This Week in Spirit: Free Advice vs. Advice That Is Freeing

I’m a fan of free advice. People of all types offer free advice: kids, adults, family members, friends, strangers. My dog even offers free advice, every time he sits in front of me with a ball in his mouth.

The trick with advice is learning how to sort through all of the free advice to find the advice that is the most freeing.

Here's a time where I received advice that I found very freeing. Photo Credit: Arwen Bird 

Every now and then, a person will say something so resonant that every bit of my being comes alive. I feel like a bell that has been rung. When I have that experience, I know I’ve just received advice that is freeing. The words, and whatever else makes up the experience, shine full of clarity and a kind of power I can feel but don’t understand. 

Take last Wednesday, for example. Last Wednesday, I woke to a foot of snow, a rarity in Portland, Oregon. I did what any sensible outdoors person would do – strapped on my snowshoes, grabbed some poles, and went for an urban snowshoe.

On my snowshoe excursion, I paused to snap a photo of a rufous sided towhee, one of my favorite forest dwellers. As I did so, my ears alerted to the muffled crunch-swoosh sound of a person’s footsteps in the snow. I lowered the camera away from my eye so I could greet the stranger.

Yes, the exact Rufous Sided Towhee I had been hanging out with and photographing as the stranger approached. Photo Credit: Tanya Pluth.

The stranger was a woman, probably 20 years my senior. She wore no hat or gloves, despite the frigid 28 degree weather. She passed me on the right, and then stopped two steps away. She seemed to stare at the brambles I’d just been pointing my camera lens towards.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Yes! Amazing, isn’t it?” The woman replied, smiling.

I nodded. The woman pointed at the trees in front of me, where I’d been focusing on the towhees. I got ready to say something about the towhees. But, she didn’t say anything about the Towhees. Instead, she said this: “Isn’t it amazing how the tiniest branch can accumulate so much snow?”

I looked to where she pointed, and saw a series of thin alder branches laden with two or more inches of snow each. She was right. How did such tiny branches accumulate so much snow? Magic. She had said something brilliant. She had offered me advice that I found freeing. I felt my eyes soften, my heart swell, and my toes tingle. I already had been loving every moment of my urban snowshoe adventure, and then a stranger entered the experience and expanded the experience by offering me advice that I found freeing.

The branches with snow that the woman pointed out. Point of fact, might not be alder trees. Photo Credit: Tanya Pluth.

The woman’s comment helped me key into another dimension of awareness. I hadn’t really focused on the branches, so much as on the beauty of a snow-covered forest, the incredible expansiveness of the landscape, and the contrast of orange and red birds next to snow. Meanwhile, the woman had been focused not so much on the look or feel of the forest and the snow, as on the phenomenon of accumulation. 

Accumulation is a natural phenomenon, one that occurs to both the living and the inert. The challenge with accumulation is first, allowing it to happen naturally, and second, allowing the same natural forces that create accumulation to also take away what is no longer needed. Accumulation is dependent on receptivity, and receptivity is a natural phenomenon as well. The tiny branch accumulates a lot of snow because it is created to be receptive. Branches help a tree accumulate sunlight and water so that the basic needs of the organism are more easily met. The natural processes of wind, sun, heat, cold – will all combine to melt away the snow accumulated on the thin branches in my neighborhood. As those processes work, the form of the branch funnels water and nutrients to the tree’s core.

This week in Spirit, notice the advice that people, place, and spirit have to offer. Just as a branch helps to funnel sunlight and water to the root of a tree, trust your own natural form to funnel all that is freeing to the root of who you are. In spite of the force of effort and will, it’s quite often random pressures and circumstances that truly create shifts and releases in our lives. This week in Spirit – be like a tiny branch, receptive to accumulating snow in a storm, trusting to your natural form to funnel what is most nurturing and freeing to your root.  

Not bad for an urban forest, eh? #Ilovemyneighborhood. Photo Credit: Tanya Pluth

This Week in Spirit: When the ego yells “pivot,” be the couch.

