welcome, well come to day 26 of a season of peace on this twenty-fourth day of fleeting february and the year anniversary of the escalation of the US/NATO/EU Proxy War against Russia in Ukraine, a day spent in subtle activism sitting in silence and solidarity with circles of co-hearts across the planet being peace in ourselves and in the world…

In Silence

“Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your

Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.

I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them
When all their silence
Is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton ~

~

with the outer world on fire, thanks be for the continuation of peacemakers like Merton’s and Thay’s work and wisdom so needed in our world today as we witness the unraveling before our eyes… breakdown to breakthrough in this moment of emerge-n-see, this moment of both danger and opportunity of bringing lasting peace for all beings…

the following prayer was used throughout South Vietnam in 1965 in the “Don’t Shoot Your Own Brother” campaign to rouse the willingness to work for peace… during meetings of young people, they chanted this poem, uniting our hearts and our efforts to continue to work for peace:

“In beauty, sitting on a lotus flower,
is Lord Buddha, quiet and solid.
Your humble disciple,
calm and pure of heart,
forms a lotus flower with his hands,
faces you with deep respect,
and offers this heartfelt prayer:

Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.
Please have compassion for our suffering.
Our land has been at war for two decades.
Divided, it is a land of tears
and blood and bones of young and old.
Mothers weep till their tears are dry
while sons on distant fields decay.
Its beauty torn apart,
only blood and tears now flow.
Brothers killing brothers
for promises from outsiders.
Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.
Because of your love for all people,
have compassion on us.
Help us remember we are just one family,
North and South.
Help us rekindle our compassion and brotherhood,
and transform our separate interests
into loving acceptance for all.
May your compassion help us overcome our hatred.
May Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s love
help the flowers bloom again in the soil of our country.
Humbly, we open our hearts to you,
so you may help us transform our karma
and water the flowers of our spirits.
With your deep understanding,
help our hearts grow light.

Homage to Shakyamuni Buddha
whose great vows and compassion inspire us.
I am determined to cultivate only thoughts
that increase trust and love,
to use my hands to perform only deeds
that build community,
to speak only words of harmony and aid.

May the merit of this prayer
be transformed into peace in [the world]
May each of us realize this,
our deep aspiration.”

shanti shanti shantihi…

welcome, well come to day 25 of a season of peace on this twenty-third day of fleeting february, may we all leap as one, letting go to flow with oceanic imagination into the field of rainbow mystery where only love is real and everything is possible… feel the great turning upon and within us supporting us to let go of fear and anchor in truth, wisdom and love as we swim in these mystical waters of pisces together…

for this sacred moment of eternity when we are aware of many grievous losses, let us beam our attention to facing our mortality and the opportunity we each get with such reflection to intend how we live… when Dr. Oliver Sacks learned he had only months remaining, he chose to live in the deepest, richest, most productive way he could real-eye-sing he is ocean. in his own words before he died:

~

“Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.

This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.

I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.“

~

such an interesting experience as hours later i read what i wrote and thought Oliver’s words were mine… and they are and maybe yours as well as we continue this seemingly never ending moment of sheltering in and wintering as a seed riotously germinating in the deep earth with the mycélium network of imaginal cells deepening in the experience of dissolving from somebody to nobody to everybody, from the ocean in a drop to a drop in the ocean to being the ocean… thank you for walking home along the pathless path with me…

welcome, welcome to day 24 of a season of peace on this twenty-second day of fleeting february and it is the day following Losar Tashi Delek! Happy Tibetan New Year! and the second of 15 days leading to the day of miracles on the full moon… even with all the turbulence in the outer world, today i’m so being sung in every cell the soul song of our graceful free and easy wanderer true nature on this day of snowflakes which moves me to the familiar tale of hamsa or humso, the beautiful swan embodying grace while chanting so hum, i am that… light and love…

once upon a time, little swan was resting in a pool in dreamtime… she looked up and saw a swirling black hole, the biggest one ever… in that moment, dragonfly appeared in the sky and swan inquired about the black hole to which dragonfly told her it is the doorway to the great beyond and to enter you must ask permission and earn the right…

little swan wasn’t sure she wanted to enter the black hole so she asked dragonfly what’s necessary to cross the portal and dragonfly told her she must accept whatever comes just as it is presenced without editing one iota of great spirit’s design…

little swan looked down at her ugly duckling body and replied that she’d graciously accept great spirit’s design and would not resist the currents of the black hole… she affirmed she would surrender to divine flow trusting in the present moment… her answer pleased dragonfly who began to spin a spell of magic engulfing little swan in a whirlpool in the center of the pond…

when swan reappeared days later, she was transformed into a beautiful being of grace… dragonfly was shocked and wanted to know what had happened to which swan replied that she learned how to surrender to the power of great mystery, to soften into the grace of the rhythm of the universe…

may we all let go and undam flow opening into the great beyond’s pathless path of illumination and the infinite field of gracious synchronisiddhis…

so hum…

Happy 65th Birthday, Peace Symbol!

