Category: Global change

Family

There are many meanings of the word family: bloodlines, cultural background, soul connection, life friendships, and more. It has expanded over time, with human evolution and world change. When I was in college years ago, a friend introduced me to the book The Family of Man [sic], a collection of photographs of people from all over the world in different countries and cultures, showing the unity in great diversity. Since then, of course, women have been more universally acknowledged as an essential part of that family, in language as well as perceptions. Widening the definitions even further, family includes much more than humanity.

This past winter I often gazed out the window at the leafless trees in the woods across from our condo building. Their various forms were quite beautiful in the changing light of the day. Then one morning I suddenly saw them differently: as connected, branches and roots energetically interwoven. One continuous entity instead of single side-by-side trees. I could see the trees as family, living their lives together, intimately linked in time and space, just as human families are.

There have been books written about how trees communicate through their root systems, as people communicate through our hands and voices. When I thought of this, my mind felt itself expand even further so that I could picture the family of trees and the family of humans as part of an even larger family of all beings on Earth—and even beyond that: part of families of stars and galaxies. We think everything on this planet and in the universe is separate and distinct, but from a multidimensional perspective, it is a river of unbroken energy, flowing endlessly as one.

The greatest sages taught this over the centuries. Their wisdom spoke of a oneness beyond human attempts to categorize life in order to understand it. “Understanding” becomes unnecessary when we hold acceptance and unconditional love for All That Is in our hearts; that’s when true “seeing” begins. Gratitude opens the door to grace. And the universal oneness that is the essence of family.

So what if all of us saw life on Earth this way, not occasionally, but always? Trees and people and animals and flowers all one within a rainbow of light. One breath of God breathing the world. If we could see that all our “roots” and “branches” are intertwined, how could we then hate one another and fight wars? How could we destroy forests and poison the air?

I stretch my heart and soul to believe that this vision of oneness is possible. Not only possible but arising more and more, not just within the minds of poets and prophets but in average people living everyday lives. Yes, there is dissension and conflict, seemingly everywhere you look, but there is also something else: softer voices speaking of kindness, compassion, and peace. And living it. We are not entirely lost in separateness and mistrust. Our “family” is not dead. Even if we can’t feel or see them clearly, our branches and roots are still intertwined, and our hearts pull us forward to oneness. We are breathing life into this world, every one of us.

Remember Your Heart

How do we live through difficulties and challenges with our life spirit intact? The current political landscape is full of such extreme divisiveness and hatred, both nationally and globally, that it is hard to feel optimistic about the future. Almost daily my heart is filled with sadness, and peace on Earth seems like a lost dream. Recently, as I sat staring out the window at a cloudy winter landscape, I sensed similar cloudiness within me. I realized then that I had felt exactly the same way in the late 1960s when the Vietnam War was at its height, and fiery race riots raged in Detroit, Newark, Watts, and other cities. The world seemed to be in hopeless conflict, and I couldn’t see how basic human rights, justice, equality, and peace could ever come to be.

Many others of my generation felt similarly, and it was the birth of movements for nonviolent social change and the possibilities they held that helped us survive. Civil rights workers and peace activists, flower children and feminists, began to grow in numbers (yes, I was among them). The vision we held for a more loving and harmonious planet moved us forward, our hands and hearts joined. Music, speeches, marches. Hope lived in collective actions by thousands against war, racism, sexism, homophobia, and environmental destruction. Over the years, gradual but significant changes took place, even nationally. The end to the Vietnam War. The first African American President and first woman Vice President; a more diverse Congress. Women’s health rights. Voting rights. Martin Luther King Jr. Day; Earth Day. Legalization of gay marriage. Rainbow flags across the country seemed to symbolize the possibility of a diverse and inclusive future for all.

 Yet systemic racism and injustice, misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred of immigrants, transphobia/homophobia, and the rise of the 1% economic elite continued to grow and become stronger. Right up to the present, when it all burst out into high-profile predominance with the current elected (and non-elected) government and its single-minded focus on power and money. Decades of social change are being battered and broken. Once again I/we are facing hopelessness.

At times like this, we need to remember what lifted our spirits and helped us through in the past. The positive energy that inspired us and encouraged us to continue. In books, articles, speeches, songs, films, meetings, demonstrations—in hundreds of places across the country and around the world, we have been sustained by our individual and collective voices of hope for human freedom, equality, compassion, and love. This is our Survival Kit for Troubled Times.

