The call out of the blue. The unexpected desk visit. The chatter -- I’ve been thinking about you? It’s been too long — that feels like it’s the prologue to an ask.

Everybody has experienced it. Nobody likes it.

When we meet someone who’s nice without wanting something, that’s a memorable delight. Maybe we’re even a bit cautious at first. But sometimes, someone has proven that they don’t want anything. And that’s irresistible. Sometimes, someone has walked away from objects of desire most would run toward. That’s Tracy Chapman.

The four-time Grammy winner and multi-platinum artist’s work resonates with undeniable gravitas. Each song, crafted and performed with intensity and seriousness — yet without artifice — reveals deep commitment. We can feel her music make a difference.

Chapman has always been resistant to being commercialized. At shows, she let her music speak for her. Then she got off the wheel, stopped recording and touring. Refused to let the profit machine determine where or when she played. She appears on occasion if it aligned with her values, such as at charities and to get out the vote.

Not that she’s poorer for it. She’s sold over 40 million records and owns her own music. The residuals, alone, keep her more than comfortable. Yet, all too often being comfortable isn’t enough to keep people from letting greed for more or fear of “losing it all” make their choices for them.

I don’t purport to know what Tracy Chapman wants, other than a fair and just world.

But seeing her perform at the Grammy’s, that incandescent smile, those warm eyes, the lack of affectation — we sense she is giving and receiving, not taking.
She needs nothing from Hollywood, or from us.

If we want to listen to her music, if we want to love her, admire her, that’s on us. We’re welcome to it, but she won’t play to it.

And that’s as lovely as encountering someone who is kind to us without wanting something in return.

That Tracy Chapman could have so much if she reached for it, but doesn’t, makes her absolutely irresistible. In the positive, as well as in the negative, considering some of the weird backlash she’s receive in the last year.

Her not wanting anything from us disturbs. Is she for real?

Would we be good like that? Abstain from the spoils of fame, as she has, if the world were put on our platter?

We want to be wanted. Yet we love those most who don’t have such needs.
​
I love you, Tracy Chapman.

**

My father’s religion was Mother Gaia, especially her cedar trees. He wrote poetry to the great cedars that once stood in Lebanon.
Below is a picture of a Western Red Cedar with whom I’ve cultivated a relationship over the last year. They’ve become my friend and teacher.
Only recently, I learned they are a cedar. I’m surprised and not surprised. My father’s legacy lives on in me and makes this tree and our connection even more special. (They’re a ‘new world cedar,’ a member of the cypress family, and I, having moved to the States, am a 'new world person.')
Trees like Western Red Cedars who live here in the Pacific Northwest are spiritually important able to aid in “spiritual awakening.” Northwest coast tribes revere them for their healing and spiritual powers. From my interactions with the below cedar, I totally get it.
To me, however, communing with my cedar friend is less a spiritual awakening than becoming resensitized.

Each of us is born into a unique experience of life. Yet, once we move out of the baby stage of total freedom, societal pressure begins to push us to fit into its mold. One that denies the magic children sense all around them.
​
Thankfully, this sensing capability isn’t lost. We can become resensitized through nature.

Trees are some of the most helpful guides and companions. I think in part because their lives, compared to human lives, are slow, modeling presence. And in presence, we find life’s magic again. (To me, this magic is the divine.)

Take the contemplative pace of a tree’s transpiration: water slowly rises due to changes in internal pressure caused by moist exhalations through the leaves. From root to crown, it takes my cedar friend four hours to raise a volume of water through their slender veins of xylem.

Near them, my soul senses the low hum of their life. My body adapts and slows its breathing.
​
As I lean against my friend, my soul takes up the vibration and shimmies my awareness back into my special spot in the web of greater existence.
In those moments, I know again that I’m woven together with all beings, and for a time, bound to the earth and to each other. And when my earthly life expires, with the greater life beyond.

▫▫▫

Dear friend, I hope this article brought you closer to trees in ways you enjoyed. Thanks so much for taking the time to read. It’s you who make my Medium journey special.
Henry ♡

​You're on the job. But you need more hours to pay your bills. Last week, you got them. Not this week. It’s a crap shoot--though it shouldn’t be--and incredibly stressful.

