Luckett Davidson, founder of Touchstone Guides, shares a bimonthly note highlighting Touchstone Guides' products, thoughts from the community on how the tools are used, a Powerful Question, and links to the people, places and things that inspire her!
May/June 2022
May/June 2022
Friends,
As captain and leader of my own life, I navigate its seas in all weather conditions. As I wander, what do I observe? Who am I as the Sailor? What can I see about myself? What course changes could improve my chances of smoother sailing? What is the North Star that guides me even in darkness?
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Through work with the Network Center for Community Change, 15 years ago I began to realize that I often saw others as projects to work on and fix. That view showed my privilege, brokenness, and conscious and unconscious assumptions. The phrase Creative, Resourceful and Whole was revelatory, thrilling, and mysterious.
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I came awake to the fact that seeing others more appreciatively would help us both be better humans whatever the circumstances. It was a radical shift. It became important to me to define and, more importantly, strive to embody Creative, Resourceful and Whole.
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I realized that first, I had to see myself as creative, resourceful and whole. Unless I feel creative, resourceful, and whole, I can’t extend those qualities to my sense of others. When I hold onto these concepts, I can embrace myself and others wholeheartedly.
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January/February 2022
Friends,
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We got the heartbreaking news this week that our esteemed friend and colleague, Karen Wunderlin, passed unexpectedly. As a fellow traveler in this peculiar journey we call life, Karen was both scout and guide. With energy and good cheer, she sought a clearer way forward. Without her at our side, the path is darker and less certain.
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Even though she’s not among us, her love, generosity, spirit, and the skills and practices she shared will see us through. I am filled with gratitude for having known her and with sadness that she’s no longer present in this realm.
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In this Valentine month and in the world according to Luckett, we’re in transition from the age of the mind to the age of the heart. We’ve spent centuries counting on the mind separated from the wisdom of the body and decades in the transition to the heart. I believe we are nearing the tipping point to embracing heart, sensation, and emotion as the guiding principles for our future.
If that’s true how do I organize myself for this new shore?
Where do I look for clues about how?
What are the qualities I need to embody?
In the transition zone of the Old Shore/New Shore image, I’ve noted some things to guide us on the journey — grace, curiosity, experiment, patience. A significant omission is LOVE. For this year’s valentine and all the years going forward, I say, “Love is always the way.”
November/December 2021
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Greetings friends -
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In this season of short days and countdowns, I’ve been thinking a lot about endings. A couple of weeks ago I watched the full moon after the eclipse was complete. The full moon making the night “bright as day” marks the good ending of the lunar month. It reminds me that shining brightly, fully present to the experience, is the ultimate good ending. It led me to think more deeply about what may be on our minds as we head into winter, the holidays, and the end of 2021.
In his book Transition, Making Sense of Life’s Changes, William Bridges defines change as the events of our lives and transition as the inner reorientation that lags behind those events. He identifies and names three stages of transition — Good Endings, the Neutral or Transition Zone, and New Beginnings.
Endings are a natural and repeated part of our lives and come in many forms and many degrees. There are the daily ones marked by rising and going through our day until we end it by falling into bed. And the weekly ones — TGIF. And monthly and yearly and seasonal and chapter and decade and then our lives.
Good endings for each year — music, gift-giving, connecting with friends, and lighting lights — celebrate the return of the sun, or the birth of the Son. Whole-hearted participation can be an antidote to the uncertainties of the new year’s beginning. It’s a time we can choose to be mindful and grounded.
September/October 2021
Happy Autumn friends -
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While we are always experiencing change, New Chapters are the changes and transitions that we name and mark. In everyone’s life Next Chapters come with retirement, or birth, or a loved one’s death, or a frightening diagnosis, or a marriage, or moving house. They are all marked by significant shifts in trap lines and daily energy highs and lows. Some of the happy and welcome changes surprise us by being just as challenging as the unforeseen and unwanted.
We also experience the annual shifts as seasons change. Even those may require some significant moves in gardens, closets, activities and points of view.
Some New Chapters that we face right now are especially challenging. The global health crisis makes it even harder to cope with and accept the normal ups and downs of our lives. Because of the pandemic, our next chapter isn’t quite next yet. We’re tossed back into the pandemic soup to thrash around a bit more. I wonder:
How will each of us be uniquely different after, and if, we recover?
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
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May 2021
Hi my friends, Happy May - This month I’m thinking about the tale of my dragon tail.
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A few years back as a part of a centering practice, I learned to envision my dragon tail - the part of myself that supports me, that I take with me no matter where I go or what befalls me.
My dragon tail is big and thick, substantial and powerful. It contains my wisdom, my experience, my decisions, and their consequences, my learning, my heritage - both what I am aware of and what I am not. I lean back on it. I transcend and include what is there - letting go of what I must and building on what I can.
Click here to download a FREE dragon tail image for you to draw or write or paste photos of what’s in YOUR dragon tail.
