Dead Girl

“I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread.
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, nor even bread.
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of the world
May live and grow and laugh and play.”

 ~ Nazim Hikmet ~

~

ten years after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the turkish poet, Hikmet imagined being one of the hundreds of children who died and gives voice to her plea for peace in the poem above and that plea is mirrored in the reflection that follows of a hibakusha’s cry for peace that began as a cry of revenge:

Koko Kondo had a secret mission as a girl: revenge… determined to find the person who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the person that caused the suffering and the terrible burns she saw on the faces of girls at her father’s church and then give them a punch, she got her chance in 1955 as ten-year-old Kondo appeared on an American TV show called “This is Your Life” that featured her father, Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, one of six survivors profiled in John Hersey’s book “Hiroshima.” Kondo stared in hatred at another guest: Capt. Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the bomb… while Kondo, who survived the bombing as an infant, wondered if she would act on her fantasy and punch him, the host asked Lewis how he felt after dropping the bomb… “Looking down from thousands of feet over Hiroshima, all I could think of was, ‘God, what have we done?’” he said. Kondo saw tears well in Lewis’ eyes, and her hatred melted away. “He was not a monster; he was just another human being… I knew that I should hate the war, not him. It’s time we human beings get together and abolish nuclear weapons, We have hope.”

as we take this moment of eternity to re-member the devastation wrought during this week 77 years ago and as we sit on the precipice of the possibility of nuclear annihilation, let us heed the words of another who rued his role in the Manhattan Project:

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. The splitting of the atom has changed everything except the way we think. Thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”  ~ Albert Einstein ~

and towards that resolve, listen now to the call to action of peace activist John Miksad:

It’s time to stop the MAD-ness!

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed 78 years ago this week. The two bombs the United States dropped on those cities killed some 220,000 human beings, most of whom were civilians. Comparing those bombs to the weapons of today is like comparing a colonial era musket to an AR-15. Now we can snuff out the lives of billions with the push of a button. When you consider the other species we’d annihilate, the number of lives lost “mushrooms” into the trillions. The result would be the destruction of a large portion of life on the planet. 

MAD= Mutually Assured Destruction, the actual nuclear war planners’ term.

Think of the billions of years of evolutionary work that would be undone.

Think of everything our ancestors created and passed down to us… incinerated. 

Think of all the art, literature, music, poetry that humans created through the millennia…up in smoke. The genius of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven… destroyed.  

Think of everything you worked for, planned for, hoped for… gone.

Think of everyone you love wiped from the face of the earth.

All that will remain is death and suffering. 

Man, who has killed so much in his brief existence on this planet, will have committed the ultimate crime…omnicide…the murder of all life.

Those “lucky” enough to survive will have to suffer in toxic destruction.  

The aftermath of the holocaust will be worse than anything dystopian writers ever imagined.  

All as a result of just one fateful decision, one evil act, one miscalculation, one system error, or some confluence of these events.   

While all life on earth hangs in the balance, we go about our lives. We’ve normalized something that is abnormal, abhorrent, and insane. We are under continuous threat.  We don’t fully understand the psychological harm…the fear and anxiety that we experience at some level of our individual and collective psyches that struggles to grapple with our omnipresent potential destruction. The nuclear Sword of Damocles dangling above our heads while we eat, sleep, work and play.   

Our collective fate is in the hands of nine people who control the 13,000 nuclear warheads in the world…these weapons of massive obliteration. Nine fallible and flawed human beings have the means to destroy all life on the planet. Are we really ok with this? Do we trust them with the lives of everyone we know and love? Isn’t it past time for a sanity check?

No one is safe. This war moved beyond the battlefield long ago. The front lines are in every country, in every town and city, in your backyard, and in your children’s and grandchildren’s bedrooms.

Some think of nuclear weapons as a life insurance policy. They think that although we don’t want to use them, they are good to have when we need them. This thinking could not be more wrong. Since these weapons have been in existence, there have been more near misses and close calls than any rational person would be comfortable with. We’ve escaped annihilation by luck! 

