And how they deliver those memories is through the development of powerful, positive, and beneficial results to the world through a design that makes them workable, systematic, and enduring.  That’s all the “how to” we cover in our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program, after we help you get in touch with your passion, desire and vision for doing so.    

But why even go there?  Because there are benefits of a great legacy – for both giver and receiver.

GREAT LEGACIES ARE MEMORABLE.  A great legacy, or its impact, is remembered.  Certainly it is remembered by whoever benefits from the project or contribution. 

You may create significant impacts everyday just by virtue of consciously choosing who you want to be and how you want to you approach others or your work – you put in a little more effort than required, you leave something a little better than you found it, you choose to pay a particular kindness to someone even if just in passing.  It truly is a conscious mindset – instead of just stepping over the piece of glass on the path, you choose to pick it up so no one else will injure themselves. 

It is from this same legacy level way of being and doing that much larger legacies are built. They are an expression of your personal values.  People notice that sort of positive or constructive action, and they remember you for it – fondly. 

Actively choosing to create a project or enterprise that similarly impacts a chosen environment or community you care about will also be remembered in an even more significant way.  What you create may affect people immediately close to you, like actual or chosen family, or even members of distant global communities, depending on the type and scope of your legacy.  Some of them you may never actually know, but they will know of you, through your legacy … and kind contribution.  And because your impact is so memorable, others may want to participate or even replicate your efforts. 

No matter what, the process of building and watching your legacy grow is something that you will remember for sure – and be glad of.  Creating your legacy, contributing the benefits only you can while you can, will prevent that sense of regret later on of the things you could have done, but didn’t – like smelling more roses or eating more ice cream, but on a grander scale.

GREAT LEGACIES ARE JOYFUL.  Legacies consciously designed to create sustainable positive benefits encompass a true sense of delight both for you, and for those who benefit. For you, that may take the form of amusement in playing with the original idea, a sense of pride for the cheer or comfort delivered to others in the process, gratitude for seeing the end result play out and the impact your work has – or all three and many others.  For the recipients of your contribution, joy may be expressed through a sense of delight, great relief, or deep appreciation for the benefit or experience they may not have otherwise had. 

Developing a legacy project can provide a true sense of awe and wonder about how the process of creation works.  The experience of being a part of something that grows and morphs into a real contribution and that attracts the attention and involvement of others, can also provide a sense of real connection with the Divine or ‘oneness with the universe,’ however you define that.  During the process, people and resources just seem to show up, experiences just seem to happen effortlessly, and you may have other special experiences that seem to tap into the greater good. 

These are special brands of happiness and well-being that are profound elements of true joy – that you can choose to cultivate.  How would you like to be remembered, or for what? Look first for those things that bring you the most joy when you think about that as your contribution.  The pride you’ll feel for actually having done it – knowing it will live on an benefit folks who may never actually know you - will far outweigh anything fame has to offer.

The elements of great legacies can be grasped and mastered by anyone, and developed in your own unique way.  What are the sparks that inspire you – that stir inside you when you take the time to entertain them? What are your good ideas, the ones you consider sharing with others – but might be a bit shy to admit? 

Yes, those.  Right there.  The ones you might be reluctant about.  They seem like really are good ideas that mean something to you, and would mean something to others, but you may question your own ability to create them.  Well grab hold of your thoughts, and at least write them down somewhere to give them their first bit of “mass.” 

You’ll be on your way to making something from nothing – exercising that innate creative ability with which all
humans are endowed. 

Great legacies don’t happen overnight.  But once you get started, you might be surprised how, stepwise, you can systematically develop your good ideas, find needed support to nurture and grow them – and how they can turn into enduring, beneficial solutions that are both memorable and exceedingly satisfying to see working in the world. 

What are you waiting for, you creative being? 

Want to know more?

• To learn more about legacy development from inception to completion and all the different ways to create one, check out our 7 Steps to Creating Your Legacy program and join us the next time we offer it!
• Sign up for our Creating Legacy Kit and we’ll send you our complete 14 Elements of Great Legacies complimentary e-course – and you’ll get our twice monthly Legacy Journal and updates on upcoming programs and other offerings.

