Who’s Your Goodness Whisperer?

You may assume a dog whisperer is human but that is just because we humans think we are all that! What if a dog whisperer could be a cat? What if? What is a goodness whisperer? Someone who says “You’re enough…right now, in this very moment.” “You are valued…you are loved.” “You are an amazing being!” But animals don’t use so many words. ‘I'”m happy you are here, I love you,’ would be the translation of animal energy to human talk from Tigerbee to Starling in this picture.

So who is your Goodness Whisperer? The one who reminds you of your gifts, who never gives up on you, who sees what you can’t quite yet see? Me thinks we all need a team of Goodness Whisperers these days. In times where many things in the ‘out there’ world do not look so good. My dad has been a Goodness Whisperer over many, many years. Reminding me I’m talented, artistic, caring. Even when my eyeballs roll back in my head listening to parental gush, it does water good seeds in me. My mom, when she was alive and in the right space was a Goodness Whisperer. She called me angel baby when I was a tot and I still wear the ‘Walking Angel’ pendant she gave me thirty years ago. But I am training myself to be my own Goodness Whisperer and spread that out to others. Do you have mentors? It’s a blessing to receive the warm balm of love and wisdom from caring mentors. But what if you also, could be your own Goodness Whisperer? Who have been Goodness Whisperers for you…write their names down on a piece of paper. It may have been one conversation a long time ago that made a difference, it may be a weekly call that makes a difference, it maybe a relative, teacher or coach. Write their names down. The Goodness Whispering may have come from a youtube, a book, a class…think outside the box. Not every word from this person may have been encouragement, but if they did indeed believe in you…write their names down.

Now put your name on that list. Maybe even go for the gusto and put your name at the top of the list. That would be a commitment to be kind to yourself, to be encouraging to yourself and to be patient with yourself. What makes this easier for me is I think of the little ones of me. Rather than the adult that is so easy to charge with some sort of not good enough crime. The little ones of me are just easier to wrap my arms around, reassure, calm and cheer on. I absolutely feel they deserve a ‘Goodness Whisperer’ as all little people deserve! It’s never too late for a happier childhood if I take the child of me in my arms and say…’let’s do this together.’ To be honest, the child of me is my best part anyways. She’s the one who loved easily and unconditionally. The one who crawled on hands and knees in my grandparents backyard happily pretending to be a cat and communicating with animals.

Now flip the piece of paper over, you know that piece of paper. Dang, I forgot to give the ‘take a physical action alert’ on this post. So…here it is…get a piece of paper and pen to actually take a physical action. One side of the paper has Goodness Whisperer on the heading and underneath those people, books, friends, family that may have one time or many times been a Goodness Whisperer for you. Flipping that paper over, who were/are you a Goodness Whisperer for? So, you may think I mean just humans because that’s how my species rolls. Nope, include plants, animals, ancestors, kiddos, there are no limits on good beings to whisper to or encourage.

After you have made a list of who you are now, have been or can become a Goodness Whisperer for, take a fresh piece of paper out and think who is on your counsel. At this critical time in human evolution I am finding a myriad of wisdom keepers are flowing through my dream states. They are giving me downloads and although I don’t consciously recall all of it…I know the info is in there. They are on my counsel of loving beings helping me grow. Those folks showing up in my dream states, some living and some already transitioned are on my Evolve Now team. The Super Bowl was yesterday. How many people were cheering on either the Seattle Seahawks or the Patriots yesterday? What if we all, everyone reading this and millions more were on the “Humans Evolve into Caretakers for each other and all life” team playing the Evolve Now game instead of the Super Bowl? Now, now, now please. I can ask for help before sleep and that is a call for support from my counsel to come through in dream state, you can too.

There are football legends and avid football fans know who they are. There are also legends of those who have come before us to help us evolve into kinder and more conscious beings. Whether it is Rosa Parks, Ghandi, Black Elk or countless folks taking compassionate actions whose names I will never know. Me thinks my vision gets too big sometimes but it all starts with small interactions. Small actions are the foundation of goodness. Smiling is a small action. I’m smiling to everyone reading this right now. Are you smiling?

Forgiveness is a choice. While hiking in Big Sur a few days ago, I had a flashback of when I was a child and had a dog that I neglected. It spent way, way too much time caged. I did not take good care of that dog. Now, looking back I see it was neglected/abused by being caged so much. I failed to care with love and compassion for that little being. With that flashback came tears and remorse. That dog ran away when it got out and was killed by a car. I was ten years old.

