Presence

I just returned from a speaking gig at the US Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Summit in Washington DC. I was invited to speak on diversifying the energy efficiency workforce based on my experience in developing and implementing relative curriculum at Prairie View A&M University, an HBCU (historically black university). Let me just start off by saying that this work has been absolutely sacred to me. It has been an honor, a privilege, and a life altering experience to get to know and to work with all of the students that I have over the last five years. It has broadened my perspective. It has changed me.

Now for a bit of truth telling. When the DOE asked me to speak at this conference a couple of months ago my gut reaction was “no.” I thought that I probably had important insights to share, but the truth is that I’ve been feeling burn out and I just had no energy surrounding it. But “no” is not what came out of my mouth. Nope. I tend to be a bit too much of a yes person, so the word that came out was “sure.” Saying no to the DOE just didn’t seem like a very good idea even though that is very much what I wanted to say. I should also mention here that I have developed many great connections and friends at the DOE over the past five years. I value all that they are doing in the world, and I certainly didn’t want to let them down. So I signed on.

Flash forward to three days ago. It’s Tuesday, the day before the start of the conference. My presentation was already done the week before and had been easy enough to put together. It had been informative for me, and I knew it would be for others as well. So I wasn’t stressed about the presentation. Monday and Tuesday were a busy two days for me as I had two separate architectural assignments that I had to get done before I left. This is to say that I had to be a little more focused than I have been since arriving in Vermont.

I finished working around 6PM and still needed to pack and think through all of my travel logistics. I had a very early flight the next morning in order to arrive for the start of the conference. My family, in the meantime, had made plans to go to The Wheel for dinner as it was our nephew’s best friend’s last night visiting us. I knew in my gut that I shouldn’t go with them. I needed to pack and get to bed. Inside my being was saying “no.” But that’s not what I said out loud. I said “yes.” So off to dinner we went. We had a great conversation, so no regrets… except for maybe the loaded fries or perhaps the mac & cheese.

But two hours later stress had collapsed in on me as my body was crying to get to bed and I still had to pack. Packing did not go well. Instead of a seasoned, nearly fifty year old traveler packing, imagine a petulant five year old who was up way past her bedtime trying to pack while throwing a temper tantrum. Yup, that was me. As each second ticked by I knew it meant one less second of precious sleep and my decision making faculties just tanked more and more. I was packing for two days. It should not have been that hard. I finally got my head to the pillow by 10:30 PM. My alarm was set for 2:30 AM.

I had planned out each step I needed to take when I got up so as to get out of the door on schedule. I had to do this because I knew I would be so tired that I wouldn’t be functioning well. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a morning person, and that is a slight understatement. I followed my steps like a champ, though, and as I was ready to walk out the door I made sure to kiss my half awake wife goodbye. I turned to go and was halfway to the steps when Shannon gently called out “Shelly.” I turned around. She simply said, “you are getting on a plane and will be away for two days.” This immediately pulled me into the moment. I had been running on autopilot, right up to kissing my wife goodbye. I walked back over and kissed her like I meant it.

There are things that happen in our lives that plant seeds deep within us. We may be aware of the planting when it occurs, or we may not. Either way, we have no idea when it will blossom or what it will look like. About seven years ago as Shannon and I were beginning to think about how we would next fulfill our purpose in and vision for life, we discovered this amazing place in Vermont called the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln. When I say discovered, I mean we found it online. On a visit to Vermont, we decided one day to go check it out. We just figured somehow that it would be o.k. to just drop in, or maybe we had actually reached out to the founders Gillian and Russel and they had invited us to just stop by whenever. So we did. Unannounced. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. I mean we knew it had a farm as an integral part of being a “center for contemplative ecology”, but I mean it was like a farm.

Do you know how hard it is to keep up with a farm on a daily basis??? They had veggies, chickens, and a cow across over a hundred acres. When we arrived we were lucky to find Russel. He was the only one there and was in the middle of his daily chores, which basically take from sunrise until past sunset. And here these strangers just showed up on his doorstep wanting to know the meaning of life, essentially. Russel is a tall man with long dreads. His being is rough and gentle at the same time, worn by nature in a beautiful way because he is fully surrendered to it. When we introduced ourselves there was a split second of “what is this???” in his eyes immediately followed by the aforementioned surrender. He could have easily said, “um, I really don’t have time for this today. Maybe you could come back some other time?” In other words, he could have said “no.” But without hesitation, he shifted his entire day with an open hearted, no regrets, no question about it: “YES!” Then he proceeded to take us on a long, slow tour of their place while telling us the entire journey of how it came into being. And, yes, all while contemplating the ways of Life. It was exactly what we needed to hear in that moment as we wondered about creating our own place to do this work in the world. Incidentally, this place is worth checking out:

