When I came to Rosen Method Bodywork, I learned that the body doesn’t lie. That was such a relief to me.  Breath flowed through the truth of that.  There’s nowhere to hide, no need.

Of course, there may be layers sitting on top of that truth which is why we study the breath, the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.

On day 24 of my 30 day study with Adyashanti, he speaks of telling the truth and how that opens up new pathways of reception leading to awakening.  The most important piece is to tell the truth to ourselves, to listen to our own truth.  We open the senses and listen within.  The organism is intelligent.  Tune in!

I woke this morning thinking about corners, corners in my home, corners in myself.  Is a corner a place where energy is stuck or a place where walls meet to make a whole, to create this enclosure in which I live?   What dwells there?

The air is hazy with smoke this morning.  Because there are so many wildfires in the Bay area right now, they’ve stopped naming each one.  Three separate areas have fires named “Lightning Complex.” I walk outside. There’s ash on the tables. I think of all that’s burning up right now, imagining the phoenix that rises with each breath, each day.

I appreciate the Democrats and what they’re bringing together at the convention this week. It’s essential.  One thing I note that I haven’t heard mentioned is the subject of climate change, and maybe that’s because it’s obvious.  In the past, October was a dangerous fire month where I live.  Now, we are in August and I have an evacuation bag packed, and two carriers for our kitties in case there is enough warning to get into our car and drive somewhere else.  Other times of the year, we deal with the rising tides, and whether the roads that lead to the freeway will be underwater as each year the tides become more of an issue.

All of this is to say it’s essential to stay awake to change even as we soar in gratitude for all that’s here and for the confluence that’s the Democratic party right now.  

Now I’ll listen to Adya’s Day 25: Energetically Leading with the Heart. 

When I rise at 5 these days, it’s still dark.  But it’s a gentle dark unlike what’s happening right now, and yet the voices at the Democratic convention.  Yes.  There’s community, coherence, compromise, integrity, intelligence, reality, and light.

I’m with the words of Michelle Obama.  “But let’s be clear, going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountaintop. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God,  and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences. And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.”

Wow!

This comes from Writer’s Almanac today. 

On this date 100 years ago, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. It stated that”The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” 

The first national constitutional amendment had been proposed in Congress in 1878, and in every Congress session after that. Finally, in 1919, it narrowly passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states to be ratified. Most Southern states opposed the amendment, and on August 18, 1920, it all came down to Tennessee. The pro-amendment faction wore yellow roses in their lapels, and the “anti” faction wore red American Beauty roses. It was a close battle and the state legislature was tied 48 to 48. The decision came down to one vote: that of 24-year-old Harry Burn, the youngest state legislator. He had been expected to vote against it, but he had in his pocket a note from his mother, which read: “Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification. Your Mother.” He voted in favor of the amendment.

I think of Laiki, a dog sent into space on Sputnik 2 in 1957.  She didn’t know what was being asked of her, or maybe she did, but she led the way for our current exploration of space.

I study and practice Sensory Awareness to better know, expand, and explore my inner space as it reaches out into a space beyond my obvious container.

May we all open to the path before us, open all the voices speaking now, open to love and courage and commitment to feed each other with abundance and care.

“We are creatures who are born to love. It’s more than biophilia that drives us. It’s philophilia – the love of love itself.”

Kathleen Dean Moore

The Democratic convention begins tonight.  We watch in our homes as I’ve done since I was a child but this year feels different.  More is at stake as today the Trump administration finalizes plans to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.  

This is the home of caribou, bears, birds, foxes, and so much more.  It’s an ecosystem, as are we all.  

Being sheltered-in-place has given me even more opportunity to connect with the land on which I live and to see the changes.  The nest where eggs were laid is empty now but the birds are still here.  The plants look in the windows as I look out.  Many of us are rarely in a car these days.  Where would we go?  We work from home, and honor shelter-in-place.  

When I was a child, we took many driving trips, and I loved them, but as traffic increased, I drove less and less.  The change began when Steve and I began bicycling, and continued with my return from Nepal in 1993.  Today, I don’t feel a need to drive unless it is a necessity.

Now, what I love is on-line.  A few years ago I participated in a women’s silent retreat on Mount Tam.  I loved my tent and camping spot, our gathering by a constantly well-attended campfire.  This year the retreat is virtual.  I can do it from my home as I do the Sensory Awareness workshops I love and book and meditation groups.

We don’t need to drill in pristine land.  We do need to ensure quality of life for all.

Years ago, I knew I lived in a country with the financial resources to educate every child in the way that best challenged and encouraged how they learn.  We need that now, education for all.

I’m reading a book, Hieroglyph, Stories & Visions for a Better Future.  