It is never too late to ask for forgiveness. “It was wrong and I am so sorry. Please forgive me…” I said as tears streamed down my face. I said a prayer for the highest and best good for ‘Poochie’ where ever her spirit may be. It is never too late to pray from the heart for the well being of another in form or diseased. When I took another step right in front of me was a yellow wildflower laying in the center of the trail. Spirit left a gift. Opening the heart and being a Goodness Whisperer doesn’t mean I never have done anything harmful, I have. If I can forgive myself for any harmful actions, I will be much more likely to be able to forgive another. Being a Goodness Whisperer for another doesn’t mean expecting them to be perfect, never making mistakes or having caused harm. It means loving someone through that and believing in their innate goodness. I have the chance right now to be a part of a team that can do that for our species. So do you. I have the chance to do that for my father who will pass at some point…maybe not too far away.

Natascha is a friend who volunteers in Soledad Prison and I see her as a Goodness Whisperer for some folks who have committed crimes and are incarcerated. She has volunteered there for over a decade, co-facilitating meditation and also working with the GRIP (Guiding Rage into Power) project. Simply choosing to acknowledge the humanity in an incarcerated person is being a Goodness Whisperer. Facilitating meditation, being there as a listening to people who are often labeled and discriminated against; it may be a first to be listened to in a new way. Natascha is a loving presence and that is also a form of “Goodness Whisperer.” Listening from a humble, gentle space is energetic whispering. I share about her to dispel any stereo type of who are the ‘good people’ to practice this with. There are enough stereo types out there right now. Innate goodness is in ALL of us so ‘Goodness Whispering’ is a gift for anyone. You get to choose.

Habit energy is energy that may have come in from my culture, my family, my unknown ancestors and it is patiently waiting to be transformed. It is auto pilot habits that run all of the time. All this talk of goodness you might think that the voice saying, ‘you’re a failure’, ‘why bother’, ‘it’ll never work’ is not in here. It is in here. It’s just I’m at choice who to listen to and I’m at choice what voice I give the mega phone to. Those opinions/habitual thoughts are not just about me but can be about my species. Condemning thoughts about humans for doing so much damage to the earth, to animals, to each other while being violent, greedy, racist…fill in the blank. But then I remember what is in the world is in my heart, and what is in my heart is in the world. Start here. That gives me agency, rather than throwing my hands in the air and saying it’s hopeless turn to compassion. With the flashback of my childhood dog, a painful memory…came humility. The habit may be to think the other is so different than me. The habit maybe to want to stay safe and in control, but the transformation is waiting. It is calling. It is inviting me to create a new habit of looking for, listening for the Goodness in myself, in the world and in others right now. You are enough, right now. How often do you hear that? Who can you say that to today? I am saying it to you now and that makes me smile.

Meeting a Master

*‘To be with such a teacher in this lifetime is a huge honor and blessing. ‘*

Sometimes you don’t know what is going to change your life forever. In fact I’d say most times I don’t know. I guess that is why it’s called the Mystery. One day in my late twenties I was sitting on the steps in my house with my friend and then house mate who was telling me about Palestinian home demolitions. Not that I wanted to know, because who wants to know about suffering far away? We were both taking Landmark Education courses and we were also talking about ‘ways of being.’ Like for example, self righteous indignation…a very popular way of being these days. Munteha embodied it as she role played with me, “You are ignorant and I must teach you!! They rounded up all the Japanese people, American Japanese people and put them in internment camps!” Kay, so she switched it from Palestinian land seizure and house demolitions to Japenese Americans being abducted a forcibly placed in camps during World War II…which to be truthful my younger self did not know about either at that time. That conversation with my 23 year old house mate did change my life forever, because it led to an opening of heart and willingness to see what is unpleasant and painful to see. It even led to travel to see and hear different stories that most American citizens and most people will never get a chance to hear/see. I have Munteha to thank for meeting my spiritual root teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh.

