It seems essential to continue to examine wonder. We spend our days working to overcome despair and fear. We take time to meditate, be in nature, and hold our beloveds. Maybe, as we spoke of in another blog post, we even take time to weep and wail.

But Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan notes, “Concentration and contemplation are great things, but no contemplation is greater than the life we have about us every day.”

In the end, no matter how well we manage to hold our balance, ground ourselves, and be there for each other, we can become identified with all of that work and practice and forget to be amazed by the life all around us.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement . . . to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

I can imagine holding that wild wonder and that radical amazement and how that would change how I walk through the world.

Like the child in the picture above, all I behold blows my mind! Walking in the rain today, the incredible art of the drops of water hitting puddles on the concrete. The mist wrapping all the sharp edges in its soft blanket. The metallic smell of the damp air in my nostrils. Umbrellas with smiling humans beneath them brush against each other intimately. The silver gray of the Salish Sea melds nearly seamlessly into the darker textured gray of the overcast. Every single drop, every unique scent, every inadvertent brush, every shade of color or lack thereof is totally and forever amazing.

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver

There it is. St Mary captures everything I’m trying to relate in three short instructions.

So, there’s your work for this week (and beyond). In radical wild wonder, pay attention, be astonished, and tell us all about it.

In her most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism, Mirabai Starr speaks to the ways we can all notice and live our lives as mystics in these times.

In a prayer from Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Kahn, we notice, “Thy light is in all forms, thy love in all beings.”

It takes only the sense that no matter where you are or what you are experiencing, you are in the presence of the Oneness that unifies all of us to be a mystic. If you aspire to spend each moment in wonder at and gratitude for everything you come into contact with, even the challenging and frightening things. You will experience life as a mystic.

“The sacred is always brimming from the heart of everything. If what it means to be a mystic is to walk through this world looking through the eyes of love, then anything and everything that we do with the intention and attention on the sacred, including our most difficult experiences, counts and belongs.”
—Mirabai Starr

“Public mystics are leaders who embody the ineffable while attending to the ordinary, those who host the transcendent, the mystical, and the mundane while engaged in pragmatic justice-seeking acts.”
—Barbara Holmes

As a practice, sit quietly and notice your breath. Send your roots down into the mycelial network and notice your connection to every being. Then stand and (if you’re not already outside) walk in nature, or if you’re in a city, walk noticing nature. And experience every being, sound, feeling, smell, or face as the manifestation of the Divine Oneness. Notice the wind on your skin, the scent of the forest or city street, and the sounds of birds, humans, and pets. Thank them all, and hold them in your heart with love, appreciation, and light.

This is the actual state of things. Our self-protective filters tend to distract us and help us forget this reality. In fact, no one, no matter how confused or cruel, doesn’t have this part of the Divine inside them somewhere.

By acknowledging, practicing, and spreading this reality, you become a light that reminds everyone, “Thy light is in ALL forms, thy love in ALL beings…”

Thank you.

This week, compelling writing and counsel have inspired me to consider deeply how we work with our sense of anger, despair, futility, and suffering in these extremely challenging times.

As we witness the imminent and ongoing compromise of our living planet and its beings, both human and more than human; as we watch our democracy purposely thrown into chaos by greed and fear; as we fear for the safety of those most vulnerable, the well of grief and fear cannot help but grow and crush on our ability to stay present and grounded.

We all know the need to acknowledge and be with our grieving. This poem from David Whyte says it well:

---

The well of grief

Those who will not slip beneath
    the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water
    to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
    the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,
    the small round coins,
          thrown by those who wished for something else.

---

I know that even with all the tools I have to practice surrender, acceptance, and presence, even with the underlying knowledge that the Divine Oneness is always there, even with knowing that the grace of love, compassion, and caring has never and will never dissipate… that deep, dark well of grief can be overwhelming and exhausting.

My dear friend Kathleen wrote about anger in her recent blog, I Lean Liminal. It was a good reminder that even though many of us have been traumatized into pushing that emotion away, it doesn’t ever really go away. Like the grief and despair we feel, anger must be acknowledged and processed to direct it toward more positive actions.

