Rivers and Roadways

In my dreams, my niece is driving us down a winding road through mountainous terrain as the trees call their colors, reds mixing in with lingering greens against a pale blue celestial expanse, golden leaves, too, all of fall’s offerings whispering of crisp air, hintings of magic twinkling through the scenery. And she’s being her thoughtful self, inquiring as to whether or not I’m up for her mind ramblings. Of course, I am. Somehow I manage to respond despite the fullness of color and feltness of beckonings from mountains and trees calling me. And she begins to speak as the yellowest vibrance reaches my eyes. I remember my heart breathing a sigh of kinship known, of finding home in the expression of another soul, of one so alive with wisdom and curiosity sublime.

Then we’re seated across from each other in the daylight, outside once again. But wait, were we outside while in the car? That is exactly how it felt. And our conversation continues. Would that I could reproduce the words, but what is communicated reaches deeply into my moment even now as I reflect, as the dog yawns loudly in the next room, as music flows softly into my ears and the door opens, leash clasps rattling the usual greeting with Apollo’s clicking nails advancing on the day. In my dream, my niece’s spirit reaches depths of me so accustomed to being alone the words to convey such communion don’t exist. She gave me snippets of herself, layers of our ease with each other and strands of eternal unity at once tailor-made for all humanity yet uniquely spun and weaving, woven into my own tapestry of comprehension and creation, of quiet and fullness. She was being with, being with herself as she shared of herself and in so being, with me, imparting a potent stillness within myself that opened my heart and arranged my mind in a peaceful reception of grace, of beauty, and of both our bond and of myself. And of the world.

And on that energy, with such fullness, I awoke to the dawn. Sitting with the images, sifting through their import, my heart feels our union healing, restoring layers of my own curiosity and my own wisdom that were not so much lost as they were jumbled and confused by my explorations and work of healing, finding memories so jagged and dark that the effort to reclaim the little girl drowning there eclipsed my sense of life’s song, and of synchronicities calling us all home to the within of the mother and father heart of God, the depths of the lover heart of that same divinity basking, emanating wholeness. And a ride in a car along a curve-rich roadway with an ancient soul I’ve so often known, lifetime after lifetime, transports me both home and onward into the dance of knowing and creating deeper meaning from life’s many and often overwhelming reckonings. I am stilled and moved, enriched and hungry, hungrier than I’ve been in a while now, the sort of hunger that opens the senses, digs out the ears of my heart and mind, my soul resonating fullness reaching for the stars, the moon.

And as I shifted in my bed before rising, the call of a train rumbled into my reverie, a hand extending through residual dark as it slowly retreated in the dawn of a new day. Trains have always bellowed out their hellos to me in the night. I’ve claimed them as a kinship, as a reminder of my union with everyone in this beautiful and daunting world. Their unique and almost shrill insistence that I am not alone reminded me, as I nestled in the warmth of morning, of how sweetly life’s details may reach us if we’re gifted with the connections and unions most nourishing, friendships so often encouraging us to hold on in love, to reach out with hope and to rest into the beauty of being who we are despite all the memories and goings on that might scare us away from our strengths and from the truth of our wholeness in love.

Where would I be today, every day, without the love healing my most ravaged layers of being? Each new day confirms for me, particularly as I traverse this path of healing the type of wounds, rape wounds, so often disabling, so often literally wrecking lives, each second confirms I am a miracle moving through space and time, that the divine has stalked me nearly constantly or I would be dead. I know it as surely as I hear the call of birds in the morning and the sound of trains in the darkest night. I know I would not be here if I had not been loved by forces I cannot see but know exist for all humanity to receive. But I also know that we aren’t all wired to receive such without instruction, and I know that despite the bounty of such forces, we all need the real and muscled closeness of arms around us holding us tight as we shake through the worst frights, as we pick through remnants of memories, seeking clarity. We need to be with each other, not only in spirit, but in presence, in physical closeness as we weave our lives through the mountains and greet each other across tables under trees freeing us from the lie that we’re alone.