After the conversation on the stairs, Munteha ventured out to actually go witness for herself what was happening on the ground. She went with Leah Green and the Compassionate Listening Project to Israel and Palestine. The group of international citizens sat in people’s homes and listened to their stories. They visited Jewish families, Palestinian families, military officers, people on the ground in Gaza (you could get in back then), Israeli orthodox Settlers and peace activists from every faith. It was called a Compassionate Listening Delegation and the sole purpose was to listen deeply to people’s stories and that in itself would do two things…it would alleviate suffering and it would open people’s eyes within the delegation to what is actually unfolding on the ground thereby cutting through ignorance.

I’m not Jewish, I’m not Arab and I had no interest really in Israel at the time. But I do follow intuition. It was a clear Yes to accept Munteha’s invitation to participate in my own Compassionate Listening Delegation even though I didn’t really know why I was going. The first step in that journey was being trained on how to listen. We are not trained in this culture how to listen deeply. Especially if I don’t agree or like what the other person is sharing or saying. The Compassionate Listening Manual was the first time I saw the name Thich Nhat Hanh and that name did not mean anything to me but the poem Call Me by My True Names embodied everything that the Compassionate Listening delegation was about. So the name of this Vietnamese monk that grew up in war stayed with me.

First, I met this Master through a poem. Then I met Gene Knudson Hoffman, who was Leah Green’s mentor. Gene’s words, “Who prays for the Oppressor?” dropped like a seed into my consciousness because it was so radically different than how I had been trained in a culture bent on punishment. Gene had Thich Nhat Hanh as a mentor and was an elder when I entered as a Compassionate Listening delegate. Compassionate Listening came from Thay into Gene and then Gene transmitted it to Leah. Ripples are like that, they may go out so far and wide like the ocean and we may never know the reverberations. Leah went on to lead 26 delegations to Israel/Palestine as well as delegations in other countries. I could write a book just on the experiences of the Compassionate Listening delegations I participated on back in 1999 and 2001 but that is for another day.

When I was in Diapers, Thich Nhat Hanh made his way from his monastery in Vietnam to Washington DC in the United States. He went to the US government to make visible his people’s suffering and ask for an end to the bombing. “You ask what I want, I want you to stop bombing my people…” I was not even six months old when he was offering a proposal to end the war and and to asking the United States to offer reconstruction without ideological strings attached. It was that call for peace in 1966, without condemning people and without blaming one side or the other that had the then government of Vietnam exile Thich Nhat Hanh for being a traitor. He was not allowed to come back for 39 years and he did not know if he would ever be allowed back. In exile, he transformed the suffering in his own heart and learned to make his heart his home.

*‘The Rage is my baby and the energy of love and mindfulness wraps around the Rage and calms it down.’*

Despite being in exile, despite being labelled a traitor and having his work banned; Thich Nhat Hanh wrote books, poems and teachings. He wrote under pen names and his work was shared in a clandestine underground network in Vietnam. He was considered a subversive so someone caught reading his work took the risk of being punished.

The Rage Bomb that I returned with from being witness and listener in Israel/Palestine invited me deeply into practicing with All of It. That’s when I needed Thay’s gentle presence telling me to make friends with my Rage. Not to judge it or supress it and definitely not to spew it out onto others. Look for the root cause of the rage like a mother looks for the root cause of a baby crying by holding the baby in her arms. The Rage is my baby and the energy of love and mindfulness wraps around the Rage and calms it down. After it had calmed down I could see clearly what was beneath the Rage was a sense of helplessness and grief. And overwhelm. Under anger was an ocean of tears. The rage is not like it was back in the days of re-entry from the Compassionate Listening Delegations, but the tools of honoring grief, fear, overwhelm, anger…I use them every day.

Thay said often that he would not want to be born on a planet without suffering, because without suffering you cannot develop your compassion. He would also say, “It’s not enough to suffer….” Be in touch with the wondrous, healing and nourishing elements in us and around us…that is my job too. Alleviate suffering, water the seeds of joy. In the mindfulness trainings is the line, “I have more than enough conditions to be happy…happiness is not dependent on external conditions…”

*“A cloud can become vapor, it can become rain, but a cloud never dies.”*

To be with such a teacher in this lifetime is a huge honor and blessing. He transitioned into a cloud on January 22, 2022 at the age of 95. “A cloud can become vapor, it can become rain, but a cloud never dies.” No death and no birth may be the most potent teaching of all right now because it can be an antidote to fear. Everything continues, albeit in a different form. As a testament to how he lived, he was allowed to re enter his homeland in the last years of his life and open ceremonies for Thich Nhat Hanh’s transition were held in and live streamed from Vietnam making them available to people all over the world. Yes, war is impermanent. Yes, compassion can move mountains over time. Breathing in I feel deep gratitude, breathing out I allow these gifts to flow to others. Deep bow of love and gratitude.

