My new favorite word is modernity.

There are lots of definitions, but the simplest I’ve found is “the quality of being current or of the present.” Of course, being present can also mean being spiritually evolved—but the modernity I’m talking about is very far from that. Our modern world is relentlessly materialistic, which is why I have such an intense love/hate relationship with it.

Here’s what I love: being able to take a hot shower whenever I want. Having blueberries and raspberries for breakfast year-round. My Tesla driving me up and down the highway. Flying halfway around the world in a day or two. Having almost anything I want—and can afford—delivered to my doorstep within hours.

Actually, I hate some of that too.

I hate that a company calling itself Amazon cares not a whit about the future of the real Amazon—the rainforest inching ever closer to ecological collapse. I hate that our consumer culture is gobbling up Mother Earth’s creations faster than she can replace them, fucking up species and ecosystems in the process. I hate that the blessings of technology seem increasingly entangled with its curses.

Oh, there’s so much more, but I will spare you.

The point of this little diatribe is to invite you to think with me about what might come after modernity—and whether we will like it when it arrives.

My mentor, Lynne Twist, has been talking for years about “hospicing the old and midwifing the new.” I know what she means: lovingly ushering out the systems and beliefs that no longer serve life while helping something better come into being. But sometimes hospicing sounds way too nice. I picture us sitting tenderly at the bedside of Big Oil, holding its hand while it slowly comes to understand that there is no future on a dead planet. I just want to grab a pillow and suffocate it!

And midwifing? Midwifing is a bloody mess. A renewed democracy may be struggling to be born, but watching a demented president and his sycophants wreak havoc on our country makes the labor pains almost unbearable. I don’t want breathing exercises. I want a C-section. Now.

I have been reluctant to say this publicly, but here goes: I believe a major disruption to our comfortable modern lives is coming. In one year? Two? Five? Seven? I don’t know. So far, I—and probably many of you reading this—have fared pretty well under modernity. We benefit every day from the very systems we know are devouring the future. That is the uncomfortable truth beneath my hot showers, January blueberries, Tesla, airline tickets, and Amazon boxes.

If circumstances change radically, what are we willing to hospice—or help kill off? What new systems are we committed to creating in place of the ones sucking the life out of the planet? And what are we willing to sacrifice?

There’s an interesting word: sacrifice -- “giving up something of value for the sake of something considered more important.”

To help bring about a better world, will I forgo some international travel? Cancel my Amazon Prime subscription? Risk getting arrested in a direct action? Give larger chunks of my time and money to the coming election? Give up blueberries? Or, God forbid, coffee?

As I witness our country’s march toward authoritarianism, I can’t help thinking about the “good Germans” whose silence and compliance helped enable one of the most horrendous periods in human history. I am not saying our time is identical to theirs, but I do think we face a moral challenge of comparable seriousness and wonder whether we will recognize what is happening while there is still time to act.

And this political crisis is only one part of a larger metacrisis: climate disruption, ecosystem devastation and mass extinction intertwined with oligarchy, technological feudalism, disinformation, and the capture of our attention and imagination. These crises are not separate. They reinforce one another. Together, they reveal a civilization that has lost its way.

But wait! While writing this, I stumbled across another word: metamodernity. It has been described as a worldview that embraces complexity, uncertainty, and interconnectedness while still choosing hope, meaning, and purposeful action. A metamodern view doesn’t pretend we have all the answers. It doesn’t ask us to choose between science and spirit, reason and intuition, grief and hope. It says that even in the midst of uncertainty, we still must act, love, create, and care.

It reflects the worldview underlying my work with Pachamama Alliance these past 20 years:

• Humanity is part of the living Earth, not separate from it.

• Inner transformation and systemic transformation belong together.

• Indigenous wisdom and modern science both have essential contributions to make.

• Guidance can come through intellect, intuition, community, and relationship with the more-than-human world.

• Hope is not optimism. It is a practice.

My hope is that metamodernity can become a bridge from the world we have inherited to the world we want: an ecological civilization that is regenerative, life-centered, and rooted in relationship. In that world, we would no longer see ourselves primarily as consumers, producers, taxpayers, or autonomous individuals. We would understand ourselves as responsible members of a living, animate, interconnected Earth.

I don’t know exactly what lies beyond modernity. I do know we won’t get there without giving something up—and without fiercely protecting what we hold precious.

Does this strike a chord—or a nerve? If so, I’d love to hear from you. How are you thinking of the future these days? What in our modern life would be hardest for you to give up? Or what do most want to protect?

You can respond easily by replying to this email or you can use Substack to join the conversation. I’d like it if you click on LIKE. When you click on Comment, it will take you to the Substack app, but don’t be afraid of it. It won’t ask anything of you or send you more emails.

For many years I had a recurring dream: I would open a door in my home and discover an entirely new wing of the house. There were rooms beautifully furnished, with fireplaces and huge windows. I would wander through them wondering, How did I not know these rooms were here?

I have a similar feeling about life on planet Earth after spending a week snorkeling in the most pristine and biodiverse marine environment in the world. Through my mask, I peered into what felt like another realm: a magnificent cathedral of living coral, alive with astonishing varieties of sea life. I have snorkeled in many places over the years, but nothing remotely approached the mind-bending beauty of Raja Ampat, Indonesia.

John and I researched “the best place to snorkel” and were led to this remote archipelago of more than a thousand islands near Papua New Guinea. I suspect its isolation has helped protect it, as it took three days of planes and a boat to get there. We joined a group of fifteen at Papua Explorers Eco Resort, a lovely small place that seems to be doing everything right for the environment, the local community, and its guests. Our guide from Planet Snorkeling arranged three snorkel sessions a day, each at a different reef, each full of wonder.

The fish were dazzling in their colors, shapes, and sheer abundance. But it was the corals that truly entranced me. I had mostly known coral reefs as faded backdrops for passing fish. These reefs were vibrantly alive. They bloomed in unimaginable forms and colors, a tapestry of branches, fans, filaments, folds, and neon hues. I learned there are more than 600 species of coral, hard and soft, and that 75% of the world’s coral diversity lives in the Coral Triangle. Corals are made of tiny animals called polyps. Each one has a mouth and stomach, eating microscopic algae and pooping calcium carbonate which creates the vast underwater cities we call reefs.