​
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
Summer 2021
Happy summer, my friends -
This month I’m thinking about what has shaped me. As resident coach and illustrator for NC3 (Neighborhood Center for Community Change), I heard the phrase Creative, Resourceful and Whole. Nice, I thought, it’s a way to acknowledge the value of all other humans no matter what their circumstances or accomplishments. It gave me more language for, and understanding of, dignity and trust - of myself and others.
My illustration of the phrase was at first a figure with long arms holding a huge space that emanated from the heart. But what else was in that big space? What did Creative Resourceful and Whole look like or mean? How could each of us show up in that way?
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
April 2021
Hello friends -
Since we heard about the guilty verdict, I’m thinking more about what’s mine to do in my commitment to justice and equity. I’m encouraged that the officer has been convicted and will be sentenced. But what have I done, or left undone, that has contributed to us taking so long to get to this place.
​
Here are some of my thoughts as I look through the lens of the Accountability Pathway, our featured tool for April.
​
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
March 2021
Hi there my friends -
The role of this monthly newsletter emerges and will evolve. Today, the first day of spring, seems like a good time to bring forth what’s been on my mind and heart for years. It is the month for Powerful Questions. These are some of mine:
In my great-grandmother’s photo album, there were two portraits that most puzzled me. When I was a little girl, my grandmother spread the album on the library table and slowly turned the pages, telling me the names and stories. The most intriguing were the two that didn’t look like me at all - Uncle Bob Everett and Grandma’s Mary. Uncle Bob was old and Black and Mary looked to be mixed race, middle-aged and fierce. Grandma’s Mary’s story is for another day but Uncle Bob - now there’s a family hero, at least that’s what I heard in the story I was told.
In the portrait, Uncle Bob portrays the dignity and self-possession of an elder statesman. He is seated in a rocking chair, holding his cane lightly. But his clothing is well-worn, even shabby.
​
What was his story?
​
How did he come to be considered a family hero?
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
February 2021
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Hi there.
Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
May 2021
Hi my friends, Happy May - This month I’m thinking about the tale of my dragon tail.
​
A few years back as a part of a centering practice, I learned to envision my dragon tail - the part of myself that supports me, that I take with me no matter where I go or what befalls me.
My dragon tail is big and thick, substantial and powerful. It contains my wisdom, my experience, my decisions, and their consequences, my learning, my heritage - both what I am aware of and what I am not. I lean back on it. I transcend and include what is there - letting go of what I must and building on what I can.
Click here to download a FREE dragon tail image for you to draw or write or paste photos of what’s in YOUR dragon tail.
​
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
Summer 2021
Happy summer, my friends -
This month I’m thinking about what has shaped me. As resident coach and illustrator for NC3 (Neighborhood Center for Community Change), I heard the phrase Creative, Resourceful and Whole. Nice, I thought, it’s a way to acknowledge the value of all other humans no matter what their circumstances or accomplishments. It gave me more language for, and understanding of, dignity and trust - of myself and others.
My illustration of the phrase was at first a figure with long arms holding a huge space that emanated from the heart. But what else was in that big space? What did Creative Resourceful and Whole look like or mean? How could each of us show up in that way?
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
April 2021
Hello friends -
Since we heard about the guilty verdict, I’m thinking more about what’s mine to do in my commitment to justice and equity. I’m encouraged that the officer has been convicted and will be sentenced. But what have I done, or left undone, that has contributed to us taking so long to get to this place.
​
Here are some of my thoughts as I look through the lens of the Accountability Pathway, our featured tool for April.
​
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
March 2021
Hi there my friends -
The role of this monthly newsletter emerges and will evolve. Today, the first day of spring, seems like a good time to bring forth what’s been on my mind and heart for years. It is the month for Powerful Questions. These are some of mine:
In my great-grandmother’s photo album, there were two portraits that most puzzled me. When I was a little girl, my grandmother spread the album on the library table and slowly turned the pages, telling me the names and stories. The most intriguing were the two that didn’t look like me at all - Uncle Bob Everett and Grandma’s Mary. Uncle Bob was old and Black and Mary looked to be mixed race, middle-aged and fierce. Grandma’s Mary’s story is for another day but Uncle Bob - now there’s a family hero, at least that’s what I heard in the story I was told.
In the portrait, Uncle Bob portrays the dignity and self-possession of an elder statesman. He is seated in a rocking chair, holding his cane lightly. But his clothing is well-worn, even shabby.
​
What was his story?
​
How did he come to be considered a family hero?
Hi there. Happy Valentine wishes for each of you! At our house, we celebrate Valentine's Day for a whole month. I hang red hearts and red ribbons throughout the house as I take down the Christmas decorations. They fill me with joy and light up the cold grays of January - reminding me of the love that lives in me, and for and in the people, like you, whom I hold dear...
​
February 2021