Category Archives: Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 218 – 7/22/2023

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“A flower unfolds to the best of its ability due to the conditions around it. And so do you – you unfold to the best of your ability” – Kuan Yin

“Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads
to the invisible path
that leads you home.”

~ St. Theresa of Avila~

today is the eve of beginning a week of celebrating a new turn around the sun re-creation manifestival and it is the feast day for mary magdalene and i’ll attempt to weave these two together…

~

she who hears the cries of the world,

who softens her heart turning towards pain

who affirms life and lives in love

opens the path of transformation and liberation…

~

today, we celebrate Mary of Magdala as a human relative and as archetypal energy synonymous with the Way of Love, the Way of the Rose, an embodiment of compassion which is said to manifest wherever beings need help and especially at moments of great turning of epochs when this sacred feminine energy is so sorely needed … on this her feast day, we celebrate her as the apostle of apostles, the core teacher of her beloved Yeshua, the magi who awakens the inner light body…

how can we respond to the suffering that is woven into the very fabric of life? how can we discover a heart that is truly liberated from fear, anger, and alienation? is there a way to discover a depth of wisdom and compassion that can genuinely make a difference in this confused and destructive world?

throughout this week, i’ll spend many moments in Sit – Stay – Heel pose breathing into the core, the stillpoint to ask the body and breathe the answers locked in the cells like lost chords…

what are you wanting to bring into manifestation in your life?
what is your greatest desire/inspiration/vision?
what is the obstacle to your desire manifesting or inspiration/vision materializing needing to transform into invitation?
what are you willing to let go of to open up to your destiny more?

in this moment of eternity, let us gather together to conspire, to breathe together and inspire, breathe in to see what is real as a vessel of love, to see through the eyes of heart, through innersense… let us gather to re-member and be the presence of the magdalene who calls us into spiritual maturity, maturescence, to the fullest expression of ourselves, our true selves…

let’s reach out our hands to each other feeling the love deepening as it is passed from one hand to another to another… with a SMILE to start my internal love engine, begin to inspire and as we breathe in feeling the connection with all our relatives expanding with the movement of breath, of wind, of animating spirt breathing us as one body temple…giving thanks with every breath, bring awareness to our wombspace, sacred space of creativity noticing what is present… now, imagine a fully opened rose with each petal connected to the next spiraling into one another moving down, down, down into a rose-colored space of luminous illumination and ask the magi, the magdalene to envelop us in this light, to shower us with unconditional love… she comes closer clean-sing us with frankincense and myrrh and we re-member who we truly are as all illusion is released and transformed… eyes to eyes, heat to heart, wombspace to wombspace with the magdalene, the exalted, who anoints us blessing us with the capacity for unconditional love reminding us that all is one and all there is is love… as we near a close, drink in the red wine of the sacred feminine receiving it into every wild cell feeling the oneness of the all that is as seen through divine union, the marriage of the soular and lunar, the great work of sacred feminine energy… offering immense gratitude, we are gifted with the way of the rose, the way of love, the way of the awakened heart… blessed bee…

while, the flow of impermanence and uncertainty can be daunting for our protective selves who want to keep us safe, thanks be that in our core in this moment with this breath we are able to tune into our essence… boundless love…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 217 – 7/21/2023

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today is a magical day, a day i am literally transported to a place of power to be with the sea and drink in the healing negative ions of our ocean of being reheartening us to the watery womb we lived in before coming down the birth canal to take our first breath…in this sacred moment of eternity vibrating at the auspicious energy of liquid light as we draw down the energy of great mystery under the moon of the great mother, of listening to the soul song, of leaping in faith as an imaginal cell, the fledgling in this image transports me today to an old story from africa… join me by reaching out our hands and journeying together into the sacred grove in the field out beyond and find your mother tree to embrace as we re-member:

