Joanna Macy Archives - Page 2 of 3 -

Show the Way

By Simone Lipscomb | March 3, 2013

I sat with tears rolling down my face as the words and music wound through the atmosphere of the open air pavilion. I arrived early to secure a good seat was was rewarded with a front-row seat less than ten feet from David and his magical guitar….and voice.

Having followed his music for years I was surprised I had missed this song and yet I fully believe that music and other tools of healing come to us when we are ready.

Auburn University Oak Tree Poisoned by a Deranged Man — Auburn University Oak Tree poisoned by a very sick man

Lyrics from Show the Way: “You say you see no hope, you say you see no reason we should dream that the world would ever change. You’re saying love is foolish to believe. ‘Cause there’ll always be some crazy with an army or a knife, To wake you from your day dream, put the fear back in your life.”

Gulf State Park during 2013 BP Deepwater Horizon Oilspill — Gulf State Park during 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oilspill

“Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify what’s stronger than hate, would they not arrange the stage to look as if the hero came too late, he’s almost in defeat. It’s looking like the evil side will win, so on the edge of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins….”

“It is Love who makes the mortar and it’s love who stacked these stones. And it’s love who made the stage here, although it looks like we’re alone. In this scene set in shadow like the night is here to stay, There is evil cast around us, but it’s love that wrote the play. For in this darkness love can show the way.”

Sometimes I feel such grief about the state of humanity–the polarization of friends and families, of communities. The taking of sides against what we perceive is ‘the bad people’ but in reality we are fighting among ourselves when the evil goes unchecked….or so it seems.

Joanna Macy and Work That Reconnects group, Rowe, MA

I have come to believe that Love is the cosmic glue that holds us all together. Not romantic love or possessive love but the love that passes all understanding. We try to name it and it illudes us so I’ll simply say as I open my heart I find more love around me and within me. If I focus on being a channel for this love and constantly let it flow through me to others, the supply is endless and I always stay filled with it. The moment I try to stop it or hold on to it, I feel empty.

Our hearts are like blossoms, waiting to bloom

What a Great Mystery this Love is and yet I truly believe the key to our own and the planet’s healing is simply to open our hearts to love without judgment. Clearing away anger, judgment, opinions–even if for 15 minutes a day–can create vast change within our own lives. Once we see how good those 15 minutes felt, we will want to live in that space of open heartedness as much as possible. For that is our natural state of being.

To watch the video and listen to David Wilcox’s song please click on this sentence…. and enJOY!

Fat Tuesday

By Simone Lipscomb | February 14, 2013

I was standing at Lulu’s Homeport in Gulf Shores, Alabama, listening to a band play a traditional Mardi Gras tune and felt a subtle, inner shift. A small glimmer of something started to awaken within me and it made me smile.

When embarking on a course of action it’s not necessarily easy because you (finally) found your path–your direction. When I answered an inner call to document the Gulf Oil Spill in my home state, I never imagined the emotional wreckage that would occur within me. I remember days before the oil began washing up on the Alabama beaches fervently trying to photograph as much of the Gulf beaches and marshes as possibly and while doing so sobbing, sometimes uncontrollably. Then when it began coming ashore and coating animals, beaches and filling the air with toxic fumes I was in a state of near exhaustion from anger, sadness, grief and the physical challenge of exposure to the toxic soup in the water and air.

It changed me. I remember going back to my mountain home for a few weeks each month and finding it very difficult to connect with anything pleasurable. I was numb from what I was seeing. Traumatized. And in some sort of cosmic disbelief that humans could destroy our planet…not just by an oil spill…but by endless sins committed against this beautiful planet and its inhabitants. Nothing touched me. Beauty was painful to see. Yet I couldn’t look away from the environmental destruction because finally I felt I was doing my legacy work.

Sometimes the cost of that commitment is high.

There was healing during the many weeks spent along the coast. Realizations, moments of inspiration but it was a week spent with Joanna Macy, in a Work That Reconnects workshop that truly helped me understand and process what I had been going through. And healing continues since my move back to the Gulf Coast.

