Untying the Knots of Separation

Sun’s Rays Light the Wisdom of the Mountains and the Woods Out Back

Every knot was once straight rope. The Mysterious Man in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods

The Muse pivots our approach this day. This morning, I found myself waking to deep questioning and recalled this line that I first heard from Gregge Tiffen, a mystic whose work, wisdom, and advice I followed from 1980 until his death in 2008, wisdom that I continue to call upon some 45 years later. In questioning a recent decision I made, a tale from the past and yet another challenge to pivot emerged…

Once upon a time there was a straight rope whose strands connected all Beings of the earth. These Beings knew that the rope was the flow of Life directly from Life’s Source. Each looked and listened to the Rope of Life in their own ways. Tree and Plant Beings after all don’t look and listen in the same ways as the winged ones, the rock Beings, the waters, the four-legged Beings, the gilled Beings, the human Beings, or, indeed, the unseen Ones. From their listening each discovered their contribution, thus co-creating harmony with one another and their beloved planet home.

In that abundant world there was plenty for all and each Being, again in their unique way, naturally received what they needed – just enough (like the bowl of porridge that was just right). And each returned their gifts in reciprocity to the earth. Life was sacred.

I’m told that the ancestors of the Pinon Pine Beings in the Woods Out Back passed along this knowledge and that the land and the elements also remember this time before knots began to be tied in the Rope of Life. In that ancient time all Life was celebrated and lived as sacred. It was a time before knots were tied. Before words and deeds began to restrict Life’s flow. A time before Beings began to see themselves as separate from one another and Mother Earth. A time before the great forgetting of Oneness and the sacredness of all Life.

In that great forgetting words became beliefs, or perhaps beliefs became words both tying knots of separation in the Rope of Life. Knotty words and beliefs that today we easily embrace as our culture, our civilization, as just ‘the way life is’ have become our prison, a prison that separates us from one another, from the sacred Beings of our planet home and from Mother Earth herself. Simple words that we use daily engage us in continuing to extract from rather than contribute to one another and Gaia – right/wrong, profit, competition, success, progress, goals, winning, achieving, civilization – to name a few have become targets to achieve in the service not of Life but of having more and of having it our way (for of course, my way is superior to yours). Words of control and power over ultimately lead us to violence and war, for some believe that rather than untying the knots, parts of the Rope should simply be destroyed. That is the way of our systems. From toxic control of ‘pests’ to the horrors of war, knots of separation run rampant in our world.

But destroying one knot breaks the Rope of Life, and WE have the power to untie these knots. And to reweave the Rope of Life. Mother Earth remembers this time before knots, and she is quaking, rumbling, burning, and flooding us to re-member. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear she speaks the forgotten story, inviting us to untie the embedded knots of separation before we destroy ourselves and more of the sacred Beings of her world/our world as She lives on in the infinity of Life – restoring, regenerating, re-creating the harmony that is Her Nature. Nature that is ours as well, if we dare to choose Life’s path and to look beyond how life seems to be in our knotted world, to untie the knots that bind us to that world and weave a new Rope of Life.

Can we dare to imagine a world beyond our current defining of these knotty words? Can we recast them in the sacred light of connection? Can we dare to imagine what is possible beyond ‘civilization’ and our quite questionable record of civility? Can we dare to imagine a world beyond fences and borders where we are citizens of Mother Earth?

Are we willing to choose that path? Am I?   

Ancient Beings - What Wisdom Do YOU Carry?

Holding Spiritual Perspective

Morning at the Creek

In the spiritual universe, only love is real, and nothing else exists… The world has trained me to believe in the illusions of fear and separation and to disbelieve in the truth that lies beyond them. Today, I take a stand for truth as I extend my perceptions beyond what my physical senses reveal to me to what I know to be true in my heart. Marianne Williamson (Morning Meditation 18 June 2025)

Our sovereignty lives in the power to choose our perspective moment to moment.

My heart feels a bit heavy today and I find it challenging to settle in to write. From concerns about family members and friends who are facing personal challenges and loss to the horrors of conflicts and war all around the globe, the time seems perilous. And indeed, it is. The question, ‘Who am I in this time and how will I meet it?’ rises in me.