And if we’re especially fortunate, we’ll know the beauty and love of nieces, of nephews, of daughters, of sons, of mothers and fathers chosen, of lovers and friends bestowed. We’ll know our unity with all humanity through the magical works of divine appointment, those sweet encounters in dreams and in our waking lives when we reach out to reconnect, when we hold our arms open wide to receive. And we’ll seek treasures in the night, even the darkest nights, and there we’ll find the within of heaven’s richest offerings.

I’m surprised in this moment, though I shouldn’t be, to find I’m immediately transported to the richest offering my heart conjures of all I imagine and know to be heaven’s offerings, and it is that of one man’s sacrifice. He was a man, truly. And he was divine, just as we all are. He lifted us out of the mire of defeat, of separation from the mother and father heart of God, of alienation from ourselves and from each other, of darkness so dire, of dejection wrought in destructive forces and he placed us, each one, on a path of possibility, of treading slowly but steadily towards the light. And he urged us to do the work. I find that he is not the Jesus the world at large proclaims him to be from time to time. I find that he is not the Jesus insisting we claim our Christian creeds and commitments, and so this is why I’m surprised to collide with him as I reflect here. I walked so far away from all the indoctrinated world of religion had told me he was, so far away that I thought I had maybe lost the right to even declare him. But here he is, with me, holding me up through my darkest night. And despite my letting go of Christianity’s Jesus, I realize he never left me, who he truly is could not be lost, not by any of us, whether we believe his encouragement, his most precious offering or not. Who he truly is has been confused and blurred by dogmas and doctrines, by fears and campaigns of control and greed. He calls to us from within our own most deeply human moments, those moments we take for granted and even those moments we have easily demoted to secondary status. Those moments when we might otherwise stop and take a deep breath, soaking up the stillness, noting the beating heart within. Those moments when we’re caught with a gasp and a piercing longing to be claimed by another so fully and completely that we are never the same. Those moments when we laugh deepest. All the times we reach out our hands to grasp another’s when the feelings overflow and heads meet in a benediction more blessed than Sunday’s program. Those times when we know our value is something so precious, so beyond all that our world allows at this point that we feel a howl trembling ‘neath the surface of the stoic face required to remain in the day-to-day demands.

Every howl, laugh, gasp, piercing longing, every beat of our hearts, every deep and shallow breath, rends the lie of separation when we know ourselves as the hallowed and holy humans we’ve always been despite the evidence to the contrary. And when we refuse the lie of separation from each other and from the divine. It is sometimes most difficult to see our preciousness when we’re tattered and torn by rape culture, by rape itself, by toxic gender norms and rejection of the soul of being human. We’re trying not to drown in a world full of genocide, war, poverty, oppression, violence, desperation. And all I can do is run to my dreams and to the light and the love, the love both within me and beyond me, the resonance imparting grace to take one more step and then another in the eternal now. I pray that we may all be greeted in our darkest nights with the truth of our unity in love so that we might begin a work of healing, a work I know seems impossible but I also know will be accomplished by those who hear and weep the call.

And yes, I hear a passage of scripture I cannot leave out of this expression: “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

Here’s to nieces and curving roadways, rivers of healing, autumn’s leaves gracing our reverie and love’s reach relentless…

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To Write Love

On Her Arms…

Along the same lines of cherishing humanity, creating a safe space for the many iterations of need and longing, I’m finding the folks of TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms) resonating in love. And the serendipity in their outreach, particularly focusing on concerts and music venues, fits beautifully with a vision of empowered and active influences of healing.

