Home

 "A man travels the world over  in search of what he needs and returns home to find it" George Moore

My great-grandmother's home is preserved in a historical settlement a forty-minute drive from my house. Stripped back to fit into a 19th-century village, it was dragged across the icy Wolastoq River when the settlement was created almost sixty years ago.  I have stepped inside this home many times over the years, seen the stairs where my father sat as a small child, the room my parents slept in as newlyweds when they went to visit.  I can remember being in this house with tourists when a woman spoke up to say she was an energy healer and could feel the energy of the family that had lived here.   I always remember wondering why my great-grandmother wanted her home to be part of this settlement.  I suppose we all would like our legacy to live on and maybe this was her way of ensuring this.  Her home was obviously important to her and part of her identity.  I have used house and home interchangeably here, but when I think about my great grandmother and her house.  I wonder if she truly found a home here?

A home is defined as where one lives permanently, especially as a family member. For other species, it is a place they instinctively return to.  On the other hand, a house is a building for human habitation usually with other family members.  

I think of how distinctly different these two entities are by definition and how much we confuse them as a society.  I think of the indigenous people and how their home was often changing by way of where they were getting their food or creating shelter from the elements.   I think of the newcomers and refugees who find themselves displaced and moving to new regions out of necessity. Whether to survive, find safety,  peace, or new hope.  Then there are all of the people that have endured weather disasters since the beginning of time and had their houses destroyed. We even have a name that stigmatizes people who do not have permanent shelter in our communities, the homeless, as though not having shelter is significant enough to define who someone is.  All of the ways that both a house and even a home by definition, can be unstable, everchanging, and nonexistent for some,  it is clear that home encompasses so much more. 

Home can be one of the most comforting words in the English language. Without a sense of home, there is a feeling of fragmentation, as those who have experienced this can attest to. Even the idea of home can bring about many impassioned emotions.   When I think of home I think of refuge or sanctuary. If I imagine a place I feel at home in I would not think of the physical space or structure but a sanctuary created by my books,  plants, and paintings that adorn the space and reflect back feelings of comfort and identity. The refuge comes from being surrounded by my people and animals as they create the unconditional love and space that allows me to feel truly at home in their presence.  We have all heard the familiar phrases, home is where the heart is, home is the person or place you return to again and again, but the home that remains the most attainable for us is the home we  carry with us on the  inside 

I think we spend a lot of our lives searching for our home.  We may travel throughout the world looking for a place that feels like home to us or to find the place that makes where we are returning feel more like home.  We may attach ourselves to people that feel like home. This may be why we often lose a sense of home when someone we love dies.   We miss them so because they meant home to us maybe even before we could find home for ourselves.  

I have lived now for twenty-seven years in the same house and most of those years with the same three people and pets but finding my home continues to be a ritual I  return to every day that I live here.  Most of the time now, I find my home on my yoga mat, my meditation cushion, in prayer, outside in stillness as I watch the sunrise. All of these things allow me to settle or land in my body. This is where I don't have to search for comfort, safety, love, or acceptance.  This is my true home.  Like the hummingbird returning in the first week of May or the Salmon finding their way upstream to return to their home, we have to keep coming back to this place inside ourselves. It is in this space that we find freedom even when we are confined, peace during war and upheaval, and self love in times of self-depreciation 

Our great grandmothers, grandmothers, or mothers may not have known the privilege of seeking refuge or finding sanctuary within themselves or being surrounded by their loved ones but maybe they have found home within us. With each barrier we cross, each burden we release, every regret we unleash, every privilege we acquire, and every person we help to own their bodies, their hearts, and their minds so these places can become home.  Perhaps,  we all find new ways to be in the home we are given, that we carry wherever we are.  

A Sacred Pause

"Give yourself the permission to pause, to create sacred space,  -the space to consciously choose how you want to respond to any situation." Dr. Debra Reble

My oldest daughter finished university just days ago and will graduate in a few short weeks.  She survived two years of mostly online learning and classes and only recently stepped foot into a few live moments of class with her peers and professors.  The graduation will be in person where she will sit in a space with many others that have lived her similar experience, for the first time.  

