Inspiring Woman Lives a Rich Life Earning $0 Per Year!

In 2015 Jo Nemeth left her job, closed her bank account and said goodbye to the last of her money. Eleven years later, Jo lives a healthy, fulfilling life while dramatically reducing her personal ecological impact. In this video, she shares her journey from terrifying climate grief to a place of purpose and contribution.

  Inspiring Woman Lives a Rich Life Earning $0 Per Year!

Andy and Opie: Generosity, Charity and Being Selfish

The Andy Griffith Show often dished up some poignant lessons about being a good person in the world. Here's a precious little clip where Andy wrongly accuses Opie of being selfish. A great message overall...(and as gardeners who rely largely on worms to help us create compost for soil fertility, we especially enjoyed Opie's perspective on life as a worm!). 

According to the comments below the video, apparently they edited out the punchline: 

Opie: "What're we havin' for supper?" 
Andy: "Well, you and Aunt Bee's havin' fried chicken! And I'm havin' crow."

Small Acts, Accessible to All: 10% overt resistance; 90% creative action

At this time of world upheaval, environmental destruction and division among people, it is so good to hear coherent, wise voices, guiding us in ways that will help us heal the world. Nipun Mehta is one of those voices. He is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global ecosystem working at the intersection of technology, volunteerism, and a culture of generosity. Here is an introduction to an article he wrote called, Science of Soul Force: How Your Heart Changes the World. Brilliant!

"Gandhi was clear that only 10% of action should be overt resistance. The other 90% must be what he called "constructive program"—the quiet building of alternatives, the patient cultivation of inner and outer coherence. Without that foundation, the 10% simply won't be effective.

Vinoba took this even further:

"If a satyagraha doesn't work, we must be mindful not to head in the direction of greater coercion. Instead, we must make our actions gentler. Subtler. And if the subtler approach doesn't work, we must get even 'gentlier and gentliest.'" — Vinoba Bhave

Why gentler? Because coercion costs you your coherence. The moment you move toward force—whether through money, manipulation, or militancy—you exit the coherent state. You lose access to the field's regenerative support. You're now operating on your own resources, which are finite, which breed anxiety, which further degrades coherence. It's a downward spiral.

But when you stay gentle, you stay coherent. Like yeast that rises again after being pushed down, you can sustain the work across decades, even generations, because you're not depleting yourself. You're being replenished by the field you're helping to build."

Image by Llyn Peabody

To read the full article by Nipun Mehta: Science of Soul Force: How Your Heart Changes the World 

Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, a global ecosystem working at the intersection of technology, volunteerism, and a culture of generosity. This article was inspired by his Awakin Call with Rollin McCraty. Rollin is the Director of Research at the HeartMath Institute, where he has spent over three decades studying the physiology of emotion, heart-brain interactions, and the science of coherence. 

 

the only way to live an abundant life

Here is a fantastic, short video by Alecia Renece about the connection between generosity and abundance. We couldn't say it better ourselves!

🌹 Living in sync with Earth, and how it will actually look

The future isn’t humans ascending beyond Earth.

It’s humans finally learning how to live with her.

Something shifted.
Not as a revelation. Not as a prophecy.
But as a quiet recognition that landed fully in the body.

This isn’t about ascension, awakening, or becoming “more.”
It’s about returning to something very basic we forgot how to do:

Living in sync with Earth.

What follows isn’t a vision of a distant future.
It’s a description of a state that is already forming —
where humans stop fighting life
and start moving at the pace of the planet that carries them.

How syncing with Earth will actually look

Not dramatic.
Not mystical.
Not abstract.

Quiet. Coherent. Embodied.

1. The nervous system becomes Earth-paced

People are no longer regulated by:

clocks
deadlines
artificial urgency
constant stimulation

They are regulated by:

light
breath
seasons
gravity
relational rhythm

You’ll see fewer extremes:
less frenzy, less collapse, less dissociation.

Not because life is “easier,”
but because bodies are no longer fighting the planet they live on.