I’m reminded that the same societal forces dropping bombs on refugees rip through lives in the forms of hopelessness, trauma and terrible loss. I’d like to say we’re stuck in a post-war culture, but we’re actually literally stuck in a war culture and that war is on humanity and especially on humanity’s power in love as love. It crosses all divides throughout the United States, into Europe, and on into Gaza and in the Congo and everywhere greed and lust for power rules. In so many places, the war is obvious with bombs dropping, people targeting people for death for the forces of greed and hate. In many nations, war as the most financially driven industry devours the immeasurable worth of human life, insisting on economic hardship, cultural overwhelm and loss of connection. Greed trumps heart. Power-over engulfs soul. Families are so burdened by the need to simply make ends meet, a deeper work of love falls to the wayside and our children suffer. And even when families manage to address all that matters, nurturing love and personhood, despair’s reach can still find a way to grab the well-loved.

The air we breathe is the same air in which others starve and die. The same spaces war ravages afar reach us whether we realize it or not. Our souls know. And with or without conscious awareness of these influences, with or without struggles with mental health, we all need a world where we prioritize connection and nurture communities intent on reaching each other in loving authenticity. This means creating intentional and powerful spaces for healing and especially for those who cannot access the care so desperately needed to stay, to refuse the bullet the war culture surrounding us suggests we take.

I love how TWLOHA mobilizes people to be present for those in need. I long to see a world where no city is absent folks on standby to be there in person and with true presence for those without hope or help. I believe we can create such a world, city by city, person by person. And yes, concert by concert, venue by venue.

I think of concerts and tours as profound opportunities for people to reconnect with their spirituality and their deeper needs for community and healing, not only as platforms to voice support for those places ravaged by genocide and war’s many devastations. After watching the video I’m sharing here, and urge you to watch, I found myself even more appreciative of those musicians who take the time to focus on why we’re here, on the power of facing truths and seeking growthful, soulful ways to be human and healing, to live in love.

To write love on her arms
where once she wrote such painful condemnations of herself…
To write love on his arms
where once he felt the grip of horrible abuse…
To write love on their arms
where once they knew the terror of violation…

To live in a world more and more on fire for our power in love and healing,
oh love, let it be.

The image featured for this blog post is taken from the video above and belongs to TWLOHA.

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Sheeran/Macklemore

Not that I have a world stage here, but I’m going to jump in on the whole Ed Sheeran/Macklemore controversy and say that I’m with those who are in a position to protect what’s precious. Ed Sheeran is protecting something precious. Mackelmore et. al. is as well. But I’m wondering how many folks have read Sheeran’s remarks on the controversy surrounding Macklemore’s removal from the tour. Ed did everything he could, short of abandoning people for whom he is responsible. Livelihoods rely on Ed Sheeran continuing the tour. Whether or not he could personally take the hit, he is a business entity with attached participants who can’t afford the loss. And he has a unique fan base to protect.

I was ranting about Gaza before it was widely accepted, cringing every time I posted, waiting for the accusations. This was over 10 years ago. But then I went through a stretch in my life when I couldn’t keep up with Gaza or many other things. The stress & demand as mother of 3 & much else (chronic illness) pulled me into a time of mostly exclusive focus on my world & on non-stressful news. I didn’t have the pressure of folks judging me for not standing up for the same issues I’d always stood for.

My own experience gives me pause when I encounter controversy around advocacy & especially condemnation of those who don’t speak up. It’s complicated, peeling back the layers of moral accountability. On the world stage, those who wield decisions directly impacting lives are the ones most responsible. Then we could establish secondary accountability and group folks who’re able to influence the decisionmakers as thus accountable. And then we could look at influencers of all types and say that they reside in tertiary accountability. But we would need to ask ourselves what levels of demand and need exert limitations on the tertiary accountability and would those limitations move them down a notch or two in accountability. And on we go.

Besides looking at accountability, we need to also regard the ways people advocate. We have the most basic form of advocacy: using our voice. And we have other forms of advocacy: using finances, networking with folks who organize protests of varying types, using our platform, should we have one, to speak up or influence support for the suffering.