After talking to her, sharing in her excitement and accomplishments,  thinking of the whirlwind of moments that have led to now, the stark contrast between her university experiences and my own, we realized that one thing remains the same. We were both recounting our feelings about living in the pause, the space between.  On one hand, she feels a sense of relief that the coursework is behind her, while at the same time feeling all the feels about an ending, new beginnings, and the pressure to move on to the next thing, in this case, working and preparing for her new program in the fall even though there hasn't yet been time to celebrate her accomplishments with ceremony. 

I recently did some art journaling and created a deck of action words with related questions to reflect on when the card was pulled.   It was a way of assisting myself in setting daily intentions and carrying out purposeful actions.  One of the words I included was pause.  We don't always think of this word as an action but as in the experience of my daughter, we do have to actively take that moment, that hour, day, week, month, or even sometimes longer to pause. In the natural world,  the best example of a necessary pause is sleep.  We need sleep to physically and mentally be rejuvenated and nourished.  This can't occur without the space that this natural pause creates for us. 

A pause is a temporary disengagement where we are no longer moving toward an end or goal.   We don't get many of these pauses in life unless we create them for ourselves.  Often when we pause or we hear of someone else doing so for a period of time,  we assume that something must be wrong or maybe we feel we aren't enough in the pause without the striving or planning.   This feeling of our own or the fear of the judgment of others can keep us moving further into a future that will take us on our way to somewhere else, meaning we will miss the opportunity to feel what it is to be in this space.  

The pause is there for a reason. It can give you a moment to grieve a loved one,  mark an end to something or the beginning of something else.   The pause allows you to embrace the celebration or joy of the moment. It makes space for laughter and playfulness.  The pause gives us the space often needed between noticing our thoughts and moving into action, between the inhale and the exhale of our breath which can bring so much clarity,  the recognizing of our feelings, and then choosing what we do with them. It can be the way in to feel what is wrong in our bodies, what is important in our relationships, our likes and dislikes, our growth and regressions, our longings, and our regret.  Without the pause, we just have behavior with no awareness. 

If I asked you to pause and take that moment to just exist, clearing the table of the mind, temporarily wiping away the attachments, fears, and ambition, would you sit like a stone or flitter frantically about? Would your mind stay clear or flood with a thousand shoulds? Could you stay in celebration of you, of the moment, of where you are now or would you reach for the ledge that would pull you to the next floor of the building? Would you feel like exclaiming, what's next, is this it, did I make it, fix it, break it?  Could you surrender the angst for your own praise and approval of you here and now, for the hug of a loved one or the remembrance of being enough?  

For my daughter, and anyone finding themselves in the space between, I hope you continue a practice of preparing for and living a life that honors the sacred pause, one where you are allowed to catch your breath, change directions, relish a moment,  an accomplishment and just take up space. I hope you can follow the lightness of your being and make choices and decisions that reflect who you are, how you feel,  and what you need in every pause and space with confidence and ease.  

For every person who feels themselves leaning into their future, may you stop as long as you need, to make room for truly living the life that is here in the now in this most sacred pause. 

Anchors

What anchors you?  Is it your routine, a practice, a person, family, community, nature,  music, movement, or spirituality? Perhaps it is all or none of these.  Maybe you haven't found your anchors yet.  Anchors have been traditionally used to moor a ship to provide stability in a storm so the ship doesn't get tossed off course or further out to sea.  Our anchors can make the difference between thriving and surviving, feeling supported or disconnected, grounded or untethered, rested or restless.   In the moment, we may not always be aware of their function of holding us firmly planted on the ground.

The Wizard of Oz has been a favorite story of mine.  There have been many interpretations of this story over the years from political analogies to spiritual inspiration.  What if the Wizard of Oz, through the character Dorothy, is a story about finding what anchors us and how we can use these anchors, as Dorothy did to come back to her center of ease.  We can use anchors to maneuver our way through all the storms of our lives and to gain the resolve to feel grounded and at home where we are as the storms continue to ebb and flow.