This past week,  I watched two classic Frank Capra films from the 1930s: You Can’t Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Both films are quintessential Capra: average citizens pitted against ruthless wealthy businessmen and unscrupulous politicians. They struggle against seemingly impossible odds and yet in the end, “we the people” prevail. Each film is a hopeful vision as well as a cautionary tale. One with relevance today. How many times over the years have people been called to stand up and refuse to relinquish the dream of a just and free world, a heart-centered humanity? Sometimes it seems like a horrible replay that we don’t want to relive, but we came to Earth for exactly this. With each generation, there is a shift, a further awakening into recognizing the basic oneness of everyone and everything, even in the midst of our differences.

We have to remind ourselves that possibility lives within impossibility. In her book A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit writes about groups and communities of caring, support, and mutual aid that have spontaneously arisen within disasters, both natural and human-made. As unlikely as it may seem, when everything falls apart, humans often turn to one another with kindness and generosity and build connections anew within great loss. Such stories belong in our Survival Kits, along with memories of our own strength and resilience, our own optimism in the face of pessimism. Maybe “hell” will begin to recede as our human hearts reach out to each other with hope and resolve. As my friend Heather recently said, “Remember your heart.” Everything we need is within us and among us.

Find Something to Celebrate

Every morning, I look for something to celebrate. Something that makes me smile or laugh. Something that fills my heart with gratitude. At times, it can seem unlikely when each day’s news headlines bring something to feel fear or sadness about. Yet there is much more to life than those unsettling news stories.* I’ve discovered that my path to inner peace and optimism lies in looking for something positive to focus on. Something to celebrate in the world, rather than shed tears. It could be my partner’s sweet smiling face; her beautiful artwork. A neighbor’s kindness or a friend’s sense of humor. A Mary Oliver poem. Jon Batiste at the piano. Often it’s in Nature where I discover the inspiration to continue believing life is good.

One day last week my celebration was a flock of robins eating ripe red berries from winterberry trees as I walked by. Hearing them excitedly calling and flying all over in the cold winter air was such a thrill! I love robins—their rosy breasts and bright eyes. When I was growing up in the Midwest, we always thought of them as harbingers of spring, and they still hold that energy for me here in New England. New beginnings, sunshine, birdsong.

Yesterday I heard the warm-up notes of a male cardinal’s spring song. Every year in January or February those first “rehearsal” notes are heard here in Massachusetts. It’s not a rise in temperatures that triggers their song; it’s seasonal timing, the shift into a little more light each day. Gradually, spring is coming, and all the birds sense it. They too celebrate the “return of the light,” as humans do at the solstice.

Bird or human, the light connects us to life, to the positive overview. When I look out the window and see the morning sun sparkling on the trees (whether snowy or spring green), I feel the magic of the unexpected beauty that Nature brings us again and again. Every season moves us through our lives with new and exciting moments of wonder. Even if somewhere in the world there is harshness or hatred, here there is softness and love.

I never tire of the dynamic energy of winter transitioning to spring. It always gives me hope that whatever may be weighing on me can be lifted instantaneously with singing birds and blooming flowers, longer hours of sunshine and warmer temperatures. Winter holds us gently in hibernation and rest; then spring opens the door to the light, and our bodies and spirits move with renewed energy in the world again.

 When you smile with delight seeing bright yellow daffodils or hearing a wood thrush’s ethereal song, your smile may then touch the heart of the next person you meet…perhaps then continuing onward, person to person. In this way smiles can circle the globe, hearts opening along the way. Celebration can be as simple as that, and it changes everything. In your day and in your life. So wherever you find something to celebrate, in the wonders of Nature or the eyes of a loved one, hold that feeling of joy and appreciation in your heart, and it will switch on the light within you and in the world.
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*Read about everyday people living their lives for a gentler, more peaceful Earth at “Good News Headlines,” https://www.spiritofchange.org/.

My Life in Waves

In the past few years, I’ve found that life has become a series of waves that rise and fall continuously, carrying varied emotions with them. Even in the course of one day, I can feel sadness, happiness, peace, unrest, and calm again. And part of me, my soul, is just silently observing it all. My soul’s view encompasses everything, expanding both inward and outward. My human physical self wonders about the meaning of all the wave action; my soul just accepts it. 

