Dear friends,
I spent last week practicing the art of disappearing.
Earlier this month I received an invitation I couldn't rationally explain but couldn't ignore. Would I join a Bodhisattva retreat at a monastery in the California redwoods? Admittedly, I had to ask Claude what Bodhisattva even meant.* (Awakened being who awakens being, in case you're wondering too.)
We were an eclectic ensemble: tech founders and energy healers, Harvard professors and animal whisperers, stewards of land, lineage, and billions. Everyone appeared outrageously accomplished by worldly measures—reading the bios I felt a familiar flush of being out of my league.
But here's what no LinkedIn search could have told me: the true gifts these humans bring to the world — their depth of wisdom, devotion to practice, generosity of spirit — would never show up on our socially-sanctioned scorecards.
The night before the retreat started, I got an email: "Would you give a short talk on the opening evening?" I felt the surge of scared/excited (ie. scited) a somatic clue I’ve learned to follow.
"Of course," I replied. "How should I prepare?"
The response was immediate: "The only way to prepare is not to."
This simple invitation exposed decades of conditioning: study for the test, prepare the talk, impress the audience. But this time I wasn’t being asked to prove myself, but to be myself.
Forever the 'good student', I took my assignment seriously: I would not prepare.
The next evening, when it was time for my talk, I disappeared into presence. I have no idea what I said, but I know that whatever words came were fresh and true. The conditioned self—the one who performs and proves, polishes and perfects—vanished. In its place: flow, trust, aliveness. And it felt like flying.
Stripped of our habitual armor—titles, pitches, credentials—and something more essential emerged. We broke the spell of status and connected around a shared intention: waking up and passing it on.
From start to finish, the experience operated on a gift economy—every meal, teaching, and moment of care was paid forward by past participants. I met volunteers who had traveled from India to serve meals, wash dishes, and craft intricate mandalas, asking nothing in return.
When generosity is the operating system, when there's no whiff of transaction, striving dissipates, scarcity dissolves and abundance flows.
And it turns out, generosity is contagious.
The gifts I received will be with me for a lifetime:
We're hardwired for generosity.
Even six-month-old babies understand compassion instinctively.
What we most desire is what we most fear: our mutual liberation.
We are always acting from either fear or love—if we're not sure which, it can't be love.
There are so many ways of knowing.
In an era saturated with words and concepts, we don't need more information, we need more attunement.
Our hearts and guts have neurons too—we've been taught to think only with our heads.
Certainty is irrational.
Real power is not obvious.
Finding the 5% right effort is harder than working harder, but once we do, the universe co-invests.
Answers divide us, questions bring us together.
A vow of poverty can become a vow of inner wealth.
Connection creates flow.
Laughter clears every channel that fear has closed.
Love not shared is like a check not cashed.
The speed of trust is infinite.
We're here to plant seeds.
Our job as earthlings is simple (if not easy): to learn what gifts we bring — whether it’s music, story-telling, sourcing or sense-making — and give them away.
Unhitching from the outcome makes the offering potent.
We are planting seeds, nothing more.
One morning, someone shared Orland Bishop’s words and I felt a channel open: "Who do I need to be so that you can be who you are meant to be?"
Without knowing it, this question has always been my compass—pointing me toward wise teachers, noble friends, and experiences that take me beyond my comfort zone again and again. Each one strips away layers of what I thought I knew, who I thought I was.
It's the magic of spiritual subtraction.
After a week that felt like a year, the 'Bodhisattva' concept felt less intimidating. I realized it doesn't describe someone who has arrived at some idealized state, but someone on the path and committed to practice. I'm still impatient and speedy. I know I can be vain, self-centered, judgmental. But I'm also clear about my highest intention: to align with my deepest truth, and to create space for others to do the same.
The whole experience felt like a fractal of what we're building at The Flight School where we…
offer our teachings freely
trade in trust, not transactions
orient by emergence, not fixed plans
connect from essence, not egos
gather to practice animation, liberation and co-creation
On our last morning, this insight: What we'd experienced in the redwoods was a murmuration—that mesmerizing dance where inner knowings merge into collective wisdom.
What the world needs now?
A murmuration of murmurations.
The oldest (and wisest) member of our group was completely silent until the final evening, then offered this: "When in doubt, choose love."
Can you feel it?
Let’s live from here.
With a love fiercer than fear,
Abby
*Now I know to ask Awakin.AI instead. Check it out….
A few things helping me true my compass to love:
Immersing in Mark Slagle’s gift for making the invisible visible. His short film captures the spirit of our gathering better than any words on a page.
Watching Srinija Srinivasan ask the essential question: Will we let AI compress us into binaries, or meet this moment with our full humanity? Here’s her stunner of a TED talk on what real intelligence looks like.
Reading Vanessa Andreotti's prophetic wisdom in Outgrowing Modernity (the follow up to Hospicing Modernity) that invites us to practice the capacities we need (maturity, discernment, sobriety) to meet the moment. Essential reading for 21st century humans. Sample chapters here.
Amplifying Rebecca Henderson & Hitendra Wadhwa's new course - Awakening the Transformative Leader Within—five days bridging inner mastery with outer change. For anyone ready to lead from their heart.
Listening to Nimo’s Planting Seeds on repeat. My new meeting prep: "Whatever grows will grow, whatever dies will die, whatever works will work, whatever flies will fly—I am planting seeds, nothing more."
PS: Selfies aren't my thing—especially odd in a post about disappearing! But. When Mo, who took this pic, asked me to close my eyes, the experience itself became the photograph. Sharing this not for how it looks, but for how it feels…..
This piece is part of a new series, Are we asking the wrong questions? About how changing the questions, changes everything.
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