https://youtu.be/mkJLqq6j0Ic?si=OG7SPv0j1aYhSBA5
 
“I have Arrived, I am Home” is a powerful film offered by Plum Village Monastery that documents Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing by highlighting his life’s important teachings. Some of his core teachings that are presented in the film include connecting to our spiritual root, taking refuge in oneself, and the experience of interbeing.
 
After writing my book Homing In, and completing blogs for each chapter, I found Thich Nhat Hanh’s sacred calligraphy “I have Arrived, I am Home.” This seemed to complete my story mandala in a beautiful and synchronistic way. This film offers a rare form of communion, showing moments from Thich Nhat Hanh’s life and his last years at the monastery in Vietnam. The interviews with other monks and members of his community give insights into the powerful shared experience at his burial ceremony and the enduring nature of his life’s teachings.
 
His presence accompanies us as we remember his life story and example, honoring his lifework. Spiritual rootedness gives us the strength to face the complexity of our lives in a more peaceful way.

I attended mass with the Franciscans in St. Maurice, Switzerland, celebrating St. Francis of Assisi this month, October 4, 2023. I was invited to a traditional raclette meal following the mass. It was a time to come together and celebrate the importance of St. Francis of Assisi’s example especially in these difficult times.
 
I went on a pilgrimage with my husband to Assisi a few years ago, attending mass and visiting the basilica, museum, and walking the extraordinary ground and village streets. That sacred place bears witness to a vision of love for all the creation. Today, integral ecology calls for an ecological conversion.
 
Laudato Si’ was written in 2015, Care For Our Common Home is one of the most important documents of our time: https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf

We have the power to change the broken system and advocate for “Integral Human Devleopment”. In my recent article, Mediatorship, I propose a Transformagram Pedagogy for conflict resolution. Transformational approaches are needed to engender an ecological conversion. Here is the abstract: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/crq.21414

How can conflict wisdom help us learn to change?
 
Here are pictures of our pilgrimage in 2021:

Autoethnographic practice and the Transformagram pedagogies that I have developed for courses at Creighton University elicit the elan vital. This term was used by Ira Progoff in his book At a Journal Workshop. But this term can be traced back to Rainer Maria Rilke, the Austrian Poet whose letters were published in Letters to a Young Poet in the early 1900’s. Rilke was inspired by Henri Bergson, a French philosopher, who wrote Creative Evolution. Creative evolution was understood to have an elan vital that gave directionality to the creative act and becomingess.
 
Autoethnography engages practitioners in the creative act that encapsulates the potential to transform. Rilke’s letters give advice to a young poet. He says that we need to go within.
“There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out if it is spreading its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write?” (Rilke, p. 18).
 
Rilke goes on to suggest that the young poet draw near to nature and express what he sees, loves, and even what he loses. These suggestions take us to the heart of the creative act that is brought forth as we contemplate our environment and our relationships. The depth and everlastingness of creative work comes from the necessity we feel to express ourselves. Performing the creative act is an essential part of living. It is also essential in learning. “Everything is gestation and then bringing forth” (Rilke, 29).
 
The following passage is particularly relevant for my lifework that has been interconnected with resolution processes. When we are searching and questing for a solution, we hope to find the answer. But Rilke counsels to live the questions now.
“You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient in all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer” (Rilke, p. 35).
 
However, finding life’s answers is often a difficult task. Rilke encourages the young poet as he faces the difficulties that are shaping his life. His letters provide guidance to support the young man’s becomingness. This passage in his letter provides us with a sense of wanting to grow and experience a life of greatness as well as the inevitable difficulties that will be presented if we are indeed destined to grow great. “Do you remember how that life yearned out of its childhood for the “great”? I see that it is now going on beyond the great to long for greater. For this reason it will not cease to be difficult, but for this reason too it will not cease to grow” (Rilke, p. 72). The elan vital provides us with the generative and creative energy needed to grow wise and to grow great. Rilke died in Switzerland after living in Valais. Here is a link to a museum in Sierre dedicated to his lifework: https://fondationrilke.ch/en/the-foundation/
​

Hildegard von Bingen’s Visionsary Writings
 
Saint Hildegard von Bingen’s writing, music, and visions have inspired my work and belief in generative energies that she referred to as the greening power of God. She used the word Viriditas to describe this greening, life-giving force. This word symbolically represents growth or the principle of life. Viriditas was transmitted by God in the form of plants, animals and precious gems. She writes of virtues and how people gave out their viriditas through their virtues. This interconnectedness exemplifies the chain of being and how we are to share our gifts and virtues in a life-giving process of transformation. For Hildegard, humility is the queen of virtues.
 
Her images in Book of Divine Works show how she transcribed her visions. These insights shine light into the meaning of divine works as well as her perceptions of the divine. She calls us to wake up before it is too late. She inspires us to seek wisdom and justice, savoring the joy of living.
 
For Saint Hildegard von Bingen, wisdom awakens us to cosmic beauty. She understands wisdom as the ongoing work of creation and creativity. And it is through the creative process that pain and the taste of injustice can be transformed. In her book Scivias, she admonishes us to Know the Ways. In Causae et Curae, she writes a handbook on medicine, carrying forward the knowledgeability developed in the monasteries and convents in Europe. Her writings are an important reference for Traditional European Medicine. As a German mystic, alchemically weaving Earth and the Sky, she offers us a beautiful mandala of mystical vision.
 
Hildegard. Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions: Translated from Scivias by Bruce Hozeski. Santa Fe, N.M: Bear & Company, 1995.
 
Here are links to her original book with photographed pages that you can vision. There is a website with articles about her work and a translation of her texts. There is a link to her sacred music. And there is a link to a blog that shows her artwork and mandalas.

During the ESREA Life History and Biography Conference in Trondheim, Norway in June 2023, we gathered to read “Momo” by Michael Ende, becoming children again as we listened intently to the story. It was a guiding ritual that created space for questioning society with an anarchist lens. Here is the link: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michael-ende-momo 

​We also worked together in collaborative practices, writing and performing. I especially enjoyed participating in a collaborative writing experience. We were given instructions to write a text in thirty minutes. I wrote a text that I then shared within a designated group. We each read our writing aloud to each other and worked to produce a collaborative artifact. We were given around an hour to produce something that emerged from our individual writings. The first presentation was about a hat from an Englishman. The second member of the group presented an indigenous drum from Chili. The third presentation by a Norwegian, wrote about a water bottle that she presented. After the presentations, our group decided to write a collaborative poem.
 
Here is the short essay that I wrote:
 
Viriditas: Greening, Generative, and Life-Giving Power
 
Generative practices like writing can take us on a journey where the inner and outer landscapes meet in synchronicity. This coming together creates a space for diffraction that gives rise to new forms. This future forming process draws from the energetic potential held, or encapsulated in symbolic objects that touch us. An agentic object can take us on new pathways.
 
The cross that I wore to the conference in Trondheim, Norway is a silver replica from a sacred stone alter that is in the church at the Abbey in Romainmôtier, Switzerland. This form can be understood as an aesthetic and spiritual entanglement emerging from the historic link to Celtic crosses found in this Cluniac priory.
 
The cross symbolizes sacred space-time in jewelry. This interconnectedness includes the landscape, the timescape, as well as the dimension of lifescaping. My life’s journey, walking this sacred path, is paved by writing that acts like breadcrumbs marking the way. The words that fall to the ground have taken me to the heartshpere. Here, in the center of my chest, the cross touches my skin, awakening my inner compass through compassion: compass and passion. I have worn it to mark St. Olav Ways and the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim.
 