2. Leadership shifts from dominance to coherence

No one is above through power.
No one is below through submission.

The central figure isn’t ruling.
She’s holding resonance.

Leadership looks like:

people who stay regulated under pressure
people whose presence settles others
people who listen to land, not just data

Authority comes from alignment, not control.

3. Feminine and masculine become currents, not roles

The old war dissolves:

action vs rest
logic vs intuition
strength vs softness

Instead:

masculine becomes directional clarity
feminine becomes relational intelligence

Every human carries both.
No one has to perform them.

That’s why bodies soften.
Hands rest on the heart.
Eyes close — no longer seeking validation.

4. Community forms through resonance, not identity

People don’t gather because they agree.
They gather because their nervous systems can co-regulate.

Community grows around:

shared rhythm
shared care
shared land
shared responsibility

Conflict still exists —
but it doesn’t escalate into destruction,
because the ground holds it.

5. Earth is no longer a resource — she is a regulator

This is the biggest shift.

Earth isn’t worshipped.
She is listened to.

Cities change shape.
Food systems slow down.
Architecture breathes.
Technology becomes quieter.

Not primitive.
Not anti-tech.
Just life-compatible.

What the future does not look like

Not:

constant ceremonies
endless spiritual language
permanent bliss
everyone “awake”

It looks like:

people who stay with discomfort without violence
children not born into overwhelmed nervous systems
grief that moves instead of calcifies
joy that doesn’t need performance

The core truth

Syncing with Earth doesn’t make humans more spiritual.
It makes them more sane.

And that’s why this future is inevitable —
because the current model is neurologically unsustainable.

The future isn’t humans ascending beyond Earth.
It’s humans finally learning how to live with her.

And yes —
this is the future you are already building.

Sirius Olea Solaris
#SpiritualWarriors #ArchitectsOfNewEarth

find us at truth ¤ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558431586234

Butterfly Metaphor - Imaginal Cells and the Transformation of Society

Update: March 2020 - ​I'm re-posting this Butterfly video as, with the CoV forcing many of us into "social distancing" practices, the post's message seems more timely than ever.

A friend of mine shared with me that she's begun re-framing social distancing as "cocooning" which gives the practice more positive and regenerative connotations, and aligns with the metaphor of society entering its chrysalis stage offered below.

Ever wonder how we'll ever get out of this crazy mess we're in: rampant consumerism devouring the planet, with no end in sight; ever-widening the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots"?

Enjoy this 4-minute video by Bruce Lipton that describes the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly and how it provides a hopeful metaphor for the current stage of our society. Happy cocooning!

And for several other inspiring videos about butterflies, CLICK HERE

 

Or, if you prefer to receive this butterfly wisdom in the form of poetry:

Cocoon

Do not expect cocooning

To be easy.

It is not a time of rest

But of rebirth.

They used to think

That the Caterpillar

Merely slept there,

Awaiting the wonder of wings.

This is not true.

To cocoon means

The breaking down of self,

Of letting go of all

that may be considered

Caterpillar.

Yielding to the chrysalis call.

Dropping all that is old identity,

All that is desire,

All that is hungry,

All that is eating, eating, eating,

Endlessly.

When the moment comes, called

To go to the cool dark underleaf, underlog place,

To spin the silk of silent self,

The Caterpillar dissolves,

Touches the point of nothingness

Of being;

Become now

Neither Caterpillar

Nor Butterfly

Become simply, potential,

Until new form is found,

Until the selfmade tomb is too tight

And Butterfly is birthed,

bursting blessing, beauty.

A journey through stillness

into freedom,

Into flight,

No one who knew the Caterpillar

Would know it in the Butterfly,

No one who knows the Butterfly

Would see in it

Even the memory

Of Caterpillar,

Yet within there is

A continuity of being

A new recipe out of old ingredients

A life remade, a seed flowered, a potency fulfilled,

There is pain in this

I am sure.

How could there not be?

