This year's topic is climate change. There is so much I could write in response to this, but I think I'd rather just share a picture.

The photo below was taken from Mars. It shows the Earth and the moon.  







The original, in which you can see Jupiter, is here. Do look. It's incredible.

I sent an email out about this last week, but wanted to post a more personal note here as well. This coming Saturday marks the first of the fourteen weekly telegatherings that will make up the Women on the Edge of Evolution Summit, an event organized by two of my great female mentors, Claire Zammit and Katherine Woodward Thomas. The event is free (you can call in or listen online, depending on your preferences) and I'd love to invite any and all of you to join.

Gaia Community (for what I hope are obvious reasons!) is helping to sponsor what I have a sense will be a historic gathering of female voices coming together to support each other in collaboration, connection, awareness and change, and I do hope that many of you will be present with us for the conversations that will unfold. I intend to write my own way through the process, and to share my reflections and experience on the calls here, and it'll be a joy to know that others of you will be following along.

I'll write more on this later--about why this topic feels so important to me, and about my own hopes and dreams for the weeks ahead--but for now, if you haven't already, please do come sign up. Saturday will be here soon.

This is the first of our weekly Gaia meditations, a project that, allong with the daily Gaia Minute practice, is unfolding in our Gaia Community Vision Group. You're welcome to join us the next time; we meet every Monday morning at 9 am MST (8 am PST / 11 am EST), and the meditation begins at 9:09.



Our circle is located at the following coordinates:





Conference Dial-In: 1-218-862-1300


Conference Code: 855676

I love this question.

What's next? What's now?

I love this question because it can always be asked, because life does go on, because something is invariably waiting around the corner to surprise and delight and bemuse and astound us.

What's next? My reaction is generally the same. My heart shudders happily. Oh, just wait! Oh, you'll see! Oh, you can't imagine the world that's bursting into being in every moment!

Or perhaps you can. What's next?

This. And this. And thisandthisandthis.

Isn't it amazing?

I think so.

I expect to be surprised and amazed and bewildered and overjoyed. I expect to be moved to tears, and to be loved and hurt and devastated and delighted. I expect to be a part of it all, as much as possible, and I expect to play, and I expect to be blessed with so many wonderful companions through it all. There is so, so much to explore.

This is one of those questions where I'd rather show you, than tell, my answer.

I'd rather take you by the hand and lead you outside, away from your computer, away from any pressures, away from any troubling stories or news or worries or concerns, and into a more timeless world of seasons and cycles and peace.

I'd rather dance with you to somewhere still and quiet, deep into a sun-dappled forest, weaving through trees, where the only sounds are birdsong, and the rustling of branches and the rhythm of our footsteps.

I'd rather discover with you a lake, still and blue and calm, with a warm and smooth expanse of rock leading out into it.

I'd rather we both make our way out on this natural bridge, to lie on our bellies with our hands trailing into the water, and I'd rather point to your reflection, to you—and not just any you, but you when you feel the most relaxed and trusting and happy and comfortable, and you when you feel most loved.


 

From Samme:

Using only song titles from one artist, answer the questions below. Try not to repeat a title. Repost as "My Life According to [ Artist Name].


Are you a male or female?
Everybody Knows

Describe yourself:
You Know Who I Am

How do you feel?
Humbled In Love

Describe where you currently live:
Passing Through

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Way Down Deep

Your favorite form of transportation:
Undertow

Your best friend is:
Last Year's Man

Your favorite color is:
Iodine

What's the weather like?
Light As The Breeze

Favorite time of day:
Closing Time

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?
In My Secret Life

What is life to you?
God is Alive; Magic is Afoot
or
Improvisation

Your relationship:
Love Itself

Your fear:
One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong

What is the best advice you have to give?
Be For Real

If you could change your name, you would change it to:
The Gypsy's Wife

Thought for the day:
Tonight Will Be Fine

How you would like to die?
A Thousand Kisses Deep

Your soul's present condition:
Waiting for the Miracle

Your motto:
Dance Me To The End of Love

You.

I'd like to get to know you, the creature sitting on the other side of the screen reading these words that were drummed out in haste by some obviously-earlier version of me.

I'd like to know what you're thinking now, and where you'll be going after your online respite is over, and what you're looking forward to. I'd like to know what you're concerned about and what regrets you've suffered in your life. I'd like to know what you need most, and what you want, and what it is you're here to give. I'd like to know where you're sitting as you read this, and what's scattered around you, and I'd like to know what connects you--what shared thread there is--with all the other 'yous' of this entry, past and present and future.

And yes, I suppose it doesn't matter; I'm not sure any human being can fully know another. Still, we can try, and still I suppose there's some delight to be had in this, that the quest for understanding can never be totally complete.

This is hard for me to admit, but I so rarely feel safe. I used to think I did, and then tasted, once, and fleetingly, what it was really like to feel utterly secure and at home and relaxed.

I remember nearly crying at how foreign the sensation was, how alien and strange, and at how foolish I’d been to blithely preach my imagined belief in the basic trustworthiness of the world. I realized my regular state is more akin to a child, just given to hold the most delicately ethereal bubble, worried that a forceful breath or unskilled jolt would burst it. This is what the world feels like to me–so beautiful, and so transient, and so gently and briefly entrusted to us, or rather to our briefly-lived experiences. And even though the lack of safety I feel is not some deep insecurity, even though it’s more a breathless anticipatory tension about a certain inevitable loss, it’s still hard.

There are moments, though. I feel safe when I’m held; I have an almost troublesome need for physical human contact, and an equally troublesome inability to relax into embrace. I feel safe when I’m writing; I have an inescapable need to put into words the beauty I see around me, and a parallel worry about my attempts to share being rejected or just misunderstood. I feel safe when I’m present, but this, sometimes, is the hardest thing in this world to be.

Do I? This was, I'm realizing, a presumptuous question. I'm not sure I find meaning; sometimes I feel more as though I create it, and some days, I feel, I'm better at doing this than others.

And this, I'm realizing, is a presumptuous answer. Create meaning! It's true, though--I weave it from the warp of the world and the woof of experience using the shuttle of language and words, just as you do, and just as human beings have always done.

Of course, though, my own little patch of fabric is worthless on its own. What I love is sometimes stepping back to see how it fits in the tapestry of the whole. Where do I find meaning...

... here, I suppose.