Category: consciousness

Winds of Change

Winds of Change

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The wind shifted this morning. The smell of marsh and swamp scented the air as I glided over clouds and glints of sunshine on the mirror-still water. My heart expanded to greet the osprey as she sat on her nest overhead. Fish popped the surface of the water creating ripples that reached out to me as I steered my board through liquid bliss.

It has been a windy week that included two days with such intensity in the blow I stayed off the water. But today, today…calm reigned.

Settling into my new home has given me opportunity to allow the new direction in my life to show itself in the placement of furniture, art and musical instruments. I have listened to an inner prompting to create a music room and in particular, an ocean music room. Besides my piano, guitars, banjo, ukelele, native flutes, drums and other instruments, all of the art work and all books in the room are about the ocean. There are images of dolphins, the Caribbean, the Gulf, orcas, herons and books on all subjects related to the ocean…from healing to science.

Tonight I sat at my piano and allowed music to pour out and as it did, I directed it to the ocean….the one world ocean…and all life contained within it. It felt like taking the time to consciously connect with the ocean and send healing thoughts and music to it was as important as the documentary work I have done since the oil spill. I sense the winds of change moving in my work. I’m not sure what the outcome will be but I trust that as I play my piano or guitars or my African drums I will be guided. Maybe the best each of us can do is consciously connect with our planet, with each other, and simply send love and compassion through our thoughts, music, writing, dance. Maybe healing the planet can begin that simply.

What do you think?

One Simple Thing

One Simple Thing

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Yesterday as I was driving through the mountains of North Georgia I had a thought–what if a large group of people all over the planet decided to change the world for the better by adding 5 minutes a day of stillness to their daily routine?

I had been considering the degradation of the environment, the constant bickering in politically polarized rhetoric and my general belief that humans are self-destructive. Where else could negative behavior and negative, violent thought processes and dogmatic belief systems lead but to self-destruction? So I had this incredibly simple idea.

Perhaps skeptics might suggest that this sort of action would be wasted. But I was thinking about how millions of people are creating change through social media and the connection we have instantly to the global human population. Why couldn’t we decide to dedicate 5 minutes a day to stillness and silence? It couldn’t hurt anything and it quite possibly could make a positive difference.

In June of 1999 a peer-reviewed study was carried out in Washington, D.C. Over 4000 practitioners of meditation were housed in various locations within the DC area from June 7th through July 30th. Each day they practiced slowing their mental activity and coming to a place of inner stillness. This created within the meditators a sense of balance, order, and harmony. During this time violent crime (assaults, murders, rapes) decreased 23% in the area in which they were practicing. There was less than a 2 in 1 billion chance that other explanations (weather, increased police patrols, daylight, historical crime trends and annual violence patterns) accounted for the difference, according to John Hagelin, lead author of the study from the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy.

How is this possible? Through the past 25 years, researchers have conducted more than 42 studies that have verified the field effect of consciousness. Advanced understanding of physics shows that subtle energy fields are a basis of everything around us. Conclusion drawn by researchers? Human consciousness also has field characteristics at fundamental levels. The meaning? What we experience, think, feel, do affects everything around us.

When we think we are powerless to the insanity unfolding daily, it’s good to remember we actually can make a difference. Not by arguing a point, ranting on Facebook, name-calling people who hold different views….simply by coming to stillness, by allowing a time each day where we free ourselves from judgment, anger, politics, arguing…we can make a difference.

What if people from all over the planet decided to stop and drop into stillness? What if we dropped all words for 5 minutes a day and sat and allowed ourselves to be still and breathe? What if we stop the mental chatter, the mind games, and let go of our own opinion for 5 minutes a day?

I believe this one simple thing could change the world. What about you?