"Always we hope someone else has the answer, some other place will be better...

“Always we hope
someone else has the answer, some other place will be better,
some other time, it will turn out
… This is it.”     Pema Chodran

Abiding truth.  This.   It recalls T.S. Eliot’s “Hope would be hope for the wrong thing” as he too, calls us to the Waiting.  

the Being Here.

just

just  Here.

Waiting.

It requires the body in full presence.  Anxiety hates waiting. Monkey mind, that chatterbox and ally to the gods of productivity, recoils in the face of Waiting. Of Being just Here.

Waiting.

Here.

just the Waiting.

What might arise in that void of activity?

Monkey mind is pretty sure nothing good will come of this “Waiting” this just “being Here.”

And now we find ourselves deep in the season of Waiting: Advent.  In the Christian tradition, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are designed to be a spiritual preparation.   Even more than physical preparation.  The gift giving of this season of the return of Light to the world is an outward manifestation of generosity, particularly the generosity of God.

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. That’s trickier. These are built on scarcity. “Only this day. You must act and buy or you ‘lose’ the  bargain.” That thinking and energy is the opposite of generosity. It is scarcity.

But I digress. Back to Waiting. To just being.

The Pema Chodron poem I opened with indicates a surrender in this “Waiting.” Surrender takes humility and openness. Maybe I am not the best judge of what is best for me in the whole of my life? What is desired now could become a poison to my soul  then.

Yet, how does this willful, German-stubborn woman (me) surrender to what is?  How do I wait in that? Instead of jumping to what could be?

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.  

T.S. Eliot

It is hard indeed not to wish for what we believe we want. For most of us it is a heavy lift to open to, be curious about, and actually embrace the reality we have in this moment rather than the one we “think” we should have or the one that we “believe” will make us happy.

I can think of so many times in my life I was mistaken about what would make me happy. Or what would be best. And even in the times I was right, how much joy did I sacrifice, how much real life did I miss when I chose to give my attention to my preferences for a different and yet to be reality? To what “Could be.” Didn’t this wanting “some other place” or  “some other time” increase dissatisfaction with current reality? And of course it did.

My first baby steps into “the Waiting” and into “Embracing what is” was a daily practice of gratitude, specifically, journaling my gratitudes and sharing them.

The poets call us to surrender to the present moment and…to trust it. To trust reality!  If I trust that I am enough for my life and for what is yet to be, then I can “be here now.”  Just HERE.  Trusting the present moment, my current reality, requires trusting myself. Trusting I am “able” to meet this moment, whether it is to my liking or not.

What helps me do this is to remind myself that preferences, “I want this and not that,” and, “It should be this way and not that way,” belong to the mental constructions of our Ego’s. They are not real. And therefore, they are not necessary. They are simply an idea, my preference. This is why spiritual and religious traditions ask us to surrender to “God’s” will over our own. They, too, know that our will comes from a place within that seeks security over vitality. This part of us seeks safety over experience. The entropy of the known and seemingly predictable over the aliveness of growth and newness.

We humans have the amazing ability to imagine. To imagine new worlds. To imagine and then enact behaviors to reach these possible futures. “What Could be,”  and “What is yet to be” is indeed miraculous. This faculty is what makes us different from animals. We can take a step back, reflect on ourselves and our lives (New Year’s  resolutions) and imagine new futures for ourselves. I love our human capacity for “Could be.” I have made a living for over two decades helping people imagine themselves into new ways of behaving and responding, into new futures, into new ways of understanding and relating to themselves and others.

I am all for “could be.”  AND  I want to invite myself and you to fully be grateful for what is, embracing the yucky parts of “Here” before we start to imagine a different “Could be.”  Embrace the reality we have.  Poet David Whyte suggests in his articulation of conversational leadership/Invitas that we “Come to ground. That we meet the reality we have, not the one we wish we had.” I think the reality we have has its own secret treasures.

Why do this?   For the sake of being able to chart our course forward from a  place of the soul’s revelation. Our soul desires are our true desires.  They are  often very  different than the preferences of our  Ego’s.  They are the ineffable and the abiding.   They reside in that still place within us that Eliot would have us wait in. They are “the dancing.”  Within their sweet embrace we do not hope for the wrong thing. There we do not love the wrong thing.  There, “the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

And there lies the originality that was born in each of us.

