Over the weeks since, we’ve seen a variety of reactions to the senseless murders of a district court judge, a child born on September 11, 2001, a husband protecting his wife, a wife whose husband was wounded, a widowed retiree and an aide to the apparent target, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Another 12 people were wounded. And in a sense, there is yet another victim in Jared Loughner, the mentally ill young man whose life spiraled into a madness that pulled an entire nation into the darkness with him.

In the days immediately after what has been named the Tucson Tragedy, the rush-to-blame, so common after a horrific human-caused event, stood side-by-side with calls for increased civility; the latter being honored on some level by most, if not all, of the national political figures and the media that reports on them. We even saw the new millennium media event of “date night”, where the members of the two political parties mingled instead of segregated for the President’s State of the Union address.

The intention of renewed civility appeals to the highest aspects of our nature. And one hopes that efforts to “ratchet down the rhetoric” will hold in Washington; and in the television studios from Fox to MSNBC to CNN and even to Comedy Central.

But it is not enough to hope. Because the responsibility does not rest alone with the elected representatives and the news media personalities. How did we lose civility in public discourse in the first place? Because we, the public, respond to it. A little righteous indignation and a few well-chosen words can translate into votes and Neilsen ratings.

Like the child who throws a temper tantrum and wears down Mommy and Daddy until they get what they want, we reward bad behavior. I’ve been rewarding bad behavior.

In the days after the shooting, I found myself reading the latest Sarah Palin stories  - “just to see what stupid thing she’s said this time.” And I suspect others were doing the same with Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Congressman Raul Grijalva or Governor Jan Brewer, depending on political inclinations.

Each time I Googled Sarah Palin, I added energetic endorsement to bad behavior – even while attending a peace vigil on the Sunday before Martin Luther King day.

No more.

Robert F. Kennedy said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”

Then there is the story of the starfish.

A man walking along the beach at dawn sees a person in the distance, moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a child, who was not dancing at all. The youngster was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The child paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled man.

To this, the youngster replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the man commented, “But,  do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The child bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean.

“I made a difference to that one!”

As a Reiki master I’ve been blessed to experience firsthand the cumulative power of many people intentionally focusing energy towards an outcome. That’s one way that we begin to change the world – by walking our talk, speaking peace, living peace, breathing peace, BEING PEACE.

I want to be the starfish who, having been given the chance, goes forth to make a difference.

During and after World War II, Cardinal Francis Spellman and New Jersey Senator Albert Hawkes distributed millions of copies of a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. And while I am neither Catholic nor an adherent to any particular denomination, the prayer resonates as a road map, pointing a path to a more peaceful world. The path is wide – won’t you join me?

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

WomanKind, while a business, is an act of love; but this is a factor to the relationship that I’m having a hard time committing to. I love to write when I love to write; when the muse arrives. And don’t kid yourself; this muse isn’t some ethereal nightgown model. Think hippie gipsy with a touch of biker babe: Xena the Warrior Princess’s companion Gabrielle in a prom dress. She’s about as mystical as she is threatening. “Forget turning off that laptop until you finish!”, she fairly snarls. Which is how I came to be parked in a pullout off of Senator’s Highway near Prescott with the Mac resting on the steering wheel, writing this post.

What got me excited enough to pull over and boot up was knowing that I’d be writing about Pow Wow Highway, one of my All. Time. Favorite. Films.
Ever.

Pow Wow Highway is “little” independent 1989 release by George Harrison’s pet project HandMade Films. It’s an everyman-hero’s journey/buddy road movie. In the days before an important tribal vote, mineral company execs lure Native activist Buddy Red Bow from the Lame Deer reservation by framing his sister in Santa Fe and having her arrested. Buddy enlists the help of “Fat Philbert” Bono, who is something more than the lethargic dreamer he seems, to drive them to Santa Fe and bail out Bonnie Red Bow.

I don’t know how Native People view the movie, but I do hope it’s with some affection. I’ve always seen it as a modern day fable, legend…a fairy tale with a moral and told with gentle humor. My one complaint would be not casting a fully Native actor as the co-star, Buddy Red Bow. But make no mistake about it; while A Martinez gets top billing, this journey and the movie reside with Gary Farmer’s Philbert.

