Tara Brach - Finding True Belonging in the Midst of Stress

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Finding True Belonging in the Midst of Stress - Our deepest longing is to feel our belonging to each other and all life. This reflection examines the primary forces that keep us trapped in a trance of separation. We then explore two powerful dimensions of spiritual practice that can undo trance and reveal the sentience and love that is our shared essence.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, my friends. The title for our talk today is finding true belonging in the midst of stress. And I wanted to start with a story about Maladoma Some, who's a spiritual teacher, no longer alive, author. He was born to the Dagara people of Burkina Faso in Western Africa, and he was kidnapped from his village at the age of four by a Jesuit missionary and placed in a boarding school. And then when he was 20, he ran away, he returned to his village, and he was required to undergo a month-long right of passage before he could be

a full member of his community. And so he's written about these trials. I want to describe one of his first breakthroughs where he was asked to sit and just watch a tree. And he was aware of his own head processing, you know, the thoughts wondering, you know, what's the purpose of this? What's the correct thing to do? You know, there had to be more to it than staring at a tree, right? And then he became angry and he felt like he was being made to go through a public humiliation as he sat in the center of the village watching this tree. He passed that anger and then he broke open and he began to speak to the tree. And it became a kind of confessional where he was pouring at his feelings of frustration and, you know, all that was coming up in him and then apologizing. And then apologizing,

to the tree. What do you experience next? It was this transformation of the tree into what he called the green lady, this green spirit form, who felt like love, like his home. And he ran sobbing to the spirit and she held him in her arms and he was hugging her. And he writes about this. He says, human beings are most of the time unaware of the extent and intimacy of their connection with nature, especially with the world of plants and animals. We act as if we are the proud and dominant other and thus can manifest our superiority in ways that are devastating to nature. Indeed, trees live in harmony and we create dissonance. Yet we want to live in a world where everyone and everything is harmoniously linked to everyone and everything. We want that. It's so powerful.

We have this longing to belong, to feel, as he says, our connection, to feel loving and loved. And with that, true safety, true peace. And I wanted to start this reflection on belonging with trees because the truth is we are nature. You know, it's. If we're disconnected from the natural world, you know, if we think we're in some way above, we're not truly at home in our bodies and with each other with this life. And science tells us we do belong, that the atoms in our bodies, the water we drink, the air we breathe, that all contains elements that were created in the core of stars. You know, we're entirely interdependent.

embedded in this vast mysterious living web. And of course the mystics and the poets, indigenous teachers, it's in the perennial philosophy that all point to this intrinsic oneness, all from the same sacred source and the light of the stars is shining through. If we really look, you know, how much is this our living reality where we truly feel that depth of at home with ourselves and each other in our world. I mean, how often do we sense, as Thomas Merton put it? He says, life is this simple. We're living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. And this is not just a nice story

or fable. It is true. So most of us spend good swaths of our time and what I I call the trance of separation, not experiencing that, but rather feeling ourselves as this kind of separate self. Moving through time in the cocoon, something's missing, something's wrong, others are out there, we're in here and others out there. And I want to just say that this trance of separateness, it's a natural part of our evolutionary unfolding. I mean, like all creatures, we emerged into form with a nervous system that perceives separateness. And with that, came all the survival strategies to handle the stress of threats, of scarcity, you know, our defenses, our aggressions, our ways of self-promotion,

including the real familiar mental and ego expressions that help us feel safe and secure. But it's not the end of the evolutionary story. You know, our brain and our nervous system also evolved in a way that we have this capacity to be mindful of all of that to see our emotional reactivities, our mental processes, so that we're not so identified with that separate ego self. Rather, we're actually capable of empathy, compassion, experiencing a shared belonging. That's the capacity. Yet as we know, when we get stressed

and we can look at any day and any time we feel that grip of stress, it's in the blink of an eye, that that primitive strategies slide right into place, you know, really looking out for for ourselves. There's a story that comes to mind that 11 people are hanging tight to this rope that's dangling from a helicopter, and 10 in this story are men, and one is a woman. And they agreed that someone needed to drop off or the rope would break, and they'd all be killed. So this is the stress.