Here is the poem that we wrote together:
 
The feel of the hat upon my head-I say,
This is me, who I am,
And also is my (?) people, their breath, their rhythm,
The touch of water, how weightlessly it carries me home,
Floating with the stream of life,
Connecting me to my heart and the inner compass that is guiding this journey onwards,
A creative pathway: The Pilgrims Way-St. Olav’s “Leia”
 
This experiential and collaborative learning illustrates how people form self-organizing systems within encounters that can co-construct meaning-making processes in emergent forms. During the collaborative writing workshop, our writing became a form of diffraction, bringing together entangled threads and flows in an assemblage. Transformation happens through the multiple encounters and emergent multiplicities. Movement and flow interconnect historical and cultural contexts in space-time that carries away previous forms in a fluid change process.
 
Social Science methods offer qualitative approaches using autoethnographic and biographic approaches to capture creative evolution that bridges the individual and societal. By listening in a way that creates embodied connections, we touch each other in entangled encounters, bearing witness to each other’s stories. This form of inquiry engenders becomingness-diffraction in action-through emergent conversations.
 
Here is an article that presents concepts about emergent conversations as well as Bronwyn Davies’ more recent book. Davies’ book was a reference for our collaborative writing practice.

Activating the inner compass is one way to find our way through the mazeway of life. Activation can happen through meditation, writing, and the meaning-making process that directs our attention to serendipitous happenings and synchronicities. Stories and legends provide cartographies for navigating the lifecourse. They thicken the storyline, providing depth.
 
Ira Progoff PhD. was a fellow at Bolligen with Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist. He developed depth psychology and the Intensive Journal Process. He invited participants to enter their inner sanctuary to connect with the steppingstones that mark the trail of their life, journaling to develop conscious awareness. He taught the importance of integrating symbols that could lead one to a holistic understanding that reveals transformational passageways towards wholeness.
 
This wayfinding is activated through autoethnographic practice when we engage with our story mandalas. As we weave the stories of our lives together with aesthetic intention, we beautify our story mandalas. This work is more than a pathway towards wholeness. It is a form of transformagram that moves us from life-o-grams to transformagrams, allowing us to fashion a better-formed story, through a transformed storyline.
 
Here is a thesis written by James P. Armstrong “The Holistic Depth Psychology of Ira Progoff,” about Progoff’s lifework. It presents a holistic perspective of depth psychology and its roots. Progoff directs us to explore the self-replenishing resources of the human spirit. In this creative space or inner cathedral, we are led to a place where wisdom is stored in the depths of our Self. In this inner homeplace we receive guidance. This referential backdrop sets the stage for understanding the generative promise of autoethnographic practice.
 
Autoethnography proposes a method of self-reliance in the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emmerson, connecting us to the Source. Autoethnography’s capacity to elicit interconnectedness, can be comprehended through mediatorship, a vessel of transportation and exploration. I will end with a famous quote from Emmerson “Life is a journey, not a destination.” My hope is that these explanations and resources will help you find your way.

Compassion offers directionality as we connect with feelings of compassion. The etymology of compassion contains both passion and compass. Compassion establishes “fellow feeling” and provides us with directionality. The Passion in the Christian tradition refers to the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection. Passion can be understood as a willingness to suffer for what you love. Compassion for others is interconnected with the courage to act.
 
When Jesus asks, “Take this cup from me,” God sends an angel. The cup refers to his life. We are receptacles of the lifeforce, and the cup is a metaphor for lifeform that can be understand as a sacred vessel. In the artistic representations of the last supper, the cup symbolizes our communion with Jesus Christ who is risen. The Trinity, or union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, provides the foundation for Christian theology. The reference and metaphor of the cup in the scriptures can later be found in the legend of The Holy Grail that has had an important influence on Western culture. The search of the Holy Grail and the desire to drink from the cup of eternal life provided a storyline for questing.
 
When facing life’s sufferings, we call to divine presence to ease our pain and guide us, following Jesus’ example. We seek spiritual communion and spiritual orientation. Not only can we call to angels, but Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would be sent to accompany us. Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit would be sent as a companion and teacher.
 
The Pentecost celebrates the appearance of the Holy Spirit 50 days after Easter. The Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and guided them to spread the word of Jesus Christ in the world. Pentecost is a day of spiritual baptism that allows us to have a connection with God. This anointment from the Holy Spirit brings forth a profound transformation of consciousness and spiritual awareness. It is a guiding force that activates the inner compass.
 
As seekers and pathfinders, questing in the world and searching for our pathway forward, we develop a passion for human suffering that can be felt as compassion. Our compassion guides us to do the next good thing. The Pentecost is a time of spiritual renewal and the sharing of our faith with others. In this time of spiritual reflection, we can home in and find ways to share our gifts within our relational networks. In this way, we experience spiritual transformation that allows us to walkthrough our narratives of suffering, empowered by our renewed compassion for humanity.
 
Compassion activates the inner compass. We can understand passion by following along the steps of Jesus Christ during Holy Week. The Biblical stories in the New Testament illustrate the events of the Passion, spanning from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday.
 
When Mary Madelaine went to Jesus’ tomb, she met a gardener that she didn’t recognize as Jesus Christ. When she stone in front of the tomb rolled open her eyes fell on the cloth, or the Holy Shroud, left inside the tomb. She then told the other Apostles of what she had witnessed, thus becoming the first witness of the resurrection. This has given her the recognition as the ‘Apostle of the Apostles’. Her example underscores the importance of witnessing. She models the spiritual practice of seeing suffering. The compassionate way is seeing, feeling, and acting upon suffering. When we witness the suffering of others, we reinforce our spiritual connection, activating our inner compass and quest orientation.
 
Knowledge can be used for the art of living when a passion for society is at the heart of the social sciences. Kleinman, a medical anthropologist and psychiatrist and Wilkerson, an epidemiologist, address suffering using the lens of the social sciences. They say, “In this book we have tried to clear a space not only for new works of sociological and anthropological imagination but also for making the pursuit of social understanding inextricably linked to care for the human, and for its value to be judged in terms of the production of humanitarian social care in action” (Kleinman & Wilkerson, 2016, p. 205).

Here is a quote from John Philip Newell’s book “The Rebirthing of God”:
https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/excerpts/view/26855

Here is a story about the Good Samaritan that connects compassion with the courage to act:
https://www.goodsams.org.au/article/editors-pick-the-courage-of-the-good-samaritan

I spoke with my son, Sven, who is currently working on his doctorate in law at Stanford University. He had recently attended a conference on AI and sent me a link so that I could better understand the important evolutions in AI and how this will change our lives. 

He also sent me a link so that I could experiment with AI. The AI theme became the inspiration for this month’s blog. I used chat.openai.com- https://chat.openai.com/  to try out the new artificial intelligence technology. 

Here is the response that I was given:

One theme related to AI that may be of interest to your readership is the impact of AI on the future of work and employment. With the growing use of automation and AI in various industries, there are concerns about the potential displacement of human workers and the need to upskill or reskill to remain relevant in the job market.

