Dance With Circumstance

Election Day.   A day full of potentiality.  For some, the possibility to celebrate.  For others, grieve.

When I take a look over the shoulder of my life and examine all the major shaping events, not a single one, not a single one, not a single one has been irredeemable.  Not a single “election that didn’t go my way” have I not been able to learn from, grow from, be expanded by.  And not always immediately, or gracefully, or even very recognizably.

Are we not all living our lives like sailboats navigating the wind?

Are we all not taking the available weather and overlaying that with the direction we want to travel and setting a course?  And rarely, rarely, rarely in sailing does one get to take a straight line to their destination.  We tack back and forth.  We zig and zag our way.  Through weather and waves and cross boat traffic.

Will today be any different than assessing the wind and determining the best course to tack our way to where we’re going?

I see our Nation and the majority of humankind in a state of adolescence.  And adolescence is a time of differentiating from our parents, finding our limits, and living in a relatively low or shallow relational context with the world around the adolescent.

And I know I made it through.  I know I learned things as I tacked across the ocean of my adolescence that have informed who I am as a man. 

I had to.

I had to go my own way.

I had to “other” my parents and their political and religious views.

I had to find the people who I thought I wanted to be with and be like and be accepted by.

I had to.

It was all a necessary part of the adolescent journey.

I think, culturally, we are all very much in an adolescent sea.

And I think its perfect.

And just like the ones around me in my life who loved me, they did their best to keep me safe and to keep me knowing I am loved.

As humankind, I think, we are in an adolescence and the actions of the adolescent are painful to experience.  And they are DEVESTATING if we do not believe that there is any hope for the one in this phase of their life, if we think this phase will never give way to a more connected, responsible, service oriented role in community.

If we believe adolescence is to be controlled or sterilized or stunted and that there is no benefit to the human or all the life they interact with as a result of moving through the forest of adolescence then yes, we’ll be devastated with each behavior coming from the individual who finds themselves solidly in this phases of development.

I see us culturally solidly in the phase of adolescence.

I don’t know how long this phase will last.

And I do believe that every bit of experience in this phase has the potential to teach, inform, transform the individual and the society based on the consequences of those actions and behaviors.

I think about our relationship with the natural world and see an adolescent mind.

I think about our efforts to ensure personal sovereignty and rites and I see an adolescent mind.

I think about our devouring and hoarding and warring and I see an adolescent mind.

I think about our controlling of bodies and I see an adolescent mind.

So, if we are in an adolescence as a culture and if we believe that our experiences in this phase have the potential to shape our worldview into something more relationally attuned, responsible and oriented towards service THEN what’s our role during this time of adolescence?

Is it to watch passively and abdicate tyranny, greed, war, control?

Is it to wage war against these things?

Is there some queer in between?

In between abdication and vehement opposition?

My teenage bonus daughter is in her adolescence.  And her brain is perfect.  Perfectly adolescent.  There is no way she can know and understand the depth of how her actions impact the world around her.  She cannot know right now.  One day, she’ll come to her own reckoning.  One day, she’ll metamorphose through this time into a deeper, wider, more connected understanding of how we are all in this thing together.  But she can’t know.  Her brain is perfectly attuned to what it is attuned to. 

Its our job, as parents, aunts and uncles, teachers, coaches, mentors, horse back riding instructors to live our lives beautifully!

To live our lives in radiance!

To live our lives in poetic support to the world we know is possible.  To the world we know is unshakable.  Despite any political regime. 

Its our job to show that the human spirit is much larger and wilder and unconquerable and the presiding colors of the current party are passing weather patterns and can’t lay a finger on the indomitability of the soul, of the human spirit, of lives lived in service to love.

The best we can do, and the most fun we can have, and the most enlivening that we can offer to support our young ones moving through adolescence, and the same for our culture, is to live our lives out in radiant beauty energizing the truth of what we love. 

Live your life in love.

Live your life in love with your life.

Living your life falling in love with falling in love with your life.

Living your life forever expanding the reaches of your love into more and more dark forests.

Can your love extend out into that other political party?

Can your love extend out into the vehicle with those stickers and those flags?

Can your love extend out into the parts of you that the rival party vaguely and privately reminds you of? 

Can your love extend deeper into where you are greedy, where you lie, where you are tyrannical, where you can’t think of anything more creative than control?

Can your love extend all the way around this wild mystery of an unfolding world and wrap everybody up in it?

Blue hats and red hats alike?

Yankees and Red Sox alike?

The result of today’s election is an action and a behavior coming out of a culture in its adolescence.

As folks having moved through our adolescence, our duty is to hold the banks.  And we do this by being.  Being radiant.  Being alive.  Being in love.  With our lives of interconnected, creative, radiant service. 

Doesn’t mean we don’t grieve or rage. We do.  It just means that we recognize there is a larger and longer story line at play. 