There is always pain

In surrender,

In transformation,

In new life, new birth

Death before resurrection,

Letting go, before letting be

This is the divine order of things

This is why there hides

Even here, even now,

In all your old Caterpillar desiring,

In the hunger at the core of your being,

The promise of Butterfly

If you would but surrender

To the call

Of the cocoon.

If you would know,

even for a day,

The wonder of wings

The freedom of flight.

 

Brother Richard Hendrick OFM Cap

 

Winter Solstice Musings

Hello friends, this is a re-post from a posting I wrote in December of 2009. I hope it lifts your spirits!

Mandala - "Light is Returning" by Llyn Peabody

Winter Solstice was only meaningful to me on a rather "intellectual" basis when I lived in the city. Each year, as Autumn days drew shorter and evening commutes occurred more and more in the dark, I vowed to "pay attention to the seasons" and aspired to live a life in tune with natural rhythms. I was only ever marginally successful. These last two years, since living in rural Alpine, Oregon and growing a garden, the seasonal changes have become very real to me. The sun is setting these days at about 4:30 here, and doesn't rise again till about 7:30. I am acutely aware of just how few daylight hours there are and eagerly await the turning point of Winter Solstice. Even though winter will still have its grip on things  - weather-wise, I know the days will start getting longer and for this I am truly grateful.

I know many of you who receive these posts from Chris' and my garden blog are probably faced with your own winter blues these days. Even if you live in a city with its artificially extended day-light hours, you can't help but be affected by the turning seasons, the dour headlines, economic stress and other challenges of being human.

I send along this slide-show I put together with a song whose lyrics are meant to inspire you to keep looking for simple ways your bliss and gifts can intersect with the world's need. (link below)


"Light is returning,
Even though this is the darkest hour,
No one can hold
Back the dawn." Charlie Murphy

The Forest of a Million Trees

Light is Returning - Solstice Song

Here, on this shortest day of the year, here are the lyrics from a Solstice song by Charlie Murphy.

Light is returning
Even though this is the darkest hour.
No one can hold back the dawn.

Let's keep it burning;
Let's keep the light of hope alive!
Make safe our journey through the storm.

One planet is turning
Circle on her path around the Sun.
Earth Mother is calling her children home. 

To hear the music, CLICK HERE.

And, another offering...

Blessing for the Longest Night--by Jan Richardson, syndicated from adventdoor.com, Dec 23, 2020

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.

You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.

This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.

So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon. --Jan Richardson

"We've Been Programmed To Be Addicted!" - How To Break Addiction & Bad Habits | Dr. Joe Dispenza

I love how Joe Dispenza brings profound metaphysical insights and practices to the grounded world of science. He is a bridge between the spiritual and the practical. Watch this 17-min video to see his approach to overcoming addictions, whether they be to substance, habits or self-destructive thought patterns. Very liberating.

 

The Coming Anastrophe

(Originally posted in 2017...but still true!) I came across this inspiring and thought-provoking video yesterday: The Coming Anastrophe by James Corbett.

Image: Sundara Fawn - 2007

Some people think that we can't really move forward, to heal society and all its ills, until there's a 'collapse' or 'catastrophe' of some kind; otherwise (the story goes) we'll just keep putting patches on a system that's so broken that anything built on top of it will inherently be flawed.  Corbett offers an alternative story: that an 'anastrophe' would be a sudden and rapid awakening of humanity that would lift us unified out of the many troubles facing the world.

He says that the change must begin at the community/neighborhood level. I admit that his views can seem a bit utopian but I appreciate him for shining a spotlight in a new direction -- away from the fascination many people feel in waiting for 'the BIG one'; the catastrophe that will hopefully, finally catalyze us out of the many messes the world is in.

I think he touched on what many intentional communities, and people living in the alternative culture are feeling these days. There's a feeling of waiting; that it's not quite time to act; that we need a 'sign' from outside ourselves.

