on the light in the middle of the night

I’ve been up a lot in the middle of the night, anyone else? I run through a list of worries of course but also by the time my mind is awake I am thinking about how beautiful the light is, how I can hear the breathing of the other sleeping people, the way the moon startles me through the skylight.

I know I am not alone in my worries about the world right now. I see and feel them reflected in the obvious places as the news breathlessly expounds each action, but more immediately I see the worries in conversations, in the way people move their bodies through their days, the persistent impatience that pervades so much.

It feels like an irritating noise almost inaudible but always there. Always offering an edge to each thing.

And it makes me curious what role we play in our lives of holding the paradox of things as they unfold. What if we can hold the tragedy, heartbreak, and show up for our families and communites, and also notice the moon, aknowledge the brilliance of the changing seasons grass, offer some listening to a friend who is spinning like a top?

What if we can and are made for paradox becuase that is what living is?

I ask this as I begin this year to grow the focus of the wriitng here to include teaching and a few ways to be with each other.

Can we find our ways to right relationship with the world again and again in the midst of so much unraveling? I think so but I think it is not going to happen by accident nor is it going to happen alone. If you know me you’ve been hearing me talk about folk schools for many years. These places that bring together people, place, and craft to learn, imagine world

I am doing this in my daily life, bringing people together where there is a chance to do that over a meal, offering support, skills, and energy to my immediate and bigger community with a consistency that doesn’t look like much but over lifetimes moves things. I am practicing my patience with my children and not with politicians. This kind of reorienting is a day to day kind of making. And in that spirit I want to be doing it more with all of you.

Please look out for a few things in the next few weeks. First there will be a meditation sent that you can listen to whenever you’d like. I will sharing one as a gift each month as a way to explore time together and use the fabric of time as an ally in the moment of world that is obsessed with one super fast, scattered rhythm. Please use these as tools to see what happens when you time travel. Second I will be hosting a plant sit each month called Becoming Aliveness. More about that in it’s own separate post along with a thread that will focus on those new offerings in greater detail. I can’t wait to spend time with you and practice curiousity!