From the Center of Self

Words of wisdom from a favorite author!

When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle. We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here, some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth. Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift From the Sea)

The Earth thinks in circles. She dreams in spirals and nautilus shell revolutions. She tells her stories across eons. Her epics are epochs. Rivera Sun (Winds of Change – book 3 in the Dandelion trilogy – www.riverasun.com).

Circling and spiraling amidst a number of atypical (for blog day) activities I’m finally settling in with Muse to discover what wants to emerge in this week’s Pivot.

As winds of change blow seemingly around the globe, here in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of southern Colorado, strong winds are blowing bringing dust, red flag/fire weather watch warnings, and wintry temperatures. Zadie Byrd and I are challenged to get out for our walks and keep them short, focused on her ‘business’ and our safety.

It’s the kind of intense wind that rips shingles from roofs, breaks tree limbs and trunks, and picks up all manner of unanchored debris. Having once been grazed by the outer branches of a falling tree that snapped as a sudden wind came up in the woods, I’m mindful and cautious. I sense something is being cleared. Blown away to make way for the new within me and in the world. That’s what winds of change do.

The change I sense within runs deep. A deepening of care – for self, for my canine companion, for friends, and for this community that is my home. The deepening care seems to call forth new strength, resilience, and trust. A felt sense that life is unfolding as it must for the evolution of consciousness, mine individually and ours collectively as a human family that is part of the family of all Beings on the planetary Being herself: Gaia, Great Mother Earth.

In conversation with a friend and spiritual mentor a few days back, I was sharing this deepened sense of trust and greater discernment. “With trust comes greater capacity to love and less tendency/need to judge,” she mused. As I allow that to settle in deep, I feel I’ve made a leap in my being.

In some way I sense that the dog attack has guided me to the center of myself that Lindbergh speaks of. I wonder whether I needed such a dramatic call and quickly set that query aside, grateful that for the support and the rapid rate of our healing and recovery. I find joy in caring for Zadie Byrd and for me as well as in finding ways to thank the small army of friends who blessed us with an abundance of love and care. I find peace as I come to terms with the event and discover that I harbor no anger. Rather I feel compassion for the canine that attacked and for its human. I feel love for those who supported me, creating community, our own version of heaven on earth.

Although I don’t have a nautilus shell to put to my ear to hear the earth, I listen to the wind, to the birds, to the trees. I converse with Zadie Byrd, knowing all of nature has stories to tell and wisdom to share as we navigate the winds of change. May I listen well from the center of my Being to the center of the Being that is Mother Earth.

Mother Earth callling … Am I listening?

Pivot to Inspirations and Provocations

I call this ‘Painting What You See’ (found image, unknown source)

In the greatest cultures of the ancient world there was a stairway between the human and the divine. The Earth and the cosmos were addressed as "thou," not "it". People felt they participated in a great cosmic mystery of which they were a part. People experienced the divine as imminent in the material world. Nature and the cosmos were ensouled with divine presence. Ceremonies like those performed at Stonehenge ... connected Earth with heaven and strengthened the sense of participation in a divine reality.  Anne Baring

What if I really believed everything is in divine order? Quanita Roberson

Over the past week or so I’ve intentionally put my attention on that which informs, inspires, and provokes me to reflect. I’m not ignoring the multiplicity of crises that we are each a part of. And I’m doing my best not to feed the fear and separation from which our crises arise. Not looking to be distracted or entertained, but rather to be informed and guided more deeply to understand and act in ways that honor Nature, humanity, and the divine.

I wonder how I can live more fully into my instinctive knowing that Nature, humanity, and the divine are not separate. Isn’t that what maturity is? How can I grow up?

The exploration has taken me on several tracks, discovering new (to me) voices profound in their wisdom, reminding me that way back in college days (decades ago!) I wondered what it would be like to become a philosopher. Perhaps that’s a seed now breaking through the soil of my life.

Early this morning as I wandered over the week’s landscape and began to wonder (in truth, I felt quite unclear and a bit worried) where Muse and I would go with today’s post, Muse directed, “just sit down and WRITE!”. Ah, yes, pick up the pen and allow the words to come. To flow. Allow the joy of discovery that rises when I step into the unknown.

