Embracing Our Devils?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by zoeweil

In a recent blog post on turning 50 and letting go of demons I reflected upon two specific demons that plague me: worry and wanting things to be different. I wrote about wishing to banish these demons as I pass the half-century mark of life.

And then today I read this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:

“If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well.”

Reading this quote reminded me of another quote by physicist Niels Bohr: “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

For years I have wanted to rid myself of those personal demons that diminish my and others’ lives, but at the same time I have recognized that virtually all my worst qualities have a corresponding positive side, and vice versa.

Isn’t this true for most of us? The easy-going person may lack drive. The argumentative person may be the kind of critical thinker who can solve problems. The highly compassionate person may find the cruelty in the world unbearable and become impotent. The person who has trouble being in the present moment may be highly efficient as their mind keeps working every second thinking about the future.

And so while on the one hand I want to rid myself of my personal demons, I so appreciated reading Rilke’s quote this afternoon, reminding me that my personality – good and bad – is made up of light and shadow. In banishing the shadow, I might banish some of the light.

Thanks Rilke.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of simon plestenjak via Creative Commons.

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On Turning 50: Letting Go of Demons & Focusing on Creating a Better World

Posted on July 20, 2011 by zoeweil

I turned 50 last week. I’m more fit than at 20, and much happier too. My life feels meaningful and purposeful, and the dominant emotion I experience when I attend to my life is gratitude. But there are still some demons that haunt me, and they don’t abate. I’ve tried to keep them at bay for decades and all my efforts simply keep them from gaining much more traction. I haven’t cast them out.

The biggest one is the “Things aren’t the way I want them to be and they should be different” demon. This is an easy demon to cast out when the thing I want to be different is something I have control over. But when it’s another person’s behavior – especially someone close to me – and I have no control, but still perseverate on their failures to be different, I create suffering: suffering for me certainly, but also suffering for them.

The next biggest demon is worry. I worry a lot. I can catastrophize in a nanosecond. I worry about so many things: family members, of course, but also whether I’ll make a connecting flight; whether I offended someone with something I said; whether we’ll hit peak oil before we have alternative clean fuels; whether we’ll have honey bees in a decade and who will pollinate if we don’t; whether so many species will disappear that a cascade of extinctions will threaten everything we know; whether the twinges I feel in my leg will turn back into debilitating sciatica. You get the picture.

Yet worrying serves no purpose at all.

It might seem that these two demons might be motivators for my changemaking work, but they aren’t. If anything they are impediments. What motivates me to devote my days to my work at the Institute for Humane Education and to creating a generation of solutionaries able to solve global challenges is vision, hope, and love — not worry and frustration that things aren’t the way I want.

In reaching the half-century mark, my goal is to practice letting go of these tenacious demons that have glommed onto me. And I know that this is no easy task. It’s going to require all my own tenacity to refuse to indulge these demons, to prevent them from continuing to forge grooves and pathways in my brain that become ever more entrenched, to divert initial worry and frustration into a new groove of acceptance.

By acceptance I do not mean that I will not seek to create change, but rather to choose where and how to influence and help so that I am more successful, joyful, effective and loving in the process.

That’s my goal for the next 50 years, and I realize that it will take discipline and daily practice to achieve it.

Wish me luck.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The Darkest Night: Solstice Reflections

Posted on December 20, 2010 by zoeweil

All over the northern hemisphere, for thousands of years, people have been celebrating the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. Traditional religions have made some of their most important celebrations fall at the end of December. Jesus, for example, was historically thought to have been born in the spring, but the Christian church decided that his birth would be celebrated in the dark of winter – when pre-Christians were already celebrating, burning yule fires, and decorating trees.

There’s a reason why the darkest nights of the year, which fall at the end of December in the northern hemisphere, evoke celebration. Imagine life without electricity. Imagine as the shorter and colder days increase and all you have to stay warm and to see for hours each afternoon and evening is firelight. Imagine how important it would be to gather with loved ones, sing and dance, share the bounty you’ve painstakingly gathered in the warm months, and then to revel in the longer days that begin immediately upon the passing of the darkest night.

What I like about this time of year – even with central heating and electric lights – is the opportunity the dark, cold days provide to turn inward, to introspect, to slow down. It seems that the months of summer fly by, and I cannot find time to get together with friends, but when winter comes, suddenly I am gathering more often over candlelit dinners to talk, laugh, sing and play games. It is also a time to consider my hopes and goals for the coming year, to reflect upon what I want to bring to light.

