25th October 2004
Here it is, just days before one of the most significant presidential elections in my lifetime. Don’t things seem strangely quiet – like America is asleep- or in some kind of suspended animation? Quite odd. Not everyone is asleep though. There are strong stirrings and agitation in this eerie silence.
I spent all yesterday facilitating a labyrinth walk for hundreds of open-hearted people who attended A Day of Meditation and Prayer for Peace in San Francisco. This event, sponsored by Cheri Huber of Living Compassion, also included Sylvia Boorstein, Michael Lerner and Lakota Harden among others. Several of us spoke with urgency about the real threat facing the world in this moment. We all talked about integrating spirit and activism, social responsibility and compassion.
My last communication was written on May on a library computer in a tiny town called Kinlochleven, deep in the Scottish Highlands. I had just encountered Carole King and Gloria Steinem at the same event in Washington, DC and performed for a million people the next day at the March for Women’s Lives. Thanks to Katie Merrill of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office for finally tracking the photo down.
I spent three weeks dropping deeper into the landscape of Northwest Scotland and the Callanish Stones of the Outer Hebrides. I also took a side trip to Wales where I spent a week in a small cottage just minutes from the Avalon stones and right on the moor next to the Gors Fawr stone circle. This is a circle that chortles! The unbelievable joy in this sacred space is palpable. I laughed and laughed. I came home renewed, and profoundly affected by the spiritual path I am being so clearly called to follow.
When I returned home from Scotland, I dove headlong into an intense fund-raising effort for a grassroots event which I helped produce in Berkeley, CA for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. We intended to bring LGBT people and our allies together for an event that would give visibility to the progressive community who supports Kerry’s campaign. When the dust settled we had raised $150,000 identified as “LGBT/progressive money.”
At the same time I was fund-raising in earnest, I launched a home renovation project that I have been preparing for the past five years. Ai-yi-yi. re-frame the disruption of all the big-boot guys, noise and dust, I posted the definition of “Renovate” all over my house – on my computer screen, my bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator. I must say that simple action helped me keep some sanity in this process. In two weeks the 120-day project will be complete. 120 days. In a row…
I look forward to having my house back soon. I look forward to having America back on the right track with a new president. I look forward to an early winter in Northern California. I look forward to another trip to Disneyland to visit Minnie Mouse and take advantage of the high-speed thrill rides. I look forward to more deer sittings like the one I had tonight on the way home from the movies. Two stags walking along the sidewalk nibbling flowers as them went.
Onward and Outward!