May this holy season,  this winter of Waiting bring each of you the peace that  surpasses  all understanding.

May I not become trapped ...

"May I not become trapped, caught or entangled in false inner networks of negativity, resentment or destruction toward myself. May I treat myself as the nest of God...."  John O'DonohueMay I treat myself as the nest of God!  What would that look like?  The first thing that pops to my mind is the humility it would require.  The ultimate "don't know" mindset.   When I get really quiet and look at the Pride of Barbados flowers just outside my window, there arises in me an awareness of my being the nest of God.  Just for a moment.  Just a glimpse.  I don't really know how to describe this.  I have a hard time staying with it.  It is wondrous and frightening too.  My monkey mind slips into the experience by whispering something like "...danger, danger...move away, back slowly out of this room ... it isn't meant for you.  You will get hurt."  Or it says  "Who has time for this?"  Or "You can do this later, you better do X,Y or Z now"But who will I become if I am not a nest of God?  And in these times, these difficult and fearsome times, when the news features children separated from parents at the hands of the US Government;  I realize how much work there is for me to make of myself a nest of the divine.  I must look into and be with my fears and my immense grief.  How can I be a sturdy warm protection from the energies of hate, fear and shame that swirl around us all?  For I do not want to cradle the Divine with the fear I often find in my heart these days. What is to be done with it?  Surely this is what the Holy Spirit of my Catholic girlhood was for, to help me create a heart that is beyond the geography of fear and worry.  Just that thought brings a measure of piece.  I will seek to grow a heart that is a nest for God, a heart so open, so wonder-filled, so safe and warm that the Divine could indeed nest here.  Is just the wanting this enough?"When the Guest is being looked for, it is the longing that does all the work."  KabirI will nurture my imagination for that is what humans can do AND I will double down on my longing for a heart that is beyond fear and all constriction.  A heart that could be the nest of God.    

