It isn’t every day that you hear great music with a real message.  I mean, not everyone is John Lennon or Bob Marley – right? 

That’s what I thought, but I had to think again when Erin Ross introduced me to Luminaries, a Venice based consciousness-expanding Hip Hop group whose history as teachers, social workers, activists, MCs, and instruments of service informs their music and their message.  These are not just incredible musicians, but messengers of hope, whose song titles on their debut album, “One,” read like a list of mantras: “Everything is One,” “Only Love,” “Show the World,” “Peace” and “Be the Change.”

How did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All it's beauty?

It felt the encouragement of Light

Against its being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too frightened.

- Hafiz

Some days I wonder how I will ever be able to fully offer to the world that which has been given to me.  I, like you, am gifted.  I know that if I were to open up, to sing my song to all who had ears to listen, I could heal the entire world, and set everything aflame with the primordial joy of being.

In the Abounding River Logbook, one of the six currents is creation. We say that active creativity is essential to achieving abundance. We must both actively create things in the world, and actively see and create a vision of abundance.  I access creativity through taking personal responsibility. I take responsibility for how I’m acting, what I’m producing, but also what I am actively creating and envisioning. I take responsibility for my vision of the world, and recognize that I can not only create a new vision, but recognize that I have been actively creating my vision of the world all along.

I created a design that was six years in the making that I made become my vision of the world. Out of my education and work in social justice, I envisioned an invasive tree that took too much from the soil. The tree represented the power structures and oppressive systems I wasn’t committed to. In my design (see second image) I created a tearing up of the tree through various metaphorical imagery (vines tugging down the branches, something rotting away the roots… branches being cut off). All of these metaphors I lived by- on how to deconstruct the tree that I saw as being damaging to the overall environment.

And deconstruction is how my life looked for 6 years. I used criticism against everything without much idea for how to instill hope or rebirth after the death of the system. I used various methods of social change to address problems that I saw, and constantly came across seeing that I was never bringing answers or solutions to them. My experience of the world was through that vision that I was actively creating and recreating.      Two weeks ago I really noticed that my tree metaphor wasn’t working for me to create hope. So I set off to find a new image, a rebirth of the tree, or something that I was committed to. I created the image above, the conclusion of the oppressive tree, and a new habitat for a rebirth. In my vision, the roots have been torn away to where all is left is love. Rooted in love, a new sprout is born and there is pure possibility.

As a means to re-train myself in my new vision, I’m taking on the 365 day challenge. Every day for the next year I am creating a piece of art with this new image. Every day through this creativity I am actively creating hope in the world by transforming my vision and by physically expressing my vision to others. I am day by day re-inscribing a new belief through my repeated creations.

The Idea for the practice of 365 projects came from Noah Scalin, who took on creating one image every day with a different medium himself, and then created a journal to encourage others. Check out the book here; check out some of the variations of my design here.              This week I invite you to look at what belief you have that’s causing you suffering. Taking responsibility for it as your creation and not truth is empowering. What can you actively create in its place? What belief can you adopt that serves you and serves the planet? We say that a belief is a thought practiced over and over again. What new thought can you begin with today?

Kaci Christian is a woman with a mission.  Her life has seen her through various careers: as a lecturer, investigative reporter, TV news anchor, sign language interpreter, motivational speaker, and more.  At heart, she is a storyteller - a bridge between the worlds of those who know and do not know, see and do not see, hear and do not hear.

The connecting thread for her has always been a genuine passion for people, animals, the our planet, and a desire to make a positive difference in the world.  That mission is clear in her latest endeavor: The WE conference.

We're going through lots of excited changes and shifts in the backstage of Cafe Gratitude, LLC.  We are moving into using new programs, changing how we manage our finances, and having challenging and inspiring conversations around sharing.  As we stretch and grow as a company we feel those stretch-marks building and lean into the discomfort more and more every day.  Last night at our manager meeting, Terces invited us all to keep the vibration high and the energy moving towards the greatness of all of these changes, no matter how challenging them might be.  Together, we are all taking on no complaining for 21 days.  

