The Superpower of Attention

Over two decades ago, when I decided it was time to learn to meditate, I enrolled in a ten-day Vipassana course in Idaho. It consisted of some instruction via video by S. N. Goenka, a Burmese (Myanmar)-born Indian businessman who taught a meditation technique claimed to be traced back to Buddha himself — a non-denominational approach that is designed to train and focus the mind to witness the ephemeral condition of existence using the simple awareness of body sensation.

I spent up to eight hours a day, sitting and practicing the body-scan technique that was taught. Rough way to begin to learn how to meditate!

I remember one particular day, maybe day four or five, when I fought like hell to not jump up and run out of the meditation room screaming. It felt very Biblical, like Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord. I staggered out of the session in the late afternoon, wiped out physically and emotionally, wondering if I had just spent hours abusing myself.

After some tears, I felt better, and the next day, started in again. 

From that day on, it felt easier. 

I decided to do a second retreat some months later, this time in Joshua Tree, California. This time, by the end of the ten days, I could sit quietly and calmly for hours, as my mind obediently scanned my body for sensation. And what a lot of sensation there was now! I went from not being able to feel that much, to being able now to ‘slice’ through my arm with my attention and feel the resistance as it went through the harder section of bone in the middle. It blew my mind.

Taking two days to drive through Nevada on the way home to Utah, the second morning I was drawn by the sudden exquisite beauty of golden grasslands in the rising sun while on Highway 6. I pulled over and walked to a space overlooking the sweeping open land to the east, and sat down to meditate. I could feel the sun on my face, and the sensations of my entire body. I could feel the subtle vibrations of my own aliveness. I could see and feel the shimmering glory of everything in my field of vision. I felt huge, limitless, completely connected and whole, without boundaries, and at the same time, completely myself, as a human being. I was filled with a light and a bliss that seemed very native to who I am. Pure, deep, shining happiness.

This is the power of attention.

We do not learn that we have this ability to pay attention, living inside human culture. Most of the time, our attention is jumping from one thing to the next. Our attention is thin and unstable and reactive. Mostly we put our attention on what ‘out there’ might potentially harm us. It’s perfectly sensible, as animals. But with our capacity to make ‘time’ — to remember the past and imagine the future, we carry our thoughts of fear out of the past and future, into the present moment and stagger around with them on our backs. We have our attention on illusions. We think they are real. We will fight like hell to keep them. And we suffer mightily for them.

* * *

My mind has lost that power and precision, as I have not kept up that intensity of meditation practice. I know the power of my attention, and yet I sometimes cling to fearful thoughts and past grievances. Yet, I want freedom from my stories of powerlessness more than anything. I am willing to interrupt my conditioned thought system, again and again and again, to weaken my conviction that the world, or this or that person is a certain way. I do this by choosing where to place my attention. Do I put my attention on what I think is screwed up? Or do I look beyond, to what is, dropping judgement and seeing the beauty of that truth?

Recently I have been playing with attention and the body again. Here’s an interesting thing: What I notice, is that what I put my attention on lights up. 

If I put my attention, say, on my foot, noticing what sensation is there, allowing the sensations to reach my brain, I will begin to feel tingling or pressure. When I move my attention to my calf, and notice what’s there, my foot is still sending me feedback and information. By the time I get to my hip, my whole leg feels awake. It’s like my attention is a magic wand that creates sparklyness and enlivens everything it touches.

What if the choice you make of what to notice works the same way? If you notice all the inadequacies, the negative behaviors, the things that are not working well (for example, most of the ‘news’) — those things are enlivened and become your world.

But what if, standing quietly behind these stories of fear, there is a deeper reality that is shining, one made of pure Love? What would happen if we shifted our attention from the ‘oh-no-watch-out’ signals from our animal brains and saw beyond instead, really saw and felt the vibrant awake aliveness is behind and underneath and all around us all the time? Perennial wisdom from all traditions say that this is where we find unchanging, unconditional happiness, because this is how we experience our true nature. I experience it, and know it to be true.