Philbert sees the trip to Santa Fe as part of his warrior’s journey. Sounding a bit like a Hollywood Indian, he talks about gathering medicine and trades the contents of his pockets for a junk yard car he names Protector, the War Pony. Philbert finds signs, sees signs, in situations where most people wouldn’t see anything. And all the while that he’s the brunt of deridement, we know that by the end of the story these signs and little moments will have a bigger meaning.

But isn’t that spot on – that “significance” is frequently a rear view? As we reflect, we sometimes come to appreciate how an earlier event informed a particular experience. It can be as kick-in-the-ass as discovering a partner has been unfaithful and then remembering details that you wonder how you overlooked the signs. Or it can be as subtle a unique phrase we hear from different sources that seems prophetic somehow in retrospect.

It’s much easier to identify signs in the past tense, especially when something comes around to stitch up the circle, nice and neat. In my life, a sign, literally a sign, was one of those cosmic tailors.

My first encounter with Reiki was on the daily drive home from a job in our early Flagstaff days. At the leading edge of a neighborhood shortcut was a white mobile home and a matching, handpainted sign propped against a nearby utility pole.
Reiki, it said, along with a phone number. I passed the sign for months, never paid much notice other than to wonder “what’s Reiki?” though not with enough enthusiasm to seek out a definition.

Fast forward about ten years. One fine fall morning, I was going about whatever it was I was doing when the thought came into my mind, “I need to learn Reiki”. Excuse me, learn what? Reiki, you remember, that sign by the telephone pole? “Oh yeah”. Uh-huh, ok”. Then, a few weeks later, Muses return: HEY – Reiki, remember?” Yeah Yeah, I’ll get around to it.

By January she’s made such a pest of herself that I looked into a Reiki class. And I don’t mind admitting, thanking that intuition, muse, whatever. Reiki is the laptop computer of my soul – I know I lived without it but it’s so much a part of my now that everything previous seems a bit in shadow. I can’t speak for anyone else but for me, but with each level of attunement to Reiki energy came a subtle shifting of awareness and priorities. Part of that came in the form of a calling of service to people facing health challenges.

That calling was further defined when a series of unexplained angry bruises and nosebleeds sent me to a hematologist. Apparently, I have an auto-immune condition causing periodic low platelet; blessedly it’s nothing as serious as leukemia but still worthy of monitoring.

Cancer Centers of Northern Arizona Healthcare are open to complementary therapies. During one of my visits I read about a sound healing meditation being held that afternoon and decided to attend. (I need another entire blog entry to write about Jennifer Williams and her amazing gifts. Suffice here to say) the experience inspired me to approach the Cancer Center about starting a Reiki program. After a few weeks of internal Center processes, we were approved.

I was also working full-time, so a volunteer pool of Reiki workers was needed to make the program a reality. I put the word out on my FaceBook pages, and through friends in the local Reiki community. Within a matter of weeks, there was a roster of nearly a dozen volunteers; some I knew and some I’d never met.

Just before the program launched, we had a staff and volunteer orientation, where everyone got to meet, ask questions, and discuss how the program would work. During those first days, I tried to cycle around to spend time with any practitioner I didn’t know. One of those practitioners was Charlie, a large, tattooed pierced bass player with an old and beautiful soul.

The first sessions are an embarrassment of riches; three or four volunteers, but very few patients. It’s a good chance to get acquainted, and we’re sharing stories of how we came to Reiki. Two other women had spoken and it’s my turn. The first words are leaving my lips, about driving home from work; when I have a flash…no, make that a FLASH of awareness about the ownership of the white sign. And as I keep speaking, I look at Charlie’s eyes getting wide as a kid who just found a bike with a bow in his bedroom. “That was MY sign!’ he exclaims as I nod enthusiastically. I know.
Since that time I’ve tried to train myself to be a little more aware. Life’s full of moments, how do we know which ones will have later significance? We listen. We feel. We pay attention.

