Feather and Stone Healing Center

This morning during my breathing time I began to ponder the expanding and contracting of the body and relating it to life. Life itself expands and contracts like some great creature breathing.

Breathing and living are inseparable – you can’t have one without the other yet the quality with which you breath will determine the quality of the life you live. Sometimes living can be an autonomic function that manages to keep going without thought or design. Other times, when I make a commitment to living, it seems as though life breathes with much more energy and the light shines brighter.

I have made many commitments over the years. Some are long term and some only for the short time but each one helps me move with purpose. Each morning when I wake up I can either make a commitment to breath or I can assume that I will breath. Of late I have been doing too much of the later. My body does what it needs to do to survive but that does not mean that it lives fully.

As I contemplate my future now that I have shed my job, I realize that there are basic facts that I can’t ignore.

My personal life is my political life.
My political life is my personal.
Where they intersect is my spiritual life.
They intertwine.
They are inseparable.
They are about compassion and conscience.

Thinking back to times I loved and laughed most were times when I was in and of nature, living as one in that balanced power. I worked, I played, I created, I cared and I loved. I was in balance.

I think my job right now is to breathe deeply and keep my heart open. I know not where next my path will lead.

House of Spirit
There is so much in the news now about the right to life for the unborn, and the right to die with dignity for the old born, that I find myself wondering, what happened to the right to live fully in between.

All the rhetoric begins to sound like worn out language clotting in our throats. The state of our personal health has been taken over by the politicians and metered out by licensed practitioners, without regard for personal choice and responsibility. Too often we jump, without a second thought into the Pandora’s box of commercial health care, which suppresses symptoms but does not heal the disease.

“Doctor, please work your magic for me. I trust you.”

Well, the fact of the matter is that the wheel of the seasons only turns one way. Our body is the house of our spirit and it is falling down around us. We haven’t done the required maintenance. Over time it will become too dilapidated to live in and it will be condemned to the temple of the pharmaceuticals.

“I have a headache.” “Have you seen the doctor?”

What ever happened to “Can I get you some water?” or “Here is a hug.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when modern medicine works miracles. There are times when fixing the temple opens doors allowing us to fully live our lives. But many times it becomes a crutch on the way to addiction. Pain, for example, inhibits the ability to live life fully. But there is a big difference between healing pain and stopping pain, between living fully and living until the next pill.

A Brief History Lesson
“[The witch persecutions] were an attack on forms of knowledge and healing that did not have the approval of the authorities. Midwives, herbalists, and traditional healers, many of whom were women, were considered suspect, and the practice of medicine became a specialized activity concentrated in the hands of male doctors.

Although the herbalists of that time were more empirical and ‘scientific’ than the doctors of the day (who were busy bleeding people according to their astrological signs), the doctors’ knowledge was considered official and valid, while the midwives’ and herbalists’ knowledge was seen as superstitious or outright traffic with the devil.” Starhawk

Fast Forward
This is now 2009 and there are many avenues to healing available before heading into allopathic oblivion, a place where we are taught to be sick, where we are taught to be dependent. Too often, those of us who don’t choose to enter the “system,” are endlessly nagged and chastised by loving friends and family, or worse, “the intervention” is planned. If we still balk, then we are assigned a “legal” guardian. And bingo, we have lost our right to live fully, in a way of our choosing, within the time we are allotted.

Every time we step into an automobile, we run the risk of being killed or seriously injured. Yet, despite the thousands of auto fatalities, the risk is accepted because of the benefits of automobile travel. Why are we not also supported in decisions of our own personal destiny?

While we endlessly continue to debate these issues, the wheel of the seasons continues to turn, our heads fill with cob webs, and often too late, we realize that life is like a summer’s day. We don’t fully appreciate it until the chill winds blow.

There are always choices in healing, but we tend to equate healing with our body and to ignore other aspects of our being. Too often, we end up with nicely redecorated temples, while the lives inside remain broken and the foundation of the temple remains weak.

Healing must be holistic. The path to healing is as important as the healing itself. What we do with the time we spend in our bodies is as important as the time we spend on maintenance and repairs. Few of us are good at keeping the delicate balance.

