Have you ever experienced the feeling of moving closer and closer to the edge of a cliff, with the intention of jumping off? You feel that surely you will fly. How could you not with your certainty about the unfolding of your journey. But, there is always that little voice that says, “What if you’re wrong?” What if you have been fooling yourself and you are about to plummet to the Earth, never to be capable of picking yourself back up and fly again? As you get closer to the edge the voice gets louder, tugging at you, telling you that it is trying to keep you safe and what you are about to do is fool hearty. Following your heart is for children with no responsibilities. This voice is trying to save you from a disastrous fate. It tries to convince you that all the energy, time, obstacles overcome, healing that has needed to take place, faith it has required, impractical use of funds you have invested in this soul journey is a ridiculous example of the many reasons you can’t trust your heart. Some times that voice is so loud it drowns out the feelings of the heart and makes you feel like you are in the middle of a grand experiment that is about to go awry. But, for some reason you just keep inching toward the edge, readying yourself to jump, hoping your heart is truly your guide and won’t lead you astray.

For many women who are coming out of the shadows, risking the safety net behind the scenes it is a scary journey after all these years and lifetimes. On some level we have found a sense of safety by staying invisible. The conflict between this and our deep soul’s desire to grow and step up embodied and participate in this extraordinary time in history can be very challenging. Bless us all for doing our inner and outer work to show up.

I am one of these women. I have walked a path this entire lifetime that has taken me to this edge. As I am about to jump using the launch of my book as my magic carpet that will support me to fly I can’t help but reflect on all this. My book is me, my version, my journey, healing, and wisdom gained as a collective member of the force of the feminine coming out of the shadows to support the transformation the entire world is going through. It is scary to make the jump. It is intolerable to not.

I launch my book on June 1st. It is my jump off the cliff. It supports all women to do the same in their own time and healing so we may all show up. It supports our reunion with our great Mother so we can feel held and nourished as we take our journey.

I ask for your support in this spring birth as I offer mine to you. Please consider buying and reading my book. Help me fly as I offer this honest and profound extension of myself that will support you to do the same.

One of the perennial questions we ask ourselves is whether all of nature is there for us to use and then discard or whether mankind owes a debt to nature. Many humans do have an instinct to personalize the natural world in the form of Mother Nature and to see the planet as a complex living thing… the so-called Gaia outlook. Questions like this are usually raised when a man-made disaster, such as the current Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, occurs.

When we, and much of the world, were agrarians, we took better care of our natural surroundings. We needed the land and water for nourishment and the air for breath itself…and we still do. But we continue to pay a heavy price for a century and a half of industrialization, much of it pursued as if the land, water, and air were free goods that would have to somehow heal themselves or that we would leave to our children to clean up. The industries that poisoned the waterways, soil, and air were almost never around to pay for the damage.

As there are born liberals and born conservatives, I’ve come to believe that some of us have an instinct to protect nature and some do not. Barring some magical transformation of human nature, that will probably always be so. But, as mankind makes war on nature as we are now doing in the Gulf, little is heard from the “drill, baby, drill” crowd, so willing to take risks at nature’s expense recently. And the president, himself recently converted to off-shore drilling, is now having second thoughts.

As, in a more perfect world, it would be civilized and mature to hold public discourse without the screams and finger-pointing of the day, so it would be helpful if to no one else but future generations and Nature herself to take into account the damage we so casually do in order to drive inefficient vehicles and burn lights in empty rooms.

For a time, as after Exxon Valdez, we will look with sorrow at the oil-coated birds and beaches and sympathize with the out-of-work fishermen. “How’s that drilly, oily stuff workin’ for ya’ these days,” no politician will cutely ask. But, not long thereafter, “drill, baby, drill” will return, and with it the scorn for those who think we all might owe Nature a little more respect.

Gary Hart

Huffington Post