On the afternoon I pulled off the road to write, I was on my way back from volunteering at a women’s cancer retreat, educating and sharing Reiki with nearly half of the 50 women who came for two days of summer camp-like activities plus recognition, pampering, laughter, tears and sisterhood. Driving down the winding Senator’s Highway, was longing for leisurely pace to enjoy the brilliant blue sky and savor the lingering energy from the company of these strong, beautiful warriors. I see a pull out and slide in to let an SUV pass, and notice an earthen berm with little used tire tracks going over. I lock up the Jeep and walk over to see the tracks continuing on the other side deep into the woods. “I’ll just walk a little ways, I think, to see if it’s a road or a pullout to a campsite.” And at almost simultaneously realize “I never do this…anymore. I used to explore things like this by myself, but I haven’t done this in years.”

I continue far enough to where the road seems to dead end in a dropoff…but no, to the lef, it snakes down the short, steep wall, then up the other side. I stand there for a moment, wondering what it all means. Why was I drawn to walk down this way? Is there some symbolism in the winding path down and back up again?

I’m just not getting it.

So, after standing there a minute, listening to the silence, I start back towards the car, ready to continue the drive home….

When, without preview, a scene from Pow Wow Highway materializes in my thoughts:

En route to Santa Fe jail, the travelers stop to refuel Philbert’s massive appetite for junk food. While he stands at the diner-style counter and orders, Philbert fiddles with the rabbit-ear antenna of an old black and white TV. The image clears from video “snow” (this was pre-digital, pre-HD times, kiddies) to show an old western movie where cowboys on horseback are pulling the bars out of the wall of a jail with a thick rope. Philbert glances down at the scene and then readjusts the signal back to snow. As you’ve probably guessed, this foreshadows the sister’s liberation from the Santa Fe hoosegow 20 minutes later in the film.

Pay attention, the muse whispers. This pullout, or something about the memory of this pullout, is going to have a different meaning someday.
Was that was this was all about? I don’t know. Maybe not. But if it does, I already have a short list of who to thank.

“Branded! Marked with a coward’s shame…”(Stick around, there’s a point to this reference although it may not seem so for a few paragraphs.)

I live in one of the highest elevation cities in Arizona – Flagstaff. It’s a very cool town on so many levels.

For example, Flagstaff is one of the snowiest incorporated cities in the U.S. – this past winter was a record-setter at 144 inches, definitely a variation of cool. We’re home to Northern Arizona University, which brings a wonderful youth population and with them, access to great music and arts. NAU attracts students who like the activities our town offers – biking, skiing and snowboarding, mountaineering, hiking, rock climbing. And Flagstaff has more Yoga studios per capita than anywhere I’ve ever visited.

In Flagstaff, Barack Obama beat John McCain by 25 percentage points, winning in 30 of 32 precincts. Our GLBT Pride in the Pines festival attracts upwards of 4,000 attendees – pretty impressive for a town of about 60,0000. Deckers Outdoor, the company owning decidedly hippy-esque Teva and Ugg Australia footwear (and with a strong Social Responsibility policy) has a home in Flagstaff.

Flagstaff is a part of an archipelago of liberal islands in a sea of red.

Actually Arizona has a few liberal bastions – Tucson being the largest, although Flagstaff, Sedona, Jerome, Bisbee also tend towards at least social liberalism if not fiscal. (Not 100% liberal, but then what city or town is 100% liberal or conservative or even moderate?) However, the biggest voting block in Arizona is the Phoenix megopolis, one of the 10 largest cities in the US.

Which is, in a nutshell, how Arizona ended up branded as racist with the passage of SB-1070, the cowardly, racially-profiling illegal immigration law and throwback to pre-Civil War style prejudice on parade.

“What do you do when you’re branded, Will you fight for your name?”

Illegal immigration is the elephant in the living room for many liberals. We know it’s there. We know that immigration law has been broken for years, and we want it reformed, too, but in a thoughtful and effective manner.

Liberals in Arizona, at least the ones I’m friendly with, openly acknowledge that illegal immigration creates problems. But the problems we see aren’t necessarily the same problems the Voice of Power acknowledge.

For example, there are nearly annual mass-deaths of illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona under horrible conditions in the intense desert heat.

Illegals often drive without licenses and work without paying income tax, not because the want to (would you want to risk being deported for running a stop sign?) but because the opportunity to apply for citizenship just isn’t there in many cases – and fear of admitting being in the country illegally keeps many from stepping forward and risking deportation as the reward for attempted compliance.

