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Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Saunter

Hiking - I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word "saunter?" It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre," "To the Holy Land." And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not "hike" through them. - John Muir

Monday, November 9, 2020

Haiku saves the world

Salvation by Deeds

One autumn, one of the autumns of time, the Shinto divinities gathered, not for the first time, at Izumo. They are said to have numbered eight million. Being a shy man I would have felt a bit lost among so many. In any case, it is not convenient to deal in inconceivable numbers. Let us say there were eight, since eight is a good omen in these islands.

They were downcast, but did not show it: the visages of divinities are undecipherable kanji. They seated themselves in a circle on the green crest of a hill. They had been observing mankind from their firmament or from a stone or from a snowflake. One of the divinities spoke:

Many days, or centuries, ago, we gathered here to create Japan and the world. The fishes, the seas, the seven colors of the rainbow, the generations of plants and animals have all worked out well. So that men should not be burdened with too many things, we gave them succession, issue, the plural day and the singular night. We also bestowed on them the gift of experimenting with certain variations. The bee continues repeating beehives. But man has imagined devices: the plow, the key, the kaleidoscope. He also imagined the sword and the art of war. He has just imagined an invisible weapon which could put an end to history. Before this senseless deed is done, let us wipe out men.

They remained pensive. Without haste another divinity spoke:

It is true. They have thought up that atrocity, but there is also this something quite different, which fits in the space encompassed by seventeen syllables.

The divinity intoned them. They were in an unknown language, and I could not understand them.

The leading divinity delivered a judgment:

Let men survive.

Thus, because of a haiku, the human race was saved. 

- Jorge Luis Borges 

Monday, October 5, 2020

Grief Work

Every day now, I wake up, and I feel it - grief. It is not a grief conjured up solely from my own personal losses. Although those have a part to play. It is a different grief. It is a lingering, low-lying, non-distinct grief. It is a grief that hovers, mixed with concern, with worry, with desire, with longing. A grief for something lost, or dying, or calling out for my attention, that feels like it is going to perish because there is no way for me to reach it. It is like a baby constantly crying somewhere in the distance.  

Yes, like that, like that a thousand times over. A grief for things being harmed, that I alone have not the strength or power to protect. A grief that reaches out its hands to a burning rainforest, to a trafficked teenage girl, to a victim of crime that was denied justice in an unjustice system, to salmon contending with low water, to a stand of trees cut down for yet another development, to a beach covered in plastic, to a child covered in sores, to a sensitive soul shooting up the overdose of fentanyl, to the last caribou standing in a functionally extinct herd, to first nation communities surrounded on every side by industry, to the factory worker in China who forgets her own name after a 14 hr shift, to a migrant worker exhausted and unable to find a safe place to live, to a struggling farmer in India who can't afford his debts, to a millionaire buying love over and over again and never receiving it, to a cow in a feed lot standing knee deep in her own feces living a completely denaturalized life and yearning for an open field, to a person who hasn't been touched or hugged in months, to the freshly logged cut block in the last remaining old growth.  

I feel you, but I cannot touch you.

I feel you, but I cannot reach you.

I feel you, because I am you.

Here is the challenge of our time, dear beings: To truly open our hearts to the wonders of Interbeing, to live a connected, open-eyed, open-hearted, wide-awake life of awareness and responsiveness to what is happening on our beloved planet, this comes with a cost. And that cost is an intensity of grief.  The grief of being born to an earth family that is poisoning each other and our one and only home. That is neglecting and ignoring its elders (indigenous peoples worldwide), and squandering the inheritance of its children (our young ones, our future ones).

I don't think the world is full of cold-hearted people. I don't think that's why we're not seeing a full-scale REVOLUTION and REVOLT against business as usual. I think the world is full of people who only know their heart to be so big. Who feel the subconscious fear of the cost of it breaking, if they were to let the full reality enter in like a mighty rushing wind. I think the world is full of people who need to feel...more. And more. And...more. People who need a deeper and wider feeling experience inside of their human experience. People who have learned how to block that from happening, and so are in need of a great softening medicine. People who are exhausted with pain, and don't feel they can bear another drop.