At the same time, I know that most of what I see is the world’s ways of propagating fear and efforts to maintain control, the very training that Williamson speaks to in her meditation today in the false ways of separation and fear. Training that I don’t recall signing up for!

Yes. I know. I’ve said this here before. Frequently in fact. And I’m present to how often the idea shows up in Williamson’s words and those of other contemporary leaders. I think it continues to rise as a theme because I (and we) need the reminder of this Truth amidst the constant noise from the world that craves our attention. And, in being reminded, we are also reminded that our perspective is chosen by us. Our sovereignty lives in the power to choose our perspective moment to moment.

It seems that the world’s ways, its training, challenge that sovereignty every day.

Some days I find it easy to remember the power of this choice. I feel the closeness and ease of access to a depth of gratitude, to Spirit, God, my faith that Life is unfolding in some divine way as it must. I feel compassion and care for those suffering the unthinkable horrors of war, those targeted right here in the country that is my home, as well as for family and friends with their personal challenges. I aim to not allow my compassion, concern, care to give way to the fear and separation-based perspectives of the world.

When I’m feeling that depth of gratitude and access, I’m shown new information that deepens my understanding of who I be and what is mine to do in this unfolding world. A new connection is made to the vast network that is engaged in rethinking our relationship to Mother Earth, the cosmos, and one another and co-creating systems that are aligned with Life. I gain insight into how my past choices have placed me here in this sacred place with life conditions that support me. New information offering clarity as to my purpose and direction in this chapter of life finds its way to me.

This morning as I walked in the early morning cool, I felt deep gratitude for this place and the perspective that I carry. I feel a sense of opening to understanding sacred reciprocity that I mentioned last week. Understanding not with my head alone but understanding centered in my heart.

Simply expressing thanks feels like opening to a deeper shift coming from within, one that will strengthen the foundation of my spiritual perspective as I put attention on aligning with the new.

A Young Friend in the Woods

You and Only You

Morning Sun at the Stupa

You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions. Robert T. Kiyosaki

The words came in a bit differently as the pen touched the page this morning: You and only you are given the power of choice in your life. The message seemed a clear reminder of a Truth often forgotten or lost in a world that constantly seeks to distract, grab our attention, and influence each choice we make. We are asked to choose this way. Or that. Each with its own story. Each leading in its own direction.

Choices are the hinges of destiny. Edwin Markham

With each choice I create my present and my future. Remembering that I am at choice moment to moment is, for me, a powerful elixir in those moments when I seem on the precipice of being overtaken by some force, usually an emotion that isn’t on my ‘preferred’ list, brought on in response (or reaction) to some external event. I choose how to BE with what’s risen, consciously or not.

All too often I’ve done so unconsciously out of habit or reaction, choosing to fight, judge as wrong, or deny that which is uncomfortable, shoving it deep inside where it can fester into greater dis-ease or worse.

These days though as there is much in our world with the potential to generate angst, fear, disgust, anger, and, for me especially, sadness, I’m choosing to engage with what rises more consciously and intentionally. To not deny, but to allow the feelings a place and time to move in and through me. To not judge it or me but to be with and discover what gifts of insight are being offered. To not fight, but to surrender to its need to be heard, felt, understood and my need to hear, feel, and, perhaps, understand.

In doing so, the darkness I feel seems to lighten, then lift, leaving behind not a tale of woe or the makings of more trouble ahead, but rather a sense of satisfaction with my choice, perhaps wiser than past choices to fight, deny, or judge. That sense of satisfaction opens me to curiosity and wonder, a desire to explore the world within and the world I walk through, to deepen my understanding of the relationship between the two, and to reimagine how both worlds can be.

Yesterday, unsurprisingly, the phrase ‘sacred reciprocity’ popped off the page I was reading. Reciprocity has been a topic of much recent exploration and reflection in my reimagining. When I saw it paired with ‘sacred’, it touched something deep in me. A sense of ‘this is the way’ leapt into my being. Followed quickly by the recognition that there is no ‘this’, as in one and only one ‘right’ way.