Scientists concur; we are in extreme danger right now. As long as these weapons of mass destruction exist, the question is not if they will be used, but when, at which point we get perhaps 30 minutes to say our goodbyes. The arms races of today do not make us safe; they put all of us in jeopardy while making weapons manufacturers wealthy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a way to have real safety and security, health, and well-being. Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans need not be our enemies. 

There are only two ways to eliminate an enemy…either destroy him or make him your friend. Given the weapons in question, destroying the enemy assures our own destruction. It’s a murder/suicide pact. That leaves only one option. We have to talk through our differences and convert our enemies into our friends. The time has come to realize this previously unimagined possibility. 

All people of all nations are faced with the interrelated threats of pandemics, climate crises, and nuclear annihilation. These existential threats cannot be solved by any one nation. These global threats require global solutions. They force us to adopt a new paradigm. We need dialog, diplomacy, strong democratized international institutions, and an expansive portfolio of verifiable and enforceable de-militarizing international treaties to reduce fear and build trust. 

Nuclear weapons are all illegal. There are nine rogue states that continue to threaten all of us with their nuclear weapons…the United States, Russia, China, England, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. The governments of these nations need to be pushed to adopt the new paradigm. They are stuck in the old paradigm of zero-sum games, “might makes right,” and treating the earth as a geopolitical chessboard while fighting over land, resources, or ideology. Martin Luther King was right when he said that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together as fools. 

We cannot leave all of life on this beautiful planet in the hands of nine people.  These people and their governments have chosen either consciously or unconsciously to threaten us all. We, the people, have the power to change that. We just have to exercise it.”

let us all gather in sacred ceremony around the inner fire of our one cosmic heart committing to befriending all the children of the earth and thus co-creating a cosmos of peace founded on justice and guided by love… 

~

“This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world.”

~ Sadako’s friends ~

~

today i gather virtually at the Atomic Bomb Dome, the only structure left standing in the area 78 years ago when the first ever atomic bomb was detonated on Hiroshima, with astonishing lights of being around the globe as i have for the last many turns around the sun to commemorate what is described as the most significant day in history, the day the United States detonated the first atomic bomb killing over 220,000 innocent beings with many more dying in the following decades from the radiation… we gather on Japanese time so we can be together at 8:15 AM on August 6 when the siren goes off in Hiroshima commencing a moment of silence which is August 5 in the usa…

this ceremony is always so powerful and moving and the most inspiring part for me is hearing from the hibakusha, the ones who as children in an instant saw their classmates die, their family members die, their city devastated with thousands of bodies dead in the streets, themselves burned and 78 years later the mission in them is stronger than ever to abolish all nuclear weapons, that what happened to them never happen again… let’s listen now to their urgent appeal:

“At present, humanity stands at the crossroads of whether to save our blue planet with all living things on it as it is or to go along the road of self-destruction.

The two atomic bombs dropped on August 6th and 9th 1945 by the US forces totally destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an instant, and killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people without discrimination. With corpses charred black, bodies with their skins peeled off and with lines of people tottering in silence, a hell on earth emerged. Those who narrowly survived soon collapsed one after another. For 77 years since then we have struggled to live on, afflicted by the delayed effects and by anxiety about the possible effects of radiation on our children and grandchildren. Never again do we want such tragedies to be repeated.

After 11 years of silence following the A-bomb suffering, Hibakusha assembled in Nagasaki in August 1956 and founded Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A-and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations. There we pledged that we would work to “save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves”. Since then we have continued appealing to the world that “there should never be another Hibakusha.” This is the cry of our soul.

Wars and conflicts are still going on in the world, and many lives of innocent people are lost. Nuclear weapons are being used to threaten others. There are also moves to develop new nuclear weapons. The destructive power of existing nuclear weapons, which number well over 10 thousand, amounts to that of tens of thousands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Nuclear weapons are the “weapons of the devil”. They could wipe out the human race and all other creatures. They could destroy the environment and turn the globe into a dead planet.

Human beings have prohibited the use, development, production and possession of biological and chemical weapons by treaties and protocols. Why do we hesitate to prohibit nuclear weapons, which are far more destructive than these weapons? We, the Hibakusha, call on all State Governments to conclude a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.

