Next

I'm remembering when Steve Jobs left Apple, started a new company and called it Next.  Was it arrogance or bold expectation?  I'm guessing people in silicon valley are still scratching their heads over that.  As things turned out, "Next" took Jobs right back to Apple.

And the moral of this story could be:

When you are considering what comes next,

• In the end, making a choice to go in a hopelessly foolish direction will not be the cause of your downfall.  Rather, it will offer you chances to grow that you would have missed out on if you hadn't.
• Believing in yourself is not only a very powerful thing, it is your guiding light.
• The best time to leave is when everything that seemed unresolvable has been resolved and you can see yourself staying.

With wishes that your next is rich with everything you hoped it would be in unexpected and most wonderful ways--
Maureen

Just Show Up

I remember someone once saying that 90% of getting anything accomplished is in just showing up.  Whoever you are, I'd like to thank you for that critical piece of information.  Because people who've done great things rarely start out expecting to be so fabulously successful.  What got them to great things was doing their 90% and just going from there.

I share with you three treasured stories which fit my unabashedly liberal soul.  They are useful to remind myself why I will do my 90%:

Rosa Parks, years after her decision to take a seat on the bus lit up the South and began the movement to end the injustice suffered by souls too numerous to count, said once in an interview that she wasn't looking to start anything, she was just tired and wanted to sit down.

Joan Baez began performing on campus steps because she wanted attention, with no expectation her voice would carry her so far.  Or that the ballads she chose because they suited her voice would set her up for the freedom songs that would become her trademark.

Pete Seeger retreated to schools and sang songs for children when the Weavers were black balled and couldn't find a venue that would book them.  That would be the Pete Seeger who wrote "Where Have All The Flowers Gone", taught us This Land Is Your Land," "Kumbaya," "We Shall Overcome," and in his retirement years organized the effort to save the Hudson when it had become more of a cesspool than a river.

I'd be pleased if you'd like to borrow them.  What would please me more would be you finding your own treasures to spark you when showing up feels like it couldn't possibly be enough.

Tree People

I had this conversation with a tree soul once, through an intermediary.  One of the astounding things that happens in the work I do.  I got to ask it what trees expect to do for humans.  Renew the air with that carbon dioxide/oxygen exchange thing they do, right?  Mostly, they see that as one of the things they do to sustain themselves.  What they do for humans, as the tree soul explained, is to give structure.  "As a tree gives up its consciousness to become wood, that is the mission of the tree."

I sincerely hope loggers do not read this and use it to justify deforestation, and yet I cannot deny that the souls of trees will serve us.  I hope this leads us to reverence for the gifts they give.  To offer trees something in return as well--the time to grow and flourish here on the earth with us and to be taken with care and gratitude.  To make room in our view of who might be our brother to include the possibility of a tree.

Be A Flower

I live in an "on" environment.  In my environment, "off" is a very ungood thing.

You most likely live in this very same environment.  It is a very hard thing, to have "on" going all the time.  We can trash ourselves trying to do it.  Because we are innately flow-ers, which I have spelled here with a hyphen to save confusion. 

Our energy pulses, we have flows.  Women may get this better than men because we cannot but notice our bodies, made up of a lot of water, clearly and unequivocally flow with the tides. 

Given that our environment has moved so far away from letting flows happen there is little chance that it will change course, I offer a remedy in two parts:

• No need to panic when the low part of a flow is occurring.  The high part will follow.  Trust that it will.
• Just show up.  Be as genuinely present as you can.  Good things are still going on, you are still in the flow.