​I was on commission, running the shop for an absentee boss. He brought in the business, I did the work installing window tint on cars. And everything else, like bookkeeping, ordering product. All the way down to scrubbing the floors and the toilette. When he decided to take time off, work slowed down. 

You need to do more advertising, I said. Talk to car dealerships to bring their cars to us. He just didn’t do it.

I wasn’t making enough commission to pay my bills and nobody else was hiring. That's when I pocketed some of the few jobs that did come in. I was afraid I'd get caught. Ashamed to be a thief. 

I wanted to work for the money, not steal it. But I was desperate. Rent, food, gas.  I didn't have enough work for my commission to pay for those things. 

Then a recommendation got me another job, and I was able to pull out of the hole.

My story is one example of the nightmare of wanting to work but not getting enough of it to make ends meet. For tens of millions of people this is their reality, though for completely different reasons.

For those who aren’t aware of the scourge of part time work, in her New York Times piece, ‘It’s not Just Wages. Retailers Are Mistreating Workers in a More Insidious Way,’¹ author Adelle Waldman sheds light on the epidemic of not enough work and people getting trapped into those situations.

The scheme is called “part-time.”

Employers avoid offering benefits and paying for downtime by only hiring part-timers. Walmart is an example — half their workforce is part-time.²

There are several problems with that. From week to week, you don’t know if you’re going to get enough hours to pay your bills. And unpredictable schedules keep you hanging on in case you’re called in, which is why it’s super hard to get a good second job.

People want to work!

Take one of my Facebook friends. Her crazy hours made it impossible to commit to a specific schedule at a second job she might have otherwise landed.
​
If you’re an involuntary part-timer, I am so sorry big business is doing this to you. You deserve so much better, my friend.

***

Your story is being told.
¹New York Times Piece by Adelle Waldman
²The Center for Popular Democracy: Trapped In Part-Time
³Proposed law: S 2850 & S 2851 (118th Congress) Proposed law
• A powerful movie, Nomadland, shows the struggle 
• A brand-new book argues that it doesn’t have to be this way: The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy

​Yesterday the severe cold snap broke. Within the span of 48 hours, we went from 24 to 45 degrees. Our robin, sparrow, squirrel, rabbit neighbors put in an appearance.

We missed them during the frosty temps and were so worried about their survival. But now we're happy!

This evening, in my joy, I wanted to commemorate 2022.

A standard retrospective felt limited to the human story so I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.

To reduce harm, in the past, I’ve tried to unplug from worldly goings-on (i.e. Google News and the NYT) but I never lasted long.

This year, I did it without even trying. Andy Fisher’s Radical Ecopsychology course in the spring transformed Steven and my life.

I've always looked upon Mama Gaia and all their inhabitants as kin. But in Andy's class, I got it. You know what I mean?

The human story became just one of the many stories that unfold in the larger story of life.

Because of it, it lost some of its significance.

And because of that, the other stories--like our bird neighbors'--came more to the fore and the human story receded just enough to create some needed breathing space.

So, instead  of writing about this year's events, I gave myself over to the more-than-human world and the following poem fell out of my heart and onto the digital page.​
​

A year-end poem
​

Now we are riding the slowly rising arc of sunlight,

And yet descend into the earthen belly,

Warm beneath the cloak of winter’s heavy burden.

Ascent, descent, night from day don’t follow in a line or in a round.

Nothing in the world rests in a scale of rising here and lowering there.

The world is rolling, glowing, growing in waves and pulses,
​
Intermingling, interbeing like a ball of yarn or cluster lightning.

What is here is there. What is new is ancient.

​And nothing was ever neat or categorical.
​

Dogma (or Dogme) 95 was a manifesto that ruled the approach of several film makers for a few years in the mind-1990s.

This manifesto is for movie-making, but it's remarkably adaptable as relationship advice 

• "Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought."
  
  Don’t add/force) things onto a relationship that are not naturally present.
  
  
• "The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa."
  
  Don’t “listen for” something. Be with what you are hearing.
  
  
• "The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted."
  
  Stay with the “action” of life instead of taking up a “position.”

 

• "The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable."  
  
