Monthly Archives: June 2021

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 186 – 6/20/2021

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“Empty yourself of everything.  Let the mind rest at peace.  The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.  They grow and flourish and then return to the Source.  Returning to the Source is stillness, which is the way of Nature.  The way of Nature is unchanging.”  ~Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

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how i love this day of soulstice and standing still with the sun

re-membering life is a pilgrimage to the inner sun, sol, soul,

the city of gold in the heart within the heart, sacred space of radiance…

holding the treasured wisdom of our true value and how the world always goes on…

~

as the wise pilgrim moon waxes into fullness on this soulstice with so much to celebrate and commemorate, in the southern hemisphere we breathe in the shortest day while in the northern hemisphere we breathe out the longest day… are you feeling gaia breathing in rhythm with light waves? are you feeling the earth of your being breathing in the waves of light? as we stand still with the sun, i invite your paising with me and reflecting on some quest ions… who am i? what do i want? what am i here to give? what am i greatfull for?

today, the veil between the worlds is so thin, a magical day to see through the mists… to return for the divine union between heaven and earth to occur… a sacred moment of the divine masculine spirit pouring the luminous light all over the cosmos as we celebrate sacred father energy freeing us to enter the vast unknown, to stand still with the sun…

let’s gather together now under old oak trees, nurtured by the ground, the living green grass under our feet, to honor the longest/shortest day of the year… witnessing the pain of our earthmother, today we celebrate Her saying prayers of healing, for the world and for all Her children being mindful that today is World Refugee Day and that 258,000,000 people of the human variety are displaced. that’s one in 30 human beings…

“We join with the earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas.
To rejoice the sunlight.
To sing the song of the stars.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To recall our destiny.
To renew our spirits.
To reinvigorate our bodies.

We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life.We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land.
To restore the waters.
To refresh the air.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To renew the forests.
To care for the plants.
To protect the creatures.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To create the human community.
To promote justice and peace.
To remember our children.”

~ From the United Nations Environmental Sabbath ~

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may we re-member as we stand still with the sun that in each of us, there’s a little of all of us, there is only one of us here and in the most overarching sense, we are all refugees, all desiring beloved community, a refuge in the storm… as we take a sacred pause and stand still, may we reflect on the transformation we are being called to leap into shifting from a culture of war to one of peace, the beloved community of ubuntu, of compassion and care…

in this moment of eternity, this moment of the astonishing light of our being, may we all awaken to our sol, our inner radiance of divine love…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 185 – 6/19/2021

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On June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. Ninety-nine years earlier, on June 19, 1865, we celebrated the first African-American Emancipation Day, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States… Let us celebrate on this bittersweet day, made the sweeter with Juneteenth now being a federal holiday, with the words of President Obama on June 19. 2016…

“Just outside the Oval Office hangs a painting depicting the night of December 31, 1862. In it, African-American men, women, and children crowd around a single pocket watch, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect. As the slaves huddle anxiously in the dimly lit room, we can sense how even two more minutes seems like an eternity to wait for one’s freedom. But the slaves of Galveston, Texas, had to wait more than two years after Lincoln’s decree and two months after Appomattox to receive word that they were free at last.

Today we commemorate the anniversary of that delayed but welcome news. Decades of collective action would follow as equality and justice for African-Americans advanced slowly, frustratingly, gradually, on our nation’s journey toward a more perfect union. On this Juneteenth, we remember that struggle as we reflect on how far we’ve come as a country. The slaves of Galveston knew their freedom was only a first step, just as the bloodied foot soldiers who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge 100 years later knew they had to keep marching.

Juneteenth is a time to recommit ourselves to the work that remains undone. We remember that even in the darkest hours, there is cause to hope for tomorrow’s light. Today, no matter our race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, we recommit ourselves to working to free modern-day slaves around the world and to honoring in our own time the efforts of those who fought so hard to steer our country truer to our highest ideals.”

here we stand in this moment of eternity, a mere five years later but it feels light years away as we witness and participate in the rising tide demanding that America be the land of the free, demanding that justice for all be the law of the land, demanding that we start funding life re-membering we belong to each other rather than living under the delusion that we are separate leading to funding death and destruction and domination…

i woke up this morning intent on taking former President Obama at his word with this old spiritual singing me… “woke up this morning with my mind on freedom”… grateful to be spending this day with a communion of beings who have devoted decades and decades to bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice and feeling we are witnessing a baby step in the bending toward being beloved community…

may we all wake up each moment with our mind on freedom for all, speaking truth to power and raising hell until we walk the talk of life, liberty and justice for all relatives…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 184 – 6/18/2021

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in anticipation of Juneteenth, now declared a national holiday and in many states a holiday as well, and with yesterday being the 150th birthday of the renowned poet, James Weldon Johnson, I wanted to give this platform to the poet to tell a brief and important part of his story of his life which was devoted to waging racial justice…

“A group of young men in Jacksonville, Florida, arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. My brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and I decided to write a song to be sung at the exercises. I wrote the words and he wrote the music. Our New York publisher, Edward B. Marks, made mimeographed copies for us, and the song was taught to and sung by a chorus of five hundred colored school children.
Shortly afterwards my brother and I moved away from Jacksonville to New York, and the song passed out of our minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country. Today the song, popularly known as the Negro National Hymn, is quite generally used.
The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children.