These collaborative structures can live for thousands of years, yet reefs across the globe are in peril. They are called the rainforests of the sea, and they are being destroyed with a similar human carelessness and speed. You know the sad story: warming oceans trigger bleaching and death. Acidification, pollution, runoff, and overfishing destabilize entire systems and allow algae to smother reefs. It is estimated that 60% of reefs have already died. But the good news is that they can be reborn! Nature is a good Mother: she makes it possible to regenerate her creations. Tiny fragments can be replanted and, under the right conditions, coral can recover and reefs can be restored.

So why am I sharing this with you? I am not expecting anyone to become a coral activist, though blessings on you if you do. I simply want to pass along the intensity of what I felt in discovering yet another miraculous ecosystem capable of evoking awe. If we are to save ourselves, along with countless other forms of life, we need something deeper than policy and panic. We need devotion. We need to fall in love with Mother Nature, to be so awestruck with her bounty and beauty that we will do anything to save her.

You do not have to travel halfway around the world to encounter nature’s miracles. They are everywhere. But if we take them for granted, they may quietly disappear. I’d love to hear from you what fills you with awe these days, and how you are relating to our astonishingly generous Mother Earth.

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The decade of the 1980s was hella fun and a time when many of us believed humanity might not just survive but actually thrive.

But that’s not the 80s I’m writing about.

I’m referring to the decade of life I have now inhabited for one full year. On March 10th, I turned 81, and what difference a year makes!

Last year I entered my 80s with plenty of piss and vinegar. This year it feels more like bone broth and herbal tea. Something has indeed shifted in this new decade, despite my lifelong dedication to looking and feeling at least ten years younger than my age.

I can almost hear you groaning: “Oh no…not another article about aging.”

But wait. If you humor me for a few minutes, I promise there may be something here for you – some links to some good stuff -- no matter how old you are or aren’t.

Recently I attended a lecture by the head of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Dr. Eric Verdin. He spoke about what geroscience calls Intrinsic Capacity — the five domains that determine our “healthspan”: locomotion, sensory health, vitality, psychology, and cognition.

Here’s what that landscape looks like to me:

I am still playing pickleball most mornings, but that means needing to nap by mid-afternoon, all limbs aching. All the yoga poses that used to feel so good now come with some degree of pain.

Food doesn’t taste quite as good as it used to, but my body has adopted a weight that easily goes up but fights going down. I’ve cut my alcohol consumption in half – and miss it more than I should. I sleep fairly well, but don’t want to admit how often I crash by 9 PM. I take a ton of supplements – but I can’t really tell a difference when I do or don’t.

On the mental front, I still do some paying work writing and making videos, but I can see myself soon being replaced by AI. I exercise my brain with Wordle and Scrabble, but I still forget the name you told me 20 seconds ago. I read a ridiculous amount of news and opinion online each day, feel helpless and hopeless, and then wonder why I do this to myself.

On the brighter side, I enjoy a wonderful eighteen-year relationship with John, and as an unapologetic extrovert I love spending time with friends, family, and colleagues. Human connection remains the best medicine I know.

Lately I’ve also been taking stock of my finances and asking an increasingly practical question: Who will last longer…me or my money?

Which brings me to the subject that seems to occupy me more and more these days: dying. I know I’m going to die, but when? how? and will meet it with a measure of grace? Geroscience doesn’t identify the spiritual realm as an Intrinsic Capacity, but it might be the most important one.

Embracing impermanence is a challenge of the soul. It has been calling me to wake each day with gratitude -- to go outside to feel the sun on my face and let in a measure of joy. Especially this spring, Mother Nature has been blowing my mind with her beauty and generosity – the glorious greens of grass and trees, the ever-changing clouds, the gaggle of five does feeding on the hillside, the 13 male turkeys strutting their stuff, kaleidoscope tails on full display.

The prospect of one day leaving this wondrous world makes everything seem somehow more sweet, more sacred. I return again and again to this message from spiritual teacher Jeff Foster:

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent.

But right now, we stand on sacred ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost. Realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you profoundly holy.

Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar

There is a beautiful song that says the same thing. I hope you will take a few minutes to listen and contemplate the lyrics to Holy Now by Peter Mayer. You’ll be so glad you did.

Here are a couple more links if you are interested….

Reflections on aging
My friend Vicki Robin’s thoughtful project Coming of Aging.

Extending healthspan -- what actually works?
Dr. Eric Verdin’s recent lecture features a breakdown of the science of supplements – which have been shown to be effective, promising, interesting or should be avoided.

And as time passes, keep in mind this from my dear departed friend Neal:

“Aging – consider the alternative…”

Greetings from beautiful, affluent Marin County, California, where the weather is balmy, the hills are psychedelic green, the fruit trees are blossoming (a month early), and the ICE Gestapo doesn’t seem to be showing its masked face yet.

I’ve been reading so much heartbreaking news lately that I don’t feel I have anything new to add except this:

Don’t let them steal your joy.

So today I’m writing about what has brought me the most joy, for the longest time: dancing.

I’m not necessarily trying to entice you into the dance (or maybe I am), but I hope you have at least something like this in your life. Something that lights you up from head to toe.

I was about five years old when I started taking tap and ballet from Ms. Morris in Greensboro, North Carolina. That was 75 years ago, and I haven’t stopped dancing since.

Through elementary school, I dreamed of being a ballerina. Sitting in the den in front of the TV, I drew endless pictures of tutu-ed women with long legs in toe shoes. Every year I asked Ms. Morris when I could “do toe,” but knowing the trajectory of small feet crammed into pointe shoes, she wisely put me off until I finally lost interest.

In junior high and high school, my dance energy led me into cheerleading and being a majorette, and of course dancing the Shag with the boys to beach music.

In college at Duke, drunken party dancing was fun, but I also discovered Isadora Duncan and modern dance, along with the immense joy of wearing leotards.

In my twenties in Berkeley, I was all about modern, jazz, African, and especially belly dance. (My best friend Donna went to Morocco to study it. She married a Moroccan, brought him back to Greenville, North Carolina, and taught belly dance there for the next fifty years!)

In my thirties, Jane Fonda–ized aerobics claimed the dance space, and I learned to carefully coordinate the obligatory outfits of matching tights, leotards, and leg warmers. Then came NIA (Non-Impact Aerobics), where you followed the teacher through increasingly complex dance moves to fun music. For a few years, my NIA teacher was Carlos, one of the founders, an incredibly handsome, energetic Desi Arnaz lookalike whom I adored almost as much as my new husband.