Then there’s the failure of NAFTA. In an April 27 article by Roger Bybee on the Working In These Times website, he observed:

“Stemming the flow of economic refugees from Mexico will require large-scale assistance to enable Mexicans to build a modern infrastructure of roads, mass transport, electricity lines, clean water, and computer access. But although they eagerly exploit Mexicans with low wages and often humiliating conditions, U.S. firms have been unwilling to pay even minimal taxes. NAFTA has thus generated neither a middle-class consumer market nor improvements in Mexico’s impoverished infrastructure…The promised uplift in the lives of Mexicans has never materialized.

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans — lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find decent wages and dignity in the U.S.-owned “maquiladoras” (factories along the border) — are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families…. But as long as America’s corporate and political elites are unwilling to offer Mexico anything but military aid, Mexico’s problems will fester.”

Complex problems with no easy solutions, especially when financial aid is needed and the US and Arizona budgets are in shambles. Somewhat consequently, the issue has been reduced to its simplest form and a simpleton “solution” passed into law.

In case it isn’t obvious, I hereby state my opposition to SB1070. I’ve spoken out against it in person and on FaceBook; given money to groups trying to overturn it, and actively support the gubernatorial campaign of Terry Goddard (who opposes the law although it’s possible his role as current AZ Attorney General will be to defend it against challenges). And I even understand why some people want to boycott Arizona.

But dammit, the yahoos who voted in SB1070 are screwing not only with my state, and human rights,  but also with my dream!

I started WomanKind, LLC because I believe so deeply and passionately in supporting women in our wellness and growth. Once I was attuned to Reiki, a shift occurred, and I found it was crucial, not optional, that I devote a large part of my work time to something meaningful, that gives back in significant ways to the core of humanity.

After a year of challenges, WomanKind is finally ready to host its first retreat, “My Story – Memoir and Journaling for Self-Awareness”. A woman I know, love and respect, Jeanne Lupton, is coming from Berkeley to lead this intimate weekend group.

But so far, two people who would otherwise love to attend have declined because they are boycotting Arizona’s bigotry and cowardice in facing the real issues of immigration and economics.

WomanKind is a small business, a really small business…OK, more than really small, it’s basically a one-person shop, run on a shoestring budget. I can’t afford to relocate the retreat to out-of-state. And besides, there is a lot of beauty, and a lot of heart, where I live. I may not be proud of my state’s politics, but I AM proud of Flagstaff, one of the first Arizona cities to officially oppose SB1070 (being the second city in AZ, right after Tucson, to file a legal suit against the law).

A lot of my personality is part of the business model for WomanKind. As an individual in Arizona, I have a vote. And as a business in Arizona, I have a voice. For the first time in my life, I can take a stand and count twice.

And so, this is my stand, and WomanKind, LLC’s stand:

If SB1070 is not overturned by the time the My Story retreat concludes on September 26, 2010, WomanKind, LLC will donate a portion of the profits to Unite Arizona, an alliance of groups boycotting and challenging SB1070. Donations to Terry Goddard’s campaign for Governor will also be readily accepted from attendees or anyone who can’t/won’t attend but will put their money behind their beliefs.

“What do you do when you’re branded? Will you fight for your name?”

Hell, yes!

A gift from my sister-from-another-mother Linda, the Osho Tarot appeals to my Libra “let all manner of things be well” nature. There are no inverses in the Osho deck, no shadow side to the card’s meaning. I’ve tried many decks, and the inverse was always an obstacle to me; the cockroach in the punchbowl of a uplifting card or the justification for not paying attention to a card whose spot-on observations hit a little too close to home.  The Osho Tarot gives the message without ambiguity – and in a gentler zen-infused “you already know this” manner.

Life’s been throwing me a few curve balls in the past six months…more like an unpredictable combination of curve balls, fast balls, and a few bad calls thrown in just to keep things interesting. It hasn’t been awful, but it’s been enough to knock the Libra scales out of balance.