In the end, after all the debate, how we spend the time we have in our bodies is one of personal choice.

On my Earth walk today

I see Styrofoam here
cigarette filters there
discarded necessities of yesterday
carelessly tossed today.
I remember watching a documentary that asked
“What does it mean to throw your garbage away?”
What is away?
Where is away?

Earth Mother
nourisher of all life,
beautiful and loving,
speaks to me.

Yes, I confess.

My political is my personal.
My personal is my political.
My spirituality can hardly be isolated from either.
So when I see the garbage
I also see the long fingers of exploitation.
It is no coincidence that I see nothing of value
littering the road side or river banks.

Then I realize

everything in the world has it’s own inherent value
if only to remind us of what is unnecessary in this web of life.

Earth Mother
nourisher of all life,
beautiful and loving,
speaks to me.

I stand with the trees.

They are part of the earth.
They are an individualized life.

Their roots reach deep into the earth.

Dancing to the Mother’s heart beat.
Drinking in nutrients.
Drinking in poisons.

Their leaves grow toward the sun and sky

Rocked by the wind.
Energized by the sun.
Breathing in air.
Breathing in pollution.

I see the old fallen trunks

resting on the forest floor
giving life to moss and mushrooms
as a mother suckles her child.

We are not so different

We are born
We grow
We stumble
We fall
We come back again and again.
We are related to everything in nature.
Nature is related to everything in us.

Earth Mother
nourisher of all life,
beautiful and loving,
speaks to me.

I think back to the ancient Earth based religions

when Goddess ruled, there was reverence for earth.
Then politics changed,
God became male, domination ruled.
They tell me that was when we went from
earth nurturing to earth controlling/exploiting.

I often wonder

do we romanticize the Goddess rule of old
or was it just part of the progression
from hunter gatherer culture to agri-culture.
Agriculture has led to hoarding and waste
and land ownership;
which leads to inequity
which leads to violence.

Earth Mother
nourisher of all life,
beautiful and loving,
speaks to me.

My Spirituality is a pilgrimage

I see God with both feminine and masculine attributes.
not separate from creation.
I see people as guardians of the earth, living as equal beings.

I stand awash in Her beautiful waters

born anew through the wind and fire,
supported on sand and rock.
My blood and bone are born again and again.

I rise up to accept earth’s offerings

with gratitude and grace.
I am moved to live lightly and rightly.
Earth life beats in my heart and surges in my veins.
I am moved, renewed and enchanted.

Earth Mother
nourisher of all life,
beautiful and loving,
speaks to me.

Always.

Once again I stand on the edge of acceptable,
venturing too far into emotions.

Too many times I leave my heart unprotected.
Now wishing to shut out the world, to shrink back to before.
With serenity shredded, anxiety spreads.
I brace for the fall, always greater than expected.

So once again
The spiral has turned,
I look within.

I’ve become too complacent
in my bubble of like minded friends.

Now there is a leak.
I entered a conversation that assaulted my beliefs.
I became indignant, then pious, then angry.
I ended the already non conversation.
I plugged the leak but my bubble is not the same.
The energy inside has changed.

So once again
The spiral has turned,
I look within.

In this non-conversation my spirituality was attacked.

My personal relationship with the divine, insulted.
A Bible was thrown in my face
watered down,
then muscled up
for personal convenience.

Wounds of experience bubbled over the cauldron of my heart

I remembered indigenous communities
forced to “Live” by the cross or “Die” by the sword.
I relived the shameful history of Christians
who carry the Bible as a breastplate
yet behaved in unchristian ways.

I remembered so many Jesus-like people
giving up their lives everyday

trying to right the wrongs of people
who thump the Bible
as modern day Conquistadors.

So once again
The spiral has turned,
I look within.

I struggled to return the non-conversation to conversation.

With wounds of memory still bleeding I shoot back;
“I am not familiar with a Jesus
that sat around mumbling words from a book.
He demonstrated perfect love.
He walked among the sick, the poor, the oppressed.
He gave voice to the voiceless.
He spoke truth to power.
For that he was killed.”

