Signs of the Thaw
As Winter is making way for Spring, there are signs of a thaw.
Yesterday I found this Buddha statue abandoned between a trash can and a utility pole. I asked what it was doing there and if it wanted to move. It did. I did an art intervention and walked the Buddha around the corner over to the side of newspaper boxes, the red and blue behind it making an instant altar.
Even if it lasted only a moment, I wanted people to see the Buddha, discarded with a broken halo, as a messenger of peace in a time of war.
So many were deeply touched by the recent Peace Walk monks and their loyal dog Aloka, the fierce spiritual devotion it takes to emanate non-violence and lovingkindness. May we embody that same spirit,
Right placement for our pal, the Buddha
Scientists have cultivated a plant with delicate white flowers, Silene stenophylla, from 32,000 year-old seeds found frozen in the Siberian permafrost. Let’s talk about hibernation, endurance, and the return of Spring.
This is not the oldest organism brought back to life. Roundworms from 46,000 years ago and more recent microscopic wee beasties and moss have been revived from a very long sleep.
What other treasures, and dangerous microbes, will the earth reveal because of climate change? What will we learn about our Earth’s past that will help us move forward with her in a better way?
Rebecca Solnit is touring with her new book ‘The Beginning Comes After the End.’ It’s so inspiring! A clear and encouraging voice for these times of dire beauty, when outworn systems are crumbling and we must trust our imaginal cells, show up in this neither here nor there feeling, and live into an interconnected world,
Solnit reveals the fascia or the mycelial network that connects us all, our social justice history over the long arc of time. Seemingly hidden deep in our bodies and in the body of the earth is the memory of Indigenous ways of belonging with each other and all the other beings in our shared home.
She’s highlighting how committed engagement over time, when rooted in interconnection and interbeing, creates a more expansive and relational world.
The future is here. And the vicious backlash is the death throes of systems addicted to isolation, separation, division, scarcity, competition, and hierarchy. We cannot survive in that mode. It no longer fits how we’ve evolved to be as people, as a world.
JOURNALING:
“I decided we were
born to be
moving water
not ice."
— Jim Harrison
What wisdom and practices are ready to be revived after long absence in your life?
What are you yearning for, secretly desiring as Spring approaches? What step can you take to manifest it?
What parts of you have been frozen in old traumas and are ready for some healing? (I can help here.)