* * *

Today I am beginning to apply this superpower to my existential angst about climate change and my seemingly powerlessness to make any impact at all. I have allowed the enormity of what we are facing to enter my whole being and to feel the ontological shock of new instability of climate never thought possible, and its impacts on my life and on the lives of the young ones and our human future.

What happens if I put my attention now on the new story that is seeking to come into being? One that I will likely not live to see? I am following the leadership of Charles Eisenstein, Bayo Akumolafe and others, and dropping into my own vision of a possible future for humanity. Do we have the courage to imagine a future that is more alive and awake and in right relationship than we have ever seen?

I am sure that putting our attention on this possible future enlivens it, just as putting my attention on my foot awakens its aliveness in my awareness. I have this power. You have this power.

This is an invitation to join me to use your attention as a superpower — to create the Thought, the Blueprint of a new future world before it comes into form. Let’s be the dreamer-architects-designers that realize we can create a human existence that is far more peaceful and sustainable than how we are living now.

Let’s start by feeling our feet right now . . .

Sheldon's Power Pack

I got a wild hair to make a belated birthday present for my nephew recently. He’d just turned eight, and as my sister reports, spends most of his time in Imaginary Land. He has a highly active brain, evidenced by his precocious use of language from a young age, and his astute observations. He’s sharp, and learning who he is by living a mythical life.

I trolled through some old funky treasures and collected a few, then found a round metal box, glued a big “S” on the front and typed up a list of its contents:

 Sheldon’s Super Power Pack

 • Non-Moving Watch for Time Travel (bought in Hungary in the late 1980’s)

• Indian 10 paise coin for Great Wealth Both Inner and Outer (from trips to India in the 1990’s)

 • Amulet with secret script for hearing Quiet Invisible Voices 

 • Smiley face pin for Mood Uplifting for Self and Others

 • Copper wire wound around shale for Magic Electricity Conduction

 • Twisted metal ring — you decide what this is for

 • Real Buffalo hair for being Big, Strong, Unafraid, Calm, and Gentle.

My sister told me the story: 

Sheldon opened this strange present and said, “What? An old watch?” 

Frowned.

“What is all this stuff?” 

His mother said “I think there is a paper to read here, about what’s in this box.”

She and Sheldon went through the contents, reading about each one. His eyes widened, his imagination kicked in. This was a gift right down his alley!

I soon received a text from my sister’s phone number: 

This is Sheldon. I am so so so so so so so so so so grateful for the gift. 👍🏻 😊 🎁

 That’s TEN so’s — easily a record for any text I’ve ever received.

 * * * * *

The change in his perception of what this present contained after my sister read the list of its contents struck me. Is this not a most amazing and clear illustration of what we are built to do as human beings?

WE MAKE MEANING.

You may not be eight years old anymore, or hide in closets from the Evil Mancor whom you are fighting for the gold ring of Sumach. At least not overtly.

But for sure you are walking around every moment, making meaning of the world you perceive. Reading the news, you are making meaning of someone else’s meaning-making of the world.

Have you ever wondered about the meaning you are making every moment? 

What is the meaning of the store clerk’s sad eyes? What is the meaning of getting a call from an old friend just after they popped into your head? What is the meaning of not getting the job you applied for? Why are you making the meaning you do?

We are all making meaning through stories constantly. Our stories reflect our inner world. They were our ego-forming responses to early life experiences. Our stories reinforce our sense of self, and govern how we act.

Do you know someone who seems to see the world as full of hurt and needy people who must be protected? Do you know someone who seems to see the world as a playground full of fun things to do and achieve and there’s not enough time to do it all? Do you know someone who seems to see the world as vengeful scary, and they must defend themselves and attack others to be safe? Do you know someone who seems to see the world as an endless curious puzzle to be explored and explained?

The meaning we make helps us define ourselves and our lives. For most of us, by the time we become adults, the meaning we make is reflexive and unconscious. We believe how we see the world is how the world actually is. But this is not true. 

As writer and artist Anïas Nin said, “We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

We become the meaning we have made, and the stories of meaning we tell to ourselves and others over a lifetime.

