Do Not Try to Save the Whole World

Today maybe even as you read this, men (I am assuming the crew is made up of men) are cutting down the large maple tree in my front yard. My house was built in 1900. I suspect the tree took root before or around the time that the house was built. Over the last several years I've been watching it slowly die, limbs falling from it on clear, windless days, other limbs remaining barren through spring and summer. It was time to take it down. I waited as long as I could. I am only slightly comforted by the fact that every person who gave me an estimate told me that taking it down was the right thing to do.

A few months ago the massive tree directly across the street was also cut down. I still feel its absence. I wonder how long I will feel the absence of my tree.

Earlier this year a neighbor had a few extra spiles to tap maple trees so for the first and only time, I tapped my tree, collecting gallons of sap. Yesterday I finished boiling it down to syrup. It is sweet and delicious. In a very literal way my tree is now a part of me.

When the syrup was finished, I took a small amount of it back out to my maple and poured it at the tree's base. I rubbed a perfume of frankincense and myrrh into the bark. I don't have anything to give my tree but gratitude and reverence. I wish I could warn the squirrels that live in it that their home is about to be gone. They'll know soon enough. I hope they can quickly find a new home.

As I mourn the loss of my tree and think about the soon-to-be-homeless squirrels, I also mourn what is happening in the Ukraine. I mourn the collective uncertainty of the people leaving their home and country with no idea when or if they'll ever be back. I mourn for the people who are fighting, who have already lost their lives and those who will in the coming days. I mourn that as masses of people are trying to leave the Ukraine, Black and Brown people, foreign nationals, are facing discrimination and harsh treatment. I mourn that racism seeps through western news coverage in multiple ways, including what news actually gets covered.

There is so much to mourn.

There is so much work to do.

Recognizing this, we may feel so overwhelmed that we shut down, unable to do anything, convinced that we can't make a difference. Recognizing this, we may stir ourselves into a frantic pace, trying to do aaaaalllll the work, convinced that the world's well-being depends on what we do.

The world's well-being does depend on what we do.

AND

The world's well-being does not depend solely on one person's actions. Moving at a frantic pace when we're not fleeing for our lives does not serve us well. It only exhausts us. It is not sustainable.

The world's well-being depends both on what we do and don't do. It depends both on how we fill our time and space and how we clear and empty our time and space.

If you are teetering between overwhelm and franticness, perhaps uncertain about what to do or where your place is, I offer this poem by Martha Postlethwaite:

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even as I mourn that so much of the interbeing of our world is in need of rescue, I also feel joyful that right now the song that is my life seems to have fallen into my hands. I cannot save the whole world, but I can give myself in the ways I know how. Writing is one way I know to give. Offering classes and programs is another. I am excited to be starting Seeking the Shalom of the City next Monday, March 7 and to be working with Onyxe Antara to offer Expand and Activate Your Vision on March 19! Perhaps the most unique part of my song is creating Heart Portraits and Sketches. All of these are heart work.

Today is my 49th birthday. As I begin this square number year with both mourning and gratitude, my hope for me and for you is that we find our songs, that we keep singing them, and that we give ourselves to this world in the ways we know how.

Blessings,
Cory

Holding the Complexity, the Humanity, the Whole

All week I’ve been thinking about Craig Greenberg, Quintez Brown, Annette Karem, and a friend of mine. These four and more are bound now by events of last Monday morning when Brown allegedly went into Greenberg’s mayoral campaign office here in Louisville and shot at him and his team members. Thankfully, no one was physically injured.

I don’t know Greenberg and I wish him no harm. I can’t imagine how scary it was for him and his team members to be shot at. I met Brown a few years ago when he spoke at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event. I was impressed at the time by his strength, clarity, and leadership. I was shocked when he was the one arrested for the shooting. He pled not guilty at his arraignment. The friend I mention had a studio next to Greenberg’s campaign office and was there Monday morning when the shooting happened. He was, as you might imagine, quite shaken by the events. Karem, who I also know personally and really like, was the judge for Brown’s arraignment Tuesday morning.

