Several little realignings in my life have meant that this blog has gone through one of it’s periodic wanings. \u00a0Also, I have been enjoying some time off and some time developing projects which aren’t ready to be written about yet. \u00a0But I’m still here, watching calendars tick over, watching the rhythms of light and darkness oscillate in everything, and committed more than ever to a kind of gratitude of the present moment that seems helpful in a world where we are increasingly disenfranchised from everything that lies outside the skin (and some that lies within as well.)<\/p>\n
Meg Wheatley has a new book out<\/a>, and her message is pretty resonant with what I have been thinking lately: that spiritual warriorship is essentially doing the right thing anyway. \u00a0Doing it in spite of the fact that nothing might work, in spite of the fact that we know no certainty for our effectiveness in the world, that we are small and human and able to do what we are able to do. \u00a0I have appreciated that.<\/p>\n I don’t like making new year’s resolutions, but in these temporal turnings my thought turns to what is alive in me that may take shape in the next year. \u00a0At this point I’m refining a new spiritual practice, trying to fit some stuff about what I know into some old stories that I know pretty well. It is engaging my mind and heart and making me more compassionate, but the path is a confusing one and I think being knocked around by it is helpful, for to have certainty in a spiritual practice while swimming in uncertainty is a dangerous thing. \u00a0I am appreciating a spiritual practice that is chaotic and confusing and demands my attention to inconsistency and struggle. \u00a0It wants me to be rational and compassionate, exploring new frontiers and rooting myself deeply in old stories. \u00a0So…<\/p>\n This year too, I’m trying to figure out how to work with power. \u00a0I mean real, brutal, cold and independent power. \u00a0Power that doesn’t need me or doesn’t care about me, but might occasionally invite me to engage with it. \u00a0How do you work WITH the system that you hold blame for? \u00a0How do you work from within? \u00a0This comes from a place of occupying, not moving against. \u00a0It comes from an idea that if we occupy exactly where we are at the moment, we are in good shape, doing what we can. \u00a0I love the flashmob round dances that #IdleNoMore is putting on. \u00a0What does that look like when you are bringing that kind of serious play to questions like “how do I bring more life to my work in the bank? \u00a0Or with a land developer? Or with the establishment?”<\/p>\n My friends Tim Merry, Marguerite Drescher and Tuesday Ryan-Hart and my beloved Caitlin Frost are deepening this inquiry at ALIA this year.<\/a> Consider joining us.<\/p>\n