I, and only I, am responsible for the choices in my life. I wonder how it might be if I lived more deeply in gratitude and committed myself to ‘sacred reciprocity’ in the choices I make? And what if ‘we’ did the same? How might that redefine who we are in the world? What world might we co-create?

It is our choices, not our abilities, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. J.K. Rowling (Dumbledore in Harry Potter)

Who are we? Who are we becoming? The choices are ours.  

Cottonwood Creek Spring Flow

Awakening to Anguish

Morning Clouds Shroud the Peaks

Anguish is the emblem of our helpless love, fully felt in every cell of the body; felt until it overflows, in a cry, in tears in words that try to negate, powerlessly, what is occurring. Anguish is our foundational cry against the unjust taking away what we feel should be forever ours. … But anguish fully felt is also the first stop on the road to recovery and healing. …anguish is the last fully felt measure of our care. … Anguish is not debilitation: anguish fully felt, is a sign that we are fully awake at last, through our own pain, to all the heartbreaking losses and goodbyes involved in the drama of a human life, anguish tells us we are getting ready to embrace, or are even now, against our will, willing to embrace what until now could never be embraced, that is: our ability to live fully in this body despite its never ending griefs and wounds… David Whyte (Consolations II – The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)

It seems fitting that the first word in Whyte’s recently published Consolations II is anguish. There is much in our world that seems worthy of allowing ourselves to feel the depth of loss. And, to recognize in so doing we are invited to step through a portal of healing. A divine portal of intelligence.

Little did I know last evening when I read Whyte’s exploration of anguish just before ‘lights out’ that I would awaken this morning to my own cry against a culture that seems to want to take away, or at least diminish or deny, my/our natural intelligence: the knowing from this and prior lives walking this earth and of listening deeply to Gaia and all her beings, the wisdom of my heart and connection to the intelligence of that which sources Life.

But I did just that. I woke feeling heaviness darker than the clouds that shrouded the peaks this early morn. As those clouds lifted, I sat quietly, curious about the nature of the dark cloud I was experiencing as I looked at the beauty of fresh snow visible on the mountain peaks. Such beauty is Nature, our planet home from which we have lost the truth of our connection.

As I reflected, I realized that my personal war with our culture’s striving to keep us separated from this truth by instilling fear around every bend, in corners and crevices all around was rearing its head. And I sensed the anguish I felt was springing from a well of concern about so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, prompted by recent discoveries and conversations about how artificial intelligence is being used and by the culture’s messages that technology, artificial intelligence, is superior to our intelligence as sovereign, sentient beings.

I feel the anguish of something that is mine/ours by design is being taken away. The intelligence of our interconnectedness with All Life. The intelligence of the universe. I think of Rumi’s wise words: You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. I am that intelligence. You are that intelligence. We are that intelligence. Think about the intelligence of the ocean and the life it sustains and be with that reality for just a moment.

As I continue to reflect, I feel drawn to go to the woods out back, to Mother Pinon and Grandmother as I feel deep sadness, a sense of losing who we be as we gravitate and become more dependent on technology. The Mother Tree calls me first, and there in her embrace I feel the insanity of our embrace of artificial ‘anything’, most assuredly artificial intelligence. It occurs to me that in calling it ‘AI’ we ignore and may forget its artificiality, just as we have been led away from the ingredients of foods that are not natural or ‘real’. Foods that continue to create all manner of health issues.

Tears streaming, I ask how it is that we continue to fall for the idea that this next great technology, artificial ‘thing’ is going to solve the multi-crises that we have created? Where is the intelligence of choosing this path over the natural intelligence of Gaia, of the Cosmos, and of our design that is inextricably linked and has access to the Intelligence of all that is?

Experiencing this anguish in what feels like the depths of my being opens me to step through that portal toward understanding and the healing reconciliation that may come from a sincere desire to understand this ‘thing’ called artificial intelligence at the same time I deepen my connection with and understanding of the intelligence of Mother Earth as I increase my capacity to hear, respond, and align with her intelligence.

