today’s pilgrimage of traveling along the beautyway deeper and deeper into this unknown land where i’ve been dwelling almost three weeks/lifetimes is a caravan of re-joy-sing, a moment, a beautiful moment of eternity of walking in beauty, being breathed and walked on the beautyway and transported into the field beyond where we are one family walking each other home, walking with each other into great mystery… blessings and blissings for all our relations as we saunter along the rainbow trail seeing divine beauty in each moment, each beautiful moment… namaste…
“For the Traveler
Every time you leave home, Another road takes you Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await. New places that have never seen you Will startle a little at your entry. Old places that know you well Will pretend nothing Changed since your last visit.
When you travel, you find yourself Alone in a different way, More attentive now To the self you bring along, Your more subtle eye watching You abroad; and how what meets you Touches that part of the heart That lies low at home:
How you unexpectedly attune To the timbre in some voice, Opening in conversation You want to take in To where your longing Has pressed hard enough Inward, on some unsaid dark, To create a crystal of insight You could not have known You needed To illuminate Your way.
When you travel, A new silence Goes with you, And if you listen, You will hear What your heart would Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing: Make sure, before you go, To take the time To bless your going forth, To free your heart of ballast So that the compass of your soul Might direct you toward The territories of spirit Where you will discover More of your hidden life, And the urgencies That deserve to claim you.
May you travel in an awakened way, Gathered wisely into your inner ground; That you may not waste the invitations Which wait along the way to transform you.
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed, And live your time away to its fullest; Return home more enriched, and free To balance the gift of days which call you.”
today, the world witnesses the peaceful transfer of power in the states of north america at a moment of conscious uncertainty on the world clock… for this new beginning, i resolve to be what anima mundi calls us to be… yes, today, i pick up my thread from the unraveled world tapestry to dreamweave a new world of imagination with wonder and wisdom/re-member the ancient dream of the people… thousandfold thanks for doing the same, for in our coming together to stand in love for love and acting from this place, we are the beloved community…
in honor of this inauguration, the omens foretold from birds in flight of what the future holds, here is the poem offered by the amazing amanda, national youth poet laureate, the youngest poet to deliver a poem on this occasion – what an auspicious omen…
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The Hill We Climb
When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade We’ve braved the belly of the beast We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace And the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always just-ice And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it Somehow we do it Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished We the successors of a country and a time Where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one And yes we are far from polished far from pristine but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect We are striving to forge a union with purpose To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another We seek harm to none and harmony for all Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew That even as we hurt, we hoped That even as we tired, we tried That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious Not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree And no one shall make them afraid If we’re to live up to our own time Then victory won’t lie in the blade But in all the bridges we’ve made That is the promised glade The hill we climb If only we dare It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy And this effort very nearly succeeded But while democracy can be periodically delayed it can never be permanently defeated In this truth in this faith we trust For while we have our eyes on the future history has its eyes on us This is the era of just redemption We feared at its inception We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power to author a new chapter To offer hope and laughter to ourselves So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was but move to what shall be A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation Our blunders become their burdens But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left with Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west, we will rise from the windswept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states, we will rise from the sunbaked south We will rebuild, reconcile and recover and every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid The new dawn blooms as we free it For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it If only we’re brave enough to be it
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may we be brave enough to see and be the light we are…
on this eve of the peaceful transfer of power in the usa, i am digging deeply and looking back to this moment four years ago to see what i had written and feel it more emphatically tonight as i once again re-member the words of the Dalai Lama about our island home desperately needing more peacemakers, healers, restorers, lovers and storytellers which reminds me of an old legend of the first peoples of this land of turtle island… i love illustrating this post with the beautiful painting of the peace tree all the more so because i’m in the third week of “living outside the camp” and from this perch i see a tree that looks just like the peace tree which is a great soulace in these times of dissolution, dissolving into caterpillar soup awaiting imaginal cells to come on line winging us into peace and harmony…
passed down orally from generation to generation, it is a legend about a savior named deganawida, the peacemaker, originating over a thousand years ago during the final decades of pre-columbian america at a time like now, a time of pervasive fear and instability in the haudenosaunee world when a young virgin gave birth to a son… she was told in a dream that “your child will be a messenger of the creator and will bring peace and harmony to the people on earth.”
when deganawida came of age he told his mother, “I shall now build my canoe from white stone, for the time has come for me to start my mission in this world. I know I must travel afar on lakes and rivers to seek out the council smoke of nations beyond this lake. It is now time for me to go stop the shedding of blood among human beings.”
as deganawida began his mission, he first encountered a group of hunters who were fleeing from the bloodshed in the their own village and he instructed them: “Go back to your people and tell them that the Good News of Peace and Righteousness has come to your nation.”
