Helping You Be the Change
As of June 2024 I will be posting my new blogs and podcasts on my Substack platform, WeAwakening. You can find them—and subscribe to them— here. I’m excited to be making this move as it will streamline some of my publication steps and make it easier to stay in touch with you, my readers.
It will also provide an easier way for you to support my work by becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Last month I went to New Mexico for my annual retreat, and while I was there I experienced some strange synchronicities having to do with time.
As soon as I got to my room and was unpacking, I noticed that the alarm clock on the nightstand wasn’t plugged in. I investigated and discovered that the cord was too short to reach the outlet behind the bed.
No worries. I had brought my wrist watch with me so that I wouldn’t have to use my cell phone to tell the time, and since the watch has a button that illuminates the face in the dark, I realized I could just put it on the nightstand when I went to bed. But then I noticed that the light was very dim, and later that day the battery went dead. Then, the next morning, I discovered that the clock on my rental car dashboard wasn’t keeping time.
“Hmm,” I thought. “This is interesting.”Continue Reading
There is a great scene in the movie Contact that has been lingering with me lately. The movie is based on the novel by Carl Sagan and stars Jodie Foster playing the scientist Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway.
It opens with the story of a team of researchers who are using a huge satellite array to listen for signs of extraterrestrial life. One day they begin to pick up a signal that freaks them out: the televised broadcast of the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin—the first Games to be televised. Something or someone out in space received that signal and is sending it back to Earth, seemingly as a way to make contact with humans.
That someone or something then begins sending complex mathematical formulas that the team realizes are a blueprint for some sort of spherical capsule, possibly something to enable interstellar or time travel.Continue Reading
I know winter can be a difficult season for many people, but there is something about its spareness that speaks to me. I love seeing the bare trees silhouetted against the winter sky, and I feel winter’s invitation to go into the quiet, into the interior spaces to allow the Unknown to gestate in the season’s darkness.
Here’s a song I wrote and recorded many years ago about this introspective time of year.
Winter
I stand alone in the darkness of night,
In the deep silence that won’t let me go.
The mighty moon draws me into her light
And leaves my shadow on shimmering snow.
The winter trees reaching up to the sky,
Bare branches laden with wisdom untold.
Their hidden roots giving strength to defy
The biting wind and the bleak winter cold.
The winter whispers of life at its core,
Of a stark beauty with nothing to hide.
The winter whispers of life that is more
Than all that’s born and beyond all that’s died.
Music, lyrics, vocals, guitar and tin whistle by Patricia Pearce
Keyboard by Kip Leitner
I have never really had a bucket list. No experiences I think I need to have, or places I feel I must visit, or accomplishments I think I ought to achieve to make my life complete. Of course there are things I’ve never done that I might enjoy, but for the most part I am pretty content with my life as it is.
But recently I was reading the news reports of the stunning Northern Lights that have been occurring due to all the solar activity that’s been going on, and I felt a strong desire take shape within me: I’d like to see the Northern Lights before I die.
I’ve seen them only once, back in my college days in Boulder, Colorado, where they appeared as a red glow in the northern sky. It is extremely unusual for them to appear so far south and most people had no idea what was happening. Since it was during the Cold War, many people’s thoughts went to the worst possible scenario: we were seeing the glow of a far off nuclear attack. Eventually the radio announcers found out what was going on and filled us all in, quieting the community’s fears.
Looking back, that was a vivid example of how good we humans are at creating catastrophic narratives. When something occurs that is outside our normal experience, our go-to explanation is that it must be a grave threat, perhaps even the end of the world. Maybe it’s time we started questioning our dystopian assumptions.Continue Reading
Many years ago I had a dream that shed light on the awakening process that is taking place on this planet. Since it has been such a touchstone for me in this time of collective turbulence and fear, I’d like to share it with you.
I have been taken into the future. I look around, and see that the Earth is flourishing and the people are living simply and in harmony with nature. I can feel that the world is at peace.
Ecstatic, I say to myself, “Yes! We did it! We humans did it! We made the shift in consciousness!”
As I walk around I come to a circle of children seated on the grass. Sitting with them is a woman wearing a gown and kufi made of embroidered fabric, clothing that conveys both earthiness and wisdom. I realize she is their teacher.
The children are reading for her short pieces they have written. As one boy reads his, something in it suggests judgment. The teacher gently tells him that in Eudomy, and this I realize is the name of this place, there is no judgment.Continue Reading
Autumn is my favorite season. The light this time of year seems to penetrate the veil between the worlds of the seen and the unseen, and the trees, turning red and gold before letting go into winter, speak to me of the beauty and impermanence of life. It’s no wonder this is the season when so many people observe Samhain, the Day of the Dead, All Souls Day, and All Saints Day.
To honor this mystical season I wanted to share with you this song I wrote and recorded many years ago.
October Walk
I took a walk one late October
the geese were honking as they flew,
and I came upon a graveyard
full of names I never knew.
As I walked among the headstones
with autumn’s pungence in the air
how I longed to know their stories
their hopes, their fears, their quiet prayers.
But their lives remained a mystery,
the granite offering up no clue,
and their stories had long vanished
save a cryptic line or two.
And the golden leaves were falling
as the autumn wind began to blow
and they danced their swirling circles
then came to rest against the stones.
There I lingered for a moment
then I headed on my way
and October’s sun was shining
and warmed me in its slanting rays.
And this life remains a mystery,
a riddle whispered by the leaves
that shimmer in the sunlight
then sail away upon the breeze.
Music, lyrics, vocals, guitar and tin whistle by Patricia Pearce
Keyboard by Kip Leitner