If you’re not familiar with the story of The Wizard of Oz it is about a young girl named Dorothy, from Kansas,who along with her dog Toto, gets displaced from home in a storm. They are without family, connection, and support, and have forgotten how to navigate life's discord.   Dorothy is told to follow the yellow brick road to see the Wizard who would help her find her way.  On route to Oz, she encounters a Lion, A Tinman, and Scarecrow. They all decide to accompany her to see the Wizard. The Lion hopes to receive courage from the Wizard, the Tinman a heart, and the Scarecrow a brain.   When they finally meet the Wizard, he says they must retrieve the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West before he would grant their wishes.   After doing so, they return to Oz and the Wizard makes certificates and awards for the Lion, Tinman, and Scarecrow, to prove they have had their wishes fulfilled.  He gives Dorothy a pair of Ruby Slippers which represent her own anchor and explains that they will help her get back to Kansas.  Glinda the Good Witch, who is also part of the story and the one who assisted in retrieving the broom of the evil witch, tells Dorothy that she could get back home all along, she just had to believe. In other words, she had to come back to what anchors her.

Dorothy could be me; she could be you; she could be anyone who gets swept up in the inevitable storms of life over and over again. Dorothy, like us, just wants to stay grounded and rooted and find her way back to a stable center,  which home and Kansas mean for her.  She really wants to be at ease with herself and her people but she gets thrown off course by the storm that arises. Sometimes even more than one storm may be brewing at a time, as with Dorothy, when she not only has to find her way home but also has to engage in conflict with the Wicked Witch.  Like we all may feel at times,  Dorothy feels disempowered and unsure of her ability to meet her needs herself and how to disengage from the storms around her and not be swept up in the chaos.   Dorothy’s interactions with others, caught in their own storms, further confirm for her that she needs to continue pursuing support outside of herself, as we often do. She brings along the others, the Tinman, Scarecrow, and the Lion, who represent her own untethered heart, mind, and spirit. She follows the critics or well-intentioned guides and tries to gain their support. Dorothy follows the yellow brick road, pursues the broom of the wicked witch, and journeys to Oz to receive his wisdom and magic, being pulled into more storms along the way.

This is where Dorothy finds the truth and affirmation that we may be seeking in our own lives. Dorothy realizes,  that the yellow brick road is just a linear, progressive path set by others' timelines that have not shared her lived experiences or ours.   She sees that her own heart, mind, and spirit experience is where she needs to stay rooted.  After seeking advice from others, who were considered to have all the answers, she understands that regardless of their good intentions, it was her practice, her people, and her experience that would bring her home.   The Ruby Slippers she receives represent the anchor that brings a  moment of clarity and remembering that can lead her to a place of balance in the storm.    I love Dorothy and all she represents. I love that she shows us our path is not linear,  our experiences are our own, we are never alone, and that we have many anchors within and around us to provide both grace and stability through the moments of imbalance in our lives. 

 When you are being hard on yourself for getting off course or being swept up by the latest storm, let Dorothy remind you that it is all a practice and that you are the guide, light and anchor keeping you coming back to yourself and navigating the storms of life.

Benevolence

 

It is early April 2009, I find myself in a gymnasium at a local middle school wearing a superhero shirt and cape with a seven and nine-year-old in tow. There are groups of people, families of adults with children, and organizers scattered throughout the large area. I find my way to the perimeter of the room, hoping to go unnoticed. I observe the energy as they prepare to organize everyone to participate in a SuperHero walk through the downtown streets of our small city in recognition of Autism awareness or acceptance, whatever the buzz term of the moment was.  There were many thoughts going through my head at the time but I can remember one being as a neurotypical female, I was sure I had no idea what it was like to be neurodiverse on the spectrum and I couldn't imagine that all neurodiverse people on the spectrum were feeling the same way about their individual challenges, experiences and ways of navigating a world that was not set up for difference, so I was quite sure that this scenario was not playing out to be one I was feeling comfortable being a part of.  However, at this moment, I also witnessed a room full of kind individuals who were believing in the good of their actions and because of this, I  felt I needed to be appreciative, in the name of kindness.  I rationalized that I was a very newly appointed member of a club I hadn't ever imagined myself a part of so everyone else must know what they are doing.  Despite my best efforts to ignore my gut feeling,  I still felt off and awkward. I was unsure of the Superhero paraphernalia and what it had to do with Autism.  My daughter had never expressed an interest in superheroes, Dora the explorer maybe but I wasn't thinking she qualified at the time.  Questions arose in the moment for me too, like was being aware that neurodiversity exists in the form of autism really something to be moved by, or was needing to promote accepting neurodiverse people or any other marginalized group, not part of some larger systematic, societal issue that was more than my autistic daughter and our family could shoulder the burden of? The walk was raising money in support of the local Autism center so why was I still unsure about participating?  What I really wanted at that moment was to know the perspective of an autistic adult. Did they not just want to be seen, heard, represented, appreciated, and celebrated? Not cured, tolerated, or pathologized? However, the room was devoid of any.    The only adults in the room seemed very pleased with themselves and their kind efforts.  The children, mostly boys, were happy to be wearing their costumes as well. It was very clear that there were many who didn't share my perspective and I was alright with that. There are many reasons for that and I respected all of them for honoring what was best for them.   I only share all of this experience with you because it was one of the first times I questioned whether kindness is always kind.

