Solstice & New Year's Contemplations

 TO KNOW THE DARK BY WENDELL BERRY 

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To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Feel free to explore what comes up for you, whether or not it seems to be a direct answer to the question.  Take what resonates for you, and leave the rest…

Wonder Question:  

How can I connect with and embody the sacred life moving through me and us, which is ever emerging, structuring and re-structuring, and available for to me to express as creativity?

Related to the Solstice / Season of Long Nights here in the Northern Hemisphere:   
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• What healing aspects of light and darkness can you connect with as a resource in your life?

• What supports and sustains you (on a physical, emotional, mental and/or spiritual level)  when you experience times of darkness?
• How are you supported by your past experiences?  What aspects of the past (personal, ancestral or collective) are you presently available and supported to turn toward, for purposes of healing and restoration?  Can you connect to a felt sense of resilience of those who have come before you / us?

The great conjunction, Jupiter & Saturn, occurs in the sign of Aquarius on January 21.  Jupiter will be in this sign for nearly a year, and Saturn will remain here for around 2 1/2 years, so these qualities will remain and ripen for some time...  How do you relate with these qualities in your life:
 
Jupiter – healing, magnification, expansion
Saturn – pruning, grounding, structuring
Aquarius – air, breath, fixed nature, communication justice, balance, the collective

• What part of your life is emerging a whole new way of being for you, going forward? 
• How can you befriend the qualities of Jupiter, Saturn and Aquarius?
• What support, practices, rituals, connections, etc. are important, alive structures for you?  What habits / rituals support you and what need to be pruned or changed?
• How do you integrate to stabilize your expansion?
• What aspects of your life feel resonant personally and with the collective?   Another way to wonder about this is, what are you doing / how are you being collectively that also feels good and replenishing to you personally?

Related to the Gregorian Calendar New Year...
 

• What did you learn in 2020?  What was lovely about it?  Is there anything you will miss?  What awarenesses awakened in you?  What did you learn?  What did you let go of?   What do you appreciate about yourself and your life?  
  
• What qualities do you want to embody, or begin to embody in 2021?  Are there simple steps, practices, or rituals you want to create to support your evolution?

Bridging Past to Future: Facing Racism and Reconnecting with our Hearts

One of the callings of our times is to become a bridge between our past and the future we want.  We become a bridge by cultivating an ongoing connection with what is even as we align our actions with what wants to be born through us.    

Photo by Martin Damboldt from Pexels

Facing 'what is' includes facing how 'what was' still radiates through our current experience.  Unfinished, unprocessed experience is sometimes called karma.  Another name for it is trauma.  Trauma exists in individuals, in families, in the collective, and in the systems of our society.  

One collective trauma that I am facing into every day is racism.  

Racism isn't just a word.  It's a code (as all words are) which carries the energetic legacy of trauma which is woven into the very foundations of our systems for hundreds of years.* 

I've been actively learning about whiteness for only about a year, and I'm not an expert.  Writing about my current perception of whiteness and racism (even as I'm still learning) is part of my response to the collective trauma of whiteness, or what the author, Resmaa Menakem calls white body supremacy.  

One of the things that keeps racism going is for people who are systemically in the oppressor role (that's me, with skin known in our world today as white) to not see, feel or take action related to the dehumanizing violence that was perpetrated and became embedded in our systems and the world around us. We told cultural stories that racial violence was over or mostly over, but it isn't.    

I'm turning towards it every day.  

Lifting a veil of unconsciousness and facing systemic oppression and violence is painful. The seduction of continuing to not know, not feel, and not respond to the cultural domination system we were born into is strong.  We are all woven into racist systems and for many of us, our participation and enabling remains unconscious.  Even as we wake up to face, the tendency for us to become overwhelmed, shut down, or otherwise disconnect is powerful.  

My experience is becoming conscious of the water we are swimming in is an ongoing process.  We may see it but not feel it.  Face part of it but not all of it.  Bame others.  Feel but remain unable to respond and take action.  Get overwhelmed.  And so on.      

When abuse of power is occurring, it's healthy to see, feel, and respond to what's actually happening.  Even though facing it is painful and often confusing, the waking up process reconnects us to our natural grounding, to the beauty of our own hearts, and to the natural resources of life.  We re- align with our inner compass, and with the best of our humanity.  We become both the bridge to what is possible, as well as the people who walk over the bridge into an equitable future, one step at a time.  

*"400 Years of Inequality is a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals calling on everyone - families, friends, communities, institutions - to plan their own solemn observance of 1619, learn about their own stories and local places, and organize for a more just and equal future." They are "dedicated to dismantling structural inequality and building strong, healthy communities."  - 400 Years of Inequality website 

  

New steps, and things I've learned

Happy birthday to me!

As I look back on this past year, I’m most struck by what a challenging and growth-inducing year it’s been. I’m happy to welcome what is newly emerging in my life, even without knowing exactly what that is yet.

Starting in September, I’m excited to be taking the next few months to travel from my home base in Chelsea, to explore and choose where I want to locate myself on a more permanent basis. I’ll continue to coach online and create destination retreats and trainings starting with Bali in early 2019. More about that soon!

photo by Paige Mills-Haag

A few things I’ve learned this year, in the order they occurred to me:

• Take care of myself first. All of the loving actions in the world won’t have their full positive impact if taken from a context of self-denial rather than self-love and self-respect.
  
• Resolve doubts about my direction before taking action. This lesson has crystallized for me as I’ve navigated a year with significant shifts around personal situations I created while experiencing inner conflict. Thinking “I’ll work that out eventually” led to a big mess and results I didn’t enjoy.
  
• Perceive that my coping mechanisms are/were at one time the most life affirming choice I had access to. Hindsight is 20/20. Even when I chose something I now see as a mistake, bring presence, compassion and openness to learning and healing to what occurred. At the same time, turn toward change and growth even when it stretches me uncomfortably.
  
• Welcome grief and mourning when it arrives at my door. The journey of being human and becoming more of who I am includes accepting myself, my past, what I see as my flaws, with love and compassion for the whole experience. Ironically to me, grieving contributes to healing inner conflict.
  
• Deepen bonds with people who can attune with me. (Me attuning with others is not the same thing as them attuning with me.) Notice when that’s not happening. Continue to develop my own capacity to attune to others and with myself at the same time.
  
• Embrace the paradoxes within me. The more my inner conflict resolves in a felt experience of wholeness, the greater my capacity to relate with who and what is in front of me so that something new can emerge (vs. recreating personal, generational, cultural or collective trauma.)
  
• Prioritize my wholeness, always. Continually notice how each part of my life aligns with my essence and be willing to let go and say no to what doesn’t align.
  
• Do what sustains me and the life I choose: Creativity, collaboration and contribution. Without putting the work I love in the center (which doesn’t really fit the definition of what most people call work) I don’t thrive. Accept how central my purpose is to me, and go all the way with it!

Dancing is always a good choice!

Love, 

Rhonda