In an episode of Friends, Ross tries to move a large white couch up the narrow stairs to his apartment. Ross yells the word “Pivot!” over and over again at Rachel and Chandler, as if the word itself would be the grease that would help his friends slide the couch up the narrow staircase. Eventually, the friends give up. At the end of the episode, Ross returns the couch — cut in half, torn, and shredded. The salesperson offers him $4. Ross accepts.

This week in Spirit, consider the “pivot” scene an illustration of the hilarious lengths the ego/mind is willing to go to, just as Ross’s did, to grasp at a self-imposed, singular goal. First, start with Ross’s original intention: to provide a comfortable place for people to sit in his apartment. To fulfill his intention, Ross purchases a large, white couch. So far, so good — Ross has a clear intention, and takes an action in integrity with the original intention. Once the big white couch gets to Ross’s building, though, things go awry. Early on in the couch scene, Rachel says the couch is too big and won’t fit up the stairs. Ross ignores Rachel’s assessment, though. He shifts his focus away from the original intention of providing a comfy place to sit, and puts all his energy towards a singular, self-imposed goal: the couch…will…fit…up…the…stairs!

Ross begins to abandon his original intention (providing a comfy place to sit) towards the singular goal of getting the couch up the narrow staircase. What if Ross had listened to Rachel? What if Rachel had simply walked away right at the beginning, unwilling to support Ross’s couch moving delusion? Driven by the monkey mind, Ross struggles ever further away from his original intention and pours all his time and energy into beating the resistance where couch meets wall. In the process, Ross loses money, time, relationships, pride, and, eventually, the couch. Because the resistance and blocks became his focus (if we could just get the couch up the stairs!) he moved away from an easily attainable intention — providing a place for his friends to sit comfortably — to the impossible task of moving the giant white couch upstairs.

I’ve been each of these characters in the couch pivot scene — I’ve been Chandler, willing to sacrifice my back and limbs to help someone else achieve an unlikely and needless goal. I’ve been Ross, determined to overcome the laws of gravity and physics just to move a couch, when really, I could’ve exchanged the white couch for one that fit up the stairs. I’ve been Rachel, stating limitations I was aware of, but still throwing my energy and body behind another person’s efforts. With a lot of practice, though, I’ve learned what it feels like when my ego/mind is taking the wheel of action away from my intentions. I can stop pouring energy into escalating actions of futility — stop before choosing to chainsaw the couch in half, stop before I have to show up with a destroyed couch and ask for a refund, while my friends still have no comfortable place to sit. With practice, I have a lot more clarity about which actions help meet my intentions, and how much energy each action truly requires. I feel more free and clear, and more nimble in adjusting my own attachments and purposes.

This week in Spirit, I encourage everyone to get better at identifying your couch and pivot moments. People can pour entire lives into couch/pivot dramas, only to find awareness of the meaninglessness of such ego driven machinations right at the very end. Lucky for us, we can just watch an episode of Friends and practice right now. Look around and sort out whether your time and energy expenditures are, in the most direct way possible, going towards what you originally intended. Be willing to return the white couch at the very moment it becomes obvious it won’t fit up the stairs. Adjust your actions to align with your original intentions, and then apply the simplest, most direct means from one step to the other. When you stop trying to force the couch upstairs, you will find that an incredible amount of mental, physical, and emotional space and energy becomes available.

This week, think of the couch in that Friends episode as Spirit. Spirit just is. It’s never too big, or too rigid, or too… anything. It’s never in the wrong shape, or in the wrong size. Spirit doesn’t have any trouble fitting into our lives. All too often, though, our ego minds struggle to accept the dimensions of Spirit. We try to force it to fit into narrow stairways. We create scenarios of struggle. We ask our friends to help us shove Spirit into limiting spaces and purposes. We work harder and harder, thinking that’s what we need to do to get what we want. Instead of working hard, imagine you’re the couch. You are who and what you are. Practice full acceptance. If other people want to move you, let them try. You will not be moved. You are a sacred being, with soul, spirit and purpose. A heart beats in your chest, singing a particular song to Spirit, to your loved ones, through your words and actions. Let these aspects be what they are this week. This is not a week to shove a couch up a narrow staircase. No, this is the week to be the couch.

