Long time away

Can you love or respect the people and assist their/our inquiry without imposition of your will
Can you intervene in the most vital matters and yield to events taking their course
Can you attain deep knowing and know you do not understand
Conceive, give birth and nourish without retaining ownership
Trust action without knowing outcome
Guide by being guided
Exercise stewardship without control…

(Interpretation of words attributed to Lao Tzu, c 550bc)


I have been remiss on writing my blog for a while now. I apologize for that. I will update things now and be a bit more regular in monthly contributions (or even more frequent writing.)

These past few months I have been in Canada, USA, Spain, and UK, and I have had the opportunity to work with city of Calgary officers and staff, Blackfoot mediators, and some family mediation in my work.

I am now here at the University of Bradford enrolled in a direct PhD program. Yesterday a friend gave me a word for how I feel, becalmed. This is a nautical term for sailing ships with no wind at sea.

Perhaps becalmed is the right time for mending nets and such, yet I am challenged by the stillness. I race up the pole to the crows nest looking for wind, or search the innards of the ship for paddle, motor, engine room…relaxing into the stillness is the challenge.

Sure, meditation, walking, reading, good food and good sleep all help; and so I am doing better than only keeping my head above water. I write about this because those of you who know me know me to be a raging optimist. This sadness, aloneness and becalming in new to me. What is interesting as I have shared this with others is how many others are feeling the same thing. How are you feeling, dear blog reader?

When a ship is going down, rats leave it (I do not know if this is true but in keeping with nautical metaphors at least!) and as well, all the animals seemed to feel the coming tsunami (and earth’s crust shifting) and responded by heading in land. Perhaps some humans also feel the earth’s shifts as mother Earth is going through hard times? (Hey, I am the year of the rat so perhaps that helps?)

The Earth is erupting around and whether it is the feeling of pain when Baghdad was bombed, or Earth’s internal turmoil; like Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars who feels the destruction of Alderan (planet), I feel it.

I have some questions for fellow peace builders about our work, (education vs. training) (theory and practice), and will share more of my research with you in the future. For now?

Becalmed,

Martha