Facts: today is the first day of Spring; the president of my country is a bald face liar– most probably a puppet of Vladimir Putin, and a disgusting proportion of elected Republicans are shamelessly slithering in the murky undertows  of partisanship having pulled their anchors out of the traditional waterways that used to guide  our country.

I sit watching the dawn of this day. Rays of first light emerge  through the tall trees which are budding with expectancy high above their deep roots within  the clay soil  banks of Lornadell Creek,  just behind our vegetable garden. What am I to make of the startling facts? Where is my root system gathering nourishment… wisdom … understanding… direction?

I feel more vitality when I tap into what I stand “for” rather than just feeling resistance, alarm or abhorrence; and these days all these qualities of feeling waft through my consciousness. What I do know is that,  like many others who have walked upon this good Earth, my essential being is rooted in a much larger awareness that is clearly not of the same understanding and frame of reference as what I am witnessing in so much of today’s politics. Like the wild trees brazenly proclaiming the launch of another growing season, I too am budding with a resolve to live from the bedrock of my essential knowing. It all boils down to these four guidelines:

1. It’s never been easy.
2. I am alive in this time period because my life holds the promise and potential to contribute meaningfully into what is happening.
3. Life is sacred – all of it; the coral reefs, the rivers and the refugees are each part of larger relationships that we know as the gift of life.
4. We are held in Great Mystery and love by an ultimate reality that is as near as our next thought and as pervasive as the whole universe and beyond.

In the Christian calendar this week marks the celebration of the Annunciation –that bizarre and miraculous exchange between the Archangel Gabriel and the young woman the Holy Spirit sent him to visit. The story goes that young Mary was selected to receive a startling invitation — would she agree to carry the Light of Divinity in her womb and mother this very Light regardless of the human toll this would demand from her? Her reply was a simple: “Yes”.  The sacred story lends inspiration to my day. It informs and emboldens me to say “Yes” to that aspect of my being that carries  life sustaining promise and potential as well as acknowledgment that this path will always demand me to see things with the vision of my essential nature.

Although it is true that caring relationships, compassion and love prevail in both small and large ways in our world; it is also true that this pervasive goodness co-exists alongside the seductive lure of ignorance, fear and corruption. If I’m going to stand tall in the Light of my better nature, I also need to be courageous enough to name bald face lies for what they are as I step wholeheartedly into the growth season ahead. Happy Spring!