May I not become trapped ...

"May I not become trapped, caught or entangled in false inner networks of negativity, resentment or destruction toward myself. May I treat myself as the nest of God...."  John O'DonohueMay I treat myself as the nest of God!  What would that look like?  The first thing that pops to my mind is the humility it would require.  The ultimate "don't know" mindset.   When I get really quiet and look at the Pride of Barbados flowers just outside my window, there arises in me an awareness of my being the nest of God.  Just for a moment.  Just a glimpse.  I don't really know how to describe this.  I have a hard time staying with it.  It is wondrous and frightening too.  My monkey mind slips into the experience by whispering something like "...danger, danger...move away, back slowly out of this room ... it isn't meant for you.  You will get hurt."  Or it says  "Who has time for this?"  Or "You can do this later, you better do X,Y or Z now"But who will I become if I am not a nest of God?  And in these times, these difficult and fearsome times, when the news features children separated from parents at the hands of the US Government;  I realize how much work there is for me to make of myself a nest of the divine.  I must look into and be with my fears and my immense grief.  How can I be a sturdy warm protection from the energies of hate, fear and shame that swirl around us all?  For I do not want to cradle the Divine with the fear I often find in my heart these days. What is to be done with it?  Surely this is what the Holy Spirit of my Catholic girlhood was for, to help me create a heart that is beyond the geography of fear and worry.  Just that thought brings a measure of piece.  I will seek to grow a heart that is a nest for God, a heart so open, so wonder-filled, so safe and warm that the Divine could indeed nest here.  Is just the wanting this enough?"When the Guest is being looked for, it is the longing that does all the work."  KabirI will nurture my imagination for that is what humans can do AND I will double down on my longing for a heart that is beyond fear and all constriction.  A heart that could be the nest of God.    