Do we rage and grieve every time the teenager rolls their eyes and storms out?

Do we rage and grieve every time the teenager cannot see anything else in the room than themselves?

This is developmentally appropriate behavior. 

We support our teenagers leaving this phase by showing them radiant alternatives. 

And that’s never why we do it.  That is never why we live our lives in beauty and radiance and love.  To show them some example?  No!

We can’t help it!  We can’t help living our lives in beauty!  We are gob smacked by this earth, the people who make it up, and the wild story of all who’ve come before and all who are still coming. 

This just getting to participate in the great symphony of life is the fuel for living into our radiance. 

There’s no trying to convince anyone or trying to live life as an example. 

There is only unselfconscious gratitude and wonder and awe chain reacting inside of us to live into the furthest reaches of our lives with light and love and playful participation with the circumstances of our lives. 

These lives shine like stars and become the constellations.

These lives shine like stars and can help the lost in finding home.

These lives shine like stars and become the gods and goddesses of our day.

Just lives enjoying being alive. 

Regardless of circumstance.

Enjoying the creative challenge available inside of every circumstance we find ourselves in.

Like water always traveling downhill.

Enjoying the unpredictable route and all the little dance partners along the way. 

We dance with our circumstances.

We live lives of radiance and wonder and awe.

We love our young ones as they move through their phases.

We love our culture as it moves through its phases.

We cannot change it.

We can only dance with our circumstances.

Dance with circumstance.

Dance with circumstance.

Dance with circumstance.

Dancing the best I can,
Peter McLean

I am a pig

I am a pig. 

And today the wallow that I’ve been forming with my fat nose, my stubby legs, and my willful determination to have it exactly my way, is soon to fill with water.  Water that I will lay in.  And make sooo perfectly filthy with mud and muck and watermelon rinds and anything else I can get my little snout on.

I am a stallion.

And today the plain is all wildflowers and sunrise and grasses up to my forelock.  And I will run and run and run and run and feel the fullness of my mythical power.

I am a bell.

And today the monks will reach me after their tireless climb and will take a hold of my ropes and let me loose to sing my song through the treetops, mountain streams, and village centers.

I am a smiling man.

And today, Soul School launches with 31 participants!  The goal was 30.  But my doorman is too nice and needs to work on his boundaries!

Today, a dream, a goal, a howl, a long-held prayer is being realized. 

Today, I get to serve, I get to give, I get to be, as much as I want to, in service to a group of people who are endeavoring to live lives of authentic, wild, inspired service and contribution. 

The wallow, the plain, the peal, the smile.  All petals on the pink sweet beauty of today. 

Thank you all for your support in making this happen.

With love and anticipation,

Peter McLean   

Why I Love Depression

Thank God for depression, for despondency, for despair.  These are such beautifully potent rumble strips for me in my life.  Waking me up to make some changes.  The last time I bumped into these roadside warning systems was 4 months ago. 

My baby girl was a month old and one of my dear friends asked me if I wanted to come work with him at the non-traditional school that he is the director of.   On paper, it’s a dream job for me.  Lots of mentoring with young adults, lots of interfacing with concerned parents, lots of culture building with the residential students and staff, working with a dear and respected friend, and a reliable paycheck.

And.  As talks continued.  My life force began to leave leave leave leave leave my body.  I didn’t know what this was.  Was this something that I should pay attention to?  Was this my adolescence rebelling against constraints and confines?  Was this just what entering fatherhood feels like?

One morning, I was finishing my 13th call with a young man I was working with in a coaching capacity over the past few months.  It was our last call together.  I laid out what I had imagined for our last call.  He said he’d rather hear about me, Of Earth and Soul, and its future. 

I told him I was likely taking a job and Of Earth and Soul will move more into the margins.  He heard me out.  And then let me know he was sad.  Sad and also motivated to help me.  He asked me how I felt about taking the job.  My response was honest.  And his response was clarifying.  “You gotta keep going.”

Our call ended.  I walked into the kitchen.  Told Kelly, “everything is changing.” 

The life force came flooding back.  The energy.  The eros.  The juice.  The unmistakable hum of alignment.  So much so that Kelly felt the truth of the decision to continue pursuing my soul’s path.

The rumble strips of depression, despair, despondency worked.  Worked so well that others were impacted by it.  Impacted and motivated to get my rig back onto the highway firmly squared between the lines. 

A week later, Soul School came through after a period of asking myself if the job I was offered was draining my energy, what would a job would look like that generated energy, that fueled me, that fulfilled me.

“To unselfconsciously give myself to a community of people committed to living lives aligned with their souls.”

Here we are, a few months later and 25 of Soul School’s 30 spots are filled!  And we launch Monday.