When our family relocated to Kauai in 1992, I immediately began dancing hula, a form I came to cherish not only for its fluid movements but for the culture carried through the music and language. There was also the costuming: handmade ti leaf skirts, leis, and headpieces made from flowers, nuts, and leaves. I loved hula, but I wasn’t the most dedicated student. For true devotees, hula is a spiritual practice and a demanding lifestyle.

When I moved back to the mainland in 2005, I let hula go and was blessed to find Sweat Your Prayers, a free-form meditative dance practice developed by Gabrielle Roth. Her Five Rhythms work helped launch what is now known as ecstatic or conscious dance, forms of which have spread around the world.

My current practice is Sunday mornings with Open Floor. For $25, anyone can join two hours of embodied awareness, as long as you don’t talk or do anything that might endanger someone else.

Here’s my on-the-scene account of last Sunday’s magical dance:

I arrive at 10:30 at the gym of a small school in Sausalito, formerly Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, now a posh private French school (a sign of Marin times). Soft, slow music is playing as I join about 140 other comfortably dressed people, not necessarily in leotards. I seek out a spot where a high window creates a sunny square on the floor, close my eyes, and begin to stretch.

Today’s DJ/teacher/leader (whom I think of as the priestess or priest, and who changes weekly) is one of my favorites, Jennifer. This isn’t a class, so there are no instructions, just a reminder to give your mind over to your body and feel whatever is there. Take it in, move it around, let it go.

I’m still in my head, thinking about writing this and wondering how to describe the music. The best I can do is eclectic, spanning global genres, tender heartfulness, and wild rocking out.

Gradually I drop in, noticing the people around me, ninety percent of whom I recognize from twenty years in this space, though I couldn’t tell you their names. We have all changed: hair color, body size, partners, even genders. But I know them by their movement styles and ready smiles.

I open myself to shared dances. We weave in and out of each other, grooving in twos, fours, and small clusters. Someone bumps into me and we laugh.

I’m happy to see old friends Karen and Rick. After a stroke a few years ago, Rick is in his wheelchair, able to move only his head and right arm. We lock eyes and arms. I spin his chair around. The music is powerful: rhythms calling us out, lyrics expressing our hopes for ourselves and the world. I make a mental note to ask Jennifer the name of this song.

I’m getting tired. I try to push through, then take a break. Stretching, nearly every part of my body hurts, and I wonder if maybe I should leave early. I glance at the clock: half an hour to go. I sigh.

Soon I’m so glad I stayed, because I get to witness five men surrounding Rick, dancing with him and his chair. Karen and I watch, crying.

The music slows. Jennifer plays the closing song, a mesmerizing spoken poem by Kae Tempest called Hold Your Own. I am exhausted, joyous, and grateful.

Amen.

I’ve always believed there are two kinds of people in the world: dancers and non-dancers, and that the dancers have way more fun. Dance is fun, yes, but it’s also healing. It is medicine for a path through struggle and heartbreak toward surrender, freedom, and peace.

Rumi wrote:

Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you’re perfectly free.

And Hafiz says:

I sometimes forget
that I was created for joy.
My mind is too busy,
my heart too heavy
for me to remember
that I have been called
to dance the sacred dance for life.

I was created to smile,
to love,
to be lifted up
and lift others up.

O sacred one,
untangle my feet
from all that ensnares.
Free my soul,
that we might dance,
and that our dancing
might be contagious.

So if dance isn’t part of your life right now, I encourage you to find a piece of music you love and let it move your body, even if it’s just your arms and hands, or stepping gently back and forth on your two feet. Recently I came across a band called Laid Back, whose songs are so positive and sweet I don’t even mind when they get stuck in my head all day. If you have Spotify, check out Beautiful Day and Happy Dreamer and get your groove on…

And remember:

Don’t let them steal your joy.

At the dawning of the new years, I was hoping to share something hopeful with you. Then the U.S. political situation got so fucking grim, and I was about to give up on a hope post. Then I remembered how I felt recently reading an email from Angus Hervey of Fix the News. It perked me up, and I thought maybe you could use a bit of good news too.

Called The Telemetry: All the news the headlines missed in 2025, it shifted my perception of where we are now and where we are going. You may not have the space for a 20+-minute read, so I decided to use my superpower to concise-ize it. But then I thought maybe ChatGPT could do an even better job at creating a 500-word summary, which it/she/he/they did. And so, rather than try to rewrite the rewrite, I share it with you in italics, unedited by human hands… but with a few bold highlights and (comments from me). This version leaves out all the amazing examples from throughout the world as well as some great pictures, so I hope you will explore the original.

Fix The News

The Telemetry

What terror doth it strike into the mind…

Read more

8 months ago · 436 likes · 65 comments · Angus Hervey

(I left out the first few paragraphs about the almost-ending of a dreaded disease, trachoma)

The article argues that while 2025 felt like a year of cascading crises, this perception was shaped less by reality than by the way information is filtered, amplified, and consumed. The world appeared to be unraveling—wars, climate disasters, political extremism, and economic anxiety dominated headlines—but beneath that surface, measurable progress continued across health, safety, poverty reduction, and environmental protection. (Yes, even the environment!)

The author opens with a metaphor: the public watches the dramatic explosions outside the spacecraft, while mission control monitors the quieter systems that determine whether humanity survives. News coverage fixates on catastrophe, but data tells a more complex story. Despite widespread pessimism, global indicators show improvements in life expectancy, public health, safety, and environmental protection. Child mortality is down, infectious diseases are declining, access to clean water and electricity is expanding, and extreme poverty continues to fall in most regions.

Much of the disconnect, the author argues, comes from how attention is shaped. Media ecosystems reward outrage, spectacle, and fear, creating a distorted sense of constant collapse. (I even have a folder in my Bookmarks entitled Collapse.) Meanwhile, incremental progress—vaccination campaigns, sanitation systems, declining homicide rates, conservation successes—rarely captures attention because it lacks drama. As a result, people mistake visibility for significance and assume decline where there is slow improvement. (We are so fixated on the Western world, we don’t pay much attention to the rest, where lives really are getting better.)