I think being kind can exist without true acceptance and understanding.   Can we not still be kind and be dehumanizing and othering someone at the same time?   When we assume what is best for another and offer this as kindness, when we infantilize someone by talking to them as a child when they are an adult with a disability, when we make decisions, without consult or knowledge, about what someone in our care wants to eat, watch,  or participate in as an act of kindness, is it really kind?  When we talk about what is best for them to another adult in the room when they too are standing right there, is it kind?  If we invade their space or boundaries with loving gestures but no consent, is it still kind?  I have found myself in this position many times where gestures or actions, gifts, advice, and celebrations have all been offered under the veil of kindness.  I have learned a lot over the years about my own behavior in this way as well because I wanted to you and had to and I am sure I will continue to.  I have made peace with not knowing what is best for another human being. I think it is also fair to say that we are all coming to kindness with our own definitions, biases, and experiences. Often we offer kindness from our rational mind perspective as the right thing to do and then maybe it becomes nice instead of kind.   We can probably all remember a time when we became defensive, righteous, or hurt when our kindnesses were not received as such. I probably couldn't count the number of times I faced my own bruised ego with the words, " I was just being kind".   Perhaps this is because we mistake our kindness as universal. Maybe the group in the gymnasium that day was just a group of neurotypical people projecting what they thought was best for a group of individuals who were not yet old enough or maybe didn't have the skills yet to articulate what would be best for them.  Maybe we need to learn to accept that we don't always know and be ok with that.    I believe that instead of kindness, what we needed to be offering that day and every day is benevolence. With benevolence, we are motivated by genuine care, respect, and concern for humanity and we have compassion for everyone's humanness. Because of this we stop pretending to know what is kind and we ask and we listen and we ask again and we reckon with our own egos and feelings that tell us a different story of people being unappreciative, sensitive, or difficult. Let's think about offering benevolence to every living breathing human and then maybe we can acknowledge that kindness isn't always kind.

She Sees

Perhaps this is my attempt at poetry or prose.  Maybe it is a lot of thoughts after reading, "Face" by Justine Bateman and listening to a  podcast interviewing  Ashton Applewhite on Ageism but since April is National Poetry Month and the home of Earth Day, this is where I begin. 

Let's remove the filters from our lives and expose our hard one faces. Let's not diminish our worth based on the preservation of our bodies but use our minds to share the wisdom it has gathered to have the conversations, write the poems and stories that give true representation of growing older, and let us not  erase ourselves from our own culture.  The world deserves to see you at every stage of life, to know that you are thriving and that growing old should not be feared but revered and celebrated. Let's take our cues from nature, and flow with effortless ease into what has the potential to be the most majestic phase of our life.

She Sees  by  CMH

 She whispers the word aging just loud enough to be embraced by the wind and carried off through the treetops

 Who take it to mean wisdom, majesty, and grace

As it filters back to her she hears fear, shame, decaying, and death 

She swallows the aftertaste, bitter and real

Where have the crones, the sages, the wise women gone

Our elders commanding the respect of nature; the oceans, rivers, mountains, and forests

Standing now amongst creation, our natural world

She is reminded of the receding river banks

The sand dune's slow transformation

The changing forms of the creatures of the land and sea

The forests that house the most remarkable of trees that bow to the grace of the most aged 