P.S. There’s no artificial intelligence here despite numerous prompts to let ‘co-pilot’ take control of this stream.

Snow on the Peaks (and Rain in the Foothills)!

Giving Voice to Vision

With Eyes to See A New Friend in Grandfather Juniper

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. Carl Jung

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung

Early morning the theme comes. Two words. Voice. Vision. Then, direction: giving voice to vision.

I sense the guidance isn’t meant for today’s Pivot alone, but rather a pivot that’s been in motion in me for a while is coming to a new point of clarity and direction. Greater clarity around a question that’s been with me for a while as we forge paths beyond the current chaos and dissolution toward the ‘next’ that wants to emerge as we nourish seeds planted long ago and plant new seeds. What is mine to do?

Several days back as I sat looking into the woods out back as the sun peeked over the peaks of the Sangres, this stream found its way to the page:

In the quiet stillness

of doing nothing

is everything.

In the quiet stillness

of doing no thing

I can BE Every Thing

that I Am.

I Am That.

 It is by no means everyone’s voice to be predominately quiet and still, yet it is in that quiet stillness that we hear the small, still voice of the heart, a heart that knows what voice is ours to speak. When. Where. How. To and for whom.

We need the chorus of voices rising up to say ‘No!’ to that which destroys Life and stands in the way of our personal sovereignty. We need voices of calm serenity to nurture emergent visions and infinite possibilities that sprout from right relationships. To one another. To all Life. To the aliveness of our planet home. We need to align our daily choices with the world we want to experience.

We need vision questors, vision keepers, vision holders, vision speakers to dream and nurture potent possibilities of aligning with Life, just as we need builders to bring those visions to life. We need not vision, speak, and build in the old ways of doing more of the same. Rather we need to ask, ‘What else is possible if I see this differently?’ and then listen with our hearts. We need to move beyond the doom and gloom of analytical problem solving, to the joy of creative minds and hearts that see beyond the cruelty and suffering of the moment to harmony with Life rising like a phoenix from the ashes of destruction and despair. We need to ask, ‘Who shall we BE?’ And align our choices with that.

All too often we forget just how powerful we are. We need to remember and recognize that we are the voices, the visionaries, and the builders of our world and our experiences in the choices we make each day. In every choice we make we are giving voice to a vision.

In our choices of what food we purchase and consume, we give voice to either health and vitality or todisease, not only of our bodies, but of the body of earth and her health. In what we choose to speak (and, yes, post on social media), we are giving voice to visions of a loving world or one of fear, to visions of cooperation and community or to division and competition.

Are you in tune with the small, still voice of your heart, dreaming and awakening to the power of your choices? What and whose visions are your choices giving voice to?

An Old Friend on the Ziggurat Road

The Road to BEcoming

Wonderous Springtime Clouds …

We cannot predict the results of healing, either our own or the world around us. We need to act for the sake of a redemption that will be a mystery until it unfolds before us. Rachael Pollack (Pace e Bene -This Nonviolent Life – quote of the day 18 May 2025)

I’ve returned to this quote daily, sometimes multiple times, since it landed in my box several days back. This morning it evoked a musing that any connection between the two, quite honestly, is mysterious and has opened me to simply wondering …

At some point on the road to BEcoming,

we realize that we have already BEcome.

Something. Someone.

And now,

we are BEcoming someone else yet again

in this body we have traveled in all these years.

A body that someday we will abandon so as to continue our journey of BEcoming

in the infinity that is Life.

My wondering about any link continues. Perhaps it’s purely about embracing the mysteries of the unknown, mysteries that we so desperately want to turn away from or control so that the outcome is known, assured, and of our choosing.

Perhaps it’s a faint, yet deep, sense that we live in a world of deception and opening to mystery offers a path to becoming undeceived. To knowing more of the Truth.

Perhaps it’s in the intensity of this time, intensity that we have and are experiencing individually and collectively as supposedly ‘self-evident’ truths are being challenged or blatantly ignored.

