The Hollosphere

I made quiche. Oh yeah, baby. Sage sausage, spinach, onion, mushrooms, and cheeses. I line the bottom of the pie plate with cheese to make a kind of crust. I had extra egg mixture, so I tossed some more cheese and some red bell pepper into a smaller plate for a plain quiche. Mmmmmm! Don’t you wish you were here to eat some?!

In other news, the deer herd was frolicking about on the hill behind our house, chasing each other around and generally making a ruckus. Cute little buggers. There was even a young buck with a couple of points. He better watch out–I think deer season is here! One small one was especially charming, doing the four-legged bouncy-hop thing all over the place. It was pretty much a Disney movie up there.

I’m on a number of mailing lists of NVC providers, publishers, and organizations. Lately, I’ve been noticing that my idea of the consciousness of NVC isn’t always matched by what I’m reading. The following is an excerpt from an newsletter that I read, which shall remain unnamed:

Focus on Needs
Stay focused on needs/values. (Have a needs list available for people to reference.) People can more readily accept and value what’s being said when needs are clearly stated.

It’s easier to warm up to the statement “The way this case was handled didn’t meet my needs for fairness and equality and I’m wondering if you’re willing to explore with me how it might be handled differently in future” than the statement “I was treated unfairly and that’s unacceptable.”

The author is giving a suggestion for how to speak in a more connecting way. I had an “ick” reaction to it instantly, feeling at first annoyance. Obviously my own judge and jury were on duty, there. Then I felt sadness and discouragement as I realized I have a longing for a deeper, more meaningful shift in consciousness so we all might live in more harmony and peace.

What I read above is our same old habitual thinking cloaked a new formula for talking. This is an example of my least favorite form of expressing needs: “That doesn’t meet my need for…” which sounds to me like a vague demand, and is a form that also usually has some criticism wrapped up in it. In the above I hear a statement that, while less obviously ouchy than the original statement, is outwardly directed and still rooted in judgment.

Figuring out what to say instead of “that’s unacceptable,” or whatever, without addressing the thinking that underlies the urge to say such a thing won’t get us far in nurturing a connection. It’s an inside job, as the saying goes. If I’m having a story that I was treated unfairly, just finding a new way to say, “Hey, you’re treating me unfairly” won’t help me release my moralistic judgment (they did something that was unfair) and make a heart connection with another human being. I might take some of the sting out of my statement so they freak out a little less, but I will not get to the yummy place of joyful collaboration.

I’m wondering if people experience some small relief from that little shift in their language. If they find a new way to speak that stings less, perhaps they will be willing to accept the results of mild de-escalation as success. “Hey, they didn’t freak out on me nearly so much! Cool!”

I don’t want us to stop there. I don’t even want us to start there. The yummiest, most connecting, transformative shifts I’ve experienced are shifts in consciousness and thinking. When I’m free of judgment, moralism, blame, attachment, etc., I don’t have to practice how to talk. My words will flow naturally in a way that illustrates my intention and focus on serving life.

Conal, his mom Ann, and I had a stimulating discussion last evening about spirituality, war, the impact of affluence, violence, carpeting, what to call our work, and about a hundred other topics. While we were talking about the new dimensions of political folly with regard to Iran, Conal remembered one of his favorite quotes:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Having enemies makes things simple. You find them. You kill them. You live happily ever after. Problem is, war, assassination, and violence have never, ever worked to nurture lasting peace. We keep acting as if we can just find all the enemies and eliminate them, then all will be well. Sh’yeah. As if.

Continue reading ‘The Elusive Evil Ones’ »

What would my awesome Aunt Jeanne have done in the era of blogs? Medicine Wheel Blog? The Spotted Chicken Report online? That would have been so cool! Her humorous short stories, interviews, and wonderful drawings would have made for a terrific blog. Perhaps she’s at it up in heaven…

Here’s a bit of her humor I found online on an old, apparently outdated Methow Valley News page. It’s dang hot here today, and I like being reminded that it will get cold again and perhaps lead to… duh duh duh DUM! Cabin fever–aaaaaaaugh!

Are you suffering from cabin fever?

In 1984, the late MVNews columnist Jeanne Hardy described a few signs and symptoms concerning cabin fever for a supplement to the paper entitled the Country Side Magazine. They are appropriate today as they were back then.

1. You absentmindedly nibble your favorite houseplant.
2. The soles of your feet are fuzzy and slightly numb and you can no longer separate your toes.
3. You burst into tears at the sight of a snowflake.
4. Your alarm clock goes off one morning and you flatten it with your table lamp.
5. You’ve eaten 14 oranges in the last 10 hours.
6. You realize you’re talking to yourself in a language you don’t understand.
7. There’s a knock at your door and you scream.
8. You realize you’ve been staring into the refrigerator for three days.
9. The phone rings. You pick it up and say, “Goodbye?”
10. A neighbor discovers you holding, and singing to, a bag of potting soil.

Heh. I sure loved her stuff. Anyone find anymore of Jeanne’s writing on the net?

Wow, this blogging stuff is rather absorbing. I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours today perusing and experimenting with WordPress themes, plugins, and widgets.

I enjoyed playing with some theme designs on this template generator page. Another source of interesting toys was mashable.com’s WordPress God article, which lists 300+ tools for use with your blog, including categorized plugins and themes by style. Googling blog themes and plugins returns a dizzying array of information and toys to try. I’m far from becoming a WordPress God, but am enjoying learning about the possibilities.

Don’t be alarmed if whilst reviewing this blog it suddenly undergoes massive visual changes. You didn’t break the site! It’s just me messing around again with the look and feel of the pages. There are hundreds if not thousands of themes available, and I can’t resist trying a bunch of ‘em.

I’m impressed with how much energy and creativity goes into blogging. Some folks make an interesting career of it, I see.

A thought came to me lying abed last week, early early early in the morning when I really ought to have been sleeping. I do some of my most creative thinking in the wee hours (why is that, anyway?). I’ve been wanting to write about it ever since, and hey, that’s what a blog is for, yes?

The thought I had was this: As long as we see another person’s or group’s actions as “wrong,” we can never truly be collaborators with them. The best we can hope for is cooperation based on fear of punishment.

So what the heck am I talking about? I’m passionate about the evolution of consciousness, and I think our culture’s fixation on the idea of right and wrong is one of the core causes of suffering in our world. When things go awry, we habitually seek outside ourselves for who or what is to blame, and when we find the “guilty” party, we energetically pursue what we call justice. By which we mean punishment.

The roots of this habit are deep and complex. One of the main roots is the very structure of our relationships. Ours is a societal system defined by hierarchy, an all-pervasive power-over structure wherein those in authority define the rules and everyone else follows the rules and are rewarded accordingly, or break the rules and suffer punishment. I say all-pervasive, because hierarchical structures are a part of virtually every aspect of our lives. Our families, workplaces, churches, clubs and associations, our governments, and even relations between nations are infused with hierarchical structures. Someone is the boss, at every level.

Punishment can be carried out by our official justice system, in cases where the rule being broken is one of those our society leaders have written down. Or punishment can be a result of societal pressure around one of our culture’s myriad unwritten rules, resulting in anything from mild embarrassment to ostracism.

Continue reading ‘The Toe-stomping Dance of Right and Wrong’ »

Hi! I’m Holly. Welcome to my blog. I have no idea what I’m doing here, but I’m sure I’ll catch on eventually. Meanwhile, thanks for stopping by. Here’s a picture of my new friend.

I think I should have a contest to name him. Any ideas?