I’m inspired by this quote by the visionary and inventor Buckminster Fuller.  It comes from his lectures in 1983 titled Only Integrity is Going to Count.  

“When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans them-selves are literate, able to get the information, we’re in an entirely new relationship to Universe.  We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and now what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do.”

Today, of course, it’s a challenge to sort through all the information, literally at our fingertips, but we’re challenged to do so if we want a better world for our children, and for all children to come.  

This weekend I participated in a Sensory Awareness workshop.  Michael Atkinson ended with a story you may know.  In the story “Stone Soup”, weary travelers come to a village where no one will feed them.  They proceed to heat water in a pot and add a stone.  “Delicious,” they exclaim, and soon curious villagers come to add what they can, and the most delicious soup is made and shared.

We gather now, knowing the value each of us contributes as we add to the cauldron, this earth, we share.  

Here’s one version of the story of Stone Soup: https://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/webcontent/wfp202398.pdf

Here’s another way to make Stone Soup though travel is required unless you want to carve a cooking rock of your own:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2015/10/20/follow-the-path-of-the-real-stone-soup-to-remote-oaxaca/

Today lightning lit up our house, well, not a direct hit, but enough to knock out power to 2400 homes in our area, 8000 homes in the county.  I haven’t experienced a storm like this since my mother died in February, 2005.  That night was wild with lightning, thunder, and rain, but that was February, not August, which is usually dry.  I’m grateful for the rain and hope it puts out fires that started from lightning strikes.  

Each day brings something new, and once, again, it’s how we meet what comes.  

It’s been hot but in the night the wind blew through tossing open the gate.  Now there’s the rumble of thunder, the flash of lightning, and soft rain.  The “kitties” and I are enthralled.  

I’m with the power of dialogue, communication.  No two of us are alike.  We may totally agree on a range of issues and then there will be the slightest difference, as to too much chocolate in the brownies – oh, well, not that, but we can divide and dissect with the brilliance we are.

I read Heather Cox Richardson today and feel sad.  We need two parties, and the Republicans seem determined to destroy both.  I truly don’t understand it, but I’m grateful to stand outside and feel sweet drops of rain.  

You can read HCR here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

This morning when I rise, though the sun hasn’t yet risen above the hill to the east, I see it shining in.  I look around and see that the sun is reflecting off a window or mirror from across the valley and into a mirror in my house which is reflecting into the kitchen.

Reflection.

We never know how, when, or how far our light reaches and reflects.

That is my light for the day as I reflect on how we can’t seem to stop Trump.  This with dismantling and disabling the post office is unfathomable.  Voting machines that can be hacked are in key states.  I don’t know where to put it so I watch the day come to light and slow my pace to give spaciousness within.

I’m slowly and creatively moving through Christian McEwen’s book, World Enough & Time, On Creativity and Slowing Down.

Gary Snyder concludes his poem “For the Children” with these words.

The rising hills, the slopes,

of statistics

lie before us,

the steep climb

of everything, going up,

up, as we all

go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that, 

they say,

are valleys, pastures, 

we can meet there in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests

one word to you, to

you and your children:

stay together

learn the flowers

go light.

I love where I live.  When I first saw this land, I knew it was for me.  The Coast Miwok lived here, and it swells with peace.

I rise at 4, touched by something reaching in.  Wake!

And now, I’m with branches of trees, and branches in the sky.  I settle where branches begin. 

Today I listen to day 18 of the 30-day Wake-Up Challenge with Adyashanti.

I receive that I do this because I care.  I feel that deeply, how we care, care about ourselves, family, friends, and the wider world we share.

We’re not alone; we’re interdependent.

In that, I feel the pain of others, pain I can’t diminish for another, so the illness and possible loss of a parent magnified by a time when they can’t be seen or touched.

I sit with that today, with tears of letting go, of liquid love as I remember the passing of my own parents, and a pain that will always be part of me as I carve deeper paths into the ground of Love we share.  

My dreams are rich these days, guideposts to slowing down and receiving.  

This sky where we live is no place to lose your wings.

So love, love, love.

― Hafiz

I’m mesmerized by this poem.

“Duplex: Black Mamas Praying” by Antoinette Brim-Bell. You can hear her read the poem, and her comment on it here:

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS2328102497.mp3?key=c70bc102aac57751a2c57b3410465461

Enjoying this summer day as the fog moves in and out, I’m with these words of Henry David Thoreau.  

Simplicity

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as

two or three, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail …

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.

To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome

and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the

companion that was so companionable as solitude …

If one advances confidently in the direction of his

dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has

imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in

common hour …

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.

So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.

We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and

took advantage of every accident that befell us. Sometimes, in

a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my

sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the

pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and

stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through

the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the

noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was

reminded of the lapse of time.

“Simplicity” by Henry David Thoreau from Walden.