This solstice, let us all imagine what light we might bring to a world that needs us. And then let’s put our imaginings into practice.

Go in light,

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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Be the Campfire, Not the Forest Fire

Posted on November 17, 2010 by zoeweil

There’s a metaphor I like to use when talking to fellow activists. I ask them to imagine two fires. The first is a campfire in an opening in the woods. The fire is warm and bright and draws people toward it. They are eager to find a place around the fire, and their beautiful faces glow in the reflected light. They feel good. There is nowhere they’d rather be. The second is a forest fire. It blazes hot and out of control, everyone – people and animals alike – flees.

Each of us has a fire inside of us. It is the fire of our passions and our beliefs, and all of us who are activists know it well. It is the fire that spurs us to learn about what is happening on our planet — to people, animals, and the environment — and it is the fire that spurs us to action to solve the crises we face and challenge the atrocities that still pervade our world. It is often a blazing hot fire. And sometimes, when we have burned out, it is a barely glowing ember. (There is a reason for the term “burned out” after all.)

As change agents, we have a choice about what sort of fire we will be. Will we be the warm campfire that draws people towards us so that we can share what we know and inspire others to make a difference, or will we be the forest fire that rages too hot, causing people to run from us? This is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves because the fire we cultivate makes an enormous difference in our effectiveness as changemakers.

But as we know, fire is not static, so whatever fire you have been or are today is subject to change. Fires die out if we don’t add fuel, and the sparks that fly off of them can ignite infernos if we add too much fuel too quickly. As change agents, we must seek that perfect balance, adding enough fuel in the form of knowledge and resources to burn just hot enough to ignite change without igniting a conflagration. We will know if our fire needs more fuel if we are not doing the work that must be done and aren’t inspiring others to join us, and we will know if we need to let up on the fuel if people avoid us. If we’ve been activists for a long time, we may have noticed that our fiery youth has diminished too much. If we are new to changemaking, we may need to take great care in cultivating our fire so it doesn’t burn too hot.

Tend your fire carefully. The world needs you to burn just right.

Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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Spare Time

Posted on November 15, 2010 by zoeweil

The other night my husband and I watched an episode of Modern Family called “Unplugged.” Like the title implies, the storyline followed one family’s challenges to unplug from all electronic devices for a week. It wasn’t very successful. I could relate. I’ve become so addicted to checking email that I can’t even stop at a red light without pulling out my phone to see if anything has arrived in the fifteen minutes since I last checked.

Which is why I relish the hikes my husband, Edwin, and I take each week, living as we do near Acadia National Park and lots of coastline and woods. Away from my computer, I notice the world, move my body, marvel at the beauty surrounding me, and, fairly often, wind up having somewhat odd, and frequently silly exchanges with Edwin. We’ve created our aphorism riddles (see examples here, here, here & here) and Edwin has made up some pretty clever jokes.

During our last venture up a mountain in Acadia Edwin, who loves words, thought it would be interesting to come up with a sentence using words with the ending “iginous.” There aren’t many of them, so you can imagine our dismay when we found out that “litiginous” isn’t actually a word, even though people say it a lot.

Here’s the sentence we came up with:

Vertiginous Virgil vanished from the serpiginous sluiceway on the caliginous coast leaving his lover, litigious Lucy, sobbing and ready to sue.

Now, some might think this isn’t the best use of time. Perhaps we ought to be discussing ways to imbue curricula with humane education and create solutionary teams in schools, but on my breaks from work, it feels just right to play word games and laugh at our strange verbal creations. At least we’re not reading Facebook pages or incessantly checking email.

Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of gsilva.

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49 Rolls: Honoring Aging

Posted on September 17, 2010 by zoeweil

The eve of my 49th birthday, at the end of my Aikido class, I did 49 rolls. It’s a tradition in our and other dojos that on our birthdays we do as many rolls as years we’ve lived. It’s a bit counter-intuitive though. When my young friend Zak turned 16 this summer, he only had to do 16 rolls. Why on earth would we do more and more as we age?! Imagine a centenarian taking a 100th roll!

