Treasuring Contradiction and Paradox

Springtime Snow - A Contradiction???

We need to rediscover contradiction as a creative force within the soul. … …to have greater patience with our sense of inner contradiction in order to allow its different dimensions to come into conversation within us. There is a secret light and vital energy in contradiction. John O’Donohue (Contradictions as treasures in Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World)

What do you notice about contradiction and paradox? Contradictions in the world? Contradictions between you and that world? Contradictions within? Do you/how do you value these contradictions? Could they be gifts, although perhaps in disguise?

Snow has fallen several times since the calendar announced the arrival of Spring. I wonder if ‘Springtime snow’ is a contradiction and what it may be telling us.

A somewhat startling contradiction in the world caught my attention this week: a letter signed by over 1000 folks involved in the development of artificial intelligence demanding a pause in AI development to identify and address AI’s risks to humanity. At the same time and in seeming contradiction to their demand, signers and companies with which they are associated apparently continue their profit-driven, competitive push to develop AI technology (at least I’ve seen no announcements or stories reporting such a pause).

I’ve long been curious about paradox, and I’ve probably mentioned being dubbed with the nickname ‘pet paradox’ by friends in college. Back then I’m sure I engaged in paradoxical behavior, though only a few witnesses remain who could verify. It was also during this time that I recall declaring that ‘living with and navigating paradox’ would be an increasingly important skill in living with the increasing complexities of life in the future.

Believing that to be quite true today, I was immediately drawn in as I began reading O’Donohue’s essay. His words resonate deep inside in a way that they couldn’t have back in my college days (heck, he didn’t even write them until 30 years ago, two plus decades after my college years). Today I sense that he is pointing to a skill that we need to rekindle in these days of contradiction, controversy, complexity.

For surely as we are more willing and better able to allow and nurture contradictions within, our capacity to be more coherent, more aligned with our values will expand and the skill that we bring to listening, to considering, and to collaboration with others will deepen.

Indeed, as we nurture contradiction, allowing in with care and acknowledgement negative and/or opposing ideas, thoughts, experiences, memories, our choices and our values are likely to become clearer.

In my own life I grapple with contradictions that rise between my desire for comfort and ease and my deep care for Mother Earth and her well-being; for my culturally supported need for financial security as the world defines it and that same care for the Earth and for my fellow human beings.

Such grappling challenges me to examine my beliefs about the nature of life, of Universal law, the true source of security, and such. Gradually, step-by-step, my understanding grows, and I pivot, discovering pathways that honor care and hold the potential, dare I say the probability, of the comfort, ease, security that I desire. In some strange way, my willingness to grapple in the muck of contradiction, leads me to plateaus of peace.

Muse says that about now you may be asking ‘what the heck does this have to do with AI and pausing AI development?’. Or with any other seemingly unstoppable train that truly needs to be examined (I’m sure we can all name a few!)?

Most always, pivots require a pause. Even the sun pauses for a few days as it makes its Solstice pivots. In our pauses, individually and collectively, rests the time, the energy, direction, and the possibility for inviting contradictions to rise and be acknowledged. In the pause is the opportunity to see contradictions with greater light, clarity, and wholeness. And, perhaps, to look beyond the drivers of competition, winning, and profit. In the pause is the opportunity to treasure contradictions and then to choose differently.

Morning View Through the Trees

From Conflict Arises Beauty: Everything is Music

Sunflowers, Sun, Trees, Sky - Beauty Abounds in the Woods Out Back

The mystery of music is its uncanny ability to coax harmony out of contradiction and chaos. Often the beauty of great music is a beauty born from the rasp of chaos. The confidence of creativity knows that deep conflict often yields the most interesting harmony and order. John O’Donohue (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)

We have fallen into the place where everything is music. Rumi

As I read O’Donohue’s essay on music one recent morning I felt a gentle nudge, a Muse reminder of the beauty in life that can arise from conflict. O’Donohue’s words typically carry me and open possibilities far beyond his topic. No exception to that found in these words.

