Beloved friends,
Did you see the August full moon this week? That blue supermoon? Whew! This image is from my home. The next three full moons: September, October, and November, are all supermoons, full moons extra close to the Earth.
Watching the night sky can be such a balm for the heart. I've been using the phrase cosmic grounding to describe the way feeling into the wider context of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe can ... ah. I paused to think of what words use to express what gazing at the body of the cosmos can offer us and as I reached inside myself and considered, the answer I got was not language but a slow, deep, sighing breath. Yes, that: in gazing at the night sky we can find the easefulness of belonging to the life of the universe, the naturalness, the peace: we-are-of-this.
To go deeper into belonging to the life of the universe, I let go of a lot of things. Some are obvious: I let go of a version of my life where I lived in a bustling city. I set sail and lived at sea, then let go of that to put down roots in the forest. Some are less apparent: I set down certainties about what I should be sharing in my work, first as part of the aforementioned process, then as part of a reckoning with white supremacy, colonialism, and the other oppressive hierarchies of our world which has deepened during the past few years. I and many people who do work like mine have looked harder at what we are teaching to consider what is rightful to share, what is appropriative.
Braiding Sweetgrass lit a flame for me when I read it a solo a couple years ago and again this year in our Reading Circle. Robin Wall Kimmerer's fundamental question is: Can a nation of immigrants become native, make a home? What would that look like and involve? What all of this inquiry has inspired in me is a turn toward the heart of my calling. When I was young, I studied and wrote poetry and called myself a poet. Then I studied and taught yoga and called myself a yoga teacher. What I have always wanted is to speak the truth, to make meaning, to discuss living with honor.
I have in resuming my courses this year leaned hard into truth, pared away a lot of what I was told and reached into my heart to say what I find there. It is careful, soul-baring work. Last week was the completion of my-and-our summer course Lovingkindness: Support for Heartfelt Living and Change. I want to share with you a snippet from the final session of Lovingkindness in which I was asked to speak about the tone of friendly curiosity which we have been cultivating as a fundamental attitude of being.
"This is why I call myself Priestess of the mystery. I fundamentally believe that we cannot know: What is the universe? I cannot, with my tiny human mind, comprehend. Time isn't linear – our science knows that, but I can't wrap my head around it. Curiosity is a way to keep reaching toward that, reaching toward the vastness, reaching toward the mystery, reaching toward the wonder, staying open to the idea that I do not know. It's both unifying and humbling in a profound way"
Curiosity is what I now invite in the place where I once encouraged what I was taught by the swamis (yogic monks): vairagya, nonattachment. Nonattachment refers to coming to the moment without expectation and judgement, present to the living moment as it arises, spontaneously. This brings us more spaciousness in our living, more joy and peace, more ease in the flow of our sorrows, and lets us respond to life with more agility, freedom, and creativity. Nonattachment, however, is an off-putting way to express this concept; non-attachment is disconnective. For decades I struggled dutifully to explain nonattachment to people living outside of the monastic culture of renunciation in which this originates. Having given myself permission to express this in my own way at last, and feeling that it is in fact the honorable path for me to step up to express this in a way that makes sense to the place and time that are my context, I find that a connective expression of this wisdom is quite simple: curiosity! Friendly curiosity. Taken as a foundational approach to living, friendly curiosity is a transformative delight: showing up for each moment without expectation and judgement, with an open heart and mind.
Awe, such as we find in gazing at the night sky, the crashing waves of the sea, or the belly of the beloved rising and falling with breath, is a path to curiosity and connection. We feel awe and then we wonder! Engaging with life openly leads quite naturally to curiosity. Friendly curiosity helps us connect to ourselves, one another, and to life. If this shift in language raises questions for you, please feel welcome to reach out with them. It is important to me to follow through on this shift in my expressive framework with you if you wish.
Resources
On Love and Loss
Nick Cave was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week. They spoke of Nick's next album Wild God, due out August 30th, of what it was like to sing with Johnny Cash, and about grief – a topic which Nick has centered in recent years after losing two sons. Nick speaks of himself-over-time with a clarity and wisdom that evinces some of the best of age. 23 minutes of treasure are in this conversation, including his thoughts on the vital nature of grief. "It is the devastation that I think that we all experience that turns us from being a half-formed person into a fully formed or fully realized human being. It is the devastation. If you are loved, and if you love, this is part of the deal." His wider remarks make this connective and inspiring; check out the whole thing. Thanks to Kirsten.
