Tag Archives: interdependence

Winter solstice awakens possibilities of both/and

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Tonight is the longest night of the year. In the Baltimore / Washington region, we will have about nine hours of daylight and fifteen hours of night. There’s a magical simultaneity of this moving into darkness while also lengthening of days, as our hemisphere also begins to tilt back towards the sun. In a culture of either/or, today is a good day to entertain the possibilities of both/and.

In the spirit of everything being interconnected, we might choose to contemplate applying both/and to big problems we face today: energy, race relations, addiction and mental illness, the state of the environment, and the treatment of women in the military, for instance. It would make a refreshing change from the usual wrangling about right and wrong, good and evil, and putting forth expert theories about solutions. Continue reading →

Learning to listen

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This guest post is by Lindsay McLaughlin. You can read a bit about her on the “Denizens” page.

Annie Dillard wrote a book called Teaching A Stone To Talk. It’s a trick title. The book is about human beings learning to listen. Stones talk all the time.

In early December, there was a retreat at Rolling Ridge for Advent and the Winter Solstice. We spent some time in the Meditation Shelter tuning our senses and psyches to awaken to the animate, breathing world around us. We gathered by the glowing woodstove in candlelight and read poetry, danced gently, sat quietly, sang a bit, and told stories. Then we went out into the forest, that world, which as Mary Oliver says, “is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith, our deepest prayers”, and listened. Continue reading →

Nature is speaking, but I think you heard her wrong

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Conservation International has just unveiled a new message campaign, “Nature Is Speaking,” which has well-known celebrities speaking as and for “nature.” They each voice a character, such as Ocean, Redwood, or Soil. The sad thing is, there isn’t a speck of love here, and even the films’ expansive cinematography does nothing to draw you in, or elicit any emotion besides dismay and possibly guilt.

At the end of each spot comes the tagline, “Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature.” It’s the meanest sort of message, casting Nature as the all-powerful, disapproving parent who indulged us for too long and is now cracking down. Taking back her power, or at least throwing it around to scare us straight.
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Searching for spirit in the garden

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This guest post is by Duane Marcus. You can read a bit about him on the “Denizens” page.

We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we’ve got to get ourselves
back to the garden
~ Joni Mitchell

I went to college to study science of horticulture. I came to believe that if something cannot be measured empirically then it could not be true. I have spent most of my life working with plants. Through this work, cracks in my belief system began to appear. Mysteries abound in the garden. I came to understand that all things are connected, that all things are energetic beings. Trees, rocks, rivers, the soil, the mountains, the deserts, people, animals all share the same source. We are all parts of one entity made up of the same swirling atoms exchanging energies with one another and with the vast universe. Continue reading →

Leaving (and returning) home

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Our ancestors spent many millions of years swinging from trees. Most likely, climatic shifts caused us to come to the ground, learn to walk on two legs and discover uses for our clever hands other than hanging from branches. Walking and running on two limbs, making and using tools with the other two — these are radical changes that separated us from the rest of our animal kin.

When we left the forests, we left the cradle of our evolution and we’ve been leaving ever since. Most of us forgot to return, even for a visit. It would be like if I left home to go to college and failed to call or write a single letter (we didn’t have email or texting back then), never returned for Thanksgiving dinner or breaks, simply severed all ties with the family and never looked back. Continue reading →

Plus, perfection is beside the point

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One of the most insidious effects of perfectionism is its power to shut down creativity and paralyze action. There’s a wonderful book called “Daring Greatly,” by Brené Brown, the Texas sociology professor whose TED talks on vulnerability went viral a few years back. The title comes from this remark by Teddy Roosevelt in a speech he gave in 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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Reconsidering our origin stories

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What is your family of origin? In this tapestry of a country with its multi-cultural past, how often have you heard or asked that question? My grandmother used to put it differently, just straight out: “What kind of name is that?” Which, translated, meant: “What is your ethnic background?” Although she had great curiosity and zest for life, in this case, the subtext was less generous. She was a WASP to the core, and a dedicated xenophobe.

At our Restorying retreats, we ask people to introduce themselves by starting with the phrase, “Once upon a time,” and then tell about their birth as if being interviewed by Hans Christian Andersen. I like how it brings people directly into the mythic “everywhen” mind that immerses them in the realm of symbol and archetype. Why does this matter? At the heart of living into the new story of connection and belonging is a reconsideration of our origin stories, both personal and cultural. Continue reading →

My child knows when we encounter the Wandering Stranger

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Second of a seasonal series. In which my son sees Santa Claus in the off-season and gives him an applesauce packet.

Something I’ve been playing with in this time between stories is to give my intuition some breathing room. To let my imagination peek beneath the surface of things, which are not necessarily what I assume them to be. The Irish know that magical threads run through the weave of daily life, and that the invitation to notice is always present. This season, I’m going to practice touching into that magic in moments of connection with other people, or even other beings not human.

When we bring our Christmas tree into the house this year, I’m going to imagine it standing in the forest, a quiet home for birds or squirrels or insects. The Yule Tree is an ancient symbol of the season, inviting a deeper attunement with the living world through its spicy smell, the prickles or softness of its needles, its rich green color, and pleasing form. Continue reading →

Shale gas drilling and the many faces of interdependence

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I just finished “The Real Cost of Fracking: How America’s Shale Gas Boom Is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food,” by Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald. It’s got me thinking about interdependence, the reality that we are all connected through myriad threads, whether we acknowledge it or not. This book is full of gripping stories of people whose lives have been turned upside down by shale gas drilling in their pristine, rural communities.

On one level, it’s a nine-chapter slog through egregious practices by sloppy, greedy drillers and their disregard for farmers and for public health, as well as their shocking ignorance of the laws of physics (I mean, who really believes it’s fine to spread toxic wastewater on roads to “keep the dirt down”?). Continue reading →

Giving thanks for kinship with all of Life

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After a long holiday weekend spent with extended family, I am moved to reflect on kinship. I am a branch in a family tree that has roots in Italy and in Germany, Bohemia, Ireland and England. My ancestors are always with me: in specific memories, in personality traits, in my heart. I have a place with photographs of them which I greet daily, smiling at the stories behind the pictures.

Stories tell us who we are and where we’ve come from. My father’s father came over alone on the boat from Italy when he was fourteen, just a year older than my son is now. He lived in Chicago Heights, a town south of the infamous Southside of Chicago, and worked at Calumet Steel to provide for his family. Continue reading →