Perhaps it’s simply our deep longing for peace, inside and out, and for the remembering, the reconciliation, and the redemption that seem required on the path to that BEcoming.

Or, perhaps, there is no link at all, merely the opening to the wonder and mystery of what I and We are BEcoming …

… And a Colorado Blue Sky Day!

How Is Life Moving Me?

Early Morning Snow on the Peaks

How is Life moving you? The question arose yesterday in conversation with a trusted guide and friend. As I reflected afterwards, I realized that, without those exact words, I’ve been deeply in just that inquiry in recent weeks. Months really, but I’ve especially felt its intensity in the last few weeks as the question what is mine to do? arose in several situations that presented themselves on my path, including one that was a ‘Big Ask’ from a family member.

There’s no need to be an oracle of the obvious and tell you that we are living in an intense time. The evidence is all around. Someone, perhaps many, in your circle of family and friends, or perhaps even you, find themselves in crisis. The human train of tragedy, violence, cruelty, and war is an epidemic of misery, suffering, and death as the black magic of fear is perpetuated on many fronts from many sources. The earth is quaking and exploding, drying out in some areas, while inundating others. The sun is hurling solar flares and coronal mass ejections. And the planets in our solar system have been aligning and interacting with one another in ways that point to the end of old and the beginning of new cycles, inviting us into change and transformation, within us and in our world.

We are not who we were six months ago. We have been, we are, and we will continue to find ourselves at crossroads, opportunities to choose the habits of the old or to create new stories, new ways forward. As these crossroads come to me, I’m finding that a key question is, how is Life moving me in THIS?

I’ve discovered that inquiring in this way has the potential to shift the stress of immediately deciding what should I do? Or even how will I respond? It opens my heart to ask Life what she needs and wants in this moment, at this choice point. For me this is a very different energy and perspective, and it is somehow freeing and expansive rather than limiting my choices. A blank canvas rather than an either/or, this or that, yes/no challenge. An opportunity to write a new story, forge a new path.

Imagine for a moment letting this question lead in your world, your choices, your crossroads. Imagine opening the door and inviting What is Life Moving in Me in for a cup of tea. Perhaps a longer visit or even becoming a companion on the road of life. Imagine inquiring, what does Life need in my expression of Life now?

Now, imagine a world where this question leads. What does Life need? Imagine leaders in business, government, politics, technology, etc. asking it. Pollyanna? Perhaps. But I believe that they will if we are bold enough to ask it first of ourselves and then if we envision and demand it. For most have likely never heard such a question, much less been invited to ask it. And, while we may loathe how they lead today, Life is not served if we view them as enemy or ‘other’ for we are not separate.

We are One, and somewhere deep within each of us lies memory of the new and ancient truth that Life does not need suffering, war, fear, horror, or cruelty. Life needs kindness, harmony, understanding, joy, nurturing, laughter, dance, play. Life needs LOVE. Life IS LOVE.

Amidst the chaos and cruelty, I’m dreaming this dream and holding this possibility. In this moment that is How Life is moving me. What about you? Are you ready to build a new story from that!

Foothills, Ziggurat, Valley and Mountains Beyond

Honoring Truth & Stepping Into Possibility in Perilous Times

Be kind. Be connected. Be unafraid.  … When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. Rivera Sun, The Dandelion Insurrection

The burden of continual injustices and angers is more than one person can bear–or should. And consequently I’m constantly replete with admiration and love for the people I’ve painted who so fiercely bear those burdens. Rob Shetterly

We as readers of these stories who are holding a collective vision of them have the power to create the reality we are walking into by choosing what we give our attention to. What more powerful message could we be receiving at this time when we feel so powerless? Sherri Mitchell

Rivera’s words and their spirit have been with me this week as I’ve looked out at the world which seems ever more on the brink of explosion and as I’ve witnessed the constant efforts to spread fear in order to control. I’ve called on her words in the midst of challenging conversations around a family matter this week, holding them in my heart as reminders pointing the way forward on my path. They are with me as well as I engage in exploration of building new systems to create a bright future story in community with others. I resonate with their simplicity and their power.