It was all about survival. After a whole lot of back and forth, the woman finally said, okay, I'll all. be the one to do it. And she went on to say, this is what women do. We're evolved to sacrifice ourselves for the well-being of others, to do what we can to ensure that others are taken care of, you know, the concern for the greater good. She says all that. And when she's done, all the men start clapping. So, me first. That's the survival strategy. And, you know, I often use the metaphor of a space suit. that, you know, we arrive vulnerable into this challenging, stressful existence, and to survive,

our spacesuit is our coping mechanisms, basically. You know, all the ways that we protect our vulnerability and navigate stress. And it's natural. I mean, we need to navigate. We all need the egos, what we call sometimes the covering or the persona. The suffering is that we get so habituated to the spacesuit that we think that's what we are. We forget who's looking through the mask. And then we look at others and we see space suits.

We don't see the beingness. You know, we look at other humans or non-human animals or the trees and we're seeing the outside, the forms. We're not seeing the essence. and there's a feeling of separation. We forget the shared sentience, the spirit. What Merton says is the divine shining through. So here's the thing.

As mentioned, we all have and need our spacesuits, our ego that navigates. The question is, can we be aware so we use them wisely with awareness and still remember the truth of our larger belonging. In other words, can our habits of thinking and behaving be porous enough, flexible enough, translucent enough, that we can navigate and still sense that light shining through us

and through others and through our world? You know, in a real particular way, can we, you know, be on a call with customer service and know we're playing the role and they're playing a role and that there's a beingness there, a shared beingness that's more the truth behind our roles. Or can we be in traffic and realize actually we're traffic too, you know, and not be so caught in promoting our position where our car is getting ahead of someone?

Or can we be busy and then still pause and actually drop our agenda not to listen. Let's just do a check-in right here. This is a spacesuit scan that I'm going to invite you to do. And the attitude here is without any judgment, just curiosity. And if you look at the last, let's say the last 24 hours, the last day, how much was there a sense of, you know, I described that moving through, life like in a cocoon, you know, moving through time and that self-enclosed cocoon, a space suit.

How much was there sense of that where you're just, you know, there's an ongoing inner dialogue about what you have to do, what's going to work out, what's going to go wrong? There's a self in here and a world out there. How much was there that? How much was there a sense of maybe a problem to solve always that you're going to be. you're always trying to solve a problem. And with that, you know, the anxiety and security, trying to manage life. Okay, so that's the space suit trance.

How much? And a bit in contrast, how much presence, how many, how much of those moments where you're sensing the awareness of what's going on and sensing that awareness, that light that's living through you, through others, sense of tenderness that connects us, a sense of the sacred. Again, the scan is not to judge, especially if you're noticing the trance. I certainly can review the last day and see lots of sleepwalking, habitual automatic moving through. But seeing is the beginning of freeing from the trance.

of looking towards a deeper belonging. There's a beautiful quote from Sri Norsargarata that I go to again and again, and he writes this, he says, when you know beyond all doubting that the same life and awareness flows through all that is, the same life, the same awareness flows through all that is, and you are that awareness.

You will love it all naturally and spontaneously. You'll know that every living being in the entire universe are included in your heart. I love this because it points to a very deep understanding of equality. And by equality, I don't mean the sameness of form. You know, those are the differences to celebrate. But a quality of the same formless essence, the intrinsic value, the beingness that lives through us all. I remember listening to a talk the Dalai Lama gave this decades ago in Madison Garden. And he kept saying, we same, we same, we are the same, deep down.

So let's look more at how we get habituated to identifying as this separate self-ego-self. And with that, actually feeling unequal to others either better or worse, right or wrong, and all the suffering that comes with that. there are two primary forces that condition our sense of belonging versus a sense of separation. And they're the culture that we live in and also our caregivers. Of course, there are many, many influences, but these are the two big ones. And we look at culture that can foster division or connection. I mean, think of what happens when we're in a concert together or a theater

where we're deeply moved. There's just this inspiration, this field of inspiration, and there's tears and awe. You know, there's this collective experiencing and there's a sense of belonging with everybody. Or at a wedding, dancing, celebrating, are when we're serving together, really helping. Our spacesuits become more porous.

Internally, what's happening is it's activating a much more integrated brain function. functioning, the evolved parts of our brain, there's more connection. We're not computing higher, lower, better, worse. It's radical equality. If you think of systems of governance and economy, they can further belonging. And here I'm pointing to a trajectory because there's no societies I know have the ideal. But I mean, think of if to the degree there's real democracy. You know, we're inclusive, respecting, and valuing in the voice of all. An economy where there's a real prioritizing of collective well-being, taking care of the most vulnerable,

is the real well-being of the all. It fosters community, it fosters trust, it fosters generosity. A little story, there's a bunch of children on a school bus. It's a long trip that they're on. and one child brings a handful of peanuts to the driver. And he's touched. He says, thank you. That's so thoughtful.