As if I had said nothing, my conversant replied
“…if you confess with your mouth,

“Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. Romans 10:9
“If you haven’t done what it says to do
God isn’t doing anything with you.
You can change that by just doing what it says.”

Yes it was a non-conversation.

I realize too late

We closed our ears.
We closed our eyes.
We opened our mouths
to push our agendas.
We are all interdependent.
We are mirrors of each other.
Yet in this non-conversation
two individuals are speaking
with hearts closed to the other.

So once again
The spiral has turned,
I look within.

I write from the heart.

I share observations from experiences
among the indigenous and disenfranchised.
I walk my talk to the best of my ability.
I have been deeply hurt by the injustice that I see.

In my heart,

I do not believe that God
supports oppression,
violence or bigotry.

So once again
The spiral has turned,
I look within.

God’s wisdom is free and available to everyone.

God does not pick and choose.
Human beings do that.
God does not point fingers.
Human beings do that.

Each of us has the ability within to awaken

and walk in a sacred manner.
The only thing stopping us
is ourselves.

There is nothing like being in Washington DC to experience the sacrificial rhetoric used to legitimize war…warp, twist and spin. Memory, memorialize and mourn,..  It’s all there. DC is one huge memorial to violence and oppression.

There are big beautiful memorials to the people who have sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, but there are many, many more people who sacrificed their sanity on the battlefield. They are their own living memorials, living on park benches and isolated in cold apartments, far away from caring families. Everywhere there are the victims of war; lovers, children, women, homes, all broken or lost. These “unintended consequences” are very real tragedies of war. What good are marble and bronze memorials to those who shiver in the cold or weep for lives taken.

The path to peace does not include violence.

Living in the empire is not an entitlement. It comes with a responsibility to learn where the roots of violence intertwine with the way we live our lives.

We have a responsibility to create shifts in our own small universes. If each of us commits to making the necessary small movements, shift will happen and the perceived need for violence will disappear.

Today’s wakeup call from the universe….

Consciousness is the capacity and willingness to live life with intentionality and the highest level of awareness regarding our personal, social and spiritual reason for being.

I have been privileged to travel to many places, and I have often reflected that those who are poorest in possessions are richest in spirit. I have wondered if part of their ability not to think the world revolves around themselves has to do with the fact that they aren’t bogged down by many material things. I have had people who literally have nothing offer me the most generous kindnesses for no other reason but the fact that that’s what they have to give. And I have feared for my own culture, because it is so materialistic, and sometimes seems so shallow.

Taking responsibility and being open to one’s own growth and awareness creates the pivotal point from which consciousness in one’s work expands into the world. The walk we take is not only an opportunity to learn skills with which to be in the world, but also the opportunity to learn to “walk one’s talk” with integrity and compassion.

We just assume that home is where the heart is but….

We first have to open our hearts before we can be at home.

There is a fine line between protecting open hearts and closing protected hearts.

I am standing with the pines,
trees tall and straight, reaching up,
roots
Spiraling into the earth

I am not so tall,
not so straight,
spiraling,
I know not where.

I am precarious,
dancing at the edge of possibility.

I am remembering
the power of being gentle,
with myself,
with others,
with open heart,
And unclenched fists.

I catch a glimpse
of infinite possibilities.

It’s time to take another walk on the wild side.

There is a saying that “Culture is a bridge between the deepest lies and the shallowest truths”. I try to be that bridge but never quite succeed. I watch Shiva do her dance. I tap my foot but I never quite enter the dance. Today I woke up wondering what one calls an activist who is not quite active but not quite inactive. Is it really possible to be an activist without putting yourself on the line? And how far across the line does one need to step to enact change?

It is difficult for me to see culture as a bridge. I see cultures of impoverished (deepest truth) and improvrishers (the deepest Lies) with a wall in between. I remove stones from that wall every day but somebody replaces them every day. It is now 2010 and precious little progress has been made. Well maybe some progress…there are more people living in impoverishment.