For surely, we are in a time when we are called to make peace with the unknown. Befriend her. Perhaps even embrace her with our hint of ‘knowing’ that we are co-creating the story, not observers or victims on the journey. How am I participating in this co-creation?

How will the disparate thought threads from my exploration weave together? Heck, will they?

Something has shifted in my awareness about our language: that so much of it is formed around the masculine. The scales of language today are weighted with the yang energy favored in our culture. Is it any wonder that conflict and war continue to prevail? How can we balance the scales, perhaps even tip them toward yin energy? The feminine? The caring of the Great Mother?

This awareness has me want to be care-filled rather than habitual in choosing the words I write and speak for surely my habits of language were all too often curated by the prevailing energy.

That means slowing down. Discerning what is mine to do, to say. Letting go of all that is not. Perhaps some of the disparate threads don’t belong in this weave. Perhaps they are not mine to weave. Release and trust the wind to carry them where they need to be. They will return if meant to be.

It means that my habits need new curators, mid-wives for birthing new words, new ways, new habits, new stories that we so long for. Perhaps my explorations are indeed a search for impassioned, caring voices of The New to inspire, provoke, and to share when Muse and I settle in to write. Muse nods in agreement, reminding me that the above quotes are from new (to me) sage women each with deep connection to the divine and each taking care in the words they speak. I discovered them listening in to an amazing Humanity Rising panel discussion on feminism and democracy (click here to listen). I’m adding both of them to my curator team.

Likewise it means observing and listening to Zadie Byrd with expanded senses. She seems aligned with this direction, as she indicated to our animal communicator in a session this morning, sharing that she doesn’t care for the energy of the traditional veterinarian who did her eyelid surgery and has been doing the follow-up to clear her eye of what seems to be some sort of infection. “I want to see the ‘herbal vet’,” she said. “I like her energy. It’s freer.” Seems Ms. Byrd is to be on the curator team as well, perhaps as mascot.

Life and learning continue to unfold. Moment to moment we choose where to put our attention and what to paint from where that attention lands. I feel the divine as I grok and aim to live more fully into being part of ‘a great cosmic mystery’.

What if I really believed that everything is in divine order?

Snowy Peaks! Blessed Moisture! Grateful Heart!

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!

Reaching In, Reaching Out

Owl Wisdom in the Woods

Reach – (1) to stretch in order to get or touch something; (2) to arrive at a place, a decision, a goal

The Muse is back (‘Aye’, the Muse says, ‘I never left; I just hid out so you would rest.’). Although the extreme discomfort (okay, pain!) is mostly gone, the body continues to remind me that it is healing and that I need to heed my own message of a few weeks back: look for places where you can do less. The Muse in fact suggests I share that I’m in healing mode because I did just the opposite: pushed through to complete a heavy lifting task solo rather than waiting until I could ask someone to come over and help. Over-reaching. Ouch!

Having limited (and painful) mobility in my shoulder limited my reach and I discovered just how much of daily life involves reaching for things. A mug of tea, a pan and ingredients for soup, a book, the keyboard, a log for the fire, Zadie Byrd’s harness and leash, treats, a jacket, toothbrush … yep, we reach out a lot. Reaching for whatever we need in the moment. Blessed with the abundance of whatever is within our reach.

The more I reached for ‘things’, the more that discomfort reminded me to look for where I could do less (thank you Moshe Feldenkrais and my awesome instructor Jill, a coaching colleague and friend for years before my discovery that she also teaches this method of awareness through movement. Click here to learn more.

When the discomfort became especially intense, my heart opened with deep compassion for those who experience chronic pain. I thought of my cousin who, before her death last year, suffered excruciating back pain. I was experiencing just a small drip of what far too many humans experience every day. I understood how it is in a system that shuns alternative treatments with derisive comments like ‘snake oil’, a system which profits from our disease and pain, that people become opioid dependent.

Indeed, I who shun much of what western medicine offers, would have popped the top had there been pain killers stronger than aspirin within my reach. Alas, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, castor oil packs, PEMF, body work, and most important of all, REST are the tools of my recovery. I wonder: how can these and other alternatives become more acceptable, available, affordable, within reach for all?

In the quiet that rest offers, I felt myself reaching in. Exploring and calling forth what I believe to be true about this physical vessel in which I navigate the planet. It is wise and knowledgeable this body is, understanding, knowing its needs, its limits and communicating that information whether I’m tuned in or not. This body knows how to heal, and it needs my cooperation to act on its knowing. I need only reach in to hear her voice reaching out to guide me.