I thought of conflicts past when I was less conscious than (hopefully) I am today and felt gratitude for the beauty in my life that has risen like a phoenix from ashes of the past or any other such mythical tale. I see threads of beauty throughout the journey in the choices, effort, angst, allowing, letting go, holding on. You know, life.

I reflect that although I didn’t consciously set out to create this sacred sanctuary in the woods of the Rocky Mountains, step by step the Dragonfly House emerged from a conflict that has roots in the events of September 11, 2001. Five years passed before I moved to Colorado and another seven before I landed in this spot. Twenty plus years (perhaps I’m more patient than I thought) and still evolving at its pace through ‘chaos and contradiction’, confusion, uncertainty, even fear. Fueled along the way by Nature, beauty, care, love, joy, friends, beloved canines, to name a few.

This perspective offers me context for a current conflict that has me engaged and curious (after going through a brief stage of rage and furious). Navigating what has become a challenging working relationship, I’m in the question of how to participate in a way that creates beauty. Beauty in the collaborative relationship as well as in the fruits of that labor. What music wants to rise from what is currently ‘raspy chaos’? How do I conduct myself to bring beauty into both?

Beyond the human defined bounds of the dot on the planet that I’m blessed to occupy, what beauty wants to rise in humanity? In Nature? What if we would hold greater intention to create music and beauty in all of life? What pivots and new scaffolding would call such beautiful music forward in us, for us and for Mother Earth?

Muse smiles at my leap from me to we, acknowledging my care for our world while gently guiding me back to the choices before me to make and the actions I need to take right here in this micro-climate that is home. In them is my power to create beauty here that extends to the world beyond. Music indeed.

Writing complete as day began to dawn, I closed my journal and looked out into the woods, discovering a large black bear ambling through the landscape 50 feet or so from the house. When it ambled out of sight, curiosity led me to read up on the spiritual meaning of bear: Awakening the Power of the Unconscious. Feel free to amble through any time Bear …  Did someone say ‘music’?

Bear in the Woods

Reminiscing As Year 10 Begins

Morning Clouds Bring Beauty & the Possibility of Blessed Rain

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

So began The Success Zone 15 August 2013. I described my intention for weekly posts as “an eclectic place for your personal success!”. I don’t recall precisely what prompted me to use these particular words from Emerson, but I do know that they hold true for me today: what I think (feel, sense, know, etc.) and say today may not be what I think (feel, sense, know, etc.) and say tomorrow.

For indeed we change as does the world we navigate, those humans with whom we share our planet home, Gaia herself, and the cosmos in its entirety. Moment to moment. Day to day. Year to year. Lifetime to lifetime.

When I started the weekly blog, I was steeped in the growing profession of coaching, (re)building a coaching business and finding/creating my place, my purpose, my role(s) in life. Today, no longer in the business of coaching, I aim to bring the best of my coaching presence and skills into life and (with support from Muse) to these weekly musings. Today I recognize and accept more deeply that finding/creating place, purpose, role(s) in life is a journey, not a goal or a destination and that success is a matter of satisfaction, contribution, and fulfillment more than of money or acquiring more ‘stuff’.

Place, purpose, role(s) pivot with new circumstances, new knowledge, and insights. Awareness, agility, and adaptability are skills to strengthen. New thinking that leads us to personal and collective pivots is the order of the day (and, likely, for many tomorrows).

Who among has not made significant pivots in the last nine years? Who among us has not rethought and pivoted again as life conditions change and as heart and soul tap our being and point us to new possibilities or a new way? Who among us is the same today as we were then (or, heck, even yesterday)?

Certainly not moi. In the early days of the pandemic, The Zone pivoted to become The Pivot (120 weeks ago – if you be counting). A change in name and focus had been bubbling in me for some time. Clarity came as I saw the need to make changes in my own thinking, my beliefs, my habits and as I witnessed the Earth’s responses to our collective global pause. For me it was the beginning of reexamining EVERYthing, of exploring wider avenues of thought and possibility, and of seeking out those people, places, and pockets that are building the new, a process that’s likely to happily engage me for the duration of this lifetime.