Today I will be meeting with some young energetic activists. I have known Izzy since before she was born. I have watched her grow and she apparently as watched me. She and her partner are undertaking the daunting task of developing a microfinance system to help Nicaraguan women achieve a destiny of their own choosing. It is gratifying to see young people take up the torch where I leave off but it is also sad to realize that I (as a collective group of activists) have made so little progress.

These young people are tossing me some hope that the flame of justice still burns, offering light along the path to a united world and the gulf between cultures will be filled with compassion.

Seven SOUL WOUNDS that are widespread in American Culture.
1. Separation from Nature
2. Separation from personal creativity and perception
3. Separation from dreaming and the visionary capacity
4. Separation from the ancestors/spiritual worlds
5. Separation from the body, deep masculine and deep feminine
6. Separation from the Essential Self /Purpose
7. Separation from the Cosmos

Every one of these separations is connected to the wildness/freedom of spirit and contributes to a kind of imprisonment or stagnation within the brick and mortar world.

Some place, and I don’t remember where, I read that “The safest place for a boat is tied to a dock, in a harbor.” We may feel safe, tied in tight but when the dock goes down we will drown.

I have a warrior spirit which wants to live fully. It draws me to give up my margin of safety, stretch my boundaries and leave familiar harbors. Wildness speaks within me to nudge me outward, test my wings and reach my destiny.

I am drawn to people who embrace wildness, people who can disengage from cultural chains. They accept risk and are willing to raise their voice to prevent injustice and speak unpopular truths. These relationships have brought me challenges that have driven me to live in a way that constantly tests my ability to adapt to diversity.

Periodically I come back to the uncertain safety of the harbor but too soon my spirit becomes restless for the open seas. I patch up the old boat and see where it takes me.

My warrior spirit is drawn to wildness but the journey is not so easy on wounded knees.

Breaking through the darkness is very liberating.

I have been tormenting myself trying to amass a little light while bumping into walls of darkness long enough.

I imagined, I rationalized, I pushed, I pulled, then … I let it go and the darkness lifted.

The light is not yet bright but the solstice of the mood has passed and as the days get longer and warmer light will shine brighter.

Deadheading the tree of life, making room for new growth isn’t a bad thing. And neither is a little extra scotch on occasion…if it helps weaken the armor.

The heart is in fact, a drum, setting a rhythm with its beat
that brings coherence to the body.”
Stephen Harrod Buhner

I have been doing a new meditation this week, perhaps to protect myself from Cupid’s rogue arrows this Valentine’s weekend. I have been channeling my consciousness to my heart.  I am remembering the joys and the hurts and all that it has endured for so many years. I offer thanks, gratitude and renewed energy.

Rumi must have been doing this when he wrote this poem:
“ Heartbreak pulls up the roots of old happinesses
So a new ecstasy can stroll in from Beyond.
Heartbreak pulls up all withered, crooked roots
So no root can stay hidden.
Heartbreak may pull many things from the heart
But in return it will lavish kingdoms.”

The heart is associated with the emotion of “Love”, something very hard to define. Love rarely shows up unattached but graces us with many different feelings. Love is an emotion that feels so good but is easily misunderstood, allowing kingdoms of illusion to build. We buy love with gifts and promises. We attach conditions, pepper it with lust and wonder why we get hurt.

Love brings its own rhythm to relationships. When it is freely given and freely accepted its undulating rhythm ebbs and flows. When it gets a little rocky it is time to release conditions or illusions that have crept in.  When the waters become to flat you give it attention, a smile or a hug. It is a fragile yet tenacious emotion and needs careful nurturing.

Love is unconditional, with no strings attached. It is nurtured by correct thinking and sharing. It enjoys the exchange of “affection” and touch between parent and child, brothers, sisters and exceptional friends.

Love of another does not replace inadequate love of self in healthy relationships. We live in a culture where women have been conditioned to believe that sex creates some powerful emotional bond, and is synonymous with “love” so when the relationship fails, they feel “used”.

I do not feel love the same from one time to another. Nor is any one expression the same across time. Each experience is different and unique. What is constant is that when I bring my attention, love and gratitude to my heart, the muscle expands and relaxes. I feel open, full and grounded. The love from others brings its intended joy and the rhythm of the heart in fact, brings coherence to the body and soul.

