Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 191 – 6/25/2023

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in honor of the astonishing light of being as a caravan of re-joy-sing…

A Community of the Spirit

“There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.”
~Rumi~

“When I run after what I think I want,
my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety;
if I sit in my own place of patience,
what I need flows to me
and without any pain.
From this, I understand that what I want
also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me.
There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it”

~Rumi~

today, our caravan celebrates three years of gathering with each other to dance in the space of the sacred grove in the field of unitive consciousness with our sangha of boundless love… it is always such a wondrous moment of eternity… we invite you all to circle with us in a communion of spirit immersed in the soul song of our one cosmic heart to deepen into the ever expanding unfolding of the endless journey into infinite possibility…

let us come together by joining hands and dancing into the sacred grove sitting around the fire, the light and feeling the love geometrically progress as it passes from one of us to another, to another, to another… spirit loves light and water so nestled with our trees in the sacred grove in the unitive field, the field out beyond, let’s bring in water and deepen with an ori blessing which is a wonderfilled way to begin each day and is in keeping with the call to expand and deepen into consciousness which brought us together 3 years ago and keeps us together in every moment of eternity… take some water and put it on your 3rd eye to open vision and now move your hand with water to the crown opening universal consciousness, real-eyes-ation and now move your hand to the back of your neck to open creativity… we will sit here still with the sun in the portal of soulstice inspiring vision to come…

as we continue breathing deeply into our wisdom center one with our wise ansisters, bring attention to the base of the spine, the root chakra and the element of earth asking, what is my potential? now, move to the sacral, the element of water asking, how do I feel about myself? Move onto the soular plexus and the element of fire asking, what is this experience of commotion, chaos? let’s move on up to the heat chakra with the energy of channeling, of circulation and the element of air seeing the energy of commotion and chaos now being channeled and so now we move back down to the soular plexus which is now the energy of locomotion… what are you leaving behind? what are you taking with you into the rebirthing? breathing in deeply, we move to the throat chakra, element of ether and space where we express in thought word and deed out into the world and now move back down to the sacral witnessing how our raw emotions influence others and now move into the 3rd eye, the energy of insight contemplating what is one insight gained, the central insight among the many… we move back down to the root seeing that what was potential is now integrated… and so, we move now to the crown chakra, sacred space of real-eyes-ation… breathing in deeply infinite gratitude and chanting:

I Am the Divine Mother/She lives in me/ And everything she needs/Comes easily to me…

dear universe, thank you for blessing me with all the things I need the most, that I do not yet know are possible…

breathing in deeply 3 times, we open our eyes and heart and smile which inspires our internal love engine to drive the peace train, the caravan for all our relations…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 190 – 6/24/2023

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I’ll tell you the mystery of life,

Life is not a mystery at all.

It is a simple mastery of the self.

today is a delightful day injoyed in the company of a young being so full of self slowly coming into mastery of self as well as the 481st birthday of St John of the Cross, patron saint of contemplatives, mystics and poets… centuries ahead of the modern discovery of the unconscious, st john spoke of darkness, inner journeys, and the shadow self… his genius, his gift for the good of the whole was in living and speaking about the imperative of transformation of embracing the dark night of the soul and holding steadfast trusting in benevolent great mystery to lovingly bring forth the light… it seems such a synchronicity, such a meaningful coincidence, such a sign from the implicate order to re- member the father of the dark night leading to the light and here is that signature poem of his:

I.

“In a dark night,
With anxious love inflamed,
O, happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest.

II.

In darkness and in safety,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
O, happy lot!
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now at rest.

III.

In that happy night,
In secret, seen of none,
Seeing nought myself,
Without other light or guide
Save that which in my heart was burning.

IV.

That light guided me
More surely than the noonday sun
To the place where He was waiting for me,
Whom I knew well,
And where none appeared.

V.

O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.

VI.

On my flowery bosom,
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He reposed and slept;
And I cherished Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.

VII.

As His hair floated in the breeze
That from the turret blew,
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.

VIII.