Well, it happens again, you know, about 20 minutes later, another handful. And then the third time she brings a handful to him, he says, no, no, no, no. You children keep them for yourselves and enjoy them. And she says, oh, no, we just like sucking the chocolate off of them. I love it because of course we're a mix now and in a broader sense to the degree that a culture is valuing all of the beings in the culture. It promotes that sharing, that belonging in trust. And in contrast, and we know this, when cultures promote a deep sense of inequality by creating

sustaining rigid hierarchies, it's going to breed division, mistrust, violence. Just to say it simply, if we're to be awake, to really experience true belonging, true belonging, we have to see how the hierarchies we belong to impact our perceptions, how they create sometimes consciously, but usually unconsciously a sense of superior and inferior, because that's what blocks us from perceiving the intrinsic goodness and sacredness in all beings. And by way of example, this is probably maybe the most obvious one. So if a culture gives great status to those with wealth and has policies and laws that fully embrace capitalism, enable gross, accumulation, major inequities, it's going to feel the energies that separate us.

It feels greed. It fuels deceit, stealing, aggression, resentment, disempowerment, not belonging. And that's one of a number of types of caste systems that many societies have. There's socioeconomic, there's racial, there's religious, gender, and more. But here's the deal. They all come with a message of higher value, lower value person. We're impacted by the atmosphere of our society. It's the air we breathe. We don't live in a society and not on some level get impacted by messages of higher and lower. And they separate us. Let's just another time to pause and check inwardly.

do a little reflection. And again, with curiosity, just check out socioeconomic. Wherever you are positioned, your social position here in socioeconomic, you might bring to mind someone who's way above you. Just bring somebody to mind and imagine interacting with that person in sense do you feel at all less than?

Self-conscious? not enough. And you can also do it with someone that's below you in status. Do you feel better then, in some way, superior? Or do you feel truly equal? Intrinsic belonging. And for some that may not be a strong or caste, try race, someone of a different race. Do you feel superior? Do you feel inferior? Do you feel truly equal, that intrinsic belonging? Try political views, someone with very different politics. Superior? Is there intrinsic belonging? And just take a few full breaths. So one strong force of conditioning is our societies. The hierarchies that send messages of good, bad, higher, lower. The other strong force is our caregivers who also directly relay messages

about our worth, our value, our belonging. I heard a story some years back, NPR, little girl four years old, she's during the day discovers that you combine yellow and blue when you're coloring and it makes green. So that evening, when her father came home, she was very excited to show She's trying to get his attention, but he comes in the house on his cell phone. She's kind of trailing behind him going, Daddy, Daddy, I want to show you. I want to show you. And he goes into his office. He's still on the phone.

She's tugging on his leg. Daddy, Daddy, you've got to look at this. And finally he gets off his cell phone, but he's trying to find a folder, and she's still, you know, trying to get his attention. And he's really exasperated. And he said, her name's Melissa. He says, Melissa, what are you doing down there? And she said, Daddy, I live down here. It just really impacted me because when we consider, you know,

what is it that a young child most needs to feel and trust belonging? And it's to be seen, you know, to be really seen and understood for who they are, really that the parents see that light, that essence, that value, and also loved for what's seen, cherished. precious. And given our society, given the fears and the addictions and the biases and stresses of our society, most caregivers, you know, the attention is somewhat fractured to different degrees, but there's not that clear scene. And for many, there's judgments that are put out there, criticisms that make loving feel conditional. For many, of course we know, neglect,

abuse. This is what makes for severed belonging. Just as a society has a hierarchy of superior, inferior, when there's poor attachment with caregivers, parts of our inner life are relegated as inferior as bad. We don't deserve to belong. We're rejected or we will be rejected. And when the core feels less than, not okay, not enough, are flawed, we live with a sense of severed belonging and it extends to our world. It's difficult to feel true intimacy with others, you know, with the trees with this living world. So this is a super fast sketch of the societal and personal conditioning that locks us in that trance of separation that really blocks us from seeing the light of the divine. The deep inquiry in our lives today, tomorrow, in the midst of our stressful lives,

how do we wake up from the spacesuit conditioning? Find it. our way to deepening belonging with our inner life, with each other. And I want to focus the remainder on two very transformational parts of meditation practice, spiritual practice. And the first is how we can turn whatever emotional pain is arising in us, whatever fear, doubt, upset, into a portal for awakening, how it actually can become a portal for deepening belonging. And the second is how we can purposefully look to see the intrinsic equality and goodness, the shared goodness in others. So let's start with suffering as a portal. And here again, I quote Sri Norseorgadata. He says, your attitude to suffering must change. Suffering is primary.

a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love. More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of consciousness and being. Whatever prevents becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain. Our deepest longing is for belonging, and it comes from love. So suffering is a signal of separation. It always points to some way that we're not belonging fully to our inner life. And of course it then extends to our world. But when there's suffering, it means that there's some part of our own being that we have not yet included with awareness and love.

