yesterday i ended up alone for a very long time and it was totally a gift. (a gift i gave myself when i forgot my passport and messed up all my travel plans…) i suppose i needed all that room to even begin to deal with how wide open my life feels in front of me.

i started writing this from the airport closest to our ruckus camp. tuesday was my last day as the executive director of ruckus…it’s been a 5 year journey so far, and i am going to join the board so it continues, but its a major major transition for me, and for my beloveds in ruckus.

warning before you read any further: i am feeling so many feelings!!

all week, as we camped in the cold and rain, not showering because of the chill wet that would follow, huddling around the campfire, volunteering in the kitchen, playing with gorgeous big dogs between deep conversations on how to really DO this revolutionary work, watching our participants learn community-based strategy and action skills, i was reflecting on what i have learned from ruckus:

to do things right when no one is looking.

to look for work that needs to be done, to revel in the impersonal joy of being useful.

to be fearless with your body when doing the work of justice.

to be vigilant about any hypocrisy between words and actions because that is the space where meaninglessness festers.

i learned that i have an instinct to run from trouble, but stronger than that is a capacity to stay where i am needed, (as long as we’re all being honest).

now that this moment has come it is absolutely bittersweet, mostly because i LOVE the people of ruckus, i put them way up on a pedestal as a network of just damn good people.

i’m feeling the combination of future-missing my interactions with them, combined with my excitement for the spaciousness that is entering my life.

at some point on my journey yesterday – i think in toronto – i saw the moon dominating a setting-sun-sky. it was the first day of fall, of letting go of all cover and stripping down to the spare self that survives the winter. that spareness of season, juxtaposed with the moon, which looked like everything at once to me – reflection and holy light and fat and beaming (i could have missed a flight looking at her) – that felt like what i am feeling.

when i travel i get to deeply indulge in music. my soundtrack right now includes bilal’s incredible new album Airtight’s Revenge. One song, All Matter, is like a meditation on being at peace with every single thing about existence:

We’re all the same
and all so very different
Divine by design,
it all intertwines
Ain’t nothing new
but it’s always changing, movin’
Still waters soft yet so hard
You ain’t even gotta try,
all you gotta do is realize
It’s all matter
A speck of dust in this vast universe
Just like a raindrop
in the sea of consciousness
It’s all matter…
It’s everything it ought to be
It’s everything it needs to be, ok
Don’t stand in the way
You’ll only make it hard
Just keep it flowing
Flow with the ocean and you’ll be just where you should be

(this is like the soul sung version of one of my favorite pieces of writing/thinking, Hopi Elder Speaks)

the other wonderful find this trip is the roots How I Got Over. the whole album is one pleasurable set of sounds and concepts after another, but i had heard and then forgotten how amazing the title track is. its the other side of what i am wanting to remember right now:

Out on the streets
Where I grew up
First thing they teach us:
Not to give a fuck
That type of thinking can’t get you nowhere
Someone has to care.

people keep asking me what’s next for me. i don’t know the details, but it will be a continuation of my life’s work to care, and to invite/demand other people to care, and let that care (and compassion, and love) become the guiding force of our life’s actions and impact.

and that feels like the blue flame at the center of all the other wildfire emotions moving through me right now.

time to go – time for the next leg of my journey.

🙂