Grief. You are a heavyweight champion. The great contender. The water and the stone.

And yet, I do believe our hearts need to be expanded by this collective grief. And so today I am making a stand for the grievers. I am making a stand for grief itself. That we must feel it. That we must not hide from it or run from it or lose our faith in its ability to connect us most deeply to all life. That we must not allow cynicism to arise in the absence of making space for it (because perhaps cynicism develops when grief is retained in the mind only, and is not allowed to reach deep down in and expand our hearts) . And that this grief, if we let it do its work in us, will have us turn fiercely and lovingly toward what we love. It will give us the wherewithal to protect it and each other and stay...open. To be giants of feeling.

I think the revolution will come through the catalyzation of grief work. It will arrive quietly and powerfully on a trail of tears.

May grief do its work in you as it is doing its work in me.

- Selah

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

On Joy

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this⁣ is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant⁣ when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.⁣

– Mary Oliver⁣

Monday, August 3, 2020

Putting everything on the line. Here She is.


Wow. Portland. Her. From time to time the mythic emerges and is captured in iconic form. Behold the Divine Feminine in all Her glory. Unadorned. Unprotected. Interrupting the banalities of evil. Spreading awe. Vulnerability ~ the only power strong enough to threaten fascism. She appeared as if out of nowhere and approached the blockade fully nude looking at the stunned officers. She pointed at them silently. The police and the feds didn’t hesitate to shoot back with rubber bullets. A protester with a shield appeared also as if out of nowhere covering the woman briefly from police fire. She began to make slow yoga-like poses, then sat down. She sat there fully naked legs open, gazing at the officers. Using her pussy riot power and white woman privilege to the epic degree. Bewildered, as if outnumbered, the military line eventually dispersed. One day this will become one of the iconic images of the 21st century. Among these others. The Feminine Rising. It’s no instagramable goddessy bullshit, it’s leaning into good trouble, it's the uprising of the unprotected, it’s the kind of love that disrupts injustice, it’s the naked against the machine in the middle of the night. It’s putting everything on the line. Here She is. - Vera de Chalambert

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

On Freedom

The current anti-lockdown protests highlight something very deep about our modern view of 'freedom'. This is the idea that 'freedom' is the ability to do whatever we want whenever we want, no matter the consequences. From the yogic perspective, the human desire to follow every impulse, no matter how harmful, no matter how socially and psychically disruptive, is the exact opposite of freedom. It means being at the whims of our basest impulses, which, when magnified across an entire society or world, generally doesn't tend to work out so well. This mindset of 'I get to do whatever I want whenever I want it and no one can tell me otherwise' is on full display in the anti-lockdown protests, but it is not the sole domain of the far right and libertarians. It also permeates and underpins neoliberal capitalist culture in general. Hence - trade without human rights considerations, free movement of capital without regard for local communities and environments, billionaires who don't pay taxes. Yet this type of 'freedom' is not free of the laws of cause and effect - and every freedom happens within the context of a larger order, the order of nature. The deep interconnected web of the natural world is based much less on what we call 'freedom' and is much closer to what we call 'harmony.' Shifting, interlocking relationships that, in their relationship, make up a whole that is ultimately dependent upon each part. This is the same harmony that makes for good music. If you've ever been part of a really bad drum circle, everyone just playing whatever they want whenever they want, then you understand the consequences of the modern American view of 'freedom.' It's called chaos. The good music comes when people understand their responsibility to the whole composition, and each contributes accordingly, and within the structure of the song, there is breathing space enough for each to express fully, and find ecstatic freedom, within structural harmony rather than outside of it. - Josh Schrei

Monday, June 1, 2020

James Baldwin on Shakespeare: "He could have done this only through love"

The greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. He could have done this only through love - by knowing, which is not the same thing as understanding, that whatever was happening to anyone was happening to him. It is said that his time was easier than ours, but I doubt it - no time can be easy if one is living through it. I think it is simply that he walked his streets and saw them, and tried not to lie about what he saw: his public streets and his private streets, which are always so mysteriously and inexorably connected; but he trusted that connection. And, though I, and many of us, have bitterly bewailed (and will again) the lot of an American writer - to be part of a people who have ears to hear and hear not, who have eyes to see and see not - I am sure that Shakespeare did the same. Only, he saw, as I think we must, that the people who produce the poet are not responsible to him: he is responsible to them.

