Weaving Wholeness into Life

There may be bumps and shadows in the road ahead …

… we seed the New Year with a global field of intention and healing, honoring our collective calling to wholeness. Each day we journey through primordial portals of remembrance, guiding our dreaming and becoming. (7 Days of Rest & Reweaving Wholeness - click here from info)

 As the clock ticks away the final 4 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 19 seconds of 2023 I find myself looking more forward than back. What will I weave into the fabric of this new cycle?

 I think of the elements in my Solstice prayer.

 – Oneness, discernment, compassion, deep listening, maturity, child-like wonder, peace – with curiosity and commitment to weave each into how I want through life in this cycle.

 As was the case at the end of 2022, many – perhaps most – await the turning of the clock to 2024 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 2023 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. What will we weave into life this year? How will we bring the diverse threads of the intrinsic nature and indispensable quality of ourselves fully into Life? How might our world be if we enter the new with that as our intention?

 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?

 Although like 2022, this year held much tragedy and darkness, lights of love continued to shine in dark corners needing our attention and care.  May lights of love shine brightly on our weaving 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 and weave wholeness into the fabric of our lives – individually and collectively.

 While 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 season that began a mere seven days ago has a 12-week run before giving way to Spring. Yet our cultural habit is to greet the new year with our plans and to spring into action with goals and commitments to DO more as soon as the new year dawns.

 What if we took more time for rest and renewal as Nature does in the season of cold? What if we put our attention on nurturing our deep, true essence? What if we followed Nature’s lead, snuggling into ourselves 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? Mother Nature? Our Nature?

 In some way, I feel as if the new has already begun, with my curiosity and reflections focused forward not back to what is done. As I reflect on saying ‘Goodbye’ to the time gone by, my year end reflections include bundles of gratitude for what I’ve learned and discovered, how I’ve grown and changed. I experience these as subtle and internal shifts that have generated more smiles, more friendliness, more contentment and joy.

 What do you bring to your year-end reflections?

 As 2023 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. 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. In this year ahead, may we each tap into our essence, our spiritual strength and weave it into the fabric of life.

 As you ring in 2024, I invite you to remember how important your presence and your ray of light is at this moment on the planet and to nourish your capacity to weave in each of the 365 days ahead by joining the global, online gathering 7 Days of Rest and Reweaving Wholeness, January 1-7.

 As they did at year end 2021 and 2022, the event’s introductory words draw 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, January 1-7, is an annual, open co-creative event dedicated to the healing and replenishment of the planet and all its inhabitants. All are invited to enjoy the rich array of offerings, including wisdom teachings, meditations, music, inspirations and more, that are generously offered by the global community. … we seed the New Year with a global field of intention and healing, honoring our collective calling to wholeness. Each day we journey through primordial portals of remembrance, guiding our dreaming and becoming. As we commune with these essences of Life, we remember our ancestral roots, our original untamed nature, and the ancient knowing of ourselves as infinitely diverse expressions of One Source. Together, we reweave our unique threads of light in integrity and harmony with the fabric of our living universe.

 The website is chock full of nourishing offerings each day. I’m looking forward to deep exploration of each of the daily themes. I hope that you’ll join me in whatever way best fits your essence, your schedule, your life, and your intentions for the year ahead.

 To Weaving Wholeness and Happiness in the New Year! 

Beauty Ahead!

Breaking Habits and Patterns

Blanca Peak in the Sangre de Cristo range

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

Rising early this morning I built a fire in the woodstove to break the morning chill. Settling in to my habitual weather check before beginning to write, I discovered the internet down – no local weather, no email, no access to Zoom. Hmmmm… Perfect conditions for experimenting with adjustments to the morning and daily routines, especially since I want to feed Zadie Byrd earlier in the day to increase the time between her meals.

‘Zades’ looks confused as I begin preparing her breakfast before our morning walk and at a time I’m usually quietly journalling by the fire. When breakfast is served this four-legged lover of most all things ‘food’ needs a bit of coaxing to eat.  It feels strange to me as well, but as I go about the tasks of preparation the adjustment feels just right. I notice the easy flow and I begin to think about the weekly post: What wants to be shared today?