In sharing my engagement, discoveries, and curiosities I aim to offer introspection, inspiration, insights, intelligence, and information for your journey of discovering and navigating your own pivot points. As Muse reminds, surely much change is afoot. Perhaps some wisdom will emerge along the way.

As it was in the beginning, The Pivot will continue to be eclectic. My curiosity runs both wide and deep. And one belief that isn’t likely to shift is that ‘one size does NOT fit all’. Likewise, The Pivot continues to support individually and collectively reclaiming personal power as a right and a responsibility and seeks to challenge your thinking and mine.

As it always has been, there is rarely an ‘editorial plan or calendar’ for what will come. The Pivot emerges weekly in response to the promptings – internal and external – of life and to (mostly) gentle nudging from Muse.

I (WE! – suggests Muse) aim to bring more beauty to light and life. Beauty not just of the visual sort, although certainly I’m steeped in the natural beauty of place (and not likely to pivot away from sharing that), but beauty of the heart, the soul, the spirt of life. Beauty that is of sight, sound, and all our senses. Perhaps beauty that is beyond our senses, yet ever present when we are open to receive.

A deep bow of gratitude to you for being with us on the journey and some beautiful words to remember as we engage in the days ahead.

Being here is so much. Rainer Maria Rilke

The human mind is in itself a world with huge mountains, deep valleys, and forests of the unknown. John O’Donohue

Morning Moonset over the San Luis Valley

Pivoting to Unity Consciousness

Mothership Over the Sangres

Unity consciousness is a state of enlightenment where we pierce the mask of illusion which creates separation and fragmentation. Behind the appearance of separation is one unified field of wholeness. Here the seer and the scenery are one. Deepak Chopra

 The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare to state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, the products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two. Ken Wilbur

 Sometimes pivots happen in a flash (or a blinding flash of the obvious!). You experience an ‘aha’ moment that has you, and in the next moment you hold a new perspective. Other pivots are a process, much like changing the direction of a big ship, that occurs over time and distance. One day you’re living from that new perspective. The next, well … not so much. Muse smiles.

 Lasting pivots require practice, attention, and awareness. Daily. Moment to moment. ‘Yep,’ agrees Muse.

 In our world where our language and crumbling systems are built on the illusion of separation, the pivot to unity consciousness seems daunting. Our language has not yet incorporated what science now tells us about the unified field that we are part and parcel of. Our systems, long invested in securing borders; maintaining control; and depending on ideas such as right/wrong, good/bad, we/they, are so ingrained that we are challenged to break free of them.

 These are the musings that rise as I reflect on life’s experiences this week.

 As I journaled one morning, curious about what a couple electrical breakdowns were reflecting, I began to feel the pressure that the world’s systems are under and how my own body’s power systems are likely experiencing the same. The clear message came: ‘TRUST! Trust the enfoldment – all of it, especially that which you don’t prefer. Expect the not to be expected and be light in the dance of intensity and change.’

 I took a breath, letting the crystal clarity of the message settle in as I witnessed dawn bringing light to the woods out back. The boundary between those woods and me evaporated. I am there. The trees and landscape are here. There is no ‘here’ or ‘there’. In that blissful moment the illusion of separation vanished. In that moment I experience the reality that I AM ONE with ALL that is.

 As I sat with the experience, the stream continued to flow:

• I am One with all life and ALL is life.

• I am One with the landfill as surely as I am One with the beautiful peaks.

• I am One with the entities of corporate/degenerative agriculture as surely as I am One with regenerative farmers and ranchers.

• I am One with the war mongers as surely as I am One with those who work for and live in peace.

• I am One with the plastic in the oceans as surely as I am One with the whales, dolphins, and all beings in the seas.

• I am One with those who spread hate as surely as I am One with those whose words and deeds uplift and spread kindness, love, and light.

• I am One with disease as surely as I am One with health.

