issue 3: Facing the Storm

We, as a humanity and planet, are currently experiencing quite a unique time in our collective story—one that is both frightening as it is hopeful. Joanna Macy and others have been calling this now very present shift The Great Turning.

I liken this time to a powerful maelstrom that sucks all within reach into its wide open spinning vortex. With nearly the entire world experiencing the effects of war, environmental, social, governmental and economic collapse… few if any of us are left untouched in some way. It may seem bleak from our limited vantage point, but what if that vortex we’re being pulled into, in a metaphorical sense, is a portal into a new future? It’s scary as hell feeling ourselves drawn into the wide gaping mouth of the unknown, though could there exist not a terrible fate but a truly wonderful world on the other side? A world in which all of our collective hopes, dreams and ideals along with hibernating technologies and great wisdom teachings of our past, like treasures buried long ago awaiting rediscovery, being held for us, quietly awaiting our much anticipated arrival.

In this issue, I want to acknowledge the very real changes and dangers at our doorstep while offering some traditional wisdom to help us navigate the maelstrom with a level head and some confidence that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, a tranquil fresh calm and a luminous rainbow awaiting us in the wake of the storm and we do possess the wisdom and support of others to see our way through.

We might regard this wild time as a birthing process, the necessary squeezing and pressure we must experience as we enter the frightening and often painful journey through the birth canal. The water has broken, the old world we were accustomed to can no longer be sustained as it was and so now we must bravely enter the new world as a new kind of human.

Embracing this time of uncertainty as a great birthing process in which we are both being reborn and midwifing our rebirth together is most hopeful and inspiring to me. It’s with a curious mind, a courageous heart and adventurous spirit that I choose to proceed since I know and deeply feel what is at our doorstep as a humanity is an invitation into something far greater. It is an invitation to the collective and to each one of us as individuals, a cryptic mystery for us to unravel, a great treasure hunt calling us into the wild unknown, one more bold step into the greatest of all mysteries, the vast and all-encompassing Great Mystery—how exciting!

In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,

B. Monique

Enjoy the full issue 3: Facing the Storm here.

issue 2: Wander, Wonderment and (re)Wilding

How do you refresh, replenish and reconnect with nature and your own true nature? For myself, I must have my early morning walk and talk with Spirit to feel myself on firm footing through the day. I hike a trail in the canyon or mountains nearby and have a soak in the living waters of the river or stream which have been immensely healing and renewing for me. This is my sacred daily medicine.

This morning while at the river I asked what Spirit would like to share with us all today in this week’s Community Garden offering. In immediate response, up popped a juvenile river otter, swirling, twirling and sort of bark/chirping right before me. The message was pretty clear that we could use his good medicine of uninhibited playfulness. He seemed to be inviting me into it with his beckoning barks. Otters are extremely intelligent, exceptionally curious, amazingly inventive, endlessly playful, highly adaptive and deeply community-oriented. They love to share and play with one another; there is no sense of competition between them; they hold hands when sleeping on the water to keep from drifting away; they navigate obstacles with a deft ease; they use sticks and stones as tools for hunting prey hiding amidst rocks and tools of grasses and shaped stones for their grooming; their sleek hybrid bodies with strong legs and webbed feet make them agile on both land and in water—a creature of two worlds.

So today, guided by Otter’s wisdom and good medicine, I offer a few pieces on self-care, therapeutic wandering, nature’s demonstrations of reciprocity as a model for us to follow and the power of rewilding both ourselves and our animal kin.

I invite us all to seek and make time for our own good medicine, whatever it is. We are humbly and magnificently human—a bit flawed, a bit complicate and worthy of adoration for simply being as we are. Acceptance comes from realigning with Nature, with our own true nature and reminding ourselves that we are creatures of this Great Earth. Our bodies, minds and spirits will always find healing, nurturing, renewal and good company with the Great Mother when we seek it.

In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,

B. Monique

Enjoy the full issue 2: Wander, Wonderment and (re)Wilding here.

issue 1: Harmony

Welcome to the first issue of The Community Garden newsletter! The general theme for this week’s assortment is “Harmony”.

We experience musical harmony when different instruments play or different voices sing different notes simultaneously, but in a way that sounds both pleasing and integrated.

As a group of distinct individuals emitting different frequencies through our unique beingness, we can experience a kind of ‘pleasing integration of different notes’ or harmony in community. What we inevitably produce together, when relating to one another in harmonic resonance, is not only pleasing but powerful as we together become far greater than the sum of each part.

Harmony is based in unity and connectedness and is life-supporting in nature. In contrast, discord is destructive, corrosive and generally antithetical to life. Wherever we experience harmony and balance among a diverse array of elements—whether in nature, art or music—we experience an uplifting feeling from the quality of life infused within. Conversely, discordant sounds have a generally aggravating and life-depleting effect. In this way, we can sense how very connected we all are and how responsive we are—even if unconsciously—to the influences around us. There is no part of the whole that does not suffer for the suffering in the world or benefit from the goodness being offered.

We must remember that we are co-creators and collaborators in this magnificent Earth orchestra. If we are passive in our role, our vibration will adjust in sympathetic resonance to match the dominant vibration of any situation. When the dominant vibration of a situation is sliding more and more into the realm of discord and chaos, it is imperative that we consciously and actively resist the decline by engaging our ability to uplift and raise the frequency in ways that are true to our most authentic selves.

This is why I encourage all who are a part of our great community to make a contribution to the whole by offering your own unique piece, playing your own distinct and valuable part in the Greater World Harmonic. We, as the aptly named Greater World community, represent a microcosm of the greater world at large and, as such, I suspect whatever we do here to elevate our experience of connectedness is particularly felt in the world beyond our bubble. What we offer need not be demonstrative to be felt. Simply being and living from a higher frequency makes a valuable contribution to anchoring the light.

This newsletter is an invitation to actively engage in a positive, productive and collaborative way as you feel inspired. The intention behind this weekly ‘love letter to the community’ is to do my small part in raising the frequency of our Greater World Harmonic by infusing the culture of our community with a bit of inspiring and uplifting content for consideration, a sort of weekly recalibration or mindful fine tuning as it were.

May you feel uplifted and inspired today by the exquisite orchestra of sounds, breathtaking beauty and dance of diversity all around us, playing together in harmonic resonance.

In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,

B. Monique

Enjoy the full issue 1: Harmony here.