Today is April 1. Today I start a new Practice of Presence. This month’s practice is BE.
Last night, as I was praying about the world — about the fear and hope I feel all around me in seemingly equal measure, about the grief people are feeling along with the belief that this is a real opportunity for us to make some fundamental changes — this thought came through both firmly and calmly: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Suddenly, I felt completely calm. Relieved. I understood.
For millennia, we humans have believed that we could run roughshod over our planet and one another without any consequences.
Every single thing we do has a consequence — whether we see it or not. If the flutter of a butterfly wing can cause a typhoon halfway around the world, what are the consequences of war, genocide, overconsumption, greed, power grabbing? Well, I think we all know that answer. We just haven’t wanted to look.. But now our whole world is watching a movie played out on a global iMax screen about the effects of all our actions. And suddenly we’re realizing that we are reaping what we and all our ancestors have sown.
So how on earth could that scenario bring me such relief? That didn’t.
This did: Right here, right now — the choices that each of us make TODAY have the capacity to change everything.
This is a time of reckoning. An opportunity for human beings to pay our debts. To right the ledgers. To make thing right. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
That’s why this month’s practice is so powerful. Because who and how each of us chooses to BE right now will play itself out five minutes, five days, five weeks, five months, five years, five decades, five centuries from now.
SO: Who and how are we going to choose to BE?
This month each and every day I am going to practice BEING something and someone I hope will benefit the world.
Funnily enough, this practice comes during my birth month. Although I no longer celebrate my birthday and haven’t in ages, I am going to celebrate this birth. B is for the Birth not only of a new me, but of a new US! A new US that can save our world.
So please join me in this re-Birth of a new humanity as we re-learn how to be our best and truest selves. The selves created and held always in Love. The selves who are never separate from Love and therefore can only love one another whole.
Today’s practice is BE STILL.
We have all been running around this planet like chickens with our heads cut off at the same time as we have been lopping other chickens’ heads off. That’s a bit gruesome, I suppose. But it’s not far from the Truth.
Today let’s practice being STILL.
To be still is to practice deep silence and calm.
Let’s practice being still when we’re anxious. Still when we’re afraid. Still when we feel that doing is the only thing that will distract us. Still when we want to be distracted. Still when we’re irritated. Still when we’re antsy. Still when we wish this was all over. Still when we can’t imagine how we can keep going. Still when we’re grieving. AND let’s practice being still when we’re elated and hopeful and healing and grateful and walking and running and waking up and going to sleep and eating and crying and laughing and talking.
Why? Because to learn to be still is to understand that deep within each of us is a Wellspring of Love from which all calm, grace, peace, confidence, hope, healing, and love is born and manifests. It is our disconnection from this Wellspring that has seemingly disconnected us from one another and our world. It is what has sent us off on wild goose chases and hunting for Holy Grails. It is what has caused us to believe that war is necessary and our neighbor could ever be our enemy.
So to practice being STILL is to reconnect with the Love that will heal.
Each day I will end with a quote to help your practice. This is from a letter by author D.H. Lawrence to a soldier during World War I (one of the most devastating wars our planet has ever seen during which 25% of the male population of the UK and Europe was killed — and more returned home unable to every function again.) Lawrence wrote:
There are so many knocked down as you are. But do try and be happier: try and trust in love: there is love still in life, and it will prevail. Don’t dream of going back to the front. You must never go back. When you are better, go and stay with someone who is fond of you, and learn to be still. Only learn to be still, and at peace with yourself. Give yourself up to peace, and trust in the power of love. There is so much hate and destruction and disintegration: let it all go, you do not belong to it anymore. You now belong to the creative, constructive, loving side of life: believe in this, and get well, to be happy. Learn to be still and trust yourself to the unseen loving forces of life: they are there.
LEARN TO BE STILL AND TRUST YOURSELF TO THE UNSEEN LOVING FORCES OF LIFE: THEY ARE THERE.