For the next 13 weeks, at least 25 of us, are embarking on a deep dive into the articulation and embodiment of our gifts, our unique energies and capacities that when they move through us it enlivens us and brings us into joy and freedom, creativity, and service. 

Those are the days I am trying to string together.  Days filled with joy and freedom and creativity and service. 

And depression is a beautiful flower in the bouquet of this dream being realized. 

with love and anticipation,
Peter McLean

Participate in your dissolution

I think we want initiation. 

Initiation being the process of transformation that moves us from one station in life onto another station in life. 

Or more accurately, I think we want what is on the other side of initiation: 

The expansion of consciousness/self-identity, an embodied understanding of our gifts, the discovery of the role that we are here to play in a much larger story unfolding that we are just one part of.  And a deep sense of belonging to self, to nature, to the cosmos, to it all.

Right?! 

I think, by and large, we want this. 

We want to believe deeply that we belong and that we have something to offer.

And somehow we also know stasis is not the goal.  Is not the dream.  Doesn’t feel good. 

We want to metamorphose. We see it happening all around us.  We see it in nature.  We are nature.  So, we can’t help but want to participate in the most beautiful, magical, process of life into death and back into life again.  Every year.  Everyday.  Every moment.

There are 2 things that get in my way, and I’d imagine in yours as well, when it comes to initiation.

1. Believing, or desiring, that initiation must be outside of one’s current life context. 

2. Retreating on the brink of discovery.

Let’s talk about the first one. 

Your life is initiating you. 

It just might not be sexy. 

Consistently doing laundry. Getting on top of personal finance.  Establishing consistent exercise and healthy selfcare.  Making boundaries inside of relationships that are no longer of service.  Making boundaries with your phone and other tech.  Creating more time to be alone in nature.  Supporting your mental and emotional life through consistent meditation.  Continuing to invite in the kind of relationships you know is possible. Developing the neglected artist within you. Making your life as beautiful as you know it can be. 

Changing the habit patterns of your life into the ones that serve you.

For a lot of us, these are, and have been, initiatory events.  They challenge us.  Challenge old and limiting versions of self-identity.  And bring us into an expanded, more aligned version of ourselves.

We practice being initiated.  Daily.  We practice initiation so when we experience existential initiation, we’re in fighting shape.  Dancing shape.  Loving shape. Soulful Shape.

Existential initiation is the process of moving from one station in life to another.  But this time, the consequences feel fundamentally at odds with your current self-identity, safety, and sense of belonging in the world.

When you realize you’re in the wrong marriage and you can’t keep lying.

When you realize that your life force, your eros, your energy is going into a job/career/field that you have know interest or desire in.

When you realize that the life you want will never find you as you stay in the patterns and habits and cycles that you are in.

When you realize that you will have to leave what you know, what you have come to rely on, have found safety and security in, to make room and space to let the life you are here to live emerge and find you. 

We practice all the daily ones, so that when these larger initiatory events come through, we remember our training, we feel the arm around our backs, give it our weight, and waltz in time around the ballroom of our life dissolving as we’ve known it. 

Now, back to the point.  You don’t need to go anywhere to be initiated.  There is no weekend retreat.  No course I can offer that will initiate you.  Your Soul has those plans in store for you. 

Before signing up for the next thing/retreat/course/SoulSchool even!/ayahuasca ceremony, ask yourself what am I avoiding? 

Drinking that daily cup will be a much wilder ride than any rainforest brew. 

What am I avoiding in my life? 

Avoidance is the clue to where your soul is calling you.  Go there first.

Alright, number 2.  Retreating on the brink of discovery.

This is how we avoid the existential initiation.  We run!  We get close, we catch the scent, we even wander a little of the path and maybe even make it as far as the dappled shade of the great forest’s outer edge.

Until. 

We hear the first stick snap.  Leaves rustle.  Buck snort.  And see the shadow move. 

Then. 

We hightail it right on back into our lives as we’ve known them.

So, how do we practice staying?  Staying and not retreating? 

All the little things: going towards avoidance, listening to the small voice of intuition and guidance, and cultivating self-love and self-trust, and rooting deeply into the truth of your belonging to this earth, this time in history, to this great story.

We are firemen with our boots lined up and our trucks in position.  So that when the phone rings.  Or the pregnancy goes different than our prayers.  The truth of the marriage comes out.  The realizing that life is too short to be doing this job.  That you’re ready.  You’re cultivated.  You’re practiced. 

Your participation in your dissolution is your love letter to transformation. 

Participation is not retreating.  Your participation is your Thank You to your soul. 

In conclusion, your life has already set up the great obstacle course for you to train in and hone your skills.  No need to go far to find your invitation into initiation. 

And, lastly. 

Participate with your life as it asks you to become more of yourself. 

Do not retreat. 

Participate.