Here is an article that you may find useful in your blog post: "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?" by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne. This study assesses the susceptibility of different jobs to computerisation based on their technical feasibility, cost of automation, and the skills required to perform the job. The authors estimate that up to 47% of US employment is at risk of being automated in the next few decades.

You could discuss the potential implications of this trend on the workforce and the need for individuals, organizations, and policymakers to adapt to this changing landscape. Additionally, you could touch on the ethical considerations of AI in the workplace, such as bias and privacy concerns.

Here is the article that AI suggested:

The Kardiashpere or Heartshpere is awakening in the Earth Community. The Sisters of the Earth Community, Green Mountain Monastery and Thomas Berry Sanctuary gathered co-partners in March 2023 to connect with a new layer of Christic Heart pressing to emerge from within Earth’s energies.
 
This layer of Kardiaphere or Heartshpere follows upon Earth’s previous layers of geosphere, (crust), biosphere (life), and noosphere (mind). Kardiasphere is our planetary heart waking up to its enormous capacity for deeper loving and a more intimate communion with the Earth community. I was part of a core group of co-partners who met on Zoom to support the awakening process led by Sister Gail Worcelo https://www.greenmountainmonastery.org/sr-gail-worcelo.php

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the Noosphere is a foundational framework for understanding the expanding planetary mind. Here is a video from the Human Energy project that explains the importance of humanities’ current quest for meaning and purpose.

​Human Energy is a project that helps us to understand that we are a mode of creative universal expression. The founders of the Human Energy Project are writing a Third Story that links the ancient wisdom traditions with science and technological advances, mediating and transforming the two stories into a generative Third Story. We need a new story, as Thomas Berry has called for in his book, The Dream of the Earth.
 
Communicating the Third Story is essential so that we can envision a hopeful future. The Human Energy Project speaks to our ability to create the future. We need a universal model to allow us to collectively heal. The Human Energy Project allows us to revision our human potential as a species by providing a framework for understanding the Anthropocene and this critical moment in history. Educational tools that use videos to communicate can creatively facilitate an understanding of the forces at work and offer directionality for human flourishing.

We need new forms of collaboration to find solutions. Awakening the Kardiashpere and listening to the loving wisdom resonating within the heartbeat of the Heartsphere is a way of connecting to the sacredness of life within the Earth Community. Linking the Kardiasphere with the Noosphere, in an emerging symbiosis, can amplify the transformative process. We are being born anew.
 
We live in a timescape that is developing global intentionality and a positive vision. Telling our stories about who we are and what we want in life contributes to global transformation and reveals how we are connected. We can apply the Third Story to the development of Self-knowledge. This in turn gives rise to a synergetic system energized by interconnectivity and constructive change processes. Put your hand on your heart and feel the awakening Heartshpere.

Andrew Solomon’s book « Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, And The Search For Identity” is a key reference in my book “Homing In.” He writes about children who fall far from the tree, including LGBTQ children, adopted children, Deaf children, disabled children, and children born with dwarfism. On the first page of his book he writes, “We depend on the guarantee in our children’s faces that we will not die. Children who’s defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our children is an exercise for the imagination.” Solomon’s research into families allowed me to better understand the challenge parents face when they adopt a child who is biologically different. Difference can be challenging. Far From the Tree, a recent documentary inspired by the book is being shown at the 2022-2023 Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

In a 2023 interview with Christiane Amanpour Andrew Solomon explains that there is a current backlash against human rights and that some have recently called to ban his book. This underscores how we must never give up the fight for human rights. The film documents families that have found happiness in their differences. While confronting the challenge of being different, how can we find happiness in being ourselves?
 
Here is the trailer for the Far From The Tree documentary:

Here is the video from Andrew Solomon’s interview with Christiane Amanpour.

A holistic approach to healthcare can be found in the WHO that is increasingly recognizing the importance of the spiritual dimension of care. The ‘Communities of Practice’ model recognizes the valuable role inter-faith groups that are key partners for promoting global health. In our quest for health and wholeness, integral approaches can support the development of holistic practices. Holism is expressed in philosophic discourses that support the principles of Naturopathic Medicine that are rooted in Traditional European Medicine. Saint Hildegard von Bingen’s lifework provides an example of the pillars that have traditionally supported wellbeing.
 
Following World War II, a humanitarian philosophy was articulated by the United Nations to bring hope and consolation to the world following a period of great destruction and loss of lives. The Spirit of Global Health, The World Health Organization and the ‘Spiritual Dimension’ of Health, 1946-2021, documents the conceptualization of the WHO’s approach to the spiritual dimension of healthcare. I have included the book in this blog for my readership.
 
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO reached out to inter-faith groups to reinforce partnerships, as the majority of the world’s citizens are members of religious communities. The importance of collaborating and building strong relationships with communities of faith was part of the WHO’s response that was facing a global crisis in the form of a pandemic. The pandemic allowed world citizens to become aware of the increasing influence of health policy on their daily lives. Here is a quote that addresses global crisis from The Spirit of Global Health, The World Health Organization and the ‘Spiritual Dimension’ of Health, 1946-2021:

Commitment to the common good of global health itself draws on spiritual sources. In the face of intensifying global threats, this broadening of the horizon is likely to become even more important. The inclusion of a ‘spiritual dimension’ is not a spillover of late-modern healthcare, but may be a part of the solution in a time of global crisis. The idea of being one and whole as an individual or as a community, on a local or a global level, is at its core a spiritual one, and it is at the heart of the health organization that this book takes as its subject. It is entirely appropriate that its name recalls the world that is the shared habitat of the global community (Peng-Keller & Winiger, 2022, p.218).

When spiritual well-being is understood as an important factor in well-being, spiritual care becomes an essential practice, accompanying people on pathways to wholeness. Biomedical models can integrate traditional medicine and spiritual care. Interconnecting models and approaches gives rise to Integrative Medicine. This holistic approach recognizes the interconnectedness of mind, body, and soul. Traditional and complementary medicine are vital resources that can be used to combat chronic health problems associated with aging. Local healers can provide appropriate care that is adapted to the social and economic circumstances of communities, drawing upon living wisdom. Cross-cultural education can help to bridge traditional and biomedical approaches, co-constructing shared knowledgeability. By fostering Intercultural and interfaith dialogue, the global community can move towards a culture of care and planetary wellness.
 
As we face global crises, spiritual care can reinforce global health initiatives, uniting communities of practice in the universal search for human flourishing. Swiss leadership has historically shaped this holistic vision. Here is a quote from Professor Winiger:
​
A world health organization built through dialogue across cultures and ideologies ceases to be perceived as a distant bureaucracy fighting a weary battle against ‘dangers and enemies’—to borrow the words of the Swiss Federal Councillor Philippe Etter, who first used the term ‘spiritual’ in the WHO’s inaugural assembly (see Chapter 2). Instead, it can serve as a bridge based on shared, universal human interests: health, happiness, a sense of well-being, growth, and contribution to our planet. It can partake, to echo Etter once more, in the global task, no less urgent now than in the post-war period when the WHO was founded: to promote the ‘whole human being in his physical, spiritual, moral and social power’ (Winiger, 2022 ,p. 230)

The whole human being is understood to be multi-dimension, comprised of the physical dimension, the spiritual dimension, the moral dimension, and imbued with social power. Spirituality can be understood as a resource that increases resiliency, empowerment individuals and communities. Love for the common good is necessary to maintain human freedoms. A culture of encounter allows us to give value to differences, while seeking to build friendships and partnerships. Dialogue is essential if we are to find common ground to co-construct a hopeful future. Envisioning a world built upon social justice and care for our common home is possible, especially when we dream together, bringing heaven to Earth in a shared vision of the good life. Pope Francis went before the United States’ Congress to advocate for a Culture of Care in 2015. Here is the transcript of his speech:  ​https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/transcript-pope-franciss-speech-to-congress/2015/09/24/6d7d7ac8-62bf-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html

December calls us to light the inner fire, lighting candles, writing Christmas cards, decorating and lighting the Christmas tree, and baking Christmas cookies. But lighting the inner fire is more than our holiday rituals. Firekeepers carry forward the traditional ways of knowing and being that allow us to connect to Spirit when Mother Earth appears dormant. When the greening powers look as if they are slumbering in the cold of December, waiting for the Winter Solstice and the promise of light, we can turn inward to light the fire inside.
 
