Next!

So what now? We have so much technology... is that what is going to save us?

No.

It's getting to know each other more, releasing each other from our fears and pains and blocks... it's courageously looking at my relationship of 25 years and acknowledging "We've been working on this for years and we're still stagnant and it's just getting worse;" it's trusting that a higher Power is at work; it's realizing that I am free in a way I've never been; it's searching for and doing whatever it is I am uniquely here on the planet to do; it's encouraging you to do the same; it's seeing that we are all saints already and our fears hold us back from expressing that; it's unplugging from Facebook and taking a friend out to dinner--

We will be saved not because of technology but because we finally stop being driving by our fears and then hitch our souls to our dreams.

Back into Foreclosure

I was very depleted after five years of so much effort to manifest the Home of the Future. I took a break. Last week I decided to come off break. I made a list of pros and cons regarding making the effort to keep this project going in this incarnation, and what actions I would need to take in order to sustain it.

The pros outnumber and outweigh the cons.

As if to reward me for pulling my head out of my navel, I got a Notice of Trustee Sale taped to my front door yesterday. The timeline is super short; December 13th. I'll call the bank and see what's up.

I'm in a pretty good mood about it. I really feel God's love and support. The "right" thing is going to be the thing that happens. The right thing is already happening. I'm feeling His presence within me. With Him as my center, my heart, my shelter, my shield, whatever happens out in the world cannot undo me.

The Saga of the Hot Water Heater.

Xena and Caitlan bought a water heater and brought it home in the tiny car. Gently. I heard all about shopping at Home Depot in high heels. Caitlan wondered, "Why was everyone calling me 'Dorothy?'"

A couple days later while unboxing it I saw the bottom was crumpled, as though the unit had been dropped from a great height. It had been purchased on Caitlan's debit card, so I called her away from spending the day with her boyfriend. She brought him and his van. The box fit much better in that vehicle than in our Geo Metro.

At the store I explained it was damaged. "Not a problem. Go find a replacement and we'll swap it out." We could only find a different model. They didn't have a replacement; this damaged one was the only unit. They couldn't swap it, and I didn't want a different model.

"When will you get the next shipment?' I asked.

They checked. "We can't tell. But there is an identical model at our store down the freeway. Here, let's credit you back this purchase." We drove to the other store, picked out the unit, talked our way into the same great price that Xena had gotten on the first water heater, and went to pay for it. The card got declined, since it takes 24 hours for the reimbursement to process. "Don't you have another way to pay for it?" Not then we didn't!

I dropped into a really crummy mood, but I made sure the kids knew I was very grateful for their help.

More time passed, without hot water in the kitchen.

Our tax refund came in. I rented a truck, drove to the hardware store (no project is complete until I've been at least three times) and bought the unit. I couldn't get them to give me the $90 discount that Xena and Caitlan had managed. On the same excursion I picked up a mattress and box spring from my friend Nika. "How's it going?" she asked.

"Well, I have a funny feeling about the water heater I'm installing tomorrow," I confessed.

The next day, rusted-solid pipe joints yielded to WD-40 and stern words from Xena. We got the old heater out and immediately drove it over to the scrap metal yard and then returned the truck. All day long my wonderful neighbors kept offering to help. "Is it time yet? Do you need help?" The project was so linear that I didn't, but it felt great knowing that if I needed something they would be there for me. I got the new unit in position. I went to hook up the gas and realized I'd left the connector in the other water heater. I drove back to the scrap yard and unscrewed it.

Back home, the cold water pipe (with the shut-off valve) couldn't quite align with the parts I had. I went back to Home Depot and got a longer flexible copper connector. There on the warehouse floor was the damaged unit I'd returned, with the box very definitely the worse for wear! They had also received new identical models! Oh, well.

Back home, everything all connected, I pressurized the system. A few minor leaks appeared. A quarter turn here and there and the pipes seated nicely.

I read the lighting instructions. Cool! It's got a piezo-electric igniter! I fired it up. Nothing. "Continue clicking the igniter until the pilot lights. Do not attempt to light by hand." Fine.

Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.

Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

"OH FOR PETE'S SAKE! XENA!" I roared. "IT'S YOUR TURN!"

"What's wrong?"

"THE DAMN THING WON'T LIGHT AND I NEED YOU TO TAKE OVER RIGHT NOW!"