Yes, I enjoy SUP boarding and walking the beaches and diving in the Caribbean. I’m not walking around in a constant state of gloom and doom. Yet finding a space for personal pleasure….just the inkling of fun for no particular reason…has continued to be challenging for me. The burden of our planet’s plight is heavy.

But yesterday, while riding my sea turtle volunteer team’s float in the Gulf Shores Mardi Gras parade and hanging out at Lulu’s with my friend and her family provided a little spark of fun for the sake of fun….with the intention of fun. Imagine that.

Gratitude for a day of fun runs deep within me. It helps to balance the deep grief that fuels my work to share the beauty of our planet…in the hope that people will realize the beauty of Earth and will do everything they can to help heal it. And heal the human relationship to it…and each other.

Communion

By Simone Lipscomb | January 30, 2013

Curious about the SUP board, the juvenile says hello.

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that my best friends are finned or flippered, feathered or furred. My heart is touched by an encounter with wild dolphins or a gentle nuzzle of a manatee in ways that surpass any human connection. Maybe that’s why men I’ve shared my life with have moved on…never content to come second after my love of wild animals. Connection with all creatures wild is my Communion, a way to rise above the mundane and connect deeper, more fully with beings more evolved than humans. (Personal bias).

Today I received an early-morning call from a friend and she tearfully expressed her love of the woods surrounding her home was about to be logged, destroyed so the landowner could purchase a vehicle for his son. How can you put a price like that on a sacred woodland? When will humans learn that the planet is not a commodity to be pillaged, a land to rape for spoils but rather a sacred cathedral?

The mentality of profit at any cost is not a luxury we can afford any longer.

Joanna Macy’s teachings come to mind. She explains the necessary evolution from a life-taking society to a life-sustaining society. We are in a time of moving from a profit-at-any-cost world to a life-sustaining world. We are in the middle of the dissolution of the old way and are awakening to the reality of the mess we’re in economically, socially, environmentally. And within the mess, within the reality of how we have treated the planet and each other, we find positive change occurring. Many, many people are choosing to act from a place of responsibility, a place of compassion and love. We are waking up to the idea that it is possible to live in balance with respect for all life.

Wildlife reminds me of the connection we have to the whole. The manatees scarred by propellers remind me that humans still have a huge impact on fragile species, that we have done great harm to our planet. And when I see volunteers paddling their kayaks, overseeing interactions with these gentle beings and acting as protectors, hope is refueled.

While snorkeling recently, a juvenile manatee came to me and demanded my attention. My goal is passive observation, in or out of the water, but while filming them, one insisted on connecting face-to-face and drew me out from behind the camera. He swam in front of me, stopped and I felt his gentle spirit guiding me to remove the camera from between us and commune, one wild heart to another. I gently placed my hand aside his face and channeled as much love as I could to him and his kind. And I listened in silence to him.

In those moments we were one with each other. There was no me, no him. In that neutral stillness was birthed understanding. Deep, profound understanding.

As we parted, sobs wracked my body and soul for the trust demonstrated by a species so abused and wounded by humans. The future of this planet is in our hands. That is both frightening and empowering. What will we do to create a better world? Will we do anything?

It can start with daily communion with the natural world. Let it show us our next step each day.

He checked out my dry suit, my fins, my snorkel, my camera...always learning more about humans, these little ones. — He checked out my dry suit, my fins, my snorkel, my camera…always learning more about humans, these little ones.

Alive in the World

By Simone Lipscomb | December 26, 2012

SimoneLipscomb (2) As tornadoes roared over Mobile, just 30 miles west, and Christmas day came to a close, I realized that we are witnessing more and more planetary shifts. The intense weather patterns give evidence to climate change. I sat gazing at the weather radar and imagined how this planet might have been when it was a babe, turbulent in its youth with dynamic and powerful changes that were constant. As it has aged, many cycles of change have presented but this time billions of humans are witnessing the shifting atmosphere and climate. In turn, there are social changes with people arising to claim freedom, love, peace and health.