Inspired by a story I heard during this time of rest, before rising this morning I imagined that I was feeling the warm embrace of the sun before she rose. Reaching inward to imagine the somatosensation of the sun’s rays gently warming my skin and the light bringing visual clarity to my surroundings, I felt embraced by the faith of deep knowing that I live in a friendly universe and, despite appearances and circumstances that seem contrary, all is right with the world.

As I wrote about the experience, I realized how easy it is and how privileged I am to reach in and access such wisdom when I’m warm and cozy under the covers before rising. Will I remember to reach in after my feet hit the chilly floor and when I engage with the world that often seems to want to have its way with me? What direction will I reach at my next challenging moment – in or out?

We have inner wisdom and knowing throughout our cellular structure. What if we reached in to discover the wisdom of the inner planes with as much purpose and intent as we reach out to find answers on Google or stretch our arm to reach for a healthy snack? What if we understood that all the wisdom and knowledge of our dear Gaia and, indeed, the Universe are within our reach? Indeed, what if …?

Snowy Morning in Town … First Big Flakes of the Season

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

Fertile Ground

Past their peak, but there is still much beauty in this aspen grove.

What we need is not another doctrine, but an awakening that can restore our spiritual strength. What made Mahatma Gandhi's struggle a great success was not a doctrine—not even the doctrine of nonviolence—but Gandhi himself, his way of being. A lot is written today about the doctrine of nonviolence and people everywhere are trying to apply it. But they cannot rediscover the vitality that Gandhi had, because the ‘Gandhians’ do not possess Gandhi's spiritual strength. They have faith in his doctrine but cannot set into motion a movement of great solidarity because none of them possess the spiritual force of a Gandhi and therefore cannot produce sufficient compassion and sacrifice. Thich Nhat Hahn

In the midst of the muse reflecting on the insights and inspirations which have crossed my path this week I was looking to discover if there is a common thread or theme. Then, life popped in unexpectedly.

It has been my practice for most of the 370+ weeks to ignore all incoming calls, emails, etc. Wednesday mornings are devoted exclusively to musing and discovering what wants to be shared in this week’s post. Today I needed to break from that pattern to handle a time sensitive issue regarding my cousin’s estate.

The issue addressed (at least for a bit), I gently returned to the muse and the message.  Noticing the broad scope of ideas and events that sprouted to take root in my attention this week, the phrase ‘fertile ground’ came to mind. I was aware of all that screamed for attention that I mostly gently (and sometimes not) turned away. What about my fertile ground guides me to make those choices?

I’m aware of and embrace the idea that deep change is underway individually and collectively for humanity and throughout all of nature and our precious home, Mother Earth. (Beyond this earth, I suspect that the same is true – but that is perhaps a muse for another day … As Above, So Below … As Below, So Above …). What about my fertile ground has me see life in this way and to be curious about the thresholds that are before me/us in the days, weeks, years ahead?

From what fertile ground does my conviction that how we choose to BE as we walk through this change is, moment to moment, determining how that change will be? What cultivated my deep knowing that ‘by our thoughts, our feelings, our beliefs and our actions we are co-creating our life, our future – individually and collectively’?

I think that somewhere along this 70-year path of my life, I embraced building my spiritual strength (you wondered, didn’t you, what the heck the quote had to do with this muse?).  Decades ago, weary after years of political activism and hard driving in my profession, I was exhausted and fearful that I couldn’t keep up (whatever the heck that meant at the time). A seed of metaphysical curiosity sprouted as I took time off to figure out what to do with my life.

I’ve nurtured that ground (not always consistently) since it sprouted. I’d like to think that I have some measure of spiritual strength as a result. As I choose how to navigate and BE in the changes upon us, I aim to make choices from a place of spiritual knowing rather than from some prescribed doctrine (religious, political, etc.). That is the fertile ground on which I stand from which the seeds of my expression flow. That is the ground I choose to nurture and grow.

What about you? What is your fertile ground? What is your state of being in the world? What attention is needed so that you can meet the thresholds before you with strength, conviction and with love?

A Quiet Hike in Nature’s Beauty