Let’s focus on the one form of advocacy we seem to love the most here: speaking up. It’s easy to say that to not choose to speak up is to side with the bully or the killer or whomever is guilty of destroying what is precious. But it’s also so reductive it risks becoming that which targets what is precious. For instance, I’m healing early childhood sexual trauma at this point on my path, and as a result, my capacity for even looking at what’s going on in the world right now is massively diminished. Simple things, as well as stressful things can set me back profoundly. Then there are those who have wounds and are unable to deal with stressful dynamics because of those wounds and all they know is that they just don’t have it. They aren’t sure why they don’t have it to speak up; they just don’t have it. Our lives can become so besieged and beleaguered by demands and poverty and overwhelming situations that we aren’t able to develop the self-awareness to know why we turn and run when we see conflict that needs intervention. Or why we pause and cringe and can’t come up with the right words or find ourselves shaking all over when it’s time to face something challenging. Let’s look at that and ask ourselves which culture creates bombs. Let’s think of this and ask ourselves what societal constructs insist on productivity and profit over wholeness. And then let’s notice that same culture and society is what has injured people’s spirits such that they are not able to speak up without it costing more than they have to give. Every transaction we embrace requires something of us. You can argue that advocacy gives back, but I would argue that you are being reductive, once again. There are people who literally cannot afford to utter one word associated with controversy or war or destruction because they have been that profoundly injured and have yet to experience the counterweights of healing, recuperation and rehabilitation. Or they are that overwhelmed by the demands of their world.

We apply our standards of productivity, accountability and advocacy as if we’re all living in the same situations. As if going to work in a soul-killing job we can’t yet escape, as if living in an economy that works against our being human, as if many other factors don’t play out in each life, adding to the overall strain. On societal and cultural levels, we are stewing in the very vibes that have caused the conflict between Israel/Palestine. We have not wrested our world from the reign of power over and greed, from toxic patriarchy and misogyny (the stuff of rape & family of origin wounding which can disable and trap lives). The truth is, this reign is insidious, reaching into our daily lives and impacting how we look at our own preciousness, our value. If we truly care about the root cause of genocide, then we care to protect those who must choose to spare their spirit and wait to speak up or find other ways to support the marginalized. We either/or ourselves into destroying the very value we’re screaming about as advocates when we do not give room for people to choose their seasons of silence. Or we don’t give room for the fact that some folks are just so mentally and spiritually bankrupt, they don’t know why they can’t speak up.

Imagine a world where there is freedom to take the space to avoid controversy and political discourse and imagine such freedom is as valuable as human life. In fact, know that it is that valuable and know that it is as valuable as human life because humans literally require spaces free of controversy and political discourse so they may heal and be who they truly are in love and truth, beyond fear and shame. We must never assume that we are all able to raise our voices. And if we judge those who don’t raise their voices, are we not seeing the privilege we reside? We are privileged to see clearly since our lives have afforded us the room to know what matters. Many lives do not encounter the room to know what matters. We are privileged to speak up since the trajectory of our lives has not so crushed our spirit that we have no idea how precious we are, let alone how precious are those who live half a world away.

Look at your privilege when you rise to condemn the silent. Look at your privilege when you assume indifference and apathy are the root cause of silence. You must first be in tune with what is precious to then be able to become indifferent to what is precious. OR: You have never been in touch with your own preciousness and are thus disabled and thus indifferent to the value of all lives. You must first know the value of your own life to be able to recognize the value of action and movement in defense of life to then become apathetic to the causes that nurture life. And then, there are those who are active in advocacy because they’ve been guilted into action. Or they want the payoff. Or some mixture thereof.

I love Elie Wiesel. I agree with him. Indifference is deadly. We must be careful to avoid becoming indifferent to the complexity of being human and of creating a world free of toxic paradigms insisting our humanity march along a rote line of compliance to the truths we embrace. I bet Wiesel wouldn’t insist those with broken legs run to douse the burning buildings. Let’s agree that mental and psychological wounds, societal and economic burdens are as devastating, (often moreso in the long term) as broken legs.

