Stress is our body's natural biological response when triggered by a threat of imminent danger or a demand. This response has evolved over the millennia (and continues to!) to a perfected system-wide series of chemical releases and reactions for optimizing our survival.

Our typical reaction includes:

• Increased focus and attention
• Increased heart rate to optimize oxygenation
• Shift of energy and strength to particular areas of the body
• Suppression of the immune and digestive systems. (Who needs to fight off a cold or finish digesting that meal when we ourselves may become a meal?)
• Converted energies for strength and stamina
• Released cortisol

After a threatening event, our systems return to normal and we carry on digesting food, fighting off potential illness, and planning our next steps.

All of these reactions, honed over tens of thousands of years, support an appropriate response for physical danger--fight, flight or freeze. It is only in our most recent generations that our experience with stress has shifted from a real need to protect our physical bodies to a perceived need to protect our sense of self.

But our biology automatically responds the same--whether there is an actual threat or a perceived threat--and today, it can lead to chronic health problems.

(This is the second part in a three part series. Read Part I Here)

I'm attracted to older, decaying, dying and dead trees. The fascination began as a youth when first seeing a leaf skeleton. Who knew leaves had bones! When I first hiked in the Sierras in my early twenties, it was the twisted remnants of the Foxtail Pines and hardy weather worn cedars that drew me. They have so much more character than their healthy younger relatives!

It was late July for this trip, which is springtime at the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevadas. At about 9,200 feet, the forest was familiar: mixed conifer with granite boulders and grasses. Occasional patches of color dotted the trail as chipmunks scurried about doing their business. The last of the humans had passed--it was about 5:00 P.M. and I still had about three miles to my first night's camp at Vogelsang.

"Uphill, I think," I responded to the tightly wound ranger as we searched for an alternate, less smoke-laden trail than the initial trip I planned. It was July 22, 2018, almost ten days after the Ferguson Fire ignited adjacent to Yosemite National Park.

I received my wilderness permit some three months before in early April. I'm sure it took at least a month for me to learn how to navigate the online maps enough to decide a reasonable route for my first seven day solo backpacking trip. I spent months of planning, gathering equipment and supplies, and training my body to carry 30+ pounds on my back for this trip--I wasn't going to let a regional fire stop me from this exciting journey on the most renowned segment of the John Muir Trail (JMT) from the valley floor of Yosemite to Tuolomne Meadows.

A year and a half ago at the Lake County Symphony's rehearsal performance for Christmas, 2011, Carl Stewart, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, gave a performance that sent chills up my spine. Uncontrollable tears poured down my cheeks as I knew of his recent diagnosis. I had to leave my seat and compose myself in the foyer.

Carl's voice was one of the strongest and powerful voices I have ever heard. On that day at the symphony, he had come back from the edge of death, which is what led to the diagnosis. He put his whole body into Oh Holy Night  and it was an incredulous performance, to say the least. While it was a rehearsal performance, he held nothing back. Instead, the sweat and shaking that comes from a welling up and explosion of energy from deep in the soul--that place that carries the body beyond its normal performance level--was where this song emerged from.

From what i could tell every time I saw Carl after that, this was where he lived his life. I don't know if Carl could hold back in anything, though I really didn't know him that well. What I did know is what I saw over the next year and a half as Carl battled strong and hard with cancer. The ebb and flow of his energy and health was a telling story of his determined will to spend the greatest length and most valuable time with his beloved family.

{Repost from CSJ Blog 4/19/2013}

It's official. I'm a homeowner. For the first time. By the grace of divine unfolding and many friends assisting along the way, the house I've lived in for the past six months has become mine. The poignancy of this moment is humbling and I miss Shyla more than I can hold in my heart right now. It's spilling over.

It's full spring here--the leaves have all sprouted on the maples and dogwoods--the blooms are bursting forth as much as they can in the heavily forested pines where I live--where I now call home. The breeze dances the new green leaves in a shadowy Samba.

Gratitude? That is so diminutive of a term for what I'm feeling in this moment....

{Originally posted 2/23/2013}

My new home boasts a small picture window. It peers out at a scene that could be mistaken for a  painting. The big stalk of a pine tree is offset to the left with a crumbling rock wall cascading in front of it. The ivy wends it way up the slight slope and pine needles and leaves litter the winter floor. It's a dream come true for me.

My living room couch is positioned to look out this window and I can tell it appreciates it. I can tell, because it welcomes me with open arms to join it in reverence during morning meditation.

On this particular morning, the snow began falling just about day break. Slight flurries drifted on occasion and as the incense stick slowly burned down, I would open my eyes to discover the changing scenery. Each time, something new presented itself--little chickadees darting in and out, scratching for a morning meal; large Stellar Jays bullying their way to the food; a sideways snow flurry; a bit of sunlight; and on.

Without a concern, care or comment, the window frame held and revealed it all.

Here's a summary of the seeds of humility I gathered in our latest trip to Thailand (Part I, Part II, Part III):

1. Bringing the most awareness I can to a situation is a valuable contribution; I can dedicate any merit from my actions, however small, to the betterment of others--whoever I choose.
   
2. We can come together in our families, neighborhoods and communities with shared values that include courtesy, cooperation, and a desire for others to be safe, successful and happy.
3. There are other ways to be entertained that don't include harming animals or humans.

Each seed informs how I am choosing to step into empowered action.

Continuing on from Part I and Part II, where we explored how  people can dedicate themselves to the well-being of others (monks and nuns) and how a whole community can choose to prioritize safety and kindness (transportation in Thailand), the final seed of humility I experienced in our recent trip to Thailand was the treatment of elephants and other animals so that tourists like myself can be entertained.

I was the youngest of six kids in our rowdy Italian family. As much as I liked to tease my siblings that Mom and Dad stopped having kids after me because "they finally reached perfection," the reality was we were all invariably at the brunt of a lot of jokes and put downs.

Taking up from Part I, if the good we do in this life can be given, or dedicated, to others, what happens when you live in a culture where everyone is working toward least harm and the greater good of all? What happens when everyone comes together in their community for the the very best of not only themselves, but everyone around them?

I witness this in Thailand not in overly overt ways, but see it built into the very fabric of life. It's seamlessly invisible until you tease apart patterns and behaviors.