That is why he is called a poet. And his responsibility, which is also his joy and his strength and his life, is to defeat all labels and complicate all battles by insisting on the human riddle, to bear witness, as long as breath is in him, to that mighty, unnameable, transfiguring force which lives in the soul of man, and to aspire to do his work so well that when the breath has left him, the people—all people!—who search in the rubble for a sign or a witness will be able to find him there.

- James Baldwin, from "How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education Hardcover" by Scott Newstok

Friday, May 1, 2020

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - Chapter 80

A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster
     than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple,
     their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

ACCESSING THE DIVINITY IN ALL THINGS (INCLUDING POLITICS)

Thursday, Aug 22, 2019
—Michael Channeled by Shepherd Hoodwin

Divinity could be defined as the pure experience of love, truth, and beauty. Some people think of the divine as being “up there.” Others see it as being in nature. Many will tell you, however, that God is everywhere, and that is true: the Source is inherent in everything—all things spring from the Tao. Therefore, love, truth, and beauty are at the core of all things.
Because human beings have sentience, which we define as the ability to function in a purely intellectual manner—for example, the ability to make plans—this opens up the possibility of greater knowing and therefore richer experience. But the downside is that there is also the ability to become preoccupied with temporal things and lose the awareness of the divine that most beings have by default. Sometimes your companion animals inspire you because you notice that they have not forgotten love, on the level at which they are capable of experiencing it.
It is a paradox that humans have a greater capacity for the joy of knowing their divinity but also a greater capacity to forget it. Much growth comes from choosing to remember, especially when remembering is not easy. If you remember when you’re under stress, you strengthen your ability to know. Happy young children easily remember, but because they are not as intellectually developed, they have a limited capacity to choose to remember when something triggers them. They can go from joyous laughter to a temper tantrum in a moment. If you choose to remember when it is difficult to do so, your remembering when it is relatively easy becomes stronger. Your conscious connection with the divine became greater because you overcame an obstacle and evolved—you gained skill.
Some people are naturally attuned with the earth, while others have an affinity for the higher realms. The divine in the higher realms is not any more divine than the divine in the earth. It is simply a different color, you might say. If you are connecting with it in a pure way, the divine is beautiful, liberating, nourishing, and happy whether it is accessed through nature or through spiritual practice.
The divine is also an intrinsic part of everyday life. It can be accessed through enjoying good food or music, for example; in fact, it can be accessed through every part of life. But this is more challenging for most, because between heaven and earth is human unconsciousness. It arises from forgetting the divine.
One does not hear many examples of people accessing the divine while waiting on hold for tech support or trying to figure out how they’re going to pay their bills. However, it can be done. Like all skills, it benefits from regular practice.
Let’s say that you have pain in your knee. Usually one’s habit is to resist pain or discomfort, and retreat. One doesn’t want to feel it, but it is necessary to go through the pain if one is to access the divine within it. Even if you’ve taken a painkiller, it’s wise to bring your attention to the pain and lovingly be present with it.
There are stories of Christian martyrs enduring great pain, and then that giving way to bliss. Some people deliberately take on pain hoping to find that bliss. We do not recommend that, but sometimes extreme stress breaks down ego defenses, and an awareness of the eternal comes through. That can help one realize the temporal nature of pain. Of course, one can choose to open to the divine without enduring pain.
Consciousness is the most fundamental power there is because all things ultimately are consciousness. The universe itself is consciousness. When you bring higher consciousness to any situation, that transforms it. There then may be actions that naturally follow from it.
Many spiritual practices have value. Some are complex and take a long time to master. The discipline of a lengthy study, or following rituals or rules, can be growthful, and much can be learned. However, if your aim is simply to be at peace and know your own divinity, it is not truly difficult to reach that state. You are already eternal and infinite; you don’t have to achieve that. You just need to remember.
Granted, there are times when that is challenging. This is where techniques can be useful. Psychological techniques can help you reframe your experience. You can use healing techniques to release negative energies, making it easier to concentrate on the divine that is always your true reality. Getting a massage or just a good night’s sleep can help reduce your distractions. However, in any moment you are in distress, you can first choose to accept everything as it is and remember your divinity. If you start there rather than trying to get there after lengthy meditation or other practices, you will be in a better position to clear away distractions. You might affirm: “I am already divine. I am not becoming that—I am that. I am just learning to remember more often.” That can help you relax and simply do the work that will allow you feel better more consistently.
Every soul is growing. One can grow through either joy or pain. One can be more conscious and endeavor to make the best choices possible, or one can default to growing unconsciously, on autopilot, through the School of Hard Knocks, making repetitive mistakes that one might eventually realize are mistakes.
