Supermoon and the Light that Travels
I’m going to write stream-of-consciousness style here… under light of this beautiful supermoon tonight. It’s the fourth supermoon in a row, and that bright moonlight through the autumn season has been with us, I sense, as the tidal sensation that accompanies so much. Is it a deluge?
There’s been so much happening, so fast, and it’s hard to even “look up”, nevermind look out into the future. The present moment seems to call for my awareness and vigilance. Just to hold space for appreciation is enough… to appreciate something is to see it, and to allow it to grow in value. Attention is a form of love.
So, what are we paying our attention to? Can we user this time to recalibrate, to bring in some wonder, say, like a giant inbreath of awe into our lungs, looking up at the moon, and a longer, slower outbreath of release? To let go… not to say we don’t care about the ground here, holding us… yet what about some time to dwell with the stars?
The moon is close tonight. It’s a time for dreaming big, even and especially as it might have seemed as if the world is too much with us. It’s a time for imagination. As René Magritte said, “If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.”
What are our dreams? Can we name the ones that keep us up at night, as Esther Perel recently asked me? What do we desire? What is it worth to us? What are we worth?
Eight years ago, in 2016, I traveled to Barcelona to help lead a week-long writing workshop for women. One of the prompts was about worth. Amazing, what came out on the page. The word “worth” can be a full one.
I think about worth tonight, gazing up at the full moon, and feel a heart-beam traveling from the moon to me and back again. It’s a beam, a traveling wave… a piece of light, glimmering like a paillette, like those leaves you can see on the tree in the lower right corner of the frame.
Those leaves are starting to fall. Winter is coming. The evening here in Northern California has a chill, even a bite. My New England roots remember autumn… “remember November” as my cross country coach used to say. It’s competition time. It’s a time that counts.
What of endurance? Resilience… nature carries such metaphors, as squirrels have been, er, squirreling away acorns for the long winter to come. Snow is coming, if not already, in many places.
I carry the imprint of seasons in my body awareness, as we all do, as embodied creatures, our animal physicality now layered with digital extensions, like cilia. Intention matters. There’s light that travels.
I have been physically traveling over the past three weeks, giving talks that have brought me to Vancouver’s Frontier Summit, to a TED AI gathering, to Wisdom & AI, to speak alongside Deepak Chopra and Sam Altman… to grapple with ideas and weigh the space between the notes, that beautiful and exquisitely complex non-polarized space that looks to maintain integrity and humanity in the face of so much change, so much uncertainty.
There’s heart. There’s love. I keep returning to love.
When I first began to write Digital Wellbeing, I knew the world was calling for it in a way that was heart-centered. That’s what kept me going… I was seeing as far as the headlights some days. I knew I was writing it in a way that was different, that had never been done before, with angles that are new and emergent and dare I say necessary. It’s a bold piece, one written in sunlight as well as moonlight. I am focusing on humanity and human-cenetered interactions and experiences, and then inviting us to be curious about technology as relationship-driven, as a layer stack on top of our essential embodied lives. It’s nature diven… patterned and then breaking its own patterns, challenging cliche and convention even as the fractals spread out. Hopeful. We can thrive. Alive and aware, we’re advancing in what’s authenic. Back to mindfulness, back to soul source, wellbeing, that human wellspring we all feel.
Look at the moon! Then close your eyes, feel it on your eyelids. There’s so much to appreciate in this wild life.
The path continues to open, and it’s emergent and unfolding in a way that involves experiences, and conversations with ourselves, with nature, and with other humans. It’s about connection. It’s active, not static. Responsive… listening. Centering on love.
I’m grateful for communities of all sorts that are kind, encouraging each other to expand and grow and be bold and also kind to ourselves and others. It’s a journey. For those curious to hear more about discoveries in Vancouver, and stories from recent talks and more, I’ll be sharing clips and highlights over the next couple of weeks, now that I’ve arrived back “home.” (Everywhere is starting to feel like home, as it always did but even more strongly now… more on that soon, too.)
This coming week, on Friday, November 22, I’m also speaking at a special event at The Portal in the Bay Area. Just north of San Francisco, in Mill Valley, we will be gathering for an Authors’ Salon, where I will have the pleasure of sharing a reading and Q&A alongside esteemed fellow authors Dr. Aimon Kopera and John Hagel III. Those nearby, please come join us! It promises to be a delight and truly expansive in ideas shared. I love Salon-style events, for the interaction and elevation.
Back to wonder. Back to soulfulness. Right here.
Here we are, together, gazing at the moon…