Thoughts are running around inside my head like trapped mice today. I am setting forth to try to accomplish meaningful work but feel as though someone has hit the “mute” button. I am surrounded by the invisible turbulence of energy unchanneled and wondering when I might stop hitting my head on the wall.

There is so much drama and disaster in the news that I am probably missing the tiny moment that could alter the course of  my life. Email disaster alerts are overwhelming so I search through the rubble for just one off handed friendly note that will remind that I am not completely without merit and give a spark to my waning creativity.

I do know one thing, Both the oppressors and the oppressed are bonded by humanness. Couldn’t we channel our energy to strengthen our bonds and create beauty?

I feel like a wave
unsettled, uneasy,
flowing, churning.
Illusions lift me up
dillusions keep me bound,
tied only to strength of spirit

Waves of emotions
create ripples or tsunamis,
so hard to keep a grip.

Dive into the waters of unconsciousness,
come to terms with the turmoil,
break on the beach,

Transform.

Life is a river – A very fast flowing river
and glaring at it does not make
the rough waters flow easier.

The waning of the Moon signals the time
to leave our stagnant ways of thinking and being.
Look to the New Moon

for strengthening the Higher Self.

“Shiva’s dance of destruction frees us from negative thought patterns that tie us up in negativity.”

There is a sadness that sinks deeper with every passing day this winter. I have been forced into a dance, arm in arm with an uncomfortable partner. It is the dance between past and future known as “Transition”.  As we twist and turn and spin, there are steps and there are mis-steps. Transition spins me out, then pulls me back and spins me out again but we never let go. Never sets me free.

I entered this dance shrouded in many veils. As we turn and spin and twist, the veils are stripped away, one by one.

The veil of family no longer alive
The veil of a job outgrown,
The veil of illusions born of fear
The veil of friendships lost or changing
The veil of youth outgrown

I am left with precarious health and worn out joints. I feel naked. I feel unprotected and alone.

There are times in my life that have never known depression. Those were times when I lived intimately with nature and free of societal demands. Those were the times when I experienced my wildness. I experienced a passion for living stirred by the movement of nature. I lived in constant creativity.

I went to the woods to live deliberately and authentically.

In the words of Henry David Thoreau: “We need the tonic of wildness…  At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed…  We can never have enough of nature…  We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”

Just as destruction of the wildness of nature will cast us into a bleak world, devoid of beauty and life, the destruction of our inner wildness leaves us devoid of our spirit landscape We are not cognizant of the price of that alienation until we have tossed our final chips. We need wildness deeply and intimately in our lives. Wildness is authentic and free of illusion.

My joints are wearing thin so I have begun living in the memories of past journeys to the wilderness.  I climb the mountains in my dreams but I’m coming up empty. I need to go to the wild places. I am nerve-shaken and over-civilized. I need to see beauty and feel simplicity. I need to absorb the energy of the natural world as it burrows through the soles of my feet and travels to the soul of my heart.

These days I feel like I’m diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
I need my wildness back.

Shrouded in new snow
No winds to shake them bare
Branches snuggled in snow blankets
Content as babies in warm wraps

Others droop under the weighty snow burden
Looking like grieving widows.
There were branches reaching toward the sky

Others entwined in neighbor tree’s branches
In the snow covered silence the trees

Snap
Pop
Moan

Whispering of silent messages.

Some winters are more isolating than others.
This winter feels more isolating than most.

This is a winter for transitions.
This is a winter where doors are closing.

My voice becomes weak.
I no longer wish to speak.

My deepest urge is to retreat into the darkness.
Not to meditate but to hide.

So I dive in.
Escaping fear and uncertainty.

Ahhh…..

I pause.
I come to terms with the fading light.

There….

There, at the edge of darkness.
Are fertile places of growth.

There,
There are new doors to be opened

There, at the edge of darkness
New energies emerge.

Spring comes,
And so comes transformation.

I should be sleeping but my head trudges on relentlessly, asking questions, forming possibilities, turning over rocks that should be left in place.