A lot of human consciousness is subterranean, and many choices are knee jerk—they come from the subconscious, which contains a lot of false programming and frozen fear and anger. Better choices—those that end up having happier results—usually come when relevant factors are considered with objectivity and care.
Better choices involve intellectual reflection, but they are not merely intellectually based. You consider the facts as you know them alongside your gut feelings—what your body is telling you; sometimes your body knows things that your mind does not. You also consider your emotions, intuition, spiritual guidance, and the counsel of other people. Ideally, you bring all available input together in your heart. You process it until it becomes clear to you what the best choice is for you. If you do this, you are less likely to make choices that will cause unnecessary pain for yourself and others, and you will generally grow a lot more quickly than if you are attending the School of Hard Knocks.
Perhaps you are distressed by the current political landscape. You see many people growing through pain, and unfortunately, dragging others along with them. Human beings have largely grown through pain throughout most of recorded history, so this is not new. However, modern technology, which in some ways is a great blessing, can also do more harm than would have been possible in the past. We encourage you to be politically active if you feel called to that, but changing destructive policies is only a temporary measure. The solution comes from raising consciousness, from humanity growing more through joy. You can only raise your own consciousness, but you might inspire others to also raise theirs.
There is great ignorance in the world, some of it willful. You probably will not reach those who shield their ignorance. But there are many people who simply have not seen alternatives. They have not seen others who are more conscious and therefore are growing more through joy.
If you discuss charged issues with those who seem ignorant, the most important thing is to model love and respect. We suggest that you feel into whether there is some openness to what you wish to say. If there is not, you could make things worse—you could cause them to dig in their heels. If there is a little openness, try to sense the best way to say it, what could speak to them. Sometimes you can better connect with someone with a question rather than a statement. Also, be open to what you might learn from them. Respect the divinity of others, because truly, no matter how they may be behaving at the moment, they are just as much a part of the One as everything else in the universe.
Avoid attacking, because that puts people on the defensive and they will not hear. If defenses then come up anyway, we suggest that you let it go for the moment. Similarly, if you are being triggered by them, you will probably not be able to communicate well with them, so first bring your loving awareness to your triggering and see if you can let it disperse.
Don’t be discouraged if a particular interaction doesn’t go as well as you would like. Focus on handling it as kindly and wisely as you can, and learn from your experience. That is what it is to be a light worker. Maybe you have helped move that person forward an inch, and maybe that is more progress than they have made in quite a while. Everyone is connected energetically, so your work is not just with that person—it is with all the people that that person is connected to and the entire consciousness that that person is aligned with. Your work is not primarily intellectual conversation; you lift humanity by living from a higher vibration of love, truth and beauty.
Everyone has blind spots, to a greater or lesser extent. There are many reasons people can be unconscious in some areas and believe things that are not true. Do not assume that they are generally lacking in goodness, intelligence, or evolution. People are complicated. The side they are showing you in any given moment is not the whole of who they are. See if you can engage with others as divine beings and not who they are temporarily revealing themselves to be. Even if they are momentarily defensive or belligerent, everyone wants to be seen for who they really are.
No experience is wasted. When a soul becomes more awake, past mistakes made through lack of consciousness become fodder for the growth of consciousness when they are examined and their underlying causes are healed. Even a soul who committed atrocities but allows itself to more fully awaken can become a beacon of understanding, possibly reaching others who are still committing atrocities. All experiences can be used. All the unwise choices that you have made—and everyone has made plenty—can be used to refine your vibration. Growth does not occur in a vacuum. One has to have experiences to grow, and some of your experiences are inevitably going to be unpleasant, including things that you look back on mistakes. Mistakes can bring pain but also growth. There’s no need to be ashamed of your mistakes. It is a good idea to learn from them. And once you have learned as much from them as you are currently able, it is a good idea to leave them behind. You can always revisit them later after you’ve gained more experience.
If you continue to beat yourself up for past mistakes, you are likely to make similar mistakes in the future because you are energizing them. Extract the learning from them, apologize if warranted, forgive yourself, and move on. If you are having trouble doing that, see if you can discover the reasons you are not letting them go. Perhaps the main reason people do not fully forgive themselves for their mistakes is that they were raised with conditional love. To a child, that translates as “I can only be loved if I am a certain way.”
MEDITATION
See if you can, in this moment, have unconditional love for yourself. Close your eyes and feel the pure energy of unconditional love.
Ask your soul to light up within you anywhere you believe that you do not deserve it. You may see visual images, or notice emotions or sensations. You may simply know what’s there. Be present with what is lit up. Maybe there is a voice saying things such as “I have to be a certain way.”
If you are ready to release these beliefs, ask unconditional love to explode them. This may create some debris. Ask unconditional love to send this debris into the sun where it can be recycled as pure energy.
