​Today's blessing comes by way of a parable. Settle in.



Once there was a woman who was imprisoned in a dark and dank room. The air was fetid. The walls and floor were slimey.
The room was hard to explore as she could not see and was fearful of bumping into something or losing the tiny amount of warmth she had generated on the spot on which she sat.



The only change that happened in that room was the irregular and putrid food that came through the door that was firmly locked.



In the beginning the woman tried to find a way out but as the darkness around her became more familiar a darkness grew within her and she found it harder and harder to make herself move.



One day she heard a rustling in the darkness.



This was terrifying to her. There could have been anything there and in her mind the only possibilities that gained traction were possibilities of darkness and more harm.



Pinned to her tiny warm spot the woman could do little more than breathe and wait in fear and listen to the rustling grow closer and closer.



But then something miraculous happened, as the food arrived, after what seemed like days, the slam of the door left a tiny crack open in a small window high up in the door. In through that window streamed light.



Miraculous, blinding, radiant, light.



And though it seared her eyes and made tears stream down her face, the woman looked up to the light. She tried to drink it in with her skin. She tried to reach it with her hands. She felt like an old and precious friend had arrived to tend to her.



It reminded her of all she had left and all she had been and the beauty of it cracked her open and she wanted more and more and more of the light.



Unfortunately for her she was so distracted by the light she did not see the snakes coiling by her feet and without notice or fear she stepped towards the light.



My blessing is this: Do not be so seduced by what is promised by the light that you take your eyes from what is really there.
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And if you like the way this story feels to you and you would like to look at your own life in this style of using faerytale imagery and metaphor to dig into your patterns and stuckness then click here and read more about my beloved process Reframing Your Story.

I have the privilege of living on one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.  The sea here is part of the great strengthening and revivifying forces in my life and i like to be near the ocean as much as i can.

The other day i was walking our dog after a storm.  There was a huge amount of sea plant material (can't bring myself to call it seaweed - sounds so pejorative) - the huge variety and immensity of the piles testimony to a great upheaval in that unseen realm.  

​There was velvety green weed (my favourite) and large bull kelp with its tenacious roots still holding the rock it was melded to.  There was neptune's necklace and all kinds of other usually unseen miracles pungently rotting in the sun.  There was also plastic.  Large pieces of fishing paraphernalia as well as tiny bits as well as the unseen plastic.  

My husband and i gathered large bags of it to bring home for our compost heap.  It made me happy knowing that the minerals we could give our garden could be harvested in this way.  That i could be part of the cycle; the miraculous cycle that something that grew in the depths could be just what my land needs to flourish.  Amazing.

I thought about how the cycle of life in nature is closed.  A self sealed system that has all it requires and all is useful.  Nothing is wasted.  The Life/Death/Life cycle is the ultimate recycling.  All parts of the system are there in service not only to themselves but to the system at large.

Until of course we get to humans.  The source of that unuseful plastic.  The source of waste.  Humans, in our need to be in control of the world around us, in an attempt to manage our meagreness in the face of the immensity of life, have tried to alter that system.  Have tried to have ourselves think that we can be in control.  That we can take what we want.  That we can make something outside the life death life cycle and it will serve us to do so.

I think that is broken thinking.

I think that humans have a role to play in the closed system and that not with cutting the world open and scooping out what lies beneath.  It is not with overpowering that balanced, self righting system.  It is not with more power over and control of.  I beleive that the place for humans  is to be found with their open hearts.  

I believe that we are required, in order to take our place in the scheme of things to turn up with open hearts, reverence and prayerfulness and tend lovingly to ourselves and the world.

Our role is one of lover not rapist.  

Because we are so embedded in the paradigm of progress and boundless growth (which is impossible and frankly childish thinking - MORE MORE MORE, I WANT MORE is really only appropriate coming from the mouth of 2 year olds and then a bit irritating after a while) it is very difficult to see the value or the worth in this prayerful response.

It can feel lonely to turn up heart open for the planet. 

But what spurs me on is the knowledge of the closed system.  Because prayerful reverence is a very human possibility i believe that this action is part of the closed system and that because nothing is wasted in the closed system our reverence and love is met.

i found this post on facebook the other day from Grandmother's speak which summed it up for me.

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If like me you believe in our human responsibility to turn up lovingly for the world you might like to join us on Praying True, a facebook group dedicated to just this cause.

I invite us all (me included) to open our hearts and step back into that closed system and close the door behind us.  

​Love is waiting.