To take on this practice, start your commitment now.  If you witness yourself falling into referring to yourself as a victim, or diminishing of something/someone/someplace, then start over!  It's another 21 days until you've accomplished the commitment!  As Terces shared with us last night, complaints are not intended to further a project, they are meant to put in obstacles.  Complaints inhibit progress and function as a disabler.  When I complain, I know that I am taking myself out of the drivers seat to be the victim of the circumstance.  When I complain, I know that I am affirming that complaint- I am making my word create my reality, like an affirmation.  As Terces said last night, ideas and sharing is great, but feedback needs to support the progression of the team.  

I know that this is a longer commitment than a week in our usual "Invitations" on Mondays for the week!  This time I invite you to for the next 21 days starting NOW stop complaining.  See what unveils itself to you.  

Throughout human history, some of the greatest movements with powerful results have mostly been led by charismatic figureheads like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Wangari Maatthai. The truth, however, is that those movements happened because courageous everyday people stood with those leaders for something that seemed impossible - independence, basic human rights and environmental justice - and made a real difference.

·      4 years to generate the collective will that ensures a bright future

·      4 years to begin to turn this ship around and the shift we all know is needed

It's not every day that I turn on the radio.  I make up that most songs on the radio are about indulging messages grounded in separation, longing, and fear.  I've listened to this kind of music before, and in the past I have empathized with messages like: "I'm better than you, I'm the top of the top," "I just can't live without you," and "Everything is messed up, so put your hands in the air."

Nowadays, I'm living life from a more internal approach.  Taking responsibility, practicing love and forgiveness, and choosing beliefs that serve me.  One of my long standing beliefs that does not serve me is that mainstream music isn't worth listening to.

When is the last time you heard a song on the radio that was about finding your voice, living from your heart, or healing the planet?  Well, I heard some songs like these just the other day, and so I'm going to take this opportunity to dispel my (and maybe your) misgivings about what popular music has to offer.

Numbers have a way of making me space 
out, they've always astounded me; but 
breast cancer statistics just floor me. 
In reading them, I feel suddenly on 
high-alert.

“About 1 in 8 women in the United States 
(12%) will develop invasive breast cancer 
over the course of her lifetime,”
according to the CDC, and “for women in 
the U.S., breast cancer death rates are 
higher than those for any other cancer, 
besides lung cancer.”

This is where I need to pause and take 
a breath.  There’s a story in these 
statistics, waiting to be told, and I 
want it to find me...  

It’s not the story of cancer survivors, 
powerful as those stories may be, and 
it’s not the story where we all Race for 
the Cure, raising money to conquer this 
insidious disease with science.  It’s not 
even an exposé about the endocrine-disrupting 
chemicals in our bottled water, the 
electromagnetic energies that we are bathed 
in as city-dwellers, or the soy products you 
should-no wait, shouldn’t, OK, maybe should, 
be eating.  

This is a love story, through and through.  

This is the story about how collectively, 
we women have forgotten to love and adore 
the most life-giving and comforting parts of 
our bodies.  Not with a sweet indifference, or 
an appreciative nod, but through the dis-ease 
story that women across the western world are 
telling themselves about how their breasts are 
NOT ENOUGH.  

Of course, this story comes in as many forms as 
there are women: too much, uneven, marked by time, 
too attention grabbing, invisible... Our breasts 
endure these repetitive thought patterns on a daily 
basis and I can't help but assume what affect they 
are having on our health. While we may never go under 
the knife in the quest for some cultural breast ideal, 
even highly conscious and evolved women can get sucked 
into the trap of dishonoring our bodies.  I know that 
I still can.  I have seen how water crystals change 
when exposed to loving and unloving thoughts (and 
if you haven’t, please check out Messages from Water 
by Masaru Emoto) and as a health educator, I understand 
holistic interconnection. Yet, I’m still not immune from 
sending less-than-adoring messages to my own body.  
Battling the constant wave of disempowering affirmations 
embedded in our culture seems to be an unending practice 
as long as I’m still working, living, and playing within it.


