Reprieve

It is a mix today, with early skies being both grey and blue. The temperature sits at 49 degrees fahrenheit and today is Sunday.

It felt like a reprieve from all that is happening in the world, when two dozen people gathered at a sanctuary for former gang members in Los Angeles. The day was anticipated to be an opening of another door, a portal to a new possibility bringing together people of different ages, walks of life, identities of every kind. Our host, a former lifer whose discovery of deep indigenous roots in his lineage (a discovery made while incarcerated) opened the day with a prayer, a blessing, and a message of gratitude to the ancestor stewards of the land. Then, we had an important reminder that the impulse now is to allow ourselves to recognize our rich ancestral inheritances - and to move in accord with the impulse to care for one another.

The individuals who met on this day were very different, yet shared one thing: a great determination to hang onto their humanity by being in service in every way. As the saying goes, "there are 8 billion paths to peace" and for some the path is short, and for others it is a very long and arduous journey. For all, it is a journey that is recognized as being called to remember through the guidance that is unseen, unheard, and unknowable, yet understood as real. The life energy that societies have named, "chi", "manna", "kiai", and in Star Wars speak, "the Force" is real and cannot really be named fully.

We were not gathered to listen to one or two knowing voices; rather, we were gathered to hear the wisdom treasures that each person was asked to bring, and to learn in more detail, the skills and the methods of how to join so we can lift up what this world so desperately needs now (and certainly will need well into the future). These were the skills of knowing how to build muscle to be able to hold the "both/and" realities that always manifest when hurt happens among human beings. Tiny hurts, huge hurts – all of it. Healing in order to sustain and re-set.

We were people who knew and had tried many ways to bring change into this world to reflect the highest aspirations of our being, and we shared stories of exhaustion, sadness, and depression that was encountered while working (ironically) for a better world. There were familiar stories of sometimes feeling that hope was no longer possible after seeing the damage done to people and the planet because of the inability to recognize our common dreams and the futility of chasing material gain.

We received a reprieve and an affirmation of love and of potentialities that grow from the hardship that the journey to peace offers each and every one of us. There were teachers, social justice/change makers, hosts and coaches to seekers of all kinds, and individuals damaged by systemic problems in society's institution of punishing people who were "lost" on their path to peace.

By the end of just one day bathing together in light, practicing how to both hold hope no matter the "realities" of these times and allowing for acceptance in the moment, we found a reprieve from the changes moving in our world today. The anxieties each held within, and the stressors of feeling a deep desire to stop the harm that all are bearing witness to as a new reality unfolds, were replaced by a quiet but firm strength arising out of deep compassion and love.

We were able to go into our sorrow, our secrets, our questions, and have a few moments of laughter together as we learned of "swoop and toss" as a strategy when trouble comes along, and the importance of "double confidentiality", and the need to remember to "stretch our big toe 45 degrees, and just the big toe" so that our whole body can properly align when walking, and much more. The secret is in the skill-building and we got the foundation, we got the first building block, and we got a lot of work ahead of us. Throughout the learning, a little monkey with a huge heart actually helped us along the way. Change can be hard.

Finally, we were reminded: "All that you touch. You change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change."

We were Changed. Now the world needs to get ready.