Nuanced Medicine

heART journal spread in progress

This past week I became obsessed with - what I can only call - nuance. I honed in on seeking it in my doings, and goings, and beings. It was a provocative and harmonizing étude. And rather enlightening, too.

Eventually, on Sunday, I expressed a less than poetic harangue to a small gathering of lovely women of how we - from my perspective - live in times where nuance is dismissed, denied, and demonized... to a cusp where we no longer see the beautiful places where colors blend, the fertile spaces where roots entwine... the shared oikos where we might otherwise recognize, acknowledge, and honor how unity nourishes and sustains.

I wore black and white that day as a physical reminder and inspiration to continue the adventure into the blending and entwining spaces of thought, action, love, life and spirit. It ended up being a remarkably prickly challenge. One that surprised me with a deep sense of compassion for another, and for myself. One that surprised me with nuance. One that surprised me with Medicine. 

I'm still obsessing. Will you join me?

Peace. 🕊

Welcome January

It's really winter now. And with it - for me - comes the most earnest of the quiet time, still time, and inner time that I experience throughout the whole of the year's turning. Yet, unlike the rather indulgent dark days that lean into winter, these dark days have a light that shines progressively brighter on that which is vital, that which must be seen, that which cannot be denied. As the calendar flips and winter sinks roots, I see myself, winged, flying under an obscure wire. As I reflect on the mystery in this portrayal, I also pull it into the cryptic  guidance received from my full year reading. As I do, I see the roots that have coiled, curled, and grown around one another since my new year in November. I gaze outward from a perched position into the shared garden of life and ponder the mysteries that are broadcast there. I sense the plants - their roots and seeds - luring me deeper into their subtle seduction. In this place we - the plants and I - lean into one another, and at once I observe the plants recoiling from others. I hear their tacit longing and feel - yet again - a fathomless heart tug to be a better champion... for them, for the earth, for all life. And an oath is renewed. I glide throughout this terrain that they - my beloved botanicals, my rooted ancestors - reveal to me. I listen intently for their expressions. I hear and feel a deep-reaching blessing wrench from the roots of my heart's actions and axioms. And without doubt or question, I know that the plants want more of this kind of attention. From all of us. And an oath is renewed. Peace. 🕊