Leaning In: A Life Surrounded by... Life.






Each and every day I think/hope/pray that we will be back to "normal" soon and that place within that seems like it is filled with anxiety, concern, and loneliness will recede once and for all. . . .I want to say that it is getting easier/better or that this "new normal," in this moment, is going to evolve into something life-changing/seminal. I want to say and believe this, but like the image above I feel like we need to lean dangerously into the growth zone, that place of uncertainty that wants us to learn something from all of this messiness of life. . . . If there is a lesson from all of this, what is it?  Because I frankly need to believe that we are learning something. Everything is a bit better with that spoonful of sugar (or agave), right?

The comfort zone in this image looks incredibly cushy, kind of like flopping over on a workout ball. . . just laying there protecting our vulnerable underbelly with no ab-crunches insight. The growth zone, on the other hand, expects us to bend over backward stretching and compressing in ways that move us beyond the center, waiting for the bottom to drop out. But isn't this what our complacency requires? To be lifted out of comfort and to be challenged by the realities of this one precious life. . . .I think it is, but with this said, I also believe that we cannot expect to do this living into each moment stuff alone. We need to do this "work," (personally I do not like calling the stuff we do in life work), in a supportive community that knows us. Thus the "lean into it" commitment, engaging us beyond center—committed/alive enough to fall if need be is an important one. We have and do learn some of the best lessons by falling.

Lastly, I personally want to be affected by the vagaries of life. If one proceeds forward without being affected by all of this scariness, illness, drama, and death it feels like in some way the sanitation of it all is stealing these precious moments from us as well as the juiciness of the emotion that makes us truly human.


Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk-on your 
knees for a hundred miles
through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal 
of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and
I will tell you mine.

Mean while the world goes on. 

Meanwhile the sun and the clear
pebbles of the rain are moving
across the landscapes, over the 
prairies and the deep trees, the
mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in
the clean blue air, are heading home
again.

Whoever you are, no matter how
lonely, the world offers itself to
your imagination, calls to you
like the wild geese, harsh and
exciting--over and over announcing
your place in the family of
things.






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