  Avoid adding things/words/tone/statements intent on enhancing the value of the moment.
  
  
• "Optical work and filters are forbidden."
  
  Avoid filtering this moment through expectations.
  
  
• "The film must not contain superficial action."
  
  Don't demand that the relationship entertain you.
  
  
• "Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden." 
  
  Don't bring the past into the relationship except to resolve a disturbance.
  
  
• "Genre movies are not acceptable."
  
  Avoid stereotyping each other.
  
  
• "The film format must be Academy 35 mm."
  
  ​Strive to bring your full self to the relationship.

Your palms are sweaty. Your cheeks sting. There’s a ringing in your ears, and you might cry. Out of anger. Out of fear. Out of vexation. It doesn’t matter which because you’re not going to. You’re going to hold it together. You can do stoic when your back is up against the wall. When the boss gives you a dressing down in front of the whole committee. Or when your co-worker takes the credit for your idea the third time this month. You may even paste a smile on your face, as horrible as that’ll feel!

But that’s not how it has to be when you are confronted by a sticky situation at work. Or with your spouse, or that black-clad teenager in front of the fridge, drinking milk straight from the carton. There is help! A simple visualization that will effectively neutralize the threat. Because that’s what sends sweat to your palms, sets you heart beating and raises a blush on your face. To protect you, your inner threat department kicks into high gear when things go south.

Yet none of it is necessary. You’re simply in the grip of a distress pattern. Something your body’s sympathetic nervous system and your mind—specifically, your ego—have cooked up to help you cope. Someone else may react completely differently than you. They may act cool and collected and plot a nasty revenge. Or they may grow apathetic, or quit. But not you. Not with this tool in your back pocket. All you need to control the situation is this one mental exercise.

Here is what you do: Pick the day of the week, the time of day when you’re most able to relax (if need be, sit in your car). Sit and breathe quietly for a few moments. Then begin to visualize a fight scene that you’re observing from a ways off. Is it two knights galloping at each other, lances raised? A fist fight? Neighbors arguing over a fence? Whatever you come up with will work as long as it’s a fight. You don’t need to make up words but let it get a little heated to give it juice. Some shouting, raised fists, crossed arms, some dirt being kicked up in some eyes. This sets the scene for developing a script, so to speak, a conjuring that, when called up, will change how you feel and, therefore, how you react in a given situation. The purpose of the fight scene is to get you in touch with the particulars of how how you feel threatened, nervous or uncomfortable and what thoughts and feelings that, if you had them, would make the difference and let you stay grounded.

Now, that you have the scene to work off and are imagine watching it from a distance, imagine drawing nearer until you start to feel a uncomfortable. You be the judge of how uncomfortable. Ah. Very good. Just as you notice this discomfort, ask yourself, "What would make me feel safe?" and make that part of your script. Would you rather watch from the height of a tower, imagine a tower you beam up to? From behind a wall? Visualize a wall that does your bidding. From beneath an invisibility cloak? Let your imagination lead you. Let your innate desire inform you of what is right for you because what will make you feel comfortable will depend on your personality and life experience. Keep shifting where you are relative to the fight until you feel safe and in control. Whatever this place is, make it vivid. Then make a mental note because this is the first part of your script, what I call the Override Pattern because it overrides the behavioral pattern that you already have (shutting down, getting angry, apologetic, etc.). 

If you think that’s a little weird, think about the scripts you already have. Don’t you imagine what you’ll say, what they’ll say? Don’t you have pretty predictable responses to certain situations. I, for example, tend to feel crushed when I’m criticized. Not very useful when it comes to using feedback to make my classes and services ever more effective. We all have our patterns or scripts. But those patterns are more like intrusive thoughts induced by stress. What I am suggesting is that you create an Override Pattern with intentionality. That you deploy it intentionally. But only after you’ve gotten it down cold!

And—this is important—you need a nice safe spot to develop your new Pattern because how you feel at the time you make it up will become a part of it. This is the case because your brain encodes memories of everything—words, visuals, actions, physical sensations, but especially emotional states; they are what gives your memories their juice. So it is essential that you are feeling good as you weave your story. This good feeling will become as important a part of it as the action that takes place which we'll talk about in a moment. Once you have the override, when your better half acts like a lesser half, or the customer service representative stonewalls, you'll no longer go into overdrive and yank up that blood pressure. Instead, you retain agency over your own experience. You could say, you cause your own experience by using your Pattern Override.