Of course Sheldon knows he is making up a world when he is in Imaginary Land. He is creatively choosing the meaning he is making and the stories he is living. What could possibly be more fun?

The wild thing about our human meaning-making process is that we do choose the meaning we make. If we recognize that we are making up all the meaning we live by, if we can step outside the very habitual conclusions we come to about what things mean, we can begin to consciously change our world.

We can choose meaning-making that makes us feel delicious, safe and worthy. People do it all the time. 

But it is not so easy for grown ups. 

First we have to be aware of these mechanics of meaning-making — that we have a choice to create the world we want to live in. And then we have to practice like the dickens to re-wire the pathways of our brains and not slip into old ruts of thinking. 

But we can do it if we really want to. We can each choose what is in our own Super Power Pack.

Imagine that daily you’re making this meaning: 

• I am a precious being that is an unseparable part of the Mystery of this Creation.

• I am loved deeply and are innocent of any real wrongdoing. 

• My task is to love, because that is what I am. Love the trees, love the rain, love my parents, love strangers, love cities and the news and the darkness and destruction too. 

• I was born to bring important gifts to the world that are much needed. 

• I am never alone.

 If making meaning in this way makes you feel great, it is because this meaning is what is really true.

Sheldon’s Imaginary Land is a wonderful lesson for us all. We think we grow out of playing make believe, but we don’t, really. 

Thankfully, we all have Super Power Packs. What is in yours?

Contact me if ever you wish for partnership and guidance around shifting your meaning-making. This is my work as an Integral Coach!

Letting Joy In

At the same time that I’m feeling cranky and impatient because the global pandemic’s end is in sight, but has not ended, a miraculous gift has been given to me. My husband and I are in the process of buying a property in Castle Valley, Utah. This has been a dream we have both held since we first knew each other, but for fifteen years has not seemed at all possible.

Last autumn, our hearts and minds had some openings and we were able to acknowledge the depth of our shared desire to have a place in this valley. Castle Valley is a place we have visited many times over the years, where we have friends, that has always felt like home. Together, we turned towards this shared deep desire and fully committed to doing all we could to make it happen. But, we knew our efforts alone were not enough. We invoked something Greater than ourselves. We committed to the purpose of this place being for gathering and for healing. We stepped fully in. And then we gave it all up to the gods. It will be what it will be. Not our will, by Thy will be done.

When we got the phone call a couple of weeks ago from the seller saying she had accepted our offer, we were both completely stunned. It didn’t seem possible, with nine parties interested. But it had happened immediately and easily. We danced in the living room together. Our joy was so great, it flooded our whole beings and the only possible response was to dance!

And yes, as we were applying for a loan before the miracle had come to be, I had serious and deadly attack thoughts in the middle of the night about money and how much of my savings I was putting down, and my ability to pay for this and that and ongoing house expenses. But — I saw the attack and I did not crumble in the face of the onslaught. I placed faith in the process and in my knowledge that things work out. 

* * *

At this moment, I am sitting in the kitchen of the Rock House at the family ranch, a house built by my grandfather in 1927. It is sunny and below freezing outside. I look out over the snowy fields to the lake, and across to the hills beyond to the west. This is a sight I’ve seen my entire life. The open space settles me and calms me. I have time today — no meetings or calls or tasks that must be done. So, upon suggestion from a friend, I am sitting here, drinking tea, allowing the full weight of joy to enter my being.

My friend and I spoke yesterday about how difficult it is to really let joy in. How we somehow are always expecting the other shoe to drop . . . so it’s much safer to keep joy at a respectful distance. If it breaks through occasionally, fine. But to choose to open to it? That feels very dangerous. Because it surely will be taken away.

I'm wondering if that’s actually not how it works. I’m wondering if joy and peace are my natural state of being — that joy and peace are the infinite blue sky that is always, always there, that cannot not be there. A sky that of course, I obscure by my own attack thoughts and judgments and fears and self-protective contraction.