This week, in a spiritual companionship session, we discussed how a well of despair can become a dark, almost solid weight on our souls. It often manifests as a painful tightness throughout my body.

My dear friend and spiritual guide noticed that we take time for our meditation practice, our work or social justice actions, exercise, and time with our beloveds. But when do we actually dedicate time to simply allowing ourselves to weep, scream, pound the pillows, or express our pain in any committed way?

In that session, we tested this idea of micro-dosing despair. It was a profound release of tears, moans, shouts, curses, and halting breaths. Ultimately, I felt like every cell in my body had been opened, split apart, and cleansed, becoming a more brilliant light.

But there were some important learnings.

• Don’t do this alone – have a trusted and capable friend or loved one to hold presence. They don’t have to say or fix anything; their simple presence might be enough. Or, if necessary, they might support you physically or with words of comfort if it becomes too intense. This could be a virtual companion, but better a three dimensional warm body.
• Put boundaries around this practice – ensure you are in a safe place and that someone will keep you safe from self-harm, interruption, or simply going too deep into the intensity of your grief.
• Have time boundaries as well. This is micro-dosing, so five or ten minutes might be all you need.
• Make time for this regularly. It is not intended as a cure-all. If we are paying attention, those atrocities and sorrows will invade our hearts again. Keep doing all your other practices to stay present, grounded, and guided to the work that needs doing. But, if this resonates for you – micro-dose your despair as a cleansing practice as often as necessary and appropriate.

As Kathleen notes about anger – noticing, accepting, and surrendering to these emotions is vital to self-care. We must include robust, sustainable, and formidable tools if we hope to survive and remain resilient and effective in resisting these dark powers.

This is hard, my dear ones. But there have been and are even more challenging times. Together, we can and will make it through. May it be so.

As I come to the end of a beautiful retreat with our Peace Dance community from Canada, Europe, the U.S., and many Latin American beloveds, I am so deeply filled with love, compassion, light and hope.

These amazing, enthusiastic young leaders from the south are filled with a potent love, courage and guidance toward the unity and connection of all beings.

In the ever more discouraging and threatening atmosphere of our insane “leadership” these beloveds remind me there is hope.

And they fill me with the strength to continue to hold even the deepest, most unsettling dark powers in light.

It is certainly the most difficult of my practices to open the news, witness the latest onslaught of autocratic insanity and somehow integrate that into the light of the Only Being, recognizing it as somehow still a part of that Unity.

As Richard Rohr notes, “I suppose there is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is what I mean by the ‘integration of the negative.'”

The challenge for me, (and maybe you, dear reader will relate) is to, in some mysterious and often elusive way, remember there is no them and us. No separation from even the most distressing and disgusting manifestations of dark powers. These too must be accepted and surrendered to.

To quote Mirabai Starr, “I am continually challenged to stop arguing with reality and instead soften into what is. Over time, I learned to find beauty, meaning, and wholeness in the heart of reality. Unpredictable, ever-changing, humiliating, and humbling reality.”

The practice I suggest for us all, is to aspire to that source of strength and loving compassion. In meditation. deepen into a place of stillness, invoke and specifically pray for, the assistance and power of the ancestors.

Perhaps chant Alahho Akbar, which Sufi Ahmed Murshid Samuel Lewis taught means “Peace is Power.” Or hold another mantra of strength, courage and action on the breath.

From that place of grounded strength, imagine all those who are weilding those dark powers as surrounded in a brilliant white light.

There is little chance it will actually permeate their brittle, fear and greed induced armor and change their ways. But that is not our work or our goal.

It is for us to simply remember and let it go. And from that place of surrender to what is, to gather the strength and power from the benevolent ancestors; share it in our communities, and open our hearts to what we are called to do.

From that place, it has been my experience that the Divine will guide us to what service is ours and is needed in each moment.

So, set that intention. Invite and share guidance and assistance from your beloved community and ancestors. And remember with each breath to say thank you.

Alhamdulillah. All praise to the One.