 This is what I/we know deep in my/our bones, my being. May my words speak this truth. May my life reflect this knowing as I map, navigate, and make choices in the territory of life’s gifts and experiences. May the illusions of separation fall as reality of who I am/we are deepens in my/our awareness. So Be It!

Resilience! After Winter Comes Spring

Gifts of an Unexpected Pivot

Early Morning Fire on a Blustery, Cold Day

What would life be like had my ancestors chosen to live in harmony with the indigenous peoples here? Would we live in greater harmony with Mother Earth? With one another? What a pivot that would be!

When I looked out upon waking this morning my heart sank as the multiple of inches of snow forecast had yielded barely a trace. Mother Earth so needs a thick white blanket. I too would relish a snowy day by the fire.

Muse whispered blog thoughts as I began to stir and go about the morning ritual of building a fire. Rarely a routine, mindless task, I build the fire as sacred action – a blessed way to begin each winter day, literally on my knees as if kneeling in prayer. This brings me to deeply felt gratitude. Appreciation for the trees and the forests, the cycles of life, and all those who had a hand in getting these logs to my door.

As I settled in to write I thought of an African tribe’s practice of keeping a fire burning for generations as an unbroken connection to their ancestors. It is the wife of the tribal chief who carries this sacred responsibility. A feminine role of care connecting past to present and being present to the utilitarian gifts of the fire: warmth and cooking. Simply living. Simply life. Connection with those who have walked before. Connection with Earth. Being present now. Care. Simply living. Simply life.

I say a silent prayer that we so-called civilized humans won’t impose our “civilized” ways on them as has been done so often in history. Muse wonders with me: what would life be like had my ancestors chosen to live in harmony with the indigenous peoples here? Would we live in greater harmony with Mother Earth? With one another? Herstory would weave a different path. Can we truly pivot to live from the feminine? What a pivot that would be!

These are the wonderings that stir in me in this time of turning, of death, of rising new. Crevices of exploration that come when I step off the treadmill of doing, of accomplishing and simply allow myself to be. Muse nods in knowing agreement. These are the swings in my soul’s playground when I allow Muse to push the swing and simply sit and observe Zadie Byrd, sleeping in her ‘cone of courage’, allowing healing. Stillness and gratitude add to my warmth on this cold, blustery morning.

These are the gifts offered up as I break my decades old habit of saying ‘yes’ too often, jumping in to participate in activities that bring me no joy and are not in service to my Becoming.

Muse smiles, happy to observe the dots I’m connecting and, I suspect, impishly wondering how I will live into these choices in the days (weeks, months, years) ahead. I’m curious as well.

That’s where this post was going to end. Draft written, it was time for our morning walk. As I’m preparing to head out, the phone rings. Finally, a return call from our vet, who I’d called a couple days ago when I noticed redness in Zadie Byrd’s eye. I wanted to know if this was normal after surgery.

“No,” said the vet. We should look at it …” Although she said it wasn’t urgent, I sensed that for Zadie’s well-being and my peace of mind, we should go in today, regardless of the winter storm advisories and warning and reports of icy roads.

I fell into a bit of a spin. Mind warning me of the weather and associated risks. Heart saying, ‘go anyway’. After a few breaths and a short walk, the inner knowing rose: All will be fine it affirmed.

And it was just that: ‘fine’. Perhaps our angels cleared the way. Icy road conditions reported earlier had cleared. Two and a half hours and 120 miles under our belts, we are safely home with drops for Zadie’s eye and confirmation that the issue is minor and should clear in just a few days. I had pivoted from the morning plan, Wednesday morning’s blog commitment, to care for my sweet pup.

On the drive home, my thoughts returned to the blog. Muse pointed out that I’d done more than a simply pivot from plan. My early disappointment around the lack of snow held no regard for the hazardous driving conditions that such snow brings. Hey, I’m home by the fire, no problem. But, as I met the need to care for another, my disappointment shifted to gratitude for the clear roads that made our journey safe and easy. Such is the way of an unexpected pivot. What is dark in one moment becomes light in the next. This IS life.

