welcome to a day honoring so much richness… it is Wheel-Turning Day, Chokhor Duchen, commemorating the anniversary of Shakyamuni Buddha’s first teaching seven weeks after his enlightenment once Indra and Brahma offered him a dharma wheel and a conch shell… accepting, Shakyamuni Buddha turned the Wheel of Dharma for the first time at Sarnath in his teaching on the four noble truths… also, it’s Pema’s 85th year of continuation and Bastille Day and Universal Harmony Day, all four days perfect for celebrating our interbeing as vessels of great mystery shining forth luminously, bastions of living awakened, joyously, freely and harmoniously…

i’ll share now a brief meditation from Parker Palmer on life on the Möbius strip…

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“The curious object pictured is a Möbius strip. If you take your index finger and trace what seems to be the outside surface, you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the inside surface. Continue along what seems to be the inside surface, and you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the outside surface.

I need to keep saying ‘what seems to be’ because the Möbius strip has only one side! What look like its inner and outer surfaces flow into each other seamlessly, co-creating the whole. The first time I saw a Möbius strip, I thought, ‘amazing! That’s exactly how life works!’

Whatever is inside of us continually flows outward, helping to form or deform the world — depending on what we send out. Whatever is outside us continually flows inward, helping to form or deform us — depending on how we take it in. Bit by bit, we and our world are endlessly re-made in this eternal inner-outer exchange.

Much depends on what we choose to put into the world from within ourselves — and much depends on how we handle what the world sends back to us. As Thomas Merton said:

‘We don’t have to adjust to the world. We can adjust the world.’

Here’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since I understood that we live our lives on the Möbius strip:

How can I make more life-giving choices about what to put into the world and how to deal with what the world sends back — choices that might bring new life to me, to others, and to the world we share?”

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yes to there’s only one of us here, all that is confluing, flowing together, dancing into the stillpoint, dancing out from the stillpoint seamlessly always connected, always interbeing, always flowing in the seasky of love energy empowering luminosity and shining the light so brightly that all our relations see the way home, home to our one heart… and, yes, to the beautiful question that we are all being asked to live in this moment of great turning…

with a smile mirroring our heart of joy, let’s close this part of the sacred space of ceremony with the blessing of the Essene Daily Communion for Thursday:

THE DEEPENING: Hold a bowl of water as you commune with the Angel this day. When finished drink the water in deep reverence and feel it, like a rushing current of a river, fill your body and soul.

MORNING COMMUNION: Angel of WATER I invoke thee; whether lake or stream or water of the well, enter my body and become my blood. Give unto me the gift that sustains all life. Your blessings hath cleansed my spirit and quenched the thirst of my soul and as each morning comes, I shall embrace thee.

MEDITATION: As the wave of natures glory reaches its crest and then flows on, I have gained perspective. The waters that rage in the rivers and the rains that fall from the sky are the same as the blood that flows in the veins of my body. The Earth and I are one.

NOON CONTEMPLATION: Peace with the MIND.
Evil thoughts cannot abide in a mind filled with the Light of the Law. He who hath found Peace with the Mind, hath learned to soar beyond the realm of the Angels; For I tell you truly, the lightning that cleaves the mighty oak, or the quaking that opens great cracks in the earth are as the play of children compared with the powers of thought.

EVENING COMMUNION: Angel of WISDOM I invoke thee; for only through the wisdom of the holy law doth the Angels guide the children of light. Descend upon my thinking body and enlighten my thoughts, my mind, my intentions and my deeds. To follow the holy law is the root of your blessings, and as each evening comes, I shall embrace thee.

THE BLESSING: When at first a fledgling bird tries to fly, his wings cannot support him, and he falls again and again to the earth. But he tries again and one day he soars aloft, leaving the earth and his nest far behind. And so is it with the thoughts and intentions of the Sons of Men. The longer one walks with the angels and keeps their Law, the stronger ones thoughts shall become in Holy Wisdom. The day will come when the thoughts of men will overcome even the kingdom of death and then shall he soar to everlasting life in the kingdoms of the Heavenly Father. 

There is no greater power in heaven and earth than in the thoughts of the Son of Man. ~The Isaiah Effect

Each of us has deep within the knowledge of all things, and when we are ready to remember, the knowledge is there to be known. ~The Essene Book of Days

Only when we surrender to our inner nature can we begin to hear the wisdom that comes from deep within. ~The Essene Book of Days