I’ve been at Conscious Impact camp for exactly two months now. Three weeks longer than planned already. By now, I was supposed to be back at work in Seattle, after visiting friends and family in Europe and introducing who I thought was my life partner to my parents. Everything is different now. Disease beset the world, my relationship, my being, and now we are mourning the losses and struggling to survive while locked into a very limited radius of activity, of thinking, of relating. What I write about these days is not a romantic travel log. My journal is filled with questions, grief, and hopes for a future that can still come. I intend to continue sharing here what’s true. But as a mentor once told me, “Preach from your scars, not your wounds”. It will take time.

For now, here is a reflection I wrote last week that captures the many elements – natural and metaphorical – that our little community was exposed to, digesting, embracing. Despite living in lockdown, a lot goes on here: weather changes, conversations, activities and rituals that we create. On the night of the full moon (which happened to be crystal clear), we gathered in men and women’s circles.

In these uncertain times 
I ask myself so many questions
And I hear questions all around me,
in your mouths and eyes, dear friends.

Why am I stuck here?
It's not fair.
I had important plans this year!
What should I do here?
In this small radius of daily action.
I want much more than this.

Why can't I find clear answers 
that I need,
to propel me forward
as soon as this is over?
To feel successful
and in charge of life again.

Uncertainty feels heavy
and so frightening.

Then I think of Rilke,
or beloved poet-guide:
"You have to live the questions.
The point is to live everything."

I look to nature and I see 
her changing moods 
from hour to hour.

When the sun is visible 
he burns so hot and bright.
The moment he is hidden 
shivering shadows descend back on us instantaneously.

The rain has been torrential here
out of season.
Is this a lesson? Or coincidence?
(Is there such a thing as coincidence?)

The deluge washes away
our human-made paths,
plans, 
expectations.
Testing our adaptability,
hardiness,
acceptance.

Waters bogging down the soil.
Yet cleansing and quenching too.

Last night I woke
to full moon shine.
Illuminating the night world  
all around.
Making visible that other side
usually hidden to the waking mind.

This morning
fog eveloped us.
Just like a soft, moist blanket.
Pulled over our heads gently.
Coaxing me to succumb
to still and quiet inwardness.

And then I saw a spider's web,
the most perfect one I've ever come across.
The morning light revealed its
immaculate outward spiralling circles.

And I thought:
Maybe everything that matters in life moves in spirals.

At first,
having birthed the center point,
all we see are closed loops
for a while.
We feel stuck,
just going round and round
in such small circles.

But over time
the circles widen,
each one connecting to the next.
Only in hindsight,
from a higher vantage point,
do we see that or lives can and do expand.

What are the energies at work here?
I ask, as we gather in men's and women's circles.

Might they correspond
to male and female archetypes
in us?

Does the feminine hold
the fullness of the spiral?
Already a potential
just waiting to ripen
inside of her?

She intuits
what the big picture is.
And when she becomes
aware of it,
allows the spiral to grow slowly
from inside her heart and soul,
out into her actions
in the world.

Does the masculine set his sight
on the outward world,
searching wide and far
for the fulfillment
of that vision?

He occasionally meets
the spiral's edge,
follows it for a while,
only to lose sight of it again
when he continues
on his linear path.

What would a marriage 
between the two
look like?

When energy and determination
were directed onto the spiral path.
Propelling forward
outward manifestation
of inward intuition.

While being held,
assured,
that what they seek
is already here and now
and will emerge
with patience and devotion.