Let’s also agree that we do have seasons in our lives when we are drawn to focus on specific things that pull us away from the turmoil in the world and into our unique purpose. We must not lose sight of why we advocate. We advocate because life is precious, every single aspect of what it is to live and be human is precious, including choosing our times of silence.

Looking at musicians or artists, we cannot afford to be any less in tune with what is precious. The humanity of each musician, each artist, every layer of their lives and the lives influenced by these folks is as precious as the causes we embrace. Ed Sheeran is one who wants to provide space for youth, and for those whose needs require minimal to no exposure to politically-charged causes, or even just stress. I massively appreciate both Sheeran and Macklemore because of who they are uniquely and hope they’ll be able to share a stage in the future. But we need to live in a world that gives room for humans being human. I believe we can embrace advocacy without losing sight of our needs and limitations. If Sheeran were cheering for genocide, I’d be booing him off the stage. I’d boo anyone cheering for genocide, if I had the strength to do so. I’ll say this again: Ed Sheeran fought to have Macklemore and others stay. He hates genocide.

Toxic masculinity bombs refugee encampments and creeps into dogma and arrests compassion. It seizes the stuff of being human even if we’re not strapping ourselves into a B-52. The effects of toxic masculinity (oppressive patriarchy) is everywhere and does not discriminate against advocates. Beware the bully within, insisting we all goddamn get our asses in gear, bootstrap pronto, and start screaming right this minute about the genocide. Seriously. Also, Free Palestine.

Yep. I’m continuing the commentary on Sheeran. The above screenshot depicts Sheeran in a freezeframe example of his heart.

If we start calling each other out for which horror we’re not remembering to scream about, then we’ll be stuck on the stage for hours listing all the atrocities and the singing will end. We have every right to choose not to speak up at times. And any artist/musician/public figure out there has that same right. And that right is inherent, residing in the immeasurable value of each life. We can’t tear each other down and not ask ourselves what energy we’re actually partaking of in doing so. And if you take that same energy and weaponize it, do you have the makings of a war, the type of war that bombs people for not being like us? And no, it’s not a given that you do have that same energy.

I love that the group from Ireland bowed out with a bow to Ed and their friendship, not trashing him or their bond. They honored his vision while honoring their own and I imagine they’ll sing together one day because they both protected what they’re committed to and they did so in love and truth.

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Reminding Centuries

“The Moon’s Say So”

The design shown here showcases Part II of III of my prose poetry published here titled, The Moon’s Say So.

“And to my end this may be the most these soles know: to grow old in the hum of an ancient song & wait for the next expression of love, to know that only those gifted with fortunate favor & a timing divine make it beyond the mountain and across the sea…”

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No Ounce of Will…

“The Moon’s Say So”

The above design showcases Part I of III of my prose poetry published here titled, The Moon’s Say So.

I’m particularly feeling this bit of the quote today “No gumption of the reddest desire can re-write the years gone by or shift the mountain aside.” as I continue my work of healing. On the one hand, I wonder why I couldn’t have remembered these devastating events sooner, and on the other hand, I know remembering them before this stretch of the road would have short-circuited my focus as a mama. So, here’s to “the moon’s say so” and all that love heals as we yield to the work of becoming who we truly are in love and truth.

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Take Me There…

Love Point

Design by J. Ruth Kelly, All Rights Reserved

Many, many moons ago on this blog I wrote the following in recognition of how precious is the work of being and becoming who we are and how I’d wanted so many goals to have been accomplished by then. And well, here I am in this now. So many hopes still seemingly languish, but I feel their hum and they keep telling me love is the way and the play of being. And from being, all will emerge at the right point, perhaps not all hopes fulfilled, but I trust the pattern unfolding before me.