The Abounding River teaches us that sometimes the strong 
medicine we need is CONSCIOUS AFFIRMATION that re-aligns 
us with the positive flow of life.  To battle an epidemic 
of negative affirmation, we need powerful CONSCIOUS medicine.  
Can you imagine that we have the power to change these 
statistics just by changing the way we are collectively 
"talking to" our bodies?  Love may not heal all, but it 
certainly illumines the places that need healing.



My commitment is to taking a stand for all of the women 
and girls in my life, even the ones who have done their 
share of Women’s Movement curriculum.  We get to be the 
change.  Through our conscious re-claiming of the life-force 
in our bodies, we can pave the way for women everywhere to 
find healing relationships to womanhood, sexuality, and empowerment. 

It starts with us.

I invite the women reading this post to take on a healing
 affirmation practice with me, based on the 
Hawaiian Ho’oponopono, for the next 30 days. I'm calling 
it the "Breast Friends Practice". 

Once a day, sit, take a few long, deep breaths with your 
eyes closed and repeat these words, for 5 minutes, or until 
you feel complete:  

“Please forgive me.  I love you.  You are healthy, whole, 
complete, filled with love and light. You are beautiful 
just as you are. ”



Thank you for taking on loving yourself.

Thank you for changing the world.

Being human is a unique kind of joy, a unique kind of sadness, and pain, and ecstasy.  An old woman sat at my bar the other day, and told me she was having a bad day.  She said, "Not all days can be good days, you know."  As short as my life has been, I know this as well.  Not all days are happy days.  Some days are full of anxiety, others brim with sadness, and some seem dark but are laced with hope.  On days like these, I sometimes have trouble accepting my life as it is.  I think "If only they didn't have to go," "If only I hadn't been that way," or "Why is this happening to me?"

At times like these, I try to pay attention to the opportunity that I have.  I chose to have a human experience, and that means that I will find many challenges in my life: separation, death, and parts of myself and others that I do not like.  The tremendous opportunity that I have is to love it all, especially these things that I do not like, and to remember that each of these is a gift from the universe to make my life even more amazing.  Rumi (a 13th century Muslim Mystic and poet), muses on this in his poem Guest House:

The other day I was at the Harrison Cafe (yum!) and someone was sharing with me about a regular customer there that was just diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  She said that she had talked to the woman about the awakening that I had around ordering "I am Healthy" when I had cancer and how hearing that over and over really got me to believe it.  I told her that she should give the woman my phone number and that I would love to talk to her anytime.

Then as I sat there eating my lunch, I was reflecting on how it was for me when I was healing from cancer and how I didn't have a whole lot of energy to seek anyone out or make requests.  I remembered how during that time, what really got me through in a lot of ways was when the staff of Cafe Gratitude reached out to me!  They offered me green juice, they offered me clearings, they offered me guidance, they offered me laughter...  I was spontaneously inspired to buy the woman a gift card so that she could get some I am Healthy on me.  So I asked my server to ring me up for it and I started to tell her what she should tell the woman.  Again, I reflected on how I could stretch myself even further.  So I sat down and wrote the woman a note, inviting her to buy I am Healthys with the gift card and to really breathe in the affirmation every time she ordered it, all the while she drank it and always.  I shared with her that I trusted that her body is healing and that it is letting go of something that she know longer needs.  I reminded her that she is healing!  She is healthy right now!

I feel so happy right now and thankful that I can see all the ways that I am provided for (even when the gift card goes on my credit card because my bank account is too low) and so grateful that I can see all the ways that I can provide for other people.