Sometimes something is so obvious, you never notice it. This conversation began when a penny dropped for me, as they say, while a friend told me his neighbors had cut down the trees in their yard at the same time he was trying to make his own yard more friendly to birds, bees, and butterflies. It was a reminder that whether through greed, ignorance, or just plain habit, we seem to be increasingly hard on our physical world.
It was also a reminder that we can also respond positively to what is going on in our physical world. I’m writing during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve been sheltering in place and practicing social distancing, but at the same time, we’re hearing stories of dolphins being sighted in the canals of Venice (apparently, according to Snopes, true, but not necessarily completely unusual) and reading reports of pollution levels dropping so much that the Himalayas are now visible in India. All of these stories and conversations have made at least some of us more aware of the effect humans have on the environment.
As my friend has modeled, one response to our environment is rather simple, really. One way to change the world, the physical world and not just the people in it, is to plant things. Anything. Plants help purify the air and produce oxygen; provide food; and modify temperatures. Plants are not only components of medicine (you did know that most medicine is plant based?), they actually promote health and healing just by being visible, by our looking at them. It has been shown that people who can see growing things, even pictures of growing things, have less stress and so heal faster and are healthier than those who don’t.
I hear more and more of my friends talking about feeling renewed through gardening. Even now, when the situation we are living with limits us to varying degrees, these gardeners are poring over seed catalogs, raising seedlings, and even looking forward to weeding. Apparently such actions can have a calming effect.
Oh, you say, that’s all very well. But I have physical limitations. Plus, you’re living where there’s a yard and I’m not. Plus, the friends you talk about have the resources to buy plants. Gardening can be expensive. So, this is easy for you.
Perhaps. But let’s take this move “Plant,” one step at a time. One small change-the-world-action at a time.
A major piece might involve planting trees. Last week the people I’m living with planted a new weeping cherry tree. They even paid nursery workers to come to the yard, dig the hole, and actually plant the tree. In non-social distancing times, I’ve been given tree seedlings on Earth Day (April 22nd). Another friend found information on the number of trees we might plant to replenish the atmosphere. This article from The Guardian offers a tree planting plan that eliminates the effect of about 2/3rds of our current emissions. Maybe we can’t plant that many trees individually, but the article does confirms that tree planting is a positive action!
But planting trees might be a bit extreme. What about other outside plantings, for example my friend’s invitation to butterflies, the tomatoes we used to grow on the deck, the vegetable garden with flowers around the edges at another friend’s house? What might work for you? Vegetables? Flowers? Reseeding the bare places on the lawn? Perhaps, when we’re no longer isolated, you could become part of a community garden that not only provides fresh food, but promotes community and reclaims land. Or can you put a window box on your apartment’s balcony to share the pleasure of greenery with those passing below?
Then there are plantings inside aka houseplants. Do you have any? (Some people claim no green thumb. One friend even tells of killing an artificial fern!) Any plant counts, for example the cactus I was given by a lover when I was on a business trip. (True story. He wanted to give me a plant rather than flowers.) The ubiquitous African violets and spider plants. Some herbs on the window sill.
Yes, some plants are dangerous to pets. Others may or may not affect air quality. But all plants contribute to our appreciation of and the importance of regularly seeing growing things. If you think you have no access to plants, consider experiments like the getting an avocado seed to sprout and grow. You put 3 toothpicks in it and suspend it in a glass of water and wait. A cheap version of that gift amaryllis which occasionally develops a life of its own. One friend has an amaryllis that has grown and bloomed for the last 24 years—lasting longer than her marriage or any of her pets. Other friends might have cuttings from philodendron that needed trimming – another plant that can begin its new life in a glass of water as it grows roots. Plus there are multiple kits, simple and complex, for herbs and vegetables that can grow inside.
So notice. Act. Look at the plants around you. Plant something. Change the world.
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Photo credits from the top:
Lettuce seedlings — Kate Cook
Gardeners — Jeff Dey
Tree planting — Spirit Moxie
The cactus 12 years later — Spirit Moxie
The amaryllis — Teich Technical and Marketing Communications
Meanwhile, there are all the bits I’ve been saying here about listening to our bodies. These comments might sound the same. Specifically, I’ve been claiming that our bodies keep trying to get our attention as we live into our best selves. (I was going to say “true purpose,” but that sounds as if there is only one right path, which I don’t believe at all.)
So is a fall always a sign? I don’t think it is necessarily. A couple of months ago (mid-December 2019,) I fell again while walking a friend’s dog. Somehow, I tripped on a rise in the sidewalk, knew I tripped, and fell in a way that I couldn’t stop myself. Sparing you the details of the next hours (and days), I finally learned I had fractured my right elbow and would be wearing a stylish black sling when I was out of the house. But throughout this experience I was, and still am, very sure it was just an accident. I fell simply because I wasn’t focused on where I was going. It was a painful and inconvenient, but effective way to force me to become more ambidextrous. It was a dramatic way to encourage me to continue to 
Bottom line: sometimes stuff happens just because it happens. Sometimes things happen because there is something important that you are missing and need to learn about or pay attention to. This simply means learn to listen. Without blaming yourself or anyone else about what happens to you, how are you called to be your best self? What are you being told and why?