She sees so much beauty that comes through time

What she witnesses is the ease with which  it happens

No efforts made to prolong or extinguish the process

Nature just seems to know everything is growing more magnificent in its fullest of life

 In the grandeur of age

Is she too not a part of this cycle of life

When she sees her reflection coming back from the water below

She witnesses the quiet freedom in her own eyes to be authentically who she is in this time and space

She sees all those she has loved and supported with her soft crinkly, welcoming eyes

The sparkle and zest for life that penetrates the intimate gaze of another 

And lights the path for the strong women she has raised

She sees the smile lined and creased in the way you know it was used often to share compassion, joy, and community with so many

She sees the face that has been drawn to the light, the warmth emanating from the sun, the beauty of nature

The wind continues to whisper now but this time she hears

Zoom in, get close, look deep

This is where beauty meets age

Where wisdom tells her story

 And gratitude arises for this privilege to be here

Now

This is what living a real and vulnerable life

 Full of experiences, on the edge of fearlessness, courage, and strength lives. 

 

A Report Card for Life

There are times that I wish there was a report card on adulting so we could know if we are doing this thing called life alright or maybe even that we may find out we are crushing it.  There are so many things I would want to know like, how are my actions being received, are my intentions having a palpable impact,  and how am  I doing with my boundaries? Am I staying open the right amount that people know I still care but making sure I am not agreeing to things that make me uncomfortable or deplete my energy?  My good girl status-seeking as a kid that led to years of people-pleasing in adulthood, would leave me wondering if indeed I was reaching that next level of being a good human, whatever that looked like, and that most of my " humaning"  was fueled by good energy and not the ego-driven kind.  I would want to make sure my motives were showing up as pure. I think I  would need a rating system too for how  I am doing with caring for people and the planet. 

Thinking about this right now as I have been writing report cards and doing assessments for my kindergartners. Checking off boxes that ask you to choose from consistently, usually, and sometimes for things you can observe and track like interactions, initiative, independence, and responsibility.   The report is mostly anecdotal comments for this age other than evidence of early academic skills, which again are only reported as they can do it or almost can or not evidenced yet and may be experiencing some difficulty.   Regardless of how you feel about there being standards and expectations of growth, the report card is really there to let parents know what their child can do or can't do yet.  "Yet", being the operative word.  It is also a place to recognize a child's strengths and highlight their growth and unique ways of being.  It is a far cry from the checkmarks and percentages from my days as a student.  I always struggle, as do most teachers, with there only being space for so many words and it is impossible to highlight all of a child's growth and show the full potential of each student in a certain number of words. To be fair, there is an understanding or realization that even given unlimited space, we could not sum up or showcase any human being with our words, assessments, and observations.  I think of it like looking up at the full moon, as I did this week, and being so in awe at what I saw that I wanted to record it and then looking through the camera of my phone and seeing this tiny spec of light in an otherwise darkened lens.  You can never record or describe the full spectrum or essence of the moon in the way that you bear witness and it would seem true for humans as well. 

I am not writing about the effectiveness, value, or purpose of actual report cards here but I am using them to think about evaluating another human being.  I often wonder in real life if the concept of belief-creating reality would work for most people.  What if you told me I was crushing it even if I really wasn't and what if I maybe half-believed you or maybe I didn't believe you at all but was motivated enough to try to show up how you saw me.  Perhaps your faith in me was the only evaluation or critique I needed to keep taking that next step.   I do think it would matter who was doing my life report card and how invested I was in what they had to say.  We often turn to people that have passed like mothers, fathers, grandparents, and siblings when we are looking for guidance.  It makes me think that somehow we know that we can trust what they have to say because they no longer have a vested interest in any outcomes of our lives.  We see them as true guides and this may be why they are the very best choices for the ones to write our reports.    

What if we extended the report card writing for not just individual life reports but for all the systems we have in place.  If big corporations knew that the people they cared most about were going to write their evaluation. Their deceased moms, dads, siblings,  grandparents, and friends were going to weigh in on how they were contributing to the oppression of people and the planet.  What if they were going to call them out on putting the onus on others for what they could change in such a large way for everyone by rethinking their current strategies, policies and impactful practices and using their hearts not their heads to make good choices and decisions. 