Belly Laughter
Thanks to those who pointed out that the link to this hysterically funny set by Chris Flemming was broken in last week's newsletter; so glad for a second chance to guffaw with you.
Sacred Song
Snatam Kaur's 2004 album Grace has been filling the temple in my in-person classes. Sweet and gentle. If you practiced with me in the aughts, perhaps a tender echo of our time together. Spotify's riffing off that brought me also to Beautiful Chorus' Pachamama, which has been haunting me in the best way.
Poetry
Mary Oliver's "The Pinewoods" has been threading my live and on-line yoga and meditation sessions:
The Pinewoods
This morning
two deer
in the pinewoods
in the five A.M. mist,
in a silky agitation,
went leaping
down into the shadows
of the bog
and together
across the bog
and up the hill
and into the dense trees –
but once
years ago,
in some kind of rapturous mistake
the deer did not run away
but walked toward me
and touched my hands–
and I have been, ever since,
separated from my old, comfortable life
of experience and deduction–
I have been, ever since,
exalted–
and even now
though I miss the world
I would not go back–
I would not be anywhere else
but stalled in the happiness
of the miracle–
every morning
I stroll out into the fields,
I believe in everything–
I believe in anything–
even if the deer are wild again
I am still standing under the dark trees,
they are still walking toward me.
Love in Action
People come to my work to get in touch with themselves and with living. Often they find they want to step up more fully for the world but don't know what to do next. One of my intentions in returning to the US is to support you in that and offer bridges from care to expressing it. I've heard from a lot of people that they want to get involved in this election, to feel four more years of this vibe of joy and connection, so I reached out to my old friend Paul Boutin. I've been thrilled to hear a bunch of people say that they've been writing letters with Vote Forward since I mentioned this organization. Paul has lit me to go farther – I plan to do phone banking, which is the option the Harris/Walz campaign has for getting involved in my rural area. Here is the page on the Harris/Walz site where you can learn how to get involved where you live. If you are stepping up too or have resources to share, I'd love to hear from you!
Dahlia: What is it that you have done for electoral volunteering?
Paul: In 2016 I canvassed door-to-door in Maine for the Maine Democratic Party, a paid part-time role. We focused on local candidates, as directed, because both Hillary Clinton and US House candidate Emily Cain wanted to run their own campaigns. It was 9 hours per day, four days a week on our feet being driven to remote towns with tight races.
In 2020 I volunteered on remote phone-banking teams for the state Dem parties in both Maine and Wisconsin, which operate on Zoom and a phone-banking app. I was bumped up to trainer, and then trainer of trainers. Biden (who wasn't the first choice of most volunteers, but we knew the alternative) won Wisconsin by 50,000 votes, 0.6 percent. Trump will go to his grave screaming about fake ballots being wheeled in at 4 AM. Hahaha. They weren't fake ballots, they were the Milwaukee ballots. GOTV (Get Out The Vote) work wins elections fair and square.
What forms of involvement do you see as good options for folks?
Door-to-door is far and away the most effective way to raise voter turnout. Every organizer knows this. Phone banking is #2 but only half as effective as door-knocking.
But let's be honest: most people will never do either of these. They want to write letters and postcards rather than get hung up on or yelled at in person. Postal communications are a lot less effective. But they're still worthwhile compared to doing nothing. You're still making a difference. There are established programs like Vote Forward and Progressive Turnout that provide lists of voters to contact and have done studies on what types of messages increase turnout the most. Trust them on those.
Social Media: JUST NO. It's useless. Zero. "Social media provides a fake sense of taking action," a young woman on the Maine team said pithily. There's an academic term that researchers use for someone who spends two hours a day reading, watching and actively posting online about politics: Political Hobbyist. They don't move the needle. Leave social media this year to the AI bots that will personally nag tens of millions of people to register and vote with personally targeted and timed messages.
My suggestion: Join one of the above types of campaigns to reach out to voters in the real world, even if only once a week. You'll bring in a few more votes where it matters, which in a US Presidential election can tip an entire state's electoral votes the other way.
Thanks, Paul!