Winter Greeting: 2017

Winter Greeting: 2017Winter has long been the season of reflection so, get cozy, pour yourself a cup of something and let’s chat.This year for the first time I started my decorating, shopping and gifting early. Ask my siblings; I am notoriously a last minute girl. Myers Briggs P through and through. But this year, I think I needed her more.  Her? She is Light, Hope and Mercy.  Mostly Mercy. “Her” is Grandma Anna, the grandmother of the universe as well as the grandmother of Jesus, and mother of his mother Mary in the Christian faith. She is the part of the universe that is infinite love and mercy. Mostly Mercy.To my mind, Christendom’s celebration of the birth of Jesus is also a celebration of the triumph of light, hope and mercy over all that stands against their expression.   (Mostly Mercy.) Did you know that around the world there is some sort of celebration of light at this time of the year? Whether it is the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, or the Jewish Hanukkah, or Kwanza or Denali…worldwide there are celebrations of light returning. Increasing hours of daylight means the promise of new beginnings, of redemption, and for me in particular, the triumph of mercy and empathy over fear and constriction.There are a number of seasonal firsts this year for the Wonders Dearings. In addition to getting an early start on the season we are taking a trip and hosting our first open house. After years of promising that one year we would not do Christmas gifts etc. but would instead take a trip, the Wonders Dearings finally did it. The 24th found us on the road to the Gage Hotel in Marathon Texas and exploring Big Bend National Park. The 27th we discovered the magic of Marfa, Texas, home to artists and spiritual seekers.   We renewed and re-discovered the magic of our connections, of our shared passions and learned to be a bit more elegant in navigating our divergent temperaments. It is no small thing to put three solo adults, all more leaders than followers together for a large amount of time and in close quarters.   We did that.  It brought us closer together as these kinds of conversations do.  We had and made time for them.  We are better for them.  Each of us.Another first: No true Christmas tree with all the ornaments our memories can conjure, but instead something I have long wanted; decorating with nature and light. An abundance of greens, flowers, candles. I have thoroughly enjoyed the change, maybe even more so because it was so long in coming.And … and … and yet, I feel this melancholy. Even in this long desired reinvention of how we do this season, (and my heart flutters at the thought of any kind of reinvention), yet this unshakable melancholy persists. Why?Even in our togetherness there were poignant moments of time passing too quickly or where-has-it-all gone. Even in the best of experiences, the extraordinary drive through Big Bend replete with hiking the Santa Elena Canyon, the vastness of the Chinati museum, and time unbounded a bit, it persists. This curious combination of deep thankfulness mixed with some unnamable loss. Like the vast beauty of the desert that also holds all manner of prickly cacti and fierce critters.Maybe this is aging and the nostalgia that comes with it? Maybe the desert sky renders this feeling larger? Or maybe it is realizing that more Solstice celebrations of the return of light are behind than ahead of me?  Or the dawning (and unbearable) awareness that I will not accompany my children (physically) through all the pivotal moments of their lives.I remember my sweet and humble academic father, who never saw his grandson graduate from MIT, now studying at Harvard Law School. Papa missed this all and how it would have thrilled him.  Zachary Robert Dearing, you can't possibly know what this would have meant to your grandfather. He would not have even dreamed this as a possibility, it was outside of his rural and humble beginnings to hope or dream for these institutions. But please trust he would have been both humbled and proud by your remarkable achievements, especially in the face of your dyslexia. And my mother would have been beyond wowed at her granddaughter Katharine Lillie Dearing’s culinary talents and the culture shifting work she is creating in the world. Even though it might confront her political and worldviews, she adored her Katie and would have not been able to easily dismiss her series, Woman of a Certain Age, and it’s Tribeca acknowledgement. There are so many things my parents are missing. As we too miss sharing these moments with them.  A granddaughter married and their first great grandson. Another granddaughter is engaged and planning her wedding while making a new life for herself in fashion in New York.My life holds so many gifts and blessings...and always has ...but as I play the Leslie Odom, Jr.’s Simply Christmas CD (the new) alongside Barbara Streisand’s Christmas album and so many other old favorites, I wonder: Is this the magic ...(albeit bittersweet) of Christmas? Is this annual seasonal celebration a direct line to everything that came before and everything that will yet come to pass?  A direct line,  AND all at once!  How do we sweet tender human hearts hold that kind of complexity? How do we grow hearts large enough to continue to rise up with a full throated “YES!” to each day, ever more aware of time moving on? This daunting challenge is more and more my daily companion. In small and large ways, I am reminded I must apprentice myself to the beauty of impermanence.Recently, I have sensed, just a hint or a glimmer, that there is a singular and stunning ~ heart stopping ~ beauty in this part of life’s trajectory. For this very young-at-heart woman, this woman whose life has been firmly planted in innovation, emergence, and possibility, how will I find those beginnings in my decline and death?  I love, adore maybe even worship the expansiveness in beginnings. Can I uncover a different expansiveness in loss? Is that even a thing?I am sure it is beyond words, it is unspeakable.   Yet, I feel compelled to attempt to incarnate my new sensibility of this time.  I continue to sense that there is an abiding but different security and comfort in impermanence. Please don’t ask me to explain it. I also can’t explain why I simultaneously cry and feel a deep abiding peace driving in the desert. Something about the soul piercing starkness of this beauty. Is this the face of God?  Is this wonder and awe?Isn’t it interesting that in the bible when the angels come to visit a human their first words are “Be not afraid.” Indeed, this impermanence is of the divine and I/we humans initially respond in fear. “Be not afraid my soul whispers, but my mind resists.”   Is this the blessing of life? Succumbing, surrendering to the Unfathomable but not in fear rather in love? AND with that surrender, do we glimpse the beauty beyond all naming? A beauty as majestic as the Marfa, TX desert sky. Impermanence is not what we think we want. But we aren’t always the best judges of what will truly make us happy. I know from my own life that what I thought would make me happy, often failed me miserably and paradoxically what I was sure I didn’t want, often fulfilled me in ways beyond my wildest imagination.  I no longer think I am the best judge of what will make me happy. And that makes it easier to welcome and embrace what is, even when it falls very short of my desires.As we move into 2018 in the era of Donald Trump, with abundant natural disasters and nuclear threats, it might be more important than ever to love what is. That includes each of us loving our own flawed and imperfect selves. Enough self-improvement! Instead a full-on embrace of how we are made; the good, the bad and especially the ugly. And then onto our equally imperfect family, friends and neighbors. Maybe there is something inside of each of us that is truly inviolate, wise and as vastly loving as the West Texas sky. Touching that sweet spot with far more regularity might be the gift that never disappoints.So, in the spirit of the Beauty and the Joy of Impermanence I wish each and everyone one of us  a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, a Sweet Solstice, and Happy New Year.  