welcome, well come to day 23 of a season of peace on this twenty-first day of fleeting february, the sixty-fifth birthday of the peace symbol and another day of gathering the quintessence with the sun shining on the energy of  freedom… i learned late in the day it is mardi gras, the day to go wild before the lenten season of sacrifice begins… on a somber note, it is the fifty-eighth anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination… on a historical note, it is the 175th anniversary of the publishing of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. this pamphlet was the first of its kind to present a history of class struggle from feudalism to industrial capitalism; while the Communist vision did not work in practice and the worldwide revolution did not come to pass, the Manifesto inspired and inspires increased worker protections, pay, and power in the 20th century and continues to ignite revolutionaries the world over…

whew, now, back to the peace sign…

 “Children of today easily identify it. They may not know its original meaning, but they know it stands for good things – be nice to friends, be kind to animals, no fighting. This is a marvelous achievement for Gerald Holtom’s simple design. Peoples around the world have marched with it, worn it, displayed it during combat, held it high on banners, and been arrested in its name. Ask any man, woman or child, ‘What one thing would everyone in the world want more than anything else?’ The answer would surely be world peace.’”

~ Ken Kolsbun, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol ~

on this day of walking into the unknown through a field of  impermanence, a day when peace is so called for, it is a beautiful synchrony that it’s the re-birthday of the symbol for peace…

Gerald Holtom, an artist and conscientious objector, created the Peace Symbol on February 21,1958. According to Christopher Driver, author of The Disarmers: A Study in Protest, Holtom created the design and then brought it to an organizer of a local British peace group. After several revisions, it was unveiled publicly on Good Friday of that year, by anti-nuclear demonstrators — the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) — who marched 50 miles from London’s Trafalgar Square to the weapons factory at Aldermaston. It was the first Ban-the-Bomb March.

When Gerald Holtom sat down at his drawing board sixty-five years ago, he was in almost total despair. He later told the editor of Peace News: ‘I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it symbolizing Earth.”

Welcome “International Peace Symbol Day.”  May we hoist peace everywhere waving the remedy for despair…  Peace Out!

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things

Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations

These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders”

~ Lao Tzu ~

welcome, welcome to day 22 of a season of peace, on this 20th day of fleeting february so that we have a day pulsing at the quintessential frequency of grace, wisdom, clarity and a day also known as world social justice day – may it be so, may we roll up our sleeves, come home to our heart, set our eyes within and in thought, word and deed be in balance with all our relatives… and, it’s the moment of eternity of celebrating the astonishing light of our interbeing with all our relatives who vaya con gaia en paz with the sun shining through the clouds radiating the liberating energy of  freedom…

and, there’s more as today is a day of rainmaking, of holy synchronicity… do you know the rainmaker story? it is a favorite of mine and has been for decades, this story of restoring circulation between the inner and outer flow of life which is the central story of my life…

during a time of great drought, a rainmaker was asked by villagers of a neighboring province if he could help bring rain to their dry fields… they had tried many other approaches without success before reaching out to him… the rainmaker agreed to come and asked for a small hut with a garden that he could tend… for three days, he simply tended the garden… on the fourth day, rain began to fall on the parched earth… when asked how he had achieved such a miracle, the master answered that when he came to the village, he had sensed disharmony within himself and the village… each day, as he tended the garden, he returned a little more to himself… when he returned to balance, the rain came naturally…

yes, it has long been known by indigenous gaiians that it takes three days for the body to settle when on retreat, for the rainmaker, the rainbowmaker  to come into harmony and for the re-joy-sing to flow…

we rise up singing kissed by sun

on the banks of the river of joy dreaming the magic to come

gliding over stones, nothing impedes the flow

wind whispers softly to lean in and let all go

trusting in the rhythm of eternal ebb and flow…

welcome to day 21 of a season of peace, a day in my neighborhood when the new moon in pisces is exact at 11:08 PM impelling my diving so deeply into the oceanic depths of lunar consciousness of this dreaming moon whispering to us to be creative cosmic beings of the peace and love we are in our core leaping into the unknown with our one cosmic heart open re-membering birth is often messy and painful as we let go of what no longer serves to revolve/revolute into a more sustainable way…

in addition to this being the new moon of dreaming in the world we want i must note the ongoing tragedies currently ongoing in our inner and outer worlds and that on this day in 1942, the usa decided to arrest and imprison all citizens of Japanese ancestry – even as little as 1/16  percent and including orphaned infants – all of these beings were subject to mass incarceration with over 130,000 Japanese Americans – many full citizens and the children of citizens – forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942 and jailed for up to three years without a trial…

on this day of being peace and in re-membrance of the inhumane ways we act when fear leads us to reacting blindly, i dive deeply chanting om namah sivaratri 108 times with co-hearts knowing our dreamweaving a cosmos of peace in this sacred moment of eternity is amplified 10,000 fold…

let’s all circle around the still waters now for an invocation to the pisces new moon…

in these sacred waters, we revel in the luminosity of this new moon…
here and now our third eye is expanded through love ,
and we speak truth,
reverberating beyond all timelines, spaces, and dimensions…
 