I know that, here at the Sharing Gardens we sometimes find ourselves waiting for a big external stimulus to move us to the next level. We built up something to a certain crescendo-point but then it peaked and now it seems we're waiting to receive our next instructions...Is this just a cop-out? I'm not sure... I know that, until I/we have clear guidance before acting, that our efforts are often wasted. It's important to be clear before moving forward but I also sometimes feel this can be an excuse not to act at all. There's some famous quote that says - " All that's needed for evil to take over the world is for good people to do nothing".

Feel free to comment below, if so inspired. Blessings.

Here's the link to the video. 

my great great grandfather was a monarch butterfly...

Poem "Ancestry" by Fred LaMotte 

My DNA results came in.

Just as I suspected,

my great great grandfather

was a monarch butterfly.

Much of who I am is still

wriggling under a stone.

I am part larva, but

part hummingbird too.

There is dinosaur tar in

my bone marrow.

My golden hair sprang out

of a meadow in Palestine.

Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,

but I didn't get his dimples.

My loins are loaded with

banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,

but I descended from Ravanna,

not Ram.

My uncle is a mastodon.

There are traces of white people

in my saliva.

3.7 billion years ago I swirled

in hydrogen dust,

dreaming of a planet overgrown

with lingams and yonis.

More recently, say 60,000 B.C.

I walked on hairy paws

across a land bridge

joining Sweden to Botswana.

I am the bastard of the sun and moon.

I can no longer hide my heritage of

raindrops and cougar scat.

My mud was molded with your grandmother's tears.

I was the brother

who marched you to the sea

and sold you.

I was the merchant from Savannah

and the cargo of blackness.

I was the chain.

Admit it, you have wings,

vast and crystal,

like mine, like mine.

You have sweat, dark and salty,

like mine, like mine.

You have secrets silently

singing in your blood,

like mine, like mine.

Don't pretend that earth

is not one family.

Don't pretend we never hung

from the same branch.

Don't pretend we do not ripen

on each other's breath.

Don't pretend we didn't

come here to forgive.

 

Fred LaMotte is the author of three books of poetry. A graduate of Yale University and Princeton Theological Seminary, he has been director of Religious Studies and Community Service at America’s oldest Quaker school, a college instructor in World Religions, an interfaith college chaplain, and a meditation teacher.

For more information about Fred, please visit these links:

• Fred’s personal website of poetry: https://yourradiance.blogspot.com/
• Fred’s book, Wounded Bud
• Fred’s book, Savor Eternity One Moment at a Time
• Fred’s book, The Fire of Darkness

 

The Hive Architect: Saving Britain's Wild Bees

There is a widely held theory that the British honey bee couldn’t exist without being domesticated by beekeepers. However, for bee conservationists like Matt Somerville, this theory is ludicrous. He has spent decades admiring free-living honey bees nesting in tree cavities and they are under increasing threats from commercial beekeeping, loss of habitat and other violences of the modern world. So Matt decided to do something about it. For the last 14 years he has spent the winters creating his log hives before driving around all of England in the summer, erecting them as minimal intervention homes for wild honey bees.

A delightful and inspiring documentary. 

 

They're letting wildflowers take over their land. Here's why

A short but inspiring video: David Butterworth and Gill Wilson-Butterworth made a big decision recently, and local watershed groups are calling it a win-win. The Canadian couple turned over part of their land for use by butterflies, birds and bees, and volunteers dug up hundreds of spruce and pine trees to let a wildflower meadow grow up instead from a 'seed bank that was already in the soil.'

 LINK

Two Sides of the Apple Orchard

This essay aligns with my own heart path: spirituality expressed through our relationship with Nature. Enjoy, Llyn

BY EZRA SULLIVAN
Mar 27, 2025

Reposted from Daily Good

Excerpt: I was eighteen years old, and I had a strong trust that my guiding spirit was leading me towards an unfolding biography that would integrate agriculture with spirituality. What is the relationship between humanity and nature? How do our actions affect outcome? How can outcome be measured? When can humanity reach into nature and make a medicine, and when does humanity's reach into nature make a poison? 