With love and anticipation,

Pete

I asked my friend to be ChatGPT

I asked a friend if he’d be my ChatGPT if I asked him a question. Which is to say, I asked him to be a confident and enthusiastic advisor. He took me up on the offer. Below is our correspondence:

Pete:

Dear ChatGPT,

Bear with me as I formulate this question.  I think that actors have something to teach me about belief in myself, about confidence, about defying my old stories about who I am, what I am not, my boundaries, my limitations, my capacities.  Especially the capacities part.  Like some actors will learn the frykkn drums or piano or ASL for a role.  Also, I think actors, maybe, have some kind of more fluid, more queer relationship with self identity that allows them to take on roles and "become" that person even if it's not the person they were raised as.  

Okay, I think I can feel my question coming.

What do you think actors have to teach us non acting folk about stepping into the aspects of our lives that are calling us but feel somehow new/foreign/risky/unattainable/uncharted?  If a person wants to grow and become more of themselves but has hang-ups about who they know themselves to be, what do actors know about how to work with/break through/integrate the opportunity to expand into more of themselves rather than avoiding it or downsizing their dreams?

Thank you!

A friend embodying his inner ChatGPT:

Dear Pete,

Thank you for this question, my friend.

I will do my best to answer.

For starters, actors, like humans, aren’t totally in control.  We are given our roles.  That having been said, if we’re lucky as Actors and at a good point in our career, we can be selective and even picky about the roles that we choose to play.  I suspect it’s similar for humans.  We may well have chosen to be ourselves before we were born.  And this is a good thing to keep in mind, I suspect, when remembering the lifelong work/play of becoming and embodying what we came here to do.  Because at the end of the day, we chose this role, and we are the ones who get to play it.  So lean into what you love, and try not to frame your life as a death sentence.  I find the more I trail into framing my life as a kind of death sentence, the more danger I find myself in and the less aligned I am with my purposes.  So remember, you chose this role, even though it was given to you.  

As for the stepping up and out and into the “greater” aspects of oneself.  I know that this was not your exact question but it is hard for me not to interpret it in this way.  I have spent a lot of my life wondering about who I could be, in fact, I spend a lot of my days now doing the same.  That doesn’t mean I’m not still skeptical about the notion of “becoming.”  I wonder about notions like these, notions that there are greater parallel versions of our own lives occurring somewhere else if we had been daring enough to take the leaps required to get there.  I suspect every avenue we choose has infinite other losses associated with it.  I know people intimately who have dared greatly and spend their lives staring in the rearview, wondering what went wrong.  

Remember that daring greatly requires humility.  But more than anything, it requires faith and a love of the most basic things.  Remember that life isn’t always about aspiring, love is about returning and remembering and saying thank you too. 

I find lately, the greatest things I do aren’t aspirational.  They’re acknowledging what’s here.  I don’t try and catch a plane that’s already in the sky.  I try to catch the ferry that’s just a few feet from my door.  Who knows, maybe I’ll end up on a plane someday soon, but that’s not entirely mine to call.  

I guess I’d just say, have faith in who you are, what you love to do, and enjoy the small things.  

Take everything you love and make it basic.  In other words, fundamental.  The thing you wish to do, or even become, if that is at all possible for us to do, “become”, is in all the tiniest steps along the path of doing what you love.  

A friend of mine told me recently that there’s great beauty in a simple life.  I think that’s my answer to your question.  In your reaching, don’t forget to come home.  Don’t forget that everything you’ve ever reached for steams and sings from your mother’s tea kettle.  Don’t forget that it’s all happening inside of you right now. 

As an actor, we make the most of what we are given, and we don’t try and change the script(oddly).  You might say, well then what about Martin Luther King?  I’d argue, as none of us have seen or felt the blueprint to his soul, that he knew his role and said his lines.  You could further argue that he was a playwright, who came into this world with a story to tell, and he told it.  Don’t get bogged down in the metaphor as a form of being trapped or of not having free will.  Remember, we chose our part, we chose to be here, and every day we have the choice to do as we please.  Even as an actor, you have the option to never say your lines.  Not saying that’s a good idea, but it’s an option.  It’s all an option.  

And all of it is a privilege,

Thank you for your question, one who wonders.  

You are great at pulling thread out of those willing to listen.

But really, thanks so much for this question, Pete.

I’m grateful for the chance to have answered it and I find myself humbled by my own words.  And that I have new clarity heading back into my own life, a life that has been dogging me lately with the same old questions and not always enough answers for my liking.

Truly though, thank you.

Love, 

Your friend pretending to be ChatGPT

————————————————————————--

I hope you enjoyed this correspondence.

With love and anticipation,

Pete

Everything I've Ever Written Has Been For Me

Everything I’ve ever written has been for me.

