LOUDLY

Standing stones and trees...

they said they would speak LOUDLY

and so I listened
LOUDLY
as my heart thrummed LOUDLY
and my breath bellows swept air in and out LOUDLY
I listened……

it was the most cacophonous silence

until LOUDLY I heard
WE LOVE YOU!

and time stopped.

my heart stopped my mind stopped my breath stopped and I plunged over the edge
of gratitude into the sea of surrender

floating in silence
I am loved
floating in silence
I will never be the same
floating in silence
I am free

Tracie Nichols – June 9, 2010

Choose – act – be loudly loving!

Violets along a fence line.

Right now the story of the landbase where I live is being told in color and sound. Vibrant yellow dandelions, intense purple violets, palest pink-striped creamy windflower, and the backdrop of impossibly vibrant yellow-greens, greens, and golden greens. The wind sounds different from this past winter, as it moves through the resistance of tiny leaflets unfurling along every branch and twig. Birdsong has moved into the insistent calling of territorial ownership and mate-seeking.

Moving through all of this as I walked this morning I noticed that my body seemed to know the stories being told around me, but my mind has somehow lost the syntax of that language. Even using the words “story” and “language” are deceptive; human words for something of which I am a part, but which I no longer clearly understand. I believe that telling our stories and witnessing others telling their stories is a powerful tool for healing and growth among human beings. I also believe that the Earth and the beings in this ecosystem have “spoken” to me, and reminded me that stories are a powerful gift of healing and exchange among human and more-than-human beings.

So I’m taking a leap of faith. Telling my story to the landbase here in human words, out loud, being quite certain that I’m telling this story from my soul, feeling it deeply. Perhaps, as Candace Pert pointed out, every cell in my body radiates the signature of my emotions. Perhaps my meridians, my chakras, my energy body resonates at a particular frequency. Perhaps all of these things together with the sonic wave of my voice will help overcome the language I feel like I’ve lost. And then…I’ll listen to the stories told to me the same way; with my whole being wide open and receptive. I crave this dialog with my family. I’m willing to work at this – and to take leaps of faith – because the potential relationship is so very essential to us all.

What about you? What are your stories?  Whose story have you borne witness to recently?

Terry Tempest Williams is the closest thing I have to a “hero”.  Her words and actions inspire me to engage, to bear witness, to take action, to speak.  They remind me that every one of us, human and more-than-human, has a uniquely essential story to tell, and to be heard.  The community of experiences and knowledge, energetic vibration, gifts, actions of service, words, and works in the world which are you will never happen again.  Ever.  The bloodroot flower gracing the woodland stream bank near my home will only bloom once, its entire unique and essential story told and heard in the space of a few weeks.  Listening deeply now.  Speaking wisely & compassionately now.  Taking considered, conscious, thoughtful action now.  This promotes thriving.

The Bloodroot community near us

“To bear witness is not a passive act.  Through acts of witnessing our consciousness shifts and as a result, we can choose to act differently.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Telling our stories, in words written or spoken, in images, in dance or music, is an act of sacred trust.  To hear, bear witness to, someone’s story is a sacred gift.  One of the most sacred and healing gifts we have to give.  (I’ll talk more about the power of story on Thursday…)

For now, I’ll leave you with Terry Tempest Williams suggestions from the article:

“Pete Seeger says, ‘Participation is the key to rescuing the human race.’ I believe him. I certainly do not have any recipe for engagement, I can only share three things that have made a difference for me.

Trust your heart, follow your passion and share it with others.

Become biologically literate — learn the names of the plants, birds, and animals where you live, extending your notion of community to include all life. Become part of that community with all the rights and responsibilities that it offers, both human and wild.

Create something beautiful.”

Terry Tempest Williams – from a Nov. 17, 2008 article in Isthmus

Do you know the names of the plants, birds and animals around you?  If not, why not discover a new one every day – or week?  What beauty is your heart encouraging you to create?  What can you do to start creating it today?

Homage to the crocuses already come and gone in this weirdly warm spring.