The average age of the Hibakusha now exceeds 80. It is our strong desire to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world in our lifetime, so that succeeding generations of people will not see hell on earth ever again. You, your families and relatives, or any other people should not be made Hibakusha again…”

on the cenotaph in the Peace Park in Hiroshima is an inscription which reads, ‘Rest in peace; the mistake will not be repeated’. This has become the prayer and vow of many survivors, who are determined to make sure that the deaths of loved ones has not been in vain and that no human being will ever have to repeat their fate. may we all commit to share the Hibakusha vow and mission…

hear our prayer and cry: Peace Prevails on Earth!

~

ah, today is the day of this turn around the sun when we begin the re-memberings of the 78th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – it is also the day Anne Frank’s family secret hiding pace was raided 78 years ago… since Japan is 16 hours ahead of the pacific northwest, the Hiroshima day of prayer which begins with a moment of silence at the exact moment of the atomic bomb drop is 4:15pm here on the 5th and 8:15 AM on the 6th in Hiroshima… this picture of Sadako and her thousand cranes is one of my favorites, i resonate so with this child’s wish for peace on earth…

yes, seventy-eight years ago, the beautiful child in this image, Sadako, was 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on her city of Hiroshima during the second world war… nine years later, she developed the “atomic bomb disease”, leukemia… hearing the ancient Japanese story that says when you fold 1000 paper cranes your wish will be granted, Sadako was able to fold 644 cranes with her wish for healing before she died at twelve years old from atomic radiation…

inspired by her courage and strength, her friends and classmates dreamed of creating a monument to memorialize their friend and all children killed by the bomb. young people all over the land of the rising sun real-eyesed their dream a couple of years later when in 1958 a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish. It is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:

“This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world.”

today, people all over the world continue to fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima…

may we all take up their cry and prayer of peace in the world… may there be peace on earth and may it begin with me and thee…

thank you for joining with me in being a pulse that lights up the world with prayers for harmony, conscious evolution and for peace to prevail on Earth…

~

The Nuclear Prayer

“The Beginning and the End are in your hands, O Creator of the Universe. And in our hands you have placed the fate of this planet. We, who are tested by having both creative and destructive power in our free will, turn to you in sober fear and in intoxicating hope. We ask for your guidance and to share in your imagination in our deliberations about the use of nuclear force. Help us to lift the fog of atomic darkness that hovers so pervasively over our Earth, Your Earth, so that soon all eyes may see life magnified by your pure light.

Bless all of us who wait today for your Presence and who dedicate ourselves to achieve your intended peace and rightful equilibrium on Earth. In the Name of all that is holy and all that is hoped. Amen.”

~

  may peace prevail on earth, may every thread of the web of life be peace now and may all relatives dance in devocean to love…

today as we honor this sacred moment of eternity, let’s open our real eyes – our eyes of wonder and awe –  seeing everything as if for the first time as we deepen our roots into the earth tapping into the root connecting us all, the source of life…

yes, this third day of awegusto is an amazing striding along the pathless path out to the field beyond, the milagro field of dreams, of boundless possibility, of holy synchronicity/syncchronisiddhi…

and, yes, the world is too full to talk about here, so, let’s sync down with the breath into the core of our interbeing and down into the stillpoint of creation to wash in the energies of the central sun, being love and peace and joy and liberation where we dwell as wise innocents in the unknown, in the awesome, totally awesome mystery of the sacred hoop…

~

“A human being is part of the whole we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself in the thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living beings and all of nature.”

~ Albert Einstein ~

~

in this sacred moment of eternity, we celebrate the astonishing light of our interbeing on this high holy day known in the northern hemisphere as soular harvest, lammas, the celtic festival of lughnasadh honoring the great sun king, the god of light as well as the queen mother of the grain and earth and their union that creates the seeds of all life and brings forth the harvest signifying the continual circle of life and the eventual surrender to the source of light… today, i am called to honor divine light consciousness by sharing the sacred instructions of another being who brings so much light, Sherri Mitchell, an indigenous activist pictured here… let’s conspire, breathe together syncing into sacred space and have her words speak directly into our one heart:

“When we come into this universe, we are born into our first eco-system, our mother’s womb. There we are nurtured and sustained through an umbilical connection to the body of our birth mother. When we are born into this world, our umbilical connection is transferred from our birth mother to the Earth mother. Our umbilical connection with the Earth mother then nurtures and sustains us for the remainder of our human lives.

