By design, you are creative.

By design, you are, and always have been, whole.

By design, you are unique, yet One with everything in existence.

By design, you are Essence experiencing and expressing through a human body that has a gender.

By design, you are part of the Great Intelligence that creates and destroys, that moves through all of existence that is the creatrix and the created.

As concepts you know this, but do you know this as experience?

Do you trust the uniqueness and intelligence of your design as a creative being?

Do you have faith in your own raw, unmediated experience and expression?

When you trust in your creativity, and unbind your heart and body, a faith in your full expression emerges. Faith in this expression opens up a whole new world to you, a world in which you trust yourself to meet life as it comes to you. Give it a whirl!

An image that is burned in my mind is my daughter standing beside my mother’s casket. Her beautiful full belly was so close, a great-granddaughter and great-grandmother so close, but never to meet. To be a witness to this passing of generations has been as enlightening as anything I have ever experienced. To think the beauty of this reality is available to us everywhere at any time leaves me breathless.

What is Pangea Day?

According to Pangea.org:

“Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future. In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that — to help people see themselves in others — through the power of film.”

Sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked live. Programs will consist of film, speakers and uplifting music, and will be broadcast live through the many forms of technology available today: the Web, TV, Digital Movies and mobile phones.

Organizers will also facilitate activities around the world by connecting inspired viewers with numerous organizations that are already doing community building work.

Check out Pangea Day at: http://www.pangeaday.org

I received this quote recently and fell in love all over again with the world I live in.

The next morning, a sunny spring Sunday morning, I decided to take a walk in Tilden Park. It’s right across the street from our house, so I simply have to step outside and I am there. I took my new camera with me, my new/used D200 that I bought from my good friend Jenn Lee’s husband, Bring Ng (an amazing photographer if you are in the market for one). This was my first jaunt into Tilden with my camera and I could feel my excitement.

I hiked up into our favorite path, a loop that goes up towards Inspiration Point, and then back down hill until it reaches the creek and meanders along the water for some distance. As I hiked, I kept hearing this quote from Mary Oliver over and over in my head. “I walk in the world to love it.” As I walked, I could feel myself settle into the surrounding landscape, dropping down into the deep peace that was waiting there for me.

It was early in the morning, about 8:00, so there were still many pockets of cold air, especially in the shadiest spots, while just around the corner the sun would be blazing and a balmy breeze would blow across my face. In those balmy breezes, I could smell the fragrance of each mini-world I came across.

The sun was coming through the landscape, lighting up nooks and crannies I had never noticed before. I could feel a kinship with the world I was immersed in, feeling a kind of deep peaceful love that comes over me when I hike.

As I hiked up to the top of the trail, I came to my favorite spot, a bench that looks out over the tiny valley and out across to Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. My partner Jeff and I love to sit here in silence, enjoying everything that presents itself to us. The bench is dedicated to David and Irene McPhail. I remember to thank them for this place to sit and appreciate the surrounding beauty.

As I approached the bench this time, I noticed once again the plaque on the back. How perfect. On the plaque was the statement, “Lovers of this Place.” I didn’t miss the serendipitous tie-in with the quote from Mary Oliver, “I walk in the world to love it.”

So I sat down in silence and drank in the beauty of everything presenting itself to me in this rich moment. I wondered what it means to be a lover of this place, this world we live in. What does it mean to love the world, to be a lover of this place we call life and earth and community?

What is it to be fully sensuous, to rest in one’s awareness of everything presenting itself to be experienced? How difficult it can sometimes be to not push certain experiences away, while grabbing a hold of other better ones.

To be a lover of this place means to have a loving relationship with all of life, not making demands on the moment if it isn’t what pleases you. It doesn’t mean simply letting the injustices prevail, but rather loving the world open-heartedly so that you allow it to come to you, allow it to unfold before your eyes, ears and heart. It it then that we can be truly responsive and responsible to the world, to each other and to ourselves.

What does it mean to you to be a Lover of this Place?

Whenever I take the time to simply slow down and rest, I find that playful place inside me that seems to get little time in my day-to-day life. It’s one of the things I want to bring more fully into the day-to-day, that playful side that.

Yesterday, after deliciously sleeping in, we stopped by a little coffee/book house on the main street of Pacific Grove, Lighthouse Avenue. I was wearing my Kali Yantra , a silver necklace Jeff gave me to wear on my trip to India last year. As we entered the coffee house, two women caught my eye. They were deep in conversation, but something about them spoke to me. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I could feel a connection with them.

I purchased my tea, and as I walked away from the coffee bar, one of the women and I caught a shared glance and we smiled. She then spoke first and mentioned my necklace, noting that she was wearing a pair of earrings that matched. I went over to them and we began a conversation. She asked me the name of the Goddess that the yantra represented, and I responded by telling her of Kali: that Kali is the Goddess of creation and destruction, and that in images she is shown with a necklace of skulls around her neck, and that she is misunderstood. She isn’t about death, but about the death of the ego, of the beauty of people finding who and what they are. “Her perpetual dance of cosmic bliss plays out through the eons as the creation and dissolution of worlds within worlds. Yet God, in the feminine form of the Mother - as the Absolute made Immanent - is ready to shower Her love and affection on any who care to turn their gaze toward Her fiery heart.” (source)

As I spoke of this divine symbol of love, the other woman said something about how important this was for her to remember. She then began to cry sweet, soft tears that ran down her cheeks. She was beautiful in this moment of recognition of something deeply important for her. The beauty was in the flash of truth that she felt. Something spoke to her deep within. What exactly we said didn’t really matter. What I witnessed, and treasure, is the flash of knowing that can come to us at any second if we are open to what might meet us.

I had just written the prior post about the amazingness of women, and I once again thought of this idea, that there is such beauty, strength and pure love in women that is ripe for us to once again reclaim. This flash of recognition came to the three of us because we were open to each other and to discovering what it was that drew us to each other.

We shared a few more words about women and how we need to acknowledge the tears of truth in ourselves and in each other. And then I said goodbye. I thought of these two beautiful women all day, and felt such gratitude for what they shared and what I witnessed.