My wise friend observed that in the center of the greatest joy is a point of grief. Our human lives are finite and we know it. And at the center of the greatest grief is a point of joy. We can only grieve what we dearly love. I saw that joy and grief are yin-yang mirrors of each other, connected inextricably in their difference, as one whole. To have the capacity to feel the full weight of joy, one must have the capacity to feel the full weight of grief.

Both my husband and I sense that this miracle is a turning point in our lives. It asks us to uplevel how we speak and listen to each other, and how we work together.  It is the first big undertaking we will do together. We do it to give to others. And in the center of our joy is a point of grief, knowing that the years we have are limited, which makes it all the more sweet.

The COVID virus has had a hand in all this. It has stripped so much away, revealing what matters most.

I sit here, letting the joy in and feel gratitude for all the blessings in my life, including this year of psychological upending and radical change. 

Today I commit to remembering who I truly am, as you are also, the wide open sky that can choose to let all of the joy in.

Whew

I usually write a blog at the beginning of the month, but somehow, this month, January 2021, I couldn’t.

I had nothing to say, and no heart to say it from. I felt so tired inside — tired of acrimony and drama, tired of the fighting and fear, tired of the insolation imposed by the pandemic which is now raging in my part of the world.

And yesterday, inauguration day in the United States, I was gripped with computer problems, accounting mysteries, relationship shifts and couldn’t watch the celebration.

But today I began to touch in to what happened in America yesterday. Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States, and Kamila Harris, a woman of African American and Asian American decent, became the 46th vice president of the United States.

I could say a lot about it, but all I can feel at this moment is profound relief. That moment four years ago, when in the middle of the night I found out that Donald Trump had become president of the United States is encapsulated in my mind — that wonder of what would happen, the feeling of everything turning upside down and inside out.

I had no idea.

But now, it’s starting to be over. We all know that the time has come to heal and re-build anew; on the national level in leadership, in the collective body of this nation, and ESPECIALLY individually. Each one of us has the opportunity to scan our lives for who we leave out and what we will not listen to because we can’t tolerate it.

I loved Joe Biden’s innaguration speech.  And I have a big question. Can we, in our inner hearts, include the human beings who were the mob that broke into the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. two weeks ago? Is there a perspective they hold that has some grain of truth and wisdom for us to hear? Is there a way of looking at what happened that does not demonize?

We make the ‘other’ wrong when we believe we are being attacked. We very instinctively draw back and close ourselves. Then the gap between us is created. Today, the attack comes on our identity, or our imagined future safety, rather than on our actual physical bodies or property. But the reaction is the same — defend ourselves to the death.

But if we step back a pace and take a look are we not defending things that are not real? They may feel super real, but our identity and future imagined safety are not real. They are ideas in our heads.

What is real is that human being that we defend ourselves from. No matter how much we disagree with what they may say or how they may live their lives doesn’t change the fact that at the deepest level they want the same thing we do. Safety. Respect. Inclusion. The complexity and context of that person’s life is disregarded by us when we are defended against them. The only way we can know the reality of that person is to soften and to listen.

To soften and listen is the greatest act of strength and power there is. Not everyone can do it and I doubt anyone can do it all of the time. But to know that IS what we SHOULD do is a start.

I have a hunch that President Biden (oh gosh that sounds lovely, doesn’t it?) knows this deep down. I sense that if he were to have a one-on-one talk with young Jake Angeli, the QAnon shaman, he would soften and listen, behind closed doors.

So. Here’s to a new day, a new road and a new way of being American.

This Work is Your Work, This Work is My Work . . . Five Ideas

My sixteen year old nephew said it well, when I asked him what he thought about the Biden/Harris win in the presidential election last week:

“Well, maybe things will go back to not everything being about politics.”

Amen my boy! 

But first, I have to write this blog . . .

Politics (from Greek: Πολιτικά, politiká, 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.

