Seeding Change in the Moonlight: How Would Dolly Do It?
Home planet is tilting in its gentle orbit around the sun in late August, and we are seeing the Sturgeon Moon on the rise this week. The Sturgeon Moon is poetically named by the Native American Anishinaabe, who saw the full August moon as Nmé, the "Grandfather Fish," the one who swims in the depths, carries the wisdom of the ages and hope for the future.
Sturgeon is dinosaur old. Old enough to teach us how to manage the changes that accompany this season. A deep partial lunar eclipse happens the night of the Sturgeon Moon, darkening and turning parts a reddish color. Red is the color of blood, the color of what runs inside, keeping us alive. Yet when we see blood erupting from the body, we think of wounds, injury, suffering. We think death is nigh. The pale darkness, the tinge of red, and the changes brought on at the rising of Sturgeon Moon are in our awareness, in our Anima Mundi, our World-Soul.
In a way, Sturgeon Moon might be unsettling. The hush of darkness. Seeing red. The reality of death is what makes some of us so terrified of change. But it need not be that way if we are willing to go deeper and find inspiration, focus, and calm purpose within. We might even learn from and imitate a bright beacon who did just that. She navigated darkness by staying the course, going deeper, and opening to light.
Dolly Parton, legendary singer/songwriter, world-tender, whose life was about changing paradigms, challenging the status quo, and making life more positive for everyone around her died this week at the distinguished age of 80. Dolly's notable down-home personality, outrageously coiffed hairdo and edgy rhinestone costumes were just the beginning of her perennial mystique. Her poignant song lyrics, her lilting voice with always a whisper of a cry, and her kind and buoyant charisma touched more people over a public life spanning 70+ years than we can imagine. A whole globe will mourn her as a genuinely stellar person, someone who cared about the wider "We," the good of the whole. She even left a time capsule with a new song, "My Place in History," to be opened in 2046. It was left in a sealed chestnut box, a tribute to her Uncle Bill who cared deeply about the restoration of the American chestnut tree.
As we navigate change on a global scale, away from warfare, economic collapse, environmental devastation, and truly unhealthy, unjust paradigms of governance, healthcare, housing, food administration, and education, what can we learn from Dolly, who cared about the "We" we're becoming? Are we, as Dolly lamented in "9 to 5," barely "gettin' by, all takin' and no givin'?" Or are we headed toward something new? "There's a better life, and you think about it, don't you?" I sure do.
What secret did Dolly know, that Sturgeon knows, about living and thriving in the shadowy moonlight? How do we nurture seeds that are germinating in partial darkness?
It's first and foremost the ability to navigate change. Dolly's adaptability in her life journey drew from her family's roots in Appalachian poverty. Her song "Coat of Many Colors" demonstrates what was core to Dolly, that wealth comes from love, not stuff. Twenty-one gold and platinum records, twelve feature films and forty-five movie credits, Dollywood theme park, many other industry honors and accolades, a biographical movie and a Broadway musical, highly effective charitable foundations, even her induction into six major halls of fame could not compromise her humility, integrity, beauty, and compassion for the wider "We" of humanity and the whole planet. Her music reflected the devastating tapestry of poverty, ignorance, and xenophobia that could be transformed through resourcefulness, generosity, education, radical hospitality, and inclusion. Change comes from within, our own interior disposition to not only imagine vaguely that something better could happen, but to envision the change with clarity and enact it with intention. We are agents of change. We do it by making it happen. Maybe by sewing rags together to make something beautiful, like Dolly's Mama.
Second, we can learn the need for depth to balance our desire for frills and thrills, for "Showtime!" - all the time. Dolly was known for her excessive stage presence, her sparkly glamour and over-the-top costuming and props. But she was grounded in her family, her art, her focus on core values and her spiritual practice, making her unique among many of her Nashville and Hollywood contemporaries. She fashioned her "shell" as her interior sanctuary, not a fortress to keep others out. She was pragmatic about wealth and abundance in the way female Sturgeon carry hundreds of thousands of roe in their spectacular bodies, a vast potential for life that projects into the future, far beyond the limits of self and what we can imagine will benefit us directly. We can learn that we are planting seeds in good faith, knowing we may not live to see them grow to fullness. Sometimes retreating and going deeper allows us to emerge more fully into the light. Mama Sturgeon holds the secret of life in the shadowy depths, and so do we.
Finally, our interior life can and should be nurtured in the darkness. Indeed that's when and where we are most productive in our efforts to deepen, to transform, and to learn something new. Dolly's music was most poignant as a way of reflecting and transforming pain, loss, and sadness into learning and mission. Her music wouldn't have touched us so deeply - "I Will Always Love You," "Hard Candy Christmas," "Jolene," "Here You Come Again" - unless she had been immersed herself in the realms of perplexity, sorrow, and loss, and learned to resurface anew. Going deeper when we feel loss is perhaps the most effective way to birth new life hiding inside.
This is a moment in our collective planetary journey that invites Dolly-strength, Sturgeon-depth, and the ancient wisdom of taking the long view. How do we tend the seeds of change in the moonlight?
As we navigate the change of seasons, the warming of our planet, the tumult of chaos and violence transitioning toward equitable solutions, the change in global dis-ease toward better, fuller life, maybe we can learn from the long-lived Grandfather Fish who flourishes in deep time. Maybe we can learn from Dolly, whose mission was to make life better for the wider "We." Won't we miss her music, her voice, her smile, her warmth, her enduring energy, wit, and charm? Yes, but it would be a great tragedy if we missed the lesson of her life, if we didn't nurture the many acts of kindness, generosity, and radical hospitality she planted and embodied.
Maybe we can learn to cultivate whatever seeds for change are hidden deep within, and grow them intentionally for next year's Spring. For now, we let them bathe in the red-tinged moonlight.
Comments