Rivera’s stories live in me as visions of possibility and promise, reminding me of the world that is possible if we are willing to hold its vision, its hope, its promise and to step into whatever is our role to be and to do on the path of co-creation.

Be kind. Be connected. Be unafraid.  … When fear is used to control us, love is how we rebel. Powerful words embedded in power stories reminding us all of what is possible and reminding us to step into our power to create that world.

Today, I want to continue the honoring of the mother of these words that began this weekend past at the unveiling of her portrait by artist Robert Shetterly to join with the portraits of 270+ other truth tellers in Shetterly’s mission to put attention on courageous American truth tellers, past and present.  Honoring Americans Who Tell The Truth https://americanswhotellthetruth.org/. Today, I want to introduce you to or remind you of the work of my friend, author and activist Rivera Sun. A truth teller. One who shows the way. https://riverasun.com/.

One of the speakers at the unveiling was Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. Mitchell spoke about her experience of working with Rivera and said of her, … she has the ability to shift us from the common themes of warfare and conquest and domination and destruction and dismantling to ones of building a path forward that we can all walk upon … a way that invites us into the story as real people … she writes authentically about the very real challenges that we’re facing in ways that give us a pathway forward that is an option that has not been presented to us in real time in the world we are living in. We need these stories to exist. We need young people and old people and all of the people in between reading and imagining and believing into these stories. We as readers of these stories who are holding a collective vision of them have the power to create the reality we are walking into by choosing what we give our attention to. What more powerful message could we be receiving at this time when we feel so powerless?

I frequently speak about our current need for new stories and in series like The Dandelion Insurrection, a prescient novel about the challenging time we are living in now and the Ari Ara series for young readers about building a world of peace, Rivera offers us such stories to read, to imagine, to believe, and to live into. Indeed, if one turns their attention away from the mainstream, there are vast, real-time stories of people changing the world to be discovered. She inspires me to do just that. To not get mired in the toxic swamp of fear, but eyes forward to march onward to the horizon of peace and possibility that is beckoning our attention. This, as I often implore here in The Pivot, is where our attention should be if indeed, we desire a new world.

Rivera is one of my sheroes, and my grandchildren love her too. Who are your heroes and sheroes? Where is your attention? Who/what is calling you to build and co-create the future anew?

Pivoting Perspective - From Spending to Investing

Investing in the Joy and Beauty of Morning Light …

Investing connects. Spending feels only about the present moment and about me, not the greater whole.

A thought that just won’t let go popped in last week during a robust discussion of our local food system, strengthening it, and the perception (only sometimes grounded in fact) that local, healthy food is “too expensive”. A young community leader suggested that perhaps there are different questions to be asked and perspectives to be shifted, planting a seed, a gentle nudge to open hearts and minds to new thinking. Oh, how I honor these Millennials and their wisdom, their care, their energy!

It wasn’t part of the discussion or even a new idea to me, but I wondered ‘what if we looked at our choices – not just those related to food purchases – as investing rather than spending?’ Could this small pivot in perspective support us, individually and collectively, to create a healthier, more just, and thriving future that supports all Life?

In our consumer culture we’re conditioned to ‘spend less and get more’. We’re drawn to bargains, sales, cheap stuff and celebrate them. We ‘spend’ time, money, and our personal energy. What is the cost of our spending in terms of our health, our well-being, our contentment? What is the cost to all Life, including the Life of our planet home?

I began to wonder, what might shift if I began to more consistently see my ‘spending’ choices (money, time, and energy) as investments in both the present and the future? What if WE did so collectively?

I realized quickly that this would invite me to question many habits of my daily life, not a new idea, but with a bit of a new twist. So, I’m experimenting making more conscious choices from this perspective and asking ‘does this choice align with my values and the future that I want to contribute to? With Life?

As my writing rambles I sense a deeper meaning and call to this exploration that I don’t yet have full access to. Seeing choices as investments feels like a call of the soul to a new future, while spending seems to just get me through each day. Investing seems more conscious, more mindful, and asks more of me.

