I am thoroughly enjoying the start of September - the last weeks of the sun-baked summer, a profound and abundant time of the year. I'm called to be absolutely open, listen for crazy wisdom, look under rocks and turn things upside down. I'm called to respond to whatever life brings me - sort out the ideas that come, holding each up to the light to see if it’s a keeper.
I celebrate each new day and the Truth it brings. But I am happily aware that I will never have an orderly shelf-full of the Truth. Truth is a mystery - it hides in the shadows, revealed to me one bit at a time. I am so happy to know this, because it releases me from the need to have all the answers. My real work is to ask all the questions.
My theme this month is synergy - the ability to seek unity, embrace teamwork, live holistically, and work tirelessly towards a better end. Synergy is the eternally active primal force of creation: No matter what the conditions are, they will change.
I use this September quarter moon's energy to help me to take persistent right action on the work I'm called to. For this, I need discernment (insight and clarity), equanimity, and centering in chaos.
2. Synergy walk
1. Journal queries:
Today, at the first quarter moon, I prepare to give full effort to my priorities. For the next few days I will ask:What is my question today? What pattern do I see?What potential challenges and obstacles do I face this week and month (things I don’t enjoy, don’t know how to approach, or feel blocked on)? How can I best meet these challenges?
What do I need (tools, information, allies) to help me on my path?
2. Synergy Walk:
I will practice this walking meditation all month - walking like a curious cat, looking freshly at the world and making no assumptions:1. Physical synergy: Concentrate on my feet as they touch the ground, the feel of my muscles, my breathing, my surroundings, the breeze, the sky. Ask: What is the wholeness I am missing? Continue this for 1-2 blocks.
2. Heart synergy: Turn a corner, and focus on my tender heart. Feel it soften and open. Ask: What is the unity I am seeking? Continue this for 1-2 blocks.
3. Mindfulness: Turn another corner, and pay attention to my thoughts. Make an effort to open my mind to the ambiguity of the moment, and my life. Ask: What is the question I am asking? Continue this for 1-2 blocks.
4. Spiritual synergy: Turn the last corner, and (holding on to the awareness I've raised) speak a prayer out loud as I’m moving; feel the power and energy move through me. Say, “Spirit of Love-Light-Creation, I remember thee. Amen.”
3. Read "The Earth Path":
I'm reading Starhawk's book, The Earth Path (2004), which is all about how to connect to nature. I'm in the middle of Chapter 3, The Sacred: Earth-Centered Values, where she outlines her framework for her earth-based spirituality.
- Foster cooperative and interdependent relationships, like trees with their fungi.
- Be diverse and complex enough to have resilience (but only as diverse as the community can support).
- Provide abundant but sustainable resources and energy (only spend what you can replenish).
- Share the abundance equally.
- Allow dynamic freedom and creativity - let members of the community evolve and express their potential.
- Be open, caring, and receptive, like the soil to the seed.
4. Make a full effort plan:
When the time comes to act on one of my priorities I hope to be able to focus my full attention on this one undertaking, and lean in to it with excitement and curiosity. I use the notion of "leaning in" as a body-mind-heart training. It's a kind of "Inner Synergy,", when all the parts of you are firing together and create a bigger bang.
I have a bunch of large projects before me this month, and today I made a full effort plan for the one that is the least well defined - my Art & Healing project - including:
- a list of specific intentions, and a backwards calendar
- plenty of daily time scheduled for art explorations, as well as defined projects
- a weekly 3-day mini-art retreat, with a daily reading and art meditation
- plans for a focus group
- evaluation of my efforts every Sunday
5: Write a Mission Haiku:
My missions are my various big projects or directions in life. Today I'm thinking again about my mission to "give a voice to nature and the environment, create love poems to the earth, and share my growth and learning about earth care with the wider world using my artwork".This mission is gaining clarity. My longing is to find ways to teach others how to forge a stronger connection of the heart with the earth, so that more and more people can have deeper and deeper compassion for her plight.
I believe two of the obstacles to connection are self-focus (need to survive and thrive at all costs) and also overwhelm (the problem is too big). I understand that art, both the process and the viewing, can heal us of these conditions, and help us to overcome these obstacles. So I've written myself a new intention:
I intend to plan, test, and teach a series of art explorations that heal the conditions of self-focus and overwhelm, and ground an individual in the earth, because this draws on my strengths as an artist and teacher, and promises me a uniquely proactive response to climate change. I may also end up with some art of my own that gives a voice to nature.
Today I'll write this mission / intention as a haiku, because a poem has a unique ability of getting to the core of a Truth, and I'm always surprised by what surfaces. Here's the steps I use:
1. Write a brief, evocative sentence or two describing this top mission in my life, and the significant issues that surround it:
Planning, testing, and teaching a series of art explorations will be fun and challenging - I will use my strengths as a researcher, planner, writer, artist, and teacher. I'll need to find some test subjects.
Learning to heal self-focus and overwhelm means that I will get to heal myself as well, and have great equanimity, integrity, and compassion for nature.
I may or may not end up with some art of my own that gives a voice to nature - and pleases me - but part of healing self focus is that I needn't care about that...
2. List the most exciting or pleasing verbs that describe what I want to do with this mission:
Share, teach, inspire, research, explore, create, heal, ground
3. 3. Next, list some core values that prompt this mission:
Unity with Nature, Purpose, Witness, Integrity, Love, Creativity, Truth
4. Turn these sentences, verbs, and values into a haiku, an unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively (or a Cinquain, which is five lines, with 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables), that gets to the core of my mission, and gives me a framework for my actions.
Make art
Heal self-focus
Create, cooperate,
Ground and expand in unity
with Earth.
I call on the practice of visualization to help bring my goals to fruition. Creative visualization is a technique that uses my imagination to create change. It has three steps:- First, center and relax each part of my body; count from 10 to 1, then open a connection to Spirit. Feel a soft warmth begin to grow and spread through me, until I am radiating quiet energy.
- Second, create a clear, detailed picture in my mind, as though the objective has been reached. Paint a vivid mental image of exactly how it looks and feels to lead my community in making healing art - and put as much positive energy into the image as possible.
- Lastly, affirm that this is what I want with a short positive phrase in the present tense; for example, "I share my strengths to heal our ills".
The thought-image is like a signal-flare that guides the physical thing or deed to manifest in my life (or it's just a good way to keep my intentions in my mind). I will carry the vision of the completed goal with me, and focus on it often during the day, in a gentle manner.
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