Hello, reader. How are you doing? I want to tell you how to do anything. Yes, I can do anything. Or at least I can do something…!
I thought you should know how to do anything as well. I’ll tell you stepwise.
gather information
Yes, it’s like preparing the soil. What do you need to know, to do this thing skillfully and fairly? How can you avoid potential risks?
Ponder it–situate yourself within the information. You can web search, talk to experts, pull tarot cards, ask God to send you a dream, talk to your own body.
decide what you really want
How do you know what you’re supposed to do? I like to ask friends who knows me well. I pray, consult my feelings which are important information, evaluate patterns, stare at the ocean for a long time, dance it out. Tell the whole truth to myself and others.
face your fears
Yeah, it’s really scary to do a thing. Too bad we have to do scary things all the freakin’ time. “Everything you need is on the other side of fear,” a painted rock told me recently.
make peace with yourself–be ready to die
When I was going to risk arrest at the test site, I would listen to empowering music like special drumming, the wind in the creosote, and slip into an altered state. Was that an alternate me? Maybe the altered state was an extra-real me.
I would settle my internal debts, and I’d consider what I owed to anyone else. I’d decide–“I’ve lived a good life. I’ve done so much–so blessed.” It was ok if the dogs tore me, or I died in jail. This was my my life to offer.
“If death is my fate today, so be it,” I thought. Then I crossed the line.
Then I didn’t die yet. But it seemed important to risk arrest knowing I was risking everything.
get grounded
Parent Earth is my home, and I love the rocks. Those same minerals are in my body. Iron is in my blood. Calcium makes my bones and teeth. I’m made of earth.
Powerful people with money make choices that harm the air, earth, water, and all the life here. I don’t have a lot of money, but I make choices too in my own way.
I like getting grounded by holding a rock, breathing deep, accessing my gratitude, drinking water, eating a snack, asking my ancestors for help, visualizing laying my burden down– Parent Earth will accept any feeling I don’t need anymore.
Then I’m just a person with quiet inside, ready to do anything.
know that it could go differently from what you predict
In fact, most things go differently, and that’s ok. I trust the process because I trust the whole river we’re swept up in. The more important the thing you need to do is, the bigger the risk. Love intervenes, a lesson is learned, and we decide to stop by the La Brea tar pits to avoid the traffic jam. There we gather eucalyptus seeds for my massage therapist for medicine. We pray to the prehistoric camels that fell in the goo.
We can try to think of all the possibilities–like when my mom died, but we couldn’t be safe in prediction. It happened in a weird way that may or may not have made sense or seemed fair. So be it. If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.
surrender to the experience that actually happens
God is going to give me what I need, and I’m showing up for that.
thank her that you survived
Pouring water on the ground is a way to say thank you to the universe for surviving a difficult thing. Doing service, giving a gift or love note to someone who helped–just letting the gratitude glow in my belly like light. You can make grateful art like those Mexican arts thanking God for miracles. Some people have shared a feast.
do it again
After some rest and possible evaluation, we probably need to do more things. Sorry about that. But good luck, reader! I believe in you.