Love sparks our inner fire and keeps it burning with passionate desire to give and share what we have with all our relations. The gift giving traditions offer us a way to spark the inner fire so that we can walk forward into the new year with renewed bonds of loving kindness. We become firekeepers, passing on the knowledgeability that allows us to transmit traditional ways that warm our hearts. Firekeepers use their hands and hearts to keep the fire burning.
 
There are people who know how to love and care for their loved ones. There are others who know how to inspire us with their artistic gifts. And there are the discrete ones who quietly light candles that burn brightly with prayerful intentions, shining through darkness.
 
I began Homing In, referring to myself as the Give-Away Girl in reference to the Give-Away Ceremonies that have been carried forward by Native Americans. The Give-Away Ceremony connects us to the importance of reciprocity. In “Braiding Sweetgrass”, Robin Wall Kimmerer interweaves Indigenous knowledge with biology and botany. She proposes that we find our way forward by retracing the ancient pathway described in tribal teaching stories. As we sit around the fire and listen to the great storytellers of our time, let us find renewed ways to be firekeepers carrying the light forward for future generations.
https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/about

Co-presence is a concept that allows us to turn our gaze to our relationships that are embedded within our environment. In this reflexive space, we can analyze human and non-human forms of relating. In the Oxford definition co-presence is defined as, “In any form of mediated communication, the phenomenological sense of ‘being there’ with another person in place and/or time: see also presence.” - https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095638654
​

This Fall season has taken me to different places that have given me the opportunity to reflect about how human beings relate with other life forms, rooted within their bioregions.
 
At the November 2022 conference in Sierre, Switzerland, “Mountains on the move: imaginaries practices and lives,” Professor Holly Thorpe from New Zealand presented “Towards More Than Human Mountainous Mobilities.” She described how people move to mountainous regions and how their relationship with the natural environment is a main source of nourishment that influences their choices to settle in mountainous regions. Many people connect and interact with the “mountainscape” through sports like skiing or snowboarding. However, our relationship with the mountain can transition from engaging in winter sports to something much more fundamental. For instance, the interconnectedness that I experience living in the Alps is an important aspect of my life.
 
An example of an Indigenous conceptualization, that recognizes our relationship with the natural environment, comes from the Maori people. Personhood was attributed to the Whanganui River in New Zealand in 2017. The Maori people were able to bring forth this new legal status to not only protect their river but to reaffirm their spiritual connection to this life force - ​https://apnews.com/article/religion-sacred-rivers-new-zealand-86d34a78f5fc662ccd554dd7f578d217

​This new status personhood status opens up reflexive space. Our perceptions and relationships, in relation to nature and the rights of rivers and even mountains and glaciers, are transformed when we integrate Indigenous understandings and practices.
 
I participated on a panel organized by Mike Poltorak, a member of the Interface Commission. The panel showcased engaged anthropology at the Swiss Anthropological Association’s annual meeting and conference in November 2022. I presented a vision of mediatorship, a conflict resolution concept that I have developed. I described a research model that was used to develop a culture of mediation by engaging in a film-making process that identified stakeholders and reinforced partnerships. I explained how the Valais Mediation Association’s 10th anniversary film event culminated with a round-table political discussion about mediation in May 2022.
 
Following the panel presentation, we were invited to visit the Ethnographic Museum in Neuchâtel for a guided exhibit visit that examines the notion of “wild” (https://www.men.ch/en/welcome).

​The exhibit framed human and non-human relationships, underscoring the political implications that are linked to the social construction of different ecological approaches.
 
During the conference, I enjoyed listening to other panel presentations that looked at human connections, illustrating shepherding practices in Alpine pastures. Another presentation on that panel enlightened us about what Gowlland Geoffrey referred to as co-presence.  He presented experiences of being gazed at by a monkey, as he gazed at the monkey in the forest in Taiwan where he does research. He also described Indigenous people in Taiwan and their relationship with dangerous mountain terrains and how the people of the region connected to a sensitivity that served to warn them when walking through perilous mountainscapes (https://www.sagw.ch/fileadmin/redaktion_seg-sse/Jahrestagungen/2022/LONG-PROG-A5-1nov.pdf).

The Va is an Indigenous concept that describes a form of relatedness. The Va englobes a form of kinship where the land and kin both nourish us. Illustrating these live-giving relationships provides a beautiful representation of our linkedness. I refer to this as living in/on Earthship.
 
After the conferences, on my way home, my husband and I went with my daughter Katrina and her family to Romainmôtier, a sacred site with a Romanesque church built on the model of Cluny next to a natural source of water (https://www.myvalleedejoux.ch/en/P650/romainmotier-abbey-church).

​Not only did we visit the church, but we walked to the source where water emerges from the earth, bringing forth a stream that has given life to the region through the ages. I explained this to my grandson, Nevin, connecting the story of the source to the development of the Cluniac network. I showed him the silver cross I was wearing, a beautiful replica from the sculpted stone in the church. It symbolizes the cultural exchanges that took place throughout Europe. The interlacing design seems to weave together different forms of sacredness that emanate from the source.
 
The following weekend we all went to Zermatt to celebrate my husband Angelo’s 60th birthday. Nils, our mountaineer son, has climbed the Matterhorn as well as many of the surrounding summits. He organized a helicopter flight to fly over the mountain peaks. We experienced an overview of the mountains he had skillfully climbed in a moment that brought together kinship, the mountainscape, and our homeplace.  We were face to face with the wonderous beauty of our Alpine region. When we flew around the Matterhorn, it was if we were connecting to its personhood as well as its physical and spiritual energy that nourishes us, marking the Earth with its grandeur. We could also see how the glaciers had melted from this year’s hot temperatures, feeling a sense of mourning. This was an extraordinary experience of co-presence. I understood how the majesty of the mountain summits had called Nils to the top, shaping his abilities to climb.
 
In Homing In, I recount about my experience as a college student visiting the Big Island, part of the Hawaiian Islands, and how I met a man who had given up a child to adoption the same year I was born. Through his story, I became conscious of the existence of my birth parents that weren’t just a shadow from my past, but real people. He took me to sacred land where we ran together on the trails of the Hawaiian kings. On those runs, I felt connected to a wave guide that rolled over me, activating my quest orientation. This multi-sensorial encounter ultimately led me back to my birth family. Had I sensed the Va that is known and experienced by the Indigenous Polynesians of the region?
 