I remember an email newsletter that I’d thought about quoting and expanding on its theme, something like ‘sometimes the answer is not finding the answer’. The essence is that there are times when we need to stop, give ourselves time to reflect before we can know how to respond – themes that run through many posts and, indeed, my life (apologies to the great folks at Regenerate Change if I obliterated your focus).

I suspect that the reason the article grabbed my attention is that it reflects my longing for the deep peace and quiet of cold, snowy winter days when the hours of daylight pass quickly and the nights are long and dark.

Perhaps that sort of longing is what inspires people to decorate early for the holidays … but that (declares Muse) is a path not to tread this day.

l sense that my current longing for winter stems from the depth of intensity I feel in all of life, different from intense times in my past. I’m certain that my observations of global and national events is also a factor.

I see the intensity reflected in turmoil, rancor, and violence around the globe. I see it in Earth changes and in the planet speaking her language: earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanic eruptions, along with the beauty of new growth, vibrant health of some ecosystems, and the cycles of birth and death in all species.

This time calls for us to become more humane toward one another so that we move beyond the paradigm of separation to embrace one another and ALL life as our kin. We are called to BE and to live authentically in alignment with how life truly is.

This time asks us to break habits and patterns – from the feeding and care of ourselves and our beloved animal companions to the trigger-happy, warmongering reactions that have become all too frequent.

It requires that we break patterns of abuse – self-abuse and abuse of others in our thoughts, our words, our deeds – and that we live knowing that every human and every living thing has worth, has value, has purpose even in the darkest of times and conditions. Even, perhaps especially, when we ourselves feel unworthy or undeserving.

It requires crystal clear clarity to help us see beyond our old stories and into the creation of new stories that reflect the truth of who we are.

It invites us to BE and embody who we truly are – not who or what we (or the world’s old stories) dictate that we should be – and to embrace that we are each living in this turbulent time at what is the perfect, divine time for our soul’s development on its unique, infinite trajectory.

Humanity is calling, the Earth is calling, the cosmos is calling. How will we answer the call?

Nature’s Beauty in the Woods Out Back

Vulnerability - Are We Willing?

Nature’s Art on the Trail

When you become vulnerable, any ideal of perfect image you may have had of yourself falls away. Many people are addicted to perfection and in their pursuit of the ideal they have no patience with vulnerability. They close off anything that might leave them open to the risk of hurt. … With the revelation of corruption in so many political and religious domains, our perception of ideals has become tinged with cynicism. Yet no society can endure without the sense of honour, dignity and transcendence enshrined in its set of ideals. John O’Donohue

Writing in my journal several days ago I found my thoughts wander to the current array of political theatrics in the United States. ‘How do they get away it?’ I wondered, ‘they’ not being limited to a single political party or group, rather many elected officials and those who serve them. The ways of politics have become habitual rather than thoughtful, and we have become accustomed to ignoring them or watching as if they are entertainment. Disengaged. Enraged.

The journal stream ended with these words: Beyond blaming the other, we must face ourselves.

Reading O’Donohue’s words early this morning by the fire, the stream came back. It continued: And to face ourselves requires that we become vulnerable.

The absence of our openness to vulnerability breeds fundamentalism, self-righteousness, blame, and hard-heartedness. We fight and die to stave off the threat of being vulnerable.

Opening to vulnerability nurtures an open heart, compassion, curiosity, understanding, forgiveness, and creativity. Vulnerability is a pathway to peace.

What does vulnerability ask of us? What doors might more willingness to become vulnerable open for us, individually and collectively?

I’m reminded of an essay Charles Eisenstein posted earlier this week (click here to read) sharing the story of Raquel who dared to take a peaceful stand around a contentious, divisive issue and the stages she traveled to arrive at that place. I invite you to read it with an open heart and open mind, for surely like me, you find yourself on one side or the other of the issue she faced.

What if our political leaders could exhibit Raquel’s level of maturity, thoughtfulness, willingness to be vulnerable as they address issues of war? How can we create and hold this space, this possibility for them to step into? Are willing to step into this space ourselves? Are we willing to invite them?