Though we have migrated a great distance, the radiance of that star dust still resonates within us. It is the essence of something indescribable that is etched upon our souls. It stirs something deep within us. This stirring is a call of recognition, of remembrance. It continuously reminds us that we are infinitely connected to one another, to the natural world, and to a unified divine source. Evidence of our shared origin can be found all around us. Science has finally caught up with what we have always known, that we are all related. We are all made out of the same foundational elements…

We are part of a universe, a collection of individual notes in one continuous song; the song that sang all life into being. This song is the drone of the musical universe. It is the foundation upon which all structure is built. If we listen closely, we can hear this creation song echoing in our bones. It exists in a vibrational frequency that emanates throughout the entire universe and resonates deep within us. This tone is the voice of creation; the voice that first spoke and brought all life into form. Each individual soul carries its own unique vibrational tone that is built upon that universal tone, and that individualized tone carries the seed of that being’s life path. When that seed is planted, even before the first shoot comes up through the ground, the vibration of that tone exists within it. This tone sets the rhythm for the new life that is being cultivated; it is that individual being’s creation song.

As Indigenous people, we are taught to live our lives in a balanced rhythm with the harmonic frequencies that surround us. This is why our teachings rise out of an oral tradition. Our history has been passed orally, not because we lacked the ability to translate our words into written form, but because we have always realized that our words have an alchemy that is capable of creating form. Our language is the vibrational expression that gives form to the animate universe. Every vocal expression that is released creates its own unique resonance. As we speak, we are weaving layers of sound that merge into harmony with the entire creation. This harmonic symphony brings into form the reality that we see before us.

The only way that we will be able to hear these harmonic vibrations is to become multisensory beings. We must tune in to our ability to see beyond the physical reality that surrounds us, and awaken to the vast unseen world that exists. Then we can begin to see beyond sight and to hear beyond sound. We see the underlying structures that support our world, and life begins to take on new shape, new meaning. When we live as multisensory beings, we find that we are able to comprehend the language of every living thing. We hear the voices of the trees, and understand the buzzing of the bees. And we come to realize that it is the interwoven substance of these floating rhythms that holds us in delicate balance with all life. Then, our life and our place in creation begins to makes sense in a whole new way. Our vision expands to see the overall order of our path, and our hearing tunes in to a whole new source of information. Once we become attuned to this new information, we can integrate this into our physical experience and harmonize our entire being with the vibrational reality that surrounds us. Then we will become witness to the perfect orchestration of divine order. We will recognize that when the trees breathe in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, our lungs mirror that movement, by breathing in the oxygen that is generously given and releasing carbon dioxide back to the trees. When we merge our internal rhythms with the rhythms of creation, we develop grace in our movement, and without thought or effort we are able to slide into the perfectly choreographed dance of life.

I remember my first moment of conscious engagement with this dance. I was a young woman, in my early twenties. It was a warm early-summer day and I was seated in a meditative state in my back yard. At that time, I was learning how to track energy. For several months, I had been deepening my ability to see the life force that permeates our world. As I was sitting there, I noticed a tiny ant crawling across a blade of grass. As I watched the ant move along, his little body began to light up. Then, the blade of grass that he was walking on lit up. As I sat there and watched, the entire area surrounding me began to light up. I slowly raised my eyes and the entire field became illuminated, as did the trees standing on the other side of the field lining the forest. Every bird that flew into my line of vision had an added layer of light surrounding it. I sat very still, quietly marveling over this newfound sight, afraid to move and lose it. While I sat there observing my newly illuminated world, I noticed something intriguing. The field of light that I was seated in was rising and falling in unison. As I watched the Earth breathe around me, I felt my own breathing fall into harmony with it. Everything became sharper; all of my senses came alive. While I sat there breathing with the world around me, the firm lines of my being began to fade. I felt myself expanding and merging with all that I was observing. There was suddenly no separation between me, the ant, the grass, the trees, and the birds. We were breathing with one breath, beating with the pulse of one heart. I was consumed by this achingly beautiful and complete sense of kinship with the entire creation. This single moment of open awareness allowed all of the teachings that I had been raised with to sink deeply into my heart. I got it.”