My relationship with growing apples began in 2011, in Tunuyan, Argentina, right at the base of the Andes Mountains. On a bitterly cold late fall day, I joined a crew of WWOOF volunteers to harvest the last of the Granny Smiths. The orchard was primarily Red Delicious, but Granny Smiths were planted every so often for pollination. The Red Delicious apples were used for pressing apple juice and fermenting vinegar, and the Granny Smith were stored in the root cellar for winter's eating. See, if you let a few good frosts fall on the Granny Smith, the green changes in places to slight pink, and the flavor expands from sour to sweet. 

I was eighteen years old, and I had a strong trust that my guiding spirit was leading me towards an unfolding biography that would integrate agriculture with spirituality. I knew immediately that this farm held keys for my future. Here I met the orchard. Here I met Maria Thun's calendar, natural building, romance, gardening, dancing, and here I met community. An agrarian community founded to host new ideas. 

But back to the apples. There were roughly twelve acres planted into apple trees. Half the orchard was 40 years old, and was kept in relatively standard organic practice. Cover crops, regular irrigation during the growing season, annual pruning to an open vase system, composted manure applications, understory mowing, occasional soil cultivation and the thinning of fruit. This was the most productive part of the apple orchard. The open vase pruning system lends itself well to three ladder position harvesting, which enabled speed of harvest. The rows and understory were neatly maintained with mowing and cultivation, enabling ease of access for the orchardists to work. In this system, the input and output were both high, and it drove a small business. The work was accomplished with volunteers and extended family, which enabled other, more spiritual, cultural projects to exist in the surrounding time. 

The Sharing Gardens 'managed orchard' 2022.

The other half of the apple orchard was roughly one hundred years old. This half was cared for in an entirely different manner, inspired by the natural farming writings of Masanobu Fukuoka. The only input into this orchard system was flood irrigation. Meaning, the trees were never pruned, no compost or other fertilizers were applied, fruit was not thinned, the soil was never disturbed and the under story was never mowed. 

The trees in the second half of the orchard, or what we can call the old orchard, were tall. All the trees were grafted onto a standard, probably seedling, rootstock. Which means that the trees could grow to their full height and were not inhibited in growth and form by the rootstock. 

Since this old orchard had been abandoned for decades before the family bought the farm, about one third of the original old trees had died back. In their places, the seedling rootstock had thrown up new trees. As you may know, every apple seed is a genetic individual. Plant every seed in an apple and you will have that many entirely unique apple cultivars! Each of these seedling trees were unique, and most were delicious. Red, green, yellow, keepers, saucers, juicers, cider apples and dessert apples. The diversity these apples brought was starkly evident amidst the panorama of the Red Delicious and scattered Granny Smith orchard. 

The understory of the old orchard was an important feature; here too, diversity was widely noted. Grass, small shrubs, vines, large swaths of herbaceous biennials claimed their territories, and so on. The insects and animal life abounded as well! Here the native bees could be found, foxes and local honey bees thronged to this rewilded patch of orchard. 

When we worked in the young orchard, tasks were clear, like the lines of the trees. Work was quick and effective. The crew dutifully felt like cogs in a well-oiled system, moving the apples to the juicing room, and there was purpose in this work. But once we experienced the old orchard, its quality engrossed us, and we knew something was missing in the young orchard. 

The entire system interacted with us in a more complex way. Harvesting was a rewilding experience, and a lesson in the cultivation of patience. Longer, heavy ladders were used, and finding their feet amidst the thick underbrush was exhausting. You could barely walk a straight line through it. One had to traverse fallen trees, ant hills, dense undergrowth and uneven ground. Many apples were lost to the underbrush; perhaps these "lost" apples were an important part of the fertility cycle of the old orchard. Accompanying the lack of thinning the fruit, harvest was strongly biennial in nature, leading to boom-and- bust years of production. In the old orchard, the apples were fewer and smaller, yet their flavors were far more interesting. This complexity held a warmth of heart, which matched our humanity in a certain way. 

Nature thrives in our less-manicured spaces...