These recollections illustrate a nourishing co-presence that has shaped my becomingness. By sharing these stories, I hope that others will discover a form of live-giving generativity. Academic conferences, exhibits, cultural sites, and mountain peaks all provide encounters with the ‘Source’. I have included pictures at the source in Romainmôtier as well as a picture of a cross carved in stone that was used to make my silver cross that I often wear. There is also a picture of the Matterhorn.
I have also included an excerpt from an article that describes the Pacific Islanders’ experience of the Va. In the Alps, our family experiences co-presence with the mountains, glaciers, and water sources. The sacred markings on the Earth, like the rock formation of the Matterhorn, connect us to unique planetary energies have been represented in artform and woven into the archtecture of sacred cultural sites. Encountering these natural environments and cultural sites can help us renew our relationship with our common home, Earth. Experential learning can take us to places that contain a form of “mana” or nourishment for the soul. In the native Havaiian culture, mana is understood to be a form of spiritual energy of power and strength. Both the Matterhorn and the source in Romainmôtier are locations where mana can be felt. These sacred locations renew our energy and ground us in radical amazement. When we recognize and sense these spiritual energies, we experience co-presence.

​The definition of mystical in the Cambridge Dictionary is “relating to the belief that there is hidden meaning in life.” I attended the 10th ESREA Triennial Conference at Milano Bicocca University in October 2022. After the conference, a visit to Bruce Nauman’s exhibit was organized at the Pirelli HangarBicocca. At the exhibit entitled, Neons Corridors Rooms, I discovered Nauman’s artwork that explores the meaning of creating art. In his iconic spiral entitled The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), that explores language processes, recalling Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on the relationship between thought and language, I was pulled into the spiral of words and thought about mystic truths. The artist also disrupts established parameters and references by putting the viewer in a destabilizing condition. During the visit, I walked into The Green Light Corridor to experience the tightness of walking through the spaces he created.
 
My visit to the exhibit was just before my sister’s visit. My discovery of Nauman’s artwork corresponded with my sister Michelle’s arrival in Germany and her visit to Switzerland, at a threshold moment in her life. We took her to the Martigny Fair, an annual Fall event where people from all around Valais come together to visit stands, have drinks, and attend conferences. While we were walking through the crowd, a young man reached out to me and gave me a piece of jewelry that he had found saying, “Here, take this. I found it. It’s for you.” I took the gold necklace with dark stones and small pearls that seemed to form an eye, surrounding a larger pearl in the center. As I held it, I recognized the shape and realized that I was holding a representation of The Eye of Horus in my hand. I thanked him and contemplated the synchronicity of receiving the symbolic piece at this moment in time. I wondered how he had chosen me from all the other people present. Again, I was experiencing an intriguing synchronicity that was superimposed upon the backdrop of the exhibit about mystic truths and what it means to be a true artist.
 
The Eye of Horus represents wholeness and is a symbol of well-being, healing, and protection. The symbol was believed to have protective magical powers. In the article “The Eye of Horus: The Connection Between Art, Medicine, and Mythology in Ancient Egypt” the authors show how the symbol has connections with neuroanatomical structure and function.  The Eye of Horus represents the whole Eye, bringing together brain functioning related to the six senses, showing how the center of the human brain contains a form that resembles the hieroglyphical representation of The Eye of Horus. The Ancient Egyptians somehow new about the human brain’s shape and functioning. Their knowledge was transferred to the hieroglyph that holds the hidden meaning. The metaphors include “The Eye of the Mind, Third Eye, Eye of the Truth or Insight, the Eye of God Inside the Human Mind.” These representations invite us to explore mystic powers with a whole vision that connects and superimposes symbols with anatomy.
 
Bruce Nauman’s work reminds us that the true artist helps the world by revealing the mystical truths or insights that are perceived with whole vision. The artist’s gaze penetrates life and has the power to make whole. And just like The Green Light Corridor, we are disrupted by the tight spaces we are called to walkthrough. Mystic truth and insights trace a pathway, like the spiral, taking us to the core of meaning. As we follow the meaning trail, we come to a place of revelation.
 
The amulet that I was given contains a story of protection, insight, and possibly the gift of well-being. It was given to me when I was united with my sister, underscored by a moment in time when Bruce Nauman’s artwork was speaking to me about mystic truths and disruptions. I look at the piece of jewelry with radical amazement. It is a reminder of the ineffable. There are layers of meaning that are superimposed within this object mediator, reminding me of what Joseph Campbell referred to as “the power of myth.”
 
Was the Eye of God watching over us? And how does the artist help reveal mystic truths? Maybe it is by conveying and sharing the hidden messages of our insights that we can best help the revealing process. In our “sense-making” we find mystic truths. Let’s sail “Into the Mystic” with Van Morrison’s song, coming home.

​We were born before the wind
Also, younger than the sun
'Ere the bonnie boat was won
As we sailed into the mystic
Hark now, hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic
Yeah, when that fog horn blows
I will be coming home
Yeah, when that fog horn blows
I wanna hear it
I don't have to fear it
And I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float
Into the mystic
When that fog horn blows
You know I will be coming home
Yeah, when that fog horn whistle blows
I gotta hear it
I don't have to fear it
And I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And together we will float
Into the mystic
Come on, girl
Too late to stop now

The week that Queen Elisabeth II died, and King Charles III was crowned King, I found his book, Harmony, in the English book section at Emmaus in Sion, a place where people can bring their things to benefit the community that lives from donations, selling secondhand furniture, clothing, books, dishware, and other items, so that they can rebuild their lives after a period of homelessness. It was a wonderful synchronicity to find his book the week he was crowned king and it gave me the possibility to discover his vision of harmony and balance. He weaves together insights that connect ancient traditions, sacred geometry, spirituality, art, literature, and poetry with a golden thread that interconnects humanity’s heritage.
 
HRH the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, wrote the book Harmony in 2010. He addresses the planetary challenges that we are currently facing with a transformed perception inspired by the ancient wisdom traditions. He refers to integral and sacred ways of understanding the Uni-verse, looking forward, and proposing solutions in relation to agricultural production, education, healthcare, and business. He applies a philosophy of wholeness that recognizes Nature’s patterns and sacred geometry. He explains how human beings as part of Nature, a life form or species emerging from and formed by the Earth’s self-organizing systems. His vision also underscores the importance of well-being, questioning mechanistic approaches to science that disconnect.
 
In his book, he refers to the Lord’s prayer, explaining how the prayer was changed from “in Earth as in Heaven” to “on Earth as in Heaven” in the translation process. When I wrote Homing In, the relational approach of living in/on Earthship was an important insight that was emboldened by my writing process and became a guiding metaphor. However, I wasn’t aware that the original Bible translation calls us to live in Earth as in Heaven. Now I comprehend that I was attuning in to a form of living wisdom that was whispering in my ear and pointing to our relationship with Earth as well as our positioning in between Heaven and Earth.
 
Understanding our interconnectedness reinforces the relationship between our human family and the Creation. Notions of kinship can inspire us to adopt ways of relating and belonging in/on Earthship. An integral vision connects science with the traditional cosmologies that tell stories of the unfolding of life of Earth, explaining the life-giving processes and affirming the sacredness of all lifeforms. The challenge of weaving together a coherent narrative of livability is before us.
 