Begin At Home

“*The beauty can arise from the mud, look deeply and you will find the beauty.”*

The beauty of this present moment is here now if I am here now. You are here, if I am here. When the mud of distraction is stirred up, a beautiful being can be standing right in front of me… a two legged being, a four legged being, or an eight legged being and I don’t even see them. Is the same true for you? Your son, your friend, your boss is right in front of you, can you see him/her? The gift of the present moment is here but sometimes I forget and get lost in dispersion surrounded by constant distractions. Stop thinking my dear, it is all right here. The beauty can arise from the mud, look deeply into the mud and you will find the beauty.

I live in a country where I can walk peacefully on the land, can go grocery shopping and eat whatever I want. I have a job, a home, a car and my health. I have friends on the path and loving animal companions. Begin with gratitude and deep awareness of whatever gifts are yours right now. How to hold the awareness of so much suffering and so much beauty co-existing at the same time? Gently, kindly, patiently, and humbly. When I lay in my tree, I hear there is nothing to fix. My mind has other opinions. Over time I have learned to trust the wisdom of tree more than mind. My tree, the one I climb almost daily has a tree friend now in the Amazon. I introduced them one to another. Find the wise ones in your life. Listen to them. Let yourself rest in their arms. You know who they are.

When I sat at the base of Grandmother tree I remembered to breathe deeper. She holds and supports all the other living beings with her steady tree presence. She supports all of them, without discrimination. Ceiba taught me to send my roots deep down like she does to gain more stability, peace and ease. I can still do it here and now, even though I am no longer in the Amazon jungle. You can too. You can send your roots deep into the earth.

“*Cieba taught me to send my roots deep down like she does to gain more stability, peace and ease”*

In the United States, the cultural belief your worth depends on what you do is deep. Get off your butt and do something, damn it! What have you done lately for peace, for justice, for your kid, or your job? But when I come back home to myself, I hear the message of Grandmother tree. ‘Being is medicine.’ Being stable, being loving, being kind…being wise. Being present. I don’t know her age but my guess is Grandmother tree is thousands of years old. This awareness makes me smile. As human beings, many have forgotten the ways of harmony. My tree here has told me patience is a super power. It’s a super power I am still cultivating as a human being that wants things now-now-now. I want peace, justice and all species honored and respected as sacred now-now-now!

Like millions of others worldwide who witnessed over 1200 Israelis and foreign citizens killed by horrific violence on October 7 in the year 2023, my heart broke and body froze. Flooded with memories of people I had met decades earlier on two separate Compassionate Listening delegations to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza; I had to come back and hold myself tenderly. Vivian Silver, a Canadian peace activist I met on one of those delegations was killed that day. Many innocents were killed on that day and tens of thousands have been killed in the spirit of retribution and revenge since then. Some hostages abducted that day still languish in Gaza.

Like I go to tree for refuge, I went to a Palestinian Sufi on October 8, 2023. He was a bright shining light emanating love far and wide when I met him in his home in the West Bank so many years ago. He transitioned since then but I still cried out to him, “What do I DO now?!!”

“Clean your heart of hatred,” his answer came swiftly. Now two years later, after more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, all of the universities in Gaza have been destroyed by U.S. bombs and countless children systematically starved and displaced…the same message came through again. “Clean your heart of hatred.” Make yourself into a light house that can shine brightly on all without exception. Clean. Clean deeply those hidden corners of prejudice, of rage, wrong perceptions. Let them melt into wisdom, compassion and Divine love that sees through different eyes. Decades ago, this same Sufi sat in my living room in Portland and shook his fist in the air, “I cannot hate anyone! I shine the love of God on all people, like the sun shines on all.” These memories are like seeds from so many great beings that I have met in this lifetime. They are buried in the garden of my heart.

