I need to hear the same concepts with the same words and new words frequently. I suspect males (or yang personality types raised in yang cultures) need to stop, look and listen long enough to read these words and let them penetrate.

The cello has been a good teacher to me, though after years of practice, I still have “bad” practice days. But who cares when the point of music is to feel a little joy, do a little dance, and glorify the One. It can be hard to remember, amidst all the “practicing”, to let go and let the music happen.

This political campaign has shown us how hard it is to see the Other, whatever “Us” we are on.

We have this “crisis” in California now. 68 million trees have died because of the pine bark beetle. Whole mountainsides are brown with dead trees. The year-round fire hazard is terrifying for those who live here to say nothing of the loss of luscious greenery.

But wait. What if you were voting for the beetles? What if you had a bumper sticker, a sign on your front lawn, went to meetings. You would be ecstatic at the current situation. Go beetles!

Nature doesn’t take sides. It is ebb and flow. In fact, in some parts of the state, the beetles have no more trees to eat.

I lived in a house that got burned through during a forest fire. When we returned from evacuation were crestfallen at the charred remains all around us. Six weeks later we heard a strange but familiar sound: Crickets! The crickets were already back. Twenty years later you should see how nature has reclaimed what was once devastated.

Keep listening for the Crickets and love those beetles!