Dear beloved friends,
I’m writing to you from the back porch of dear friends in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I have set up a temporary home. My husband and I evacuated my almost 90-year-old parents to a retirement community from Asheville, North Carolina after Hurricane Helene ravaged our mountain community several weeks ago. I’m catching my breath today and living with the question: How do we respond when Wisdom is not a theory or even a practice, but a living stream of LOVE that we draw down minute by minute when life shocks us with the unexpected?
Our personal story, like so many around us, involves unimagined property damage, flooding, and living without electricity, water or capacity to contact the outside world. Our story also includes quickly organizing to help one another, pooling resources with neighbors who stepped forward with what they could offer the whole, and working together on behalf of the group. Amidst the devastation, we joined together to clear roads, find a circuitous path through neighbors’ driveways (because the bridge out of our cove was washed away), and rebuild a road enough to get my parents and others out five days after the storm. It was nothing short of a miracle. We were received by a loving community in Raleigh who have eased the destabilization of such a move for my parents and me. It has been an ‘all hands on deck’ few weeks where I have been leaning heavily into our Wisdom lineage as a guide for this ‘boots on the ground’ work. Chants sustain me. Centering Prayer reminds me to release. Sacred gestures connect me to a deep and wide Heart that holds the All of this life with tenderness and care.
Some of you met my father, Mahan, in August during our online Conscious Aging seminar with Cynthia. He is well, as is my mother. We have all had many opportunities to consciously invite acceptance, surrender to what is, and find a spiritual suppleness in the midst of unfamiliar spaces and routines.
I have thought often of the Tibetan Buddhist practice of creating sand mandalas. There is meticulous care that goes into constructing the mandala, then it is raked over not long after completion. This visceral experience of impermanence and sudden change which I felt when I first experienced the sand mandala practice is with me now. Logion 42 from The Gospel of Thomas “Come into Being as you pass away” accompanies me.
I am deeply grateful to so many of you who have held North Carolina in daily prayers, sent supplies, money and supported us in countless ways.
Life continues its own drumbeat and expected seasonal rhythm, even when hurricanes strike, when wars continue in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Middle East, and when many of you are experiencing personal and community-wide challenges.
October is also the time that Wisdom Waypoints comes to you seeking support for our annual appeal. There is an inner tension I notice in naming our annual appeal right now. So many are giving generously to needed causes. Others are stretched in challenging ways. And . . . I strongly believe in the work of Wisdom Waypoints, the network I have felt so tangibly, both in the imaginal and physical realms, these past few weeks. Wisdom Waypoints has experienced growth, vitality and flow as an organization this year, and we have big hopes and dreams for 2025. We invite you to consider supporting our shared work with your end-of-year giving.
With feet on the ground and a full heart, Jeanine