The article details how global health and safety have quietly advanced: infectious disease deaths have fallen sharply; access to clean water, sanitation, and electricity has expanded to hundreds of millions; violent crime has dropped in many regions; and large-scale public health efforts have saved countless lives. Environmental progress, though uneven, is also real. Renewable energy now outpaces fossil fuels in growth, emissions in major economies are flattening or declining, and conservation efforts have revived species once near extinction. Even climate action, often framed as failing, has reached a turning point as renewable energy becomes cheaper and more widespread than fossil fuels.

The author argues that pessimism itself has become a kind of cultural habit—an emotional posture mistaken for seriousness. Doom, they suggest, feels intelligent and morally serious, while optimism is dismissed as naïve. (This speaks to me personally.) But this reflex blinds people to evidence of genuine progress and undermines motivation to continue improving the world.

Crucially, the essay rejects both denial and complacency. The world’s problems are real, severe, and ongoing. But they are not proof of inevitable collapse. Change has come not through grand ideological breakthroughs but through persistent, unglamorous work: public servants, scientists, health workers, activists, and communities steadily solving problems piece by piece.

The central message is not that everything is fine, but that improvement is possible—and already happening—when people act collectively and consistently. The future is not predetermined by catastrophe or salvation; it is shaped by millions of small, sustained efforts. (You and me!) The task, the author concludes, is not to surrender to despair or illusion, but to keep paying attention to what actually works, and to keep building from there.

I hope you find this useful. I know it has definitely impact my own news-reading habit as I remind myself that the corporate media version of reality not only sucks, it doesn’t even come close the telling the whole story.

Wishing you a 2026 filled with hope, joy, possibility, presence, and action….

Mary

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There are all kinds of pain — physical, emotional, spiritual, political. This month they’ve come at me all at once.

I just went through three weeks of the physical kind: the extraction of an infected molar that took nearly an hour to remove — in pieces. The process itself wasn’t painful — thank goddess for Novocain — and the next day I felt okay. But soon after, the throbbing began, and the ibuprofen the dentist recommended couldn’t touch it.

I whined and I cried. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. I was a mess. I begged for a real painkiller — the opioid kind that’s so ridiculously hard to get these days. Even with a few hydrocodone pills and a lot of Advil, the jaw pain and headaches persisted. A big video project kept me somewhat distracted during the day, but lying in bed at night unable to sleep, I felt sad and helpless.

I joked about having the world’s lowest pain threshold, but I had to ask myself: what is the value of pain? Is it meant to be endured — no painkillers allowed — or soothed in whatever ways we can find? Does hurting make us stronger? Do we become better people if we stick it out, or is that just wishful thinking?

Meanwhile, in another layer of my being, a different pain has been gnawing — the psychic ache of watching our democracy decay before our eyes. Every morning, I wake to headlines that feel like blows: the lies, the cruelty, the shameless corruption — and the paralysis of the people who could stop it. I keep hoping for the return of a moral backbone in our leaders, a collective uprising, a reckoning. Instead, the infection festers.

It strikes me that the body politic is like my jaw — poisoned at the root, inflamed, ignored until the pain becomes unbearable. The extraction, if it comes, will be messy, bloody, and long overdue. And the recovery will hurt like hell.

I keep hoping someone will lance the wound — the Democratic party, the courts, the leaders we elected. But they seem paralyzed, numbed by their own fear. As Jon Stewart said, we lack the scaffolding on which to build an effective resistance. Where are the kick-ass leaders who can unite us and lead the charge? The demonstrations Saturday were encouraging, but they don’t seem to have had any immediate impact on DT’s marauding march. The fascism infection spreads. We are living in an autocratic state, yet most of us are still preoccupied with our own toothaches, feeling sad and helpless.

In my circles, many people are trying to figure out how to remain positive and find joy while the democracy demolition continues unabated. We don’t want to live in pain — or in anger. We don’t want to hate the people who hate us or what we believe in. We want to find peace in our heads and in our hearts. Yet so far, the only painkillers we can take are spiritual ones — perhaps personally effective but not visibly making a difference.

What would truly effective action look like now? I keep imagining something far more radical and consuming: massive demonstrations like those that happen elsewhere in the world, where people are out in the streets for days on end — general strikes, non-violent sit-ins — actions that require real risk and sacrifice. How much more pain are we willing to tolerate before we put our lives and our bodies on the line?

Pain asks something of us. Sometimes it demands that we endure; other times that we act. It strips away illusion, leaving only what’s essential — the pulse, the breath, the will to heal. I wonder if we as a nation are anywhere near that point — where relief is worth the risk, where people leave their screens and take to the streets, not out of rage alone but out of love for what could still be saved.

For now, I’m learning what my jaw has tried to teach me: that healing isn’t the same as comfort, and that numbness — whether from drugs or denial — never lasts.

This morning, for the first time in weeks, I ran my tongue along the smooth gum where the tooth once was, half in disbelief. The absence of pain felt like light returning after a long storm. But I can still feel the echo of it — a reminder, maybe, of how alive we have to be to care this much.

I can’t say yet how far I’m willing to go. What about you? What pain are you willing to feel before you act?

I landed on this topic because I wanted to give my mind somewhere to wander other than the bizarre, exhausting circus of our national news. There are already so many sharp voices weighing in on that — I figure I can go elsewhere for a while.

So what is a guilty pleasure? To me, it’s something you love that maybe doesn’t love you back. I’ve heard people say guilt is a useless emotion, but I’m not so sure. A little guilt can be a speed bump — slowing down behaviors that could damage yourself or others.

Mad Men Nights

My latest guilty pleasure has been devouring the TV series Mad Men. The show ran from 2007 to 2015 — seven seasons, 13 episodes each, 91 hours in total. I’m two-thirds of the way through that pie, and what a pie it is.

It’s the Manhattan advertising world of the 1960s: relentless drinking, chain-smoking, shameless sexism, and slick suits. At the center is Don Draper — Jon Hamm’s smoldering, incorrigible anti-hero, always searching for someone or something other than himself. I don’t tire of looking at him, but the rest of the cast — well-dressed, neurotic, ungrateful for their affluence — keeps me hooked too.

What I appreciate about Mad Men is the reminder that America has actually evolved since the 1960s. Attitudes toward women and people of color have shifted for the better. We’re also a little more self-aware, a little more emotionally intelligent, thanks to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, meditation, and life coaches. And yet — yikes — we still have a long way to go.