may we all get it and live in the field of the illuminated heart… let’s close our sacred ceremony by dedicating ourselves to living in the unity of our interbeing… 

~

are you seeing the corn moon light the night sky?

feel grandmother close enough to touch?

hear the cosmic cricket hum?

taste the winds of change blowing in the wind?

welcome, well come to awegusto august where, yes, we’ll be carrying over the energy of joyvolution july with the feeling of delight in and injoyment of the awe inspired by great mystery; in celebration and honor of today being both the super full moon in aquarius and the cross quarter day (halfway between soulstice and equinox) known in the northern hemisphere as lunar lammas and in the southern as lunar imbolc..

whispering: now is the moment to go beyond the protective self, the comfort zone and explore new ideas and revolutionary interbeing with the support of the fixed air sign of the aquarian, the electricity bearer, full moon of the first harvest blessing all children of the earth with the energy to create paradigms of new possibilities for the great turning with our one heart attuning us to our soulful destiny and blessing us as we live the quest ion of how we are to serve spirit… blessed bee…

under this powerful full moon, may we celebrate the feasting and grace that the source of all life provides to sustain all cosmic hearts and hands…

may we appreciate the great gift the cosmos bestows on us during lammas – the union of Venus and Mars and a new energy of relationship emerges flowing through the divine feminine and birthing a wise feminine energy so needed in this moment…

may the wisdom of the divine feminine re-awaken original blessing reality – revealing we are the ones we’ve been waiting for to mutate into/back to original sacred instructions, the mystical law that we are one and we can trust in the power of the sacred self, the soul to transform… blessed bee!

inspired by the astonishing light of our being, let’s take this moment, this wild and precious moment to leap with faith into the mystical world beyond the five senses and reason and conditional love and judgement into the tiny space of the heart, vast spaciousness of the all that is as we read the sacred words of the thanksgiving address… deep bows, co-hearts…

~

Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address

 Greetings to the Natural World

The People

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.

Now our minds are one.

The Earth Mother

We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Waters

We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst and providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms- waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the spirit of Water.

Now our minds are one.

The Fish

We turn our minds to the all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish and send our greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Plants

Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many generations to come.

Now our minds are one.

The Food Plants

With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting of thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Medicine Herbs

Now we turn to all the Medicine herbs of the world. From the beginning they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines. Now our minds are one.

The Animals

We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are honored by them when they give up their lives so we may use their bodies as food for our people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so.

 Now our minds are one

The Trees

We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty and other useful things. Many people of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life.

Now our minds are one.

The Birds

We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds-from the smallest to the largest-we send our joyful greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

 The Four Winds

We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help us to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us messages and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds.

Now our minds are one.

 The Thunderers

Now we turn to the west where our grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We are thankful that they keep those evil things made by Okwiseres underground. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers.

Now our minds are one.

 The Sun

We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Brother, the Sun.

Now our minds are one.

 Grandmother Moon

We put our minds together to give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, who lights the night-time sky. She is the leader of woman all over the world, and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the Moon.

 Now our minds are one.

The Stars

We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to the Stars.

Now our minds are one.

The Enlightened Teachers

We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to these caring teachers.

 Now our minds are one.

The Creator

Now we turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator.

 Now our minds are one.

Closing Words

We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way.

Now our minds are one.