Here is a speech from a conference the Prince of Wales, the recently crowned King Charles III, gave in 2017 about Harmony and the importance of a philosophy of wholeness that leads to well-being. Hopefully, King Charles’ kingship and leadership will elicit a systemic reflection on both harmony and well-being. Living wisdom is present in Nature. If we can learn to mimic the harmonious natural systems that sustain life on Earth, we can co-create a hopeful future. The wisdom traditions offer a holistic tapestry, weaving together insights in a mandala of creative joining together. Let us learn to harness the greening power of Nature in ways that don’t deplete our Earth’s resources, causing unbalance that can lead to extinction.
“God save the King”

In Homing In, I tell about a dream that I had when I was a young teenager. In my dream I experienced what appeared to be was the end of the world, and I went with my grandmother to be taken up. Candlewood Lake, where I lived was reflecting the storm that was brewing destruction. The looming storm clouds appeared as a sign of the end times. While I flew over our region, in a kind of open flying machine, I understood that hell was the suffering I was witnessing on Earth. I took in an overview that saddened me.
 
Marnie, my dear grandmother, was patiently knitting in a kind of waiting room where we both were waiting our turn to be transported. But I couldn’t wait, I was impatient. I needed to go up immediately, even if it meant leaving my grandmother behind and risking the possibility of being separated from my family. Suddenly, I ascended in a tube-like cylinder that transported me.
 
Right before my eyes was the face of God. My whole body knew I was encountering the divine. There were three stars against a deep blue background that seemed to be a kind of trinity made of star sapphires shining brightly. I can remember thinking that if I was meeting God, that I must be dead. Still, I was filled with a kind of bliss that I have never found words able to convey.
 
Then surprisingly, I awoke alive with this vision that was imprinted in my whole Self or mind-body memory. I can’t explain my dream, nor understand why I was shown what I comprehended to be the face of creation. But recently, new NASA pictures were shared and one of the photos looks like the trinity of stars that I encountered in my dream.
 
Mystery is the foundation of faith. When I look at this photo I am filled with radical amazement for this image of the deep field of the Universe. We have all been offered the possibility to take a glimpse at the face of Creation and experience the ineffable. As humanity searches for its origins, we are discovering the deep field that generates life-form.
 
These explorations through time and space bring us closer to what Christians refer to as the Trinity. Looking at the face of God, revealed to us through NASA’s technology, is awe inspiring. These photos allow us to penetrate the mystery, traveling deep into the Universe. Each picture captures a unique unveiling of the divine.

Link to NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet

​We need strong relationships to become champions. Greatness is not achieved, races and battles are not won, without the support of our friends, companions, and our teammates. This summer I visited the Infantry Museum in Fort Benning, Georgia with my brother who is currently a Colonel at Fort Benning. He explained how ‘The Last One Hundred Yards’ is a fundamental part of the infantry training program for soldiers. The museum has an exhibit that shows how the infantry works to secure the last one hundred yards in historic battles. Soldiers must develop their physical core, their relational core, and their spiritual core to find courage and resilience in the battlefield to secure the last one hundred yards.
 
On the soccer field, my daughter Jessica plays for FC Sion Women’s Soccer team in the Swiss B League. She trains 4 times a week and has a match each weekend. The strong relational bonds that develop through playing together have carried her team to the championships. Jessica came from behind in her defense position to score a decisive goal for her team and assure their place within the B League in June 2022. Being part of an outstanding team provides the opportunity to experience strong emotions together, as during their final game in Sion, when they celebrated their victory.
 
Another example of friendship and companionship was the 76-kilometer Trail Verbier St. Bernard race that my son Nils ran in 14 hours and 40 minutes in July 2022. Along the mountain trail, family, friends and colleagues provided refueling with food, water and other beverages to make sure he kept up his energy during the race. This solidarity was reinforced during the last 30 kilometers when his good friend Simon ran with him to Verbier, making sure that he was accompanied to the finish line.
 
We thrive when we participate in trusting relationships that allow us to give the best of ourselves. The human family needs strong partnerships to both survive and flourish. Companionship and friendship provide the empowering relationships we need to experience championship. Victory is won through committed relationships that elicit the best of ourselves through relational commitment. When we support and defend honorable causes, we engage in championship.
 
 
The video explaining ‘The Last One Hundred Yards’

​This summer when I returned to Nebraska, I journeyed to Black Bird Bend Farm where my father David’s widow, Dody lives in a farmhouse sheltered by the bluffs near the Missouri River. Walking through the kitchen that used to have a large country pantry, I saw the familiar oak dining room table that reminded me of all the family meals together with my parents and grandparents.  In the family room that looks out over the back porch and down to the crops that end at the riverbank, she opened a small black box decorated with Russian artistry that held objects once held by my father.
 
She told me that I could choose whatever I wanted from the different possessions that once belonged to my dad. In the ornate box among pocketknives and other trinkets was a small compass. Over the last few months, I had been writing about activating the inner compass and how the questing process allows us to orient ourselves as we journey through life. As she opened the box and presented the contents, I knew that my father’s compass was being offered to me at serendipitous moment in time, marking the importance of the object mediator as well as the metaphor.
 
The inner and outer journey come together in a pathway that presents itself like pebbles and shells that are carried by the sea where waves meet sand, marking the shoreline. There is a synchronous coming together of sea and sand dotted by nature’s scatterings. Yet in the haphazardness, there is a divine pattern that emerges. The inner adventures that take us deep within ourselves, where metaphors evoke memories, transport while the outer journey takes us to new places revisited, adding new layers of meaning to our lifeline.
 
The compass came to me at a time in my life when I could appreciate its symbolic meaning.
The outer journey is guided by the inner adventure that informs our way forward, adding to our inner landscapes of meaning. This lifescaping happens through synchronicity, as well as the ability to see the symbolism that becomes a pathway to wholeness. In this voyage, landmarks become creative mythology, the art of living with the Gods.

Autoethnography can be understood as part of an integrated continuum within a narrative conflict resolution framework. Narrative methods have been shown to increase narrative coherency and generate transformation processes. Conflict transformation goes beyond conflict resolution by engaging people, families and communities in constructive social change processes. Even pedagogy can be used to elicit transformation processes. Guiding metaphors provide symbols that reinforce our ability to imagine a more desirable situation as we identify the changes we seek. When practicing holistic approaches, life-o-grams become transformagrams.
 
In this way, conflict is a gift when it is understood to be a vehicle for change. When conflict is perceived as a gift, conflict transformation opens to a passageway toward more life-giving opportunities and fulfilling relationships. Social change processes that increase social justice bring forth justicepeace, or peace rooted in justice. When we map our conflicts, we can better understand the processes-structures that are shaping conflict. We can see the patterns that give form to conflict. Our conscious awareness acts on these relational patterns. Mapping conflict transforms our perception of conflict as we explore the connections. This in turn allows us to behold our conflict narratives using Appreciative Inquiry.
 
We are living in glovircal landscapes, experiencing the global and local through virtual landscapes that offer increased interconnectedness. Conflict transformation allows us to enter constructive change process that lift our lives through creative endeavors, allowing our life stories to become works of art within the larger picture. Conflict transformation lifts our conflict narratives to the level of the aesthetic oeuvre, especially when our metaphors guide our questing process.
 
The Hero’s Journey becomes a form of ‘creative mythology’ that unfolds within our storylines, as we connect to our inner compass, homing in to our brave hearts. We must envision and respond with response-ability to our conflicts, understanding conflict as a gift that is inviting us to beautify our story mandalas. The place of art in conflict uses metaphors to enhance significance and bridging. This puts art in a central place in conflict transformation.