The reality of anyone writing me or anyone else a report card on how they are doing life is nothing more than another of my contemplative ideas and I am mostly being playful with the idea, I know most of the time, that I am the only one capable of evaluating myself and my life dance or performance but I do think that whether it is me doing the evaluating or not, there would have to be some understanding of the time that the evaluating was being done.  Right now, if I looked at my independent skills,  I think I  would say that I am bordering on co-dependent.   I  have been so invested in the people I love that I have not been able to discern at times, how much I should be helping in these difficult times.   My interactions would get a rating of somewhere between sometimes and rarely if there was a box for that. It may just be me but I am thinking that my interactions were minimized with little contact for so long that it is difficult to reignite relationships. Communication is challenging and I am confused by a lot of it and my role in creating the confusion.  Showing initiative would get "usually," regardless of the fact that my motivation right now is seeing my way through to that part where I get to complete the day and land in my pajamas, preluded by sleepy time tea, the woodstove,  book reading or binge-watching, hot baths, being with my people and pets, yoga nidra and sleep.  It is funny how these things become the fantasies of my days as I limit media consumption and still work at staying in the moment.  My rating for responsibility would have to be consistent. This means that I am taking responsibility for my actions. sometimes other people's actions and probably taking myself too seriously at times.     The rest of the report I think should be the anecdotal notes of the people who really understand me, who are kind and thoughtful, those who are supportive of my unique ways of being, and who love me unconditionally.  I am thinking of the understanding friend who remembered recently to include Maya in her invitation to my husband and I to come for a visit because she knows that most of the time it is a challenge to do otherwise.  The kind friend who  I hadn't seen in a couple of years who made an effort to be complementary this past week because she knows the power of words. My sister who is always my biggest cheerleader regardless of my next idea or endeavor and then there is my daughter who sent me a text this morning after our roller coaster of a start, with accidental scalding water, a  flat tire, heightened emotions, and a little more rushing then we would have liked,  to tell me that I was one of the greatest humans she knew and whether you believe that belief becomes reality or not,  I have to say  I  spent the rest of the day trying to be the human she sees me as.  

 

Quiet Revolution

 Mine has been a quiet revolution. I think if there was a theme to my revolution it would be humility.  Each experience that requires evolving suddenly or gradually as in overthrowing a previous thought process, belief, or value, is often more humbling than the last.  They come with an awareness that I know nothing and everything I need to at the time if I choose to stay aware.  If I remain open to the truth, it becomes more clear there is no absolute.   

Perusing the aisles of a local thrift shop is a regular vice of mine.  I can spend hours sifting through used clothes for that one treasure.    This day I was drawn first to the used book bin and my eyes landed on a familiar face and head of amazing curls.   It was a signed copy of Revolution of the Soul by author and yogi, Sean Corn.   I had heard about this book but had yet to read it so I was excited about this find. I hadn't actually read the book yet but the title kept drawing me in so I flipped open to a random page and read where my eyes landed. " All moments and all people hold a mirror up to us and reflect back those places within ourselves that are separate from our own light". "The teacher is in me and in you, in the easy times and the hard ones".   Both of these passages popped off of the one page I flipped to and I sat with both of them that day.   They were part of Sean Corn's revolution and now part of my own.  These small nudgings forward in our revolution and ultimate evolution are everywhere for each of us asking us to evolve and challenge our own beliefs and ways of being in the world.  Perhaps just the title of the book served as a way for me to examine further this aspect of revolution. Regardless, it led me here. 

No matter what age or stage in life we find ourselves, the revolution doesn't extinguish. In my experience,   it doesn't become an occasional situation that challenges our way of thinking.   I am and continue to be amazed by how often I am jolted awake by another uncomfortable realization or understanding. Only uncomfortable in the sense that it forces me to lie down or release a tired narrative or stand up for something or someone I may not have felt compelled to in the past. The revolution or overthrowing of past resolve doesn't always challenge in a way that condemns or removes something. Often it can be a nourishing, reassuring and supportive realization that offers something I didn't know I needed.   