~

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…

~ now, let’s get all loosey goosey tightening every part of our body and releasing the tension and imagine ourselves inside a crystal, one with our soul essence and we hear the call, the melody of our soul song of and from pachamama and our cosmic parents and our birth parents and community and we say yes to the call to come to earth and sing our soul song… as we arrive, we take our first breath, a very deep and profound breath of love and gratitude taken as blessing, the miracle of life… we inhale this breath into our wisdom center, our soular plexus acknowledging the new life we injoy with every conscious breath… we take another deep conscious breath and re-member our soul song that called us here…

“…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 the rebirth, renewal and rising again that every breath of life offers…

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

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 216 – 7/20/2023

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there’s so much to say as we are poised on the precipice of great turning with some of us filled with varying degrees of fear and some with eagerness and all of us when we are honest knowing we are in such a prolonged moment of unknowing and uncertainty which brings up for me that image of kindergartners hand in hand with their milk and cookies at snack time in-joy-ing the warmth of softened hearts… it seems so very right to honor all beings right now with a practice of peace, a method for generating love and compassion for all… what follows is Pema’s teaching on bodhicitta practice… may we open our hearts and be loving compassion…

“The best way to begin this practice is by thinking of a person whose suffering you feel strongly and whose happiness is very important to you. This could be someone you know or have known, or someone you’ve seen on the street or read about in the newspaper. The thought of certain people naturally and easily awakens bodhicitta in us: we care about them and we don’t want them to suffer. Think of such a person and, whether you feel love, gratitude or compassion for them, say, “May they be free of suffering and the root of suffering; may they enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.”

There are two aspects of working with bodhicitta, both of equal importance: one is connecting with the flow of bodhicitta we already feel, and the other is being awake to where that flow is blocked. So you can do this practice not only thinking of people you care about, but also visualizing people you don’t like. It’s important to have an unbiased, compassionate attitude toward whatever is arising.

Think, now, of an area of the world that’s in great turmoil—an area where you know people and animals are suffering a lot. When you’ve chosen the place, think of the men there, and say, “May all the men in that place be free of suffering and the root of suffering; may they enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.” Give yourself time. Take a few minutes.

Then think of all of the children in that place and wish that they be free of suffering and the root of suffering, and that they might enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Then think of all the women in that place, and wish that they too could be free of suffering and the root of suffering, and that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Finally, think of all the animals in that place—the mammals, the birds, the fish, the insects and all the other animals—and wish that they be free of suffering and the root of suffering; that they might enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Imagine, then, all the men in the world who are starving to death right now, and wish that they could be free of suffering and the root of suffering; that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Then imagine all the women in the world who are starving, and wish that every one of them—starving all over the world at this very moment—could be free of suffering and the root of suffering, and that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Imagine all the children who are starving at this very moment all over the earth, and wish that they, too, could be free of suffering and the root of suffering; that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Then imagine all the animals in the world who are starving to death right now, and wish that every one of them, all over the planet, could be free of suffering and the root of suffering; that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

Then bring to mind all the men on this planet—whether you respect them, feel neutral toward them or consider them bad people—and wish that they could be free of suffering and the root of suffering. Wish that they could enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. Because if all of the men on this planet could be free of the root of suffering and could enjoy the root of happiness—if they could be free of all the self-absorption that causes so much pain—we would be at peace.

Do the same with all the women on the earth—whether you like them or dislike them or feel neutral about them—and wish that they too could all be free of suffering. If all the women on the earth could be free of the root of suffering and enjoy the root of happiness, the world would be at peace.

Now do the same with all the children on the earth—whether you like them, dislike them or feel neutral about them. Wish that they could all be free of suffering. Because if all the children on the earth could be free of the root of suffering and could enjoy the root of happiness, the world would be at peace.

