Natural Instinct

It is raining, one of those long grey days that has finally let itself go and the weeping has begun. Somehow the day feels relieved now that the rain has started. The cloud cover has been so dense that it has been hard not to notice its impending flood of tears. Now that it has started it feels almost as if the sky is finally giving itself the freedom to make peace with its own tempest. And for some reason this is incredibly calming.

The forces of nature can be that at times. It is almost as if they struggle for you, easing away the stresses that you would carry yourself if they did not so admirably do so instead.

It makes me think of our ancestors and how closely they connected to the seasons. They way they lived with and for the land, the air and the sea. As a people we have come to take this for granted in so many ways. Yet in this simple rain shower we can learn so much. The roses outside my home will no doubt lift their heads in sheer joy for nature's gift. For those of us that felt the gathering gloom and surrendered to the peace of the rain once it came, there was a different yet life-embueing gift proferred. And while I can imagine the frustration of the motorists as they sweep by in the mists created by the rain, I can't help but wonder what small joy they are receiving without even knowing it.

What would it take to reconnect the average person to the ancestral vision of man and land as one? What kind of world would come if we had that intrinsic connection again? Where we did indeed feel blessed by sun, wind and rain. Would all of the motions toward "green" become more tangible? Would we actually find more time to spend outside rather than in? Are the luxuries we think we need dispensable - if they bring us closer to the land and to each other as people? I realize we are not likely to give up sanitation, running water, certain levels of communication, shelter and transportation, but what would we forego to commune with that which does indeed provide us our true sustenance?

They say that winter can drive people into depression. Perhaps these are our natural nomads. Those people who are meant to follow the sun. Yet because of our social systems, etc., they are locked in and cannot do so without risking their livelihoods. If this is true, then that instinctual link to nature is certainly not lost to us. The question is - what will we do with that instinct - or will we do anything at all? Except perhaps enjoy the rain when it comes and adjust our clocks to garner a few more moments of sunlight as the cycle changes each year.

What do you think?

Self-watering plants?

Ever reach the point where your simplest wish was that the plants would water themselves? I keep coming and going from meetings and realizing with each entrance and exit that I need to water the plants, yet somehow this task keeps escaping me. And now it is time to close for the day and still the plants are gasping for a drink of that life giving balm.

Of course, I could be doing that instead of typing this, and I probably should, but it just got me to thinking. How many aspects of our life do we have that just slip through our fingers? Its not that we don't see them. It certainly is not that we don't know these small things need to occur. The plants NEED watering. The friend needs to be called. The letter to our ailing Aunt needs to written and, yes, mailed. Yet somehow these niceties slip by and before we know it, they just don't happen. There we are at the curb emptying the dried out pot and planting anew.

But we can't always plant everything fresh, can we? We can't take back certain aspects of daily neglect. As much as we would like to believe that these small trespasses are easily forgiven, they do build. I guess they are sort of like plaque. In small amounts it doesn't really hurt anyone. But let it layer itself up and it can grind your heart to a standstill. Then its major surgery - or bust. So why is it that we can't just stop at the doorway we when we think about watering the plant - and go do it? Why do we keep wandering back and forth through the door and mentally note what we should get to - and then never quite manage to see it through. (Brief break here).

Sorry about that, but I just had to water the plants. I was feeling way, way too guilty writing about it and not doing it. And I guess that is sort of the point. What does it take to put us in motion? How far do things have to go for people to get a clue? Does the ailing Aunt have to actually fall on her deathbed to suddenly deserve the call, the card or the visit? Does your friend have to show up on your doorstep and demand attention? Or would simply un-friending you on FaceBook be a call to action?

We are so caught up in the daily demands, our little world of minutia, that we seem to have lost touch with the parts that really matter. We have lost touch with the components that we are responsible for nuturing. Our relationships, family, friends, etc. - these depend on our participation, our interest and willingness to nuture and value. So why are we so good at taking them for granted? Why is so easy to assume they will simply be there when we need them? And when will we learn to pay attention to when they need us?

Just thinking out loud -

Guess I should go feed the cats now too.............

A road well traveled -

Taking some time today to just enjoy breathing and being. The last few weeks have been such a blur of activity. It seems I have been here and there and back again and participated in so many different aspects of our culture.

I have been witness to some of the most blatant mis-use of our country's legal system that I wanted to object to the Judge. I have watched as attorney's have vilified the innocent in order to make the guilty look pristine. Honestly, if this can happen in our court system, and work, what has our society come to? And I have left this to find myself in the heart of a family struggling with the death of one of the most wonderful, graceful women I have had the good fortune to meet. She was just like a character out of one of Jane Austne's novels, the perfect lady. She was always well groomed, kind and certainly well-mannered. Her loss is definitely a loss not just for her family, but for a culture that will not likely see her breed again anytime soon.