In an extremely reasonable voice she asked, "Isn't there a phone number you can call?"

But I was beyond reasonability. "PROBABLY, BUT IT'S UP TO YOU NOW. I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!" I stormed away.

God bless her, she let me go. Betsy asked what was up. I felt so much better now that I wasn't in the same room as the water heater. "Oh, I've installed it and it won't light. So I've asked Xena to take over."

"That's pretty great, that she is doing that. Once, not too long ago, it would have been your job and she'd have told you, 'Just march yourself right back down there and take care of it!'"

I've got to agree, this was much better. I'd have burst an aorta if I'd been unable to hand off the project at that moment.

Xena and Nicholas fussed with it for a while and couldn't get it to light either. Xena came back upstairs and I went down to hang out with Nicholas as I was feeling much better. He and I fiddled with it for a few minutes, and it lit!

As far as I know, he and I didn't do anything unique or different. But it lit. Random elements at play, as they have been for some time, in my life and home and family.

So now we have hot water in the back half of the house again. There's been something of a rush on washing dishes. "Oh, it's so nice to wash dishes in warm water!" everyone keeps saying. I predict the novelty will wear off before i even finish typing this post, but it's fun to hear people excited to wash dishes instead of dragging themselves to do it.

A final footnote: Xena has found that the next model larger is now $10 cheaper.

Frontlines of Permaculture

This is not the frontline I want to be on.

I do not want to live where gunmen kill, and fleeing authorities, slam through busy intersections killing more people.

I do not want to hear sirens passing, heralding another violent tragedy.

I do not want a helicopter bristling machine guns circling a point just a few blocks from my home, pounding away the peace of twilight with its thwop-thwop-thwop and pushing back the night with its searchlight.

I want to live at the frontline of unmaking the system that has institutionalized classism, ableism, sexism, globalism, and whatever "ism" stands in the way of people treating each other humanely. I want to live at the frontline of spreading seeds of future greatness, of future opportunity, of future abundance. I do not want to live at the frontline of this urban violence.

And yet, I do live here.

People are dying by violence in Pakistan, in Gaza, in Darfur, in Sri Lanka... and in Berkeley and Oakland. Caitlan notes the irony of requiring an illiterate parolee to fill out and mail a postcard to the parole officer who tracks addresses; Betsy notes the lack of choices available to low-wage earning parents with children enrolled in public schools that are failing under the "No Child Left Behind" program; my black neighbor struggles to distance himself from the black thug that sometimes roams our street, to create for himself a future where "black" does not equal "criminal."

In permaculture, there is no away. You cannot throw trash away, because the whole world is your backyard. I submit that in urban permaculture, we are all on the frontline. There is no place you can "escape" to, because the problems are all around us. The problems belong to all of us.

We've made our street safer, through diligence and connecting with neighbors who value working together, through parties and food and sitting in each other's yards. Prejudice is not vanquished, but there is grace and tolerance here. We have yet to take on a larger task, such as ensuring children in the area get access to fresh produce, or that parents in the area have energy left to attend parent's night at school after an emotionally wearying workday. Were I to live in a place removed from violence, would I be safer? Or simply less at risk? What use is my mortal life if I've forsaken the task and destiny of my immortal soul? Am I allowed to risk my children? What choice does a parent in a refugee camp have? What choice do I have? What is my choice?

I'll choose to see that I am at the frontline. Of Oakland violence. Of Sri Lankan violence. There is no away. There is no shirking from choosing to help. This permaculture, intentional community, food justice and opportunity for all demonstration project that I am part of, is what I am doing and will continue to do. It's small. It's slow. But it is change.

Small. Slow.

Change.

Relieved and Inspired

Aaron finished setting up the video equipment in plenty of time for our guests to watch our new president's inaugural address. About 40 or so people came; friends, family, neighbors and neighbor's family. We laughed, we cried, we cheered. We caught our breath when Obama made pointed referrals to the previous administration's leadership's failures, and shouted agreement when he acknowledged the patriotism and dedication of the rank and file who served their fellow Americans even while under the burden of Bush/Cheney.

We served Martinelli's and champagne, and some light snacks. Of course the cups are compostable and the snacks made by hand. The amphitheater under the willow hummed with hope.