Lift every voice and sing   
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.   
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;   
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,   
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,   
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might   
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,   
May we forever stand.   
True to our God,
True to our native land.”

i love hearing that the children kept singing the song and became teachers and taught it to their students, a half century ago when in a Black Studies course studying James Weldon Johnson as an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, I don’t re-member hearing the children popularized this song…

may we follow in the footsteps of the children and do what this soul song calls for… being true to source and following the path of love re-membering the words of Cornell West that justice is what love looks like in in public…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 183 – 6/17/2021

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on this day ninety-three years ago, another first in flight took place when Amelia Earhart embarked on the first trans-Atlantic flight by a woman… flying from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours, she captured and transformed our imagination forever… her legendary feats are the very emblem of courage — and of a woman who refused to let fears and adversity ground her dreams…  as we approach what some are calling the most potent day in this turn around the sun, soulstice, let’s take this moment to be inspired by her words to let our hearts soar just as this moment of eternity is calling us to deepen into mystery…

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“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Everyone has oceans to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?

No borders, just horizons – only freedom.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.”

~

yes, let us take courage, heart, great heart in this moment when the winds of change are collectively uplifting the cosmos into a shift for the ages emboldening all relatives to embrace the peace train conducting us into the freedom afforded by meeting and living in the present moment fully and tenderly as a friend…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with the blessing we began reciting 15 days ago into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives: may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 182 – 6/16/2021

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“there are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors…”

~Jim Morrison~

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living in a land of portals, of doorways between the known and unknown, i often travel a path such as today’s when life’s heartsong pulls me through a gateway into unitive consciousness… one of those journeys deeper into the heart cave, a journey of emerge and see, where you watch the tides and wait until they are going out so as not to be flooded and in the waiting trust is building… in the journey, in life, in flow…

yes, to breaking out of the shell, free from fixed prison walls…

and, to re-member in this moment, this beautiful moment…

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

~ Buddha ~

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in this moment of eternity,

greet your true self with elation

as you arrive at the threshhold, the doorway of waters falling home…

smile and breathe in this wondrous stranger…

embrace and reverence your true self opening your heart as wide as possible to the whole youniverse…

sit, feast, luxuriate, dance the radiance

diving ever deeper into the ocean of love…

this contemplation is a gift of love to source in appreciation for the gift of life… may this gift bless all our relations and expand and return a thousand thousandfold blessings…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with the blessing we began reciting 14 days ago into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives: may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 181 – 6/15/2021

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along with the prayer of thank you, thank you, thank you and the ho’oponopono ancient chant, this prayer ascribed to saint francis, these intentions, are central to, are the organizing matrix of my life… on this 98th day of the 100 day countdown to the International Day of Peace on 9/21, this prayer picture needs sharing as does the theme…

every year on 21 September, the United Nations calls on all nations and people to put down their weapons and reaffirm their commitment to living in harmony with one another… this year’s theme reflects the clarity that we are not each other’s enemies, that we belong to each other and must work together as what happens in one part of the planet impacts all our relatives…

the UN chief, Antonio Guterres kicked off the 100-day countdown with the following words:

“As we strive to address the pandemic, I call on everyone to be part of a transformation for peace, by standing up against hatred & discrimination, caring for the planet, and showing global solidarity.”

to this end, i invite you to join with me in a meditation for all our relatives inspired by Sean Fargo, a former Buddhist monk…

“Today we’ll be practicing acknowledging the similarities between ourselves and others. We often focus on differences but realizing that even people who seem very different from us in fundamental ways are just like we are can become the basis of real connection. 

This can include beings we don’t know very well, beings with whom we’re in conflict, or even beings who we see as enemies. It’s possible to develop a sense of compassion and understanding by coming to feel our shared sense of experience as interbeings. This practice can help overcome that sense of difference and distrust by opening channels of compassion.

1. Let’s begin by taking a moment to invite your body to settle in a comfortable position, inviting a sense of ease and relaxation throughout the body. 

Breathing full deep breaths with a soft belly. 

Feeling grounded by feeling the weight of your body on the ground or your chair. 

And just softening around any tightness, dropping the shoulders, softening your hands, and relaxing the muscles of your face and jaw. 

And gently closing your eyes or looking downward just to limit visual distractions. 

2. Invite yourself to take a deep breath in, and a long breath out. And as you breathe out, inviting a sense of releasing any tension that you’re holding in your body. 

3. As you breathe, briefly scan through your body with your awareness, noticing any sensations or emotions, just noticing what’s predominant for you, and inviting a sense of spaciousness and acceptance for whatever you’re experiencing right now in your body or in your emotions, just acknowledging them without judging anything to be good or bad, right or wrong. 

