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Immediately I thought of a time I asked for a ride from Nashville, Tennessee to Atlanta, when I had been stranded. The two, young black men (one also stranded who had called a friend to drive him) looked at this older white woman, as if I was crazy, but consented. After an hour of silence, the passenger in front of me turned and asked, " you're not from here, are you? Upon hearing "no," he said, " I didn't think so. I couldn't imagine one white woman in all of Tennessee asking two black men for a ride." We began laughing a most exuberant, healing laugh. So much pain fueled that laugh but the joy and celebration of success gave more energy than the pain of racism. We knew only three people changed the world that day.

I smiled. I nodded. I said, "yes." Smiles and kindnesses save lives, daily. I want to remember to look people in the eye when I say "good morning" and to smile, and make someone laugh when I wear my silly octopus hat.

People who ridicule the idea of love as a solution or a way of life usually have not been given love, and are my incentive and lesson to love more. The greater the ridicule and disbelief, the more I need to and want to love.

I just moved into a community of twenty people, and thinking how practicing love, sustainability - sharing - and unity with people I can see and eat with - comm- une - "One- with" everyday is training and growing that I cannot do facing the whole world, racing from one stranger to another, one country to another, one institution to another. CommUnity slows me into seeing truth, love, peace and gratitude with each person, each meal, and each day. Slowing down is a spiritual practice, making love, one pointed attention, and selfless service possible.

I studied and practiced tai chi, which also includes something called "push hands." The focus is listening - with your body, your all, to feel them and their energy. The obvious and immediate insight is that one cannot do that without listening to the same thing within. We cannot know ourselves without others. Opponents are mirrors.

Al Anon sums this essay into one suggestion: " Don't just do something, sit there."

Such an apt description of the depression I used to fall into all my youth. Reminds me of a verse in the Tau te Ching about fear and hope being hollow, attached to ego/self: Whether we climb up the ladder or down, we are unsteady. We need both feet on the ground for stability.

Yes, I am only one thread among more threads than I can see or count. We each add our special design, our little twist. The irony is we cannot be unique without attaching to all the threads around us. Each of us contributes to the tapestry wrapping around others, none of us knowing the full design. My job is to simply be the best thread I can be, connecting to all around, before and after to fill what holes and gaps I can.

I and my life transformed when Death, total darkness, and the accompanying pain, physical and the grief for my soon to be motherless twins, turned me to choosing life. Suicidally depressed since 5, I fantasized about death, but only when the dark of actual death hovered all around me did I see the reality of the choice we have, hourly, to reach out to life or die. My world is no longer about black and white, but the dark revealing stars, and the light more beautiful when dancing with shadows.

This is exactly the medicine I need. I am facing a huge writing project that is not a huge project. It is my opportunity today to write from my heart and be prepared for an adventure, an inner journey, not any one outcome. I started writing about bells, and ended up with Herodotus. Thank you, Mary Oliver, for reminding me the future is none of my business, including the next sentence!

I began a journey to Germany on March second, but the journey, as almost always, was not the one I planned. After a beyond-imagination week, I have finally arrived home to my woods in N. Idaho. The glimpse of the unknown, unknowable was given me over and over the last few days. I was able to breathe, smile and keep moving. And everyone seemed beautiful. Almost everyone smiled and gave of themselves. The CDC screener in Dulles airport, with mask, gloves gave me my instructions and said, "I am giving you a gift. Everything is a gift." I am now quarantined in a room, but the universe is all here. I will breathe, smile and keep moving in love, the glimpse of the glue that holds us all.

The ink of interrelationship, the magical river called language, connecting us to each other, to things and to those who have been dead for centuries. Yet words are not as full as we can be and are. As both St. Augustine and the Buddha said, "They are just fingers pointing to the moon." Only I can experience the moon, but I am so grateful others and their words pointed me toward the light and away from the dark.

YES. Kudos to Kazu! Reminds me of Gandhi's simple formula. One is never alone fighting injustice. Truth is always a companion, and truth always wins (even if we don't see it in our life time). Truth and reality is that we are united.We, humans, cannot be fully human alone. We have to be in community or we die, spiritually and/or physically. Violence always separates, against the ruling law of nature. Non-violence or love unites. Union is the ultimate Great Reality.

 Ivan Illich, an exiled Russian in Mexico, would know what he is talking about.  He had to redefine "family" and "neighbor" in order to have a life in community instead of an exile of alienation.  Thank you for reminding me of one of my heros from my youth.  Indeed, Illich provoked new definitions, thinking and behvior in me, precisely, because he forced me to realize how connected I was to all of society and humanity, not just those who looked like me or lived/thought/assumed the same way.  Like Illich, my life and thinking expanded the more I met and befriended 'the other.'

 The master doesn't seek fulfillment.  Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and welcomes all things. - The Tau te Ching.   Practice, practice, practice - today I practice being in this day, again.  When I do, I live in the fullness of this eternal now,.... for one millisecond, but what joy!

 Slowly, in life I learned and am learning that everyone - every person - is a mirror. The person who seems most different from me I learn the most from, about me.  An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard.  Whenever I take time to listen and look past the differences, I always find more similarities.  Stories connect us human to human in order to see "WE" instead of "us" and "them."  Embrace diversity to achieve unity.

Yesterday, I was telling someone of a great gift given me.  Many years ago, a "pause button" popped in my head.  When someone says or does something ridiculous, abusive, crazy and self serving, instead of reacting, the phrase "Humans, don't ya just love 'em." rises.  It immediately gives me distance to allow tolerance and compassion to take the place of a knee-jerk, selfish reaction. This phrase originally surfaced without any conscious effort, and has served as a tremendous gift of the pause I need to see how much more we are alike than different.

So grateful for this.  Daily I question what I am doing in what looks like the middle of nowhere in rural, cold N. Idaho where I want to grow food.  I am overwhelmed by the amount of wildlife, cold weather and dark days combating efforts to grow more than weeds. This article underlined the reminder that the future is none of my business.  My only job is to prepare and show up, whether to build a deer fence, weed or assist a neighbor. 

Tolkien had such a succinct summary of this article, via Gandalf to overwhelmed Frodo (which I can only paraphrase): We cannot decide what time we are born into. We can only decide what to do with the time given us.  The operative word is "do."  Action, as in sailing or steaming ahead against the waves, like a great ship, is life, not staying inactive, thinking about life.  And, the great news is the fleet I join, in action, on the majestic sea.

 I am practicing (and failing) to listen deeply, especially with angry or disturbed people.  I want to learn to hear the fear, anguish or pain behind the violent words or threat.  Then I can respond to the need, the yearning and not the immediate insults, anger or threat.  I would love to be able to "offer lunch" to someone hurting, instead of reacting, as I usually do, like a deer in headlights.  Practice, practice, practice, and practice, again, this day and every day.

 Yes, yes, and yes.  When I let go of any fear (insecurity, worry - all the many forms of fear), life, people, circumstances, health improve.  I experimented with practicing living in a more present way by leaving home and a physical address, giving myself, my time, my resources, and practicing acceptance of whatever happened.  I left home in April, 2014 and traveled without a destination, going where I was invited, sharing or serving as I was asked.  I have never been on the streets for one night, and have never gone hungry.  Life and I expanded, and I saw how much more powerful transformation - inner growth - is than any material advantage or gain.  Enjoy this full life, today.