After, a black woman spoke first. "I am so glad to be here. I'd been having a horrible day, and now it's a wonderful day. And although Barack Obama is a black man, I don't think we really see him that way. We see him as a leader who will listen to us. And like he says, running the country is up to all of us. We've got to do the work. But I feel like now there is the opportunity for anyone to have a job if they want one. I feel like we can encourage our children to stay in school, and it's our job to help the schools and the teachers so our children can grow up to be who they want to be."

We all echoed these sentiments. It always has been up to us to do the work. It's been disheartening to see corrupt men like Dick Cheney siphon the cream of our efforts into his friends' hands and even into his own. I feel like the Bush adminstration picked too much fruit and gorged themselves on it, failing to tend the garden of our country, and the garden responded by drying up.

Now we hope we will see an era in which by common effort, all people will prosper.

Frosty Belongs Outside

The big pay-off of getting the forced air heat re-routed? Comfort inside when it's very chilly outside. Last night, open water in the backyard froze to a depth of 1/8th inch. I'm not asking for and I don't expect empathy from anyone whose power got knocked out last week from an ice storm.

This is just me, rejoicing about realizing a goal held for several years. Living in Sandra's drafty old Victorian in Alameda we had very few choices about how to manage the heat. She had a furnace that was big enough, but the layout of the house meant all the heat whooshed right up two flights of stairs past the door to the attic and out. Moving to this house resulted in using electric heaters for two winters. That's about the most expensive use of electricity available to a consumer. I'd laid plans for how to solve the distribution of warm air two years ago, but it took until this past fall before we had the resources to do the project.

I am so grateful to finally, finally be comfortable in the house when it's freezing outside. This reward of home ownership is precious to me. I delight in frosty mornings, and my joy is even stronger now that there isn't an emotional hill to climb to get there.

Off With Its Head?

We talked about the non-laying hens at dinner, and their imminent future as soup.

"Has anyone here killed anything larger than a rodent?"

"Not me." "Nope." "I had my cat put to sleep."

"I killed a snake once."

"How do you kill a chicken?"

"You swing it by its head."

"I did that once. I was a kid. All the drown-ups were drunk, and they thought it would be funny."

"You hang them by their feet and slit their throat and drain the blood out."

"You stick it in a cone and chop off its head."

"What if you miss?"

"You could just crush the head. That would do it."

"We could get them stoned first."

There were jokes made, at the chickens' expense. The next morning I realized that if I'm going to be part of killing a chicken or other animal, I need there to be a ritual honoring the gift the animal is giving us. When it really is time to make chicken soup, I'll be involved in the slaughter in some sort of shamanic capacity.

The Newly Disenfranchised

I borrowed this graph from the BBC. Exit polls showed that the 25% of the US citizenry that identifies as White Evangelical Christians voted roughly 3::1 for Palin as V.P.

Folks in the LGBT, body-modified, other-than Evangelical faith, or otherwise new-mainstream communities, I have a message for you:

Minister to these lost souls.

Many of them are terrified of you. They don't know that you are their children's teachers, that you are the police officer who pulled them over for running that red light, or that you took their order last night at the restaurant. Okay, perhaps they knew their server was... different from them. But the rest of the New Mainstream hides in plain sight.

I wonder how many Evangelical Californians turned up to vote? Are Palin supporters also people who would vote for inequality under the law? Would they ban same-sex marriage? I would think so. Perhaps California Palin supporters provided enough of a tip to defeat Prop 8.

New Mainstream, we're familiar with the failure of bullying someone into our viewpoint. It didn't work on us, did it? So now take a page from what we know how to do, and lovingly use your powers of non-violent communication to speak with the New Disenfranchised. Hear their concerns. Whatever your connection to the ineffable says to do, whether it's pray, bless, hold, or witness, help them explore their discomfort and release their fears.

Believe it or don't, we need them and their opinions in order to continue to build this great nation. Don't be afraid of them any longer. Get out there and make them your friends. Show them how majority rule doesn't mean squashing the other people's hopes and dreams.

Root Canal Release

Ah, the marvels of tooth care.

More than a dozen years ago, my dentist sold his practice and the new guy didn't do such a great job. He used the new (at the time) resin fillings, and they really weren't very good yet (my amalgam fillings are thirty+ years old and doing fine). The resin fillings broke down, decay set in, and I've just completed a pair of root canals.

