OMG. A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak at TEDx Asheville. I nominated myself months ago, hoping and also frightened to be chosen. I’m going to speak about The Earth Pledge of Allegiance. Honored doesn’t truly describe the feeling I have. It is more than that. It is a dream showing itself in a different manner than I had expected and planned for. To make God laugh, tell him or her your plans. It’s funny when things start happening that you’ve dreamed about.

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For about a month now, my son and his family have been living with me while they find a place of their own after moving here to Asheville from Aspen. It is a dream come true, a miracle to have them here in my town. Two out of my three children now live here with their families. After living alone for most of the last 11 years, it is wonderful to have a houseful. (read previous blog posting…) However…

One little thing changes everything. I’ve been feeling scattered, having shifted my own life around to accommodate their needs. It’s what a mama does. Instead of teaching yoga in my home studio, that studio is now my graphic studio space and I teach my students in a yoga studio downtown. I struggled with this change internally. It felt like I was losing some part of me. Yet after making the change I feel fresh and ready to let my life unfold from here. Change, though sometimes pretty uncomfortable and hard to see the benefit of an unknown outcome, is a catalyst for growth and if we aren’t growing we aren’t living…and vice versa.

I am well aware that back in the 1950’s, I might be a candidate for being put away in a sanitarium. I left my husband of 26 years, moved to a little hippie town in the Blue Ridge mountains, starting smoking pot, flew out to Oregon to adopt a dog, left 90% of my worldly possessions and moved to Arizona to be with my daughter who was pregnant, spent all my money and worried constantly about making more, being attracted to men years younger than myself, becoming a yoga teacher and vegetarian, authoring an inspirational, spiritually-oriented website daring people to dream and live their dreams, doing it myself.

Yep, I might have been committed. Perhaps it is this town in particular but I believe that it is happening everywhere. People are waking up to what has happened to our world under our watch. We are leaving a legacy of crooked politicians, corporations, wars fought for fabricated reasons to achieve a goal of ultimate power. People who have behaved badly. We let them, if we were not one of them.

So now what to do? Do we stand by and shake our heads as oil spews into the Gulf. It is too sad to go into all the ramifications. Who are we to mess with another beings habitat? To not ensure the greatest safeguards to keep their home safe. I read an article that said that during the Bush administration a decision was made not to enforce that upon our offshore oil rigs. It saved the companies several million dollars, and this disaster will cost them many billion, along with the deep guilt and despair. I hope the people of those oil companies and those who enabled them, oh which might include us who fill up our cars with $3 a gallon gasoline and enjoy the freedom that provides.

Where have our voices been? Why have we been so silent to let it get so out of hand? Please wake up. Please. Those of us who have been need you to come along too. We need greater numbers of people who are willing to be considered crazy to go against the norm. The norm is ridding our planet of one species at a time, one ecosystem at a time.

Are you thinking “what can I do about it”? It seems an awesome task to turn this ship around. The Renaissance was only 1000 people. We turned the world around then. We can turn it around now. Please join me and, I’m hoping, millions of others around the planet. Wake up and smell the smothering, burning oil in the Gulf, the blood on the battlefields in cities, towns , villages and neighborhoods all over the world. We are killing each other and those that get in the way of that intention.

So what can we do as individuals? We can speak out. Talk about this with your friends and your neighbors. Start a conversation. What you bought at the mall conversation can wait another day. It’s time to ensure there will be another day for someone somewhere. People are starving and we go to McDonalds and eat food kills our bodies[1].

What stops you? I think about what has stopped me and that is fear of rejection. Fear that my children will think I am insane. Fear that others will consider me someone to fear. A general nature of fear, which I have been shedding over this lifetime. I have held a fear of being found out to be the person I have been trying to hide. No one hides for real, only creates a feeling of distrust for a person who doesn’t seem congruent. Something is off. We are the last ones to see ourselves, which is a pity. Enjoy who you are. Be who you are. It is oh so much more than enough.

Love this talk by Derek Sivers at TED. He says “The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader…”

“Today is the tomorrow you worried about, and all is well.”

Here in the mountains of North Carolina we are experiencing the first days of spring. It’s been a long winter in so many ways and most people I talk to are breathing a giant sigh of relief that we have made it through. Of course there are still signs of the heavy snows, tree branches broken, an occasional patch of snow seen as you ride along the northside of the Blue Ridge Parkway. But our focus is on the green shoots popping up, daffodils blooming, birds chirping their song of renewal. We are an optimistic species in general who often get caught up in our stories of how things have been rather than what is new. And so we take purposeful action to find what is new and bright and possible. And thus we see more of it.

Chirping birds are beckoning us to the outdoors and that is where I hope you will spend your day, soaking up the first day of spring. It’s finally here! And with it new starts. Things that look like the past are just a memory. Things that you don’t recognize but notice are the present building upon the future. Pay attention to things you don’t recognize… (The image above is from my book “Dare to Dream“.)

I’ve been listening to Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader on Democracy Now. The interview by Amy Goodman started with Dennis Kucinich apparently is the deciding vote on the healthcare bill as it stands. What I understood from the interview is that Rep. Kucinich had little choice as there is no consensus in the congress to provide a public option within the bill, which I still don’t understand what that means. Kucinich has compromised his desire for a fair healthcare system in order to get the bill passed. Rather this bill than none, is his position.  The conversation went into the war in Afghanistan and how we have become a society that accepts war as a natural course. Ralph Nader contends that we are being yet pushed aside for the bigger interest of corporations. He wants the American people to get angry and demand a system that provides healthcare for all. He wants us to take to the streets as the people in France do. Civil demonstration, peaceful demonstration, letting our voices be heard that we are not a society that wants war. We are a society that wants peace. We want love to be the dominant force in the world. I am in agreement that we must all take a stand personally. Begin with self. Let your desire for a peaceful and loving existence begin in your heart, your soul, your entire being. Be peaceful and loving. Peace and love starts right here.

The start of a new day, new week, new time zone and most importantly a slide into spring! Winter was a more difficult than most winters have been in the years I have lived in Asheville. But who wants to talk about snow when there are green shoots popping up in gardens, birds preparing their nests and a general feeling of “wooohooooo, we made it!” in the air? Let’s focus on possibilities. What is new today that wasn’t apparent last Monday? It seems we have learned that there is a time for every season. We’ve been strengthened by the more difficult moments, preparing to be all we are, through the restraint of being held captive through weather and economy. Think about the most glorious flower being groomed below the earth to grunt its way through the warming soil, soak up the nourishing rains to grow the bud and finally spring open and face the sun. It’s spring, y’all.