Begin at home, my dear. My home is near a National Park called Fort Ord. I have collected a planter pot full of bullets which could easily have been a barrel full of bullets on my walks. Years ago people trained to kill ‘the enemy’ on Fort Ord in the midst of tree friends, the coyote and the hawk. The bullets from those days are strewn everywhere, I see them on every walk. I have made peace with the bullets on the land. They remind me that war is impermanent. Even as my country still exports more war in the form of bullets, bombs and weapons…I can walk in peace. I choose peace. The choice is mine at any moment.

“*Don’t wait until there’s peace out there to have joy in here….*“

Today, October 8, 2025 it is enough to clean my home and to clean my heart. To clean the windows through which I see the world. The best way to honor those people who have been standing for peace and being peace in the darkest places lifetime after life time is to kiss the earth with my feet as I too walk in peace. To clean the corners of my heart with kindness and patience, to clean the corners of my home. As I walk and clean and breathe deeper today why not invite in joy. Don’t wait until there’s peace out there to have joy in here…it’s now or never.

Right Now

What if an angel whispered into your left ear softly, “You have one more month sweet one, until you transition.” Some of the biggest shifts in life come when the trance gets broken, by a gentle angels’ whisper or by the thwack of an uninvited life event. Life is impermanent said Buddha, but do I listen? Like, really…really listen? Who would you call right now if you only had today? What would you say? I”m not walking through this life review and death preview alone. Hell no! Like most other things in life, this game is more fun when played with others.

Sometimes the universe gives us that big thwack upside the head with illness, job loss, natural disaster, death of a friend or loved one after which realignment comes quickly. A million years ago, when I was still in broadcast television sales and feeling like a small white rodent spinning in place at varying speeds on a tread mill, a friend called. “Brett died in a motorcycle accident over the weekend in California…” her voice trailed off. Silence. Brett was her son-n-law and I had just met him at dinner a few weeks earlier . I did not know him well but I knew he was my age…32. He was married to her daughter with my same name. They were newly weds. Her daughter was over the moon happy to be married to Brett. They had only begun their journey together. Brett hit a guard rail on Laureles Grade Road in Monterey and died instantly.

That’s when I really got it….you never know when you will be ‘checked out’ of Hotel Human. Yes, I have ancestors as old as dirt, but when Brett died so did my assumption that I have forever. Tick Tock. Who has given you the gift of urgency in your life? What has made it real that you are going to die and maybe it’s time to re-prioritize? What has helped you wake up to make bold changes quickly? You know the kinds of changes, the ones you have been thinking about forever.

After Brett’s death, my 32 year old self gave notice at one of the ‘best jobs’ in terms of pay and benefits that I”d ever had. Now decades later, I have zip regrets. I”ve failed at many things since then…publishing books, making whirled peas, and holding onto a house in financial free fall. Did I mention I have no regrets leaving that well paying, secure job? I did, but it’s worth saying twice.

“*Is it slowing down and witnessing the magic that is all around you?”*

Now the angel is whispering in my ear. Brett’s death is just a distant memory. But I feel the same kind of urgency in my cells. Do you? What in life is calling you? Is it dancing, singing, playing with your grand children in the sand box? Is it birthing a project? Is it slowing down and witnessing the magic all around you? The earth is calling all of us to awaken, can you hear her? I can.

So again, I am inviting change. Again, I am willing to risk. Again, I remind myself what I have is right now, and the biggest risk of all is to go through life sleep walking. The angel gave you a gift, what are you going to do with it?

Start Here…

When I get a wee bit overwhelmed with the outer world, I can always come home to Shadow. There she is, right in front of me. Sometimes she’s off to my side. Sometimes she hangs out behind me. Sometimes I forget she is even there. When I do see her, it makes for fun photography. The rocks bathed in Shadow, the blessing stick points out above her head due south, she invites me to recognize her presence. When the world is upside down, inside out and feeling a tad bleak ‘out there’ I come home to her. I meet her where she is now.

What is in my heart is in the world and what is in the world, is in my heart. Start here, my dear. Find courage to do that Shadow dance of awakening. First call back the heart parts, those pieces that have flown off either in tantrums of anger or dispersion from the never ending S.O.S coming from children in Gaza. You know the ones, buried beneath the rubble that no one wants to actually see or talk about. My getting buried there with them, will not help them. Breathe those pieces back home through the crown of my head into the trunk of my abdomen then down through my feet into this beautiful Mother Earth. Call all your pieces back from those heart breaks of your life. Everyone has their own unique heartbreak right now. Empaths beware, scattering your sensitive selves all over the planet may deplete your energy and focus.