Who are you to think you can’t!? I like Marianne Williamson’s reasoning: “You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

Kids get this.  They haven’t had the disabling fear, the sense of scarcity, or the experience of “not enough” that precedes thinking they can’t do something.  They figure they can do anything, then they become teenagers who are invincible and college students who are idealists! Until the adults in their lives advise them to be “sensible,” to grow up and get a good job. Maybe that’s you?  Someone who gave up passion for sensibility?  And maybe you even picked a job or a career course that you actually found interesting and challenging … until it wasn’t anymore.  When did you lose your own sense of possibility in life?

Want to read more? Click Here

I found a quote recently that aptly addresses all these considerations.  As a lawyer, I found the source to be quite remarkable, though not surprising.  While coming from an entirely different ethnic background and part of the planet, I share many Native American philosophies on living and working in harmony with our planet Earth – and in tune with what they call Great Spirit.

So what is this legacy wisdom – this significant piece of enlightened leadership?  It’s this:

“In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions
on the next seven generations.”
(From the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy)

How would your life and your work be different if this was your decision-making focus?  What would you be doing differently? How quickly can you shift to that mindset and make the changes you need to make? 

The world is waiting for your own exercise of real power – the power to do good while doing well, and the power to positively impact the people around you and those who follow (and who follow them, and follow them, and follow them …).  Are you up for that challenge? 

Our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program has been a joy to deliver – and to watch what participants develop from there.  Keep an eye on the site to get details on how you can do something different in your work and life to incorporate this wisdom and make a positive impact on your partcular corner of this world!  Sign up for the Creating Legacy Kit (top right) and we’ll keep you posted on upcoming events.

Here’s to a better planet 7 generations from now – heck, hopefully yet during this generation!  Cheers, Dolly

It’s been a difficult one to master, for sure.  For me I think it’s because early conditioning followed by nursing, my foundational learning and career, caused me to be really confused at a young age about what “caring” means. Focusing on myself was selfish and to be avoided – until I finally learned the ‘put on your own oxygen mask first’ principle.  Clearly a depleted human has little to give, whereas one who is full to overflowing, fulfilled, has lots to contribute.  Caring from that place is a lot richer.

Lawyering – the ‘you’ve come to me because I know better than you about this matter’ training further distorted the definition into “I care, therefore I must tell you [advise] what to do.’ For the most part that worked, but it wasn’t very satisfying.  Would much rather see people empower themselves and avoid legal (and other) problems!  

Fortunately, coach training certainly helped change both those viewpoints.  There is only so much I can do to begin with.  Secondly, you’re the only one who can actually change your life – and I get to revel vicariously in your victories! I can be of service, but even in service others have to exercise some self-help and accept what you have to offer – or not.  It’s their choice always, and there’s not much I can do about their choices.  I can listen, lend support, provide ideas, and give feedback, but the choices and actions someone takes after that (as well as the consequences) are theirs alone. And I can “want for” your greatness.  Which I definitely DO!  Playing small doesn’t do you or the world much good.

So, I care about you without wanting to change you (though I’m willing to help if you want it -and it can be on your terms, not mine, I’m more than okay with that – even if I’d have chosen a different result).  I didn’t create this universe and I’m not running it, so often the result WILL be something other than what I had in mind – ah, the multitude of possibilities.  And that’s not only okay, actually it’s good.  And it reminds me that the point of power for myself is within me – how I shape my own attitudes, perceptions and choices.  What I let in and what I keep out.  True for us ALL.

And I can care what you think without feeling like it’s a mandate to change myself if you think differently or don’t agree with my choices.   But that’s not how I’ve had it wired up most of my life.  Thank God we don’t learn less.

That mantra “what you think of me is none of my business” puts it all in perspective, along with its corollary – what I think of you is none of your business.  Sounds kind of callous, but maybe it’s really the best kind of caring … What we think about is our business.  And it’s good to focus on what we’re thinking about, and what we’d prefer to be thinking about – because THAT is the place from which we create!!

How would your life be different if you kept the focus on yourself, worked on your own fulfilment, chose to be happy (as opposed to any other feeling you indulge from time to time), and gave back from a place of feeling fully contented with your life (no matter what anyone else said or did)?  If you want help with that, let me know.  I’ve been around that block and am happy to help you choose what you want from your own array of possibilities.  That orientation for service is the best way I can demonstrate I care.