the peacemaker’s mission, as the many accounts of the legend make clear, was to reestablish the natural equilibrium on which the well being of individuals, societies, and the whole of creation depends… deganawida achieved this mission by healing them—by “making their minds straight.” deganawida’s role was not that of a warrior, but a redemptive shaman—a healer… he was quite explicit about the mission: “health means peace, for that is what comes when minds are sane and bodies are cared for.”
the peacemaker, like the rainmaker, like all healers and medicine elders well knows that conflict is born of suffering and the root causes must be addressed for the village to come back into health and equilibrium where all feel they belong and are cared for and are treated with dignity… may we all breathe deeply together into the sacred space of wisdom and courageously take on the transformative mission of being peacemakers every moment of eternity…
honoring MLK with his words and our being and our seeing justice rolling down like waters…
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I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
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I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. … We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, April 4, 1967
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America is at a crossroads of history, and it is critically important for us, as a nation and a society, to choose a new path and move upon it with resolution and courage. … Consider, for example, the spectacle of … a nation gorged on money while millions of its citizens are denied a good education, adequate health services, decent housing, meaningful employment, and even respect, and are then told to be responsible.
Poor People’s March on Washington Announcement, December 4, 1967
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fifty-three years later, we are at a perilous crossroads and must choose a new path which we follow unwaveringly and with great courage, great heart to be beloved community respecting the inner light, the divine spark in all our relations understanding none of us have the whole truth, we each have a thread of the truth and it is our sacred response ability to weave our thread into the web as we all co-create a cosmos that works for all…
may the force be with us and may peace prevail on earth…
for today’s edition of the astonishing light of your being, i want to share a peace that may come as a surprise as it is the farewell address given on this day 60 years ago by the former World War II general and soon to be retired commander-in-chief of the usa who used this opportunity to caution the American public “against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military industrial complex.”
listen now to this oh so prescient cautionary tale from one of the most seemingly unlikely of peacemakers…
“This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
~ Dwight David Eisenhower ~
may we all wage and be peace with our every breath…
Lord, who can be trusted with power, and who may act in your place? Those with a passion for justice, who speak the truth from their hearts; who have let go of selfish interests and grown beyond their own lives; who see the wretched as their family and the poor as their flesh and blood. They alone are impartial and worthy of the people’s trust. Their compassion lights up the whole earth, and their kindness endures forever.
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today, i speak again of one with a passion for justice who still guides us today on the arc of healing justice, of one who was committed to a world of peace built on justice and guided by love so powerfully developed in his Beyond Vietnam speech…
in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, King said “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” What a clear challenge to the punishment paradigm that incarcerates so many, sentencing people to death by incarceration and executing others in our name. King is calling us to evolve, to imagine a different approach to conflict, one that promotes healing and is grounded in love…
Dr. King also reminds us that we must take courageous action in order to realize our visions of a more just world. In 1968, King said“[t]here comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
what an amazing synchronicity that his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop address was delivered the night before he was assassinated in 1963 and so much of it hols just as true today as it was 58 years ago… regarding his wanting to live a few years in the 2nd half of the 20th century, he says,“Now that’s a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men in some strange way are responding. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: ‘We want to be free.’ And another reason I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. (Yes) Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today. ”
in his triumphant finale, King proclaims, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life—longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land.I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
may we all go to the mountaintop and see the promised land and wage peace and justice and love with our every thought, word, deed and breath…
on this ides of January in the moonth of dreaming, let us celebrate the birth of one of our foremost modern day prophets who dreamed of his little children living in a world where they were judged by their character rather than their color, a dream still being dreamed today along with his call of sixty years ago to face the challenge of the new age with the creation of beloved community for only love transforms the fear of the old paradigm into the gladness of a new paradigm by opening our hearts to the miracle frequency of boundless love… “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”…
Happy Birthday, Martin! celebrating you today with a great leap of faith in what is and what is coming… may we all journey with you to the mountain top where we tune in and listen to the celestial hum mapping out the path of the freedom road and journey a thousand miles and more without lifting a foot… loving how the circle of co-creators is expanding exponentially, a fractal of imaginal cells of the universe/multiverse we are… loving the flight into freedom we are sharing and so thankful for all of our relations who have paved, are paving and will pave the way…
let us close with the words of the prophet from his I Have A Dream speech…
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred…The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
That one day down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
today’s pilgrimage calls for an exceptional january jewel seed image, a special image as today’s a special day, one of my favorites… joan of arc, a lifelong shero of mine was born on this day and today is also the birthday of my beautiful daughter, my crown jules, another revered shero…
it is so fitting to mark this day, this wild and precious moment of eternity with divine feminine rising to join with sacred masculine at the start of a new year and a new decade of destiny when the stars whisper of a great turning manifesting with an adamant call to trust inner wisdom and to proceed courageously trusting unwaveringly in the knowing that love always finds the way…
with deep bows and enormous gratitude, today’s pilgrimage is dedicated to juliette, a surefooted capricorn child of the earth and to all children of the earth, our natural teachers of lovingkindness and compassion… on the occasion of the anniversary of your birth, i am seeing such an amazing turn around the sun for you, for us all…
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yes! this is the year to take flight
to be dreamweavers of translucent, rainbow light
our cosmic heart soaring to an unimaginable height
yes! this is the year to take flight
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what a joy to travel the way of the heart… invisible, infolding pathway of presence, trust, surrender, devotion hypnotically calling us home to true refuge, our one heart… this moment, this beautiful moment of boundless love, of taking flight on the wings of love’s angelic waves, may we be true…
“I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star…” ~ Rumi ~
still under the radiation of the dark moon, now is the moment of eternity to dream of the seeds to plant, the seeds of the new moon, the potentials for the new year, the decade of the roaring twenties destiny and beyond… like you, i’m an organic gardener of the heart intending on continuing to plant seeds of devotion and humility, peace and love , joy and harmony, beauty and liberation and wisdom and simplicity… what seeds will you be planting and cultivating and watering with love?
