Rebirth: Be the power of the land speaking

This episode I am more personal than I have been before because I feel like our stories are healing us. Our land is needing us and the time is here. The episode centers around Sharon Blackie’s quote, “Be the power of the land speaking” as found in her book If women rose rooted.

When you think of connecting to nature do you think of vacation or do you think of your own surroundings? Do you think we can reestablish a sense of place?

Leave a comment and let us know.

Subscribe to Rebirth here.

Welcome to Season 3.

I appreciate your time,

Kate

It died a natural death.

I recently let go of something (does it matter if it is a person, place or thing?), and I was - in Kate fashion - getting ready to explain the depths of what had happened, when over coffee on a very bright, and sunny Tuesday my girlfriend Heather shrugs, “It died a natural death.”

My mouth gapes. “That is exactly what happened,” I realize.

“Yeah, I know I just figured that one out myself. It just died a natural death. It’s over.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah. A natural death. Saying ‘natural’ is the most important part,” she shifts her shoulders to demonstrate.

“It is,” I squeal, confirming my perplexed awe at the simple truth.  “It happens all the time in Nature.”

“Yeah, it happens all the time everywhere. It returns. And something new is born - eventually.”

“Yeah.” I am pretty sure my face is still squinting at the simplicity - because it is true. I was hunting for a story - I now realize - and had been practicing the arc line when I was telling it to others in order to justify it to myself,  but the truth - the truth is : it died a natural death. 

It was time to let go.
End of story.

Now is a potent time to let go what has been begging for release. Too strong? But, it’s true, right? I mean if no one is watching you’d agree deep down you know it is time to let it go.

Sometimes this is best to do alone.

And sometimes a container serves the support and boundaries needed.

On July 20, 2020 Sit In Your Center, a retreat for women to reclaim and remember who they are, opens for a four week journey. The goal and support of this class is to feel good in your own skin and your own life again. We do this through weekly live calls, a guided weekly practice to reengage us with the feminine aperture (How we work. How our neurology computes and how to make the best of what we are - because why has no one taught us that?) and how empowerment can ignite through embodying who you are now. Yep. It is a potent step. And part of that reclamation comes from making space - and, like Elsa sings, to “Let it Go” so what is wanting to be born can come through whether through major change, or most significantly in the subtle ways you feel more at peace with yourself.

Want to learn more? Click here to read more about our July 2020 community or get on the waitlist for the Sit In Your Center self-led course running again in August.

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In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
​
Look, the trees
are turning 
their own bodies 
into pillars

of light, 
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything 
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
lends back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation, 
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it; 
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

originally published in May 2017

How a forgotten mask gave me a smile

I was holding my son’s hand as we both toddled up to Native Cafe in quaint Doylestown, PA before hitting the newly opened playground: treats for us both.

“Ah, I forgot my mask in –“ slipped out of my mouth, mainly to my son, and three heads sitting outside the coffee shop all turned to me in empathy. That is when I realized the depth of our shared experience.

Now let me interject, without a toddler, I would have simply turned around and walked to the car. If you aren’t intimate with toddler rhythm, in short when you disrupt it the turnaround time can be tricky, especially when you are playground bound.

So I was halted in the midst of the sympathy and the silliness of my forgetting, when a masked woman to my left, coffee in hand says to me, “I’m waiting on my food order, I’ll run in and get your coffee for you.” 

And there it was. Our humanity. 

I handed my debit card over. She walked in and ordered, ran my debit card back to me then waited for my coffee, masked.

When she came out with my drink, I looked her in the eye and said: “I won’t forget this latte for a long time.”

We both smiled that coffee lover smile, that mom to mom smile, that woman to woman smile, that person to person smile.

With loved up latte in hand, my son and I continued our walk to the playground where children smiled down slides and laughed running over hills. Not too close. Not too many – but most importantly with the joy and innocence of children.

photo by Kate Brenton, unfiltered

I looked up at this Grandmother tree and thought of all the conversations she has sheltered. All the boo boo’s she has held. All the birthday cupcakes, breakups, and new friendships under her arms have come and gone. When I left, there were parents gathered making paper ships with their sons, to set forth, sea-bearing and assured of new horizons, new sunsets and sunrises.

As we weave our way through uncertainty, let us tend the light of connection and tend to the Eldership in nature all around, teaching us how to remain strong and steady, rhythmic and rooted as we grow through times of great change.

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”  William Shakespeare

Share your stories or hear more of this good stuff by clicking here.

Why gratitude journaling helps you smile more

Keeping a gratitude journal might sound trite; it’s not. Our preferences and habits create a filter in our mind’s eye, to find what we are seeking. Alex Korb, Ph.D. explained: “…your brain loves to fall for the confirmation bias, that is it looks for things that prove what it already believes to be true.”