Every loud howl imploring you to live into your gifts, to never give up on your longing, to move from your mind down to your hearts.  All of that.  All of that.  All of that.  Is for me. 

I need reminding. 

I’ve needed reminding.

These words are mantras that I’ve said out loud into the 2-way mirror of these notes.

And I’ve needed these reminders for many many years.

Like when I lost my faith.

And moved through deep existential fear about heaven and hell and salvation and intrinsic shame.

When I chose to end a life.

And the ensuing 10 years of denial, repression, grief, guilt, pain, repression and more repression.

When I had to separate my life from a fiancé.

When I had to separate my life from another fiancé.

And grieve the life I imagined us living, the kids I imagined us raising, the world I imagined we were creating.

When I broke my back.

And was confronted with the deeply held belief that I am not lovable unless I am healthy.

When I watched as doors closed to me during Covid.

And the rage born of deep fear and deep sadness as the web of relationships began to change around me.

When my broken and longing heart for a woman was all I could hear beating in my aching chest.

And the grief and sadness and depression and pain that came with wanting so badly and not having. 

The impossible pregnancy of knowing I have so much to give and offer and inspire and not knowing how, or when, or if, the spaces will emerge for me to unload the full weight of my passion. 

And the ensuing confusion, thoughts of delusion, doubt, being on the brink of abandoning myself, and the all-consuming desire to cope my way out of feeling feeling feeling all of this.

The massive fear and sadness of knowing that I must leave the world as I’ve known it.  For love.  For the love of my life.  Trading, or so I thought, the love for many, for the love of one. 

And the heart-breaking grief of driving over to Greg’s shop, Al and Suzanne’s house, and Becca’s living room to tell them I was leaving.  Leaving all I know.  Leaving them.  Leaving the land.  Leaving the water.  Leaving.  Some super tightly held belief of leaving. 

Then. 

I left.

“Darkness and upheaval always precede an expansion of consciousness.” 

-Some Jung guy. 

My imploring’s, my mantras, my typing to you is me trying to honor my lessons.  Honor all that I’ve learned.  And to keep them close.  These are my rosary beads moving between my fingers as I walk home. 

And my life is no extraordinary life. 

It’s a life like yours!

A life of longing. 

Of love lost and found and lost again.

Of impossible choice.

Of existential reckoning with the beliefs handed down to you.

Of coping with the pain that comes from living in this wild modern day.

Of knowing there is so much in you that wants to be expressed and the curiosity/confusion of how/when the dammed river of your gifts will ever really flow in the way their meant to.

Of the grief of having to let go of the known, even though its soooo damn close to perfect but yet you know it’s not, and it makes your stomach turn knowing that you are refusing to give up on your destiny and are just about to plunge headfirst into what Carl Jung calls “darkness and upheaval.” 

Because.  You know.  And you don’t know how you know.  That “darkness and upheaval ALWAYS precede an expansion of consciousness.”

And it’s that bone deep, soul deep knowing that buoys you. 

But buoys you not through the darkness and upheaval.   Oh no.  The laws of physics are blown away like a sand mandala during these times.

But it buoys you enough to sail over the edge of the world. 

Buoys you enough to trust the dawn will break.  The sun will rise. 

And one helluva night it will be.  And it might even last 1001 nights. 

And if it does.  Be grateful.  For what’s on the other side?

“An expansion of consciousness.”

Or said another way: LOVE.

Love is what is on the other side. 

And even to say “the other side” is some kind of betrayal to the whole process of becoming. 

They are one in the same.  The darkness and upheaval is the expansion, is the love. 

A day consists of darkness and light. 

As the sun is rising we near closer to darkness.  As the darkness descends we near closer to the light. 

Can I remember this? 

Can I believe this?

Can I enjoy this?

Can, as my hear flutters and knees quake, remember that this great darkness is also great expansion?  So I my walk with trembling confidence into yet another upheaval of expansion?

And if I can’t,

Can you?

Can I look across the surf and chop to you in your boat and see you on the prow, salt soaked and smiling?!

Can I look through the forest to you on your path and see you carrying your pack, slight limp, sweat soaked and smiling?!

So that I may take heart, take faith, take rest and resolve. 

Its like the 4 minute mile.

Roger Bannister was the first.

And then after that, within weeks, he was not alone in his impossible feat.  And now there are 10’s of thousands having done “the impossible.”

Can you feel that?

Can you feel that your “darkness and upheaval” and its ensuing “expansion of consciousness” is not just yours?  Not just for you?

So, as I live my life, as I recite my mantras, write my posts, remind myself, I do this for me.  And I do this for you.  And I do this for the great mystery that connects us to each other.

So that when I see you with some kind of queer faith and sparkle in your eye as the world around you looks to be crumbling, I can be reminded of the truth.  The great truth. 

That I do not need to turn and run from the crumbling, but in fact, the crumbling is a gift.  And requires patience to unwrap. 