Winter Greeting: 2017

Winter Greeting: 2017Winter has long been the season of reflection so, get cozy, pour yourself a cup of something and let’s chat.This year for the first time I started my decorating, shopping and gifting early. Ask my siblings; I am notoriously a last minute girl. Myers Briggs P through and through. But this year, I think I needed her more.  Her? She is Light, Hope and Mercy.  Mostly Mercy. “Her” is Grandma Anna, the grandmother of the universe as well as the grandmother of Jesus, and mother of his mother Mary in the Christian faith. She is the part of the universe that is infinite love and mercy. Mostly Mercy.To my mind, Christendom’s celebration of the birth of Jesus is also a celebration of the triumph of light, hope and mercy over all that stands against their expression.   (Mostly Mercy.) Did you know that around the world there is some sort of celebration of light at this time of the year? Whether it is the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, or the Jewish Hanukkah, or Kwanza or Denali…worldwide there are celebrations of light returning. Increasing hours of daylight means the promise of new beginnings, of redemption, and for me in particular, the triumph of mercy and empathy over fear and constriction.There are a number of seasonal firsts this year for the Wonders Dearings. In addition to getting an early start on the season we are taking a trip and hosting our first open house. After years of promising that one year we would not do Christmas gifts etc. but would instead take a trip, the Wonders Dearings finally did it. The 24th found us on the road to the Gage Hotel in Marathon Texas and exploring Big Bend National Park. The 27th we discovered the magic of Marfa, Texas, home to artists and spiritual seekers.   We renewed and re-discovered the magic of our connections, of our shared passions and learned to be a bit more elegant in navigating our divergent temperaments. It is no small thing to put three solo adults, all more leaders than followers together for a large amount of time and in close quarters.   We did that.  It brought us closer together as these kinds of conversations do.  We had and made time for them.  We are better for them.  Each of us.Another first: No true Christmas tree with all the ornaments our memories can conjure, but instead something I have long wanted; decorating with nature and light. An abundance of greens, flowers, candles. I have thoroughly enjoyed the change, maybe even more so because it was so long in coming.And … and … and yet, I feel this melancholy. Even in this long desired reinvention of how we do this season, (and my heart flutters at the thought of any kind of reinvention), yet this unshakable melancholy persists. Why?Even in our togetherness there were poignant moments of time passing too quickly or where-has-it-all gone. Even in the best of experiences, the extraordinary drive through Big Bend replete with hiking the Santa Elena Canyon, the vastness of the Chinati museum, and time unbounded a bit, it persists. This curious combination of deep thankfulness mixed with some unnamable loss. Like the vast beauty of the desert that also holds all manner of prickly cacti and fierce critters.Maybe this is aging and the nostalgia that comes with it? Maybe the desert sky renders this feeling larger? Or maybe it is realizing that more Solstice celebrations of the return of light are behind than ahead of me?  Or the dawning (and unbearable) awareness that I will not accompany my children (physically) through all the pivotal moments of their lives.I remember my sweet and humble academic father, who never saw his grandson graduate from MIT, now studying at Harvard Law School. Papa missed this all and how it would have thrilled him.  Zachary Robert Dearing, you can't possibly know what this would have meant to your grandfather. He would not have even dreamed this as a possibility, it was outside of his rural and humble beginnings to hope or dream for these institutions. But please trust he would have been both humbled and proud by your remarkable achievements, especially in the face of your dyslexia. And my mother would have been beyond wowed at her granddaughter Katharine Lillie Dearing’s culinary talents and the culture shifting work she is creating in the world. Even though it might confront her political and worldviews, she adored her Katie and would have not been able to easily dismiss her series, Woman of a Certain Age, and it’s Tribeca acknowledgement. There are so many things my parents are missing. As we too miss sharing these moments with them.  A granddaughter married and their first great grandson. Another granddaughter is engaged and planning her wedding while making a new life for herself in fashion in New York.My life holds so many gifts and blessings...and always has ...but as I play the Leslie Odom, Jr.’s Simply Christmas CD (the new) alongside Barbara Streisand’s Christmas album and so many other old favorites, I wonder: Is this the magic ...(albeit bittersweet) of Christmas? Is this annual seasonal celebration a direct line to everything that came before and everything that will yet come to pass?  A direct line,  AND all at once!  How do we sweet tender human hearts hold that kind of complexity? How do we grow hearts large enough to continue to rise up with a full throated “YES!” to each day, ever more aware of time moving on? This daunting challenge is more and more my daily companion. In small and large ways, I am reminded I must apprentice myself to the beauty of impermanence.Recently, I have sensed, just a hint or a glimmer, that there is a singular and stunning ~ heart stopping ~ beauty in this part of life’s trajectory. For this very young-at-heart woman, this woman whose life has been firmly planted in innovation, emergence, and possibility, how will I find those beginnings in my decline and death?  I love, adore maybe even worship the expansiveness in beginnings. Can I uncover a different expansiveness in loss? Is that even a thing?I am sure it is beyond words, it is unspeakable.   Yet, I feel compelled to attempt to incarnate my new sensibility of this time.  I continue to sense that there is an abiding but different security and comfort in impermanence. Please don’t ask me to explain it. I also can’t explain why I simultaneously cry and feel a deep abiding peace driving in the desert. Something about the soul piercing starkness of this beauty. Is this the face of God?  Is this wonder and awe?Isn’t it interesting that in the bible when the angels come to visit a human their first words are “Be not afraid.” Indeed, this impermanence is of the divine and I/we humans initially respond in fear. “Be not afraid my soul whispers, but my mind resists.”   Is this the blessing of life? Succumbing, surrendering to the Unfathomable but not in fear rather in love? AND with that surrender, do we glimpse the beauty beyond all naming? A beauty as majestic as the Marfa, TX desert sky. Impermanence is not what we think we want. But we aren’t always the best judges of what will truly make us happy. I know from my own life that what I thought would make me happy, often failed me miserably and paradoxically what I was sure I didn’t want, often fulfilled me in ways beyond my wildest imagination.  I no longer think I am the best judge of what will make me happy. And that makes it easier to welcome and embrace what is, even when it falls very short of my desires.As we move into 2018 in the era of Donald Trump, with abundant natural disasters and nuclear threats, it might be more important than ever to love what is. That includes each of us loving our own flawed and imperfect selves. Enough self-improvement! Instead a full-on embrace of how we are made; the good, the bad and especially the ugly. And then onto our equally imperfect family, friends and neighbors. Maybe there is something inside of each of us that is truly inviolate, wise and as vastly loving as the West Texas sky. Touching that sweet spot with far more regularity might be the gift that never disappoints.So, in the spirit of the Beauty and the Joy of Impermanence I wish each and everyone one of us  a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, a Sweet Solstice, and Happy New Year.  