There comes a time when it is impossible to ignore Shadow. Turning left, turning right, I can see her in her full might. “People Suck!” she declares. “They lie, they cheat, they bomb, they beat…over and over and over again!” “What are you going to do about it?!!” she demands, stomping her foot. Well, I have written all the people ‘out there.’ Many, many, times. You know the ones, the ones who are ‘the other.’ The ones who choose war as a path to peace.

It is easy not to see, just like Shadow sometimes trails behind, that this war is also inside of me. In this very moment, I am not being bombed or starved. My house still stands. My food is in the refrigerator. But I’ve starved my love of humanity and bombed others with opinions of how they and I ‘should be.’ So when I find myself really at a loss of what to do, I embrace Shadow and begin anew. Starting over with my Self, starting over with the two legged species. Calming that little child who has been running wild with pain inside. I hold her gently and draw her in. “I know your rage comes from love, together let us find a way back to that safe place within.”

*“They lie, they cheat, they bomb, they beat…”*

Preventing people entry with a Muslim ban, pushing people out with Immigrants are dangerous jam…is not different than preventing people entry to my own heart with No People Allowed here; my heart’s door slammed shut. Got racism? I got something Biggerly at times, all two legged style discrimination. Can I smile to that part of me and say, ‘Yes, I see you once again dear. Come close and I will take good care of you. I will not banish you or ignore you or punish you; I will tenderly transform you into a voice and heart of love.’ I know it starts here.

Calling all Hearts

*“I find my heart in the arms of a tree.”*

The rest of whatever time I have left on this ball of mud and beauty will be spent cultivating my heart vision and sowing seeds from there. Into Me See deeply (intimacy) comes from heart, not intellect. So, I go to tree. There are trees twice as old as me. There are trees twenty times as old as me. They are such generous beings. Never asking me what I can do for them. They just sway in the wind this way and that, laugh through their leaves and wink at me. I have my very own tree I have been climbing for many, many years. She is my friend, confidant, advisor and healer. I find my heart in the arms of a tree.

Being of the Western culture, the collective trance of the North…I have the same invisible programming as everyone around me…you have to achieve, accomplish, earn, accumulate to have a life that shines. But in the arms of my tree, I can remember humility. I can reconnect with the invisible strands that brought this land into being. All is invisible before becoming manifest. Taking a rest and letting that cultural set of beliefs fall away with ease while the wind blows through me and my tree.

If your heart is like mine, it may feel like it’s being ripped apart by the mirror reflecting back a forgetting of what is sacred…like children. Children are sacred. Children of all species the tree reminds me every time I want to stop at Human Children are Sacred. The earth, the earth is also sacred. We will continue to be reminded. I have been told there will be those who will lose everything that they now take for granted. Many millions if not billions have forgotten the earth and also have not seen her as a living being with her own volition. But many are awakening. Tree told me I also have forgotten from time to time that all comes from her, all comes from mother earth. After forgetting, there is a remembering but before that remembering perhaps there is a dismembering, pieces of ourselves flying this way and that. “Do you remember me? I am part of you…”

As I lay in the arms of a tree sometimes an ant will come bite me. Then I real eyes, I am not the only being here, maybe not even the most important one of all. The ant gives its’ life to help me wake up. “Hey- you are laying on us, you fat ass!” Oh dang! Let me move over; my revelry disrupted by realization. Do you have any idea how many beings live in a tree? Well, it certainly isn’t just me, and it isn’t even just the beings that I can see. Yesterday, lizard scampered across my chest, feeling my heart was a safe haven for us both.

How to make heart a safe haven…bring your attention and presence into heart. No, I’m not just talking MY heart, although that’s where I start. I can get caught in mind so much of the time, dread…despair…indignation…grief…then relief as I bring my eyes down into my heart. Removing them from headlines or what’s out there; I come back to what’s in here. There can be pain in here, a throb…an ache. Tears are the drops of compassion that can make fresh the dried and cracked places. Places I may have forgotten or neglected. From teardrops of compassion new seeds are watered. How to stay in a heart space? Be in nature and remember this earth is billions of years old. She is holding so many species of plant, animal and human form. Not charging rent, not shaming me for ingratitude. Some grace there. Gratitude is a blessing for us both, but sometimes I forget.