I would add, it looks for its preferences. For example, I was walking with my two year old nephew the other day. “Plane, plane!” He says to me. Looking up in the sky, I see nothing but a tree-scape. Slowly my mind hears the tell-tale sign of a plane just before it peeks past the limits of the tree-line. 

Ryan, my nephew, is fascinated by planes, trains and trucks. His awareness is fine-tuned to them, so he found them. He found what he wanted to see.

Some of us are complainers. Some of us aren’t. Some of us are in process of re-training our mind’s habits. You cannot control the chaos of life; you may only control your reaction. Does seeing a beautiful flower change horrible news? I don’t know. I know for a moment I get to be soaked in the beauty of nature, where I otherwise would not. So for me, it works. Moment to moment.

But what power can a gratitude journal have? Well, I recently watched the documentary Happy where the neurologists found that people who keep a gratitude journal are happier people because…wait for it…they have trained their minds to find things to be grateful for.

I keep a gratitude journal - bullet-point style and I aim for tiny, tangible things, like: perfect latte art, hug from partner, no traffic to work, feather that made me think of a loved one, and a great client session. I aim for 5 things a day.

Some days I struggle for five — and here is where the brain-functioning gets fascinating — when I am thinking of my five things, my brain is literally calling out an “all-hands-on-deck” moment to my memories for the day:
​
“Does anybody have anything we can give Kate to write down for number five?”

The mind continues to skry for information - it wants to please the request. The more you place the request for moments of gratitude, you literally train the mind to look for things to be grateful for, even if only under the guise of writing in your journal at the end of the day ( Personal tip: I enjoy re-visiting yesterday’s grace over my morning cup of coffee as a peaceful way to write my mind into place). The more you look for things to be grateful for, the more you find. The more you find reasons to be grateful, the more grateful you feel. Your mind is a puppy-pleasing entity that wants to complete tasks that will merit a reward.  

What have you trained your mind to retrieve?
Consider taking on a gratitude practice and see what you find. 

Leave a comment and share your joy with us.
​

How to listen: Stories of a Hawaiian student

A story about listening, from the archives of my teaching in the middle of the Pacific. We often say that children have so much to teach us; however, talking is not what creates change: it is listening and learning. This excerpt from my role as an educator will be included in Start Now, Love, a little guide to keep going.

I hope this brings you some inspiration + enjoyment,

Kate

______

Brains storming.  A component of writing that is essential, whether acknowledged, or not. For some it happens easily, for some a struggle.  Huddled over their work, in a fluorescently lit, tan cinder-block room, the none-too convinced class of community-college writers awaited their next wrestling match.

            I had been teaching writing, in one form or another, for a decade. I was still adjusting to the fact that I had been doing anything for a decade, professionally, but that’s another story. On the Mainland, as the contiguous United States are called in Hawai’i, I had wrangled minds into the finer arts of language and writing. The concepts were the same; now, however, my playing field contained coconut trees and luscious greenery.

“Okay, so  the important part is not to censor yourself,” I scanned the eyes that peered back at me. “Just write whatever comes to mind, and keep writing. Good, bad, ugly, makes-no-sense,” a couple threw me some chuckles, “just keep writing.     Your topic to brainstorm, both sides of the argument: Taking Art Out of the Schools.”

            A few groans escaped, as I continued, “What would someone say that would advocate the schools saying. And advocate means…?”

            “Argue for,” a voice offered.

            “Right. Who would argue for, or advocate, to keep the Art in schools. And then, who or – what would the reasons be – to argue that art doesn’t need to stay in schools?” Then heads went down, the pencils started, and I began making my laps of paper-peering.

            Heated scribbles, waning sighs, and labored breathing were among the indications that the students had begun. One student, I shall call him Koa, was clearly thinking, but nothing was moving into form. It was only the second week of classes, but I had already come to admire this student: strong, intelligent, independent and kind.

           I slipped into a chair next to him and asked,   “So--?” with a my leading pause.

            “I can’t think of anything, Miss.”

            “No?” I thought of the countless times that I had given this prompt on the Mainland, and students promptly spit back their utilitarian answers.

            “No – I mean, I know that you are asking, and I know why you would want me to think of something, but I don’t agree…”

            Intrigued, I cocked my head to the side.

            “I mean, you want me to say why someone would want to pull art out – right?”

            “Yes,” I answered. “Now, Koa..I am not asking you to agree with art being taken out – “

            “Yeah, but you are asking me to imagine why someone would tell you that it is ok to take art out?”

            “Yes.”

           “Yeah, see that’s the problem.  I know,” Koa continued, “that you want me to say, that it saves money and that everyone is not an artist, and stuff like that…”

           “Yesssss,” I repeated, hearing my own predictability. “But – you don’t have to believe the reasons; it’s just a way to see what the other side would say, so you can predict their argument. See it from both sides, and understand…”

          “That’s it, Miss,” Koa switched gears, to explain to his teacher. “Ok, so someone would say, ‘Take art out of schools, because not everyone is an artist.’”

          I shook my head.

          “See, I don’t think that is true. I think everyone is an artist. And people think they aren’t good at art because they sat next to some kid that was better than them, or someone told them they were bad.”

           I exhaled.

          “See, there is always going to be someone that is better than you, but it doesn’t mean that you aren’t good at Art. You could play ukulele, do ceramics, draw – everyone can create something.”

           I listened.

          “And, maybe the teacher thought there was only one way, or they liked one style better than another, so then the kid thinks he’s crap – Sorry, Miss – but it’s not true. It’s just one teacher’s opinion.”

          I drank Koa’s every word.

         “And because this kid thinks he’s no good, then he just decides that art isn’t needed. Or maybe that art doesn’t make money, but art helps everything. If you sing, you dance, you draw, whatevah (his Pidgin slipped in) -- then that makes you a more well rounded person, and that leads to things, too. It’s not just the one step of money, or whatevah, like Math or writing…it’s not just one thing.. I just don’t agree --”

        This, to me is the practically imperceptible difference of Hawaii: When tourists land here, they breath in the air; they soak in the sun; they pull in the beauty, but they can’t pinpoint the one thing that is unmistakably, Hawaiian.  And this twenty-something who was returning to school, after being out for ten years and waitering-car-parking-tourist-catering service jobs, until realizing he would need his own business to afford a home on the island that me loved, served up to me, the aloha difference. Just a sliver. I, in reality, was a tourist, too, although I lived here, and  am sure there is a depth that I may never access. But in this moment, I was listening.

       Life was not just about the creation for consumption. Life was more. There is value in beauty – look out the window – there is value in song – listen to the pules- there is value in who you are, as you, for you. Just being you. Expression is a product of living; creating beauty was what the island of Kauai was all about. Beauty around. Beauty within. Respect for all. Hō‘ihi.

       I wanted to rush this man, with the brilliance and innocence of a loved child, and hold him in gratefulness, then clone him, and send him all over the Mainland, and plead and pray that people would actually hear what it was that he was saying.

      What I did: was smile. What else could I do? I smiled. I shook my head and gratefully, graciously, accepted “defeat.”

     “You don’t have to.”

     “What, Miss?” Koa asked.

“Just  - you don’t have to. You don’t have to bother with the other side. I hear you.”

“No, Miss, I can if you want I just was saying--”

And our eyes met, and I hope - although I will never know-  that Koa saw my gratitude and admiration. I hoped,  and still do, that he will be heard, in the quiet way he will live his life on this beautiful Kaua`i, land of boundless gifts, by anyone who is able to listen.

The moment broke, and I muttered, “Just, just go ahead with your thesis. You’re done brainstorming.”

“Alright Miss,” he chuckled. “Whatevah you say.”

Dear reader, when was the last time you had to place down your plans so that you could reach your goal of learning? I’d love to know. We can grow, together.

Why Shifting Your Perspective is Worth Your Time

"How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard

Making a decision to change your perspective is greatly emboldened by the treasured art of committed practice. Every day, cultivate your ability to see more than before, and allow it - whatever it may be - before judging or quantifying what you perceive.  You might just be delighted.

Here are some resources on how and why this  is something to consider:

1. How To Make Mindfulness A Working Advantage (And Not Just Cuddly Nonsense)
https://www.fastcompany.com/40471927/how-to-turn-mindfulness-into-a-working-advantage-and-not-just-cuddly-nonsense

2. Being Busy Is Killing Our Ability to Think Creatively
http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/creativity-and-distraction

3. Can 10 Minutes of Meditation Make You More Creative?
https://hbr.org/2017/08/can-10-minutes-of-meditation-make-you-more-creative


​“Meditation will not carry you to another world, but it will reveal the most profound and awesome dimensions of the world in which you already live. Calmly contemplating these dimensions and bringing them into the service of compassion and kindness is the right way to make rapid gains in meditation as well as in life.”
​           ~Zen Master Hsing Yun

If you would like to learn more about how to bring simple ways to expand your mindset or your business horizons, reach out here. Taking the time to reframe you + your team’s perspective reminds everyone that possibilities are endless if we can be open and mindfulness is nothing new, yet still cutting edge.

Let’s chat soon,

Kate