Some part of our own being that has not yet been seen, felt, held with care. This is severed belonging from our own life. And with that, there's this hierarchy of making part of our inner life not okay. So here's the thing. When we're suffering, you know, when you're feeling stuck, feeling caught in emotional pain, it doesn't appear at first as, oh, this is the suffering of separation. I can say for myself, when I'm caught in anxiety or anger or It's not like my mind goes, oh, okay, the suffering of separation. It feels like anxiety or anger or blame. And yet, if we pay attention, if we deepen attention, we'll find that any stuck place

is love signaling to us. You're not at home. Come home. Deepen a sense of inner belonging. And in that way, it becomes a sight of awakening. I'll share a personal story here. This a few months back, I made a decision about a program I'm involved with that impacted others and led to upset.

In particular, a couple of people very angry at me and I could feel the distance. And I watched my own mind. Very stirred up, you know, swinging from self-defense, self-rationalization, you know, me right, them wrong, them less, because they were wrong. to self-doubt, of course, me wrong, some things wrong with me, I'm less. And the more I reviewed it, the more clearly I could see the process, you know, the communications being imperfect and me in a position of power not being attuned or sensitive to others' perspective.

So inside I had these growing feelings of disturbance and anxiety and regret and embarrassment. I knew I was caught in charge reactivity more than usual. And I was been reflecting a lot on what I read to you that Srinar Sorgadatta is saying, it's a movement of love when we're feeling this to call our attention. So I do what I often do is, it's described as the Bodhisattva's prayer, the prayer of awakening, which is really taking whatever's going on that's really difficult. And in some way, and I do put my palms together, please may this serve awakening. It's like whatever this pain is about, may it help to wake up this heart and mind?

With a lot of sincerity, it really takes sincerity. So powerful, because as soon as I say, may this serve awakening, I become available to deepen attention and wake up. I'm offering more attention, more mindfulness and kindness to what's inside. So as it turned out that next morning, under that mental churning I contacted the raw, difficult to experience feelings of not okay, of, you know, this is what had not been fully in awareness and held with care of that young place that just feels flawed and feels hurt and feels cut off from others because of my own badness. You know, it's the pain of feeling separate. The pain of separation.

Again, when all this first came up, I couldn't have said, oh, this is the pain of separation. I needed to feel into it in my body. I needed to feel grief, the real deep sorrow about separation. And it went way beyond this particular incident. It's just that ocean of grief in us that knows the pain of separation. And that grief, just opening to that unfelt but needing to be felt grief, was the portal. My heart broke open. I returned to much more of that open tenderness, which is more of the truth of what I am than the imperfect self-making decisions and not

communicating as well as she could have or should have or whatever. It's that tender openness that's beyond any hierarchy of right or wrong. It's spirit. It's home. And it's from there that I could then be, you know, more accountable in my talking about how, where I was off or that I could see others reacting to my decision and then behind that mask, just since that intrinsic quality that each essence, just like me, that same tender space of awareness, suffering became the portal to waking up. So I'm sharing this to give you a sense of this first pathway of reconnecting, of coming back to that sense of belonging inwardly,

is letting suffering be recognized as this valued flag. Something's unseen, unfelt, unloved. I'd like to invite a pause here. Just so you get a brief taste, a brief reflection on suffering as the portal. you might take a few full breaths. Bring to mind any situation in your life where you sense there's some emotional pain, some suffering, some unease in you,

anything that brings up that sense of being stuck in some way. And when you have something in mind, just feel that sincerity, and you might try on the bodhisatt for prayer. If it feels right to you, you can put your palms together, you can put your hand on your heart, or just feel inwardly that sincerity. And you can change the words if it helps you, but the spirit of it is, please, may this suffering serve to awaken my heart and awareness.