Perhaps you, gentle reader, like me, felt a profound relief at the outcome in the end, after the prolonged tension of waiting for 150 million-ish votes to be counted here in the U.S.A. in the race for who would be the 46th president of the United States. Perhaps you, like me, felt a massive relaxation in the marrow of your bones (have I been tense for four years?) and the warm afterglow from the Biden/Harris victory speech on Saturday night, four days after election day. (I had a strange impulse to buy an American flag, and to fly it!) Or perhaps, you felt something different?

And then the next day, a sad contraction, as the realization that those folks who voted for Trump (maybe friends and family) probably feel as shitty now as I did back in 2016 in the wee hours of election night — and a sense that the fighting is not just going to all go away.

Americans are polarized, and could be duking it out for some time to come.

As you may well know, social media and the privatization of news media outlets have amplified the differences that have always existed in the melting pot culture of America, as once-shared cultural commons like Walter Cronkite’s nightly reports have disintegrated in the face of technology that gives more platforms to more people, or the values of a shared religion have disintegrated in the face of a vast array of new ways to express and develop one’s spirituality.

Four years of Donald Trump as president has brought to light much of the shadow that America has been holding . . . things about ourselves as a people that we don’t cop to; that have not yet been integrated into our identity as Americans. YES, we are a culture whose prosperity has been built on the backs of indigenous people and the institution of slavery. YES, we have a class system that privileges a few over the masses. YES, we have deeply embedded institutions that keep certain people from equal opportunities. YES, white male patriarchy is alive and well, and holds the majority power in many areas of our civic, economic and political life. 

Yet historically, by and large, hierarchical distribution of power has been normal in most human society since forever. America is radically egalitarian by comparison. It’s actually remarkable and unprecedented that many of us are saying THAT’S NOT OK anymore. 

I’m aware that this is the reality I see (and gosh it feels damn well true). But it’s not the reality that all of America sees. 

My knee jerk reaction is to insulate myself from those crazy people who think Trump was the leader we needed to get us back on track.

But the Democrats have won this presidential election. Now, the question is do I want to be RIGHT, or do I want to be IN RELATIONSHIP?

What does American politics and American culture need me to be if we want to be one country, indivisible, again?

Here are five ideas I think are important to consider — things that would greatly influence how we make decisions in groups and configure our power relationships as we move forward into 2021.

1. Recognizing Shadow and How It Operates

Way back in 2016, I wrote about a blog called Donald Trump is OUR Shadow. His four-year reign as president, along with the advent of this global pandemic that is raging right now has illuminated all our weak and unattended places — our collective shadows. 

We all have personal shadow — places in ourselves that are invisible to us where we are sometimes rude, overbearing, weak, mean, supercilious, untrustworthy, self-centered, stupid . . . or whatever we consistently and vehemently detest out there in the world. As irritating as it is to hear, it turns out that much of the time we do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. The world mirrors us.

Understanding your own shadow and how it operates is one of the most liberating practices a person can engage in. As Zen teacher and Integral mediator Diane Hamilton says, seeing our (scary) shadow doesn’t make us wrong. It (radically) changes how we handle things. [Note: shadow can also be all the wonderful things in yourself that you don’t want to consciously see, and so project out onto others, so there’s that too.] Check out this Zoom workshop given by Diane Hamilton, Gabriel Wilson and Kim Loh on the 3-2-1 process of catching your own shadow, and imagine how it can open up possibility in relationship, and so, in politics. 

2. Healthy Polarization and Its Role in Creative Emergence

The hyperpolarization in the United States feels unsafe to many of us. It seems our neighbors are insane. How can we relate to them or even trust them at all? Our impulse is to purge ourselves of those creepy others. But what if we understood that the tension between opposing forces is actually a healthy and important thing? What if in this country we had the understanding and tools to use that tension to heal and open us up to new solutions to seemingly intractable problems? It can absolutely be done. It starts with you, practicing it in every day life. 

Here is one solution for a way forward that promotes a cultural stance that includes and addresses the values of all people across the spectrum of difference. And here is a short video by Steve Macintosh on How to Overcome Political Polarization in 5 Minutes.

