I have prayed about doing this I Ching so publically.
I am taking these risks for my Lady Gaia.
You may say my Lady is not the most beautiful or the most powerful Lady,
Or some other invidious comparison to try and daunt my loyalty, but I am immune to such slurs.
I am of her. My flesh is her flesh.
Some sort of feudal allegiance is an inadequate metaphor. She lives in me and through me.
While I may be just a passing bit of who she is, I am her, and my whole being resonates with her purpose.
My loyalty to her does not detract from my individuality.
My dedication to my Lady creates a fullness of expression
and a harmony of action
which allows me to transcend my finitude
and to live in a largeness of time and space not otherwise available to me.
As I join with millions of her other manifestations, I become her.
I shine forth with the miracle of her.
It is because I have been broken that I can do this.

It is not the life my parents wanted for me, and I have moved toward this life with great hesitation and deliberation, goaded by my failures to live a “normal,” planful, life.

Others may find the path of “selfless” devotion more easily than I have,
but it is seldom easy.
I joyfully anticipate the time of breaking that lies ahead for many in Industrial Civilization.
I like to think, and I hold as a matter of faith
That the coming demise of our opulent way of life will open doors for many,
as they have been opened for me,
and that eventually a new culture will rise out of our shared experience.
I foretell
That in such a culture it will not matter how long you live.
It will matter what you share with others
while you are here.
My heart leaps with joy to glimpse a Way
Beyond lives ending with “heroic measures,”
A Way into the heroic ordinary
of bicycle rides in heavy traffic,
A Way into the heroic ordinary of waiting in the cold for a bus that does not come,
A Way into acceptance of limitations
Set within,
Expressing,
A vastness of life
Far beyond our knowing
and
Shining in our every gesture and choice.
This is the perfection
The old woman, I Ching,
held up for me in Hexagram #42.