Equinox Message: Excuse me, I have work to do

The fever pitch of things is so high. Confusion, anger, and outrage are our daily companions. All authorities are liars with some hidden agenda. There seems to be no objective truth, nothing untainted by politics. Pessimism and depression are alluring responses. Under it all is oceanic grief: much of it unconscious, unfelt, and unacknowledged. I have a terror that if I allow myself to touch that grief, it will pull me down and I will be lost. I struggle with all of this, and plead constantly for some beam of light to hold onto. For me, that beam of light comes in the form of working with the spiritual powers of the Earth. What I love about the shamanic path (as I understand it) is that it offers ways to work, not just read and believe. There's much in my daily life that I cannot affect, but I can do my spiritual work and it generates results. Daily life in the body is messy. The spiritual life is messy. For me, the mess of spiritual work is fun. I want to offer few equinox suggestions that I hope can be of help.

• Be careful with your thoughts and words. This is old advice, but in our time it applies to social media. Remember that every social media platform is not concerned with offering you Truth, but with moving you into a small reality bubble that it can monetize. Every time you click, you are giving the algorithm permission to carry you deeper into a bubble. The algorithm has no soul, no glee, and it is not human. It just has a job to do: to carry you into a reality bubble that makes you attractive to a set of advertisers. Be extra careful right now with your shares and comments on Facebook or other platforms. When you feel that great need to obliterate that asshole with wit and facts, or to change someone's mind, ask yourself "Is there a better use for my energy?"
• Place your focus on doing small, doable real-world, positive tasks. Reading that book, fixing that small house project, doing a craft or art project, taking a class (see my class offer below) - do something that you can start, do and finish in a few weeks. Completion of doable tasks is part of the antidote to the ambient ennui of our times.
• Remember that the spirits of nature can help pull you out of the small bubble, and hold you in a larger one, which gives your entire self more room to breathe. Here is a short blessing song I made up this equinox morning that you can listen to, learn, sing, adapt, share. It's a simple icaro that translates as basically: Great sun, mother river, sacred earth, thank you for your wisdom, life, light, and help. The song song ends by asking Spirit to help us all.

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I leave you with two poems about working with the spirit of the "shore" - that place between waking and sleeping, between the old and new, the place of equinox (balance of dark and light).

Mary Oliver:
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall --
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

Juan Ramón Jiménez:
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...

--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?