So why the guilt? Maybe because those 60+ hours could have been spent meditating, doing yoga, or writing about fighting fascism. Instead, I’m sprawled on my bed staring at my laptop. But hey — it’s really only a twinge of guilt.

Wine O’Clock

Guilty pleasure number two: wine. There, I said it. I adore a glass (or two) of Chardonnay in the evening — before, during, and after dinner. It calms my mind, smooths out the edges of the day.

The trouble is, all the latest headlines scream: alcohol is bad for you, especially for us older folks. I’ve cut down, even cut it out at times, but I haven’t let it go completely. As the Italians say, “A day without wine is like a day without sunshine.” For me, it’s nighttime sunshine — and I say amen.

Dining Out

Number three: eating out. I’m a good cook and I genuinely enjoy cooking, but sometimes the thought of planning and making one more meal feels unbearable. And the truth is, there are delights I just can’t — or don’t want to — recreate at home: Batika’s veggie thali, La Hacienda’s ceviche tostada, Rustic Bakery’s berry scones, and yes, an occasional In-N-Out double-double (no cheese, grilled onions).

The guilt here isn’t nutritional, it’s financial. Restaurants are pricey these days. But then I console myself: at least I’m supporting restaurant workers and their families. Right?

Air Miles

Number four: air travel. Honestly, flying isn’t much of a pleasure anymore — long lines, cramped seats — but it does whisk you to far-off places. It’s the ticket to exploring the world, a timely adventure given the future of things, and for retirees, it’s a prized way to spend time and money.

The guilt here is obvious: airplanes spew carbon. You can see it from the ground. I don’t fly often, and I drive an electric car, but I still wrestle with it. Most of my most conscious, committed friends are frequent flyers and don’t seem too concerned. I tell myself: the plane is going anyway, whether I’m on it or not.

What do you tell yourself?

So, is guilt useful? Or is it just an unnecessary layer of self-critique we slap on top of things we already enjoy?

💬 Share your guilty pleasures in the comments — I’d love to hear them.

Recently, a friend invited me to a gathering where we were invited to share a 5-minute story of our lives. The topic we were all given was SOMETHING FROM NOTHING. This is what I shared…

This is the story of the Chase family—my family—33 years ago, when I was married to Bill Chase and we had two young sons: Zander, age 5, and Andrew, age 2. We were living in Mill Valley, California, barely staying afloat financially. We had just remodeled a home we couldn’t afford, and both Bill’s construction business and the broader economy were in the toilet. Still, we managed a family trip to Hawaii, where we fell in love with the island of Kauai. “Someday,” we said to ourselves, “we have to have enough money to live here.”

A week after we returned home, on September 11, 1992, Kauai was slammed by Hurricane Iniki, the most powerful hurricane in Hawaii’s recorded history. The island was devastated—over 14,000 homes, about half of all housing, were destroyed or severely damaged, along with schools, businesses, hotels, and infrastructure. The tunnel of trees was a tunnel of branches. It was quite a mess.

Back in Marin, as Bill and I wrestled with how to make ends meet and the possibility of selling the dream home we had designed and built, it dawned on us that there was now going to be plenty of construction work on Kauai. Bill flew over right away and got work with a local contractor. In early 1993, the boys and I joined him. We rented out our house, thinking we’d be gone maybe a year. We knew at some point we’d have to put it on the market, and it would sound more exotic to be moving to Kauai rather than Novato.

We arrived on the island knowing only a couple of people, with little more than the clothes on our backs—basically nothing. We found a vacation rental near the end of the road on Kauai’s north shore—a small stilt house in a cul-de-sac just minutes from Tunnels, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We dubbed ourselves the Chase Family Robinson, shipwrecked on an island paradise, figuring out how to make a living and fit into a new culture with nothing but our ingenuity. Bill, once consumed by running his own business, now worked 8–4 for another contractor, leaving time to explore beaches, make handicrafts, and hang out with the boys. I learned where to find new foods and was thrilled to discover apple bananas, pink papayas, luscious mangoes, coconut water and plentiful ahi tuna.

Getting the boys into schools in Hanalei connected us to the community and the richness of Hawaiian culture. They wore slippers or went barefoot, learned to make flower leis, and ate poi. A friend invited me to join a hula hālau, where my dance background served me well. I made friends with hula sisters and immersed myself in the language and music of the islands. I was ecstatic snorkeling the Tunnels reef or swimming Hanalei Bay. Friday nights meant family cookouts on Ke‘e Beach, where the setting sun gave the cliffs a golden glow. We found our Hawaiian neighbors to be warm and welcoming to us “haoles” (whites), and we fell in love with all things Hawaiian.

But after a couple of months, our remote beach rental was no longer available, and we moved to the haole enclave of Princeville. The house was only partially furnished, and we began shipping our belongings from the mainland. As the year went on, Bill launched his own business, I landed work on a film project in LA, and we made friends—mostly other mainland transplants. With more possessions and commitments, our carefree “Chase Family Robinson” days gave way to becoming full participants in a thriving new community—a something-from-nothing that transformed our lives.

We spent the next 13 years together on Kauai, until divorce set in motion another nothing-to-something chapter

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ANGUISH is the emblem of our helpless love, felt fully in every cell of the body;
felt fully until it overflows—in a cry, in tears, in wordsthat try to negate, powerlessly, what is occurring. Anguish is our foundational cry against the unjust taking away
of what we feel should be forever ours.
— David Whyte, Consolations II

It’s the Fourth of July. The sun is shining, but to me, it feels like a very dark day.

Never have I felt such anguish for our country—except perhaps in the aftermath of the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Once again, we are witnessing a kind of killing: the slow assassination of the American Dream by Donald Trump and his fascist agenda.

I’ve known personal anguish—losing my father at an early age, losing faith in God, the unraveling of my marriage, the fragmentation of family, and now, one by one, the deaths of dear friends. I’ve grieved the loss of a stable climate for this beautiful Earth. And now, I grieve the loss of an American future I once believed could fulfill the lofty ideals of its birth. I fear we may never recover.

In truth, my personal life remains mostly untouched. I am not at risk of deportation. I still work, still play. My retirement funds are intact. Yet my heart is heavy. It aches each time I read the news—which is every day. I can’t look away from the devastation, as though I’m watching a train wreck in slow motion.

“Powerlessly,” Whyte writes. And there’s the rub.