I create other worlds when am struggling with here and now. They are my escape from insanity. I can build a world without strife where nothing changes but life has a way of creeping in like grass in the garden.  Sooner or later you have to deal with it. Deal with it or not is the choice but either way something changes.

Often we must release something from our lives to make room for something else to evolve.

Sometimes you and I define words very differently. I confess I have never derived much amusement from reading the dictionary so for me words were defined experientially.

As a child words, too often took a negative spin, as if praise would have stunted my growth,
Work is done out of necessity
I should strive to be something
Being me was not enough
You have had enough, fun’s over
You have done enough, go to your room
A “B” could have been an “A”
An “A” was an “A but”…

Like Janus the Roman deity with two faces, language has two meanings, that which is said and that which is felt. Scars on bodies heal, those in the heart can last a lifetime.

It is usually through language that peace is achieved …or not.

Wishing for just enough light to see the next step . . . Its a long way in the dark to transformation.

I woke up this morning in the dark even though the sun lay bright on the horizon. I picked up a stone from the top of the wood stove but it was cold. Gotta light the fire…

The Solstice is in a couple of days. It is a turning point. The Mesopotamians claim to be first to celebrate the Solstice with a 12-day festival of renewal, to help the god Marduk tame the monsters of chaos for one more year.

Is that what we all do, tame the monsters in our hearts and heads one year or even one day at a time….conquer the demons in our little personal wars? I think we have all put in our time. Taming and conquering for a period of time is like patching the quilt…the work is never done. Transformation has not happened.

I have spent my life looking for the invisible threads that connect all creation and believing that transformation will happen. My Solstice wish is to reweave the quilt, strong and fresh…finding that missing link that gives meaning to the task of living.

It is not lost on me that while pagans celebrate the rebirth of “the sun” Christians celebrate the birth of “the Son”, all are celebrating “new beginnings” and transformations.

Meanwhile I am still holding that cold stone, staring at the flickering embers and wondering which one will finally light the fire.

I guess that is what “winter” is going to feel like this time around whether waiting for the sun or imagining for new beginnings.

You can either see the next step (but not where you’re going) or where you’re going (but not the next step)

Today I witnessed a little piece of the holiday frenzy!

A jolting reminder,
We are in a very consumptive time of year.
People rushed from store to store
Shopping bags ornamenting their limbs.
Or are they covering some gaping hole in their lives?

To the contrary,
These are also the final long dark nights
Before the Winter Solstice.

I will leave my frenzy,
Turn inward,
Breathe,
Dream of peaceful transformation.

This transformation will gestate
during the winter rest
Endings become beginnings
All things are possible.

When spring arrives
I’ll ride the spiraling beam of energy
Into the transformation I dreamed.

Too often we forget to appreciate today until tomorrow.

This morning I spent some time along the Potomac River on my way to
meetings and thought about the Winooski.

It has flowed since before time and for the last 38 years I have shared my life with that river.

I set down roots, bore and raised a child in the community next to the river.
And the river flowed by.
I have nurtured and been nurtured by family and friends .
And the river flowed by.
I healed fragmented relationships and buried my parents.
And the river flowed by.
I have made friends, and lost friends. Some have just drifted away.
And the river flowed by.
I have shed tears of joy and sorrow by the river.
And the river flowed by.

No matter what turmoil I experience the river remains constant – flowing
from wherever its source is, to wherever it goes – touching me with it’s song
of love, patience, peace and healing.

The river embraces what is present, not dwell in it’s past or worry about
it’s future.

When it encounters a boulder it flows around it.
It changes course when it must.
The river flows today. It does not fear tomorrow.
To often I fear tomorrow and forget to flow with today.

Corporations in America do not understand the concept of enough. Their survival is dependent on convincing consumers that we need more. They are like tendrils of poisonous weeds, fed by carnal desires that are insatiable. They creep across borders enslaving workers while addicting buyers. Their desire is without compassion. They seduce and rape. Their climax is ferocious and one-sided.

I regret that I ever allowed myself to be seduced. I have experienced the destruction of workers in the sweatshops. I have lived among them, shared meals, held their babies, heard their stories and saw hearts broken. It was as though I used them to wipe away the blood of my own corporate rape yet once the seed is planted it is not so easy to abort.

