Tag: peace

Continuing the Conversation with Linda & José about Community Engagement

Continuing the Conversation with Linda & José about Community Engagement

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As we continue toward the horizon trying to discover our Self with every step forward, we begin to realize how interconnected we are to one another. My continuing conversations with Linda Maxwell and José Quintanar represent this path forward. We are learning from one another how to make sense of a world in which there exists much hatred, violence, chaos, and confusion.

In this discussion, Linda and José talk about community-engaged work through a humanizing lens. I am learning much from them including what it means to live a life of service and to be in the moment as we interact with other people. I am learning that each person with whom I interact is someone to learn from, even if the experience seems and feels negative. There is ALWAYS something to learn. Sometimes the knowledge that we gain is from contrast – experiencing that which we DO NOT want. We understand better who we are when we come across others who embody traits that do not resonate with who we are or want to be.

Linda and José teach us from the ground up. This means that they are interested in PEOPLE not the politics, ideals, or belief systems that may surround a person within a specific context. The ground up is actively listening to a person to understand how to reach that individual’s heart. That is where authentic communication begins. That is where love for one self and for the other reigns.

We live on the edge of spiraling into LOVE for one another or falling into our deepest darkest fears of separation. This fear is a frightening place of victimhood, oppression, and distain for our brothers and sisters. Linda and José constantly remind us to center ourselves and to seek LOVE, even if love seems the most improbable solution or outcome.

Peace, strength, and courage, everyone.

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Resonating with the Land

Resonating with the Land

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The last few days have been full of awareness for me. As I type, I am conscious of the Sangre de Cristo mountains around me, the fragrant smells of the earth after a brief southwestern rain, and the hint of buzzing in my head as my body attempts to acclimate to the Taos altitude which is almost at 7,000 feet.

I have always loved and have been drawn to the Southwest. It is a landscape that I resonate with. It is a landscape that, when I am in other parts of the country, I meditate upon. It calms me down, grounds me.

A few months ago, I returned to the Southwest for the first time in eight years. Almost immediately I felt my chakra system align, particularly my root chakra. It was easier to think clearly and to feel my mind/heart/body connection. I didn’t have to work at grounding myself, like the way I have to living in the Midwest or when I visit other parts of the country or world. It was as if there was a weight anchoring me deeply into the earth. This weight was like a mother’s warm hand on my back rather than a heavy, uncomfortable pressure pushing me down.

I feel the same soft, steady warmness inside of my body stepping off the plane into New Mexico. It is a combination of the desert mountains and dryness of air, but it’s also much more. It is the Land (capital ‘L’) who is the personification of an intense motherly energy – sharp and stern – as well as deeply nurturing. The desert Land is not comforting to everyone. She recognizes those who will always be visitors from those who carry her essence in their hearts. She can be harsh and, at first glance, desolate and uninviting. But for those who take the time to meet and get to know her, She is penetrating beauty gifting our eyes with immense heights and incredible depths. She is the profound canyon and the most treacherously magnificent peak. She is vastness and darkness. She is blinding light and heat. She gifts those who deeply appreciate Her by presenting us with glorious skies, brilliant stars, and Her body – which is the sienna, cinnamon-colored land on which we stand, build upon, and explore.

For me, the desert reflects my ideal inner landscape. In my core, when I am most at peace, there is an expansiveness that is not unlike the desert’s vastness. It goes beyond my consciousness and into the land of dreams. It is a liminal space between my perception and the unconscious. It is both uncomfortable in its limitlessness and completely freeing.

I am constantly trying to find the perfect equilibrium in this liminal space. Like a dial on an AM/FM radio, I have to carefully place all my attention on tuning it just enough to hear what is coming through. ‘Tuning in’ is another way to describe the conscious act of finding the frequency to which I want to resonate. The Southwest and the desert, in general, is a physical outward manifestation of a frequency that completely jives with my spiritual make up and composition. It is a representation of the inner spirit-scape I seek.

This awareness of the Land I am currently immersing myself in is a reminder to me that WHO I AM at the soul level needs vastness, quietness, and space to achieve inner equilibrium. This harmony is more easily accessible when an external representation of what I want to strive for and manifest within is right before my eyes. The test will be if I can achieve this grounded, peaceful feeling that I am experiencing so strongly now when I go back home. The test is knowing, in my heart, that this spirit-scape already exists within. I don’t need to travel thousands of miles to find it.

With love,

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Cracking the Shell

Cracking the Shell

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It wasn’t until the last few days that I felt deeply in my bones that something had shifted for me. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was at first. It was like driving from Tucson to California in the middle of the night and reaching Quartzite at the break of dawn to catch a luminous edge, a glowing orange, peering slightly above the horizon. The feeling at the sight of the first emergence of light over the dusty mountains on a lonely highway was sheer awe. Driving for hours with the road visible only by headlights and the dim sheen of a crescent moon and desert stars, the immensity of deep relief gazing upon the new morning stunned. A rush of energy pulsed through my nerve-endings.  Inky skies no longer blended with black landscapes. A sudden awareness of detail, of sharp contrast, brought clarity to the road. The sun’s fiery threads weaving through the mountains illuminated the path to my final destination.

This week I saw the break of dawn in my own life. I was unaware until the light flooded in that I had been submerged in the dark depths of my own shell, a protective layer of subconscious that kept me suspended in stasis. I wasn’t fully living. Before the Diagnosis, before the Cancer, there was fear. I had married, divorced, and married again. The fear was palpable. Did marriage guarantee monogamy, fealty, unconditional love? My experience said no. My expectations of love set me up for failure, for I had bought into the myth that another person could complete my life, set me free, liberate my soul, and fulfill my longings. I believed in soulmates and twin flames. I believed in complete synergy with another human being who would complement and unify all my parts.

I sought so furiously, desperately, for this union outside of myself. I believed that happiness and true love meant finding that perfectly amazing human being to whom I was fated to be and live with throughout this physical existence and beyond. Everything hinged on me finding this person. So, I searched and searched.

What has taken most of this life to learn is that the person I have been looking for so feverishly is my own Self. This search is the luminous edge. It is the cracked shell. But now it has broken open, the cracks are wide.  No prayer of re-assemblage.

The Hopi have said, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” In the most profound manner, I have begun to embody this belief. Like an egg, my shell has been cracked again and again until, finally, the Truth of who I am in relation to this life has spilled out. It has been messy, unpleasant. There is no containment. I am who I am. We are who we are. And the internal knowingness that only we can fulfill our intrepidly wild and gorgeous dreams is one of the most powerful truths I have ever encountered. It’s like driving in the dark without headlights and reaching the cliff’s edge. My inner guidance knowing to slam on the breaks as I wait for the Sun’s first rays.

With much love,

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Disclaimer: For those who may be tempted to read into this reflection, please know that all is well at home – with/in and with/out. There is a sense of peace and deep love where before there was sometimes doubt, within and without.

Peace, love, and understanding: The real deal in action (Part 1 of 4)

Peace, love, and understanding: The real deal in action (Part 1 of 4)

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December 3, 2017

Yesterday I had the enormous honor to engage in a second conversation with long-time community activists, Linda Maxwell and José Quintanar. We spoke for over an hour about ways in which to embody and enact lovingness, peaceful action, and compassionate understanding with youth in educational settings.

What I love about these discussions are Linda’s and José’s commitment and passion for living authentically; that is, being conscious of being in alignment with who they are, what they say, and what they do. I am also appreciative of their long-term dedication to social justice and discovering meaning in every interaction they have with historically minoritized and marginalized youth.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to Linda and José’s lived experiences. 

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