Image Credit: James Nichols (my husband)

Creek in April

Unseasonably warm weather meant that everyone in my family was outdoors this weekend. I spent my time wandering the course of the creek that skirts the bottom of my yard. It’s one of hundreds – possibly thousands – of small, nameless, creeks which stripe the landscape here, meandering towards the rivers which feed the Atlantic Ocean.

Spring is when I discover where the creek is now, after the winds, snowmelt and hard rains of the past months.  Before the riot of jewel weed and other creek bank plants overrun the terrain, I can see where banks have been undercut or collapsed, where the creek bed has cut more deeply into the red shale bedrock, or where trees have fallen or held their ground. It’s also when I discover more about where I am. It’s when I discover how my course has changed, how much more deeply I know myself, where I’m letting go and where I’m continuing to stand my ground.

Walking the length of this small creek is a moving meditation, and an exercise in deep listening and deep presence. It’s a practice which anchors me in the now – and teaches me about cycles of death and rebirth. Noticing this creek with all my senses keeps my primal self tuned-in and turned-on…integrated with my higher thinking and spiritual self and not relegated to a dusty corner. It helps me remember my “mammal-ness” somatically, which in turn helps me remember that this place is my home ecosystem. And when I remember that this is home, and I feel home in my body, then I make choices and take actions which honor and protect my home.

How do you experience an embodied sense of “home” in nature?

Elrond

This article was conceived while stroking a cat. Our family feline companion, actually. After a few fruitless and distracted hours of working on a particular project, I decided to pursue the project through a contemplative state and retreated to the one relatively quiet space in my home. Elrond, the cat, happened to already be there. He offered his belly for stroking and I accepted his offer, happily.

In our interactions, Elrond truly seems to appreciate my presence, and I certainly appreciate his. He seeks me out, and not just when he wants to be fed, or let out, or even to settle on a warm lap and be stroked. He simply finds me, wherever I am, and sits nearby. I seek him out just to occupy the same room without needing to touch or hold him. The quality of his presence is quite different from the quality of the presence of another person, to me. It is simultaneously more present and less demanding. It isn’t fraught with all the conscious and unconscious expectations found in human relations. It feels like my relationship with him is reminding me, teaching me, to value and appreciate presence by modeling it in it’s essential form – the state which is most natural to all of us – that of appreciating each other because we exist – because of our inherent value as living beings.

This isn’t a new idea for me. But human social conditioning is so effective – and those mindset structures which insist on “doing” as the measure of value can be especially difficult to banish. I’m grateful he’s here and our relationship reminds me who I am and what I’m missing by slipping into that limiting, dishonoring mindset.

Do you find that you are able to always acknowledge the intrinsic value of every being, or do you sometimes lose that ability?  Who are your teachers, or what practices do you use to help you value presence?

Pea Sprout by evelynishere

Sacredness of Peas

soft, misty sunlight all around me,
I squat over the earth.

…smell of rich dark soil…

……cool and damp on my fingers……

row of withered peas on the ground……

waiting to be pressed into the dirt

into the womb of the Mother……

life resonates here…the air is pregnant with rain…the earth pregnant with seeds…

I’m pregnant with this sacred connection…this gift of gifts…this moment of joyous union…

the slow, gentle birth…each tender leaf pulling free of the earth that sheltered it…stretching toward the light…suffused with strength and life

…each movement mirrored by my own growth…I follow where they lead…shake my own tender, new-discovered soul pieces free…reaching toward the light…expanding into mystery…suffused with strength and life!

…..as above, so below…as without, so within…..

not just words, not just concepts

…living, breathing reality re-discovered among the peas…

2010 © Tracie Nichols

Image Credit: Pea Sprout by evelynishere via Flickr Creative Commons

Migrating Snow Geese at the Montour Preserve

It’s the winter migration and there are water birds dying by the hundreds. An oil tanker had only one skin between its viscous cargo and the once vibrant ecosystem of the Delaware River. Torrential rains worsen the effects. When the current moves this rapidly the slick breaks up. It’s nearly impossible to contain the damage. Already the choked river is casting up shiny black globs on banks all the way to the estuary. The birds choke quietly, their silence an eerie accusation.