May this serve to awaken. And close in is the sense of how might this serve? to awaken. What might be unseen inside, unfelt, not yet accepted, unloved? What wants attention? Again, letting it be held by that sincere aspiration to have suffering be a portal to awakening. And sense what you notice, how that might shift your way of being in relation to the with your own inner experience. So this is the first pathway, my friends. It's deepening true belonging with our inner life, sensing the parts where in our inner hierarchy

have been rejected, unfilled, unloved, unseen, devalued, and including them. All parts equal, all basically aliveness, spirit living through us. The second pathway I mentioned is to intentionally undo that habit of superior, inferior, by learning to see essence, goodness, and spirit in each other. And, you know, I talked about earlier, you know, our rigid hierarchies in our societies and how they seed the beliefs of not belonging. They seed the trance of separation. And I'd like to share a story that relates to this. This story is told by a Unitarian minister. I heard it over 25 years ago now. And minister describes a family holiday trip and stopping at a restaurant that was nearly empty. And she has her

husband, two children. And her son, Eric's, one years old. He's seated in a high chair. And suddenly, she hears Eric squealing with glee. Hi there. Those are two words he thought were one. Hi there. His face is alive with excitement. And she writes, then I saw the source of his merriment. And my eyes could not take it in all at once. A tattered rag of a coat, baggy pants, both they in the zipper at half-mashed over a spindly body, gums as bare as Eric. hair uncombed, unwashed, and his hands were waving in the air, flipping about on these wrists. Hi there, baby. Hi there, big boy. I see you buster. My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between, what do we do? And poor devil. Eric continued to laugh and answer,

Hi there. Every call was echoed. This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. I shoved a crackered Eric and he pulverized it on the tray. I whispered whiny under my breath. Our meal continued and the nuisance continued. Now the old bum was shouting from across the room. Do you know Patty Cake? Adda boy. Do you know peekaboo?

Hey there, look, he knows peekaboo. We ate in silence except Eric, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of a skid row bum. Finally, we had enough. Dennis went to pay the check imploring me to get Eric and meet me in the parking lot. I trundled Eric out of the high chair and looked toward the exit.

The old man sat poised and waiting, his chair directly between me and the door. Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Eric. I headed toward the door. It soon became apparent that both the Lord and Eric had other plans. As I drew closer to the man, Eric had his eyes riveted to his best friend and leaned far over my arms, reaching with both his arms in a baby pick-me-up position. In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight, I came eye to eye with the old man. Eric was lunging for him, arms spread wide. The bum's eyes both asked and implored, would you let me hold

your baby? There was no need for me to answer since Eric propelled himself from my arms to the man's. Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby were involved in a love relationship. Eric laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime and pain and hard labor gently, so gently cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Eric in his arms for a moment and then his eyes. opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm, commanding voice, You take care of this baby. Somehow I managed, I will, from a throat that contained a stone.

He pried Eric from his chest, unwillingly, longingly as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby and again the gentleman address me. God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift. I said no more than a muttered thanks. With Eric back in my arms, I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Eric so tightly and why I was saying, my God, my God, forgive me. So I heard this on, it was a Christmas Eve at the Unitarian Church,

and I was weeping. Many people were. It was really about how many people I didn't see. you know, unconsciously in some categorizing as, you know, with the superior and inferior. How deep the assumption of difference was that was keeping me from seeing past the mask to just the light, the spirit. What an imprisonment that is in a separate self. So, friends, it's our longing to experience the truth of belonging. that motivates us to dedicate to intentionally seeing the goodness.

It's a practice because we are so habitually seeing from that lens of higher and lower, to really look towards the sacredness, the sentience, the love that's our shared source. This is really the grounds of the metta or love and kindness practice to look to see the the goodness. And it's truly a life practice to see in those who seem most different, those who are most tagged by the hierarchy of our culture to see through that, to see with those that we consider close. You know, one friend, this is really to try to undo the conditioning of other and described using the word thou. you know, and just you'd be in the subways or supermarkets or airports and he'd kind of

just contemplate someone nearby of difference and just thou with that reverence, that sense of spirit that's behind it. Others use namaste. You know, just I bow to the divine in you, the sacred in you. So as part of this training of heart, I invite you to explore this, this kind of radical contemplation of truly equal. Again, not the same because it really brings awe to honor the different expressions of nature's forms, but equal in the sense of truly we are, it's intrinsic value, shared intrinsic value of life, awareness, spirit. And I am using the word equal on purpose because the habit of feeling separate and unequal, superior or inferior, is so unconscious. so much of the time that it can be life-changing to examine that, to explore what happens when

