Holy Fools 2026
I’ve always known Diana Chapman to be a Holy Fool.
And it was clear that Chip Conley is as much of one as I am…
just with a bigger budget.
Our conversation was wide-ranging, and the feedback said it better than I could:
“Oozing with wisdom.”
“Great stories.”
“Made my day.”
“Fun, insightful, encouraging.”
“It went deep… and still had a lightness.”
One person asked for more about “the thread”—
and the William Stafford poem I mentioned:
“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread. . . ‘
It reminded me what my teacher, Angeles Arrien, used to say to me:
“I love watching you create. You pull on a string, and you pull, and you pull, and you pull… and out comes a hippopotamus!”
That’s the Holy Fool path.
Sometimes the hippo is a dream realized.
And sometimes it’s a public failure of mammoth proportions.
Chip and I talked about both.
What If There’s Nothing to Figure Out
I enter the New Year with a double whammy: a birthday and a new year—both of which can throw my Capricorn mind into overload with all that might be possible if I could just FIGURE IT OUT.
After all, the war cry of the Capricorn is:
“There’s a harder way to do this, and I’ll find it—even if it kills me!”
This pattern is deeply embedded, and I tend to succumb to it before the wiser part of me steps in to remind me of something my great teacher Angeles Arrien often said:
Each day there are two plans.
My Plan.
And the Mystery’s Plan.
I’ve lived enough life to know that the Mystery’s Plan is always the higher road—designed for greater freedom, deeper joy, and a more truthful expression of who we are.
That understanding gave rise to a new program—one that opens us to the Mystery’s Plan.
A Solstice Blessing: Listening at the Threshold
At the solstice…
we stand at a threshold.
A place where light and dark meet…
in dynamic balance.
The dark invites us to listen deeply.
The light calls us into expression.
In dark times,
May we Listen not only for what it ours to do—
But for who we are to become to meet them.
May we trust the medicine
that is uniquely ours to carry.
And may we offer it in service of a world
that honors all of life.
May this turning of the year
meet you exactly where you are.
And may your Listening
guide your light.
Solstice blessings, dear soul.
All Love,
Gail
On October 31, thirteen of us gathered on the Listening Playground and asked the question
By Listening Together, we received an answer that is teaching us how to live –and play!
There is no hierarchy in the web of life.
There is only relationship.
When we play, we restore flow.
When we listen, we remember how to belong.
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