Love to All

Happily, I have a lot to think about lately. Also, I find myself staring out the window more. My productive self is standing ready with the nudge. What are you doing right now? Noodling. I dare not call it work, but I think one requires the other.

In the past few weeks, I met two important deadlines toward a research proposal for a family history writing workshop. You bring in the old shoebox of postcards (or other ephemera) and we use it as a jumping off place for an essay, a journal entry, a catalog, or even just a photo and a note. We use whatever media is useful for the stories you’ve kept all these years, and figure out who to tell.

I want to host the workshop tomorrow (!) and it happens all the time organically. People tell me about their postcards and postcards in their lives. People show me and send me their postcards. I love it!

Also, I want to think seriously about the potential positive outcomes of that kind of workshop (which may include alleviating loneliness) and the ethics of hosting them. Those experiences could be fun and meaningful, also maybe tricky at times. That’s worth the patience and persistence to study up and get it right. I have a big literature review and two more deadlines to go this semester.

Then, there are the Legal Landscapes we explored last week. Yet another deadline invites a contemplation of The Posted Past as a social enterprise, and requires me to pin down my approach with academic and legal citations. I appreciate the opportunity to know what we’re doing in much more detail, though today’s topic makes a lot of space for ambiguities and alternatives. What is fair exchange in the sacred center? Here’s where I was coming from with the Washington Writer’s Retreat more than a decade ago.

I was asked to lead, again, in a small and time-limited way. That has me thinking, too. I wrote an essay on Gyroscopic Leadership recently, and this is another chance to put it into practice. Moving in circles with shared values at the pace of trust.

Ah, life. That takes one hour plus coffee every morning while I watch the sun rise, and at least a page in my journal . Right now, it’s a meditation on all the places that value resides in the objects we collect along the way. Multiple layers of meaning based on divergent perspectives. To sell or not to sell? Some items will go but I have a plan to extract the joy and the stories, first.

With such a to-do list, what exactly happens when I rest my eyes on the horizon? I tend to write who, what, and when in my notes while why swirls in the sky. Then, I sketch pictures that become an index as I go. My four research areas (that made up the last paper) began as a diagram. That’s how I remember them in my mind’s eye.

Then, I get quiet. I notice alignments toward right action. I feel my devotions. I humbly take note of the risks and my own errors. I think about and pray for others, especially where tension or worry exists. Beneath all of it is a trusted witness, an ineffable presence that I tune into with my Ancestors Radio.

Today’s postcard is a window, and a reminder. Chin up, sweep that soft gaze across the plain view. Take this time, rest gently in the center of yourself, and slowly discern the design for the days ahead.