This week in Spirit — when the ego yells pivot, be the couch.

The Call of Sacred Stone: Stop Dakota Access Pipeline

Sunset on a valley in Lassen County, CA. Photo by Tanya Pluth. 

Back in early June I first heard about the Sacred Stone Camp and the movement to protect the waters and lands of the Oceti Sakowin located in North Dakota along the Missouri river by ending the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Like many, I first heard about this gathering via social media. From the moment I read about the hundreds, and then, the thousands, who responded to the call to come to the camp, I wanted to go. But life felt complicated. What about my business? Who would do the work that requires a solo-preneur to keep projects going and pay the bills? What about activist strategy: is going there the best use of resources? What about race consciousness: is it helpful for a white person to be present? All of these questions quieted the response my heart leapt to, and so, I didn't go in June, July, or even August. I donated money, and I shared news as it came across my social media feeds. Each day, I looked to the sky and the sun and thought of the people on the plains. Each night, I saw the moon and whispered a prayer to the work of the people on the plains. Each morning, I woke wondering what it was like to wake at the Sacred Stone camp.

Then I saw video of white people holding thrashing, gnarling German Shepherds on long leashes as a group of Protectors stood across from them, and as D7 bulldozers tore up sacred lands in the background. I saw a white woman shove her dog into a crowd of retreating Protectors. The dog had more sense than that white woman did, because the dog paused before charging ahead, and didn’t go again until the woman pushed it from behind. I heard the cries of the people, and the shouts of resistance. In that moment, my heart leapt to a whole new level. The call I’d felt way back in June became an extremely loud and resonant gong. 

I am going to Sacred Stone Camp. Today.

I am going to the camp to be witness and to contribute what I can. I am going to the camp to clean up dishes and do other small tasks that free up Protectors for prayer and action. I am going with supplies and donations. I am going with humility and recognition of the work that lies ahead for us all as we end the harms of inherited and present day greed, disease, and oppression. 

And, for each penny I spend on the cost of traveling to the camp and returning, my spouse and I will be donating items from the Sacred Stone camp and Red Warrior Camp lists of needed items. For us, this is what we can do, right now.

What can you do, right now? Whatever it is, do it. Because this is a turning point. This is the gathering of energies and ancient wisdom that marks a turning point. If you have been waiting, ask yourself, what are you waiting for? Your heart, your spirit, your energy is ready for action. You define that action, no one else. Whether donating money, saying a daily prayer by lighting a candle, whatever level of action will align with the Protectors and create more available catalyst for change.

Sunrise from Topaz Mountain Utah access road. Photography by Tanya Pluth . 

I feel an intimate connection to the land and the water, as healers and teachers. I’ve been on the path of learning the ways of spirit, earth, air, fire and water for all of my life. I have had many teachers. All of my teachers carried the same essential message: go with love. So, I travel today, traveling East, with love in my heart for the land, for the waters, for the Protectors who create a space of renewal, strength, and sacred gathering for warriors to use what is available to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as other threats to sovereignty and sustainable living. I add what I can to that space, each moment I travel East, across the Rocky Mountains, across the wide High Desert of Montana, all the way to Standing Rock. I add my love into the action of joining, and of providing what assistance I can in action and prayer. 

It is my intention to share brief dispatches from the travels to the camp, and the return. I don’t know what is going to happen. If history is any guide, the Governor of North Dakota and the people from the corporation will unleash more than just German Shepherds. But if history is any guide, there are people within the State Police, within the Sheriff’s office, within the holders of state and corporate power, who have hearts that stir like mine do, whose hearts know a limit was crossed not just last week, but last century, and the one before that. They recognize the lines are old and worn, and the only response now is to be willing to put everything you have on the line. Everything you can muster to act differently than people acted before. To act with integrity and strength in service of turning from destruction to protection of life.  

 I am going to Standing Rock. 

I am going to the Sacred Stone Camp.