3. Show Up As A Healing Influence

With an understanding and experience of your own shadow, you may become less and less fearful of the shadow in others. Your own sense of yourself will be larger and more compassionate, allowing you to extend compassion to others with whom you disagree. Understanding the system of opposition inherent in democracy (and everywhere, for that matter) you are less afraid of others with different worldviews, seeing them instead as sources for your own expansion. Now you can show up as a healing influence. Don’t think that your only influence is your vote. Your words and behavior, your stance and energy influence everyone you come in contact with. You MATTER because you are a cell in this body of the American Politic.

4. Safety and an Extended Circle of Care

People will not be able to hear opposing viewpoints if their nervous systems are freaked out. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows us that before we can self-actualize (which involves enlarging our perspectives), we need to feel valued and esteemed, we need to feel loved and included, we need to feel safe, and we need our basic physical needs taken care of. Are you be a safe person to talk to? Do you have your needs met, and are you monitoring and taking care of them in an ongoing way? Can you regulate the nervous system of others, emanating authentic care and esteem for them? Can you aspire to do so, acknowledging when you fail and celebrating when you have success—a forever practice of extending your circle of care? What kind of containers might be created for people to come together in this way?

5. A Web of Connected Tribes

We are not all the same. We have affinity for some types of people, and less affinity for others. We have differences in background, in education, in development and health. It’s important to make the distinction that it’s OK to have both the desire for everyone to be One, underneath personality, culture, race, gender and all the other ways we are different, and to have the the natural animal desire to hang out with people we have important things in common with — being with our tribe. Tribes have boundaries, and they should have boundaries. Cells have cell walls, and they need to have cell walls. Healthy tribes have the capacity to work with other tribes that hold opposing values. Resiliancy is found in a web of connected tribes.

There is a threshold of capacity that must be attained here: A capacity to be secure in one’s own tribal values while listening for the values expressed within opposing opinions. A capacity to allow opposing opinions and values in . . . to really hear them. A capacity to see the shadowy reactive parts within one’s own tribe group, and work with it skillfully. A willingness to be authentically open to the helpful, good, life-affirming aspects of the other tribe’s way of being in the world.

Those of us who have the privilege to be working on our personal growth have the responsibility to walk in the world as sources of peace and reconciliation, as sources of healing. The more each of us can be the change we want to see in the world, the closer we will come to being a humanity that will be able to turn together and face the coming challenges before us.

Imagine a resilient global system of strong tribes (and tribes within other tribes) who have strong and open channels of connection and communication; like the cells and organs in a human body who all coordinate together to keep the body alive and healthy.

It will take real work for us to get there, but I believe it to be possible. 

It’s my work, and it’s yours. Let’s begin.

A New American Revolution

What would a real and true American Revolution look like today? What exactly would have to happen for the country I live in to rise up and shake off its blindness? 

There are a number of conditions.

• It requires leadership at every level that can articulate a vision that speaks to the hearts of all of us, regardless of class, race, age, gender, political persuasion. A vision deep enough that it activates our collective human values and longings.

Do you have a vision you can share? Don’t be shy. Speak it out.

• It requires a hell of a lot of courage. Vision (both from leadership, but more importantly from our own internal longing) inspires courage. And then we have to believe that our voice matters, no matter what our experience might tell us about who is listening or not.

What’s the state of your courage these days? How can you nourish and foster it?

• Another way of articulating the above condition is: what is our relationship with fear? What are our patterns when faced with fear? How can we make distinctions between real danger and perceived danger? How can we see our patterns and interrupt them? Being courageous does not mean we are without fear. It's how we react to fear that matters.

Can you feel fear in the body, the raw sensations without the story? Can you sit with the sensations?

• It requires looking without flinching at the terrible things we have done in the past as a United States of America — slavery and indigenous genocide, for one. Looking without hating ourselves; only opening to and allowing the grief to be felt in our bodies .  . . fully. Letting the pain of those whose humanity was trespassed into our collective psyche opens a more clear path to making authentic amends. 

This is a community project. Who can you gather with to express and share your grief?

• It requires stretching beyond your boundaries of comfort. This is a creative act that ultimately energizes.