Yet I love this tradition, one that honors our great capacity for endurance with each passing year. That invites us to celebrate age with more, not less, of what we’re capable of. It’s a way of honoring age with the greatest degree of respect and admiration.

I look forward to 50 rolls in 2011 and to the belief that I can achieve ever more as I age, not less.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of babasteve via Creative Commons.

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What Does Forgiveness Really Mean?

Posted on August 11, 2010 by zoeweil

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Forgiveness and reconciliation are not just ethereal, spiritual, otherworldly activities…. They are realpolitik, because in a very real sense, without forgiveness, there is no future.”
~ Desmond Tutu

“What we forgive too freely doesn’t stay forgiven.”
~ Mignon McLaughlin

I read these quotes in the August 2010 issue of The Sun magazine, and I find myself puzzling over them: three quotes about forgiveness, each with its own message, its own truth. For me, forgiveness is all of these quotes and none of them. Often I think I’ve forgiven only to taste the bitter seeds still lurking in the crevices of my teeth. I may have thought I’d spit them out, but like so many popcorn hulls, they’ve lurked another day. Maybe Mignon captures my failure; perhaps I’d forgiven too freely rather than dredged all the nasty rage and pain and fought my way toward a deep and abiding forgiveness that took work to achieve. But am I ever truly, completely done with resentment? For me, forgiveness has usually been a slow process, neither an act, nor a permanent attitude. One day, I may realize I believe I have forgiven. But the next that realization of forgiveness may be gone and my bitterness returned, albeit diminished.

I appreciate Desmond Tutu’s perspective that forgiveness may be better perceived as a pragmatic choice than an ethical perspective. If forgiveness has less to do with internal feelings and more to do with a practical decision to ensure a healthy future, we might more easily create such a future. But I also yearn for the spiritual component of forgiveness; the peace that comes with letting go of anger and resentment; the freedom that comes when I do not carry such a burden that harms no one more than me.

What are your thoughts on forgiveness? Do any of these quotes speak more strongly to you than the others?

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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Go Out and Seton Watch!

Posted on July 16, 2010 by zoeweil

In my last post I wrote about Seton watching, a form of nature observation in which one sits quietly and observes a small window in the natural world for at least 20 minutes. I’ve chosen to do this daily at our pond, and it’s been amazing what I have observed. I recently wrote about observing the rescue of two damselflies. I only noticed this because I was Seton watching and paying close attention.

Over the course of the past two weeks, I’ve been watching a multitude of frogs and salamanders at every stage of development. There are tiny, gilled newts, and full grown salamanders, and red efts ready to emerge for their time in the woods. There are tadpoles from half a dozen different species, all in various phases of their transformation into frogs. I’ve been watching them grow their rear legs, and then their front, and move onto land, and slowly reabsorb their tales. I’ve listened to the trilling of tree frogs, the peeping of peepers, the honk of bullfrogs, and beeps of green frogs. My foot has been the way station for an emerging frog. I’ve noticed the way in which some species of tadpole are bold, while others quite shy and how the full grown salamanders are the most skittish of all, ascending quickly for air only to dive down to the depths as fast as they can.

I’ve watched huge water scorpions swim laboriously as they paddle through the water with skinny legs. I’ve watched hundreds of damselflies with their iridescent blue backs mate and dip their fertilized eggs into the water. My legs and arms have been the resting spot for many.

Mostly I don’t know much about what I’m observing, at least not in the scientific sense. I don’t know the names of the different species of tadpole, nor the life cycle of the water scorpion. I could find out of course, and I likely will; but I am experiencing so much just through observation, and I’m reluctant to turn to books quite yet. I want to discover what I am able to learn and know by carefully watching what’s around me.

I recommend such an activity to everyone, but especially children. In our media-saturated, indoor- or sports field-focused world, we neglect to experience the magnificent natural world that sustains us all. We do this at our peril, as a failure to cultivate our wonder often results in our failure to protect what we neither experience, nor understand, nor love.

As I’ve said before, please go outside; for yourself and the world. And try sitting quietly in the same spot each day for 30 minutes and notice what comes.

Enjoy!

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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Detroit Airport Friday vs. Sunday

Posted on June 18, 2010 by zoeweil

Last Friday night I was traveling to Minneapolis for the Their Lives, Our Voices conference. I had a tight connection in Detroit, and the forecast called for thunderstorms in both Detroit and Minneapolis. I was worried. But it was beautiful in Bangor, so I began to feel more confident about everything staying on schedule. Then a fuel sensor was broken on the plane, and we were delayed out of Bangor for an hour. We arrived in Detroit 25 minutes before my next plane was scheduled to take off.