O’Donohue’s words opened me to possibility. They point to the tricky, challenging path that making peace requires. Moving beyond blame to face ourselves and our shortcomings (past and present), forgiving ourselves and others. All for the sake of peace.

Simply asking the questions helped me shift from the anger, sadness, and disbelief at the continued war-mongering choices of my country’s leadership that I woke with this day. No matter what the question, war is not the answer. Love is.  Am I willing to step into the vulnerability of that? Are we?      

The Ziggurat on a Hazy Morning

From Insisting to Inviting

Full, Super, Blue Moonset

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. Rumi

The morning after last week’s full, super, blue moon dawned beautifully. Clear sky; still, crisp air. Moon hanging in the western sky on its way to meet the horizon. I headed out for a long, solo walk before Zadie Byrd woke.

Returning home, she was awake, curious as to the whereabouts of her human, and ready to go out for ‘her’ morning walk. I was ready for canine company and wanted to watch Moon meet the western horizon. With Zadie harnessed up we headed down the road in that direction at her slow, morning- sniffing pace. A short distance down the road, sniffing needs satisfied and morning ‘business’ complete, she stopped, stiffened her body and looked at me with her ‘I’m done. Let’s go home’ eyes.

Not knowing whether she’s in pain or perhaps sensing danger ahead, when this occurs I generally follow Zadie’s lead. Sometimes though I insist, sternly saying ‘we’re going this way’ or gently pulling her leash, cajoling with treats and a silly running game to test her movement and energy.

This day, catching myself before I began to insist, I paused. I looked at the moon and took a deep breath. What would forcing accomplish given the peace I felt from walking under this stunning moon? Was I willing to pay the price of the deep peace I was feeling to have my way?

No.

I engaged in a different approach. Dropping the leash, I continued walking several steps and invited ‘Zades’ to ‘come’ join me.

At first, she seemed a bit perplexed being beyond the length of the leash from me. Then she came looking somewhat curious. ‘What is my human up to now?’ she was perhaps wondering. As she caught on, supported by tasty rewards and lots of praise, we sauntered to the end of our road, overlooking the vast valley and San Juan mountains and I watched as the horizon at long last greeted the moon, Zadie Byrd happily sniffing nearby. We were both satisfied, and it was time to return home.

Reflecting on the experience later, I was present to the open heartedness of a genuine invitation and how my heart tightens when I insist.

Insisting holds little, if any, difference than demanding and forcing, acts that have no regard for another. They leave no room for choice, and when I engage in that way, leave me feeling heavy and glum. Insisting is an act of mind, not heart; of ego, not spirit; of force, not power.

Inviting, engaging another being in the process and offering choice, is an act of the heart. It reflects an inner power that has no need to force others. Inviting is an act of spirit.

Once again, canine companion Zadie Byrd carries the mantle of wise teacher, offering up opportunities for me to pause, to pivot, to learn, to grow. Inviting me to the field where she lives.

Zadie Byrd’s Off Leash Experience Continues

#520! - A Milestone

The sun sets on a decade of blog posts — The Zone and The Pivot …

Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome to The Success Zone, an eclectic place for your personal success!  I’m glad you’re here where each week…

With Emerson’s quote and my words of welcome this blog journey began 520 weeks ago, August 15, 2013. A decade of blog posts! A bit of celebration and reflection seems apropos for this milestone.

Little did I know that I would maintain the practice for a decade, keeping a weekly commitment to my, as a friend says, “date with creation”. A time each week to listen not to the mainstream but rather to the mainstays of Life: Nature, Spirit, My Heart. A time to ask, ‘what wants to be shared this day?’

 A decade, 520 weeks, of The Zone and our pivot to The Pivot in 2020 because as I said then, ‘a new story requires us to change’. Life has been a ride these 10 years for each of us!

Looking back, I’m grateful for rarely needing to push myself. Most weeks I’m excited to discover where the journey will lead. Some weeks I have a rough idea of the focus either because of an event in my life that I’m musing about, or something that has grabbed my attention seems worthy of sharing.