 How can you disrupt your own ideas of what is 'right'? How can you expand your own worldview? 

• It requires an embodied knowing of our interconnectedness — not only with other human beings, but with trees and grass and sky and bugs and everything in our physical universe. You KNOW this belonging in your bones.

Practice daily stopping and connecting to someone or something. Be still and feel the connection.

• It requires coordinated civic action. Beyond the reach of 'the media,' thousands of gatherings and initiatives are springing up. Everyone can do something, whether it is a listening conversation with someone who holds a different perspective, to sharing memes and information, to donating money, to participating in the many online forums that are erupting ever day.

Know that engagement, no matter how humble, also dissipates despair and isolation.

• It requires Love. The most powerful revolution, as Ghandi and Nelson Mandela and the young hippies of the 60's and the new hippie star children of today know, is one that comes from Love. When you are able to see your greatest enemy (go ahead, yes, him) with love, you know that all your actions are life-sustaining and in right relationship with How Things Work.

How do you make contact with Love? To knowing you are Love?

Are you with me? I'm IN for the revolution. It's time.

The Great UnMasking

Here we are— smack dab in the upending chaos of radical change, a living moment of history with a full on revolution underway. A global revolution.

In recent weeks, much of humanity has been wearing masks in public. We are wearing them to protect ourselves, but also to protect each other. Masks are a ritual and symbol of this time. They are a statement of an intention for safety from a virus that is invisible and seemingly capricious, showing different symptoms in different people. They also are a statement of our beliefs systems and our political leanings. We all want to feel safe, and the uncertainty that a global pandemic triggers in us is hard to hold. It has put us all in a more vulnerable situation — but perhaps those of us who live in greater comfort and safety have felt the fear of uncertainty more. Perhaps for people who always feel unsafe, wearing a mask seems a weak gesture. In some way, the pandemic has leveled the psychological playing field. At the very least, for sure we’re all in this together.

Most of us around the world separated and isolated, in order to give our health care systems time to prepare for what might come, to perhaps lighten the toll that COVID-19 could take on our communities. In this retreat, many people have come to greater clarity about what matters most. We find that we care about each other and need each other, and who the other is . . .  that is changing. We are widening the circle.

The time of pandemic is finally un-masking our shadows. We are fighting now, because the masks of inequity are being ripped off, the masks that have kept the privilege and comfort of ‘whites’ safely systematized in culture. In America, we are finally beginning to look at what we have refused to see before. It is unmasking what power-over looks like, smells like, tastes like. These times are bringing more clearly into the light just how power-over leadership (as exhibited so flawlessly by the White House) divides, foments fear, and fosters instability.

It is unmasking how deep our beliefs of separateness have been. Racism, classism, Indigenous genocide —shadows of America’s rise to power are being unmasked relentlessly. And to see your own shit hurts like hell, at first, before it liberates you. The white majority, of which I am a part, is being asked to LOOK. Look at the murder of George Floyd and all those Black men who have gone before him, killed at the hands of a traumatized white cultural system. LOOK at slavery. LOOK at Jim Crow. LOOK at mass incarceration of Black people and the privatization of prisons and prison labor. Have the courage to just look.

We are learning what it is to act as one global family. We are sharing critical information about the pandemic, singing to each other, forming non-profits to help each other, and now — we are fighting more openly with each other. 

As some families know, there is a way to fight that leads to greater understanding, connection and love.

You must be able to hear the complaints of the other and not defend yourself — because the other has something to teach you.

You must be able to stand and listen to the anger and fear and bravado of the other, no matter the terror and anger it triggers in your own body.

You fight because you care. But to fight well, you must be able to stand the fire of the fight, with love in your heart. Only Love is strong enough to support us in this fight.

We may look back on this time and recall it was the moment when we began, for the first time ever, to learn as a global family how to speak with each other, how to listen to each other, how to hold our own reactivity and sit in uncomfortable situations.

 It is the Great UnMasking, a threshold time of change that perhaps you will tell stories of someday to children yet unborn, recounting the time when what kept us separate began to give way to what unifies us.