I reflected back 30 years ago when environmentalists warned of over-consumption of fossil fuels….pesticides…chemicals….peace-lovers warned of the propagation of wars….and here we are moving through a most intense period of time where we are reaping the results of our carelessness, our ignorance. And during this time, which Joanna Macy calls The Great Turning, we are needed–more than ever–to be peacekeepers, earth stewards, promoters of good health, gardeners, artists….the talents and gifts we have will help us collectively move into a healthier place and help create a healthier planet.

SimoneLipscomb (1) If you are alive today, you are needed to help make this shift. Your gifts and talents are vital to the planetary transformation we are experiencing. This isn’t the time to sit on the proverbial sidelines. We are alive in the world and therefore we are necessary to its healing. None of us can do this alone. It will take all of us to make the leap to a more peaceful world, a healthier place. I am excited! How about you?

Working for the Greater Good–Transformation as Taught by a Sea Turtle Hatchling

By Simone Lipscomb | July 29, 2012

A small, vulnerable being had a major impact in the lives of many people recently. Her story appeared in a video earlier this week and finally, I feel ready to make an attempt to find words about her impact on my life.

Her siblings left the nest three days earlier and she steadily scratched and tried to escape to no avail. When it was time (by NFWS guidelines) to excavate her, it was soon discovered that this little loggerhead sea turtle was trapped in her shell and in the sand wall of the nest. She had managed to free her upper body but was hopelessly stuck, unable to extricate herself from the hard-packed sand. Alone except for the volunteers who had monitored her sounds for three days.

When she was carefully removed, her shell was still rounded as a result of her predicament and so her back flippers were crossed. Her left front flipper was tucked at her side. She was seriously movement-impaired and her upcoming walk was a long one…followed by a 30 mile or so swim to the sargasm seaweed beds floating far offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

To facilitate stretching, she was placed in a sandy pit and monitored by volunteers. Crawling on the sand would help her uncurl and relax from her cramped position. After about 20 minutes, she began to tire so she was placed in a shallow pit filled with sea water and allowed to swim. She seemed to visibly relax and as she swam about, her flippers began to move…all of them.

Several of us monitored her progress and encouraged her to move and expand the range of motion her flippers had heretofore not experienced. But darkness approached and she needed the black of night to give her the best chance of making the long swim to the sargasm seaweed beds.

So back to the sand after she was hydrated and had improved movement. This time in the trench her brothers and sisters used three days prior to crawl to the sea. By the time she reached the water she was able to crawl in a straight line, rather than the spiral pattern she made after first being rescued. She made it to the water and hopefully was able to move deeper into the Gulf, to a place of safety where she could more fully recover from her entrapment.

In the moment of working with an injured or fatigued wild animal the focus must remain on their best interest. To be present with them, emotions are set aside and everything is devoted to helping them have the best chance of survival. Especially with a threatened or endangered animal…it feels like so much more at stake. So much more hangs in the balance.

It was later, during the next day that I realized what an impact this tiny being made on me. As I reflected back to beach, my mind recalled grown men encouraging her, children, women….all of us were present for her, cheering her on and hoping for a miracle. Another miracle actually. It was already amazing that she survived three days (or maybe more) trapped in her shell.

Terry Tempest William says that to love is to be hurt, to feel pain. Love involves an open heart and with an open heart we will experience grief, feel sadness, joy, excitement–the full range of emotions. To close our hearts is to stop love from moving through us and that makes us ineffective as instigators of positive change in the world.

I’m not saying everyone should be a sea turtle volunteer. I am suggesting that we keep our hearts open, willing to feel everything that comes with loving. If we close our hearts to pain, we shut them down from loving and therefore abandon everything that needs us, that desperately needs humans to step up and work for the greater good.

Recently one of my mentors, Joanna Macy, thanked me for not abandoning my grief. I’ve pondered this and understand now that she was thanking me for keeping my heart open.

To honor all life, no matter how great or small, may we keep our hearts open and stand ready to help wherever our soul prompts us to go.