Wishing you the best – however YOU define that.  Cheers, Dolly

But more and more there are people who eschew (love that word!) the notion that business is only about profit.  It used to be that business was not just about making money – for oneself or one’s shareholders – but also about adding value and doing something good in the world: innovating new high-quality products that last longer than one season (or one year …), building infrastructure, caring for people when they are sick or injured …

Yet, in the world of corporate law, for-profit corporate officers can run into trouble if they engage in activity designed to do anything other than produce a profit, since their duty of loyalty is to the shareholders who funded the operation in hopes of getting the greatest return on their investment.  This, of course, has led to making  money as an end unto itself.  And that focus has led to a lot of people dissatisfied with the jobs they go to every day, just to earn a buck without much in the way of personal or professional satisfaction.

Many of us in business, particularly I’m happy to say the women entrepreneurs around the world, are starting to consider that such return might come in the form of value other than a dollar, euro, ruble or yen (insert your other favorite monetery currency here).  Those who consider themselves social entrepreneurs will be glad of this first: enter the Benefit Corporation which made its debut in the state of Maryland recently.

Rather than a primary focus on ’shareholder value’ (which is creating as much money as possible for corporate owners) – the duty of those running a for profit corporation, the B Corp, like a true social enterprise, can lawfully focus on the needs of everyone connected to the company: shareholders, officers, staff, customers/clients, vendors, communities.  That’s a very different focus. So long as the public or social benefit that may serve as the mission of the enterprise is clearly stated in the corporation’s Articles of Incorporation (so investors know what that is and that their investment will not just be focused on money-making but rather value-making and money-making), then the officers and management of the company can legally seek to confer such benefits on people other than shareholders. 

Not only can they, but in doing so they must measure and report their beneficial results so that those efforts can be publically tracked.  Think of it as a hybrid of the for profit and non-profit corporation.  Click here to read an interesting example from the HuffingtonPost.com.

Seems a bit sad that we had to carve out a special legal definition for this.  But I’m glad Maryland broke ground with it. 

Actually, their law is based on the work of non-profit B Lab, a Pennsylvania company that certifies companies committed to social responsibility.  They provide an Impact Assessment for those who aspire to run socially responsible operations, help them save money and raise capital, and give them a forum to meet other kindred spirits in business. 

Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the co-founders of B Lab, feels there are more and more investors who want to invest their money in truly mission-driven companies.  He was quoted in Bloomberg-Businessweek recently saying: “I think it’s becoming increasingly not only acceptable but sought after by mainstream investors.”

That’s some good news for a change, eh?

Might your legacy project fit into a B-corp structure?  Seems like a good option for many who might need to raise capital to get their project going rather than having to rely on raising charitable donations.  We look forward to watching the development and stand ready to help you figure it all out.

Cheers, Dolly

The pride of do it yourself, of crafting something by hand, and of eschewing waste with re-use, refurbishing or re-purposing has gone out the window with do more faster and even better, have someone else do it for you.  With just about everything.  When was the last time you grew your own food or churned your own butter – like so many did not too many generations ago?  When was the last time you bought your food from someone who still does these things, as opposed to from a more convenient factory farm to big box store arrangement …?  Heck, when was the last time you cooked your own meal — from scratch without opening any pre-mixed packages?

Two words come to my mind whenever I think about the future: clean and renewable.  Of course, I speak of energy production because it is the one thing behind our culture of convenience that seems the most at odds with my version of the future as an environmental activist – a truly healthy planet.  What if we all valued that a bit more and were a bit more concerned about how healthy the planet is that we WILL be leaving our children? 

How would what you do have to change?  Because it WILL take all of us.  This isn’t just about the utility companies or the government making decisions and changes to better our lives.  After all folks, we are the government and we are the utility companies as well as all the other businesses we patronize.  As Walt Kelly put it so well: “We have met the enemy … and he is us.”

How’s that you say?  Well, at least here in the U.S., we have the right and opportunity to vote the bozos in or vote the bozos out – or participate as one of them by being involved in government at any level.  That includes everything from writing to or calling your local, state and federal representatives all the way to, if you were born here, being the president (otherwise, the governor of some great state).  Isn’t that what we teach our children – that you, too, dear Johnny or Jayne, can grow up to be president of these United States? 

And you know that “market” they are always talking about?  Right again – that’s us, too.  We can vote with our dollars.  Instead of getting the lowest prices for the most amount of stuff, how about we cut back a little and maybe pay a little more for one or two items of higher quality: organic produce or fair trade clothing made from natural fibers not produced in some sweat shop overseas?  Can you say more with less?  And then how about using and reusing those items and making them go as far as we possibly can before they become disposable? Or even running our businesses in a more socially responsible way …?

