Impossible, Until It's Not

September Shows & November Retreat

“The ‘all too short lease of summer’ ends.  The planet comes into balance, equinox.  We are reminded during these gentle, balanced days that our lives forever encompass conflicting realities, yin and yang,  summer and autumn, light and shadow; the secret is to live in balance among them, holding the tension until ‘the third’ appears.”  By Marv Hiles The Almanac of the Soul

There is a certain sense of purpose, rhythm and rightness that comes when one season hands over into the next. Although autumn officially is still a few weeks away, with the beginning of a new school year, the “feeling of fall” is here.  The crickets are singing even in the daytime hours, my garden is getting leggy and golden at the edges, in our little college town the locals are prepared for a couple weeks of encountering new wide-eyed students driving the wrong way down one way streets. There is a bitter sweetness, as we realize that summer went surprisingly fast and that the turning of a page has already happened.  The harvest is here with all its joyous bounty and all its poignant long last looks. As Emily Dickens wrote, “the summer light escapes into the beautiful”. 

This is the time of year when my sweet chattering kindergartener let go of my hand and stepped into her first montessori classroom, the season when that same brilliant daughter, at seventeen-years-old, waved from the doorway of her first college dormitory, as my husband and I drove away, proud and utterly bewildered at how 17 years could possibly have gone by so quickly.  It is the time of year when my family will often gather for a Labor Day picnic-style lunch on my sister’s back porch, with my father in attendance, the man whom as a child I believed was the tallest strongest person on the planet, who is now ninety-five-years old, still blessed with good health, bright intelligence and a full head of grey hair.

There is a rightness to the passage of time, and an inevitability to the turning of the seasons.  A time for reflection and to remember and release the unchangeable past, lean into the uncertainty and promise of an unknowable future.  It is a time when I sense more deeply the power and poignancy of the eternal now.

And yet, although there is meaning and purpose to the cycles of seasons, it is also important to know (in this season of change, political uncertainty and promise) that some things are not inevitable. It is good to embrace the natural turning of seasons, but it is also good to press back on what only merely presents itself as a given.

Last evening I drove  home after singing for a political fundraiser, the sky was a beautiful Maxfield Parrish painting of pink, purples and blues.  The late summer fields were full of newly baled hay and the green trees were tinged at the very tops and sides with the changing colors of late summer and early autumn. I was filled with love for my home state and for this beautiful and yet increasingly embattled rural setting. Indiana is not one of the midwestern states that is given “battleground” attention, and yet the same issues that are challenging many midwestern states, urban centers and rural communities are here and fully present. The gathering was in support of the campaign of an energetic, passionate young woman (Michelle Higgs) who is running for a state house seat in a rural and heavily gerrymandered district in South Central Indiana.  She’s a mother, a community advocate for health care, clean water and mental health and addiction services, and person of deep faith - who has stepped up because, like Ted Lasso, she still believes most folks are doing about the best they can and that rural areas need champions who know and love a spirit of place. I sat at a round table of concerned community members sharing a meal and talking about the profound effects of an increasingly extreme super majority, including legislation and policies that allowed an environmental disaster - a chemical bloom that caused unusually high numbers of cancer cases among local residents, current legislation that will lower the requirements for all Indiana high school diplomas that two of the major state colleges have already said will not be sufficient to admit Indiana high school students into their institutions. Although the local hospital now has cancer facilities, they have lost their maternity/obstetrics department, because current women’s health laws are now so vague and draconian it has become too risky for doctors and hospitals to operate or practice in many parts of our state - leaving women in rural districts (with forced or planned pregnancies) to have no local access to women’s health care. 

Before the event began, Michelle taped a large poster saying “Believe” to the back wall (remember Ted Lasso).  That simple message was a reminder to everyone in attendance that we all possess the ability to learn and grow, that injustice and the current trends that divide our communities and limit conversations for the common good are not unchangeable.  There is another wheel turning, a better way that is still reachable — and justice for every person no matter who they are, who they love, their spiritual tradition, where they originate from or what they look like. There are good people across the political spectrum who are tired of the politics of division, hatred and distrust. When we are told that the opposing party is evil or the enemy, headed straight to hell in a handbasket, we are saying “no, these people are our family, friends and neighbors and there is a better way than what we are currently seeing at play.”

There are many who say that in a “deep red” state controlled by an increasingly extreme supermajority that elections are inevitable. But there are others who know that just because something is called impossible, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to change it. Things are only impossible until they are not. I am encouraged that this season of change, there are those who are changing the conversation. Life-long Republicans bravely speaking up against extreme policies and politicians who do not represent their core values. Democrats who were all but in despair rising up with the energy and possibility of this moment, embracing the language of joy and positive change.

We cannot rewind the summer and play it again. The world continues to turn on its axis —summer will become fall, fall will become winter, winter will become spring. We cannot stop the sun from rising or setting. But we can determine how we live in all that motion.

We can either try to yank the wheel backwards to some mythical Trumpian time when a wealthy bully might hold all access to power - or we can imagine and lean into what love as public policy might look like and how a fairer system, truly focused on responsibility and the common good, might change our communities for the better.

Here’s a song called “Impossible Until It’s Not” from my album The Point of Arrival.

Question - What does this song bring up for you? Have you ever stepped forward into the “impossible” and glad you did?

Upcoming Shows & Retreats

For more info & tickets, visit my Website Tour Page

I’m doing limited events this fall and shows are filling up, which is very exciting….but do get your tickets early! Hope to see you there!

I have two very exciting String Quartet shows in September! Here’s the links

Sept 14, 2024 The Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Bloomington, Indiana. With Gary Walters, The Gathering of Spirits String Quartet & Special Guest Jason Wilber

Sept 29, 2024 The Old Town School of Folk Music - With Gary Walters and The Gathering of Spirits String Quartet

Retreat - Just Posted

There is very limited space for the retreat. Reserve you space soon. Here’s the Link for more information and reservations.