“I wanted so many things to be accomplished by now and yet, the time hasn’t made room for those things to emerge. Other things are growing, emerging slowly. More precious, deeper knowings of purpose, of resonance, of acceptance of this path. When healing the amness layer of self, the heart cries out to act, to do, to express in the life what is brewing deep within. But timing can make the difference between a fractured movement and a whole flowing vision-in-motion.”

I like how the poem in the above design ties it all together. It’s lovely to discover the gems here from ages ago are not only still relevant, but they infuse my soul with renewed purpose and a distinct feeling of being “a whole flowing vision-in-motion” … as I heal on even deeper levels.

Original poem post: Love Point.

Post quoted above: Just Keep Going.

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The Things We Say

…and don’t say.

We’re compelled sometimes by forces beneath the surface and even around us that evoke reactions and responses to different events. Events include the words of others because words are events. They are the movement of energy from within one human into the world. Our words, our facial expressions, our online posts, the way we drive, the threads of communication weave their way around and through us into our world. And sometimes we look back and cringe, and we hit the delete button because we don’t want to be misunderstood. Or because of wounds unhealed, we believe that anything we say in criticism of another is somehow wrong. There are so many reactions we all manage consciously and even more unconsciously.

I know personally there are freezeframe moments of reactions to the genocide taking place in Gaza (and yes, other vital places) that I wish I could put into context, the context of who I am and what motivates different reactions at different times. I have been harsh at times. I called Biden and Harris both vipers because they were ignoring, as far as I could tell, the genocide taking place in various places around the world. Sometimes the work of growth within your own heart and mind requires you call someone a viper. It’s that complex. And genocide screams for our impassioned objections and actions towards stopping the tsunami of destruction.

(And if you want to get on with my main point, scroll to the last paragraph. I understand!)

At the very same time I utter a harsh rebuke, I am striving to see every human being on this planet with the eyes of love and hope. Love of our shared humanity and hope for our growing into truth and love as we weave our way into the stories of life. Yes, that love includes our favorite enemies. I want to always hold to a spark of hope that the worst out there will one day emerge free of the rule of all that would destroy and devour. A number of them would likely only receive rebuke from me until I see change because the lives they’re devastating require it of my heart. This is what First Lady Michelle Obama meant when she said, “…we go high.” We hold to the good in all humanity while holding those in positions of power accountable for their actions or inactions.

To go deeper into the layers: We each have unique needs to assert, to support, to pull back and to ignore depending on where we are at any given point on our paths. Some of us may seem not to care about what many are screaming about. As a result, some folks want to declare those who are silent to be in agreement with bullies et. al. But are we going to see our own complexities and not see those of our fellow humans? I know that silence in the vicinity of turmoil or oppression is so very often, if not always, not agreement with bullies or “the enemy,” but confusion, exhaustion, trauma, ignorance and fear. Some folks are deeply into a work of healing and nothing else can take their time or attention. And they long for those who’re being oppressed to be free. But they just cannot give time to anything else. Silence can also be an awareness of one’s limits and a sensitivity to the causes one has committed to. And it can be about sensing the timing of when to speak up. And then there is the choice to advocate in ways less obvious but equally or even more powerfully.

Given all these complexities, we often must choose a cause to devote our time to for seasons because there is that much need in our world. Some folks have so many things to tend to in their daily lives, they literally must prioritize the causes they feel deeply about so that the very point of life itself is not devoured by advocacy or fear of not supporting all who need support. You can advocate to the point of depriving yourself of your own humanity and losing sight of the needs of yourself and your loved ones to great detriment. But you will look very good to everyone else. What are you fighting for when you leave no time to love those around you? And with thoughtful strategy and intention, we can all pitch in where there is need. When more of us are in agreement about different causes, the burden is lessened. So, why not move with assurance that your needs are legitimate?

We also advocate by choosing to focus exclusively on our own lives and learning how to walk our talk and be there for those in our lives. Any time we honor our own value, we are honoring all value.

