Something devastating happened in my garden this spring that reminds me of what is busy playing on American soils.
For years I’ve watched one particular tall poppy plant in my garden with awe and delight as tight furry buds burst forth, unfold their delicate petals and bloom.
This year, however, something else happened. The first, most promising bud hung too low over a walkway and was decapitated early. Others buds didn’t form fully and the entire plant seemed to be struggling. It was an old plant and we’d had a lot of rain. 
Eventually there were only two buds left but one looked too rotten to flower. The other looked like it might actually bloom despite the fact that the root structure of the entire plant seemed too rotten to support it. In the end the root system failed it. Instead of watching the plant decay further, with immense sadness, I uprooted the plant that had brought me so much joy over the years. It was time to grow something new in its place.
The space between stories
Think like a gardener. We are at the start of winter now in the Northern hemisphere. Not a time for watering weeds or planting seeds we don’t wish to grow. Now is the time for conscious gardening. Making space for rest and regeneration, radical no story in the fertile ground within each of us.
Says Charles Eisenstein, “We are entering a space between stories. After various retrograde versions of a new story rise and fall and we enter a period of true unknowing, an authentic next story will emerge. What would it take for it to embody love, compassion, and interbeing? I see its lineaments in those marginal structures and practices that we call holistic, alternative, regenerative, and restorative. All of them source from empathy, the result of the compassionate inquiry: What is it like to be you?”
What would a new story look like?
Excerpt from a conversation between sister Jenna and Stephen Dinan, author of Sacred America Sacred World, on creating heaven on earth:
“We are going to be naturally pushed there…it’s through methods like meditation, it’s about raising the right questions to get the right answers… it a lot to do in your hellos: when you say hello to someone, that you are not being being critical or judgemental in the first millisecond, it so much adds to the intentionality of what is going to emerge in the relationship between you and that person. That little moment of meeting at a pure level really makes me feel that I can trust this space because I have come from a pure space…”
“Our hearts know that a more beautiful world is possible; but our minds do not know how it’s possible”. Writer and visionary Charles Eisenstein explores how we can make the transition from the old story of separation, competition and self-interest to a new Story of the People.
A New Story of the People: Charles Eisenstein at TEDxWhitechapel
Read this excellent article by Charles Eisenstein titled hate, grief and a new story
Also read also David Spangler – Hope – written day after Election
Here’s another article on this me – think like a dentist
and one from Brian Johnson – on his reaction the election. It is the most positive and pro-active article I came across, titled simply “now”
Letting go of fear
Humanity is like a beautiful fragile poppy unfolding too as we let go of fear. Fear that the loss of our old form is a loss of self. It’s a gradual process of trusting that there’s more to come. That we are only in the middle of our story not at the end. What’s required is a gradual letting go, muscle by muscle. Breathing into one’s roots. Grounding fully. Feeling fully. Suddenly the joy rises. Relaxing contracted muscles, perhaps for the first time in a lifetime so the champagne bubbles of life flow through us. Who would believe it? This is not fear. This is joy! What was once contracted for protection is now ready to unfold, giving space for each delicate petal to open, filling us with awe and wonder and appreciation. Pollen for bees, food for the soul.
Resources
Advice from Thomas Hübl: on being a mature citizen of the world.
Is he/she really dangerous? A series of excerpts from an interview with Markus Hirzig, senior mentor in the Huebl community. One excerpt is on understanding projection and how this says more about us than whatever we are reacting to.
I’ve invited Markus to join us in Earthuni next year to help the light workers and creatives of this world let go of old furry self personas, to ground more fully and blossom.
Join us here: https://earthuni.com/basecamp