I can remember after my dog passed a few years ago, vowing I would not get another one. The idea I was hanging onto at the time was that I didn't need another dog and they involved commitment and work that I didn't have space for.  A year and a bit passed and a black poodle puppy was making its way into my heart.   I remembered what great dogs poodles were for therapy dogs and thought of how he would make a perfect pup for my daughter with complex needs.   Still hesitant and wavering, I was given more information about him which included his birthdate. It happened to be the day my dog, Zoe had passed.   Coincidence perhaps but I took it as the sign I needed to get what I thought would be a support animal for my daughter. We called him Shanti, meaning peace, and although he didn't become an official therapy dog, he has become my peace and therapy daily.  I was so relieved that I didn't hold onto this tired narrative of not needing a dog and that I allowed myself to receive what ended up bringing more peace and unconditional love into my life. 

Personal revolution can be scary when it brings sudden awareness that may put us on defense because of our attachments and who and what we identify with. I think of the tiny minuscule things that I have attached to and then reevaluated.  I love the example in the early years of my relationship with my now-husband when he wanted to make me supper. I chided in about how you were supposed to cook this particular item and he had another way. I was certain that this was not the best choice because wasn't this the identified way I had learned and known?   It turned out supper was delicious and indeed there was another way.  So much over-identification with the people, habits, and ideas of our past and upbringing inhibits our revolution.  We often feel like we are being disloyal or just have mixed feelings about stepping away from the familiar but I remind myself that our ancestors were always searching for new ways and opportunities and they continue to live through us and I am sure they are moved by how we are finding another way for ourselves.  Finding another way for me can often be a feeling of being guided, led through, or to the thing that will bring a sometimes sudden, complete change in my view, opinion, or experience when I allow it.  When I call it a quiet revolution, I don't for a minute mean to diminish the power of the transformational events that can bring me to my knees with humility, challenge me to a place of complete denial or self-righteousness before I succumb to what is too obvious now to ignore.

The quiet revolution has moved me away from screaming into the abyss of the online world. Although I have compassion for the me that will circle back to this at times. Herein lies the humility and the knowing that this is my revolution alone and it will never take me away, for long, from being humbled by my humanness.  Whether it is the story of turkey in captivity that brought me to my final experience of eating meat and integrating that I did eat meat and enjoy it for forty-plus years. Or the experiences I had before the birth of my second daughter that led me to a belief that having an autistic child was not something I could do and a few months later I gave birth to my Maya.  Never diminishing the challenges of having a child with complex needs, it is in truth that having any child is challenging and that all children have complex needs, some just more obvious in the beginning than others. My revolution also led me to a realization, from this experience that  I not only could have this reality but that my daughter would be one of the most beautiful gifts and messenger of the potential for a much more fulfilling life away from stereotypes, norms, and societal expectations. Where I would be invited to be a much better version of myself. I could overthrow my narrow view of what my life should be or what others thought would be a worthy one.   I am challenged to transform through the knowledge offered again and again, by the right book, podcast, protest, conversation with someone close or a stranger. Now, like aging makes way for any remaining guards to be let down and armor dropped, my revolution continues. Making peace with myself a practice, allows me to stand up for the rights of others to fully be who they are regardless of my past perceptions and the revolution continues.   

There are a lot of messages that say our revolution must be muscled through, that we must strive, work hard, persevere in order to develop new consciousness.   But what if again, our revolution involves realizing that we can evolve and revolutionize by remaining open, soft, nurturing to ourselves and others. What if the feminine energy is really the energy of our revolution and that of the world? That we can drop another worn-out narrative of gender and embrace the feminine and masculine energy balance that is unique to each person.  Maybe by dropping pretense, empathizing, and setting healthy boundaries instead of engaging in our struggles,  armed with a metaphorical sword, we can stop over-identifying with ideologies and groups of people that keep us from fully challenging our own ways of being and maybe keep us separate from others that we don't identify with. 

Every day the revolution inside of me is not standing up armed ready to attack and reform but engages most of the time, with a soft whisper, a nudge, a lifting of a veil, a compass with a new direction, a thought that turns on a new light. Maybe you too have acknowledged the whispers or even screams to see something differently, to stand with humility, to acknowledge that there will always be a new truth revealed and a new understanding to come to. Staying open to the idea that you can't be who you are meant to be in all its forms if you attach to, grieve or regret who you once were.  Maybe you will remain committed and fluid with your inner revolution so you can be part of the revolution happening all around us.