Let Sleeping Dog Heal

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!

Pivot to Global Oneness - Love for ALL Beings

Home Sweet Home

Until there is a sense of solidarity among the peoples of the world, all of our efforts for peace and security will go nowhere. Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury

I’m always curious to discover where the Muse will begin and where our weekly reflective journey will lead. This morning I remembered a meditation about loving self/loving all beings/embracing oneness that I experienced years back. I don’t recall its source or even the specific language, but I was aware of how valuable it would have been to remember earlier in the week when I found myself unable to feel the feelings of the frequency of love.

I wanted to infuse love into a situation about which I felt gnarly and confused, misunderstood and sad. Yet, for a period of time, I felt blocked from the energy and flow of gratitude, appreciation, love. Looking back, realized that I’d experienced a deep-felt sense of separation – separation from others, from planet, from Source, from self. At the same time, I knew that what I felt wasn’t and isn’t true. Yet I couldn’t access the deep feelings of truth: of unity, connection, wholeness; of gratitude, appreciation, love.

The Muse reminds me that our systems are built on this false story, hence we are steeped in it daily, consciously, or not. Thus, we need the nourishment of antidotes: stories that speak our deep truth. I’m grateful for the growing number and quality of such sources, one of which is front and center this week: Humanity’s Team and the week-long 12th Annual Global Oneness Summit: Opening to Your Universal Self, culminating in Global Oneness Day on Sunday, October 24. (https://www.humanitysteam.org/global-oneness-day). You only need invest your time to watch, listen, and be inspired by a vast array of thought leaders.

I’ve only taken in a few presentations so far. Doing so strengthens my understanding of and conviction about the truth of our being. It helps me remember to be ‘in the world and not of it’ and lifts the heaviness of the separation story. Indeed, it helped me put aside my ‘gnarly’ situation and to attend to daily life-sustaining tasks (you know, the ‘darn dailies’ that all too often seem like burdens) with a lighter heart. Zadie Byrd ‘chimed’ in, retreating to a favorite spot for a nap, reminding me that rest is as important as any other ‘task’ (especially since the body is still in healing mode). I notice that loving attention is easily focused on this canine teacher. The Muse has many voices.

The gnarly situation attempted to get my attention a few times, and even succeeded in getting me spinning for a bit. But each time I set it aside, confident that its time would come and along with it love, care, and clarity. When that time came, I was able to act with greater ease and a softer heart. I settled in with pen and paper to explore with Creation the highest and best course of action for all concerned. As clarity came and my course of action emerged, heaviness and any remaining sense of separation began to lift. As my truth began to reveal itself, access to love, gratitude, unity, wholeness – the truth of our being – returned.

The Muse chuckles, reminding me that the truth of our being is ever present. ‘It’ doesn’t ‘return’ to us. Rather ‘we’ return to love. And, as we do so the truth of our Oneness lifts our spirits and gently reminds us of our capacity to fly, sprinkling seeds of love wherever we go.

Which is just what the meditation exercise* is all about:

• Starting with self, feel love permeate your entire being every cell and into the biofield beyond your skin

• Take a step back to envision your home (or wherever you are) and sprinkle love to all beings therein (don’t forget the plants, the paws, the gills, the wings, even the beings in the web up in the corner)

• Float upward, envision your neighborhood, sprinkle love

• Upward again to envision your community, sprinkle love

• Upward again to your geographic region or watershed, sprinkle love

• And again, and again step by step (region, state, country, whatever areas you see), sprinkling love at each vision along the way until you are floating in space picturing the blue dot that is our beloved home, Mother Earth. Sprinkle love in every corner of this planet that sustains life.

• Go beyond the Earth, as far as you’d like, then return, step by step, vision by vision, to your Self, your Cells, your Love.

*I’ve taken what I remember from the meditation long ago and put my words, hoping to capture its essence and offer us each a platform and process for remembering our Oneness and sprinkling love for all beings.