Listen to Jean Paul Lederach’s keynote presentation “Art in the place of Conflict”:

​Mediatorship is a vessel of connectivity. Mediatorship connects us to living wisdom that guides the conflict resolution process. Mediatorship engages us in a quest towards wholeness, as we navigate through our conflict and illness narratives. Mediatorship carries us through phases in a process that transports. Mediatorship invites us to travel through passageways, linking each phase of the journey within an integrated framework of conflict resolution.
 
Mediatorship is a metaphor and sacred questing vessel that uses our inner compass to Home In to wholeness. Mediatorship takes us from brokenness to linkedness as we embark on a transformational odyssey. When we enter in to the questing process, activating our inner compass, our mind-body is transformed. Autoethnographic practice develops narrative coherency. This transformative process provides actionable routes for transforming our perceptions. In this way, relational encounters are transformed on the Wheel of Perception by using quest orientation.
 
Mediatorship uses an inner compass to home in to the Holy Grail Way, a sacred pathway that leads us through our conflict and illness narratives; a passageway. We can tune in to living wisdom and awaken our brain using autoethnography as a tool for transformation. By listening to the messages of synchronicities, doors open to higher potentiality. Developing conscious awareness allows us to transcend life’s challenges and awaken to promising pathways.
 
Here is a video that presents Dr. Lisa Miller’s research in her new book, “The Awakened Brain”.

Autoethnography is an emancipatory process where we use our fingers and hands to manumit, writing to set ourselves free. Autoethnographic practice is akin to spiritual journey. As we write, we connect to living wisdom that guides us in a stepwise manner. In The Ritual Process Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner uses ethnographic methods to explore the power inherent in rituals and symbols. Rituals and symbols are used to create liminal states or in-between spaces that allow for transformation to occur. Turner developed the performance theory in anthropology. He also explored ethnography as a performance.

​The Red Book shows his creative process.
https://quote.ucsd.edu/coled/files/2016/06/Turner-and-Turner-Performing-Ethnography.pdf

Autoethnogrpahy can be understood as a transformative performance. When we develop anthro-vision, using the lens of anthropology to gain insights, we experience a form of enlightenment or comprehension of life forces, patterns, and structures. Auto/duoethnographic writing spaces also provide a template for transformation. The Holy Grail Way is a concept that came to me in a dream while I was writing Homing In. My dream, the legend, and a pilgrimage to the Holy Grail in the St. Lorenzo Cathedral in Genova all represent facets of my waking dream process. My writing process provided a template for exploring my dream. It also offered a creative space where I could make connections. Through this creative process I developed a transformative pedagogy to accompany my students. The transformagram pedagogy that I have integrated into my courses at Creighton University and the Valais College of Alternative Medicine provides students with a vehicle for transformation, using narrative means for therapeutic ends. When students engage with their transformagrams they embark on a vessel christened “mediatorship” that transports them to new landscapes of meaning.
Chief Black Elk wrote about his vision in Black Elk Speaks. The Tree of Life that Chief Blackbird describes resonates with The Tree of Life that Carl G. Jung illustrated in The Red Book. There is also a wonderful mosaic representation of The Tree of Life in Otranto, Italy that extends upward to the altar on the Otranto Cathedral’s floor, growing under worshipper’s feet. I designed a stained-glass window with the tree of life in the center of the circle. It is in our living room, reminding me of the Seven Arrows medicine shield and Jung’s illustrations in The Red Book.
The Tree of Life is a symbol stemming from our collective consciousness. It is a symbol that can be understood as an archetype. It roots us in the Earth to strengthen our ability to flourish. Living in/on Earthship requires rooting deeply so to grow-up high. Our symbolic landscapes of meaning allow us to make sense of life in difficult times. The meaning-making process triggers actions that allow us to enter in to cultural performances that transform, transcend, and transfigure lifeforms.
Black Elk’s vision can be interpreted as a warning of Anthropocene and climate change. His vision quest led him to revive Sacred Pipe ceremonies for the spiritual renewal of the Native American people whose tribes had been devastated by Euro-American conquerors.
https://www.siouxreplications.com/extended-museum-articles/black-elks-pipe-and-pipe-bag

Jung had visions of devastation before World War I that plunged him into darkness but ultimately gave rise to his questing process that brought forth his psychoanalytical concepts. The Red Book shows his creative process. 
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/29/cg-jungs-the-tree-of-life-1922

Gandhi is yet another important figure who had a powerful vision of social justice. His emancipatory process used the Spinning Wheel or Charkha to resist and overcome the British colonizers. He used civil disobedience and ancient symbols to liberate his people. The Swadeshi movement allowed the Indian people to connect with faith, resilience and self-sufficiency.
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/BAUBNSJPyMyVJg
​

Each vision emerged from a cultural perspective that gave rise to different forms of spiritual questing and liberation through a performance of transformation. These transformational performances can be understood as passageways.
I refer to The Holy Grail Way as a passageway that allows us to walkthrough our conflict and illness narratives. The walkthrough is both a sacred passageway and emancipatory performance. These examples of emancipatory processes all demonstrate different cultural pathways that create a space of flexibility and reflexivity that open to new ways of being in the world. This is how life-o-grams become transformagrams.
Each era has examples of conflicts that play out on the international stage. I pray that the Ukrainian people and their neighbors will find a way to resist the current Russian invasion in an empowering process of liberation. The Serfs were only liberated in 1861 by Tsar Alexander the II in the Emancipation Manifesto. At that time almost 40% of the people were serfs, peasants that were the property of nobility, tied to the land in serfdom.
Manumitting means freeing oneself from slavery. May the process of manumitting continue, overcoming current forms of tyranny, liberating the people, and guaranteeing democratic rights and self-determination. May the brave hearts of the Ukrainian people be supported in tangible and effective ways by the united strength of Western democracies in this current emancipation process.
Emancipatory processes are emerging from our global conflict and illness narrative as we move out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lines of contention that were revealed during the pandemic have become open armed conflicts in Eastern Europe. The pandemic has played a role in the configuration of conflicts and certain conflicts may even have been accelerated. The performance of the insurrection in January 2021 is an example of anti-structure beating down the doors of political structures like the Capitol. Now we see other political conflicts that are emerging and breaking down borders and challenging national sovereignty in this current existential battle between democracy and autocracy.  

During the period that I was writing my book, I was looking for inspiration to guide my creative process. One morning, while cleaning my keyboard on my computer, gently wiping the surface with a soft cloth before beginning to write, “Heaven is for Real”, a film in my computer files, suddenly began playing. I was surprised how it started playing, mysteriously triggered by my movements when I simply brushed across the computer’s keyboard. It was puzzling, and I saw this as a sign. Why hadn’t another film in my computer been activated?  I decided to watch the film, that also happens to be a Nebraska story, like my story. I listened carefully to the message, wondering what I was supposed to understand.
 
Although I repeat the words in The Lord’s Prayer every morning saying, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven”, both the “Heaven is for Real” book and film bring the words alive, storying a young boy’s near-death experience and revelations. After watching the film, a second time, I looked at the meaning of the words in the prayer more carefully. This mysterious showing made me ponder the thought-if heaven is for real, then we are called to bring Heaven to Earth like the prayer suggests.
 
