And now we have our own. :)

I love change, and I love transition, and I am happiest when things are not-nailed-down. I feel most comfortable when the world is formless with possibility, and dark and strange. I am also a bit of an anomaly.

I say this just to introduce a story that I recently rediscovered, a story that I first heard in a community building workshop, a number of years ago now. It's called Fear of Transformation, by Danaan Parry, and though it's a bit long, it's wonderful, and so true.

Here.

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I'm either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I'm hurtling across space in between trapeze bars. I spend most of the time hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the- moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I'm in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I'm merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It's empty, and I know, in that place that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth; my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart-of-hearts I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time it happens to me, I hope that I won't have to grab the new one. But in that knowing place I know I must totally release my grasp on the old bar, and for some moment in time hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new one. Each time, I am filled with terror. It doesn't matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing, I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on the unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of "the past is gone, the future is not yet here." It's called transition. I have come to believe that this is the place where real change occurs.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a "no-thing", a no-place between places. Sure the old trapeze-bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that's real too. But the void in between? That's just a scary, confusing, disorienting "nowhere" that must be gotten through as fast and unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up, to avoid where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives.

And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to "hang-out" in the transition between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the place where change happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.

I wanted to share this because our whole world feels as though we're in one of these spaces, and because I love her call for us to "dwell in the place that change happens." What better way to spend one's life? What better practice?

And who knew that Gaia was really a flying circus? ;)

For Earth Day, I recorded a guided meditation from a book I've been using recently (Working Inside Out, by Margo Adair). It's not long (10 minutes or so), so I do hope you'll take the ten minutes to become aware of your connection to, and relationship with, this beautiful planet.

And Happy Earth Day. :)

1) Do you like Earth Day?
Yes. Yes and yes and yes.

2) Do you like the color green?
I like true greens, or, that is, the greens of nature. I like the glass greens of the ocean and the nubbly greens of molding breads and the rich polished brilliance of newly dewed grass blades and the thick greens of pines. I like the mottled greens of apples and the green of my sweetheart's eyes. I like the greens that are just one step away from sunlight.

I don't wear much green, though; I don't like 'imitation' green. I hope that makes sense.

3) Finish this sentence: The Earth is...
The (whole) Earth is home to me.

4) Pick two to four words to describe the ocean or how you feel about the ocean.
I miss it, all the time.

5) What's one thing you like to do to help the Earth?
Only one? I like to delight in it: to dance in the rain; to bask in the sun; to run booted and mittened through the snow; to crunch through leaves; to dive unhesitatingly into summer lakes; to sit quiet and still and breathing in the midst of a thrumming forest; I like to help the Earth by living it, and to celebrate this wherever I am.

What about you?

This.

Or, to put it another way, whatever I happen to be focused on in that moment. What else is there?

Of course, I am only human, and of course I am often not, or usually not, focused entirely. And so I am often not present, and when I am not, I would rather be writing, preferably letters. Or reading. Or savoring coversation over glasses of wine and oceans of yet-unmade memories.

My loves all involve language and bodies and the necesary entanglement of both.

I recorded this on, and for, Earth Day, and for you.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Isn't he amazing? I love how much truth there is in this, and beauty. We are so luck to live in a world in which there are such creatures as poets.

Writing is work that never feels like work. I should be more specific, though; as it's not just any writing. It's writing that flows from my heart, out through my fingers, the sort of writing that feels somehow beyond me.

Mediation is work that never feels like work. I like stepping armless into the midst of conflict. I like seeing what is perfect and true on both sides, and I like finding the third side that contains, comfortably, both.

Research is work that never feels like work. I like being a hunter-gatherer of the 21st century, hacking through thickets of redundancy and noise to find what is useful and meaningful and key. I like scouring fields of information for the pertinent tidbits, and weaving them into a story of importance.

Listening is work that never feels like work. I love to turn my heart into two giant lobes, open and aching and waiting. I love to be a container for the stories of others to be poured and stirred and leavened into a richness beyond what either of us alone could hope for.

There is more, of course, much more, but this is what comes to mind right now.

I wanted to answer this question mostly because of how much I love reading through the answers of others. I loved how different each were, and how pure, and how true. I wish I could ask this question of everyone on the planet, and sit with them and listen, deeply, until they found what it was.

And my unique ability? Oh, it's hard to say; I feel shy and unsure even thinking about it. But the rest of you have been brave, so I'll try.

I have the unique ability to be grateful for anything, to point to the beauty and wonder and brilliant opportunity in any situation, and to see problems as steppingstones and challenges. I have the unique ability to trust the world with an unfaltering and wholehearted beatificity, and to know with a deep and unfailing certainty that whatever happens happens for the best. I have the unique ability to, without struggle nor a second thought, see the pain and fear that flows beneath the ugly scabs of hatred and anger. I have the unique ability to hold my beliefs lightly, and with playful bemusement. I have the unique ability to see any conflict from the point of view of all involved, and to delight in each perspective. I have the unique ability to write and to describe the world with far, far, far more eloquence than either my brain or lips would betray.

And I have the unique ability to see that none of the traits I've listed are particular unique, and to be so, so relieved that this is so.

In your work (or life) what produces the highest ratio of satisfaction and abundance to amount of time spent? What do you find most rewarding?

The work that I find most satisfying is work that's without ratio; that is, the sort of work (like writing or reading or researching or listening or spending time in those sorts of perfectly flowing conversation that lead a circle deeper and deeper into itself) that is satisfying in and of itself, so there's a perfect one-to-one correlation.