Today, being the Women’s March and many women and men out in the streets standing for freedom, equality, respect and peace. I am standing with them. I am home though on the land where I live on Whidbey Island.

I went out for a short walk this morning. Sometimes I have a craving when I go out to connect, a craving for profound wisdom to be given to me about what to do with my life, how to help people, how to make the world a better place. Since getting the flu a couple of weeks ago and now recovering and gaining strength, my desire and attachment for such wisdom has waned. I go out and I walk. I visit the goats and exchange sweet connections with them.

And I look at the ground. It is January so the energy of the earth is deep inside it still. There are plants there, but they are still. The dandelion draws me into the quiet energy of the leaves…little jagged leaves there coming through the dead and decaying maple leaves. Even the cedar is quiet today, standing guardian over the land. The alder branches are full of usnea lichen. And there is a pine near the alder that speaks to me of nourishment.

The way I feel today is like the energy of the earth, very low and under the ground. I don’t have many thoughts. I am here as I am.

Something begins to spark in my mind about being on the land. Walking, standing, looking up and looking down. This is sacred space. I am here. The land is holding me, cradling me, nourishing me.

Sometimes it helps to not have any expectations. To just be and abandon our lofty goals and succumb to what is, whatever feeling is present, to be it. I think of the earth doing this right now in her energy. Before the quickening of spring, before the quivering of movement that sparks the growth of plants, of opening buds, of salmonberry flowers, of nettle emerging, there is complete stillness. A hush, where peace begins.

May it be in Beauty.