The way things are in this moment cannot be changed, because this moment already exists. It is “what is.” The paradox is that if you embrace the facts of this moment, it is easier to make choices that bring change in the following moments. The way things are now are as good a starting point for your reality creation as anything else might be. You could conceivably be more advanced than you are; you could also be less advanced. But you are where you are, and your present state is the result of unfathomable eons of evolution. You are perfect the way you are, and so is everyone else. That liberates you to peacefully get clear on your next step. “What do I wish to choose now in order to create something better?”
Donald Trump is perfect the way he is. He is a damaged human being, and that is perfect because that can be used for his evolution and that of humanity. You don’t have to like him (or anyone else). But you will be able to do more to change things if you observe him with understanding. He is acting out of his current consciousness. If he could be more evolved, he probably would be. A lot of his ignorance is willful and he may not change in this lifetime. But like all people, he is giving lessons to others, in his case on a large scale. And others can always use “what is” to grow if they choose.
If you approach those who seem deeply ignorant with animosity, you will be less effective in bringing change. Those who do harm likely do not know any better and may themselves have been victims of abuse—they need healing. It is possible to see clearly and call a spade a spade, working for change, and at the same time acknowledge the divinity in all people, realizing that even those who are deeply ignorant are on a path of evolution. You can wish them well and desire their highest good, and actively seek change in government and policies. If you are peaceful about the state of the world, it does not make you apathetic; it can actually energize you to work for progress.
If there is a part of you that feels the need to hold anger and hate toward those who are doing harm, love that part of you with understanding and compassion. Be okay that you have these feelings until they are ready to shift.
Are we collectively becoming more conscious?
Yes. For several thousands of years, humanity has had quite a dense consciousness, but there has been a great deal of forward movement since WWII and especially in the last fifteen years or so.
You are seeing a purging of old consciousness in the current political landscape. A lot of buried energies have been surfacing, things that were not properly resolved when they might have been. For example, the resurgent racism in the U.S. could have been healed in the middle of the 19th Century, but it was not. Purging does not necessarily need to happen in the way that it is happening, but these things have to come to the surface one way or another.
Many are heavily resisting change and are quite uncomfortable. However, maybe ten or fifteen percent of humanity is growing by leaps and bounds, faster than we have seen before. They may not identify consciously as light workers, but they are seeking. You might say, “What good is that it is only ten or fifteen percent? That is not enough.” However, higher consciousness is much more powerful energetically than lower consciousness. It may be that for the time being, lower consciousness has control of governments, but those bringing a higher vibration can have a huge impact in the medium- to long-term.
Forty years ago, we were not convinced that humanity would survive. Both environmental and nuclear destruction were possible. Now, we are more optimistic about your future. There will of course be bumps in the road, but consciousness is accelerating. You would not know this if you were getting all of your information from the media, mainstream or otherwise. But if you could observe collective energies the way that we are able to, you would see a lot to encourage you.
There has always been much in the world of politics that could capture one’s focus and trigger anger and dismay. Believe it or not, throughout much of history, things have been worse than they are now. If you wish to be a good citizen, you do not ignore what is going on—political events are important and need attention. At the same time, try to observe them with as much equanimity as you can, knowing that they are a necessary part of humanity’s evolution, the way that many are choosing to have lessons. Yes, they are doing harm, but eventually things will come clear. Of course, one would prefer that that be sooner rather than later. However, it is best to focus on the choices that are yours to make and not worry too much about those that belong to others. Resisting what you have no control over increases suffering, your own and that of others.
The choices of those holding office are theirs to make. However, there’s a lot that you can do. You can choose whom you vote for, what articles you share on social media, and various forms of activism, making your voice heard. You can you do what you can to reduce suffering. Most importantly, you can choose to raise your consciousness and live from greater love.
Some people ignore politics because it is too painful for them or it distracts them from being centered. Others ignore it simply because they cannot be bothered. If you are reacting to the news, it might be a good idea to take a break from it for a while until you can handle it with equanimity. You probably won’t miss much anyway—it’s pretty much the same thing over and over. But if you are called to informed activism and can do it with compassion, respect, and kindness, that is good work. As there are more light workers, human beings will increasingly learn how to grow through joy.
All is well. You are eternal. You cannot die and neither can anyone or anything else. You are growing and so is everyone else. Every human being is divine and can choose to align with that knowledge at any time. You are perfect exactly as you are. The world as it is today, with as much room as it has for improvement, is also a perfect starting point for the future that is being created now. You can choose to create from love, truth, and beauty.
September 30, 2018
Los Angeles, California
Transcribed by Kate Hockaday
Proofread by Dahlia Grossman

