1. Truth: I’m doing the best I can. This morning it was hard to know what to do. I’d slept terribly. I felt equal parts numb and raw, and my heart hurt. I fell back on what Susan Piver (and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche) teaches about building confidence, five things you can do. I meditated, did my writing practice, cleaned up my kitchen, put away the laundry, did my physical therapy exercises, took a shower, and made myself a good breakfast — Dave’s Bread, eggs from a friend’s chickens, Tillamook cheese, organic fruit and veggies, a tall glass of water. I felt a little bit better. It made me think of advice I’ve been given before, “do what you can where you are.”

2. Truth: Then I went to work, because I was expected, and working at a university in an English department the population is more likely to share my values, so I knew at the very least I would be among people who understood how I was feeling. Still in shock, I decided to do the only thing I knew how. I walked down the hallway, found the first door open, and hugged the person working there. It was sort of easy because she’s a longtime friend and mentor, but still. What surprised me is how my emotion was right there on the surface, hers too. As soon as we hugged, we both started crying. After talking with her a bit, I walked back towards my office and one of the people in the office across from mine was getting ready to go teach a class. We said “Hi,” and I asked her if she needed a hug. Same thing, as soon as our hearts got close to each other, we both started to cry. Even though I’d imagined roaming the halls with hugs and chocolate for everyone I found, that was all I could do, just two people. And yet, again — do what you can where you are.

3. Truth: I am treating this as a call to action. I admit, I got soft while Obama was in office. I took his presence and all the changes that came with it as progress. I thought that things were getting better. I was wrong. There is so much work to do, and I’m ready. Today I will mourn, but once the shock wears off, I’m rolling up my sleeves. For now, that means giving some money to help the protest at Standing Rock and the Prison Mindfulness Institute. It means being gentle with myself. It means being kind to everyone I see. It means reading what Rachel wrote as many times as I need to. It means lunch with a friend who gets it. This weekend it means going to the Fort Collins Standing Rock Rally & Prayer Gathering. It means doing what I can where I am.

One wish: May we be happy. May we be well. May we be safe. May we live with ease. May all of us do what we can where we are.

P.S. I wish I could give all of you a hug today, kind and gentle readers. ❤

1. Truth: What Jamie Greenwood said, that we can “Embrace the seasonal pull to slow down.” She posted this on Twitter the other day, a daily mantra, and it was just what I’d been thinking. This week or next the last of the trees here will turn color and then drop their leaves. It’s been a long, warm fall, but the mornings are dark so late it’s clear the long dark cold season is coming. I look at the trees and think about how easy it is for them to let go, to surrender to the shift. Even though they’ve just made one of the most beautiful things they create all year (other than flower and fruit), their gorgeous leaves of so many amazing colors, they are able to just let them go, fall to the ground and rot. They trust in the transition, don’t question it. My garden and flowerbeds go to sleep, the birds migrate to a warmer climate. Everything pulls its energy close, calls its power back, and enters a season of rest and restoration, necessary quiet and stillness that allows for the season of creation that will follow. Every year I say I’ll do the same, embody this wisdom, and every year I somehow get caught up in the speed of the season. Maybe this year will be different.

2. Truth: What Andrea Scher said, or rather what one of her guides told her, “Your only job is to breathe and not resist.” What a wonderful approach, to everything. Place your attention on breath, just like in meditation, and allow whatever might arise. Rather than burning up all your energy, applying all your effort to rejecting whatever comes, surrender. Trust in your own sanity, your inherent wisdom and compassion, your basic goodness, and know that you can meet it, whatever it might be.

3. Truth: What Janelle Hanchett said, in a post to Facebook about trying, that “there’s a part of us that dies when we say ‘Fuck it I’d rather fail than stay like this,’ and it’s the part that believes we cannot do a thing.” I spent so much time believing that hysterical voice that said “I can’t,” that thought keeping me quiet and numb meant keeping me safe, that thought being invisible was better than being seen. And yes, there are hard things, stuff is shifting and changing all the time, and we have to adapt and adjust. It’s painful, and yet…”fuck it, I’d rather fail than stay like this.” What’s the worst thing that could happen, right?

One wish: May we “embrace the seasonal pull to slow down,” and simply “breathe and not resist.” May we let go of our fear of failure and try anyway. And when we aren’t actively trying, doing, acting, making, may we know it’s still enough, as poet David Whyte wrote,

Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now