Yippee.

I worked hard to not need those root canals; I got the fillings replaced (but not in time), I did a bunch of visualization (yet I could feel the Universe sending me the "No, you've got to go to the endodontist" message), I took Chinese herbs and had acupuncture (which probably helped keep the infection down). All of these alternate treatment modes did help postpone the inevitable, and if I wanted to lose my teeth they were fine therapies.

I've been in chronic pain since... oh, perhaps July.

I've got the new job, I've got my design business ramped back down to hobby status, I've initiated construction projects around the home, and it just feels good to take care of this problem. Like most people, having someone else root around in my mouth is about the last thing on my list of how I want to spend time (I suppose open-mouth kissing is an entirely different category, since I do want more of that).

I explored my hesitation about the procedure and realized it was the lack of control of my circumstance that made me uncomfortable. So I re-cast the experience, choosing to think of the endodontist as an extension of me. I focussed on the idea that I hired him, I delegated this care to him, that I chose this course of action. Do I have time and inclination to learn to do this myself? Ha! DIY dentistry is not on my horizon. Would I rather have someone with thousands of successes at work deep in my molars? Absolutely.

I did such a good job of becoming less fearful and more trusting that I even fell asleep in the chair for a little while.

He told me I'm likely to have another couple of days with significantly more pain, but then I should be pain free. Ahhh, that will be nice. It's been interesting being my positive, outgoing, inspirational self while also holding the pain at bay.

Cap'n Trade

I am so thankful for my life experiences. My childhood and the examples my parents set for me, my ever-evolving relationship with my wife and children, my prayer life, yoga and mediation, coaching, chiropractic, births, deaths, disruptive events... as I embrace these, I become gentler, humbler, wiser, more tuned to God's will for me, more tuned to a consistent and verifiable worldview.

Tim recently commented that capping wages at "something outrageous, say $80,000 per year" would be a good thing. Steve commented that deadbeats dads are a primary cause of economic woe and the decay of our social structure. To my way of thinking, God's love for us, the evidence of His concern for us, His wishes for our lives to be rich and full, stands in often mute testimony to the fallacious nature of those ideas.

For those of my readers who struggle with an idea of a big guy in a long white beard pulling strings, rest assured that's not what I'm talking about. Consider the Universe began in an instant and created vast energy and abundance from nothing, and that 13 billion years later this energy is scarcely begun in its work; we are part of it, imbued with it, and this driving force of abundance is built into every bit of us. So think of that when I use the words God's Spirit or Mind or Will.

Going against the Will of God is a sin. He wants to shower us with His Divine Grace, Abundance, and Sufficiency (recall Jesus' words about toil and the lilies of the field, among other biblical references concerning God as our abundant provider). Therefore, to limit what we will accept from God is a sin. If God blesses us with vast income, that's great! The downfall then becomes if we curtail others' opportunities, in order to preserve our abundance. Humans love the temporary to become permanent, and we often lose sight of how our choices decay into expediency in order to preserve our status quo. There is no sin in making money. Rather, there is much grace in making money in a way that increases the opportunities for other people to live well, and grow in grace themselves.

Steve's views about fatherhood are informed by a sincere belief that the nuclear family is the best kind of family. I got to go to a party this Sunday celebrating an unmarried white woman's adoption of a black baby. Her extended, "by choice," family attended: people she has surrounded herself with to substitute for her abusive birth family. I saw more love and care and Spirit of God shared and displayed among this assembled group of athiests, trans-genders, alternatively oriented, multi-classed family than sometimes I see when I go to Church. Love is compounded in its sharing.

Again, God's support for us is infinite; whether it's income or love for a child, limiting Divine Abundance is selfish, sinful, antagonistic, contrary, and non-harmonious. When we use our free will to align our lives with generosity and abundance, instead of "rightness" and forced redistribution of wealth, we are living truly sustainably.

The Right Tool for the Job

I find myself, not jealous, but envious of other people's successes. I don't want them and their lives to be diminished in any way, but I do want what I see to be added to my days. I go to Mass alone, and see the families gathered. I go to the market, and I see husbands and wives, parents and children, friends, shopping together. I end up feeling: God, where do I misstep? Am I not strong enough, not right enough for Your work?