What do you think?

Do you believe any of this?

Do you believe we’re connected?

Do you believe that “darkness and upheaval always precede an expansion of consciousness”?

Do you believe me when I say “everything I’ve ever written has been for me”?

My prayer is that as I support myself, it supports you.  Because.  I know that when you are supporting yourself, it supports me. 

Even when it disappoints me.  But, that’s another post for another morning. 

Our Gifts Are Not Our Own

When my dog, Foxy, was alive and we’d be out walking, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to compliment me on how beautiful or handsome he was. 

When I first took over taking care of Foxy and I heard these compliments I’d say “Thank You.”

After awhile though it didn’t seem to make sense that I was saying thanks.  Then the interaction would go something like this:

“You have such a beautiful dog!”

“I know!  Isn’t GOD amazing!”

————————————————————————--

The gifts that move through us are exactly that, moving through us.  They are not us.  They move through us.  We don’t get to decide what our gifts are.  We do decide whether we court them, nourish them, experiment with them, be daring with them. 

This is the challenge. 

Because some of our gifts are not easily plugged into the big adult commerce machine that we live in.  So, we have these gifts that long to be uncovered, identified and expressed.

And the challenge didn’t begin when we entered the commerce/job/career world.  The shining, or the shunning, of our gifts began when we were very young. 

Our parents, bless them, were consciously and unconsciously shaping our perception of the natural energies and capacities that wanted to move through us.

Sometimes those energies were nurtured.  Other times those energies were punished or ignored.  Until eventually we learned that certain parts of my being are not helpful, welcome, or safe parts of my being and therefore I’ll bury them.

And like any good horror movie, any good legend or fairy tale, any good myth:

What we bury, we heavily carry. 

And if we don’t invite the beast out, havoc is wreaked.  On our physical bodies, our relationships, our fulfillment, our aliveness, our communities, our world.

So what do we do then? 

How do we unearth and uncover and embody our gifts?

Explore the Shadows – when we’ve lived a lifetime denying and repressing aspects of ourselves that we learned, consciously or unconsciously, that we are not invited to be, are not safe to be, are not going to be loved if we express these parts, then, WHEN we see them in the world around us,  we have strong emotional responses.  Jealousy.  Resentment.  Disgust.  Just notice what gets under your skin.  Likely, there’s some aspect of you you’re seeing externalized that is calling you back into relationship. 

Dance with the Shadows – What did you find out there that really disgusted you?  Guess what, chances are, its in you in some form or another.  And guess what, it’s longing to be loved and accepted and welcomed back into the great pantheon of who you are.  You don’t need to run wild with your lust or your greed or power hunger or whatever it is that you experience as disgusting in the world around you.  But.  You do have an opportunity to dance with that aspect and find out what it really wants for you.  What it really is trying to bring into your life.  Lust’s goal might be to bring you into deeper pleasure and wildness in your life.  GREAT!  I don’t have to ruin my marriage to get that but I can start to work with the energies that live in me that I’m either denying or accepting.  And acceptance does not mean complete surrender.  That’s actually what’s happening when you don’t accept these repressed parts, you are completely surrendered to them and they are secretly running the show.  Dance with these shadow parts.  Learn what they really want for you.  And welcome them home.

Explore the Gold – Pay attention to the world around you and notice what lights you up, energizes you, brings you great joy.  What are those things?  Who are those people?  Begin to articulate the things in your life that light you up and change your state into more aliveness and greater vibrancy.

Adorn yourself in Gold – Now that you have acquainted yourself with what enlivens you, make it a practice and a habit, daily.  Enjoy steering your life towards that which gives you energy. When you are energized, you create energy for others.  Adorn yourself in the people, the experiences, the concepts that bring you great joy.

It is our great duty, responsibility, pleasure to articulate and express our gifts while we are here in human form so they may flow freely and abundantly.

Nature is our guide here. Nature is our example.  Nature is itself.  Unabashedly. Unselfconsciously.  Independent of contribution to the GDP.  Nature lets it rip.  And is not afraid to be seen in its glorious unfolding even when the newborn fawn’s legs are knobby-kneed and turned in.  Even when the Osprey fledgling knocks itself out learning to dive for fish (this happens!).  Even when the Blue Morpho caterpillar looks like hairy, bird shit (sorry, its true!) on its way to cerulean magnificence.

Nature shows us expression.  Unselfconscious.  Unmitigated.  Unfiltered.  Expression.

We’re next. 

We’re ready.

We’re overdue. 

With love and anticipation,

Pete

30 Ways to Court Your Gifts

30 Ways to begin Identifying and Embodying your Gifts (in no particular order)

1.      At the end of each day, ask yourself. “Where did I have the most fun today?”

2.      Set yourself up to succeed by eating well, sleeping well, and grounding into a spiritual daily practice.

3.      Go out on a wander, into wild spaces, and ask the landscape, “What do you see as my gifts?”  Pay attention to all things on that walk.  They all hold answers.