Finally, do the same with all the animals on the earth—whether you like them, don’t like them or feel neutral about them—and wish that they too could all be free of suffering. If all the animals on the earth could be free of the root of suffering and enjoy the root of happiness, the world would be at peace.”

sometimes when we do this kind of bodhicitta practice, we touch on people who immediately awaken warm feelings in us, other times, though, we just feel numb and then there are the times when we contact the hardness of our heart… noticing this shows us when we’re open and when we’re closed… notice all of these things with compassion and lovingkindness towards ourselves as the more we’re able to feel tenderness towards ourselves, the more easily it flows to others… as the airlines say, put your oxygen mask on first… boundless love…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 215 – 7/19/2023

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175 years ago on this very day, about 300 people met for two hot days and candlelit evenings in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York setting the stage for the women’s suffrage movement… in the first formal women’s rights convention ever held in the United States, 68 women supported by 32 men who signed a separate list “in favor of the movement” declared:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

although the convention became best known for its demand for women’s right to vote, the Declaration of Sentiments covered a wide agenda and as the first women’s rights convention, Seneca Falls initiated the organized women’s rights movement in the United States…

the pioneers of women’s rights—drawn from Quaker, Congregationalist, and Methodist backgrounds—provided support for the emerging formal women’s rights movement in the 1840s… it was the hurriedly organized Seneca Falls convention, the brainchild of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, that brought national attention to the issue of women’s rights… touching off a major national debate, newspapers across the country picked up the story with press reaction to the convention varying widely… one editor thought it was “a most insane and ludicrous farce” while the Lowell Courier feared women’s equality because “the lords must wash the dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings…” some editors, however, praised the meeting with the St. Louis Daily Reveille declaring that “the flag of independence has been hoisted for the second time on this side of the Atlantic…”

in a speech in 1888 before the International Council of Women in Washington, D.C., Frederick Douglass recalls the women at the Seneca Falls convention where he was one of the very few men who attended:

“The women who have thus far carried on this agitation have already embodied and illustrated Theodore Parker’s three grades of human greatness. The first is greatness in executive and administrative ability; second, greatness in the ability to organize; and, thirdly, in the ability to discover truth. Wherever these three elements of power are combined in any movement, there is a reasonable ground to believe in its final success; and these elements of power have been manifest in the women who have had the movement in hand from the beginning. They are seen in the order which has characterized the proceedings of this Council. They are seen in the depth and are seen in the fervid eloquence and downright earnestness with which women advocate their cause. They are seen in the profound attention with which woman is heard in her own behalf. They are seen in the steady growth and onward march of the movement, and they will be seen in the final triumph of woman’s cause, not only in this country, but throughout the world.”

finally, the organizers of the convention were profoundly influenced and inspired by the very powerful women of the Haudenosaunee who to this day have a very powerful role in the running of and leadership in their communities; in large part we owe a great gratitude to these women who taught us and showed us the way…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 214 – 7/18/2023

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on this day known as Nelson Mandela Day for the revolutionary activist born on this day 105 years ago, i’m reminded of the phrase, “the center cannot hold”, which whispers to me often in the light of the steady stream of tragic loss by natural disasters and violent actions… the center is not holding, as all around us we see in the outer world breakdown, collapse and disorder… we feel an undercurrent of insecurity leading to anxiety, many of us feel numb, some feel rage, what are we to do in this moment of deep disconnection?

i am reminded of the other side of that coin through the old Irish myth of when the center falls apart, the pieces don’t disappear, they move to the margins, to the edge of the circle… as pieces of the center now living on the edge, our task is to pick up a thread and weave our way back to the center, back to source, to great spirit along the road less traveled, the pathless path and when enough of us do this, a new world, a new consciousness is created, a world where we live in peace built by justice and informed by our inner journey into our one heart where we rest in the stillness and listen for the voice of wisdom…

when we return to the world to share what has been revealed, we make our sacred contribution in co-creating a world that works for all… no one being can solve our problems, it’s going to take our global village transforming consciousness with enough of us opening to source, finding our thread, our peace of the pie, what’s ours to do and then our coming back together to weave a center that holds where we stand together solidly built on a transformed consciousness with a solid foundation of unity…

~

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 213 – 7/17/2023

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“If you are seeking, seek us with joy
For we live in the kingdom of joy.
Do not give your heart to anything else
But to the love of those who are clear joy,
Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.
For there are hopes: they are real, they exist –
Do not go in the direction of darkness –
I tell you: suns exist.”