These two different systems of management were employed for a variety of reasons. Originally, the farm family did not have enough time, energy or capital to "restore" or replant the old half of the orchard. So leaving it be was a decision made from necessity. Over time, the "old" orchard became a place of philosophical discourse. What is the relationship between humanity and nature? How do our actions affect outcome? How can outcome be measured? When can humanity reach into nature and make a medicine, and when does humanity's reach into nature make a poison? This discourse was a guiding stream in our lives during this time. It was an open question that this farm hosted, and around thirty or so volunteers every year visited to experience it.

This article is excerpted from a longer piece by Ezra Sullivan.

Ezra Sullivan has dedicated his young life to studying, living, and teaching spiritual science in the Rudolf Steiner tradition of Anthroposophy. Raised in urban Los Angeles, he sensed early on that current ways of education and life weren't calling him. Farming with local communities became a natural choice - offering him a poignant combination of the elemental, the physical, and the spiritual. After a decade of working with regenerative biodynamic agriculture and nonprofit leadership in South America and the Pacific Northwest, Ezra studied at the birthing ground of Anthroposophy in Switzerland. He now leads a young adult residency program in the Hudson Valley of New York -- with self-guided processes to allow young people to access ancient wisdom so they find "the willingness to be themselves." Ezra shares: "I don't order material existence so that I can have a spiritual life. A healthy soul knows what it needs intuitively ... Everyday life is the initiation path."

On Community: The More-Than-Human World

This poetic essay speaks to me: mind, heart, body and soul. Llyn

BY TESS JAMES

Syndicated from pod.servicespace.org, Mar 20, 2025
6 minute read

Yesterday, I saw a lizard expanding itself in death, assisted by ants. Slowly, it ceased to resemble a lizard. With their help, it was evolving into something larger than itself. I could not look away.

Someone else might have seen murder. Another, the quickness of ants. But to me, the scene felt sacred. It lingered for hours beneath a palm shrub, where dust and shadows thickened into a shifting, dancing form on the tiled floor. It was cooler there.

I was sweeping the courtyard. Each time I passed, my body seemed to change—cool air brushing my skin, an eerie silence trailing my limbs. I could almost hear a cello playing in the distance. I felt invited to a ceremony. A lizard, becoming more than its life.

Watching the lizard dissolve into something beyond itself, I thought of another kind of becoming—one I had witnessed over the course of a year. The seed of the memory is held within my friend, a collector of seeds, who roams the world with an easy gait, a lean back, and plenty of stories in her bag.

I was once an aghast gardener, watching my precious tomato plants wither despite my best efforts. She, ever the wanderer, gathers seeds from distant lands—tiny capsules of folly and wisdom alike. She once told me:

"Seed collecting teaches you how life truly works."

My tomato plants, sick from their long journey in a seed packet, struggled to belong. The soil was still foreign to them. The land, still unknown. Many didn’t survive their first or second generation. But in those moments, their purple and yellow veins sent out an invitation—a distress call.

And then they arrived. Aphids. Cutworms. Spider mites. Flea beetles. Thrips. Gastropods. Here, even African snails respond to every distress call—and there are many.

On the days the first and second-generation tomato plants surrendered, I saw them transform—slowly but surely—into moths and butterflies. I saw them spread their wings and flow—into the beak of a dancing flycatcher that waits near our home every year from September to October.

This is how it has always been for me.

People exist in the background; my foreground is the present moment. Never empty. Always a canvas—Butterflies. Dried leaves. Twigs I like to hold. Worm castings brushing my heels.A bird call.The quiet shock of meeting a Shikra.A Racket-tailed Drongo lingering as my mother eats her birthday lunch.

This is how the world arrives for me. I step into the human world through the mirror of the more-than-human world, finding ease in its familiar safety.

I can recount the hours spent climbing trees, tracing bark with my fingers. But how do I measure the moments when the earth beneath me gives way to beauty, to wonder, to tea?

How do I quantify the time I have stood as a silent sentinel, waiting for rain alongside a thousand beings who can only drink when it falls?

I wait with them simply because I enjoy their company. It is the most natural companionship I know.