Sunday, March 1, 2020

From that unknown place that is oriented in creativity

There is a certain light that is found only inside the wound. There are images there, tunnels and passageways of perception, somatic data, and psychic vision that is not available in times of peace, joy, and clarity.

Inside the labyrinths of grief, transition, uncertainty, and doubt are hidden jewels, which long to be mined and to disclose their essence.

While we will naturally have a preference to be free of the wound, we are asked to find the soul there. For there are colors, fragrance, data, and revelation that is not accessible outside that landscape. It is buried within it.

To access this, we must go against the grain and flow of a world that has forgotten the poetry and melody of the dark… one that has become enamored by solar glow and where the lunar has fallen into the shadow.

Somewhere in the middle of transcending the wound and drowning within it, the call comes from there, from that unknown place that is oriented in creativity and holding the tension. In that liminal dimension, in between, it is there the beloved awaits, looking for us. 

- Matt Licata

Saturday, February 1, 2020

You can be more open to the power that will work through you

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on... you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, as you yourself mention in passing, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.

So the next step in the process is for you to see that your own thinking about what you are doing is crucially important. You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work and your witness. You are using it so to speak to protect yourself against nothingness, annihilation. That is not the right use of your work. All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God’s love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it. 

- Thomas Merton

Thursday, January 2, 2020

May you fall madly in love this year

May you fall madly in love this year ... in love with someone who unhinges your tired trajectory, in love with a spouse of several years who might be aching for lightning, in love with demanding children and crazy relatives ... in love with the particular pedigree of genius insanity that has perhaps claimed you in spite of your reluctance ... and certainly in love with an animal, a cloud, a redwood, the wild ... these at least once a day. May you fall in love with this fragile jewel of a world, with hard work, real learning, just causes, petitioning and prayers. May you fall in love with wonder itself, with the grand mystery, with all that feeds you in order that you may live ... and with the responsibility that that confers. May you fall in love with heartbreak and seeing how it's stitched into everything. May you fall in love with the natural order of things and with tears, tenderness and humility. May this be a magnificent year for you. May you fall deeply, madly, hopelessly, inextinguishably in love. - Rachelle Lamb