From here I ran back to a world of frenetic activity. Where the people around me scarcely had the time to notice if they were bumping into others on their way to whatever it was that would make or break their day. Focus, focus, focus. The world of the work-aholics, I suppose in fact this is pretty much my every day world. But catching it after what I had just experienced it came into focus in a new and more eye-catching way.

Next in my line up was a long, very long drive from the Midwest to the South of our great Nation. Along the way I watched as the landscape changed and the people also changed. The pace and the rhythm went from a constant must rush pulse, so a smooth and constant flow, to the sudden urban thrust along the major southern urban corridors and then back to a slow crawl as the heat created the glazed gaze from Tennessee into Georgia.

Then I was home. In the heart of my family. Here I found the warmth and tthe laughter and the constant sub-text of love and support. There is really nothing like coming home. Especially, when your boy is there. How I missed him!

Next stop, his new school. There on the ridge in Tennessee, were truth, honor and duty are the motto and the lifeline the boys will live by I met so many people who are trusting the faculty and staff to help guide the growth of their children. And I learned why I knew it was the right choice. It is such a wonderful centered place. It is a place of honor and spirituality. A place of dignity and certainly one that values learning as well.

Then on to our Nation's Capital - where I walked the Congressional hallways, met with Senatorial and Congressional staff, and learned a great deal about what is important to each type of politician. But what I learned the most is, I should not be so jaded. They really do care about what happens at home, to the people, to their communities. They really are listening and learning from what people bring to them. There is caring there and it is more than just getting re-elected. It is about helping make good things happen. And that was a very refreshing end to my journeys - especially considering their starting point.

So I have come full circle, and now am back at my desk - in the very focused world I live in - and what I have come away with is this:

Home, hearth, family - the things that guide you and make you who you are and who you want to be - these are important. To let the ugly things you meet up with in this life sway you from being true to these is not only wrong it is a betrayal of the self. See these things for what they are, but do not become them - even for a moment. Take the actions that are right based on your vision of right and wrong and embrace this wonderfully full and rich world on your terms.

It is well worth coming home to find out you have kept your soul in tact on the road well traveled.

Getting Ready to Launch

Walking the ridge in Tennessee, pondering what it means to start new chapters in our lives, I paused to gaze in wonder as an incredibly beautiful red-tailed hawk soared overhead in the intensely cerulean blue sky. The bird seem completely at ease in the 105 degree heat, while my shoes were melting and sticking to the pavement. I wondered at the dichotomy. I being essentially earthbound, was lifted up by the sight of this magnficently free bird. I felt somehow less oppressively mired by the vision of this bird that could become one with the incredibly perfect blue sky. And this thought brought me back full circle to the concept of new chapters unfolding in the lives that we lead.

Here on this lovely campus, ringed by mountains and protected by such visions as the red-tailed hawk, my son would be starting a new, and very important chapter in his life. He was launching into not only high-school, but independence. I knew he was ready for it. I was very much wondering if I was ready for it. I suppose it had taken me all this time, all the months of planning and paperwork, the tedium of packing, etc., to get to this point. To get to the point where I could stand with my shoes stuck to the pavement on the ridge, gazing at the last speck of the hawk's passage and realize this was also a new chapter in my life as well. I too was embarking on a new journey. And I wasn't sure I was ready. I had not even thought about what I would need to prepare in order to launch.

I shook myself free of my thoughts and went on to learn more about what he would be doing for the next year and let this thought slide down to be processed a bit more. That night and the next day were a blur of activity and before I knew it I was waving to him as he stepped into the student activity center and I drove away. He had launched.

I drove for over two hours just listening to a book on CD to avoid letting my mind find any room for its own thought. Finally, I turned off and took a walking break. In the almost silence of the rest area, under the generous canopy of the trees I realized, I had nothing to prepare. I had already launched as well, ready or not.

My new chapter was already unfolding. The ability to enjoy nature's gift of the hawk, the rainbow that I could see peeking out over the trees, those were all signs that I was not landlocked on that ridge where my shoes had become mired from heat and melted tar. I would move forward just as my son would. And when next we met, we would both have grown. Because that is the cycle of life, as long as you embrace it.

So now, several days later, I have been to our Nation's Capitol. I have met many new and interesting people. I have shared time with friends and family, and of course I have shared correspondence with my son. I have a sense of wonder and awe that is focused not only on the incredible opportunities I know he will find, but also on the bounty I am certain is in front of me as well. We will have much to share when next we meet.

As we turn the pages, some chapters truly do come to an end, others remain a constant flowing component (the running subtext) but the book just keeps unfolding - and that in itself is as magical as one could really ever hope for - Life is for learning afterall. I guess I was ready to launch....here's to the next part of the journey. Slainte!