Before I loved flowers, I loved stones.

I have my preferences here too. Fire speaks to me in a hungry growl, sometimes singeing from beyond a flame. But I have always belonged to Earth. To Sky. To Water. Fire has taken its time to become a friend.

In the more-than-human world, I breathe better. Wind curling through the ribs, lung tissue encircling the pain where my bones held tightness. A tremor in my chest. A quiet sigh before I knew I needed one. Attention softens on the edges of my awareness, and I am breathed.

Yesterday, a dying lizard, a mango twig, and the first summer rain steadied me from a lingering question: Are we a violent species?

I found my answer in summer.

Summer—a single word, yet never the same from one moment to the next. The terrible heat is not constant. Not across days, not across hours, not even across villages and cities. Here, our summers have moods.

The sun singes at noon. But not all noons burn the same.

Some days, like yesterday, summer carried dew. My mother and I tried to tease rain from the dew. It worked—by evening, long after we had resigned ourselves to its absence.

And so, when I look deeply, everything shifts.

My breath shifts first.

But arriving here, to this breath, took a lizard, a twig, and the memory of a mango tree that once overlooked a pond. A pond where herons pecked at water holes. Where Jaladhara skittering frogs called out for rain.

Through the more-than-human world, I find the safety to look again—at the people who matter to me.

My father steps into the courtyard. A patriarch, yet in my eyes, he is slowly dissolving into something beyond a parent—especially with the pearly white beard he has been growing for months now. No longer just the bearer of authority, but a dignified presence unfurling in quieter, more human ways.

My understanding of the human world has always been fragmented, wired through disparate notions. I recall easier times, but it is the animate world that has stood as guardian to my sanity.

In the human world, I have needed concepts.

When I couldn’t grasp their fluidity, I became starkly reductionist, shrinking my life into the smallest space possible—trying, at least, to be harmless. But even in that space, I was reminded of the potency of a mustard seed. Except I am no mustard seed. I splutter differently. I bloom differently. I race with the world—chasing centers, apexes, circles, pyramids, and such. Occasionally, my soft body arrives at its own softness, the wily muscles hanging around breath on a dancing tangle of sticks and such.

I see with clarity now.

I cannot live without notions. I cannot live without friends.

I have spent time with metaphors. Some call it mysticism. Yet nothing has been as affirming as allowing notions to dissolve and flow. For that idea to germinate, it has needed space within me.

In the foreground, the towering presence of canopies offers myriad company.

A simple offering—root vegetables cooked on coals, eaten with crushed chilies. The sharp heat of capsaicin burns my tongue—earthy, fruity, alive. I think of the parrot, unsinged by the chili’s fire, and I smile.

The women in the neighbourhood watch over those passing by, always looking out for friendlies. The three sisters, empty nesters, wave at me.

They always recall better times on this street.

"This place didn’t have all these shops. These were homes."

"See those buildings? Once, there were trees there. Monkeys lived on them. The ledges were seamless, unlike now!"

They sigh at the past and ponder the stillness that surrounds them now.

I know this about them.

They love to eat root vegetables with crushed chilies, like I do.

I see a shared glint of laughter as I wave back. Perhaps today, I will need an extended hour on the ledge that separates our properties into "ours" and "theirs."

And we shall gossip like warblers—town gossip, about root vegetables and such.

This is the secret I know of invitations.

I have always seen my belonging to the more-than-human world as a response to an invite.

A twig. A dying lizard. The first summer rain.

Everything calls, if I listen.

Yet in the human world, I have moved differently. As a disruptor. Perhaps because I never saw it as a world of invitations. With the same score in mind, I tend to even out scores, with or without knowing it.

The suffering of the rivers. The time the river coughed back plastic to the shores and flowed on, indifferent, as if nothing had happened.

But everything swells up, with room for invitations.

This is the secret I have come to dwell in.

One must understand the nature of invitations in the human world too.

And so, I post them—my invites—out into the world.

And there is laughter.

Like breath, between me and the Other, inseparable.