But it has to be solid, so practice visualizing it many times before you let it see action.

Now that you've created a safe space you need one more thing—something to neutralize the threat. I call it the antidote. For example, in my override pattern, I send down from my tower a dense cloud that envelopes the fighters. Neither can see the other so none of their punches land. And if that isn’t enough, I send roses down and make them circle around their heads, emitting such intoxicating fragrance that the fighting parties stumble about, stupefied. And if I still feel reactive, I envision heavy drops of rain falling on them, making them soggy so they fold down to the ground like paper dolls. Really, I hardly ever need to go there. This vision suits my character. I have an aggressive streak by nature but I believe in peace with all my heart so it wouldn’t do to imagine missiles or exploding heads. But that’s just me.

Once you start developing your pattern in your head, it will come to you what will suit. Don’t censor yourself, otherwise the imagery won’t be potent. And potency is an essential feature of this spell. It has to have depth and be true to you to elicit the empowering feelings that crowd out the ones you usually have. It’s a little like the idea of imagining everyone naked. Only much better because it is tailor-made to specifically help you handle conflict.

The last thing you need to know is that it will take about twenty-one days to solidify this spell (I prefer the term over the word “weapon”). That’s how human brains are built. It takes roughly that long to establish a neural network, which is what this is. The more vividly you imagine the scene: where you are that has you feeling safe, and the antidote you deploy, the more seamlessly it will replace the behavioral pattern—and its attendant feelings—that usually comes into play when you are confronted with conflict or other scary or uncomfortable situations.  

Twenty-one days is quite the commitment. But it’s a twenty-one-day investment in yourself that will serve you a lifetime. Will you freak out, go numb, sputter, fall silent, be untrue to yourself, or say something you’ll regret, or worse, not say something and regret that? Or will you use your Pattern Overrider and remain calm, cool and collected. With just a hint of a smile playing on your lips that the other person isn’t sure they imagined or not. But this you can be sure of: they won’t imagine that they got the better of you, because they won’t. You’re now that powerful.

A word to those who don't visualize easily. You can create this as a spoken script. Write it all down. Read it back to yourself once a day for two weeks. Then summarize it in two or three sentences and memorize those sentences for a week. Instead of an Override Pattern, you'll have an Override Mantra.


Henry leads trainings and works with individuals, using various modalities to help them create the divine life that is truly possible. ​

​Creating a patchwork by replacing a missing piece with an entirely different fragment and then golding it in. This approach is for those who have lost someone to the Coronavirus. We ask for support from loves ones, a therapist, minister, spiritual guide. This process is the most difficult and prolonged. Finding the right piece to fill in the hole is complex. And it is never filled completely. The people we love are irreplaceable. And that's as it should be. Applying kintsugi, we connect with what we can praise--such as a shared past, memories, the love we felt and feel..
​

Recorded a Grounding Meditation as a tool for getting and staying calm during this pandemic.
​  
Update on 4/18/2021: Here is the link.

​Took a drive around today. Cars are parked in front of most homes. People are staying in or working from home, practicing social distancing, including Steven and I. 

We had a lot planned for this month and through the summer.

Steven was going to show his art at Pike Place Market.

Like last year, I was going to have a booth at Emerald Spiral, the largest metaphysical expo in the Puget Sound area, offering Tarot coaching and counseling.

Fremont Sunday Market, my weekly "ministry" is closed for now.

BEPC Expo will probably have to be cancelled or postponed. 

The leadership training I was about to finish up has been temporarily suspended.

But that is giving me the free time to participate in MeWe's online metaphysical fairs this month through May.

​I'll be doing readings, participate in panels with a dozen other metaphysicians, and I'll be giving a talk each month, too. These online fairs give me a chance to listen to other healers do their thing. It's a rainbow of different kinds of expressions!

​Steven and I are also looking at some other ideas of how to bring in revenue. Obviously, many doors have closed. I prefer to read this moment as one of many more doors opening. Can't wait to step through them and create new possibilities! ​