Traveling Journal

Sometimes you receive notes from friends and they are so tangibly touching that you need to share them with as many people as you can. So today's post is just that - From James Mills - awesome person and world traveler:

August 10, 2010

Two days ago I visited Auschwitz. Nothing you see or do in life prepares you for something so horribly awesome as this place. There are three main camps in Auschwitz, but the one that stands out the most is Auschwitz 2, Birkenau. Maybe it is because of how many times we have seen it in movies, or the replication of it in movies, as in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. I have been unable to get the image out of my head since. I keep asking myself, Why and how could this happen? And I know that there is no answer to that question, but I still feel compelled to ask.



The train tracks leading through the front gates are surreal. Standing in them, the 65 years between today and the liberation of Auschwitz simply vanished and I could see the men, women and children disembarking and being herded by the madmen and women at the camp into their fates. 75% of the up to 20,000 people who arrived in Auschwitz every day were sent immediately to the gas chambers, mostly the elderly and children, those deemed not fit for hard work.



When you walk through the gates of Birkenau, you see the barracks that have survived and upon entering a barrack, you see the racks that served as the sleeping areas for the prisoners and slaves of the Third Reich. They were built to accommodate 40 people but most of them had 70 to 80 people. Each barrack has two brick fireplaces inside, one at each end of the building. Many of the buildings at Auschwitz have long since disappeared but the fireplaces still stand so you can see how many barracks there were. The size of the camp itself is startling. Birkenau was the home of the gas chambers and the crematoriums. The ashes from the crematorium were used as a substitute for gravel to line the pathways of the camp.



There were about 400 successful escapes from Auschwitz. When someone escaped, the SS would randomly select people from the barracks where the escapee lived and murder them. Their favorite form of execution was starvation; they would pack four prisoners into a tiny room where they could only stand facing each other and leave them there crowded together until they died.



After Birkenau, I went to Auschwitz I. It served as the administration center for the death camps. I thought about what that must have been like, the people who worked there, got up every morning, had their breakfast, kissed their husbands or wives goodbye and went to the office to shuffle the paper of the lives they had transformed into numbers on a list. They probably went out to lunch with friends and co-workers and at the end of the day went home to their families, tucked their children in at night and maybe even read them bed-time stories. It is these people that challenge any hope I have for humanity the most. It is these people that make me understand how evil can appear so innocuous, after all, they were just office workers shuffling paper. How they went about their daily lives rationalizing what they did every day simply astounds me. They were no less murderers than the people who walked their victims into gas chambers, in fact, they were worse. They were the real criminals of Auschwitz. It is the people who close their eyes to what is going on around them that I have the most contempt for.



I went back to Birkenau one last time before leaving the camps to pay my respects to the 1,000,000 Jews and the 100,000 other people, Poles, Gypsies and political prisoners, who died at Auschwitz, and the countless others who suffered and yet somehow survived. And I felt a deep melancholy for the whole human race. I thought, Could this happen again? And I knew instantly that it could. Even in the United States the hatred people feel for other races astounds me. I have no doubt that if the Arizona legislature passed a law that said all Mexicans were to be rounded up and placed in concentration camps, there would be thousands of volunteers, mostly people who considers themselves the “real Americans” ready, wiling and able to do the work of their country or of their God, or both.



This journey of mine has been amazing, but in any journey, you cannot avoid the horrors that people commit against each other. Such is our world, the beautiful and the ugly exist side by side and we all make choices. Clearly nature does not take sides, it just lets events unfold. I do not believe in a separate conscious God, for me, only people can make this world better. I hope we do.



James Mills

On Change

Funny how it seems that no matter how much you prepare for the changes in your life, you are never really ready. They just seem to happen so quickly, even when you know they are coming. With all of the months of preparation, the details and time consumed making everything ready you would think a person would be ready to consume the change - and yet, not. There is just as big and scary as if it jumped out of the blue.

Perhaps that is the nature of being. We like what we know, it is comfortable. Even the parts of our lives that are not quite wonderful are more comfortable than change. Change brings us to the realm of the unknown. We can visualize the value, the wonder, the joy in making the changes - but we must still walk into the void of the unknown, pass from what is here and now and tangible to get a shot at making that vision happen. And that, my friend, that is not comforting.

Although, I will admit, it can be exhilirating, particularly when the change is centered around you walking in to the main force. But when change means helping others move forward, while it is rewarding to help them grow, it also means a time when you will have to reconcile yourself and your life to this new absence. You rejoice in your part in helping those you love grow and expand. You celebrate their ability to learn to embrace change. And then you remind yourself that this talent for embracing change is something you yourself think is important. And now is a good time to embrace it yourself. Yet somehow, it still seems that it has come upon you so suddenly.

Change it seems is the agent that both sets us free and weighs us down. It has the capacity to cripple us with our fear of it, yet through it we grow the most. How can something that is just a natural part of the rhythm of life have faces that seem so opposed? To give and to take in the same breath - but I suppose in many ways that is exactly the nature of change. What is known becomes the past, forever altered in the way we live given the changes we adapt to.

So here's to change, change management and to finding the wonder and beauty in the opportunities that change brings to our lives.

Slainte!