We tend to put investing in a bucket that is about our individual future and is limited to those who have the money to do so. Thus, there’s an aspect of privilege in how we think of investing. Saving money and investing to receive a future financial return that will be ‘enough’ for me in my future. Increasing numbers of people take a step beyond financial return to include people and the planet in their investment decisions. Yet, for the most part it’s still about the money and having that elusive ‘enough’. How might I/we hold this differently? Is this the time to redefine ‘investment’? And, perhaps, to rethink and redesign this whole idea of ‘money’?

Investing feels like looking to new ways, new possibilities, contributing in some way to shifts in consciousness as we navigate a tumultuous world and its changes. What do I/we want those changes to be? Is the choice I’m making in this moment an investment that aligns with that future?

Investing feels both present and future oriented, connecting me with purpose, intention, my BEing in the world and how I relate with others and the environment. Investing connects. Spending feels only about the present moment and about me, not the greater whole.

How might seeing more of our choices as investments support the birth and nurturing of new systems that move us beyond the competitive ways of separation and its power-over systems toward a future where, knowing that we are One with each other, we co-create, nurture, sustain and maintain people, planet, and indeed all Life?

I’ll continue my inquiry and experimentation, aiming to ask myself often ‘what future am I investing in by making this choice?’.  Join me? 

… And in the Peace of First Light in the Woods Out Back

From Flooding to Remembering - Shifting Our Relationship With Water

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Toni Morrison

Water, what it is and my relationship with it, has been a focus of recent attention and reflection. Unlike the very real, on the ground, drought and ‘abnormally dry’ conditions we’re currently experiencing here the valley, water has been present in my dreams, my prayers (for blessed moisture to fall), in what I’ve read and watched, and in what emerges when my pen meets the blank page of my journal many mornings.

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. I think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner feeling as if I’m swimming in questions that when an answer comes, yet another question arises. Curiosity. Wonder. A sense of change within and without. A thirst not quenched.

Why water? I wonder as I write. Water covers more than 70 percent of Mother Earth’s surface, just as our bodies are 60-70 percent (or more according to some) water. We mirror each other. We ARE each other. There’s no ‘me’ over here and ‘it’ over there. How can I more deeply kindle this truth in me? What will help us remember?

A couple days ago, I read Morrison’s words above twice within a couple hours. Each time quoted by different writers in contexts that were both different and the same. Neither author offered information on the origin which I learned was a talk given at the New York Public Library in 1986 [As I side note, I observe that I’m encountering a number of very resonant pieces from the 80’s … hmmm…] in which Morrison says,

You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for hourse and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. "Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory--what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our "flooding”. Toni Morrison

Why water? How do the words we create to describe what water may do hold us in the illusion that we are separate? What am I remembering as I walk my path of exploration? What are we remembering?

Could it be that water is guiding us to remember who we are? To step into our memory not just that ‘water is Life’, but the unity of all Life? To know that we are water and water is us?

I think of my second encounter with Morrison’s words, Natalie Diaz narrative poem, The First Body Is The Water:

We carry the river, its body of water, in our body. I do not mean to invoke the Droste effect—this is not a picture of a river within a picture of a river.

I mean river as a verb. A happening. It is moving within me right now.

This is not juxtaposition. Body and water are not two unlike things—they are more than close together or side by side. They are same—body, being, energy, prayer, current, motion, medicine.

The body is beyond six senses. Is sensual. An ecstatic state of energy, always on the verge of praying, or entering any river of movement.

Energy is a moving river moving my moving body. …

Ending with Morrison’s words and:

Back to the body of earth, of flesh, back to the mouth, the throat, back to the womb, back to the heart, to its blood, back to our grief, back back back.

Will we remember from where we’ve come? The water.

And once remembered, will we return to that first water, and in doing so return to ourselves, to each other?

Do you think the water will forget what we have done, what we continue to do?

What is water inviting us to remember? How will we answer Her call?

[Natalie Diaz is a Mojave / Akimel O’odham poet, language activist, educator, and former professional basketball player.]