Rivers and Rocks

A few weeks ago I was talking with a woman who is a leadership consultant. Among many skills, Leah, the consultant, is her ability to listen to all sides and then bring out of the differences an agreed upon truth. Sitting in such a session, I marveled at Leah's ability to honor the feelings and opinions of everyone in the room even though those feelings and opinions often came from opposite and conflicting perspectives. At the end of the meeting I asked her how she does it -- how she can genuinely respect such opposing viewpoints making everyone involved feel heard, valued, and open.

Her response surprised me. "I learned long ago," she said, "that I must value each person's best side and assume, despite what they might be showing me at the moment that they live in their best selves." She went on to explain that often we say we're "respecting" someone when in actuality we're giving them the "benefit of the doubt," which she described as seeing the person as their best self 80% of the time. "That's not good enough," Leah explained, "because that damn 20% dominates and we assume that their best selves are contingent on situations or specific events or even specific moods or even days of the week. We must see the best self of everyone 100% of the time and in doing so, that is what we shall receive from them -- good and honorable people."

I am an 80% person and on some days a 50% or perhaps even 30% believer in the best self. To give it 100% seems impossible, equivalent to climbing Everest or performing brain surgery. Not that I don't want to be a 100% believer, but I'm not certain I'm capable of it.

"Are you capable of trying?" Leah asked me.

"I suppose I am, but..." I feebly responded to which she put up her finger and said, "In finishing that sentence your are committing to not trying. It is only in the trying that you catch yourself, that your conscience says, 'I am not accepting this person, whoever that person may be, as capable of living up to their best self.' When you catch the voice doubting that is when you say, 'I will erase my doubt and assume best intentions, best potential from this person.' And when you do that enough times, the doubt will fade away and you will begin to see the best self in everyone."

I am not a fan of Oprah. I don't read Deepok or the Dali Lama or meditate at coastal ashrams. My house is not filled with incense or with books teaching me about Feng Shui or balanced living. I don't go to church and until recently, with a growing list of friends and family diagnosed with cancer, I have not been a person who has attempted to utilize prayer.

I do not surrender. I do not "Let Go and Let God" or anybody for that matter. I prefer to live with my feet firmly planted on the ground. This became even clearer to me this past week as we vacationed in New Mexico, spending days marveling at the blueness of the desert sky and the shades of red on the mountain horizons.

On long hikes through canyons and the shores of the Rio Grande we ventured through time measuring our steps in the flow of rivers and the weight of rock, the cycle of water and the sculpting of earth. Leahs' words came back to me with every breath I sucked in, my sea level lungs challenged by the 7000 foot elevation and the steep, narrow trails of the ascending canyons.

I want to dismiss her words as hokey, as fluff used to market books and schedule expensive lectures, but the more I counted my steps up the rocky trails, the more I marveled at the patience of geologic time, the more I realized how right she is. I'm not exactly sure of the connection, but somewhere between the basalt and the tuffs, the waterfalls and the wide river beds, I committed myself to trying to understand the people in my life who irritate and annoy me, who anger and enrage me, who seem to purposefully find how to drag their long nails across a dusty chalkboard.

Perhaps it was the desert air or the heat of the sun despite the snow on the ground. Perhaps it was the rocks, mountains of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and sand and time. Perhaps it was the layers of age pressed into the earth or the water on its return journey down the same river through the same canyon generation after generation. Perhaps it was feeling insignificant not only in size to the canyon walls, but in comparison to geologic history.

We visited the cave dwellings of the "ancient ones" and even among all the tourists from France and New Jersey, their was a vibration of time and purpose carved in those cliffs. The narrow passages, the depths of the kivas, and the perfect arc of each dwelling seemed significant and important. The best self was present even in the petroglyphs and hand-made bricks.

Early this morning, as we waited to board our flight back home we met a woman from Australia. She had spent time in Santa Fe not exploring the wilderness, but taking classes in what she vaguely described as "energy work." In her late sixties, perhaps even early seventies, she talked with great animation about energy's memory, how we carry with us all of time. "Your vibration or your aura, as it were," she explained with her hands flowing through curves of air, "is specific to a place and time. Actually, it's specific to the place and time of your mother at least two months before you born. When you arrive back to this place, you are perfectly aligned with the energy of the earth, the vibration of the place. You are, in every sense of the word, home."

I am not a desert dweller. While the high desert is one of my favorite locations to vacation, I could not live with the dust and sand, the wind and the thunder clouds, the cacti or the snakes. While I was born in Iowa, I have lived most of my 48 years here in the Pacific Northwest. As we flew over the mountains today and ascended over Puget Sound, I was reminded of a drive my brother and I made from a small airport in Iowa northwest to the birthplace of my mother years ago. As much as the Pacific Northwest feels like home, I remember carving our way through the cornfields of Iowa and knowing I'd been there before, not just as a small child, but always. As if the corn and the sky and the dairy cows and the puffy clouds were as much a part of me as the rain and evergreens and salt water of Seattle.

Who is my best self? Most days I don't even think about it. Most days I am completely caught up in what must happen next. But this I know: My best self is rooted in place, in the unseen rhythm of the earth. In order to meet my best self and, I suppose, to allow myself to see the best self of those around me, I must be outdoors where rocks and rivers whisper in languages I'm just beginning to understand.