Interconnected is another word for . . . everything . . .

In Freya's mailbox next to my silver Maple that has this morning appeared with tiny buds announcing the powerful presence of Spring's energy . . .

Trauma is not an individual disease . . .

We really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down. – Pema Chödrön

I am, occasionally, overwhelmed by synchronicity.

Feet: still wet . . .

In Thor's mailbox as this week celebrating the Valentines draws to a close . . .

. . . Pema Chödrön filed a note with some advice for us as we negotiate the eddies of The Way:

. . .we can approach our lives as an experiment. In the next moment, in the next hour, we could choose to stop, to slow down, to be still for a few seconds. We could experiment with interrupting the usual chain reaction and not spin off in the usual way. We don’t need to blame someone else, and we don’t need to blame ourselves. When we’re in a tight spot, we can experiment with not strengthening the aggression habit and see what happens. -- Pema Chödrön

On our attempts to swim against the stream of The Way, Chӧgyam Trungpa observed:

. . .the American spiritual neurosis, both individual and group, has become, in some sense, a world monument. It deserves a gold medal. So, introducing disciplines for seeing the world in a very simple, ordinary, and basic way seems helpful and refreshing, and very much needed. . .and that’s why the meditative tradition of mindfulness is so appropriate for this country, as well as the rest of the Western Hemisphere. – Chӧgyam Trungpa

If you have become aware that there must be something more in a life than just external rewards and a societal notion of success, then you have taken the first step on a path that the wise among us have walked before. Many paths lead nowhere, yet we are told we must walk them until, standing still, we see the truth beneath our feet.

The Watercourse Way. Our feet. Wet. – From the Friday, June 11, 2021 blog.

The hero is not a hero

In Tew's Day's mailbox celebrating all the Valentines in history . . .

The “killer” story hides our humanity from us.

"The Hero has decreed that the proper shape of the narrative is that of the arrow or spear, starting here and going straight there and THOK! hitting its mark (which drops dead); second, that the central concern of the narrative, including the novel, is conflict; and third, that the story isn't any good if he isn't in it. . .I differ with all of this. I would go so far as to say that the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us. . .One relationship among elements in the novel may well be that of conflict, but the reduction of narrative to conflict is absurd. . .” – Ursula Le Guin – In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

For an extended take on this necessary shift in our Weltanschauung, see Sophie Strand and Rewilding the Sacred Masculine.

Aries director Francis Ford Coppola was asked to name the year's worst movie. The question didn't interest him, he said. He listed his favorite films, then declared, "Movies are hard to make, so I'd say, all the other ones were fine!" Coppola's comments remind me of author Dave Eggers': "Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them." . . . Refrain from judging efforts about which you have no personal knowledge. Be as open-minded and generous as you can. Doing so will give you fuller access to half-dormant aspects of your own potentials. – Rob Brezsney

The hero is not a hero.