~ Rumi ~

thank you pachamama for birthing today a powerful frequency shift with the ingressing of the new lunar nodes of destiny under the new moon of the great mother which amplifies the flourishing of new seeds, new stories and the loving release of what will no serve the new story we are called to live… today begins in joyfool ceremony of calling in the ancestors, the angels, the elementals, the spirits always protecting us and feeling their love and bouncing it back in an eternal flow of reciprocity and onto communion and ceremony with a partner in peace where we declare our intentions, the new story we shall live and then coming into sangha with renewed commitment to living openheartedly, wholeheartedly and feeling the promised frequency shift and then onto one more circle of celebration and thanksgiving…

ah, awe, the moment of eternity to break the fast and recharge and discover that Santa Claus has come and left a couple of amazing presents for this day of rebirth, gifts to geometrically progress the healing, wholeing journey along the pathless path…

thank you for joining me on the caravan of re-joy-sing and being a holy joyfool practicing joyfoolness with a smile, painting peace in the sky, chanting thank you in a continuous feedback loop, laughing, dancing, singing again and again and again… thousand fold thanks for being joyfools and opening our one heart wider and deeper living from a place of love fed by the bubbling spring of joyfoolness where everything is possible when we live from our true nature…

joyfooly, let’s howl ai ooo at sister moon activating our wild free nature, our deep self who always lives in the land of enchantment connected inextricably to every thread in the infinite web of life, to every branch of the mother tree of life…

only traveling on the path with heart, what a way to live

looking, looking breathlessly, living from the heart

in a field of unity grounded in equanimity…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 212 – 7/16/2023

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welcome to a day honoring so much richness and tragedy with much to say in this sacred moment of eternity beginning with noting today is the 161st birthday of unsung hero and pioneering anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells who challenged the media to tell Black truths and who innovated practices that define the field of investigative journalism to this day… by putting her life on the line to count, investigate and report lynchings in America when white-owned media refused to tell these stories, she destroyed the racist narrative that lynching victims were criminals and brought to light the truth: that lynchings were often used as retaliation against Black people who had dared to start businesses, own property and build wealth… also, on this day, seventy eight years ago, the world was forever changed when the U.S. detonated the world’s first nuclear device in the Trinity nuclear test… conducted in the desert of southern New Mexico, opening another chapter in our morally corrupt, racist, and lethal legacy with New Mexico residents not being warned before the Trinity blast, informed of health hazards afterward, nor evacuated before, during, or after the test… exposure rates in public areas from the world’s first nuclear explosion were measured at levels 10,000 times higher than currently allowed… another legacy is that the downwinders of Trinity were largely impoverished agricultural families, mostly Hispanic and Native and even though it was considered one of the dirtiest U.S. nuclear tests, for more than seventy years radiation exposure from inhalation and ingestion of water and food contaminated by the Trinity test fallout was never assessed… now we now know that infant death rates increased by over 20% percent in areas downwind beginning in the very same month of the test since in 2010 the CDC finally admitted that risks to newborns were especially heightened as “residents reported that fallout ‘snowed down’ for days after the blast, most had dairy cows and most collected rainwater off their roofs for drinking.” on a brighter note, today is our day for celebrating the astonishing light of our interbeing as vessels of great mystery shining forth luminously, bastions of living awakened, joyously, freely and harmoniously and this day begins with being reminded of our nature as verbs, flowing, in process with what comes…

i’ll share now a brief meditation from Parker Palmer on life on the Möbius strip which illustrates the truth of life as movement:

~

“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?”