*“But the dissolution is making room for a new song.”*

Heart Vision is a felt space, not a thinking place. Coming out of the thinking place is the only way to enter the ocean of knowing. Taking the little child of me by the hand when she screams, “We Must Fix IT!!!” I hold her gently in my arms. Just like tree holds me. ‘Can we see through the eyes of more than one being?‘ To the caterpillar that can no longer walk, everything is wrong. But this dissolution is making room for a new song.

I remind her gently to rest in tree from who I have heard, the child’s heart is what will save humanity. A child’s heart is my best part. The one who cares, loves, and sees. But now come home my dear, after flying everywhere to nurse the wounds of the world…come home. Enjoy this lizard who loves your song, enjoy the leaves glistening in light, turning this way and that. The world will keep turning as she has for billions of years. My friend the lizard has been around millions of years. Dragon fly whispered to me one day she used to be as big as me, on an earth that existed before humans.

*“Dragon fly whispered to me one day, she used to be as big as I am…”*

After my mother ‘died’ she left me a sign. It was the corpse of a dragon fly laid meticulously on a small wisdom card showing hands emanating light. When I see a dragon fly, I know my mom is by my side. My mother also loved butterflies, right after she died I needed butterflies. Death is a game of hide and seek…butterfly invites me to take a peak at what could lie on the other side of death, destruction and war. The paradigm of a species that has lost it’s way in the fabric of all life. Don’t forget to rise higher my dear and be one who can imagine what is currently not yet seen on the outside. Butterfly reminds me to be an imaginal cell. “Gather yourselves,” she murmurs. Don’t bother condemning that soupy mess outside. There’s work to be done. Yes, there is and what better place to do heart work such as this than in the arms of a tree?

What’s Mine to Do?

*“…how do you discern what’s yours to do and what’s not yours to do?”*

Do you ever notice the stories that can ramble through your head day or night? Or am I the only one who has the occasional monologue that comments, criticizes or fears? It, my mind, has its’ stories and sometimes those stories get mistaken for The Truth. I”m not the only one that does that because right now there are wars and inhumane acts on a grand scale happening because some folks in power have mistaken their stories for The Truth. Speaking of truth, this is a good time to develop a strong internal Bullshit detector. I’d say keep that sucker on 24/7 now. Internally and externally.

Back to what’s mine to do…in a time when there are S.O.S. calls from the earth, Gaza/West Bank, people in the United States being dehumanized, marginalized and abducted and countless other calls that others hear…how do you discern what’s yours and what’s not yours to do? I’m in that inquiry and per usual I’m sharing this blog with whoever cares to read it…to expand the inquiry. Maybe there are other inquiring heart/minds out there!

Sometimes old B.S. can stand in the way of what there is for me to do. One thing for sure, look for what brings light to my eyes and expands my heart. Not to mistake that with always feeling like showing up, that five year old version of me (you) may not always want to show up for anything other than ice cream, a puppy and a nap. At times the old B.S. (belief system) isn’t even mine. I may need to look way back in the ancestral tree to see what is driving how I be. Some of it is mine now, for sure. They inter are, this internal wiring of the human machine. Part of it is out there, and part of it is in here.

“*Of course she was a writer and an artist and a healer.”*

“I couldn’t possibly support myself doing what I love….just look, I’ve tried.” Now that belief may not get said out loud in the light of day, that would be embarrassing. But somewhere it’s lurking in the background. “Look at all of those times you tried and failed…save your money honey…don’t become a bag lady. Just stay practical!” My mom wanted to be a writer all of her life. Of course she was a writer and an artist and a healer. She just didn’t get published. She worked three part time jobs teaching English as a second language to people who loved and adored her. She did that so she would have time to write. Versus a full time job. It’s interesting. When I dive deeper there is a little girl standing in the corner wailing, “But I can’t do it!” Maybe she is five. That’s my little girl by the way, not my mom. But the “I can’t” probably belongs to both of our generations and who knows how many more. This is where the internal bullshit detector comes in handy.

I think it is a critical skill set to be able to call BS on your very own self. OR my very own self. I can take that little five year old wailing ‘I can’t’ by the hand and walk her over to the mirror. “We are in this together and together we can…” Be sure and smile to that little kiddo, no shaming, no blaming. She or He is just working on an old outdated program. The program that so many humanoids are running inside of that says they need to stay safe and secure. ‘So don’t try again, it’s better to be half dead,’ that program will tell you.

