“They will beat their swords into plowshares 
and their spears into pruning hooks.”

Isaiah the Prophet
Hi friends,

How is it with your soul? Do you feel the effects of a violent culture wearing you out? Are there practices and people in your life that nourish and heal?

Almost fourteen years ago our lives changed forever when a family member was murdered by gun violence. Aside from that unique kind of grief, survivors of this horrific crime must deal with the monster of anger and what could follow. We know that deciding to beat our swords into plowshares rather than living blind, from an “eye for an eye” mentality, was the only way to move toward healing.

Last month on retreat with Gravity,I (Clare) was given the opportunity to hold a garden tool that was made from a weapon of violence. Founded in 2013, an organization called RAWtools, started collecting unwanted guns and turned them into gardening tools. Holding this tool in my hand was a prayer for the violence in our world. Not just gun violence, but the violence we are doing to one another’s souls through unconscious living.

In this political culture of “sword words” I seek to spend time with people who beat their swords into plowshares. I long to be in the company of those who have tools to cultivate rather than weapons that annihilate. With this 24-hour news and social media war-zone, we need those that help us find a compassionate, empathic way to live together “under one sky.”

Leslie Hershberger is one such person. I wish Leslie Hershberger lived next door to us. Sitting with her, you can sense the beautiful flow integrating head, heart and gut wisdom. She is consciously present, practices harmony in her own soul and guides others in the same way.

Please join us in hosting the Editor or the Nine Points E-zine, and Master Teacher of the Enneagram bringing 18 years of training with a broad practice community. I hope that as I interview Leslie, you experience her as I do, someone whose inner work effects those she comes in contact with. Register here)

I close with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. May we discover the passion for peace he modeled for us.
“Lord help me to accept my tools. However dull they are, help me to accept them. And then Lord, after I have accepted my tools, then help me to set out and do what I can do with my tools.” Dr. King, excerpted from, “Thou, Dear God”: Prayers that Open Hearts and Minds

Choosing a plowshare.

Clare