4.      Track the gifts other others.   Begin paying close attention to the people in your life and when they are lit up, alive, animated, and are radiant.  When you track the Gift in others, you’ll be able to see it in yourself.

5.      Ask 10 friends and family members what they see in you as your gifts.  Make the invitation into the request a heart-opening one.  Let them know what its like living without truly knowing what your gifts are.  Let them feel the weight of what you’re asking and how grateful you are for their sight into your life.

6.      At the end of each day, ask yourself, “What did I want to do/say today that I didn’t because I was scared?”  Answer with at least 3 things. 

7.      At the end of each day, ask yourself “If I were do to today again tomorrow and I wanted to make it 10 times more enjoyable, what would I do differently?”

8.      When someone compliments you or your work, ask them what specifically they are appreciating.  Tell them, “Thank you so much and right now I am actively trying to figure out what my greatest gifts are.  What did you experience in me, or from me, that you found complimentary?”

9.      Make a list of the things you’re good at that seemingly no one ever taught you to do.

10.  Make a list of all the things that drain your energy.

11.  Make a list of all the relationships that fill you with life and bring you into a way of being yourself that you love.

12.  How are you starting your day?  Dream into your ideal start each day and implement the easiest piece of that ideal for one week.  If that’s too much, spend 2 minutes each morning feeling and believing you just completed an element of that dream start.

13.  What writers, poets, teachers, essayists, podcasters, etc are living lives closely connected to their gifts?  Go in a little deeper this week into one of these souls.

14.  What part of your day are you most alive in, most enthusiastic in, most excited by being yourself in? 

15.  If you had to stretch that part of your day out a little longer in each direction, what might you do to ensure you stayed radiant and vibrant and enjoying yourself a little longer?

16.  Are there any plants or animals that you associate with as beings 100% committed to giving their gifts in this world?   List 3 plants and 3 animals.  At least.  And then, pay attention to whether or not these beings cross your path this week.  In real life or on the news or in a book or as you journal.  If so, consider deepening your relationship with one.  Get a book out from the library.  Go into their habitat with a gift.  Learn how to say their names in different languages.  Make up a dance that embodies their movements and grace.  Get weird with it.  Show your willingness to honor life living out its gifts. 

17.  Share your gratitude generously for the blessings in your life. 

18.  Make a list of 3 columns.  Column A: Blessings.  Column B: Not Yet Blessings.  Column C: It would be a miracle if these turned into blessings.

19.  Write out your gratitude for all of Column A.  Write out imaginings for how Column B and C is turning into blessings.  Write them out.

20.  Feel and believe that each imagining is on its way, is metamorphosing into a blessing, is on its way to bless you abundantly.  And feel it. 

21.  Make an altar in your house or in your yard or in the forest that you bring gifts to.  Gifts of words. Gifts of song.   Gifts of your devotion.  Let the universe know you are in the business of Gifts.  You tend to them.  Yours and the worlds.  And that you want to know and embody yours.  Ever more fully every day.

22.  Make a list of the gifts that you dream you had.

23.  For each one, write out how you have elements of that gift already and give examples.

24.  For each one, write out how you might encourage that gift to express in your life more fully.

25.  For each one, imagine into living and expressing that gift regularly and in what scenarios, and the feelings associated with embodying this gift.  Feel it and be thankful for it.

26.  Get up early and write you gifts a letter.  Watch the sunrise as you do it.  Tell them about yourself and the dreams you have and how they’d be perfect for the adventure to come.  Let them know there’s a grand adventure awaiting and you’re assembling your team.  And you need them.  Need them.  Need them.  To join.  And tell them about how much fun it will be.  How exhilarating.  How life will feel when you are all together.  Write them this letter.  You don’t even have to be able to articulate what the gifts are.  You can just address them as Gifts.  Take that letter and place it on your altar.  Draw the plant or animal on it that represents gifts fully expressed.  Read the letter.  Daily.

27.  Respond back to this letter from the perspective of Your Gifts.  Let yourself know we’ve been tracking you and your new found focus and energy and vibrancy.  We’re coming for you.  We’re coming to be on this adventure for you.  Let the Gifts tell you what kinds of things they see in your life that is really inviting to them.  And let these Gifts tell you what kinds of things they see in your life that slow their arrival down.  Write.  Find out.  And read this letter.  Daily.

28.  Make a list of the people in your life that live and express their gifts in visible and powerful ways.  Ask them about their process.  How did they get to know their gifts?  What did they have to overcome to give their gifts?  And what has been supportive to them in the ongoing commitment to give of themselves more freely and vibrantly.