I continued in oblivion lost,
My head was resting on my love;
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.”

this poem boils down the spiritual journey into 40 lines, a journey where for many years st john spent in darkness, in the cloud of unknowing with only his trust in a loving universe to sustain him… may all who see freedom of choice with our body temple as a human right continue to stand in solidarity, in direct action day after day and week after week to voice the will of the people to live free according to the imperative of right action… and, may we all re-member that when all seems lost, new life is right around the corner and may every moment of this journey of re-membering unfold into greater harmony…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 189 – 6/23/2023

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way out/in the beyond

carried by the wings of love

heart breaks wide open

~

“There was a startling recognition that the nature of the universe was not as I had been taught… I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it.… I was overwhelmed with the sensation of physically and mentally extending out into the cosmos. I realized that this was a biological response of my brain attempting to reorganize and give meaning to information about the wonderful and awesome processes that I was privileged to view.”

~

in the quotation above, astronaut Edgar Mitchell shares an epiphany from outer space travel, a shift in consciousness that has been called the overview effect… after many days/moons/turns around the sun/incarnations of inner space exploration, traveling at the speed of light toward ultima thule, the great beyond, the overview effect is now living me and in this wondrous state, i feel i have crossed the rubicon and sit perched in a nest high in the heavens and deep in the buoyant sea with telescopic vision empowering a 360 degree view of the cosmic web in that field out beyond right and wrong doing where we float in grace, in sacred space in awe of true emptiness, the vast spaciousness of being free, a light wave of infinity, dancing rainbow mystery…

i’m seeing us all injoying deep pausing in the last few days of the soulstice portal and attending to some polishing the mirror:

to that end, we can call in the Divine Spark Invocation to awaken the divine spark  and create a cosmos of peace and harmony within and without…

inhale: our whole being concentrates

exhale: the heartmind becomes empty and open

we invite divinity from earth

our true existence radiates light

we receive divinity from heaven

this divinity is within us

the divine opposites are unified

our true self emits divinity to all our relations

the light spreads to each relative

the divine self resonates within re-membering the divine self and that we are all divine…

namaste and deep bows

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 188 – 6/22/2023

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Honoring World Rainforest Day!

today on World Rainforest Day – a day encouraging action and awareness to protect the world’s rainforests – stop, take a breath, and reflect on our intimate relationship to the life-giving power of the Amazon rainforest and all that she provides for us as the lungs of the planet…

i love this image, even more, i love seeing pachamama as a rainforest showering us with breath, giving us life… so, let’s take this moment to feel pachamama  breathing us through our one heart flowing right into the stillpoint, our ground of being, oneness… in this sacred space, we open our hearts in rhythm with beloved’s flowing breath and feel the suffering and the joy of the cosmos and in the silence hear the whispers of what’s ours to do with our out breath…

i love this image, this metaphor returning to me on this day of pilgrimage when i’m re-membering the conception of the poetic peace pilgrimage over a decade ago as a daily breathing practice in rhythm with flow… i love this image, this metaphor returning on this day of pilgrimage when i awaken in wonder and awe of  great mystery and of bearing witness to the medicine of these cosmic lungs…

thank you, pachamama , for giving us these organs of breath, may we steward more and more response-ably and sustainably…

some invitations for stewarding lovingly:

Be grateful: To start with, action to protect the rainforests must begin now. Before we unmindfully cut trees to build our homes and offices, we need to take a deep breath and thank the rainforests for being the lungs of the planet. A real-eyes-ation of this might make us switch to more sustainable ways of development…

Contribute: We may also offer monetary and voluntary support and contribute to organisations that work to preserve the rainforests…

Eat a meat-free meal: Cattle farming contributes significantly to deforestation. Eating a meat-free meal can go a long way. We can start by going vegetarian for a day, week, month or a year…

Pass on palm oil: Rainforests are being cleared to expand palm plantations. Passing on palm oil and choosing products with alternate oils can be one small step that we can take on our part…

Spread the word: Creating awareness to preserve the forests can be one small act of kindness that we can show for the benefit of all…

may we re-member we are part of the earth as the rainforest is the womb of life from where we emerged with answers to questions we have yet to ask…

“The silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind’s music, medicine and knowledge.” ~ Jay Griffiths ~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 187 – 6/21/2023

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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

~

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 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 pausing 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 in the sacred grove in the field of trutopia under ancient 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…