Halo Moon

After the Pause: Pivot

Light, Shadow, Grasses in the Morning Sunlight

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

You must unlearn what you have learned.  Yoda

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

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

Quiet. Deep Quiet in the woods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gazing into the Woods Out Back

I Am That I Am

Sunflower Sea on a Smokey Day in the Sangres

I Am That I Am Exodus 3:14 (King James Version of the Holy Bible)

This week I’ve felt a deepening sense of the truth of unity along with a heightened awareness of how subtle yet rampant the story of separation is imbedded in our culture and, indeed, daily life.

There are the obvious divides perpetrated and perpetuated by media and exploited on all ‘sides’ ‘by profiteering and fundraising using fear of ‘the other’, anything outside of us really, as the primary reason. “Give us your money so we can fight him/her, them, it, etc.” is their constant plea.

I’m pivoting away from giving to such ‘causes’ – even groups and individuals whose views align with mine. Earlier this week I cancelled a small monthly donation to a Congressional candidate because of the onslaught of fundraising emails each of which found a new way to bash the incumbent and proclaimed that I should donate for that reason. No more. Time to pivot. Time to reimagine and create our political system anew.

Continuing a trend that I’ve noticed for quite some time, environmental, natural health, and other organizations that hold positions I agree with seize upon recent disturbing climate and Covid news to ask for donations using fear and the need to fight as the basis for their plea. No more. Time to pivot. Time to dream. Time to create structures and systems that recognize our interconnectedness.

Want my support? Tell me what you dream of creating. Share a bit of your soul. Damn the current system – BE bold in unconventional ways. Hear the deeper longings of humanity to call forth unity. Lead from YOUR heart, not from polls, advisors and others who want you to believe they know the best formula to ‘win’.

Time to recognize that we are each part of a greater whole and that all is in each of us just as we are each in all. I Am That I Am.

Time to sharpen awareness of the choices we make and language we use that perpetuate the separation story in subtle ways we mostly don’t notice. Take, for instance, the term ‘common sense’, a seemingly innocuous term we use share our views and enroll others. I might say, “It’s common sense to drive slowly on wash-boarded, curved dirt roads.” The implication being that those who drive fast lack ‘common sense’, thus separating me from the drivers that I find not just annoying but dangerous. Yet, I Am that driver as surely as I Am me.

When I check in on social media, I see posts using common sense and other such terms to promote their point of view (heck, I’m sure I’ve done so as well) to get vaccinated, eat organic, become vegetarian, invest in gold, … and the list goes on (and on). Most likely there are elements in this musing that separate rather than unify, despite my best effort and intention not to do so. This is what we’ve come to practice: division, separation. It’s time to pivot: calling forth and practicing unity, oneness, the interconnected nature of life. Time to cooperate and co-create.

During a coach training conference some years ago, I participated in an exercise appropriately named ‘I Am That’. (Yes, some of you reading this were there!). The exercise was to be outdoors for a particular amount of time and to notice what attracted my attention. It could be anything – a tree, a bird, grass, a bloom, a car in the parking lot, a bench, etc. Then, looking at it, to declare “I Am That I Am” and to simply BE with that being or object. I recall being deeply moved by a tree (no surprise that I love the woods out back!). As I stood in its presence, I felt the deep connection of being at one with the tree. My core being knew it was so.

Amidst the discord and divisiveness present in our world, I’m adopting the exercise as a new practice. I long to feel that deep connection more consistently. I long to hear the tree, the land, Zadie Byrd, the planet on which I walk, friends, and associates, as well as those with whom I’m not aligned in a way that reminds me “I Am That I Am”. I have a hunch this practice can move you/me/us in that direction as well as supporting our navigation, individually and collectively, through the mine fields of these current times.

What is your heart yearning for? What ideas and practices do you employ to honor your heart’s yearning?

Smoke Clears - A Blue Sky Sunset with Beautiful Clouds Begins

The Pivot Power of Observing

Good Morning Sunshine!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dog’s Eye View of the Landscape