I feel like a slotted screwdriver in God's hand, trying to drive a phillips head screw, or worse, trying to find purchase on a hex-head bolt.

Then Heaven sends me messages to stop seeing with human eyes. My strength is an illusion; it is God's strength that flows in me. I have only weakness to offer. When some good thing happens and I am a part of it, it's me as tool, God as do-er.

I broke a 2kg sledge yesterday busting concrete to no effect-- other than breaking the sledge. I went and bought a bigger 4kg sledge and made short work of the concrete. Hours I had spent with the tiny tool, and minutes with the large one. I often feel like a tiny tool in God's hands. I often get very down about that. I want to be one of His big tools. Would I remember to always give the glory back to Him? In my deepest heart, I would rather be a tiny tool that did its job really well and knew that the strength and action came from above, than a powerful tool that mistakenly assigned its success to its own self.

God, if you are going to give me hard things to do, then please, please support me and don't withhold Your strength, either.

On Being "Right."

Feudalism. Apartheid. Slavery. Eminent Domain. Crusade. Jihad. Concubines. Eye-for-an-eye. Flat Earth.

I'm fascinated that throughout history, ideas and actions that everyone agreed were "right," as in, ethical, moral, and valuable, have passed as humans grow in maturity and understanding. My recent post of a form letter for those with the courage and insight to realize that yet another idea has passed created a bunch of conversation off in a direction I wasn't fully prepared for. There is nothing abusive in that letter. It diminishes no one. It's full of positive, supportive language.

So why did it create a little tempest?

I think it's because I dared to challenge that belief in what is "right." I held up a mirror that apparently shines a light close to where people hold their religious fervor. I challenged people to look outside the controlled information outlet, and instead I got beliefs assigned back to me, extraneous data points, and strawman arguments (one of Rush Limbaugh's favorite techniques).

Harken to this: I work in the manipulation industry. Marketing is all about persuading people that they are inferior in some way, and then selling them a product to (temporarily) cure their inferiority. I am an expert in this. A large part of my affluenza recovery has been to re-learn how to use this power for good, not ill.

Because I am immune to this manipulation, I can see clearly the difference between critical analysis and persuasive discourse. Among the scientists of IPCC, NASA, NOAA, and other nations in the world, there is an overwhelming agreement that human beings are altering the climate in a way that negatively impacts our future. That's a fact: nearly all climate scientists agree we are heating up the planet.

Can you find other scientists who say it's bunk? Of course! Science isn't (or shouldn't be) dogmatic. One of the most prominent of these skeptics is a geologist (not an atmospheric scientist) with a career as an oil finder! So, is he biased? Maybe. Moreover, his own industry can't agree on whether oil is biogenic or primordial.

Bringing up 7000 ppm CO2, at a time of the planet's history that didn't include animal life, is manipulative. Can we at least constrain the conversation to the quest for keeping the planet habitable for people? Can we also not assume that I'm an Al Gore apostle? So maybe he was lucky enough to see the CO2 curve 50 years ago and clever enough to understand what it meant. But I absolutely detest his "let's shop our way out of this mess" policies, as well as his alarmist, manipulative messaging. Remember, I can see through this stuff. Assigning a point of view to me and then arguing against that is manipulative.

As for sticking to my noble efforts, where do you suppose I get the drive to keep doing these hard things? It's from the knowledge that the way we are living is unsustainable, and we are headed for a massive collapse. I sincerely believe that the questions I am asking, the tools I am uncovering, are key to ensuring the collapse is soft rather than hard. To do otherwise would be to be an accomplice to the injustices that are occurring around the world, and will occur with greater frequency as water shifts and oil becomes scarce. How can I sit in God's presence, think myself a Christian, if I'm not using every talent and skill God gave me to help build a future that is equitable for everyone? That has true, equal opportunity, regardless of race, class, gender, parentage, or nationality?

And finally, here is the big secret of global climate change: it's the greatest job opportunity in the history of human civilization. Whether it's real or not, whether rising sea levels will flood the Oval Office or not, is nearly immaterial! People spend money on what excites them, on what has a "charge," whether it has a benefit or not. The best example of this is the movie industry; what do they produce? Can you eat it? Shelter yourself with it? What we consume from them is diversion, "entertainment," yet we give them billions of dollars annually. How much more worthwhile is spending money on true security? On people's well being?