Beyond signing online petitions, sending modest donations to a dozen causes, creating up a “No King!” banner and whining and complaining with friends—I feel impotent to stop what is unfolding. At times, I fear I’ve become a Good German, quietly carrying on while evil takes root around me.

So why am I writing this?

Perhaps because, as David Whyte suggests, “anguish fully felt is also the first step on the road to recovery and healing.” I don’t yet know how to walk that road, but I have to believe it’s possible—that recovery won’t just mean living with loss, but rising into meaningful resistance. I want to join The Resistance.

I still believe that living well is the best revenge: embracing the beauty and goodness around me, giving thanks for the immense gifts of this life, and celebrating the miracle of simply being alive. I know, too, that love is always the answer.

I may never be able to love Donald Trump, but I can imagine that his rise might yet be the reason Americans come together to forge a new future. Perhaps one day, strange as it sounds, we’ll even thank him for that.

Meanwhile, I hold close these words from Joanna Macy—one of the great souls of our time—who, as I write, is passing into the next realm. Blessings, dear one.

“The anguish we feel for what is happening to our world is inevitable and normal and even healthy. So pain is very useful. Just don’t be afraid of it. Because if we are afraid to feel that, we won’t feel where it comes from, and where it comes from is love—our love for this world. That’s what is going to pull us through.”

I assume many of you are as heartsick as I am about the cruel and chaotic policies and the dismantling of our democracy taking place under the Trump administration. Some may try to ignore it, hoping for the best. Others, like me, live in a strange dual reality—what I sometimes call a kind of emotional schizophrenia. On one hand, my day-to-day life is deeply satisfying. I live in beautiful, affluent Marin County—a truly “blue” community where Democrats live like Republicans. No one I know has been picked up by ICE, lost a job, or been directly threatened.

And yet, alongside this gratitude for my personal life, I carry profound grief, fear, and anger about the corruption and injustice unfolding around us. My heart breaks for the Palestinians, the Ukrainians, the Africans affected by the withdrawal of U.S. health aid, the millions of immigrants living in fear, and those unjustly purged from government roles. It feels like a slow march toward fascism, and it's a fucking shitshow.

So I ask myself constantly: What can I do?

Tuning it out isn’t an option—especially since my work with the Pachamama Alliance includes curating curriculum for an online course on activism. I must stay informed, to seek out not only information but also inspiration—messages that offer grounded hope and help me resist the paralysis of powerlessness.

Here are a few sources that have helped me stay present, inspired, and ready to act:

• Marianne Williamson, who blends politics and spirituality with clarity and courage. She writes at transformarticles.com and insists, “Optimism is a moral imperative. Her most recent essay says, “Humanity now stands on the brink of an evolutionary cliff. We cannot keep walking. We must learn to fly.”

• Rev. Cameron Trimble, whose daily reflections at pilotingfaith.org offer wise, spiritually-grounded insights as well as prompts for meditation and action. Though her background is as a minister, her writing transcends doctrine—offering clear-eyed compassion and steady encouragement.

• Angus Hervey’s most recent TED Talk, which moved me to tears—not of joy exactly, but of gratitude. His project, Fix the News, sends out a weekly newsletter filled with underreported good news and solutions from around the globe. If you only follow one link from this essay, make his TED Talk the one.

But more than staying informed, we need to stay connected. I believe that the real key to navigating these times is community. Find your people—the ones who lift you, support you, challenge you, and remind you of your strength.

One of my most cherished communities is the Open Floor Dance group I’ve been part of for over 20 years. It’s my Sunday church—a two-hour, nonverbal communion with 150 people moving to a ravishing range of music. We don’t know each other’s names, but we know each other’s smiles. The connection is deep, joyful, and healing.

This morning, the facilitator urged us not to dance but to “be danced.” And I was. I was danced by the music, by the people around me, by my own mysterious bodymind. Giving myself over to the spirit of movement in the company of so many beautiful souls, I felt fully alive and whole. I felt hope.

As our times grow more difficult, I hope you have a practice that "dances you"—that brings you back to yourself and into connection with others. I’d love to hear what sustains your spirit, and whose voices guide you.

And meanwhile—most urgently—show up.

On Saturday, June 14, join the “NO KINGS DAY” demonstrations across the country. Find a location near you. Bring your friends. Let the world know: we will not stand by while our democracy is stolen. We the people will rise again.

With love and hope,

Mary

I’ve just returned from eight days on the island of Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i — the place I once called home, from 1992 to 2005. It was a home born not of plan, but of providence. Back then, our little family of four — Bill and our boys, Zander and Andrew, then six and three — landed on the island only months after Hurricane Iniki. It was a Category 5 storm that left behind a shattered built environment and trees stripped bare, but also, for us, a clearing. At that time, Marin County’s building trade was faltering, and Bill, a contractor, came seeking work in reconstruction. Our intention was to stay for a year, but we fell in love — with the land, the sea, the people, the culture, the mythic pulse of the place. Kaua‘i claimed us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. But in 2005, after the heartbreak of a broken marriage, I returned to Marin County, California, a kind of refugee of the heart. Still, Kaua‘i never let go. I returned often, held onto cherished friendships, and until just last year, still held title to our house there.

This most recent visit was a joyous reunion of five women who raised our children together and formed a women’s group that has survived separation for 20 years. I was also able to see my son Zander off to a new life on the Big Island, seeking promise in a place where roots might once again take hold.

Kaua‘i, the God-made island, remains breathtaking — waterfall-studded mountains, emerald landscapes, turquoise ocean and endless rainbows. But the human-made Kaua‘i has changed greatly in two decades. The millionaires who once seemed excessive have themselves been bought out by the billionaires. Yes, I heard of 20 or 30 billionaires with interests there! One in particular — a Mr. Zuckerberg — owns a sweeping slice of the North Shore and is building an underground fortress, its purpose as mysterious as the man himself. Everyone on his payroll signs a non-disclosure agreement that speaks volumes.

Hanalei Bay is as magical as ever, but points north – the sacred lands at the end of road — now require reservations to enter. The North Shore has become a playground for the very, very rich, which is reflected in the price of everything. If you're not affluent, you’re effectively exiled. It feels, in a way, like a return to feudalism — but the serfs are surfers. A studio apartment, if one exists, costs $2,000 or more a month. Restaurants prices outdo even top U.S. cities (a $26 sandwich?!); regular folks cling to Costco.