On New Year’s Day, I had a phone conversation with a longtime friend. We caught up with one another’s lives and then moved into a deeper, more sacred space as we spoke of a dear friend’s recent death and other friends courageously living with health issues. We talked about our own physical and emotional challenges as we age and also face a world increasingly at war with itself. She too has experienced her life as vacillating waves of sadness and joy, pain and love. Never one thing permanently but always shifting, moving, even within the space of a few hours. The longer we talked, the more our hearts opened, and a shared awareness passed seamlessly between us. We each found that some experiences had slowed us down and yet that very slowing had allowed us to live fully in the moment and to see the world anew.

My breast cancer journey in 2021-22 deepened my connection to Spirit while lessening my desire for outer busyness. At times, I became a quiet witness to life as it passed before me and through me. Many of my most profound moments of joy in living were/are in Nature, especially with birds, flowers, trees, and the ever-changing sky. As I described this to my friend and listened to her description of walking in the woods and living each moment completely, I could feel that same truth touch us both. 

 And it began to expand further as I realized that the more I live in the moment, the more that moment opens up to include everything! If I look at all parts of life the way I look at Nature (intensively, expansively, with love), then that is perhaps the greatest wisdom of all. Whether I am active or contemplative, I am always centered in my soul’s inner stillness. I could feel it happening within me as she and I spoke.

I am actually one with the waves that are my life, that are all of our lives. We rise and fall, expand and contract, with the cosmic tides that affect everything in the universe. Our lives reflect the spirit within us and in the world. Some call this connection to God or Universal Consciousness. The words we use don’t really matter. It is the motion, the flow, of something greater that carries us. We are being moved to fulfill our destiny as evolving souls on an evolving planet. The stardust that brought us here is lighting the way, even when things seem unclear or unsteady. And it is the waves that are bringing us Home—to a sparkling golden ocean that encompasses All That Is.

Speak Kindness into the World

Finding time for silence in your life is important; it soothes, calms, and centers you in your soul’s presence. When you do speak, your voice then expresses the loving heart of who you are, connected to that inner stillness. Your voice can also be an instrument of peace and kindness in the world, healing separation and judgment. We are currently living at a time in which antipathy is on the rise toward those viewed as outside of a very narrow frame of acceptability (one race, one religion, one gender). Our immigrant and transgender neighbors now fear for their lives. We in the larger LGBTQ+ community are also fearful. Along with many others, including people of color, non-Christians, and all women. Who’s next?

There is a famous quote by Martin Niemoller during World War II, when Nazism was sweeping through Europe. He begins: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.” He continues, each line adding another group that “they came for” (trade unionists, Jews), and he still does not speak out. The last line stands as a powerful statement, then and now: “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” In other words, do not sit silently while your neighbors are verbally or physically attacked. Speak up. Stand with them. It’s happening to all of us.

Speaking up doesn’t have to be a fight or an argument (try to avoid antagonism, if possible). It can be as simple as admiring people for who they are, appreciating “difference” instead of disliking it, answering negative comments with positive ones. It’s a delicate balance, because some people hold tightly to their opinions and don’t want to be contradicted or challenged. To speak with kindness and compassion for all people is what we are being called to do in the world now. We are all different really. We are also all the same at the core of our being. To live with that seeming contradiction, in a space of inclusiveness, is the challenge of the years ahead, the shift from a warring planet to a peaceful one.

It begins in your house, your neighborhood, your state, your country, your planet. In essence, everywhere. With each voice of kindness speaking quietly, soul to soul, the world opens its collective heart a little more. It may seem an impossible task, but all journeys are step-by-step endeavors. Many of us have been traveling this road for decades. I lived through the years of “America: Love It or Leave It.” I also lived through the years of civil rights, women’s rights, Earth Day, Black Lives Matter, and rainbow flags on the White House and national monuments. As human beings on an evolving planet, we are all of these things. Individuals who act with hate or unkindness are often fearful inside; they don’t want to “lose” what they see as their only security in the world. They hang onto their belief systems like a life preserver. And fear can form a wall between people. Actually, we all carry fear of one kind or another in us these days.

So how to find a way for all of us to live together in mutual respect and open-heartedness? Without fear. Without anyone thinking they are better than anyone else. No easy answers to that. The walls can feel like they are closing in, angry and hateful voices speaking louder and louder. Doing nothing is not an option. My/your voice is key—not to engage in aggravated (and aggravating) argument, but to find a way through disagreement to mutuality in spite of difference. We are alive at this time for exactly this reason, as difficult or frightening as it may seem. There are many paths to oneness and community, but they all begin with kindness. The peaceful silence within you will give you the courage to speak that kindness into the world.