Days when I’m empty, clueless about the focus, yield surprises as I’m guided to open just the right book or Muse taps me on the shoulder, gently suggesting ‘This!’. Posts that come slowly or require more effort put me face to face with uncertainty and doubt. It’s often those posts that garner the most responses from you, dear readers, suggesting that we are often grappling with similar challenges each uniquely designed to our life path. I am grateful to each of you for allowing me to pop into your life each week and for reading and sharing your thoughts!

I feel a deep sense of gratitude for and satisfaction with reaching this milestone, although it was never a goal. Early on my purpose was to share ideas and strategies for personal success and to support building my coaching business. I enrolled in courses promising to teach me how to write the ‘great blog’ and to ‘grow my list’. Rarely, if ever, did the content or ideas resonate with me. ‘Emerson didn’t need a marketing expert to share his wisdom,’ I would sometimes grumble.

 Spirit seemed to have another purpose. The goal, if any, became to simply show up with curiosity and care, listen, write, and share. That intention holds today.

We’ve all been through a lot since August, 2013. I’ll spare you the history and share just a few highlights in my life.

Just as I began to prepare to launch The Zone, my computer crashed, and my landlord informed me that he was going to sell the house I’d been happily renting for several years. Somehow those potential setbacks didn’t delay the launch. And I kept my weekly date through some tumultuous time on the local water board, buying a home, and operating a bed and breakfast along with my coaching practice.

Shortly after posting #311 on August 1, 2019, Cool Hand Luke let me know that it was his time to cross the rainbow bridge. Post #335 was done on Zadie Byrd’s first full day here in her new, ‘furever’ home. Covid came on the scene a month or so later, and The Zone became The Pivot with issue #349. As I was completing post #360 on July 8, 2020, I received the call that my dear cousin had attempted suicide and was, at that time, ‘unresponsive’. After a three-day journey across five states during ‘lockdown’, Zadie Byrd’s first road trip, posts for the next six weeks were written in Washington state where I was handling her estate.

 I share these events not to brag, but rather to deepen my own understanding and acceptance of the satisfaction that grows from consistency and commitment. And from the willingness to follow my path, my heart. I’m a bit awestruck by its depth. And I’m most grateful!

Each of us has been committed to something (multiple somethings for most!). We are committed to something today. Let’s each be sure that our commitments are to that which is life generating, life enhancing. To mainstays, not the mainstream.  To coherence and peace, not tumult and chaos. To courage and love, not fear. To the truth of our Oneness, not the divisiveness of separation.

This felt sense of satisfaction does not mean that my weekly commitment is complete. The weekly journey continues with a renewed commitment to speak from my heart as I question the status quo, travel my own journey to life more fully aligned with Mother Earth, and live in the wonder that is this life in crazy, tumultuous times of uncertainty and change.

For how long, I cannot say. I’m clear that I will know when ‘I’m done.’ For now, eclectic musing, sometimes contradictory, will continue. The words will by MY words, not words from someone’s artificial intelligence program. And that’s a story for another day…

Although the sun is setting on a decade of posts, this morning’s encounter with bunny in the grass, points to fertile ground for future explorations.

Today’s morning encounter with bunny suggests fertile ground for future explorations. Onward!

Reverence Unbound Informs and Inspires

Blanca Peak and the Great Sand Dunes provide background for Orisons Flying Rain Sandhill Crane sculptures.

I wanted to collaborate with all the living beings who were living there or passing through. The land is the artwork, and I wanted to celebrate it and every being on it, as well as reconnect it and all its inhabitants with their presents, pasts, and futures. Marguerite Humeau, Artist, Orisons (www.orisons.art)

Imagine for a moment (or linger longer) the possibilities that would emerge if each of us took such a reverential approach to co-creating our life experiences. How might we be informed and even inspired if we held each of our multiple environs reverently and collaborated with them? Our homes and the lands they occupy. Our places of work, of worship, of play. What if we celebrated all that is, all that has been, and all that is to be?

In the wake of attending the opening of the vast earthworks installation, Orisons, and hearing the artist and curator speak about their three-year collaboration to opening day, such questions have risen in me from a deeper place than I’ve experienced before. The questions feel both informed and inspired by the artist, Marguerite Humeau, and her deep reverence for the land – its present, its past, its future. I witnessed that reverence in the care and thoughtfulness of the 160-acre installation itself and in Humeau’s presentation to the opening day audience along with curator, Cortney Stell.