~

~

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

~ George Bernard Shaw ~

~

welcome, well come to this joyous day of blessing the space between us on this closing day of joyvolution july, a day that is the eve of the full moon of revolution and is another day of celebrating the astonishing light of our interbeing in this moonth of being rebellious and feeling the joy even as we stand on the precipice watching so many things collapsing… for the last eleven days i’ve been on re-treat in the sweat lodge celebrating re-creation and profoundly plunging into the waters of life to listen, listen, listen to mama gaia and papa cosm and all our relatives’ heartsongs of blessing and lament, the soul songs that are our connective tissue reminding us, re-membering us that we are one, one family belonging to each other… on this eleventh day of retreat, on this last da of july, re-membering it’s the day an ancestor, a joy revolutionary, my father died and still being joy in the morning, joy in the kindness of friends, joy in seeing the beauty of the moment, the beauty of every moment… thank you for the gift of flowing energy to meet this moment with courage and compassion real-eye-sing we are beloved community knitted together in an ever expanding tapestry delicately woven with a thousand thousand fold threads of luminous light dancing in the quantum field out beyond and deep within…

in this field of love may we walk
all day long may we walk
through the turnings may
we walk
on the trail of pollen
may we walk
with love in our one heart may we walk
with  love before us may we walk
with love behind us may we walk
with love above us may we walk
with love all around us may we
walk
wandering on a trail of
love, may we walk
beginning in love
deepening in love

always being and becoming love…

in this moment of pregnant pause, i see us standing still and simultaneously moving at the speed of light on a high dune dedicated to free flight and deep dives into blessing this belonging space we share… on the brink of a new world, this spaciousness is where we real-eyes once again the ancient knowing of there is no separation… this stillpoint at the center of our circle, the hub of the wheel where all that is, is still, where everything is oh so real, where the peace that passeth all understanding is palpable calling us into deep silence…. listen, listen to the cosmic hum… listen, listen to our heartbeat’s drum… listen, listen for the sound of the bell syncing our breathing to the mantra of all is well… deep peace of the running wave to you, deep peace, deep peace, deep peace…

may we all awaken to the beauty we are… one cosmos, one web, one tribe, one family, one interbeing, one ocean, one love, one…

thousand fold thanks for sharing this journey along the buen camino, the rainbow trail, for coming home to our one heart flowing in rhythm with great mystery, dancing and re-joy-sing in harmony and shining the light of divine love so brightly…

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

~ Rumi ~

~

in this sacred moment of eternity on the eve of the eve of the full moon of revelation, i share this image representing the image that i am immersed in, that of the prophecy of the condor and eagle foretelling the revelation that we will return to a time of peace and harmony when these great birds of spirit fly together in balance rather than oppression and so here they are flying together painting peace across the vast rainbow skysea…

this prophecy speaks of a potential, it’s up to us to shift in consciousness which coincides with the transition of the great turning and the era of Pisces into Aquarius… we, the people living on the Earth right now, are the stewards of this transition – are we going to bring forth the potential towards harmony and balance, will we let our minds be in service to and fly with our hearts? every intention encompassing the timeless wisdom of the heart as our compass is a pulse in the web of life igniting others towards the same impulse of co-creating the 8th Fire, a new/ancient culture of spiritual transformation re-membering we are the children of the sun that never rises and never sets…

honoring John Lewis on the belated third year anniversary (7/17/20) of his death with his timeless words encouraging us that we can redeem the soul of our nation:

“While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

…Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”

“Thus shall ye think of this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightning in a summer cloud; A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.“
~Diamond Sutra~

a day of returning home a day of rest which just what “the doctor” ordered and more importantly, what the soul ordered… a day of turbulence just what the doctor ordered and more importantly, what the soul ordered? really? i have to ride wild waves filled with stinging jellyfish? yes, this too, this experience calling me deeper and deeper into the breath, into empty presence, the spaciousness of openheartedness… like the ocean, all is moving and transforming from wave to wave, breath to breath… like the moon, we cycle again and again through phases, always changing from moment to moment…

diving deeper and deeper into the wondering, we enter the stillpoint trusting the center will hold even in a world that presently so belies that trust…. so very critical to breathe into the center and surrender to great mother who cradles us like a newborn while we rock gently back and forth feeling the support of the ocean of love, home to grandmother who loves us so…

ah, i’m smiling at and with this world that is always turning, this world where the constant is change, always love remains… love is all there is…

aho!