Upright, Riding the Waves of 2025
2025 has been a wild ride, so far, hasn’t it? I hope you are safe, resourced, and resiliently serving others.
For over a decade, my teachers have been using words like “discontinuity,” “poly-crisis,” and “the long dark” to describe the time we are in now. For over a decade, when getting to know a new friend, I would ask questions to determine if this person was capable of comprehending the complexities of:
systemic injustices
climate change
our brittle economy
the increasing corruption of our political system
If not, there were conversations I avoided. If so, we could share a deeper connection based on a shared understanding of these complexities. Sadly, most folks in my age group (I just celebrated my 70th birthday!) are only as aware of these challenges as the media they consume.
To my surprise, I’ve learned that my grandchildren (in their 20s) and the trans community (my youngest child is trans) are very aware of the challenges that many in my generation would rather ignore.
Today’s young people—and everyone without (wealth/class/race/cis/het) privilege are not only aware of the challenges: in many cases, they are already living the solutions.
In the days, weeks, and months after hurricane Helene, my neighbors and I had to learn how to do without the systems (water, power, food, roads) we had relied on to make our lives safe, secure and stable. My friends who survived the LA fires are doing the same thing right now. How?
Compassion (what do you need?).
Collaboration (what do I have that I can share?).
Co-creating new systems of equitable distribution (I’m still volunteering at—and now attending—a local church that has reinvented itself as a distribution center for those who lost homes/jobs).
This is how we survive our losses and are learning to thrive again.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Binaries are simpler; can’t things just be right or wrong? Our brains are wired to prefer simplicity, safety, security. and orderly systems. (You know... how life felt in the 50s and 60s.)
But we’re here now, in these unprecedented times. If we’re wise, we’ll take Einstein’s advice that “a problem can't be solved at the level of consciousness that created it” and we’ll look outside the binary boxes we’ve been given. We’ll connect to communities that share our values. We'll stay resourced and resilient, so we can keep showing up to serve others.
How?
Well, just because events are unprecedented doesn’t mean they are incomprehensible. Alex Steffan said, “The loss of continuity does not mean descent into blind chaos. We can learn to thrive amidst discontinuity, disruption, upheaval. There are thousands of people teaching themselves how, right now.”
Thriving and serving in the midst of discontinuity. That’s what I’m here to do.
I frequently remind myself of the wisdom shared by my teacher Lucia Rene during her last international conference call before she retired in December 2019. She counseled us to release our old (earth-element) mode of “feeling grounded, stable, secure” (imagine standing, sitting or lying on solid ground) and replace it with a new (water- or air-element) mode of embodying balance... by imagining ourselves balancing on the waves or currents of change. She advised us that waves of intense change would come quickly in the years ahead, so “imagine yourself surfing—when a wave wipes you out, find your balance and breath, get back up on your board, treat it like a game.”
I don’t love roller coasters, sky-diving, surfing or any kind of adrenaline-producing activity. I process these type of events as FEAR, not excitement. And in the last 5 months since the hurricane, especially with daily news of rising fascism around the world AND in our country, and especially in the high winds that damaged our roof (AGAIN) last week, my body experiences FEAR that I am going to DIE.
So I have to remind myself what my work with the dying in the last 35 years has taught me: none of us get out of here alive. The point of the game of life is not to outlive it. The point of life is to live in alignment with our values.
All of this update is to say this: I’m upright, riding the waves of change, loving my private coaching clients, the women in my priestess community, the dying, the grieving and the local marginalized communities that I have the honor to serve. I am working on the final touches of a new home study course called Mess to Success: Optimize Your Space for Work, Life and Love! More on that later...
I hope you are also resourced, resilient, riding the waves of change, and serving those in your care.
Photo of my youngest child Sam Goldon, riding the waves of change January 1, 2025, taken by their wife Justine Goldon