I’ve heard and read a number of thoughts and opinions about the shooting Monday, the arraignment Tuesday, and the release of Brown from jail Wednesday. I’ve seen reactions ranging from care and concern to anger and vitriol directed in multiple directions. Knowing several people who had very different experiences of the event, I am reminded of the complexity of our human interconnection. My own work right now feels very clear: keep my eyes, ears, mind, and heart wide open. Wide open. Wide Open. Especially my heart.  

When I teach Nonviolent Communication, I often say, “The primary goal is connection. The primary tool is curiosity.” In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes, “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.” Right now I choose curiosity and the possibility of discomfort. I also want to claim wonder, because wonder feels more heart-centered to me than curiosity. I choose them both.

After days of wanting to write but not quite being able to, I’m finally going to try to type out some words.  

Mostly questions.

I’ll admit here that I think I have answers to some of the questions. I imagine that some of you may answer differently than I. If that’s the case, I want to stay curious, to keep my heart wide open to you, regardless of your answers. Even if the only tangible connection between us is that you are reading what I’ve written, we are interconnected. Ultimately, our well-being is tied together.   

Others questions I offer with genuine curiosity and wonder. I want to keep my mind and heart wide open to whatever expected and unexpected answers may come. I hope that I will continue to turn to curiosity and wonder even about my own assumptions, beliefs, and current answers.

And so, I wonder…

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details that led up to last Monday’s events?

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details of Monday’s events?

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details of what is happening with Brown after his release?

Is it possible that he is receiving mental health care that wouldn’t be available to him in jail?

Is it possible to open our hearts to the possibility both that Craig Greenberg, his campaign team, and their friends and family are hurting and in need of care and healing AND that Quintez Brown and his family and friends are hurting and in need of care and healing?

Is it possible for someone who’s primary concern is Greenberg to be open to the idea that someone else’s primary concern is Brown and that’s OK?

Is it possible for someone who’s primary concern is Brown to be open to the idea that someone else’s primary concern is Greenberg and that’s OK?

Is it possible that people are complex and that the same person can do things that heal and things that harm?  

Is it possible to refrain from labeling such a person as “good” or “bad” based on whether we witnessed more of their healing or harming actions?

Is it possible to notice the labels that we and others use that may oversimplify and narrow the boundaries of understanding?

Is it possible that systems we live in are complex and that they are serving some people much better than others?  

Is it possible that the effects of systemic harm over generations is rippling through these events?

Is it possible that accountability is not only about responsibility but may also include restoration and healing?

Is it possible to open our hearts to the possibility that the judge, the lawyers, and everyone involved is doing the best they can, even if we really, really, want(ed) them to do differently?

Is it possible to imagine that if we were in their shoes we might take the same actions, even if we find the actions problematic from the shoes we’re currently standing in?  

Is it possible to keep our hearts wide open to the possibility that a multiplicity of seemingly contradictory perspectives may all hold truths?

 Is it possible to keep our hearts wide open to the complexity, the nuance, the discomfort, the messiness of this human life?

I am sure there are more questions to ask.

Miki Kashtan often talks about the work of caring for the whole. This doesn’t mean a person takes responsibility for everything and everyone. That’s not a one-person job. Caring for the whole does mean taking into account the well-being of more than just whoever or whatever we are tending to as we make decisions. It means considering how our actions will affect our interconnected web here, now, everywhere and in the future.

I deeply long for all of us to have both the desire and the capacity to care in this expansive way.    

For a whole slew of reasons, we don’t all have the desire.

For a whole slew of reasons, we don’t all have the capacity.

But some of us do.

Currently I have both desire and some capacity to give. I wonder who else is willing and able to try to hold the complexity and the humanity of all parties involved and affected by last Monday’s events.  

I wonder who else is willing and able to do the experimental work of trying to hold the whole.

My prayer is that those of us with the desire to care for the whole find each other and that we harness our collective capacity, wisdom, knowledge, and creativity, so that we may nurture healing and hope.

However you receive these words, I wish you well. I welcome your thoughts, challenges, questions, and insights.

If I Asked You To Name All the Things You Love...