(I’m thinking here of my dear husband, whose brimmed cotton canvas bucket hats become compass covers – he works on boats – when they no longer protect his lovely cranium … and then the shreds of what’s left of that natural cotton can be recycled.)

In my mind, we’ll have to gear up considerably to begin mastering alternative energy production methods that are, well … clean and renewable.  But I for one, think we are up to the task.  We, the voters and the market.  We will have to return to playing the role of citizens and conservationists, rather than consumers.  We have plenty of history and plenty of role models to teach us how … and we have technology to help.  At least until the oil runs out (if we don’t do something soon about that because we are really fouling this beautiful planet with what remains of the remains of dead dinosaurs).

If greenhouse gases – like auto exhaust and that from factory smoke stacks full of carbon dioxide and all the other chemicals we spew into the atmosphere – were a color rather than invisible, I think more people would notice and be appalled.  Hey, what if it looked like what’s spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and killing the marine life that will end up in our food chain?  (Oh, and not to leave out the children … their food chain too, since these toxics persist and are multiplied as big fish and big bird eat little fish …)

Well, if you’ve got the picture now … here’s the good news.

We can return quickly to being citizens and conservationists - proud contributors and preservationists – with just a little added consciousness (and conscientiousness).  Along with clean and renewable, I’d simply ask that you add these words to your daily vocabulary as you exercise greater awareness about every thought and every action you take, every moment of every day.  I full well know that while simple, this level of consciousness is not easy to master in practice.  So that’s why it becomes a practice. And that practice can become a movement.

While they may sound like small things, even seemingly insignificant (“who am I, I’m just one little guy”), these things all add up.  Shifting to this way of being and doing is actually a BIG job if you’ve ever tried it.  None of us will be perfect at it, but if you do it best as you can each step of the way with your life and work, and all the other people in government and industry do it best as they can each step of the way in their lives and work, or at least enough of us get it going so others can catch on and join in, then things can change significantly for the better.  And quickly … exponentially.

Then, if we use the intelligence and technology we have to focus on the production of clean and renewable energy sources, then we can be living in harmony with the planet thereby truly protecting our future.  (And no, nuclear is not among them until we can get beyond nuclear fission to nuclear fusion … and I think we can, eventually, if we’re consciously focused on that … but that’s much longer term, down the line.)

We’re at a point in a new era where this shift can happen.  It must happen.  As aptly noted recently by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, at the EEPC India, Export Award Presentation Function, we did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stones …

Another great quote further illustrates:

“Memo to oil apologists: When VHS supplanted Betamax, nobody shed a tear.  When word processing software replaced typewriters, nobody shrieked about a socialist revolution in the steno pool.  And when the jet engine replaced the propeller, there were no protests on the Mall in Washington about a vast supersonic conspiracy. Face it: Technology changes.  And the petroleum-based economy is dead. It’s built on antiquated technology that’s killing us and our planet.  Oil has served its purpose.  It was great while it lasted, at it got us to a point where we have the industrial and technological wherewhithal to chart a new course.  But we’re no longer primitives who need animal fat to light our evening meditations, or chase away evil spirits.”  ~ Martin Luz in HuffingtonPost.com

Indeed, the universe has been beautifully set up for us humans by putting the biggest nuclear reactor we’ll ever need perfectly positioned at the center of our solar system, which in my humble opinion at about 93,000 million miles away, is about as close to nuclear technology as we humans need to be at this stage in our evolution.  But beautifully, that sun-reactor shines on this planet all day every day.  All we have to do is rotate around and collect it, store it and share it. And the rotating is already being done for us! (Think about how big that part of the job would be if we had to do it …)

With the brilliant minds of our leaders in technology and elsewhere, this is totally doable.  Just ask the children who draw pictures of this concept every day in grade schools around the world, and who are learning how to play nicely in the sandbox with others and to share their toys (then pass them down to the younger kids …).  That sunshine is in everything we know as life that is on the planet today.  It is begging us to be more consciously engaged with it.