~

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…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 211 – 7/15/2023

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“No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. The majestic crowns approaching one another make a glorious canopy, through the feathery arches of which the sunbeams pour, silvering the needles and gilding the stately columns and the ground into a scene of enchantment.” ~ John Muir ~

this traveler journeyed into the land of enchantment today, not the state of New Mexico where i celebrated my Chiron return 22 years ago, this pilgrimage was an inner one to the deep self, to a way of engaging with the world founded on a visceral sense of belongingness in a many layered world… in this land of enchantment, we participate wholeheartedly and profoundly in the adventure of the magical mystery tout of life… in this land, we are intuitive, we embrace wonder, we are fully engaged in the imaginal realm and deeply rooted in place and community flourishing on the pathless path of heart and meaning respecting the consciousness of children as holy fools and all our wild relations engaged with the small, the slow, the local picking up our thread of the unraveling cosmos to re-create an even more beautiful world by falling in love again and again…

thank you for sharing the journey of ever deepening into rainbow mystery…


Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 210 – 7/14/2023

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on this world orca day alerting us to the vulnerability of this species, i see, in my imagination, a poignant image of  Tahlequah, the mourning mother who carried her dead calf  for seventeen days and it takes me to another image of years ago, this one of a mare gone wild searching all over for her colt who was stillborn and it brings me close to home… is there anything more painful than experiencing the loss of a child you have carried inside your heart?

as Tahlequah suffered through this momentous loss swimming over 1000 miles with her dead calf raised above her, she was never alone… her tribe was always close by giving her food, comfort and support… her six kindred sisters forming a seamless circle of love show us all what it means to hold space and compassionately offer support during those moments of heartbreak we all suffer, we all endure…

this circle of crones, these astonishing beings of light inspired me to learn that the elder sisters of the orcas are the ones who know where to find soul and physical nourishment and so are vital for the life of the tribe… once again, these wisdom keepers offer all relatives a loving way to be…

and so, today as i am teleported back to the sacred space of Talequah and feeling so in awe of her actions many moons ago, actions still offering so much wisdom in this epic epoch of mutation when nature messages us over and over to radically change our ways, to root ourselves in a new/old way of walking home together in solidarity and support real-eye-sing we are onebody with all our relations belonging to each other interdependent on each other…

may we, like our orca elders, our sisters, know where the feeding grounds of true self nourishment are and how to be with and guide others during these times of  heartbreak to the still waters of solace and the deep peace of the running wave…

ps: Talequah now swims with her latest offspring as the miraculous cycle of birth, death, rebirth turns eternally in the ocean of being…

WORLD ORCA DAY MISSION:
World Orca Day is a celebration of the species.
We aim to raise awareness of orca in the wild and the threats they face. 
Our overarching goal is to increase protection for the species and, as a result, the oceans.  
We strive to support a movement that brings together people who are interested in, and who advocate for, orca.

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 10 – Day 209 – 7/13/2023

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“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

~ Albert Einstein ~

let’s take this moment of eternity, this wild and precious moment to suit up as psychonauts, walk to the launch pad, enter the space capsule, settle into our seat breathing deeply through our one heart as the countdown proceeds… 10, smile… 9, hands on heart… 8, breathe in… 7, down into belly… 6, hold… 5, hold… 4, exhale… 3, release… 2, empty… 1, relax deeper and deeper with every deep breath… blast in…

take a look around as we descend deeper and deeper into the inner space of being… look into the window of your soul with your inner eyes taking in all the beauty, feeling gratitude for this wild and precious moment of having everything that is needed fueled by wonder and awe as your eyes adjust to seeing everything as one, real-eye-sing we are swimming in a sea of love energy…

notice a bright light pulling us into a golden waterfall of luminescence lighting up every wild molecule to vibrate at the frequency of cosmic hum singing us into ecstasy, rainbow harmony… breathe in the bliss and listen, listen, listen for your heartsong calling us into deeper communion of giving and receiving for nothing ever goes one way… breathing in beauty, breathing out compassion… breathing in blessing, breathing out gratitude… injoy as many wild and precious moments here gnowing you are always welcome in the field of flow to rest in the river of life, in the ocean of being and becoming… always being love, always becoming love…