Well here we are in Kiev.

I am back to my blog.  I have not written for a long time.  My PR people say it is time since my  book is very, very close.  I have been doing a lot of teaching and coaching.  My students (how strange of me to consider them MY students!) are often asking me to publish.   Finally it is time.  I would say 6 weeks as of this date.

 Right now I am in Kiev for my annual visit.  Ukraine has been very, very interesting this time.  As you can imagine, a lot of folks, my mother especially, wondered if going to Ukraine now was a good idea.  I was assured by my friends that live here that things were ok for me to visit.  And they were right.  I am starting my second week and it has been a very good trip.

Today I took a long walk: down through Independence Square and then to Maidan Square in Kiev.  The site of people taking a stand.  During the last week most everyone I have talked to tells me going to Maiden during the cold of winter (-20 degrees some say) to help and add their support – food, coffee, money, blankets.  And right NOW, every day, people are contributing money to support the army and continuing the movement.  Supporting with supplies, money and love to continue what was started.  Every day I hear dreaming and hoping and intense desire for living a life full of opportunities – without limitations of the past.

I was deeply touched today as I walked the main street in Kiev.  Occupied with tents and burned out carcasses of vehicles. Still occupied.  Not organized, but the bringing together of many points of view.  And visitors touching the place it happened.  I kept seeing a shrine to desire, not little desire but deep desire of life and space to be.  Piles of street cobbles, weapons at one time; slowly being replaced as things return to normal (and what is that exactly??)

Over the last week I have been educated with the history, the long history, and the current situation. As I walked the streets today and felt the people that were there, the history, the past, and now, the right now, merged into a flow of humans being and humans living. The human condition of dreams and living and loving and being.

 Rain came. I sat and drank a beer. And watched people mourning the lost people (people of all types – young old, male and female, all occupations) and absorbing the huge-ness and the normal-ness of it all.  Celebration and sorrow – all present.

As I moved away from the squares, I found an overlook over Kiev and the river.  There were families, and lovers and old men drinking beer and arguing. Just a few blocks away the memory of serious conflict and striving.  I saw the past with its golden domes and the present with the traffic and congestion, and the future with movement and grace.  All present. All now.

In some way I am adding my heart to this movement to the future.