And so is the earth.  Since we cannot see the dinofuels we’ve gassified and put into the atmosphere, it is now giving us a glimpse of what we’re doing by pumping millions of gallons of pure black crude into our oceans (and we have underwater cameras so we can watch it happen with full awareness).  I say oceans rather that Gulf of Mexico here because in their fluid state, the tar balls that have been put into circulation can now go everywhere on the planet to be cleaned up by everyone – after we focus on the massive efforts needed currently on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

What’s one thing you can do each day to make a positive difference and help return us to a world that’s clean and renewable?  Whatever you do will be your contribution to protecting our future.  And whatever it is, it is a valuable contribution.

Blessings for your efforts, Dolly

The holiday, originally May 30 of each year, was set aside as a day of remembrance for those who have died in the service of our country and its ideals of freedom. Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971, which moved the holiday to the last Monday in May and created the three-day weekend form of the holiday.  That simple change in structure caused it to shift from a day of remembrance to the official first weekend of summer fun. Some feel that diluted the focus of Memorial Day, and in their own form of legacy are making efforts to restore it to its original date.

Another Memorial Day related legacy resulted from the effort of Moina Michael. In 1915, she was inspired by a poem, and conceived the idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She wore the very first one and raised money selling poppies to benefit servicemen in need. The tradition spread with the simple creation of a simple artifact – artificial red poppies – sold to support war orphaned children and widows in France and Belgium. Later, just before Memorial Day in 1922 the Veterans of Foreign Wars began selling the artificial poppies nationally. Two years later this developed into a program to sell artificial poppies made by disabled veterans, an effort that continues today in VA Hospitals.

In another form of legacy, an organization called No Greater Love began a campaign in 1997 to create the National Moment of Remembrance. It encourages Americans to take a few brief moments from sale shopping, barbecue gatherings, and other festivities at 3 pm local time, to focus gratitude toward the patriots honored, and remember the real meaning of the holiday. These efforts by the NGL organization – formed as a nonprofit in 1971 to provide annual programs of friendship and care for those who lost a loved one in service to our country – resulted in a Congressional resolution passed in 2000.

You can support and participate in these legacies through buying and wearing a poppy, and stopping for a moment of silent thanks each Memorial Day. Work something into the plans you are making now. 

My family’s remembrance always includes an outdoor barbecue with friends, as it was the first U.S. holiday my parents celebrated after their post-WWII immigration from Eastern Europe to seek citizenship here. The bravery of those who helped them make their way through war-torn Poland and Lithuania, slave labor in Germany, and work in the resettlement camps there before reaching the freedom to live and work here, is something we always remember … and celebrate gratefully. Each person’s brave acts of contribution toward that end is a legacy in itself – allowing me to be here writing this today, and to experience of working with you.

Great legacies are often born from needs first identified through challenges and difficulties – sometimes even a mistake. An effort to make something better turns into an expanded mission and some sort of business-like structure to carry it forward.

What do you see that needs doing? How would you go about starting? Who else would you involve and what structure might it take? And, as you contemplate Memorial Day, how will you make an impact in this world in an enduring way … so it is memorable and positively affects many? 

These are all questions we can help you answer, and with those answers help you create something beneficial for which you can feel personally proud and satisfied.  And we’d love to do that!

We are delighted to have a special guest in the Studio this week, who brings passion and vision to her unique legacy story:

Pat McHenry Sullivan is the owner and founder of Visionary Resources, inspired strategy and communications for entrepreneurs and change-makers.  She helps focus work-life visions for individuals and groups.  Pat creates business plans and has taught many business plan classes for the Small Business Administration.

She is a prolific author and powerful speaker at the forefront of the spirituality in work and business field.  Her book Work with Meaning, Work with Joy: Bringing Your Spirit to Any Job (Sheed & Ward), grew out of 26 columns she wrote on spirit and work for the San Francisco Chronicle.  One of her columns on workplace altars is featured in the new best-selling book, Lawyers as Peacemakers: Practicing Holistic, Problem-Solving Law by J. Kim Wright, and just published by the American Bar Association.

Pat has authored several articles on how to bring spirit to work respectfully for leading business, workforce and professional media.  With her husband, John Sullivan, she co-founded the Spirit and Work Resource Center to spread the wisdom of all faiths to benefit all types of work.

Here are the details you need to join us:

Date:   Wednesday, May 19th
Time:  10a PT / 11a MT / noon CT / 1p ET.
Click http://www.blogtalkradio.com/legacy to listen in!