Carrying my luggage, my props for my talks, and my way-too-heavy computer, I ran from the farthest most gate in terminal C to my connecting gate on the far end of terminal A. I knew that if I didn’t make the flight, chances were that I wouldn’t make it to Minneapolis in time for my keynote address first thing in the morning. There was a pregnant woman on my first flight also trying to make the flight to Minneapolis, and I promised to let them know she was on her way if the doors to the plane were still open, as I knew I’d get there first. Fortunately, when I arrived at the gate, albeit drenched with sweat, they were still boarding, and I was able to get on the plane. However, because they had switched airplanes and the new one was smaller, everyone in rows 42 and higher was bumped off the flight. I was lucky my seat was in row 22, and I felt for the other passengers who wouldn’t be able to make it to Minneapolis that night. Just as I was boarding, I saw the pregnant woman. They’d bumped her off the flight because they assumed she wouldn’t make it due to the delay in the first flight. She pointed me out to them, saying I was on the same flight and they were letting me on. At that point, I decided I couldn’t get involved and risk being bumped off myself. I dashed onto the plane, hoping for the best for this woman, but doing nothing to assist her. When I saw her board the plane, I was relieved. She said that being pregnant had its perks; she used her pregnancy to convince them to let her on.

Thirty-six hours later, I was returning home, and my layover in Detroit was 3.5 hours. I felt stress-free. I took my time finding a place to get a vegan meal and was delighted to find an actual peanut butter and jelly restaurant. Then I stopped at a store to buy a new pair of reading glasses because mine had broken on the first flight. When I paid the cashier he told me he was heartbroken. “Why? I asked. “Because I had my ten minute break, and I went to get a Frappuccino, and the line at Starbucks was too long so I couldn’t get it.” I offered to get it for him, and off I went, still carrying all my luggage, but without any need to hurry. He was very happy when I brought it to him, and he shared that after his shift was over he had to be at another job at midnight. He had really needed that pick-me-up.

I decided to treat myself to a back massage at the Detroit aiport “spa” because my neck and shoulders hurt a lot after the breakneck run with my computer and luggage on Friday. The woman who was giving the massage was so stressed out. Her electricity had gotten turned off at home, and she was unable to reach an actual person at the utility company, and she couldn’t receive calls at work, and she was running behind. She worried that her energy was so stressed it would impact my massage, but I reassured her and just let her vent. At the end of the massage she told me she felt so much better and was really grateful to me because I’d made her feel so much calmer.

On Friday night, I wouldn’t have stopped to help a soul. I might have run right by a person who’d tripped, a child who was lost, or someone having a heart attack, just hoping another would help. On Sunday, I would probably have been available to help anyone I passed at the airport, open as I was in my stress-free state to see the people around me.

This reminds me that often, those people we think are inconsiderate, rude, or unhelpful may simply be very stressed, while those who are kind and compassionate may simply be in a space in which they can let these qualities shine. As Philo of Alexandria once said, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.” I think this also means that we can be kind to ourselves when the battle we are fighting eclipses our own kindness and goodness. I was not especially kind to anyone on Friday, but I was kind on Sunday.

Zoe Weil
Author of Above All, Be Kind and Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of indywriter via Creative Commons.

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Go Outside! For Yourself & the World

Posted on June 14, 2010 by zoeweil

Why do I ever forget to go outside? No, that’s not quite right. How is it that I ever feel too lazy, tired, busy, or stressed to go outside for an hour and take a walk through the woods, climb a small mountain, or stroll by the ocean? There will always be a million things to do, a mountain of work. There will always be stressors. I will likely always think of reasons why not to. And every time that I allow that persistent voice that says “Go! Now!” to convince me to drag myself outside, I am so grateful. My best ideas happen in the natural world. My creativity is sparked; my soul is soothed. I am reinvigorated for the work at hand. I am energized, even if my body tires. My reverence is reawakened, and I know just what it is I’m spending my life trying to protect – this unfathomable, remarkable, gorgeous world we were all born into.

Please go outside. For yourself and the world.

~ Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm

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