“Beloved Creator, Beloved Mother Father, Beloved Beauty, 
On this sacred day Beloved Creator, We the humans of the Four Directions, Ask for your sacred blessings. You have brought us to this moment Beloved Beauty, The longest day of the year, & You have shown us our path. We have a path to travel Beloved Creator, & We are asking for your blessings, As we travel on this path Beloved Beauty. We are here to be in prayer with you, To ask for your blessings, To ask for your protection. As we pray Beloved Creator, As we journey down our path Beloved Beauty, We bring out our offerings to the sacred altar of the Universe. Beloved Beauty, You bring to us the longest day, & The shortest night. On this day we celebrate around the globe, Having been celebrated for eons. Thank you to the spirit of all our ancestors, I stand here before you, Holding the spirit of the fire in my heart. Beloved Beauty, Bless us with your beautiful, beautiful light. I know you are with us Beloved Mother Father, To bless us & to carry us on this sacred, sacred day Beloved Beauty. In the name of all of the spirit of nature Beloved Creator, The spirit the Earth, The spirit of the sacred Waters that helps us in the the growing of our gardens. I ask the blessings of the sacred Sun, & I ask for the blessings of the sacred Wind, The sacred breath. That it comes together in harmony, For the sake of all the people, Beloved Creator. In the name of all this Beloved Creator, In the name of the great mystery Beloved Beauty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart,& I thank each & every one of you listening in the four directions. Let us form together a beautiful circle of light, Circle of prayer, Circle of intention, & Circle of huge gratitude for the sacred beauty of Life. In the name of all the beauty around the globe, Beloved Creator, I thank you.”  ~ Blessings on this sacred Summer Solstice Day,Grandmother Flordemayo
~ 

“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 ~

~

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 10 – Day 186 – 6/20/2023

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“Refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, with the same hopes and ambitions as us—except that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.”
~ Khaled Hosseini ~

Today is the 23rd annual World Refugee Day. The United Nations Refugee Agency sponsors this day recognizing and raising awareness about the world’s obligation to welcome and shelter refugees—those forced to flee violence or disaster in their home land.

On 4 December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 55/76 decided that, from 2001, 20 June would be celebrated as World Refugee Day. In this resolution, the General Assembly noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

World Refugee Day reminds us that all human beings are valuable, we all deserve protections, and we are all personally obligated to care for one another.

Now More Than Ever, We Need to Stand with Refugees, shockingly, in excess of 258,000,000 people of the human variety are displaced which is one in 30 human beings…

Whoever they are, people forced to flee should be treated with dignity. Anyone can seek protection, regardless of who they are or what they believe. It is non-negotiable: seeking safety is a human right.

Wherever they come from, people forced to flee should be welcomed. Refugees come from all over the globe. To get out of harm’s way, they might take a plane, a boat, or travel on foot. What remains universal is the right to seek safety.

Whenever people are forced to flee, they have a right to be protected. Whatever the threat – war, violence, persecution, disaster – everyone deserves protection. Everyone has a right to be safe.

“Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more.” ~Pope Francis~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 185 – 6/19/2023

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today marks the second anniversary since President Joe Biden named Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021… as more Americans celebrate Juneteenth with family and community, it is vital to share the important historical legacy behind Juneteenth and recognize the long struggle to make it an officially recognized holiday… it is an opportunity to honor our country’s second Independence Day and reflect on our shared history and future… the origins of Juneteenth date to June 1865; even though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and the Confederate army surrendered to the Union army in April 1865, enslaved people in Texas—the westernmost Confederate state—could not exercise their freedom until June 19, 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger led some 2,000 Union troops, many of whom were Black, into Galveston Bay, where they announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree... 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 re-member that struggle as we reflect on how far we’ve come as a country and how far we still have to go… 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 and demanding…

formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, and even sue slaveholders for compensation… despite more than 200 years of enslavement, they demonstrated extraordinary courage and resilience as they transformed both their lives and their country… celebrated in family and church-centered gatherings, over time the holiday evolved to include annual pilgrimages to Galveston Bay by formerly enslaved individuals and their families…

over the decades, many advocated the establishment of Juneteenth as a national holiday… the Grandmother of Juneteenth, Opal Lee, was a driving force in this movement – in 2016, at the age of 89, she began a walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to bring awareness to this important cause… trekking two and a half miles each morning and afternoon, a representation of the two and a half years Black Texans remained enslaved after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lee soon had countless others who joined Lee on her march… the 1,400-mile walk concluded with a press conference that put Juneteenth on the nation’s radar…

this day stands as a testament to and celebration of the unyielding spirit of a people; it is a day for introspection, a platform for education, and a tribute to the monumental contributions of African Americans to the history of this nation… Juneteenth is a poignant reminder that oppressive systems can still be upheld, even after they’re formally dismantled… slavery ended on paper years before it ended in practice — and even then, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and structural racism simply took on new forms, further entrenching themselves within our culture and systems…