that dividing lens falls away. So let's again take a moment. We will now just do a short practice on seeing past the mask. And I invite you as I often do to pause by taking a few breaths and inviting yourself right here. And to explore this, you might bring to mind somebody from your family or a friend that you care about and perhaps feel some distance from right now. And begin by sensing the spacesuit self. And by that I mean your habitual ways of thinking about them. You might see their image. Remember the last time you were together. what it was like. You just notice the habits, the ways of relating, the things that you like or don't like. And you might sense if there's some sense of inequality that one of you is in some

way better or worse, more power, less power. One of you wants time together more, one of you feels like you don't want as much time, anything that gives a subtle sense of inequality. and then deepen attention and remind yourself of what for this person what matters the most to them what do they love what are they like when they're feeling loving and loved

happy when they're really at ease and see if you can sense behind the eyes the light the charming through sense the sentience and the being the awareness that's the same as yours, the tender heart space, it's the same as yours, the same source here. And you might mentally whisper, namaste, or thou, are just that sense of, just convey that sense of together in this, the spirit, the shared heart space and spirit that lives through you both,

that's your source, and just let that sense of heart space widen and widen. so that others come to mind and you can kind of attune to the light that's shining through them. There are people you know, people you don't know, humans, non-humans, trees, all life. Life is this simple. We're living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or fable. It is true. Okay, if your eyes are closed, you might open them.

I often think it's hard to underestimate how even a slight unconscious presumption of superior inferior that you know, on bad or less or you're bad or less creates mistrust and how the opposite, when we really feel we're equal. And it's from this shared, intrinsic goodness. With that comes joy. There's a story about a new young monk who arrives in a monastery and he's assigned to help the other monks in copying the old canons and laws by hand. But he notices that all of the monks are grimly working in their own cubicles and they're

copying from copies, not the original manuscript. So the new monk goes to the abb to question this. he points out that if somebody made a small error in the first copy, it wouldn't be picked up. In fact, it would be continued in all subsequent copies. And the abbot says, well, we've been copying from copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son. So he goes down into the dark caves under the monastery where the original manuscripts being held in this locked vault hasn't been open for hundreds of years. So hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So eventually the young monk gets worried, it goes downstairs to look for him.

and he sees him banging his head against the wall and crying uncontrollably. So the young monk says, you know, father, father, what's wrong? And in a choking voice, the old abbot replies, the word is celebrate. So in today's reflection, we're exploring ways to open to the light, the joy, the freedom of our shared, belonging. And we started with Melodoma Somme, communing with the green lady, the tree, realizing this profound, sacred belonging is of all of the living world. And because other species, trees, non-human animals, don't have similar personas and masks, it can actually be a very revealing process to intentionally commune and sense the realness of belonging. Often when I'm in the

woods, when I'm walking, I pause and I'll sometimes put my hand on a tree. I'll reflect we are friends. I'll sense just the aliveness and in its own way, the sentience, the consciousness of this universe living through the tree. Sometimes I thank trees. And if I have a lot of sorrow in me, I'll cry, lean against a tree. Very real presence with. Beautiful. For many people, trees are gateway.

This is the poet Mary Oliver. She writes, When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beach, the oaks, the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself in which I have goodness and discernment and never hurry through the world, but walk slowly and bow often. Around me, the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, stay a while. The light flows from their branches. And they call again, it's simple, they say, you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine. So I'll close with an invitation on this path of true belonging to experiment widening belonging as we've explored, letting suffering or unease be this portal. this invitation from love to deepen belonging within yourself and to seem goodness in others.

And this part might be a stretch, but it can be deeply awakening if you'd like to explore it. Find a tree, maybe when no one's around just you don't feel self-conscious. Put your hand on the trunk. Come into that real sincerity, real curiosity, openness. And in some way, communicate your appreciation. It could be out loud or mental whisper, and then just listen. Open to that shared presence, belonging. When we begin to really sense the sentience that lives through all this living world,

the trees and the rocks and the squirrels and the birds and our fellow humans, with that we realize we can never be alone. And that allows us, as Mary Oliver said so beautifully, to go easy, to be filled with light and to shine. Maybe you already do this with trees, or alternately, maybe this puts me permanently on your whackless, super woo-woo. And of course, if community with trees doesn't feel comfortable, houseplants are fine. Okay, friends, it's an invitation. and to, for sure, find a human in the not-distant future, come into presence, sense we're equal, sense a spirit shining through, express your appreciation.

We're approaching the solstice. May you be a lamp in the darkness, awakening to true belonging. May you shine. May you be part of the healing of this precious way. world. Love to each. Blessings.