For the first time in a long time, getting back to a positive outlook has been tough. Setbacks and misdirections are challenges enough, but my inner critic has been latching on to the rebound struggle, trying to lead me into dark places of the past where anti-depressants and self-medicating trumped yoga and journaling as coping skills. She keeps trying to tell me that I’m going back to that place and time, and just the possibility of that scares the hell out of me.

Like most things in my life, I don’t have a structured relationship with Tarot – I throw a few cards now and then, or I’ll get on a regular schedule for a few weeks before putting it aside for months on end. The one pattern I can see is that when times get tough, I start looking for answers everywhere. Osho and me, we’re getting tight again.

Last week was one of those tough times – I was enmeshed in my first-even litigation, a work assignment was pushing me in directions contrary to my developed skills and I felt myself resisting, high winds took the appeal out of riding myself back into balance on the bike…so out came the Tarot deck.

One part of the ritual is consistent: I shuffle the cards and hold them while I meditate, focused on breathing and giving the mind a vacation to the land of no-thing. After a while, I start spreading the deck with my fingers. Invariably, a card will “feel” like I should pull it. Sometimes it’s just one card, sometimes it’s 2 or more; I try not to have an expectations, (although I confess that the rare occasion when no card calls, I tend to get a bit pissed off).

As I went through the process last Friday, one card seemed smoother and silkier; it seemed to protrude from the deck with a “pick me” feel to it. I select the card, believing myself ready to be inspired and directed:

Trust. Trust? WTF – do you see this picture? This woman is jumping without a net, flying without a parachute – do you KNOW what happens to people who do this? They end up looking like an upside down pizza on the pavement, that’s what! I trust gravity, and gravity is like my worst ever high school Algebra teacher! I don’t know why I should care what Z equals when I don’t know what X and Y are, and I don’t know why I’d want to jump when I don’t know where I’ll land!

I rant, I mentally pace, forming my logical arguments with a deceased Zen Master and the artist/follower who interprets the archetypes of the Tarot and her teacher’s word. Then I whip out the MacBook and fly full bore into the face of trust, looking up the other interpretations of the card (represented by the Knight of Cups in traditional decks). As usual, I find such a wide variety of meanings — some contradictory of each other, until I’m nearly worn out from trying to resist and recraft the message into something more acceptable to a state of mind already in upheaval.

I’m about to shut down the laptop when I remember Laura Colvin-Brown. Laura is a local powerhouse who founded the Flagstaff Yoga Festival in 2009, where I launched WomanKind, LLC. She also teaches Tarot as a non-credit course at the local community college, and recently created the Virtual Tarot School, a site I’ve been meaning to visit. I started watching the introduction video, where she talks about the four secrets to mastering the Tarot.  And there it was, 12:20 into the presentation: the clarifier I was seeking:

“The inner critic is the enemy of your intuition.”

Trust is about letting go and going with the intuition, confident that somehow, it’s all going to be OK, without an elaborate plan. Osho says “If you trust, only then can you drop your knowledge, only then can you put your mind aside. And with trust, something immense opens up.” It isn’t about knowing, it’s about sensing, deep at the core of the living experience, that life involves movement in harmony with what is. And realizing that sometimes, what we are attached to and believe to be important will drop away in the middle of the jump and we find that we didn’t really need it after all.

I’m ready for something immense to open up – I know it’s at the bottom of the canyon, over the ledge, with no apparent way down. So, I’m telling my inner critic to go wait in the car…I might be awhile.

And with a deep breath…

1……….

2………..

3…………

Yesterday is history

Tomorrow’s a mystery

Today is a gift called The Present

Last week I was looking for something in the storage area of our garage when I stumbled across a scrap of paper with this written across it. Moments like this are not accidents, they are the signposts that point us in directions that we can choose to take.  I experienced finding that scrap as a gift of awareness that I needed at that very moment.

I’ve been re-reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now again recently. In his bestseller, Tolle frequently reminds us that suffering is connected to past and future, that true peace and enlightenment can be found by detaching from time and the mind to be in the moment.

The Zen teacher, Osho, wrote “The tenses – past, present and future – are not the tenses of time; they are the tenses of the mind” and advises us that clinging to any tense will simply create misery.

But how do we live wholly in the present?