"All you undisturbed cities, have you not longed for the enemy?" Rilke

This line of (from a Rilke poem from his Book of Hours) arrests me.  I heard it read by the poet David Whyte at the opening of our second Invitas learning experience near his home on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington State, almost a month ago.  It was evening, there had been wonderful food, wine and conversation.  This was not his first or only poem to share.  But when he delivered it, I felt as though it reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders and said…”YOU, Nancy, undisturbed Nancy, haven’t you longed for the enemy?”  It was personal and it implicated me.  It still does.   Why?  And what does that line mean?  Who longs for the enemy?  Hmmmm…what if I do?  I mean literally the enemy is disturbance.  Because the city of Nancy Clarie Wonders is undisturbed.   And that is true.  Other than my clients bringing me their disturbances, my city is pretty quiet, tucked in.  How did this happen?  Why did this happen? First question: how it happened was I arranged this life as it is.  I made all the choices so I created a life with little disturbance. Why?  Well, honestly because I had had so much disturbance for almost a decade, I think I just wanted to rest, to live in my little walled city (which is actually what the poet was seeing when he wrote the poem.).   And I am so glad I did, not just because I was exhausted from constant change and seriously needed the rest but also because I had never lived my life in this contented and calm place.  It was and is lovely.  Helps me understand why we wall ourselves off.  YET, I can feel something stirring deep within me, like the bulbs under the ground putting down roots and sending up shoots.  I am ready for the enemy.  I am ready for an intimate relationship again or some kind of challenge or learning that disturbs my self sufficiency and clarity.As the song Being Alive by Steven Sondheim states so beautifully…. Make me alive, make me confusedMock me with praise, let me be usedVary my days…One can be alone within a marriage or a family.  Those folks in the walled in city had others with them but…still the poet asks them…do they long for the enemy?Yes, when disturbed...I fuss. But do I truly want to be disturbed?  If I am honest,  I am a house divided here.  I do and I don’t.   And yet, I know I only grow through these disturbances and I know that we humans are built for change and growth, even while we/I resist.  Likes a ship, I am safe in harbor but that’s not what ships were built for.  Nor was I!  Oh goodness, here goes! 

"When you are very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something."

"When you're very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something."  Merlin to Arthur in The Once and Future King.  (Full passage below).For those of you reading this who are intimately familiar with loss and sadness right now, this is particularly for you.   But it is for the rest of us too.  For those of us who are sad about the world, or about health issues, or a lost love, or maybe just "what might have been" we need to learn something too.  Why does learning help? I will answer that with a story.  When my 89 year old father died about 10 years ago he didn't give us much warning.  On Thursday we were told his lab results and he was gone by Saturday night.  My mother had a very difficult time processing that her husband of 50+ years was gone and to compound matters, 30 days later she was told she was in the early stages of dementia.  When it rains it pours.  AND it surely did on our sweet mom.My parents history was complicated as all marriages are, in one particular way.  My mother had a long list of "honey do's" that my ordinarily kind and sweet father adamantly refused to do.  Go figure!  So my wise and loving brother who was equally stunned by the loss of his father and best friend came over every week for two years and took something off the list of "honey do's".  And then when it was complete, he started coming up with things to create, to add to her home that he suspected she would really enjoy.  My mom never truly fell apart in the ways we all thought she would and certainly had every right too.  I believe the love and attention she received from my sisters and I was a part of that but I truly know in my heart that having something new to look forward to every week told her hurting soul, that while life held loss and endings, it was not just that, it also held discovery and beginnings.  My brother was as wise as Merlin, in the face of the biggest ending in my mother's life, those constant new beginnings helped her through that very rocky passage.  So too with learning something new.  It fills you with beginnings and with discovery.  Learning is not just good for us as we age because it keeps our minds agile it also keeps our hearts and spirits young.From the Master himself, in his own words:  “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ― T.H. White, The Once and Future King