Don't try to tell me that human induced global climate change is bunk. It's the most exciting work project our species has ever faced. There's a ton of money to be made saving our behinds. God wants us to work together on this. So let's get to it.

Intimacy

Is a shared "battlefield" experience the best way to build intimacy? I wanted a stronger, more intimate relationship with God, and so I took on the biggest project I could imagine. I know how to build intimacy through intense, shared experience: Ever since he dragged my ass out of the line of fire, I'd do anything for the Sarge. Not likely to encounter God on the battlefield, I waded into the mire that was my out-of-control, environmentally abusive, family-destroying life.

God has obliged, with many many stressful, harrowing experiences for me to share with Him. Isn't He good to us? I feel so much closer to Him.

I do feel closer to Him. I drive my bumper car around at breakneck speed, crashing into people and situations so I have urgency and even terror to my meditations. I am afraid of not living in a field of bumper cars, because I do not want to grow apart again, even while tiring of the constantly elevated cortisol in my brain. Where's the assumption that keeps me cornered?

Ah: my life as a bumper car.

Can I climb out? Can I release this? Can I foster intimacy through tenderness instead of crashing?

Start the day right

Waking up today, I prayed for strength. Seconds later, new resolve, fresh energy, peaceful energy coursed through my every cell.

Thank you.

Permaculture Tour

Saturday, I toured the properties of two of the giants in the permaculture world. James Stark and Penny Livingston Stark brought these ideas over from Australia and have been working their land in the Marin Headlands and training teachers since the 1980s. All through my classes, and as I visit other permaculture sites, everyone I meet who is doing this work speaks reverently of their time with Penny. I have to admit, I was a bit jealous. Would I ever catch up with this internationally renowned teacher?

That's Penny in the photo above, standing over the fire pit. I'm thrilled to have met her, and to listen to her. I've met other teachers like her, who treat knowledge not as a possession, but as an entity unto itself, and it is their privilege to share it with us. I know her deeper message of celebrating all the good work people everywhere are doing got into me, because:

Sunday night at church, our newly formed "Green Team" (organized entirely without my involvement) announced "Bike to Church Day." Caitlan turned to me and whispered, "Oh, I'm sorry Mister Man, you're not extreme anymore."

"Caitlan," I whispered back, "that's a good thing. The world won't get saved if I'm the only one doing the saving."

Eco-sainthood

I've got a thick skin.

Or a thick head.

Or both.

When a friend starts teasing me about my eco-sainthood and wondering if she's worthy of my friendship because she buys new stuff and doesn't scrounge around finding used carpet or empty 55 gallon drums, I have to wonder if I'm sending the wrong message through this blog.

Look, the thing is, we all start wherever we start. I happen to be in the "What can I re-use and save from the landfill" place. I'm also in the "How do I make more money" place. I'm also in the "Can I discover and develop 'green-collar' jobs" place. I'm in the "How do I ease up, pull over, enjoy the ride, and build for a future" place.

If you're in the "I buy organic local food" place, that's great! If you're in the "I don't own a car" pplace, that's great too! Or the "I own my house and get to make choices about pesticide use" place, or "I purchase carbon offsets" or "I volunteer at an afternoon youth program" or "I collect food for meals for shut-ins" or "I write my congressional representative about the issues I care about" places, that's great!

Welcome to the sustainability revolution. Equitopia is being fashioned right now, by all of us.

Feel the power and change the sign

On the way to an anxiety attack, some wiser portion of me mused, "It's interesting that the intensity of this feels so similar to the intensity of profound joy."

A sudden flash in my mind's eye, of the Philosopher's Stone overlaying my heart, prompted me to see myself as the vehicle of transmutation, capable of turning lead into gold, or anxiety into joy. The power of the feeling is, quite frankly, the same. The rush of self-made chemicals into the blood are certainly similar.

Can I channel the energy of anxiety, use this force, and harmonize with the events in my day? Can I feel this energy coming into me as joy?

I feel the energy, in my heart, changing as I seek to weld my will to what IS. I burn away my fears and false expectations, and to come to a deep acceptance of the arc of my life. I notice the energy is simply energy, and the feeling of it as pain or pleasure is my choice.

I'm dancing in the river of Life, trying to accomplish an incredibly hard task, and I get to choose that this is fun. That's pretty sweet.