To come home to what’s mine to do, I’ve got to go pretty deep into the inner wiring of beliefs to see what has blocked it in the past. Not to make some kind of drama about it, just bring curiosity to it. Shine light. I can re-frame it, rename it and suddenly change it. Instead of ‘blocked’ maybe it was just not ripe yet. Maybe, just maybe it was still in gestation. We are the story tellers, the dream weavers, the healers, so how to be mindful of making stories that empower me or we?

The White Wolf is asking you to feed it stories of courage, love and beauty. It wants to feel the goodness of humanity. Then there is the news. You know the news…if it bleeds it leads. There is a lot of bleeding right now and I”m not making light of that. I’m just reminding myself to feed that little kiddo stories of love, compassion and courage. So I don’t get lost in war and dehumanization. The war outside or the war inside. There would not be war outside if there was not war inside.

Right now I would say what’s mine to do is to accept the world as it is in this moment (doesn’t mean I have to like it all). At the same time, taking an audacious stand for harmony between all species and for future generations to thrive on a planet that they hold sacred and care for. I’d say play big. No more of this do I have enough money for the water bill this month. I mean, I do have to pay the water bill. Oh dang, I have to pay the rent too…let’s not get side tracked.

I have implanted in my brain the time I was sitting on the stairs with my 23 year old house mate, Munteha. We were in a deep conversation. I was a coach in landmark education programs helping people live lives they love, she was taking landmark training and was a Portland State student in International Relations. We were talking about ways of being. Actually, role playing ways of being is more like it. “You are ignorant and I must teach you!” She scolded me with an icy glare. “Don’t you know about the Japanese internment camps?” she pressed. (I actually didn’t then even though I was older than her.) “Trish-they are bulldozing people’s homes in Palestine! Imagine, it’s your home, then it’s rubble. Where does your family go?” My friend and then housemate is Arab American. She had already experienced discrimination in school. I on the other hand was white and clueless. Okay, so this is called her….Self Righteous Indignation mode. Do we all have that one? (I do!) Like WTF is wrong with you? Munteha was also the one who inspired me to go from absolutely clueless and disinterested to a person who participated on two separate Compassionate Listening Delegations bearing witness in Israel and Palestine with both Israelis and Palestinians; listening to their heart stories. That’s 25 years ago.

*“When I see that **Self Righteous Indignation** is creeping in, stay humble.”*

Stay humble my dear. There was a time when I didn’t know and didn’t care much about Israel and Palestine and had a full life outside all of that. When I see that Self Righteous Indignation is creeping in, stay humble. Back to what is mine to do? Play with the transformation of human consciousness in ways that bring more harmony between people, animals, plants and the earth herself. The rage that comes through from Self Righteous Indignation usually is covering up pain, grief, helplessness, desperation and urgency. You could also call that love. Whether it is about climate change, or war, or you name it. These are intense times, softening my gaze and coming with an open heart takes diligence. I see the discrimination within me towards the species that has caused so much harm to so many others, including millions of children. Disheartening isn’t a strong enough word. But mulching that manure and sprinkling it on flower beds is the practice. The old program belief, “People really suck,” is not likely to make me a whole lot of friends. Not human ones, anyways.

Not going to be very effective in the transformation game if I”m coming at it from Self Righteous Indignation or People Suck mode. Bottom line we all want the same things. We want to love and be loved, we want to be happy and healthy and yes we want to be safe. By the way part of transforming consciousness is having more than just me playing this game of looking for old B.S. and being willing to let it go for something that is more life giving.

Think about snake. People have stories about snake that they are evil or the enemy but my story about snake is they know how to shed their skin all at once. It is effortless and natural because it no longer serves them. They outgrow the old skin and slide out of it. We could all learn from snake right now. Shadow work is coming back inside to see those hidden beliefs that it is time to shed. Then being willing to do do.

“*Shadow work is coming back inside to see those hidden beliefs it is time to shed.”*

Sieze the day/night your very own self and grab a piece of paper, a pen and go within. What are your long held…maybe even cherished beliefs that you intuitively know don’t serve you any more? Write them down. It doesn’t mandate that you let them go, but just shining a light on the old programming will shift it. Who knows, maybe you will effortlessly shed those old beliefs.