December's Invitation: Living Courage - "a practice for integrating courage & heart into our daily lives"
The super moon kept me awake for nights, inviting me to listen deeply. I am still searching for words, still asking questions. I want conclusions, answers, and happy endings, but that is not what I am finding.
November’s Courage & Renewal principle was: We live with greater integrity when we see ourselves whole.
It has been a tough month for integrity. Each day, new stories have been surfacing of sexual misconduct and abuse. It is shaking women and men and is inviting us to see ourselves in a “whole” new light. We are both ourselves whole (light and dark) and connected to the whole.
“As we deepen the congruence between our inner and outer lives we show up more fully in the key relationships and events in our lives, increasing the capacity to be authentic and courageous in life and work.”
Honestly, the ground feels shaky. Our country and world is wobbly. Cracks and wounds are being exposed. The whole feels incredibly huge and that full super moon of December seemed to be shouting: Wake up! Speak up! Show up more fully!
I haven’t been able to stop all month. I’m digging in the dirt, exploring bruises for clues on how to live with integrity. I have learned that wholeness does not equal perfection. Integrity and congruence are key to living wholeheartedly and some days, I am totally at a loss.
Being in right relationship, living with integrity is hard work. Courage & Renewal is not fluffy self care. It is not about attending a retreat and learning some new lessons. It is about it is about practicing every day, fumbling and learning, seeing the size of the tragic gap between what we dream could be possible and what is. I show back up because I have more to learn. I show back up because Living Courage with integrity is a practice that weaves strong connective tissue between people and with the collective whole – earth, all beings, presence. It is hard work and is calling me to task daily.
I don’t have answers. I am discerning new questions. And so we flow into December’s theme that invites a deeper dive into wholeness that includes brokenness, gaps, and life-giving movement.
with well wishes for the journey, Holly
December’s Principle:
A “hidden wholeness’ underlies our lives: Whatever brokenness we experience in ourselves and in the world, a “hidden wholeness” can be found just beneath the surface. The capacity to stand and act with integrity in the gap between what is and what could be or should be – resisting both the corrosive cynicism that comes from seeing only what is broken and the irrelevant idealism that comes from seeing only what is not – has been key to every life-giving movement and is among the fruits of the COT approach.
Poem:
Journey by Linda Hogan
The mouth of the river may be beautiful.
It doesn't remember the womb of its beginning.
It doesn't look back to where its been
or wonder who ahead of it polished the rough stones.
It is following the way
in its fullness
now like satin,
now cresting,
waters meeting, kindred
to travel gathered together,
all knowing it flows
one way, shining or in shadows.
And me, the animal
I ride wants to drive forward,
its longing not always my own,
overrunning its banks and bounds,
edgeless, spilling along the way
because, as I forget,
it knows everything
is before it.
Prompts:
- What is below the surface, calling you to listen to what is hidden, what is whole?
- Who, human and/or beyond, feeds your connection to the whole? What gift might you offer them during this season of giving?