Juneteenth is a time to recommit ourselves to the work that remains undone… we re-member 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 wage liberation so diligently to steer our country truer to our highest ideals…

here we stand in this moment 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 with this old spiritual singing me… “woke up this morning with my mind on freedom”… may we all wake up 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 10 – Day 184 – 6/18/2023

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welcome to this sacred moment of eternity when we celebrate the astonishing light of being and when the winds are perfect for contemplating the supreme meditation on death and re-birth in the radiation of the new moon and in the soulstice portal when the veils thin and we are invited and magnetically drawn to standing still with the sun, coming to the edge of the unknown and emptying, releasing into our earth mother all that no longer serves, shedding the old skin to welcome the new, slowing down to deepen into the earth and stretch into the sky thanking all ancestors and allies from the imaginal realms for the infinite love they so generously bestow when we open and listen and commune re-membering we live in a garden of original blessing with death on our left shoulder, our constant companion inspiring us to meet each moment fully, to meet it as a friend…

what a blessing to rest here with you today as we walk each other home, sitting in the dynamic stillness of silence, the powerful place beyond words where we feel the interconnection, beloved communion of the one syncing into the interbeing of beginningless time as frequencies reverberating vibrations of love, joy, compassion and harmony through the instrument of peace we be…

i invite you now to join hands psychically and feel the love passing from one to another to another so that we deepen into our true nature in the unitive field out beyond, the field of trutopia where we dance together in harmony real-eye-sing we, all living beings, belong to each other, we are one body…

bringing your awareness into this field of trutopia, breathe in deeply 3 times trusting in whatever the moment brings as each moment is an opportunity to be held by beloved… feel into how it is to live in a world where all life thrives, where we all join together to co-create flourishing, to living in flow, to dreaming in the rhythm of waves and witnessing the dreaming unfolding… feel your hands moving to your heart as each wild cell in your body becomes one with our true nature as luminescent threads in the wondrous web of life… aho…

thank you for meeting me in this moment, in every moment fully and tenderly…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 183 – 6/17/2023

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on this day ninety-five 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 and on this day of the new moon, 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…

~

“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 offer 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 10 – Day 182 – 6/16/2023

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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.”  ~Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

~

today is the eve of the gemini new moon in my time zone and the third day of the soulstice portal which are wonderfilled days for emptying everything and resting in the sacred space of the beyond, the galactic center, the cosmic womb, primordial space of birthing stars… feeling the pull of  the moon of truth bestowing the gift of integrating duality with the muse inspiring creativity and new ideas for us to create the masterpeace that is our life which will be amplified a thousand fold by this soulstice, this standing still with the sun as we live and dream the quest ions of what are we now ready to co-create with spirit, to birth personally and collectively and what seeds of intention, of prayer, of vision are we planting?

dreaming in the rhythm of the waves of mystery before us, behind us, beside us, below us, above us, within us, always enfolding us always unfolding us…

Peace to all beings
Whether near or far
Known or unknown
Real or imaginary
Visible or invisible
Born or yet to be born.
May all beings
Be well and happy
And free from fear.
Peace to all beings
Within and beyond the imagination
In the world of ideas
In the world of memories
And in the world of dreams.
May all beings
Be well and happy
And free from fear.
Peace in all elements
Of earth, air, fire and water
Fulfilled in space
Peace.
Peace in all universes
From the smallest cells in our bodies
To the greatest galaxies in space
Peace
And light rising
Peace to all beings
Within each being here
To those beings that have been in the past
And to those beings that are yet to be in the future
May all beings
Within each being here
Be well and happy
And free from fear.

take all i say,
and toss away
all that does not
resonate…
for we do not learn
wisdom and love…
we re-member what’s within…

deepest bows…