Cory looks up, to the camera, hand on heart. The words “If I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?” are in the top right of the image. Photo credit: Natosha Via

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been thinking about the words in the image above for a few days now:

If I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself? *

If you're like me, the answer is... I don't know how long it would take...depends on the day, hour, minute. I am practicing the art of self-love and self-compassion. It is, like so many things I write, talk, and teach about, a creative practice, an ongoing experiment.

A week ago I was in the third Zoom session of a class to learn a sequence of yoga moves. Before the class, I had had another Zoom meeting, then rushed out to run an errand, and rushed back home for the class. I was wearing jeans that were a little too tight, not ideal for a yoga class, but didn't have time to change if I wanted to arrive on time.

As we started the class with meditation, my mind was still rushing. I noticed my too tight pants. I was a little hungry. I hoped that my cats would come near me for a pet as I saw a few other people's cats do on the screen. I felt the cold air around me in my old and breezy house, as well as the heat of my nearby space heater that I couldn't get positioned quite right. You can probably guess that this was not my most focused meditation.

We finished the meditation and were invited to ask questions about the practice. This was when my bad student tape kicked in. I hadn't watched the previous week's recording and though I had practiced the sequence, I hadn't done so daily as we were encouraged to do. There was no way in hell I was going to admit these grave transgressions. If I didn't ask questions, no one would know just how bad of a student I was.

After a few people asked questions, there was new content teaching and then it was time to practice. I had made it through the first part without anyone finding me out!

Except that this week before doing the sequence we were going to start with the optional prostrations.

Oh, s**t. I had never done the prostrations. I could only guess that they'd been taught in the second class, so since I hadn't watched the recording yet, I hadn't learned them. Maybe I could figure them out by trying to watch while we were moving through them.

Other people's cameras were not positioned in a way that I could see the whole flow of the prostration. I was caught, fully visible on camera, being recorded in my fumbling! I tried to fake my way through and was relieved when we finished and were moving to the safe territory of the familiar sequence.

Then twice as we were going through each part of the sequence, someone helping the primary teacher offered a couple of posture corrections. The person made general statements, not directed at any one person, but I was certain she was talking to me. Caught again!

We finished the sequence and went into a closing meditation. Finally, in those last minutes of class I calmed down, sank into my body, and felt relieved that I had made it through my epic failure.

I write this story now with a smile on my face. On Wednesday I talked to my friend who teaches the class. She said that though she was trying to keep an eye on everyone (I think there are 12 of us), she hadn't noticed that I was struggling. I laughed as I told her that that meant I had done my fake-out well, because I hadn't wanted anyone to see I didn't know what I was doing!

Though that class experience wasn't my favorite, I am incredibly grateful to have had that hour of discomfort. It reminded me of the vulnerability of being a student, of learning something new, and opened my heart wider to the people I work with and how they (some of you) might feel sometimes because an old tape starts playing about the kind of student or person they (you?) are. It reminded me that the best place to start, the only place we can start, is right where we are. It reminded me that the best way to learn is not by pretending that we know something we don't, but by asking questions.

My friend's care when we spoke a couple of days after the class reminded me that I don't have to be the perfect student (whatever that even means) for someone to love me. I don't have to be the perfect anything for someone to love me or for me to love myself. I also know that I want to keep learning, keeping one foot on the ground of humility and placing the other in the sea of self-compassion.

With these things in mind I choose today to name myself, to put myself high on the list of what I love, who I love. My wish for you on this Valentine's Day is that you, too, name yourself as a beloved, placing yourself high on your love list.

*I only noticed my typo (D missing in “would”) after publishing this. I decided to leave it, a choice to love myself even when I misspell a word.)
~~~

If you are a woman, one way you might put yourself high on your love list is by joining Reimagining ME:Mindful Explorations, which starts a week from tomorrow- Tuesday 2/22/22! At its core the program encourages us to practice connecting with ourselves, both with humility and the deepest of self-compassion, to re-member who we are - unique, beautiful, irreplaceable beings in a web of Interbeing with one another. This program brings together practices of Compassionate Communication, creativity, and body awareness. I was going to close the registration today, but am keeping it open. If you're not quite sure and want to try a session before committing, you can register for the first session a la carte.