as i dream riotously in the underground, just as i can see the sunflower seeds in full bloom, i also see the blossoming of an intention and commitment to be in wholehearted communion with the cosmos as i wander in wonder in every moment being more and more loving presence and more and more trust and more and more surrender or softening into what is… here in the dream lodge, the cave of the womb of inner knowing where everything shapeshifts, as do we, into no thing… no attachments, no possessions, no fixed identity… everything shapeshifting into flow, currents of water, waves of light… dormancy deepens trust in invisible flowering already organically unfolding in the rhythm of beloved…
how magnetic is this pathless path, this totally awesome weaving of the web of life by grandmother spider who’s breathed into form/formlessness by great mystery…
“All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it…” ~ Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
as we take true refuge more and more in the moment of eternity where we are everything simply by being in the moment… where everything shapeshifts, as do we, into no thing… no attachments, no possessions, no fixed identity… shapeshifting into flow, currents of water, waves of light… true refuge deepens trust in the invisible flowering already organically unfolding in rhythm with beloved…
“…help me to live this day quietly, peacefully. To lean upon Thy great strength trustfully, restfully. To wait for the unfolding of Thy will patiently, serenely. To meet others peacefully, joyously…” ~ St Francis ~
today’s pilgrimage has a magical mystery tour quality, a perfect backdrop for drawing down the the powerful energies of the first new moon of the new year and a perfect moment to be still and listen in a deeper way to our one cosmic heart’s whisperings for us all to invoke our shared quantum field of infinite possibilities for setting our intentions for moonifesting a cosmos of harmony where our heart beats as one resonant, unitive field…
in this moment, this beautiful moment of eternity, let’s breathe in peace deeply drawing down the rhythms of the dark moon and cultivate the mountain goat’s ability for receptive waiting by going into “thinking like a mountain” eternity consciousness… breathing in and breathing out, float down to the river below the river and see the polished stone whose jagged edges have been smoothed out by currents and whirlpools and floods and snow and glacier melts over the aeons and watch as this stone now rises revealing its true self as the sea goat of the ocean deeps and a mountain peak of quiet endurance and majestic calm, unmovable and unperturbable…
Like the ocean deep and mountain peak, we are in our core, constant and true and able to follow Capricorn’s lead to climb every mountain and to dive deeply into the ocean of being, to fulfill our shared dharma, our right way of living – to co-create a cosmos of harmony, heaven on earth consciousness… now is the moment to plant the energy intentions, to seed our shared field with the resonance of co-creation, co-llaboration and beloved communion… breathing in and breathing out our shared dream intention for a cosmos of true refuge for all our relations…
and so it is on this special day that has been so sacred forever… for example, seven years ago on this very day, i was driving home in baby blue under black skies pouring down rain when what do i see but not one but two and now three and finally four rainbows in the sky with the message that just like the sun is always shining, the sky is always rainbow colored but many of us cannot see it yet… and the last year on this day was the gamechanger, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction when the soular plexus chakra of the planet located at Uluru would be fully activated and the ritual interrupted back in the Dreamtime would be completed eleven months from a tear ago today and nine months from this day a year ago, a dancing star, an eagle child would be born so i’ll close with some prescience written a year ago on this day…
A star is being birthed … a new consciousness is now ripe to leave the birth canal and come into embodiment collectively and individually though even this division is transcended with this grand convergence into zero point continuum eternal now – blessed in the sacred conjunction of the planetary bodies at and as this threshold time collapse window into eternity is opening up and the umbilical cord to eden is restored and re-attached and that which was turned upside down is turned downside up in alignment with the naturel flow and breath of creation with rainbow serpent becoming rainbow bridge moonifesting heaven-earth consciousness…