Well, that and that Moxie Moves: 10 ways to make a powerful difference can indeed be a new year’s journey. Change the world, change yourself. Or vise versa. Available through your favorite source for books. And an autographed copy is still available at 
It’s late 2019 and I’m writing this in Thailand, a country where I don’t know the language and have only the vaguest knowledge of the customs. While I was here once before, it seems more difficult this time to actually get anywhere. The last time I was here I stayed with extended family members who would talk to taxi drivers for me. But on this trip, these same people are letting me experiment with what it might be like to live here. I have a small, family owned condo far (or it seems far) from any public transportation. The first time I tried to go somewhere the taxi dropped me off at a major bus station instead of the Sky Train that was my destination. The first cab I tried to hail to take me back home wouldn’t take me even though I showed him the address written out in Thai.
Oh, OK. Do I need help? No, I’m fine. I have my Thai phone and have signed up for the equivalent of an Uber service called Grab. I’ve almost figured out how to find locations where drivers can easily find me to pick me up to get home. I can walk from my condo to a mall that has restaurants, a grocery store, and place to buy an umbrella, water glasses, and a pitcher, which were the only things that seemed missing from “my” apartment. I have also learned that I make way too many assumptions. Somehow I expect people to know what I want, but the truth is that they’re waiting to be asked. People are glad when I do ask for whatever.
So who am I? I just found a coffee shop where I can write on my computer. I still haven’t created a space at home where I can write easily. And I’ve met multiple people (well, six) who are concerned about the process of being present. Through that connection I received an invitation to join a writing group. But I’m guessing that these activities aren’t part of a true identity either. There is a me beyond the one who likes coffee shops for writing and enjoys talking about “just being.”
Somewhere beyond this list of would be busyness there is a calm where possibility is created. Unfortunately it is also a place a bit beyond words which is all I have here. It is an extreme manifestation of what I’ve written before in 
Somehow I again forgot to request “no straw” with my water. But maybe I’m forgiven. Wait staff at my usual breakfast spots and a few bars never bring me one, so I forget that at some places people put them in drinks automatically. Why no straw? Straws don’t degrade easily; they increase trash; and I don’t particularly like them. So for me they’re a waste.
However some little and some not so little things have happen as they should and do. Every Saturday, I go to our local farmer’s market. While I’m there, I always collect a hug from a woman selling a newspaper that covers stories about the concerns of street people. The paper is sold by homeless or otherwise indigent people, instead of their begging for money. Somehow I never remember the name of the woman I stop to see, although she regularly bawls me out for being outside with wet hair and tells me about her dog and her husband. So, I figured I’d ask her name! (Again.) This time, I entered it in my phone and, with her permission, took a photo to go with it. As I walked around the market, I realized that these, too, are little things. Connecting with others. Learning names. I also realized I wanted to tell this story to you. So, I found my newspaper seller again. “Do you care if I use your picture on line?” “No,” she replied, “don’t do that. There were these people…[and another story ensued].” “OK, so I won’t use your name,” I said. “Oh, you can use my name,” she answered. “Just not my picture.” So here are other little things. Respect everyone. Ask for permission. Her name is Julie in case I need you to help me remember it.
The other two things happened by my following what my body wanted to do which is part of the challenge of 
Plus, for me there are the ongoing little things such as to remember to 
I’m excited about this new year. Maybe it’s because 2018 ended with an almost violent reset. A relationship I knew wasn’t forever ended suddenly. Maybe because my continued quest to “just be” has become more second nature with practice. Or perhaps it’s because I have an ongoing commitment to hope and possibility.
I did get to Hawaii, the first planned bucket list item I’ve done in years. So, somehow one can plan and “just be” at the same time, which is a skill I’m slowly learning. One buys the tickets or makes the plan — but you know that action is separate from the trip or the event. If it happens, it happens. For example, when I was ill at the end of 2016, I had to cancel two plane trips, but wasn’t penalized at all for doing so. Last year, I bought tickets for an event before my relationship ended and I wound up going to the concert with a completely unexpected someone for a supportive and gentle, and unplanned, afternoon.
On 
I don’t know about you, but when things seem obvious to me, I don’t even think about them. It’s beyond thinking that they’re equally clear to everyone. A communication about whatever it is really isn’t even on my mind. This is why I’m always getting in trouble because I don’t mention things like, well, I’m not coming up with anything because I’m not even thinking about it. It just is. 
These were just off the top of my head. But the first time I realized that what was obvious to me wasn’t always obvious to others occurred during a misguided stint teaching English and theatre. Oh, I had
Recently, while increasingly living moment-to-moment “in the present,” which I began sharing in 
The hiatus of staring out windows and at keyboards has also increased my minute-by-minute appreciation of how interesting and beautiful the world is. It’s increased my gratitude to the couple of people who have read the book and thought it had the right degree of personal-ness and length. And I’ve gotten back to “obvious.” I now have a determination to look again at the book’s beginning, to see where I’m making assumptions. To indeed make it clearer and, ideally, more interesting.
By the way, the book’s working title right now is Moxie Moves: 10 easy ways to make a powerful difference.