The work of an activist is never done. It is like squeezing a water balloon — squeeze here and the problem moves to there. As I walked in the woods today pondering this and my decision to leave Witness for Peace, I felt the trees wringing their branches in sympathy, or was it frustration. Their voices were loud and clear. “Don’t let evil happen in the darkness – bring it into the light.”

It’s hard to see forward with my back to the wind.

I am here, bracing myself against the gale, watching remnants of what was, tumble past. I want to reach out and grab the bits of my life as they fly past but I can’t let go of the lifeline. I am living as though I am god directing the actions of my creation, wanting absolute control over each. In my head I know that this is delusional. In my heart I feel helpless.

My hope is my fear.
My lifeline is my fear.
It is dragging me to the bottom.

So I am tying myself into knots over what is not while I continue to stand in the storm watching the past blow by.

My heart clamps down like a vise,
Ignoring the true nature my creations.

I feel like a snail that’s lost it’s shell, naked and exposed and my heart is unguarded.

Solidarity
- Identifying with another
- Unity, not uniformity
- Listening without interjecting

Compassion
Going to that place where souls meet and separateness falls away

Globalization
Space and time altering advances by the ever increasing economic and political connections between nations

Teaching
Not about filling pails but lighting fires

Prophet
Is someone to be – not someone to follow

Hope
Is not success but knowing that we are trying

Revolution
- The challenge of testing our vision to 1st make sure that it will promote true and total peace for all
- That one is neither favored or exploited
- To craft and recraft the message in a way that converts the hearts of the exploiters and empowers all others
(when the heart is converted, the brain will follow)

To understand the path to peace, we must first read the wrinkles in our grandmothers’ face.

There is a difference between maintaining balance and maintaining equilibrium. Balance is life at the far edges with the gulf in between. Equilibrium is living in the center of life, constantly making little corrections that prevent the gulf.

• Trees create their own equilibrium.
• Trees grow toward the light.
• Trees send roots deep within the earth.
• Where there are obstacles, trees grow over or around them.
• Where there are gulfs, they create bridges.
• Trees live firmly rooted in the earth.
• Their roots embrace the hard places.
• When their life is complete, they lay down to provide the nutrients for new growth. It makes no difference whether they are growing another tree, a mushroom, a fern or a potato. All that matters is that life cycles on, and grows toward the light.

I guess I’ve never kept a journal because I never liked to share my thoughts and feelings with others. When I would occasionally test the waters, I would be corrected for my different thinking and be set back in my box. I would try again to conform to the ways of the world. I feared rejection and my sense of self hibernated.

I was born with a few handicaps. The first was an inability to recognize skin color. The second was to hear the inner voice of conscience. The third was the desire to enjoy life.

I was also born during the time of the perfect family, into a time when what you were, seemed to matter more than that you simply were. What you achieved earned more points than what you felt.

It was a time of wealth inequality and class polarization. I challenged my family’s sense of decorum. I adopted stray friends and animals. I wandered alone in the woods, climbed trees and was more comfortable in a barn than a house. These were not acceptable qualities.

Young girls were bred to shop, dance, cook and set the perfect table. Despite the salad fork, the dinner fork and the dessert fork, I used my fingers. I shed the dance shoes for bare feet. Instead of sitting like a lady, I would straddle a tree branch. Instead of walking the path, I wandered through the brambles, dangerously close to the edge of the pond.

I probably terrified my parents. They feared for my safety, of course, but they also feared loss of the perfect family. As I approached my teens, I questioned all authority and squirmed under its restraint.

I formed friendships based on heart meeting heart. Parental pressures leaned more to class meeting class. Friends suitable to the family made me uncomfortable. Friends suitable to me made the family uncomfortable.

As unconditional love became more illusive, I settled for conditional love. I turned off happiness for logic or lost it for pride.

I wonder what is lost in a culture where children no longer feel connected with the natural world or rooted in family and community. Today I try to release logic and pride and tap into wisdom.

As a society, will we allow heart to recognize heart, or will we dutifully tuck our hearts away and function from fear and ego?