Humeau is a French artist who lives and has her studio in London. Her understanding of and reverence for land 4,700 miles from home is inspiring. Cortney Stell, Executive Director of the Denver-based Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum which commissioned the work, curated the installation.

My own reverence for the land, for the vast San Luis Valley, for Gaia and her beings continues to be fed by my Orisons experience, by possibilities rising, by questions that continue to emerge, by the very nature of reverence itself. Reverence, Muse gently reminds me, kindles curiosity.

There is a quieting, slowing that I experience when reverence rises. Noise and speed do not blend well with reverence. I wonder about the nature of reverence itself. I so want to say ‘herself’ as reverence feels very soft, feminine, much like Humeau and the strategically placed Orisons sculptures. This is in contrast to the outward, ruggedness of the land which the sculptures occupy.

Sandhill Crane Songs - One of 84 Orisons sculptures

I wonder how reverence can help us navigate life in this chaotic time when so much seems out of balance, out of sync with the wholeness that is life. What can I learn from visiting and contemplating this art? Might cultivating reverence inform us of how to live in greater alignment with one another and with our planetary home? How might reverence call forth the wholeness that is life?

What if we asked, as artist Humeau does, “How would it feel for us as humans to truly merge into the biosphere?” I taste, I sense a morsel of the answer when I saunter in the woods out back. I felt the possibility as I navigated prairie dog and kangaroo mouse burrows in the Orisons landscape on opening day. The land and its beings – present, past, future – have much to share. Will I learn to listen deeply enough to hear?

All too often we reserve reverence for that and those with whom we agree, those we love, things important to us – hardly reverence for ALL life. But what if we cultivated our capacity to feel reverence as deeply for the land we occupy, for Gaia herself, for ALL beings, ALL life as I experienced that Marguerite Humeau expresses in Orisons?

Indeed, what if …?

Horseweed Pendulum

Pivot to Compassion

Grandmother Tree in the Woods Out Back

The greatest evil and destruction arises when people are unable to feel compassion. The beauty of compassion continues to shelter and save our world. John O’Donohue

The heart is the mother and father and origin of all creatures: the one who knows the heart from the skin is blessed. Rumi

This morning as I moved toward settling in with Muse to reflect and write, I feel drawn to Beauty, a favorite John O’Donohue book of essays, and as I move to find where I left this frequent companion last, I think of Rumi. A few more steps bring me to both, stacked together, just the two of them. Settling in I wonder ‘who will have the words of wisdom to guide the unfolding this day?’ ‘What wants to be shared?’

After writing a bit more, I opened O’Donohue. Then Rumi. I opened to pages where the words went straight to this heart, stirring a recent exploration into compassion that led me to recognize places where I could replace animosity or a quick harsh judgement with compassion or its companions – kindness, grace, tenderness – along with a sprinkle or two of curiosity.

When I’m fully present, conscious, aware and take time to drop into my heart, compassion or its kin are most always my choice, even in those events where a boundary needs to be drawn or a misunderstanding needs attention. Heck, even when I think I’ve been wronged by another. I aim for the heart to rule.

Alas, I don’t always make that mark. When I’m moving too quickly through a multitude of choices, decisions, projects, concerns, the mind grabs the steering wheel of the bus of life until I come to my senses, the deeper knowing of my heart.

Life offers opportunities moment to moment to choose who is driving. Will mind take over? Will heart prevail? Will I be compassionate about and toward the contractor who is incommunicado weeks after a project was to start? Mind wants the project done. Now! Heart says, ‘what if you trusted the timing to be perfect?’. While mind blames and abuses, heart wonders if he and his family are okay? Has something happened that I’m not aware of?

What if I met every situation where I feel disappointed in this same way? How might I more fully embody the belief I wrote about a few weeks back: Everything is connected to everything else. Everything operates on behalf of everything else … (find it here)

For it is the small things, our moment-to-moment choices that loom large in how we experience our world, our personal satisfaction or lack thereof. And it’s those same things that are our contributions – for better or worse – to the future we are creating by those very choices.