During the live show you may also call in at (347) 850-1633, and we may get to talk with you on the air during the program! Or from the Creating Legacy Studio page on BTR you can ask questions or make comments by clicking on the green Chat Now! button.

Remember:

• The Creating Legacy Studio sessions are your opportunity to explore how to apply the concepts of legacy to your life, work or business – full life, fulfilling work, giving your best gifts, feeling great.
• If you miss the live show, you can listen to the recording afterward on the Creating Legacy Studio page on BTR or download it as a mp3 for listening in your preferred player.
• See more info about the Studio here on the Creating Legacy Network website, where we post the updated schedule and call in information. Tune in, turn on and take part!

We look forward to a great show, and having you with us to provide input, ask questions or just listen in!

Melissa Kaplan’s lovely posting on Chronic Neuroimmune Diseases sheds some light on how we’re different (we knew that) and why it’s important that we band together:

“Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.”

Those connections may just be how we can make a bigger impact in changing the world for the better.  So what to do?  Here are some thoughts:

• Make time to spend with your women friends.  Yes, work, children and significant others, the garden, the dishes, the laundry … are important.  But they can usually wait.  Put your oxygen mask on first so you have the bandwidth to tend to them – or better yet, give them your best.  Your women friends are your oxygen mask.
• Collaborate on projects with women colleagues.  It may still be a man’s world in many arenas, but it’s how we work best.  Working together is not cheating, like it was considered when taking tests in school.  This is the real world and cooperative skills are important.  Synergy cannot occur without combination.
• Support and promote one another.  Help a woman colleague working toward a promotion, running for office, needing backup so she can get a project finished.  Ask that she help you with something – odds are at least 50-50 that she will, probably greater. (Chances she will if you don’t ask hover around zero – she’s busy, too, and how would she know?)  Then you’ll both feel better and be further along.

The Huffington Post indicates that some women are not only approaching, but surpassing men’s salaries in the big corporate world, according to research from Bloomberg News compiled from proxy reports.  That’s a great start, And I’m personally glad there are women willing to compete hard to win the seats historically held by men.  They certainly are capable … and braver and more persistent than I am.  But many, many more of us are out there in the trenches, or in our own businesses, and we’d all do better and feel better if we got more support … and had more potluck dinners. 

A rising tide raises all boats, as they say.  And as our boats collectively float upward on that tide, we can do more good in the world … leaving even more significant legacies.

What ideas do you have about how you can help a sister, and maybe even the planet and in turn the progeny we’ll never meet?  Would love your comments here!

Like the earth, the human body is approximately three quarters water, with a similar salinity content and pH (acidity) level; and water is quite literally our life blood. We require fresh water to live, and really clean fresh water to maintain health. Learn more about the healthiest form of drinking water here.

There are many lessons in all that. Likewise, many legacy projects involving water could be undertaken to make a positive difference – cleaning it up, preserving its flow, creating access to it, using it for fuel as “HHO” (also called hydrogen on demand used to improve the poor efficiency of fossil fuel burning engines), developing it to generate electricity. You can consider how you might develop or support one of those projects. In the meanwhile, let’s explore why you might want to by examining this important element, and what more it has to teach us.

Water is magical. Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, it is amazingly malleable. It can exist in solid, liquid or gaseous forms. Its atoms can be separated by electrolysis: the hydrogen stored in water can then be used as a fuel source for energy, and the oxygen can be used to keep living creatures alive. Those H2O molecules in our oceans, rivers and lakes combine with the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in an effort to modify that and protect us, producing carbonic acid which is increasing the acidity of the oceans and negatively affecting ocean life.

Water is powerful, an attribute we can embody when we remember that power is best defined as ‘the ability to do’ – to get things done. Water does have the ability to wear away rock and soil, shape coastlines and rivers – and tear things down, as do we. The movement of tides and waves and waterfalls has the ability to produce electrical power, and we can likewise be constructive instead. Water hydrates our bodies, giving us the energy and power to do just that.

Water makes ripples and waves – including storm surge and tidal waves or tsunamis. As fluid, water-filled bodies, we too can make waves and make change. And we must take care that the ripples we cause are not damaging.

Water will also completely support us, and can produce a very relaxed state. Most of us are buoyant in the water, or can be by virtue of an air mat or a boat. The sound of water lapping up of the edge of your body, mat or boat, like water flowing in a fountain, can be incredibly soothing. This is nature’s reminder to relax and enjoy, to surround yourself with support and extend the same to others.

