So much has happened since then…summer has come and gone, I’ve traveled to guide programs, I’ve felt heart break, hope, anger, frustration, and inspiration, I've wrestled with tremendous and weighty questions dropping me in full pots of grief, I’ve witnessed the golden wonders of the heart’s resilience, abundant garden delights, shared love and ache with deep friends, and awe for the blessings of Earth and her beings and have been nourished by quiet moments of rest.
And now even equinox has passed with a whispered note to remember this.
How have you been navigating these strange times?
I hear from numerous people that depression at time takes them down, that disgust and frustration nearly takes them out, that a bewildering sense of not knowing weighs on them. It seems an epidemic with paradoxical symptoms of either a dizzying rushing around in a swirl of meaningless actions that show up like a rash of mindlessness, or a sense of being paralyzed inside of a straight jacket of fear, anxiety or absolute befuddlement where the mind goes blank and disassociation takes the lead and nothing happens as we stare blankly at screens.
Intentional action seems to be the course that keeps us steadfast in our Love and able to be joyful in our purpose.
And yet…and yet.. it is increasingly easy to slip out of purposeful action into
an addictive daze of distraction and escapist ways.
This morning as I listened to Van Jones speak of breaking out of our resistance bubble, I was inspired and shaken awake again, to the importance of being a force for Love in a world run rampant with blame, warring, bullying and shadowy finger pointing.
The underbelly of a seismic wave of fear moves so many of us into actions that sometimes carry the scent of the very thing that causes us to judge the other.
My own dreams since returning from guiding a vision quest in Montana where we had numerous sightings of bears, repeatedly showed me how my fears are causing me to act in controlling, non-relational and ineffective ways that are not at all my heart’s intention. Attention must be given.
Mr. Jones who is in the vanguard called the “Love Army” spoke of fighting for or moving in favor of, versus fighting against. There are subtle and dramatic differences in our choices and actions when we focus on fighting for something that we love, versus against something that we hate.
Shall love or hate be our motive?
The mama bear will rip the life out of you with one swift movement of her clawed paws if you endanger her cubs because she loves their lives. That is not against you, but rather FOR her children. Have I projected my own capacity for such fierce loving onto those brilliant and beloved predators?
Would you choose to be a part of a love army? What comes up for you?
What fear-based patterns would you have to put down in order to do that?
What would you fight for? What WILL you fight FOR??
In just a month’s time I will be co-guiding a program called “Ripening Into Grace” with Delisa Myles in our body of work that we call Nature Moving Women. This one is for women aged 45 and over.
We are calling to the women of this age and vibrancy who carry questions of purpose, death and dying, elder hood and more, because we see there is something in these elder women that seems to innately know about being a stand for what they love. As well in these elder years, what I’ve seen is that because we are approaching the decades when larger numbers of humans take their leave from their bodies, the ache to take action and to make a difference heightens and the risk taking becomes ever more important and reasonable. Fear slacks off as we approach our elder hood and fierceness steps in as the conversations with death invite us to be the mama bear for that which we love.
We have seen women who were once timid, silent or impoverished in their confidence suddenly begin to ripen in ways they never imagined and find a grace that comes only with taking passionate action towards the great needs in the world. We die to our worn out ways that have kept us ineffective and small, and we actually come alive in ways we never imagined in our aging. Grief becomes an ally of energy that opens us to our most engaging fervency.
Stand up, give thanks, forgive, take a stand, listen deep, be humble, open your heart, say yes,
Roar for the children!
You are needed here!