29.  Go out and buy a “gift shirt” or “gift earrings” or a “gift bracelet.”  Wear it when you want to remind yourself of what you’re calling in.  And adorn yourself in this article as much as you can when doing any of these exercises.

30.  Make a chart with 4 columns.  Column A: The Gifts I am Calling In.  Column B: The Risks associated with Stepping into these Gifts.  Column C: The Beliefs I Hold about Myself and the World associated with these Risks.  Column D: What Belief would I have to hold about myself and the world in order to ensure the embodiment of these gifts. 

Befriending the Sacred Ache -- Meditation and Journaling Exercise

Befriending the Sacred Ache

Set aside 25 minutes to listen to the meditation then answer the questions.

Here’s the accompanying 10-minute meditation.

Describe the landscape that emerged for you?  (be as specific as possible, colors, sounds, smells, associated memories, accompanying emotions.)

What animal or being emerged to you?  (be as specific as possible, colors, sounds, smells, associated memories, accompanying emotions.)

What name did this being offer?  (share any specifics here.  What was the body language like?  Sound of the voice?  Smell of the breath?  Accompanying emotions?  Associated memories?)

How old did the being say they were? (share any specifics here.  What was the body language like?  Sound of the voice?  Smell of the breath?  Accompanying emotions?  Associated memories?)

What did they say when asked “what are you here to help me with?”  (share any specifics here.  What was the body language like?  Sound of the voice?  Smell of the breath?  Accompanying emotions?  Associated memories?)

This exercise is almost complete. 

Later today or tomorrow, go somewhere that best resembles or is most closely connected to the landscape you described.  If it was a beach and you live 1000 miles from the beach, ask what’s the next closest thing?  Our sandbox!  Go to wherever is possible for you and place your hands on the earth and say Thank You.  That’s it.  Say Thank You. 

Congratulations.  You are officially in courtship, in connection, in relationship with your Soul.  Be careful.  What follows next is unknowable and beyond beautiful and will likely shake your shit all up! 

I hope I get to hear about it. 

Love and anticipation,

Pete

4 Ways to Tend to the Sacred Ache Inside You (and 3 more if you want em!)

When our Soul is tugging on our shirt sleeves and we don’t listen eventually we end up with an ache, a sacred ache, deep down in the pits of our being. 

What next? 

You’ll come up with, or already have, your own ways that work for you but here are some that I use and recommend.

1.       Gratitude – Yes.  Open yourself up to feeling grateful that you have not been forsaken.  That the path you are here to crawl, to toddle, to walk on is still begging for your feeble, early, baby steps onto its path.  Can you find gratitude inside yourself for the fact that your Existential Alarm System is functioning?  We don’t have to do anything about the ache yet.  We just get to be thankful that the system works and that we’re hearing the persistent siren of the alarm of our soul.  

2.       Make a Friend – Yes.  Approach this Sacred Ache inside yourself with love, warmth, and curiosity.  Do all the things you do when making a friend.   Ask them their name.  Their age.  If they’d like anything.  Seriously.  And journaling may be a helpful way to engage with this ache.  Let the ache take the pen and share.  Here’s a worksheet that you may find helpful.  There is great wisdom inside this ache and it ONLY has the highest and best intentions for you.  Get curious.  Find out who this, when they were born in your life and what life they long for you to be living.

3.       Make a Gift – You’re making a friend here!  And a friend with mythical power.  And a friend who holds secrets that will bring you into a fuller, more radiant phase of yourself.  Make them a mix tape!  Woo this Ache!  Get the paints out.  Get the beads and the wires and the clasps and make some jewelry.  Pen a poem.  Bake a goddamn cake!  Think about who the recipient of these gifts is!  Your soul!  Who’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for you.  Let each gift be a Thank-You, an I’m-Sorry, a How-Can-I-Support-You.

4.       Tell a Trusted Friend – Yes.  Something happens when we take our private life and share it.  We expose ourselves.  And likely, this ache, will demand much greater exposure than a confidence in a friend. But let’s start here!  “I have been ignoring a (insert feeling/sensation here) for about (unit of time) and stopped today.  I’m curious about who I’ll become as I listen more to this ache.  Does this resonate with you at all?  Do you have an ache that wants your attention?  I’d love your support as I listen and befriend mine.  And I’d be honored to be a support to you on your path of listening.  How does that sound to you?”

My goal in this is to inspire you into authentic relationship with what wants to move through you.  Use these prompts as jumping off points only if helpful.  Follow your own way AS SOON as it deviates from mine.

With love and anticipation,

Pete

PS.  There are 3 more ways to tend your Sacred Ache if you want them: Go Out Onto the Landscape, Wake A Little Earlier, Track All The Conspiring Signs.  If you want me to email you those, just reach out with the word Three in any language other than English.