Zander, a skilled and soulful carpenter, could make a good living — but not enough to own a home. Hence, the move to Hawai‘i Island, where possibility still breathes. His father, my “wasband” Bill, works tirelessly to bring affordable housing to the island, but progress is glacial, while the need is urgent.

And of course, those who suffer most are the Native Hawai’ians, as well as the mellifluous mixture of other races that make Hawai’i’s culture so vibrant and nourishing. I count among them the longtime haoles (whites) who have lived with respect for the land and embraced its rhythms and values. Many have been forced to leave. But those who remain hold onto something precious — something the world desperately needs. Ohana.

Ohana means family, but it is much more than that. In Hawai‘i, your ohana is everyone you care for and who cares for you: friends, neighbors, coworkers, the auntie down the street who always remembers your birthday. Everyone who lived on Kaua’i in the aftermath of Hurricane Iniki remembers the way neighborhoods and communities came together to feed and house each other and to help with rebuilding. It was a hard but magical time, still recalled fondly today.

Of course this is not unique to Hawaii: we’ve seen it after floods, fires and devastation everywhere. Political and social class boundaries dissolve; people just want to help each other. I’m not sure, however, that is true of the billionaire class. A few of them on Kauai have made some nice gestures, but when I think of how little it would take of their staggering fortunes to make life so much easier for those who serve them, I shake my head in sorrow – and anger. How do people lose their caring for the common good?

Whatever our circumstances, financial or familial, I believe that having ohana in our lives is what enables us to navigate the many challenges we are facing and will continue to face – whether personal or planetary. My week in what is still a paradise -- playing, laughing and crying with four fine girlfriends -- fed my soul and renewed my spirit, a reminder of what truly matters.

May we all be blessed with such love. May we all find our ohana. And may we carry the aloha spirit forward — into a world that sorely needs it.

All of the sudden, as lifelong progressive, I am politically radioactive! I drive a silver Tesla Model 3, which up until a couple of months ago was considered quite cool and environmentally appropriate. But now, to stay safe, I have applied the above bumper sticker disclaimer.

Actually, though, I did not buy my car, it was a gift from my partner John Tyler who was the original owner when the Model 3s first came out in 2018. He passed it on to me when he decided to go for a new red Tesla Model Y, to get the 4-wheel drive option. John is a walk-your-talk environmentalist who has lived off the grid in the deep woods near Paso Robles for 46 years, pumping his water from a stream and getting all of his energy from solar panels. He was on to Elon Musk when Tesla first started happening and couldn’t wait to get an electric car.

Back in the day — 10 or 12 years ago? — we were both Elon superfans. This was when he was all about creating a revolution in the transportation sector that would reduce CO2 emissions and impact climate change. He also wanted to go to Mars, but that seemed cooly impossible, so why not?

John bought Tesla stock early on and I followed suit back when the price was low. After it split a couple of times, we were quite excited about our portfolio and planned to hang on to it for the long haul, which looked promising.

When was it that Elon started going crazy? When did he switch from being a liberal Democrat to being a Trumper? What the fuck happened? Did he lick the wrong toad? Did he get a worm in his brain?

Recently, I saw a video from 2012 when Elon was speaking to a bunch of science students in Paris about climate change — a full-on power point about its inexorable advance. His presentation was a bit awkward, and he seemed shy and hesitant — almost human. Wow, what a few hundreds of billions of dollars can do for a man!

But you already know what a hideous transformation has occurred in Mr. Musk and the incredible damage he is inflicting on our government and democracy. I don’t want to waste words on that asshole — I want to tell you how much I love my Tesla!

It is so much fun to drive! It maneuvers like a sports car and accelerates so quickly I manage to get myself out of all sorts of slightly dangerous situations. It is actually a computer on wheels, and every single thing you could think of having to do with a car or driving is on the screen in front of you and on your phone. The self-driving thing that everyone is so worked up about is actually quite awesome. My car does have full self-driving, but I almost never use it. But I do use auto-pilot on the freeway which makes my long drives to and from John’s house a real pleasure. I just listen to audiobooks and keep my hands on the wheel. And I never have to use gasoline again! Charging is so easy — as long as you plan ahead.

Probably there are now other electric cars approaching this level of excellence, but I am not about to abandon Dancene (yes, she has a name and a birthday). I am grateful I live in Marin County (which might have the highest percentage of Teslas of any US county) and am not fearful of a “terrorist attack.” I feel sorry for all the souls who dedicated themselves to Tesla’s vision who are being punished for the extremism of one deranged man. It’s a shame we can’t find a better way to express our outrage at the Muskrat.

It’s really not fair, folks. Tesla owners and dealers are not the bad guys. Many fine people designed, built and sold that incredible vehicle. Although I see praises on the left for people selling their cars and stock, I am not about to let go of either. I eagerly await the downfall of Elon Musk and his DOGE, and I hope to find some really effective ways to contribute to that. Meanwhile, I did sell some stock a while back, and I am contributing money to organizations that are trying to fight back and protect people who are in harms way.

And, I have to say: if you can afford to drive an electric car and you are not doing it, please reconsider. Every little bit of carbon we can keep out of the atmosphere makes a difference. Let’s keep driving for a climate breakthrough — and enjoy the ride!

It’s a big O year, as in eighty. I was born March 10, 1945, just in time to slip in as a baby boomer and spend my 20s in the roaring 60s. So lucky to be born at the right time, I say, and who could dispute that? I got to have a real childhood of unsupervised play -- outside most of the time. High school was way fun. College (Duke and then Harvard) launched me into radical politics – the anti-Vietnam war movement and civil rights. I lived in Berserkley when there were riots and the women’s movement, followed by spiritual seeking and a commune in the Berkshires. Back in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hit all the cool scenes of the 70s and 80s – sex, drugs, and rock and roll as well as a few gurus, therapy and EST. Then I spent the 90s till 2005 on the magical island of Kauai raising two boys and dancing hula. The past 20 years were back in marvelous Marin (County, CA) living in community on an 13-acre estate property with an awesome variety of fun friends .