Wild birds are hard to catch. So far, folks seeking to help have caught only about fifty out of the thousand birds impacted by this spill. Of those, about twenty-five have survived. But survived to go where? Their home is gone, their flocks decimated. Can they migrate at all now?

What do we say to those birds drowning under the weight of crude oil, ingesting tar as they try to preen it our of their feathers? “Wrong place, wrong time.” Or maybe, “We must have this stuff. Can’t run an SUV without it.” Perhaps we say nothing at all. They’re just birds, right?

I’m upriver from the spill so my back yard will be fine; but will I be fine? I feel wounded…as if I’ve lost a limb. Standing by and watching countless lives strangled by my need to be able to drive wherever I choose, as far as I choose, I want to collapse into myself. I want to neatly close a door on their growing silence and the knowledge of my complicity in this. But their lives deserve more.

So, I keep the door open and look this tragedy full in the face. I grieve deeply. I gather my anger and outrage so I can start conversations with people about why fossil fuels are deadly, and so I can listen and speak with passion and compassion. Mostly so I can speak in some small way for their lost voices; and when I next look a Mallard or a Canada Goose in the eye, it will be as just another colorful thread in the fabric of life, not as the one holding the scissors.

Tracie Nichols © 2007

Image Credit: Migrating Snow Geese at the Montour Preserve by audreyjm529 via Flickr  Creative Commons

Image Credit: Serene Waters by mbowman64* via Flickr Creative Commons

What does this experience mean?  What does it do for me?  It reminds me that I’m not alone.  Ever.  Because for me to be alone there would need to be boundaries which kept me separate.   When I’m tangibly reminded that those boundaries are an illusion I create for myself, I’m reminded that I can un-create them.  No boundaries, no isolation.  Incidentally, I’m not claiming that the idea of illusory boundaries is mine.  There are abundant spiritual practices and philosophies which speak this wisdom.  I’m simply offering my experience of that idea, and the meaning it creates in my world.

What happens when we spin this experience outward?  When we move it up the spiral of existence to another place and look at the “lines” between cultures, or countries, or even our neighborhoods, communities, or ourselves and people who we see as different.  Are they boundaries which divide, or are they permeable places where we can find commonalities, synchronize vibrations, and notice that a point of exchange exists?

*Image found here.

Glorious Crocuses

crocus. It’s just a quarter turn of the moon away from the vernal equinox. Everything here in this suburban corner of the northeastern U.S. urges thoughts towards growth, movement, change, emergence. Transformation is imminent.

So what will you do with your one wild and precious life? Will you find the rhythms of the place where you are? Will you explore the resources available to all forms of emergent life now? Will you find a crocus and marvel at the translucent beauty of the flower petals?

I am in love with the mystery of this time of year. There’s so much life pulsing – unseen – but deeply felt. What will emerge – and where? Which birds will return? Will I recognize any of them? Will the daredevil grey squirrel with the shockingly red tail have a brood of daredevil babies racing around the sycamore tree after her? Will the great blue heron stalk along the creek on his long legs? Will his leopard frog prey still syncopate my walks with their splashes?

Human change and growth thrives on the unceasing, ever unfolding natural cycles as much as any other animal, plant, or landform. Our internal rhythms are tied to that of the land where we live. Our bodies know what every shift, every seasonal change, should feel like, and when it should happen.

Those predictable rhythms are less predictable now, though. Global climate change has broken them. We are feeling that dissonance in our bodies, in our psyche. Confusion, anxiety, irritability, discontent, disconnection and isolation are all more a part of our days than they were. It feels like a quiet unraveling of the net of predictability we’ve always worked with.

Change is an essential function of any living organism, no matter how small or large that organism, or what catalyzes the change. Chaotic events occur as the organism finds it’s next state of organization, it’s next way of being and living. We have the inherent capacity to survive the chaos, and the wisdom to guide the changes occurring so they support vibrant life for all organisms in this ecosystem.

So what will you do with your one wild and precious life today?

Image Credit: Tracie Nichols