The young boy in the film, Colton Burpo, comes back from an illness experience with a memory of sittings on Jesus’ knees and being comforted by Angels who sing to him. He also meets a little girl who explains that she is his sister but was never born into the family because of a miscarriage. This encounter, later revealed to his parents, leads the Burpo family to question their faith in light of their young son’s experience. The story also portrays how Colton tried to explain to his father, a pastor, what Jesus looked like. One day he saw a painting by a young Ukrainian artist, Akiane Kramarik, and told his father that her painting resembled Jesus.
 
The painting is entitled “The Prince of Peace”. It was painted by a young Ukrainian girl with an extraordinary gift. These two children’s stories dovetail, bringing a more vivid vision of heaven and Jesus to Earth. Asking us to question, “What if we lived each day as if Heaven is for Real?”
 
Another story referenced in Homing In, “Proof of Heaven”, written by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, recounts exploring realms of consciousness with a woman he didn’t recognize when he was severely ill and unconscious. His adoption and reunion story explains that only later, after his recovery, does he discover that the woman on the butterfly wing, that escorted him on his visit to different levels of consciousness, was his sister who had died.
 
Having been adopted, he only discovered their connection after meeting his birth family later in his life. When he finally met his birth parents, he saw his sister’s picture in their home and was able to make the connection. His encounter with his sister brings together forms of connectedness that can be felt, but not fully understood until the veil was lifted in moments of divine timing configured by his adoption and reunion story. Only after his reunion with his birth family, was Eben able to understand the interconnections revealed during his illness experience.
 
The Nebraska story, the adoption story, and Akiane’s incredible ability to paint at age 8, all express the ineffable. When my computer started playing the film, I was called to look and listen more attentively to these stories that bear witness to the mystery of life as well as Jesus’ living presence.
 
These incredible stories inspire radical amazement. We are truly sharing one mind, a consciousness, that links science and spirituality. Learning to trust in the loving God force that takes care of us is an important message that Dr. Eben Alexander brought back. His work confirms that memoires are not stored in the brain, revealing important information about the mind-brain connection.
 
His research explains how prayer can open portals and allow us to experience higher levels of conscious awareness. And also how the placebo effect, mind over matter, can influence health outcomes, even triggering spontaneous remissions and healing. We are all looking for purpose and ways to transform our lives. Wholeness emerges by participating in the evolutionary process and coming in to wholeness, wisdom, purpose, healing, health and deeper meaning. This happens by touching the loving force across the veil and living this life today in a way that allows us to grow and transform into the soul we have come here to become in this lifetime.
 
Listen to Dr. Eben Alexander explain how soul journey can elicit growth, transformation, and understanding. We live in One Universe where the primacy of consciousness that is understood through quantum physics supports true free choice and the becomingness of our soul. “Living in a Mindful Universe”, his recent book, allows us to understand that it is all about healing and becoming whole. Let’s work together to make this world a better place!

​Here is Akiane’s Prince of Peace painting:

I first discovered Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s work when I decorated my mediation service for political asylum seekers in 2001. I chose his photographs to inspire the people that sought out my help. His book “The Earth From The Air” sat on an easel next to the chairs, so that his vision of the Earth could sit with us during the many mediation sessions that I hosted. The beautiful view of a heart shape, configured by lush green plant growth, was one of the photographs that hung on the wall.
 
In 2019, the Yann Arthus-Bertrand came to the Opale Foundation in Crans Montana to speak about his lifework. I was able to listen to meet him in person and then take in the exhibit that showed his many photographs and films. We even brushed shoulders.
 
Having completed my blog series in November 2021. Each blog entry corresponded with a book chapter, providing resources that make Homing In truly a teaching story. I am  nowbeginning a new cycle of blog posts that complement the information shared in the previous blog posts that follow the chapter of my book.
 
Home is a film and book by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. When I was completing my book and adding references from Home to the chapter I was working on, a surprising happening occurred. While playing the film on my computer and going back and forth citing words from the film, writing them into my manuscript, a technological linkage triggered a sudden reading of my book. Suddenly my computer was reading my book to me. Somehow the artificial intelligence was performing a private reading. I was hearing my words and experiencing my book coming alive, not knowing how this was all possible. It was truly incredible, and beyond my comprehension. I just listened in awe, appreciating my words as they were sounded out, spoken through a voice on my computer. I listened as this artificial intelligence read to me, taking in my own words in wonderment.
 
Having ended my Postscript with the Zen calligraphy of Thich Nhat Hahn, “I have arrived, I am home”, I would like to begin this new phase of sharing with the film Home that allows us to contemplate the beauty of our home, and the miracle of life on planet Earth. Let the mystery penetrate your whole being, filling you with wonder.
​
Here is the link to the film Home:

​A vision of The Holy Grail Way was revealed to me in a dream, in the Fall of 2018. My birth parents were visiting for our grandson Nevin’s baptism. The dream came to me on the night before we walked in the Balavaud Alpine pasture where the oldest Larch tree in Europe is rooted.
 
Later, I discovered that the Holy Grail is a treasure in the St. Lorenzo Cathedral in Genova that I have since visited twice. The Holy Grail is also a powerful Arthurian legend that has inspired Western Civilization. It brings together legend, Christian symbolism, and the different stages experienced in mystical life. I have come to understand that the The Holy Grail Way takes us from brokenness to linkedness. Within this framework of understanding, writing to transform relations is a form of narrative repair. We can restore and transform that which has been broken-experiencing wholeness and well-being. Writing emancipates, makes whole, and sets us free, while connecting us to living wisdom.
 
The Holy Grail in Genova was taken by Napoleon. During its transportation, it suffered a break. Later, it was returned to Italy restored. The Holy Grail’s hi-story is a metaphor for restoration and restitution. There is a symbolic connection with my own story. Though the Giveaway Girl was taken away from her birth mother and offered to another family on the sacred alter of life, her place was eventually restored within her biological family circle.
 
As we walkthrough our conflict and illness narratives, we participate in a sacred pilgrimage of becomingness. Storying our process allows us to participate in narrative transformation and narrative repair, as we find our way walking through the Medicine Wheel, making meaning of the different stages of our life. Here, we create an aesthetic pathway by interweaving stories, articles, artwork, films, and photos that incorporated together elicit the Jungian transcendent function.
 
My autoethnographic process grew to become a teaching story that has taken form through my blog posts and website, sharing what I know through this “glovircal” space-the global and local linked together through virtual connectivity. Each blog post is part of a stepwise quest on a glovircal expedition. The quest has become a glovircal pilgrimage, using mediatorship as a vessel of transportation.
 
My Medicine Wheel is an artform that has taken the shape of a story mandala. It has been inspired by Native people’s concepts of health and illness. Designing it has contributed to my health and healing, as well as my self-realization. Movement in the Medicine Wheel is guided in a “sun-wise” direction. Transformation occurs by walking in a “sun-wise” way through the wheel of perception. This transformational process takes us to an inner space that opens to the experience of narrative coherency. On this vision quest, I have been transported to a place on the Medicine Wheel of life where I can see a new vision of living in/on Earthship. From this vantage point, we can see how our sacred vessel Earthship is holding us together in a loving embrace. Behold!

​Here is a picture of the Holy Grail in the St. Lorenzo Cathedral:

​Here are pictures of our trip to Berlin with Jessica:

​Here is a picture of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi that I visited in the summer of 2021: