How do we create a sense of ease and gracefulness as we work

me, in Tenerife, Canaries, between sessions

Today started out smooth but soon turned into overwhelm. Here's the situation that I see many people who are being activists (for any cause) face...We are pulled in so many directions at once. Should I go on facebook and go through people who want to be friends and say yes and then look at comments and respond to each one...or should I make write a new blog post...or should I make phone calls (especially because I'm someone for whom phone calls are 2nd best to face-to-face...and emails just don't carry the nuances that I want from a conversation...or should I do some work on planning the next, in my case, Roundtable for the project I'm on...or should I make phone calls to people who've supported Birthing The Future in the past and see whether they want to become members for the year or give a donation...or should I just go to the gym sit in the greenhouse and go through the strawberry plants and find ripe strawberries to eat...hmmm.

The dilemma for myself - and many of you - is how do we control the input of stuff coming at us while, at the same time, using our gut/intuition to prioritize the day and respond to just what feels necessary to respond to. I read once that 2 of the most high stress jobs are not the ones you ordinarily think of, such as fire fighters and surgeons, but secretaries and chefs/cooks in a restaurant. Why? Because they do not have control over what comes at them. Other people have control over their attention and time...Of

at a Birthlight Conference in England

course, I'd put mothers (or fathers doing real full-on fathering) in this category..."plate jugglers", an elder wise woman friend in the birthing movement in England told me decades ago. That's what mothers do. The problem is, babies, young children, and our own soul, don't operate at the same speed as our mind. They move and respond slowly...mmm.

Pause...breathe...go outside and sit in the greenhouse and pick through the strawberry plants for ripe red berries. Yum...did that. That helped...Then came back in and put on some Lavendar oil (I find Young Living the best of all oils and can contact me if you want to know why...suzannebirthing@gmail.com), couldn't find Peace and Calming. Took several homeopathic Calm Forte too. My nervous system was just too "up-leveled" from working with Sam, my intern to learn more about facebook and working with it.

Molly and Kinjah a few years ago

It's quiet. Sam had put lovely jazz guitar music on but I couldn't take the pace of it, so she's working with
 interns. That's one of the differences between myself and my 16 year old grandson, Kinjah and his friends (he and Molly, his mom, live with me) and Sam and my generation. They seem to be able to run at a higher frequency and speed as they multi-task. I can do several things at once, but I get quickly overwhelmed by new things to learn...

Breathe...stand up and stretch a few yoga stretches...Yes...mmm. did that...

Just to remind myself that
winter's over at my place...

It's a beautiful spring day, yes, spring at last. Our last snow was 10 days ago!  I'm blessed with so many good things and I'm thankful, always. So no complaining, Suzanne...I have enough food to eat and I can get up and walk away from this computer whenever I want, assuming I remember to and can tear myself away from whatever task I'm involved in.

So...here's the thing: not only do we need to find some way to select that which we pay attention to and that which we don't, but we who are working in activism need to pace ourselves since we're usually not getting paid. This morning my small social security check arrived and it was short $110, because they went and mistakenly took out that amount to cover Medicare deduction (it's a monthly thing but I'm not supposed to pay because my income is low)...so call the social service office, leave a message and then wonder, Do I cross that item off of my list of things to do today or not, since I haven't actually spoken to the woman in charge and don't even know whether she'll get my message...

What I do each day bears no resemblance to the money that comes into the nonprofit. I learned that long ago, working for myself, as I've been doing since 1975, when Molly was 5 - except for a 9 month stint as a freelancer with a research company...Truly, the money that comes in is in no way connected to the output of work I do. So I have to remind myself fairly regularly to reach out to those who do support Birthing The Future to tell them I need something.

Ah yes, speaking of need. My donated (to the nonprofit) wonderful 1992 Honda is really on her last legs. The driver's side window won't roll up or down, it just hangs there, half in and half out, kitty-whampus-like. No fun when I'm driving at any speed over 40 or when it rains or snows. And this weekend I'm driving the 3.5 hours up to Crestone, Colorado, at the foot of higher peaks, 9,000 feet, to work with Rick, my editor friend on putting together the loose "script" of assembled great clips from the film project. So what to do about this windown and, bigger yet, my sweet car, whose previous owner, from India, named her Lakshmi....

DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A LOW GAS CONSUMPTION FINE CAR TO GET OVER MOUNTAIN PASSES WAITING TO BE DONATED TO A NONPROFIT, FOR A TAX DEDUCTION? Sorry, I didn't mean to yell! Do let me know if you know someone with a car for us...

Back to where I left off.  So, practicing making the days flow more gracefully, by attending to a few things and not trying to do anything I don't need or want to...of course, the phone rang and I needed to pick it up because it's Ali, one of our housemates. Sure enough, her sweet doggie got cut up on barbed

Our irrigation "ditch", flowing
once more...and the dark
beneath the light.

wire swimming in the irrigantion ditch behind the house, and she's off to the vet to get it sutured and asked me to take out the garbage to the street, cuz the truck's about to come and she forgot...LIfe...
Pause...breathe...drink a glass of water, not sips, most of the glass. It's so easy to dehydrate at this altitude....Done!

You might take a few sweet moments to sit somewhere lovely and consider the question: How do I prioritize what is truly important for me to respond to or do, from what seems urgent, from what niggling little things need to be done and you might as well get them out of the way now...

me, on a beach on the California coast

So much of my life is about connections to people - creating, supporting, maintaining, re-connecting when I've lost touch...and I follow the principle of serendipity, that things come into my life at the right time and for a reason, though I may not know what the reason is at that moment. Working from intuition and following outside cues of things that arrive on my doorstep, in my email box, on my facebook accounts - both my personal one and the Birthing The Future one...I have to quickly assess, Do I handle this or that right now or put it aside. And, if I choose to put it aside, where do I put it, which pile? Get my drift?

Because we're still little kids
who love, and need, to play

So, with that, I'll end this blog entry, my second ever. I'm going to lie on the floor and do a little more yoga stretches and twists and breathe and then go back to working alongside Sam on finding the very best clips from the filmed material from Tenerife...because she leaves tomorrow morning and I want to have a rough assemblage of bit and pieces from the interviews to bring up to Ricks to string a very loose rough cut together...to which, after it's really edited down and everything is in the right sequence, we'll add still photos, blank screens with written text, music...That I love...the creative part.

because the flowers remind us...

Til next time, I leave you with the thought that there are millions of us across the world who, at this very moment, are working on behalf of what needs to be done - small and large - on this planet, in our community, in our family...in our own life and for our own precious body.

We are not alone, not ever...of course, spiritually that's true. But also in terms of the work we do in the world. Remember that. And remind me, when I forget. There's always nature...there's always our breath...and the paradox of how small and insignificant we humans are in the grand scheme of life working along at it's own perfect pace...and how important each one of us is, paradoxically.

Love, Suzanne
Durango, CO

A Day Off

Country lanes...my favorite places to walk

Bob, my beloved, suggested - strongly! - that it would be a good idea to take a full day away from creating havoc (I mean social change) in the world the way I do on a daily basis...

Okay, so he twisted my arm and got me to take off this morning in our jeep for the high country, Silverton, Colorado.

The road up to Silverton from Durango CO

What did I take with me? 1) Picnic foods (mmm, jarlsberg cheese, crackers, fruit, cups of hot tea and coffee and homemade scones that Molly (my daughter, who lives on the property with us, along with my teenage grandson) made this morning and were still hot when we took off. 2) layers of clothes, since it might be hot and it might be cold and it surely would be windy by afternoon in Siverton, at 10,000 feet in the mountains.

Spring Meadow, Leaving Durango

What did I leave behind? First, my list, which I make either every evening or first thing in the morning over a cup of tea. Second, work of all kinds, including making and answering dozens of phone calls, emails, writing and editing, going through photos, transcribing interviews from the professional filming I did at the Tenerife Roundtable...arranging my next Skype call to one or another of the participants on 4 other continents...I left thoughts of the "Primal Period", and how what happens to humans during that time from preconception to the 1st birthday, and my preoccupation with how those experiences, and especially the mother-baby bond, shapes our lives...shapes families...and even shapes society.

One of the last steam trains,
arriving in Silverton CO

He was right, you know. A day off in the mountains was just what I needed. It's not that I'm a Type A personality - no, I won't cop to that. I love to play, be silly, laugh, read, take walks down country roads near where we live, cook and share great meals, watch movies, play scrabble with Molly and Kinjah...and I don't work all day long and into the night. But I will plead guilty to being a touch driven about the idea that it's possible to transform birth in the world, if enough of us just care enough to do something about it.

Historic downtown Silverton,
10,000 feet high

Sunscreen, a must at this altitude for an auburn-haired lass with Russian-Irish heritage and a melanoma history. I remembered that, but forgot the water. Even at 7,000 feet, where we live, it's so easy to get dehydrated. And both Bob and I forgot to bring water. Bad idea in the mountains, where you can be seriously dehydrated in an hour and your body won't even tell you!

We took Bob's jeep: noisy, bouncy but perfect for a 4-wheel drive road when we get to Silverton. The drive to Silverton from Durango is magical, especially in spring and fall. And at this altitude the leaves on the birch and aspen are just beginning to emerge. There's nothing much to do in Silverton but walk and look at the mountains and feel the clean air. It was windy. We took a side road and had our picnic. Then drove back to town for a latte before taking off back home. I didn't think about work for 6 hours and didn't make one "to do" note until we entered Durango. What a great day! What a life! It's easy to make me happy.

Back at my desk, I'm planning the next Birthing The Future Roundtable Retreat, a dialogue among 21 women and men from around the world, which will be in the U.S. in August. If you want to know about this project, called THE TIME IS NOW, write me:
suzannebirthing@gmail.com. I'll send you details about how we are launching a global movement to transform how we bring humans into the world and care for every mother-baby and you can be involved. In the meantime, do check out the Birthing The Future website, and Facebook.

Hoping your day is full of sweetness and enough nature to remind you how beautiful this world is.
Love, Suzanne