Let’s choose love!

Art of the Inner Tree

Pivot to Gentle, Curious, Adventurous Perception

The Flow in Nature Reflects the Flow of Life

The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life. In a vital sense, perception is reality. … There is such an intimate connection between the way we look at things and what we actually discover. If you can learn to look at your self and your life in a gentle, creative and adventurous way, you will be eternally surprised at what you find. John O’Donohue (Thoughts Are Our Inner Senses in Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World)

Life has a way of presenting us with opportunities when we are open to receiving. I aim each day to live in that openness and curiosity. Waking this morning with fresh awareness of two seemingly unrelated dream fragments, I wondered how they might relate to each other and what messages the dreams offered.

On top of them, Mind recalled a choice that I’d taken with me to sleep: which of two events scheduled at the same time should I attend? Then Mind leapt to analyzing, comparing the two, apparently seeking a rational decision to put the question to rest now even though the events are a few days away.

Feeling tense and pressured (self-imposed to be sure), I paused. That wasn’t how I wanted to make the choice. In the pause, a gentle suggestion rose, “Ask for guidance.” Ahh … I relaxed, pivoting to a more curious, gentle perception of the question. Hmm … What is my intention for joining either event? What guidance am I seeking?

Muse reminded me that ‘back to basics’ is always a good place to start. As I sat quietly, clarity began to emerge. I began to wonder, “What is in my highest good and the highest good of all? Which event will best serve my growth and provide opportunities for expressing my values, for building community, and for more closely aligning my life with Gaia?”

The questions as context further eased my angst and the self-imposed pressure to decide now. They give me clarity for the guidance I’m seeking and opened me to receive that guidance. They offered a gentle path to making the choice and offered an opportunity to be creative in doing so.

I realized that I could let go of ‘missing out’ on something and open to the gifts I’m sure to receive whichever event I choose to attend. That’s the beauty of our thoughts; of allowing them to emerge, to develop, to shift; and to being gentle with self and all that creation presents.

The process unfolded in a short time, but the reminder of the importance of thoughts, awareness, and perspective will stay with me far beyond the making of this choice. May I be continually surprised by where my thoughts lead and the adventures they offer up.

Morning Clouds

Breaking Out of Habits

Dawn in the Sacred Sangres

The mystery and magic of being an individual is to live life in response to the deep call within, the call to become who we were dreamed to be. … Freedom … is the poise of soul at one with a life which honours and engages its creative possibility. John O’Donohue (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)

Sitting out on the deck as the day began to dawn and walking before the sun rose over the sacred peaks of the Sangres, I broke free of the habitual winter routine this day. It’s transition time here. Pots of geraniums that spent their winter indoors called to move to their summer homes outdoors. Flannel sheets and blankets give way to cooler crisp organic cotton.

I feel deeply the creative possibility in small things: hands in the dirt, listening to birdsong call the day into being, care of Zadie Byrd, care of self, care of and reverence for this place. Listening for and imagining new stories for how life – mine and ours – can unfold. Allowing life to define itself and its facets rather than fitting life into an old story heard throughout my life as the way things are and the way things should be.

John O’Donohue’s words remind me of the beauty of being in the question, the mystery. Listening for  calls from within. Noticing what has my attention, what resonates, what doesn’t. Breaking habits of knowing and needing to know to allow wonder about how the mystery will unfold. Breaking habits of judgement to allow curiosity to discover a possibility for reverence and care.

After a long day with my hands in the dirt, I settled in last evening for a second listening to a recent Charles Eisenstein talk, Staying Sane in the Next Five Years [click here to watch]. I appreciate his thinking, his way of being, his kindred contrarian spirit, especially in this time when, for me, old stories are giving way, dissolving. New stories are on the rise.

The old stories based on half-truths and lies have become so dissonate in me/for me that I can barely follow them. Eisenstein calls this a time between stories. What we need in times of such transition is rest, care, attention to the call within, to what wants to rise, to mystery. We need time to grieve what seems lost so that we can hear clearly what wants to rise and what our part in that rising is. We need to break habits that tie us to the old. We need to let go. We need to call on grace.