2010 was a year of significant change in my life.  I started WomanKind, LLC in answer to new awareness of a long-suppressed calling. Later in the year, my corporate career ended in a manner I never anticipated.  I can’t help but look back down the road and see how far I’ve come, or to look ahead in wonder of what the future holds.

Does this mean I’m unable live in the present? I’d like to believe that I can.

The past holds both pleasant and unpleasant memories that helped shaped me, but I am not the person today that I was then, so they are no longer an active part of my life. Both loss and wonder are inevitable elements of the future. I can take measures to influence, but will never be able to fully control it, so why expend energy on worry or fear- some form of the future will arrive regardless. This moment is the only time of which I am in control – if not of what I am doing right now, but of how I experience it, how I chose to react to it.

Reaction is always a choice we make in the moment of the present, even if we don’t say or do something until later, when that moment of “later” arrives, it becomes the Now. Every experience and every reaction takes place in this moment – we chose how we accept the gift of The Present.

What binds you to the past? Can you look back on it, like an old photograph, with recognition but without attachment or regret?

What compels you about the future? Can you live day to day without feeling fear,  accepting fully that what you think may happen may in fact, never happen and that things you don’t anticipate are almost certain to occur?

Dorothy Thompson said, “Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live in every experience, painful or joyous, to live in gratitude for every moment, to live abundantly. ”

By embracing each moment in recognition of its ephemeral uniqueness, we can move in grace through the present, knowing that the constant is our inner self and our relationship to Spirit, Christ-consciousness, Creator…whatever you identify as your personal connection to source.  Live in awareness of this moment and you live abundantly in The Present.

In her 2000 book, Nurturing Yourself and Others, Lee Schnebly writes of struggling with depression. A therapist describes Lee’s depleted self as an apple barrel that only feels worthwhile when bountifully dispensing apples. Preoccupied with providing apples to her family, neighbors, PTA, church, friends, she doesn’t restock and eventually runs out of apples. Before she can nurture others again, she must refill the energetic apple barrel through self care, by allowing herself to absorb that which restores.

When my energy slips, I refocus on my ideas of self care. I strive to be conscious of eating well, doing good work, being present with loved ones, balancing activity and stillness. Adherence to these goals varies daily and includes a lesson for me to accept every achievement and shortfall equally, without judgment.

Self-care is vital for the business traveler. I restore balance on flights by diving deep into compelling books. Listening to guided meditations on an iPod takes me inward, shifting awareness away from the plane’s noise and confinement. A frequent flyer colleague joins drop-in Bible study groups, while another seeks out yoga studios. Head for the trail, gym, spa or salon, bookstore or four star restaurant; spend time creating art, music or poetry. Anything that absorbs your attention so fully that you lose track of time is a place of recovery. There are countless ways of refilling our apple barrels.

Journaling is my most gratifying self-care practice. It‘s the meditation, the labyrinth walk that leads me home to my authentic self. Journaling adapts to all circumstances. I journal in bound notebooks and on electronic ones, in text messages, files and voice notes on a Blackberry; each scrap adds to the collage.

In The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron prescribes The Morning Pages to aid in creative recovery. The Morning Pages are a non-negotiable commitment to write three pages of longhand every morning about absolutely anything.

“Morning pages…get us the other side of our fear…beyond our Censor. Beyond the reach of the Censor’s babble we find our own quiet center… where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator’s and our own.”

Gregg Levoy underscores our need to ask ourselves The Burning Questions as part of a spiritual journey. In his book Callings – Finding and Following an Authentic Life, Levoy suggests pondering “What matters? What has always been there? What answers does my past reveal about the questions that are central to my life?”

Answering the Burning Questions is my current mission statement, my hero’s quest for the ideal words that convey the essence of a tale in perfect clarity. When words and feeling flow with their own life and awareness illuminates shadows, revealing new angles, Creation’s voice hums along. It’s the perfect harmonic, a transcendent moment of Samhadi. I feel a rebirth of deepened understanding through both telling the story and witnessing myself telling the story, whether I answer the Burning Questions or not.

When we manage the giving and taking of care, allow ourselves time to dialogue with our inner voices, and respect our right to just stop once in a while… each time we honor the need for replenishment, we’re rewarded with renewed strength, endurance, and insights. ~Namaste~

— Martha Graham