4. Now bring someone to mind who you don’t know very well, maybe someone who seems very distant or different from you, even someone you’re in a minor conflict with. And as you bring to mind this being you may not like or know very well, just notice if you experience any shift in sensation in your body. 

Holding this being in mind as if they were right in front of you. 

5. And say to yourself, “This being has a body and a mind, just like i have.” 

“This being has feelings, emotions, and thoughts, just like i have.”

“This being has at some point in their life been sad, disappointed, angry, hurt, or confused, just like i have been.”

“This being has in their life experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, just like i have.”  

“This being has experienced moments of peace, joy, and happiness, just like i have.”

“This being wishes to have fulfilling relationships, just like i wish.”  

“This being wishes to be healthy and loved, just like i wish.”

6. Now take a moment to sense how you’re feeling. And as you hold this being in your awareness, just notice: What do you experience? 

7. Now as you hold this being in mind, send them good wishes. May they be well, may they be happy, may they be healthy, may they live with ease. 

8. Now shifting your awareness back to your breath, breathing in, breathing out. Reconnecting with your body, feeling present, alive, connected, right here, right now.”

as we come together to meet the many challenges facing us, our voice is more important than ever… in these dynamic times of shifting consciousness, this International Day of Peace is dedicated to fostering dialogue and collecting ideas on healing our planet and ourselves… we can always dream together and spread compassion, kindness and hope in the face of the pandemics of militarism, materialism, racism, environmental disruption and health by standing together in unity for the benefit of all beginning in this moment with this breath… yes, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me and thee…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 180 – 6/14/2021

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Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.

~ Pema Chodron ~

it is flag day and i imagined early this day of celebrating today as 99 days until International Peace Day and i have along with another day in a string of so many that dynamic flux is upending the world; let’s listen again to Pema…

…”But it’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for this is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.”

~ Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change ~

may we all open to living beautifully and gracefully with what is – uncertainty and change – trusting in great mystery’s impeccable flow of the implicate order…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with the blessing we began reciting 12 days ago into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives: may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 179 – 6/13/2021

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well come to this moment of eternity where we acknowledge the astonishing light of our being, a light shining so brightly in the core of our being, a light that has been shining since the beginning of beginningless time, a light calling us to listen, listen, listen to the soulsong singing our one body to come home to the heart, to the present moment, the only moment…

so many shoulders, roots, mycelial networks supporting us, such a boundless circle, a communion, a common union, our one body perfectly created for these times… what follows is one of the thousand thousand fold expressions of this living truth, the cosmic wisdom of the astonishing light of our interbeing that i have shared before and this moment of initiation, of separation, ordeal and return, calls out for this healing balm…

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We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

~ Hopi Elders’ Prophecy, June 8, 2000 ~

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let us rise and descend simultaneously into the call for life, liberty and justice for all in our every thought, word and deed with every breath and step… and so it is… blessed being the astonishing light we are…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with the blessing we began reciting 11 days ago into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives…

may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 178 – 6/12/2021

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“Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.”

~ Rumi ~

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may we travel lightly with

more and more love

and more and more surrender

more and more love

and more and more surrender

more and more love

and more and more surrender

into the vast spaciousness of love

into the eternal chorus of the celestial realms with angelic beings re-joy-sing to earth beings below,

into the silent whispers of the stone peoples,

into the coyotes howling to the waxing moon,

into the twinkling eyes of children,

into your beloved’s hand holding yours promising never to forsake you,

into the smile of a stranger who is now a friend,

into the good, the true the beautiful, all that we can witness all over the planet in every moment through the eyes of love,

into the sweet nectar of love…

may we celebrate the cosmic dream of peace coming alive this moment at the collective metamorphosis uprising from sea of love energy to shining sea of love energy…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with the blessing we began reciting 10 days ago into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives…

may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 8 – Day 177 – 6/11/2021

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in this moment of eternity vibrating at the auspicious energy of 1111 as we draw down the energy of the new moon in gemini, the moon of trailblazing, of listening to the soul song, of leaping in faith as an imaginal cell, the fledgling in this image transports me to an old story from africa…

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when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, listening until she hears the soul song of the child that wants to come…

and when the mother is pregnant, she teaches that child’s soul song to the women of the village, so that when the child is born, they will welcome her with that song…

when the child goes through the rites of puberty, the we’moon come together to sing that soul song…

and when the child falls, or hurts its knee, they will pick him up and remind him of the soul song…

when the child crowns a noble achievement, they will celebrate with that soul song…

and if ever along the way the child gets swept up in the world and loses her way, the villagers will come together and remind her of her soul song…

finally, when the child passes away, they will honor his life by singing the soul song…

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“…It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change’s gonna come, oh, yes, it will…” ~ Sam Cook ~

as we pause on the precipice of a new journey into the unknown, may  we sing courageously celebrating rebirth, renewal and resurrection…

thank you, thank you, thank you for singing the soul song for all children of the earth…