what life brings your way: 

I experience fear, but I practice love.

I experience anger, but I practice love.

I experience hurt, but I practice love.

Life offers events and experiences that give us opportunities to pivot, to choose differently. As I reflected on experiences that can bring me to thoughts, words, even actions I’d prefer to shift, I added some pivot points of my own:

I experience irritation, but I practice love.

I experience those whose views I loathe, but I practice love.

As I look beyond this Season for Nonviolence, I celebrate these seven weeks and 64 themes of reflection and focus toward creating a world where love is understood and practiced in its purest form. I make a commitment to myself to deepen my understanding and to add new pivot points to peace into my practice.

Mother Earth Speaks. Are We Listening?

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!

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

Adios 2020!

Even Cottonwood Creek is smiling as the promise of a new year edges closer.

As I begin to update what has become my annual ‘Auld Lang Syne’ final post of the year, the online countdown clock indicated that it’s 1 day, 10 hours, 14 minutes, 37 seconds until the new year is rung in here in the Colorado Rockies. But, hey, who’s counting?

Almost everyone is waiting with bated breath to bid adieu to the tumultuous year 2020 will be remembered for around the globe. We want to turn the page. We long to dive deeply into the fresh start that began with the Solstice promise of our personal newness and culminates as we replace our 2020 calendars with new pages of promise and possibility that the coming year has the potential to bring forth.

It is, as always, up to us – individually and collectively – to bring potential to fruition. As sure as the light is returning day by day, we will have opportunities to do just that in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

While the first year of this second decade of the 21st century held much tragedy and darkness, it also shined lights of love and in dark corners needing our attention and care.  May we each be a part of shining the light of love in all the days ahead.

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

 “Give up the last year. Get rid of all those things of the mundane world. Make room for the awareness of a whole new spiritual understanding that will carry you throughout the next year.” Gregge Tiffen (The Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself, December 2007)

“… and when you have the willingness to accept who you are, you become aware of an internal flame that burns with a fire that is unquenchable. It’s your acceptance that dispels fears and inadequacies.”  Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: Sacred Passageways, December 2011)

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

As 2020 ends, many will breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally over along with a breath of hope for better days in the year ahead.  The world we live in is chaotic and uncertain. It is. Those who put attention on the world forgetting that it is the world we live IN, NOT the world we are OF may look ahead with dread.

That need not be. Within each of us is a seed of understanding who we truly are. Nurturing that seed grows our faith in our capacity to be resilient in the face of the world’s chaos.

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

As you ring in 2021,  I invite you to join me in nourishing your seed of faith in each of the 365  days ahead and to remember how important your presence is at this moment on the planet.

Perhaps this prayer, one of my favorites of Gregge Tiffen’s writing, will support you to deepen your faith in you and in understanding just how important you are in the Universal scheme of things. 

Let me never forget how important I am to the Universal Picture. Without me there would be a blank space where there should be color.

 Let me understand that the challenges of life are just that and not battles. I am not out there to win or to loose, only to develop my skills as an on-going student in an omnipotent school.

Let me understand that the difference between people is one of the wondrous realities of an infinite Universe. Giving those differences space to be is far more important than comparing them to my set of beliefs.

Let me be proud of what I do. To whatever my hand touches, let me remind myself that it was my effort that added to the result. Perfection is not my goal. Creativity is.

 Let me remind myself that most of what I take seriously about myself also qualifies for a good laugh. Let me remember to be kind to myself. Loving companions are one of life’s treats, but they are not responsible for my care. Self-kindness can heal almost any hurt.

 Let me take responsibility as a gift and not a burden. Within that effort is the grandest sense of accomplishment I could achieve.

 Let me be patient with life. Nature does not produce the flower before the roots have taken hold. If I recognize that the place I am in is the right place at the right time, it will always be the right place at the right time. Gregge Tiffen (The Significance of Beginning, January 2007)

A Colorado Blue Sky Day with Snowy Peaks - How Winter is meant to be!