Hello gorgeous HoneyHearts,

Along with everyone else, I’ve been moving through fear, confusion and disbelief for the past few days, watching the world change very quickly. I could say it was unexpected, but the truth is that I’ve had a deep knowing for a very long time that change is inevitable. I think we all have. We feel that the systems in place are not quite right. That our individual humanity has been overtaken by our collective need for more and more and more. We have felt helpless, perhaps, or overwhelmed. We’ve felt the pain of the earth, and we can see our own habits and patterns contributing to something we can’t control, but feel unsure of how to shift. We do our best, but we know that eventually, something’s gotta give.

After many many years of Love&LightYa’ll, spiritual bypassing, I’ve learned to feel and acknowledge my feelings without trying (too many times) to push them away or deny them. That means that I’ve allowed in the fear that tells me to protect me and mine, that tells me to get a bunch of extra stuff, that tells me to be cautious around strangers, the fear that tells me that even going outside is probably a bad idea. As the fear moved through I found again that underneath all of our swirling drama, is ultimately, the fear of death. There is the fear of my own death, the fear of my loved ones deaths, the fear of pain and separation, and beneath that the reality of death’s inevitability. However! Underneath that deep and true reality, I found waiting, another deep and true reality. It’s a familiar place. I’ve been here before. It is where all roads lead.

The gist is this: The Point Of Life Is Not Safety. The point of life is not static, still, ease. It is truly wonderful when life is gentle and we find ease and peace, and I’m learning that during those times the ticket is to relish every second of it. By doing that, I’ve noticed that those times multiply. They are abundant if we seek to notice them. But even they are ultimately fleeting. This Too Shall Pass is such a powerful statement because it applies to everything. To every experience. The good, the bad, the boring, the exciting, the lovely, the mundane, the horrific, the sublime, the peaceful, the frenetic, all of it. In this world of form, everything moves. Nothing is constant. We will have loss. We will have joy. We will have lack and we will have abundance. There is a time for every purpose under heaven, here on this planet. Stepping right up to that reality and looking squarely at it is the core teaching I learned from the Hero Archetype in all of its multilayered wisdom. Facing the fact that everything passes, everything changes, and everything transforms can be a very terrifying thing. Equally terrifying, somehow, can be the experience of Grace and Love that underpins everything. Even loss, even the inevitability of death. Moving from protection and control toward engaging with surrender and letting go, and then finding we are caught and held by love, can be an almost traumatic process. In the world of form, the 10,000 things pass. Beyond the world of form, we find the constancy of that thing that animates the 10,000 things. That experience is often shattering. Our hearts are blown open. We are revealed to ourselves. During meditation last night, I had a remembering that we will all be ultimately humbled by Love.

I also remembered the concept of dying before you die, so that we can truly live, as is talked about in Zen and Sufi teachings. It is a powerful, transformative practice. Years ago when I lived in my little yurt, and was having regular out of body experiences, and crazy dreams, and felt so very connected to the world, that was my mantra. Die before you die. I thought of Don Juan telling Carlos Castaneda to always keep death at his left shoulder, to remind him to be in the Now-ness, and of the ephemeral nature of life. I learned, through the years, that the fastest way through discomfort is to walk directly into it. That’s not to say I still don’t have fear. I do, all the time. But now I also know how this transformation deal works. When we level up, when we shine the light of our conscious attention on something, it is revealed to us in that light. Inevitably there are shadows, and when illuminated, they appear real, solid, frightening, and overwhelming. But as the light continues to shine, they grow smaller, more manageable, and once again, we realize that they are unloved parts of ourselves and the collective. They become docile and we tuck them back into ourselves, and snuggle them like lost children. We integrate, and continue on the journey.

So, yes, our current situation is triggering lots of stuff for all of us. I was having a conversation with someone about if we should be preparing, if we had enough to get through until…. ? What? When? Is the purpose of this life to last the longest? Is the purpose to outlive everyone else? Is the purpose to have just a little bit more so that we squeeze every bit of life out of these bodies, out of this planet? Or is the purpose to see not how many hours we can live, but how well we can live in those hours? I think that a beautiful teaching from this virus is about the truth of our connection. We’ve been shown how this moves from one person to the next, moving through groups, moving from one part of the world to another, connecting us all to each other, literally and metaphorically. It has taken hold of our collective attention. It is showing us that we are all, for real, interconnected, just like all of the teachers have always said. It is also teaching us about the quality of presence. When we can’t see into the future, we’re faced with the moment, and with ourselves in it. So, is the purpose of our time here safety, or integrity? It is quantity, or quality? What do I want the quality of my life to be? If my thoughts, actions, and emotions are individual notes, what will my concert sound like at the end of my life? Honestly, perfection is pretty boring, so it’s good that our expressions are peppered with fear, with struggle, with strive and with redemption. We’re here, in duality, experiencing it all. But I know that the grace, humanity, kindness, love, faith, joy and conscious attention that we can express will be our clearest, most beautiful and driving melodies.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t all take reasonable precautions. I’m not judging anyone’s fear or reaction to this. I know that many people on this planet do not have the luxury of deciding that safety is not the point, because they are in situations which are physically, undeniably, unsafe. That reality is at the very center of my purpose in writing this. We have all agreed, collectively, that that’s ok. That it’s ok that some suffer without resources while others live in lavish excess. We’ve agreed, collectively, that war is ok. Starvation is ok, a disconnection from our Mother Earth is ok. We’ve agreed that innocence lost and exploited is ok. I’m done agreeing to that. I know we can do better, and I know that there is a massive, swelling, powerful group of people who are done agreeing to that, too. Our collective conscious attention focused not toward the dying systems that no longer serve our essential humanity, but toward the things that enliven and bolster that essential humanity, is powerful. So many brave and beautiful souls have done the hard work of transforming trauma and victimhood into self-actualization. There are so many activated, real, awake, whole human angels on the planet right now, who have become empowered to choose, and see that with that Free Will , we are blessed with Grace and responsibility.

This is a potent and fertile moment in our lives. We are present. We are here. We are all paying attention to the same thing. What should the quality of that attention look like? What can we create? How can we ease fear and suffering? What can we choose to be and do, if we do not choose out of fear? We’ve seen routines, patterns, paradigms and habits change very quickly. Areas where I’ve been stuck or unconscious are suddenly illuminated and shifting. I am filled with even deeper gratitude for the abundance of food and resources that we have access to on a daily basis. We can eat raspberries every day of the year! We have water, inside our houses! My blind spots are now in full view, also. I am complacent in my consumption. I focus my energy on fleeting personal achievements that don’t really help the collective. I don’t fully appreciate the miracle of this body which houses my soul. I don’t interact often enough with our beautiful earth. I use too much toilet paper.

Most of the people I know, including myself, are able to weather this storm reasonably well. Most have resources, a home, enough food, enough supplies, enough health, enough perspective, enough family and friends, to be ok. There are many who are not having that experience, and it’s our job to help out however we can. We’ve already seen so much love, so much giving, so much care. We are unified in our collective caretaking. Those of us who have the luxury of being able to spend our time cultivating the quality of our attention can add to the creation of something new. We can move quickly through this journey, through the fear, into the dark cave, we can notice and grab some of that sweet elixir, and come right back home to share the goods. We know how this works. We can shine the light of our consciousness on the what we want to see more of in the world. We can harness our collective conscious attention, and make new agreements about what we’re ok with on this planet.

If this resonates with you, please reach out to me. Me and a few friends are putting together meditations and setting aside time to focus on what we can create during this electric time on our precious planet.