https://www.mettaearth.org

But there was something more important that Russel shared with us that day. Shannon and I both felt it palpably and even noted it to each other out loud after the fact and have many times since. It felt profound, but in ways that we knew we couldn’t fully comprehend or inhabit in that moment. The gift that Russel truly gave us that day was presence. We of course quickly understood that we were disrupting his entire day and that it would have repercussions. It’s not like the chores could remain undone. We apologized for this profusely, but Russel stopped us dead in our tracks, looked us both in the eye, and made it perfectly clear that, “there is nothing more important than this right now.” And he meant it.

The years that have ensued got busy. Things have happened for us in much the way that they had happened for Russel and Gillian- by divine intervention. Or if that makes you uncomfortable, let’s say with the help of the Consciousness that is the connective tissue between us, that knows All, and therefore knows much better than each of us individually the best route forward. The place in the world that we were looking for came to us a mere two years later. It is forty acres of forest in the Green Mountains two gaps down from Metta Earth. We could get to them by hiking the Long Trail. No way should we have been able to afford forty acres. In so many ways it was more of a pipe dream, but one we were hell bent on. We have since added the Shittin’ Shanty, the Tiny Drop (our tiny house), a tent platform, a meditation platform, a solar array, a spring-fed water system, and of course the moon gate to the clearing. It is a completely off-grid haven surrounded by national forest. We love it. We will be expressing our love for it for the rest of our lives as we tend this place into a healthy ecosystem inclusive of human visitors who desperately need to relearn that we are meant to be here, that we belong here, and that we have value to add to the very nature that supports us.

In the meantime, I got another assignment. Perhaps it was my dues for my dream having come true. Yet I have never thought of it that way. I think more so that teaching at PVAMU has been part of my continued preparation in how to help realize the greater dream of inhabiting a healthy social-ecological system, which is what our mountain property is all about. What I know for sure is that it was another divine intervention, and certainly not a detour even though it did delay our move to Vermont. But, man, it got busy. So busy. I am at the end of a five year whirlwind of activity and accomplishments that should have taken twenty. I guess we didn’t have time for that. The learning has to come quickly now.

This brings me back to 3:45 AM on Wednesday, July 10, 2019. I am not quite as tired as I had anticipated. Shannon just called me to presence as I walked out the door. I am driving up Route 30 with not another car in sight. The view is absolutely gorgeous on this route with the Green Mountains to the right, the Adirondacks to the left, and quintessential rolling Vermont farms in the foreground. Only not now, because it is pitch black. I am watching for deer and other critters and sinking into the moment as I do so. Then it hits me. That seed that Russel planted so long ago comes bursting forth from the darkness. It comes as a thought. “I have nothing else to do today.” All of the tension that I felt the night before, pent up from the moment that I said “yes” to this whole thing, melted right out of me. “I have nothing better to do today.” This is exactly where I am supposed to be and I don’t have to do anything but show up and be present to the moment.

I proceeded with that sense of calm and everything went so incredibly smoothly in my travels. I arrived at the hotel, was able to check in early, drop my stuff, and walk down to the opening keynote right on time. It was magical. And then something else hit me… like a ton of bricks. The opening keynote speaker was Rick Perry. I literally felt like I had just arrived in the Twilight Zone! I hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to the details of this conference. What I knew for sure was that it was going to be a bit of a different crowd than I am used to running in. It is more geared toward the owners of big building stocks- the Hiltons and L’Oreals of the world- rather than architects and engineers. I found his speech to be utterly disturbing. I desperately searched the room to see if others were as disturbed as I was (hard to tell) or to see if I could spot any familiar faces from the DOE. No relief in sight. So I drew from my earlier realization with the thought, “there is nowhere else I am supposed to be.”

To cut to the chase, I eventually found my friends. Some of them I knew and some were new to me. My session was well-received, sparked a meaningful discussion, and created new connections. I am certain that every connection that I made throughout the conference was significant in ways that I may never know. Life works like that. That is worth repeating- life works. Life is brilliant, in fact. There is nothing more important at this very moment than to just be present to it all. Sometimes that means saying yes and sometimes that means saying no. I think the secret is to trust whichever choice you make and to be present with whatever it brings. Life will figure you out.