“Every day when I awake I am torn between saving the world and savoring it…”

As we stand at the gateway, a summer stretching out in front of us, this quote is particularly meaningful to me.   Full quote:  "Everyday when I awake, I am torn between saving the world and savoring it.  It makes it hard to plan the day."And that reminds me of another poem by David Whyte What to Remember When Waking where the poet states 

"...What you can plan

is too small

for you to live.

What you can live

wholeheartedly 

will make plans

enough

for the vitality 

hidden in your sleep. ..."

Is there a kind of planning that is more like a conversation with a person?  Where no one leads, you aren't leading and life isn't leading but you are co-creating the dance together?  I believe there is.  Conversational planning may be the secret to 21st century well-being, whether planning your family's summer or your organization's vision and mission for the next 3 to 5 years.Recently, I lost a most dear soul friend.    It reminded me of the futility of a plan that does not include the following:

1. Interruptions
2. The random...things taking a surprise turn (positive and negative).
3. Trust in oneself and life.

The last one is particularly important I think, because I cause myself unnecessary suffering when I get out ahead of "now" and tell myself a story about a possible future that is not here.  But when I am able trust the unknown (unplanned interruptions and the random), what C.G.Jung called God, only then can I stay present and fully available to this moment instead of my story about this moment.  How do I trust the unknown and random?  By trusting that I can meet whatever life is bringing.  I Part of what makes this a bit easier is staying in this moment where I can't truly see if what is happening is actually good or bad, in the long run.  What I can know in this moment is only that I like it or I don't.  I want it or do not.  But I can't actually know how I will feel about it 20 years from now.  You see until our last breath, we are all always in the middle of a long play.  So this "detour" or "setback" might actually be a kind of divine intervention giving me the chance to pause and relook at what I am  doing or where I am heading.  If you don't believe in Divine intervention, no worries, you can still take a pause and ask yourself the question, "How is this potentially a gift to me?"  In other words, use it as Divine intervention giving you the chance to pause and regroup.  Even if it is not!In that pause, you can ask yourself questions, like:

• "Am I all in?"
•  "Do we have anything nagging us that we keep turning away from?"
•  "How is this actually a good thing?  Even though I still don't like it.  

By the way trusting the unknown or trusting Life, doesn't mean I don't get to feel, sad, mad and/or scared.  But if along side those feelings, I can squeeze in a little curiosity and wonder via exploratory questions (like those above), the whole thing opens up again and I can move forward with more confidence and commitment.  Not in outcome.  No one gets to have that.  Confidence and commitment in myself and my direction, come what may.So back to 21st century conversational planning.  What exactly does that mean?  It means planning expecting a partner (Life/the Unknown Future) that will ultimately help you create more than you could have without her.  Planning for interruptions, detours and reversals.  Keeping the end in sight, but holding the "how" and the "when" loosely.  And trust yourself, especially that vitality hidden in your sleep and your dreams. 

Are you in the "real" conversation?

This is truly the 64,000 question.  Most of us engage the conversation we know how to have but often that is not the "real" conversation.  The conversation that you don't know how to have, is typically a "real" conversation, it's  the conversation you MUST have to move forward.   Other questions that are related to this one are:

• Are you doing your top priority work first or do you tackle the things that you know how to do easily first?
• Are you majoring in minors?
• Who inside you determines the focus and the direction of your energy expenditure during a day?  Is it your protective and scarcity/anxiety/stressed based self or is it your aspirational self?

Since our organizational and our personal lives are  a series of conversations day in and day out, if we aren't having the conversations that are most important (even if  hard), we can expect the following:

1. Decreased passionate engagement and satisfaction in our work and life.
2. Decreased energy, efficiency and productivity.
3. Decreased positive personal and organizational results.