I believe we can and will all one day know that, just as this earth holds venomous creatures, she also holds butterflies and birds singing to the heavens in the same vicinity of what lies beneath. And as it is with the earth, so it is with the human. The hope we possess rests in a longing to see our lives ruled by a love and awareness of these polarities while we traverse a path up the middle, reaching sometimes into extremes as we weave the truth of all our value in love. We really don’t want the worst of our swamp creatures to decide what we do or say, do we?

So, the words we say empower or devour, inform or obscure, or, or, or…the possibilities are endless. What we desperately need is a world of people growing ever more aware that we have more than enough love to hold each other in faith that we will ultimately grow beyond any presumed failure of truth or justice or love. In other words, hopefully we can give people room to be who they are in love. And we do that by acknowledging that damning any one person for a thing s/he said or did not say (and yes, even what s/he did) way back when, serves none of us. It’s the pattern of the life itself and that life is still speaking, and we’ll know their truth by what they create in this world. Who knows, maybe if we hold the seemingly worst of us in love and faith for change while holding them accountable, our world will transform and truly new days will bloom beyond what seemed to be impossible wreckage.

The Minnesotans who sang from the streets, lifting their voices to ICE agents, telling them it’s okay to change, to see where you’re in the wrong, are an example of the truth that there is enough love to redeem us all and save our world from the forces seeking to destroy our humanity and to devour the work of love. The most extreme of us are literally in need of compassion along with accountability and you will find their wounds are what lead them. They don’t realize it, but their actions are weeping a call for healing and release from fear. But we can, by being sensitive to why we’re saying what we’re saying when we’re saying it, hear that call within ourselves and in the lives around us.

To many things there is a season, and knowing when and how to speak is a work in progress for everyone who gives a damn about life and love. I hope we can all cover each other in grace and love at every possible turn.

On with it…

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Material Commitment

Material commitment. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while in Berlin, used the words, “material commitment” in the midst of several powerful assertions. Why does that excite me? It excites me because the material is where we show what we value. And we truly must create and nurture on the physical plane those truths that affirm and protect our value as a world of humans ready for love’s work.

Work. Material. Commitment.

If you look over at the piece of furniture to your left, your eyes see a material object, no doubt. But what your eyes don’t see is the reality equally real, equally present and that is what we cannot see but through a powerful microscope: all the movement that is the solid object still there to your left or your right. We could go so far as to call that movement we’re not able to see with our eyes, “spiritual,” if we want to do that. But we don’t have to do that in order to see that someone valued something and created an object as a result of that value. Our values birth urges, urges birth values, back and forth we go with a desire to create, to do, to make real. So, that object you see exists because someone felt an urge within to create a thing and a thing now is and the urge that prompted the creation is that which no microscope can reveal. And a microscope need not reveal the urge since the reveal is in the physically present molecular stuff created. Yet that urge is just as real as the jiving, vibrating molecular stuff of every object, and more significantly, every person the world over and every urge, every longing, every belief, every fear is just as real as the airplane flying overhead, as alive and significant as every bird singing on high and when we act in the energy of any urge, we are literally weaving that energy onto the physical plane. It’s as if our bodies are the needle or the hook, depending on your preferred maker’s instrument. And we weave each day, the energy we house within our beings. Though our weaving work may not be as obvious as a coffee table, airplane or lovely bird, our work is very real.