Water flows; it teaches us to be fluid and flow, too. To move, change, let go. For centuries, humans have observed that “nature abhors a vaccum.” This idiom expresses the idea that empty or unfilled spaces are unnatural as they go against the laws of nature and physics. So we need not fear letting go – open up your tightly clenched fists holding on to anything, and something will eventually flow in to fill your open palms. There is no scarcity, there is always more flowing in from the ocean of abundance.

In its planetary flow, water’s movement produces gyres that can form and trap debris, as the Pacific Gyres – also known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” – illustrate. Here’s a picture of that – the yellow dots represent the trash, much of it plastics trapped in the largest landfills on the planet, located in the Pacific Ocean – the very water that is our lifeblood. This reminds us to clean out our own gyres, formed by our own personal tornadoes, from time to time – if not also to be gentle with the environments that support us and keep them clean and healthy.

Water connects us and reminds us of the importance to maintain our connectivity. The Gulf of Mexico illustrates. Fed by headwaters of the Mississippi way up in Minnesota, that river carries sediment and agricultural run off along its entire route southward through the United States. Entering the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, Louisiana, it meets the Gulf Loop Current. See a moving graphic representation of this map here. Looks like blood flowing through arteries and veins, doesn’t it?

That current, fed by water flowing north through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, can flow northward along the Texas coast, eventually curving east and south along Florida’s coast or it can turn sharply east – in either case exiting through the Straits of Florida (between the Florida peninsula and Cuba) to meet up with the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic carrying warm Gulf and Caribbean waters to the Mediterranean and Europe. This flow of water brings animal larvae, plant spores and other imports from the south, which probably accounts for the many Caribbean species found in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Similarly, this current can pick up the same sorts of ‘passengers’ from the northern Gulf (and the upstream Mississippi River) to deliver along its route back to the Caribbean and Atlantic.

All these places are connected as we are connected to each other and our world. When asked during end of life planning where she wanted her cremains scattered, an elderly woman remarked that she’d like a few of her ashes dropped in a nearby river, thus ensuring she’d see parts of the world she never had a chance to visit.

Water that does not flow becomes stagnant and holding on to anything for too long can make us stagnant, too. Better to dance like the waves. The importance of flow to the earth’s water (and, metaphorically, to us) is illustrated by contrasting the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, separating Africa and Asia – with Saudi Arabia to the east and Eqypt and Sudan to the west. The Red Sea’s flow is through the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal at the north (into the Mediterranean Sea) and through the Gulf of Aden in the south and out into the Indian Ocean. Because of that flow, the Red Sea is a rich and diverse ecosystem with more than 1200 species of fish, about 10% of which are found nowhere else. This rich diversity is supported by about 1,200 miles of coral reef extending along its coastline, fragile living structures that are 5000–7000 years old, along with other rich marine habitats including sea grass beds, salt pans, mangroves and salt marshes. That flow supports great life making the area sometimes called the Red Sea Riviera a great attraction for snorkelers, scuba divers and other visitors.

Contrast that with the Dead Sea to the north. The Jordan River rises from several sources, mainly the mountains in Syria, and flows down through the Jordan Valley with Jordan to the east and Israel to the west. In the Jordan Valley, fertile soils and a mild climate make the agricultural region the food bowl of Jordan. The river flows into Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), almost 700 feet below sea level finally draining into the landlocked Dead Sea which, at approximately 1,335 feet below sea level, is the lowest point on earth. With no outlet to the sea – no flow – intense evaporation concentrates its mineral salts and produces a hypersaline solution, about 8 times saltier than the world’s oceans. This lack of flow thus supports no indigenous plant or animal life.

Consistent with this principle of flow, water reminds us that even a drop produces many ripples, which can have a magnified multitude of effects. We are those drops. As Mother Teresa tells us:

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.  But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Thus, water reminds us to keep moving and affecting our world, and that each one of us is important to the world. That includes the unique being that you are. Keep flowing, connecting with others, and making waves and ripples with a conscious focus on your unique purpose, and you will make important differences that add up to your life’s legacy. Maybe you’ll even choose to create something tangible and lasting to give to the world and leave for generations to come.

What beauty will you leave in your wake? (DMG)