But when we do have the "real" conversations, the ones we MUST have, we can expect the following:

1. Increased engagement for ourselves and others.
2. Increased connection  to our colleagues and ourselves.
3. Increased sense of empowerment, for playing big and not small.
4. Increased efficiency, energy and productivity.
5. Increased positive personal and organizational results.

If you agree you want to have the "real" conversation, the one you MUST have, the first step is COURAGE.   And where do you find that courage?  For many of us it is found in reconnecting with our personal mission and purpose for our work and our lives.  We find it through our hearts and what matters to us.  Did you know that the root of the word Courage is Coeur for heart.  Ask yourself:

1. In my moments of "Flow" in my work and my personal life, what is it that excites and compels me?  What gives me energy?
2. Why  does my work matter to me?  To others?

The second step is COMMITMENT and action.  After you have brought to the forefront of your heart and mind the meaning and purpose of your life and your work, then make a list of the conversations you are avoiding, including any with yourself.  Rank order the list from easiest to most difficult. Then, make a commitment to go after them one at a time, until you have made it through the list.  Starting with the easiest allows you build on your successes and achieve positive momentum to continue to engage the "real" conversations that arise in all of our lives.The third step is to APPRECIATE and acknowledge yourself for shifting avoidance to positive forward moving action.   

"I am from ... "

Anthropologist and psychologist Mary Pipher gets credit for this exercise:   These “I am from” poems are an identity exercise.  They are poems that includes something about place, religion, and food that trace back to where/how you are “from.”  I chose to do this for my birthday this year, in honor of my mother whom I buried last year and all of the women and men I am from.  Also in honor of the midwest, particularly Wisconsin where I lived my first 30 years.  I am a woman who did not easily fit the land and people I am from.  I loved them but my latin soul, was a bit too expressive and wild for the natural vibe of Wisconsin.  I moved to Texas.  Now, at a distance I can truly see what I left behind in Wisconsin.  In Texas I could realize the positive side of the things that made me a "out of place".  My exuberant soul and affinity for loud, joyful laughter.  My tendency to always go for  "more" and for the "fun" option no matter the cost, liked Texas a bit better.  But in truth, I am both of these cultures.  Writing this poem made me so grateful for all of me, for all of my roots, Wisconsin and Texan.  I, like the skies of a Dallas sunset over Stevens Park Golf Course, dream big and believe anything is truly possible.  God Bless all of America and all aspects of our unique and wondrous selves.  The Exercise:Start each sentence with I am from...and write whatever comes to mind.  You might want to consider, place, food and religion...anything really that makes your roots distinct.I am from army blankets ...as forts...as  July 4th picnic blankets ...as warmth in Wisconsin winters.I am from Bob Wonders and Mary Skotske who recycled, resused and "made due".I am from prevent, control and tame.I am from Friday night lake perch tavern fish fries.I am from sheepshead, bar dice and bingo.I am from meat and potatoes ... chuck stew and mashed potatoes.I am from the place where ordinary and predictable are good and where wild and random are bad.I am from brooms, dust pans and carpet sweepers  in motion everyday but Sundays.I am from gray, low skies, gray homes, gray buildings and steel colored lakes and rivers.ANDI am from where miracles are believed to be real.  As real as daily rosaries.I am from damped down; cards held close the the vest.I am from ready help, if you ask for it.  Sometimes even when you don't but it is obvious you need it, and we wouldn't offend by the offering.I am from people who stop for strangers.I am from regular or whatever is the opposite of distinct and particular.I am from next door to Prairie Home Companion, which is a little too flashy for my people.I am from navy blue, gray and tan as colors not as neutrals.I am from "people are assumed to be good and decent until they prove otherwise".I am from the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation...WISCONSIN!I am from a place where progress is slow on small things and fast on human rights ... on the things that endure.I am from love whispered not shouted.  Loyalty ever present but not on display.  And where prayer and religion were private affairs.I am from a land where people are trusted until proven otherwise. This poem is offered In honor of Bob and Mary Wonders and the family they created, the good they did and the values they passed on to their children.Nancy Claire Wonders