And when we do, what new stories can rise? I envision new stories based on ancient truths of who we are, who we BE as humans in the web of life on this precious planet, a mere dot in the vast cosmos. Stories weaving new threads in existing webs of natural connection. Stories that hold reverence for ALL life. Stories that receive life. Stories that give.

Such stories are by no means a given. Old stories of control over and separation are trying to maintain our attention and will cleverly continue to endeavor to hold us in their grasp. A new coat of paint on an old story is not a new story, despite its fresh look.

So, this time between stories offers choices to each of us, individually and collectively. What habits must be laid to rest so that authentic new stories, new ways will rise? What stories will rise in us? What timelines will we follow? The answer my friends is in embracing the mystery of life unfolding! Are you in?

Dawn Over the San Luis Valley

Upping Our Vibes: Grounding in Higher Consciousness

Daily Reminder Above My Desk

The level of consciousness is the most crucial aspect in health. I’d wager it will improve relationships, improve our self-esteem, lift us up to really live, all without drugs. Our level of consciousness is that part of us that is unsullied. It is waterproof, fireproof, age proof, bulletproof. If the mystics say that our primary purpose in life is growing in consciousness, then the intention broadcast marks very significant progress in science and medicine. It is revolutionary. As conscious humans, we have a responsibility. We cannot remain Homo dubitat for much longer. We must act and overthrow the programming of our cellphones, unplug from the TV. We are being called to become alert, awake, in charge. Nisha J. Manek, MD (Bridging Science and Spirit)

Early this morning as I settled in to focus on today’s post, I was clear – or so I thought – on our direction. Then I read something that offered a mindful detour to which Muse didn’t seem to disagree. Amid the detour, life called for my attention. It was time for morning walks and breakfast. Then a series of distractions rendered Muse incapable of settling me down until late morning.

With life’s details handled and the detour set aside, my original direction returned, clearer than before: our intentions and the level of consciousness from which they rise are key to powerfully navigating the events of life.

My clarity rises from a recent experience during a consultation with a specialist veterinarian when she made a strong declaration that momentarily took me aback. She was, she said, 100% certain that because of ‘x’, ‘y’ would follow. In other words, ‘Y’ was the only possible outcome.

After a moment, I realized that her certainty was not aligned with my understanding of how life works. I asked her to pause, and I challenged her perspective. “What about intention? What about miracles? Where in your certainty is the space for that?” I probed calmly.

The vet paused for a moment before a thoughtful response. “You’re right,” she said acknowledging that while ‘y’ seems to be the most likely outcome given ‘x’, it is not a certainty. Our consultation continued from her new perspective, a shift from certainty to possibility.

The moment was powerful for me, standing in my truth as I was seeking advice and making decisions based on advice from trusted professionals. I stood in my power and in the truth of what I understand about intention and consciousness.

I did so not from a stance of fear, denial, or defensiveness, but rather from a place of strong conviction, of heart-centered, coherent love, care, and understanding. From MY truth.

I deeply believe in the power of our beliefs and our consciousness to affect the trajectory of most anything. Countless research by Lynn McTaggart, Bruce Lipton, and others bears this out as does the research of Dr. David R. Hawkins (Power vs. Force). Nisha Manek deepens my understanding further in her outstanding study of Dr. William Tiller’s work, Bridging Science and Spirit.

Key it seems is the level of consciousness or frequency from which we are operating. Is my conviction and my action grounded in love, in reason, in gratitude, trust, and/or reverence for all life? That is the consciousness from which so-called miracles rise.

Or am I operating from anger, fear, grief, hopelessness? That is where miracles are stymied, and the world’s predictions of doom and gloom can manifest.

In a sense the choice is for life and all that generates life or for death. The paths of life and life generating are not always easy or clear. Sometimes choices for life seem to counter the mainstream and the experts as my experience reminded me. Choices for life may even be unpopular in some circles, though this truth may be hidden. But as we ‘up our vibes’ to higher frequencies our choices become clearer and easier with practice. Choice by choice. Step by step. Day by day.

‘The Thinker’ - a Favorite Tree Stump in the Woods Out Back