Where we are

The sun has come out after three days of rain and grey weather - and it's cold! The temperature is 44 degrees. Today is Tuesday.

There are times when you cannot believe that your life is as it is – for the good and the less good. At this moment, the good is what has arrived. Opening to a new day, the red maple, the lilacs, and the green hedges with tiny red flowers - all are the makings of life being affirmed. It will be another fine day.

Fine days are not what the world has given us recently. Too many missed opportunities to choose life and open space for the gifts of human beings to unfold. Our days have not been fine; they have been sad and hurtful in a way that need not be this way. It is especially frustrating to know that the harm could be prevented but for the leaders. Perhaps there was some desire to shift things a couple of decades ago when the subject of leadership became such a big part of the conversation about futures. Servant leadership was a big topic. Values-based leadership was another. Programs were built around the idea that a person needed to go beyond the self, let go of ego, gain insight into one's own tendencies in order to develop capacity to lead well and create opportunities for life to flourish.

It did not really work.

It seems the ones who rose to leadership since then were the ones who got to see the approach, but then decided to work around what once was shared from one wisdom keeper to the next. Instead, the societies of the world seem to have chosen the path of conventional, contemporary, capitalist paradigms of win/lose, might is right, and if you're not with us, you're against us. The values-based trainings and servant leadership ideas sadly went by the wayside.

But in other countries, where there is a deeper appreciation for the fact that we are all reliant on working in cooperation if we are to survive - culture, treasures, species. And it is not so hard to do this - across generations, class, racial and ethnic identities - it is possible. But it is not possible to do this in the political arena today.

Sadly, the political arena is ineffective because the intent of finding leaders who can bring societies together has not materialized. The ones who emerge have access to votes or money. The former may get a person elected for the first time, but the ones who stay must learn and accept the power of money and ability to work a corrupt system. And - society can do nothing if education and opportunities are restricted, eliminated, degraded.

Where that leaves us is on our journeys as individuals who may, or may not, encounter others who see beyond this time and this space. Sometimes they are the elders, but not always. If one is lucky, a path is affirmed. And the affirmation doesn't come in the form of a certificate or award - "You're on the right path!" Instead, it may be entirely without words; just an experience.

A rainbow is a particularly auspicious sign that one is on the right path.