80 seems officially OLD. But since my 20s, I have never really looked my age. When I taught high school in the early 1970s, I was mistaken for a student invading the teachers’ lounge. When I was a new mother in my 40s (via adoption), I looked the part. When I was newly divorced at 60, I told Match.com I was 50 (to no avail). Now I could pass for 60-something, but it’s fun to see people’s faces when I say I’m 80. Okay, I have to say it: I look— and feel — damn good!

What is the secret to my fountain of youth? I like to say, “clean living…NOT!” My life motto has been “Everything in moderation including moderation.” My other modus operandi is, “Ask for 100% of what you want 100% of the time, and dance with what you get.” Some see this as somewhat aggressive, but it’s worked well for me. I have a great life. I’m in a 17-year relationship with a man I adore; I continue to work as a writer and media producer on projects I care about; I live in a fabulous house with great friends; I have a enough money to retire if I ever want to; I play 1.5 – 2 hours of Pickleball 5-6 days a week; and I am in very good health.

Well, I did have a mild heart attack in 2023, which I call my “heart opening experience.” Two stints were put into two somewhat blocked arteries, a procedure I hope has cleared the way for the future – a future that I am now projecting out until I am at least 95. That would put me here till around 2040, and I sure am curious what the world will be like then. What kind of world will I leave behind for my two sons and six grandkids?

Here are some questions I find myself contemplating when sleep eludes me:

• Is our country in an inexorable slide into authoritarianism and oligarchy?

• When will it get so hot that people finally see we are in a climate emergency?

• Is it already too late to restore a livable climate?

• How can I protect myself and my loved ones in the coming collapse?

• Is there anything I can really do about any of this – the metacrisis?

And, more personally…

• How many airplane trips a year can I justify?

• Why can’t I lose those last 5 pounds?

• How can I get even healthier?

• Do I really have to totally stop drinking wine?

• How can I make the biggest difference in the time I have left to me?

It may sound as if I have a fairly negative view of the future, but that is mainly when I’m tossing and turning in bed at night. On the Pickleball courts on a sunny morning laughing with friends, all feels right with the world, and immersed in Nature, I feel a Presence that buoys my spirit.

I’ve started my Substack to share my thoughts about day to day issues, personal and political, to raise questions and hopefully raise some hell — or at least help make some good trouble. Please tune in and let me know how it lands for you…

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These days I find myself fascinated by AI, AKA Artificial Intelligence, as it seems to work wonders in mere seconds and promises the miraculous as well as the terrifying for our human future. I can’t yet fathom the difference between Generative AI and General AI (what’s up with the similarity in terms?) Simplistically, I know that Generative AI is about generating new content based on what we (or computers) already know, and General AI, which isn’t really developed yet, “aims to perform any intellectual task that a human can do.” (I put quotes because I copied this from ChatGPT, but does anyone care who said what now?) It’s clear that both forms of AI are going to change our lives very dramatically very quickly.

What I do know is that the only thing that is going to save humanity on this perilous path we are on is not AI but NI – not Artificial Intelligence but Nature’s Intelligence. Just as artificial and natural are almost opposites, AI and NI couldn’t be more different. In AI we rely on everything we humans think we have figured out; in NI we depend on what Nature has figured out over some millions (billions?) of years. She (I will call her by the feminine) has successfully engineered a planet that has been working quite well since the dawn of time and only recently has gotten messed up by the interventions of homo sapiens.

The problems is, we humans don’t think of ourselves as part of Nature. The Oxford dictionary definition of Nature says, “[T]he phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.”

If we are not part of Nature, what are we?

Most folks would say: “Well, we humans are special. We are not just apart from Nature, we are the masters of Nature, and we get to use it for our purposes. It’s there for us to extract from, exploit, and commodify – to enhance our human lives.” Only recently (the past 50 years?) have we confronted that our human supremacy has taken a severe toll on Mother Nature, so much so that in the next 50 years, life may be very difficult for humans, if we survive at all.

Nature has the last word. She is going to keep going even on a very different Earth. Our icy poles may be gone, but perhaps they will sprout rainforests. Rainforests may become deserts, as there may be no water where we want it and too much water where we don’t want it. Survivors may take to living in domes or underground to beat the heat. Don’t we have a plethora of novels and movies already preparing us for this way of life?

But we humans can turn things around if we turn our attention NOW to NI. We have made a mess of many things, but Nature’s Intelligence has the solutions to all our problems. We could discover and implement those solutions if we only asked the question: what would Nature do? How does she remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? How does she regenerate degraded ecosystems? How does she organize communities so that everyone is taken care of?

Although it is not yet a household word, biomimicry (mimicking Nature) is how we might best describe NI. The profound insight is that Nature’s ecosystems have been working to evolve and sustain life on Earth since the beginning of time. Nature’s intelligence can inspire and direct us to solving our technical engineering and design problems as well as our societal issues. As one of its founders Janine Benyus says, “No matter what we need to solve, whether it's a technical or social innovation, biomimicry is a practice where you say, ‘Okay, I'm trying to solve this big problem, what in the natural world has already done what I'm trying to do?’ It's as simple as that.”

Another source of NI is IP, or Indigenous People, sometimes called First people. The industrialized world has a hard time getting that there is a way of living successfully and harmoniously on this earth without having to diminish or destroy it. For millennia, groups of people have led healthy and satisfying lives in reciprocity with Nature, taking and giving back, caring for ecosystems including the human one. They might not have created yachts and bombs, but until colonialization, their communities thrived by seeing themselves as connected to all things. Those who have survived the onslaught of civilization still hold the key to a regenerative future, and they are speaking out, sharing their secrets, trying to save us all.

Of course, AI, be it generative or general or whatever comes next, can also be useful in efforts to create a livable future. I can imagine an RI – Regenerative Intelligence – that combines the awesome power of quantum computing with the knowledge and wisdom of the Indigenous world with the brilliant insights of the Drawdown, Regeneration and Climate Restoration movements. This research, along with work by many others in the climate world, has proven that existing solutions can end the climate crisis. Yes, end it; bring back the icy poles and the rainforests and the healthy oceans, as well as revitalize our human systems so badly in need of reimagination and reformation.

If we relinquish our supremacy, we can join the natural world and play our cooperative, reciprocal role in healing the damage we have done. We humans are not a cancer on this Earth, we are the planet’s immune system, and it’s time to do our job. Embracing NI, Nature’s Intelligence, begins by falling in love with Mother Nature, living in wonder of her miracles, and opening to the guidance she so freely offers us. May it be so.

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