And sometimes without realizing it, as a result of our many feelings, desires and urges, along with our creations, we have made commitments. We find that somewhere along the way, we committed to beauty, to creating beauty. Or we committed to expressing truths. And we get to such commitments by way of a series of very human experiences. We explored possibilities and we became aware of what we require to live in this life as authentically as possible. Through such explorations we arrive at a sense of our values and we recognize the commitments required to protect and nurture those values. Some of us may not realize it, but we commit when we consistently act on what we value. So many of us do this day in and day out, we lose touch with the fact that much of what we do was birthed by a commitment. Our lives feel more habitual than intentional. We literally require times of stillness to reconnect with our values, with our commitments. And for those of us with a more global sense of who we are, as we focus on our commitments, we realize the times constrain us and insist our focus be on our value and on the rewards of committing to the absolutely beautiful value of every human being on this planet. It doesn’t look very hopeful these days. Our backs are to the wall, in a very real way. How will we make real in this world the fruit of our commitment to our value? We’ll get there by seeing that just as a carpenter has the power to create a world of beauty simply because s/he wants to, we, too, have that power with every effort we put forth in agreement with the boundless value of every creature on this planet. And it starts within the one heart, your heart here and now. And you, me, they, we cannot do it alone. We are asked to see, in this age, how connected we truly are and in that seeing we can be encouraged by the love shown on the streets of Minneapolis in defiance of hate and, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, in the cities like Berlin and so many others all over the world where people refuse hate and build from love.

Because her values compel her forward into life, into appointments and many crucial events, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is weaving the truth of our value through her words and her actions as she boards a plane and lands on the other side of the world. And as she speaks truth, insisting on all our value. We, each one, literally do the very same thing daily though we aren’t often aware. My prayer is this: that we awaken to the energy we weave and begin to ask ourselves how we might be wholly who we are in love so this world can birth the age to come, a time of love and peace and plenty for all. What are we weaving through time and space? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminds us all that we create with every tick tock slice of time within the world we are placed and if we commit to a vision of love, we can create a beautiful world for us all.

So, calling all would be weavers of love…if you speak my language, you know what I’m saying here. Let’s not see our elected officials with the broad strokes of political partisanship. Let’s see them on a more molecular jive as they move their bodies through the timeline we all reside. Let’s see their actions, weigh the accumulation of their intentions and hold them in prayerful support that they be held by love, that they be led in truth and that we, too, be thus committed to the wellness of all humanity.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wakens my heart to truths that fell into a slumber in the tides of some surreal life challenges. And I know she will continue to do this everywhere she goes because her heart is on fire. And I will say this to anyone who thinks they know she didn’t do a thing the “right” way or think she should’ve done thus and so or she did well and oh, or said this and that in such a way: her whole life is speaking and the message is undeniably authentic and life-giving. If you or I were judged by any who misunderstand us, we would be bereft of the love we must all realize materially and spiritually in our lives, a love that gives room for us to become and grow into all that love calls us to be and create. I would hope to be as courageous and consistent as Ocasio-Cortez.

Read the full quote below and ask yourself where you fit into this work of love.

“We all need to buckle up. That is the moment that we are in. But if there is any place that shows that good people can prevail over the horrors of inhumanity, it is Berlin. It is Berlin. And it is so many other places around the world that can be a front line to show that we can overcome and we can defeat fascism by a class-based solidarity that champions all of us. I think about this, I think about this, and I’ll end with this note, but I think about this very often because, of course, the universal health care systems in Europe are the envy of every American. And it is truly such a revolutionary environment that you all grow up in the universality of health care, because it really is a decision and an affirmative material commitment to everyone’s basic humanity, to human dignity. And to me, it is not a coincidence that universal health care systems across Europe were established in the wake after World War II. They are directly connected where you had all of this destruction, in all of this rubble that was built on a politics of persecution and division, but when we decided to move past that, we built material systems based on universality, affirming our human dignity. And I think it’s so important for us to recall those lessons for today as we confront many of the shadows of those similar movements.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Ocasio-Cortez is saying that, at the worst of times, a people responded to the devastation of war and hate by affirming value in love. And they did it politically. Amidst the rubble, the spiritual rubble. And we are, all of us, in a swirling whirlwind of rubble of every kind. We need to know ourselves in the center of the storm as the love we have been created to be and become, create and nurture. And we need to ask ourselves how intentionally we are living our love, and all that we claim to value as we go about our days.

On with it…

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