I AM SEERESS.
Whole and Holy.
Wild and Free.
A Gatekeeper of the Divinity.
 
the sacred waters of our wombspace reveal
the dreams we carry, the dreams forgotten,
the dreams long remembered…
 
as vessels of heaven on earth, we are
available for these dreams to be heard, felt, called forth,
womanifested for the good of all beings…
 
we vow to live in the field of devocean  
dreaming the world awake in the rhythm of the waves…
 
this is our sacred destiny.
 
{INTO THE WATERS, SPEAK A DREAM ALOUD THAT YOU ARE ACTIVELY TENDING}
breathe and feel into the energies present…

{INTO THE WATERS, SPEAK A DREAM ALOUD THAT YOU ARE ACTIVELY TENDING FOR OUR PLANET}
breathe and feel into the energies present…
 
listen to the way Nature responds…
 
as Spirit and Matter merge,
and the Mythic and Mundane weave, 
IT IS DONE.
IT IS DONE.
IT IS DONE.

I AM SEERESS. 
Dreaming the World Awake.
Here and Now.
Always and Forever.

And so it is (3 times)
Blessed be (3 times) 

breathing in peace and compassion, join with me in being the world we all want… for me, it is a world of peace and harmony and wisdom and generosity built on justice and balance guided by love and compassion surrendered into great mystery…

we come alive in this wild and precious moment

dreaming in a new world

we hear her whispering down under the sea

now is the moment for the dream to fully be

a world where we live and let be, all of us re-joy-sing in harmony…

welcome, well come to day 19 of a season of peace when we are in the radiation of the new moon in aquarius on this day celebrating the tibetan new year, losar…

our critical task at this juncture is to widen the circle of compassion embracing all that is in its beauty… i love this quotation from beloved humanitarian Einstein, and inside of myself i update the pronoun he to we… i could post this quote daily and it feels so appropriate now when we’re in the wintering cycle collectively, even if we dwell in the southern hemisphere, we are in that moment of eternity in the creative process when all goes fallow and we shelter in the deep dark earth to germinate lovingkindness and compassion…

let us radiate these frequencies in this moment beginning with ourselves by calming the mind/heart with deep cleansing belly breaths into our wisdom center which generates warm, gentle, loving feelings inside of our being saying:

may I be safe

may I be happy just as I am

may I be peaceful with whatever is happening

may I be healthy and strong

may I care for myself in this ever-changing world graciously, joyously…

now, move out spaciously into your immediate surroundings to include every living being within this circle saying:

may all beings in the air, on land, and in the water be safe, happy, healthy, and free from suffering…

as you feel your immediate surround fill with the power of loving kindness, move on, expanding the surround in spiraling concentric circles until you envelop the entire planet and are able to visualize Earth spinning within the vast, mysterious universe… continue expanding the sense of loving kindness filling the endless spaciousness of the universe saying:

may all living beings everywhere on all planes of existence, known and unknown, be filled with loving kindness, be peaceful, be free from suffering and be well…

thank you for being riotous roots in this cycle of dormancy germinating the widening of the circle of compassion and embracing all that is…

welcome, well come to day 18 of a season of peace, our day to travel the path with heart cruising down the rainbow trail as cosmic dreamweavers, the ones who enter the gateway into infinity, the path with heart, the path of rainbow mystery… another ordinary/extraordinary day of gathering the quintessence as ambassadors of love and light with the sun still shining on the energy of  rapture… and, now, for some words i really need today:

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.
This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you,  a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it..”  ~ Don Juan ~

~

we are one heart

overflowing with love

inextricably connected

to the stars above

and the river below of rainbow flow

may we all travel the pathless path with heart – looking, looking breathlessly… seeing, being luminous rainbow energy…

welcome, welcome to day 17 of a season of peace, our day to celebrate Galentine’s (yes, i know this is celebrated the day before Valentine’s and here it is the day after, but, re-member i journey at the speed of a 300 year old turtle) as we travel the path with heart and another beautiful day of gathering the quintessence as ambassadors of love and light with the energy of rapture still present today…

i choose to be kind, gentle and patient with myself so i can be this and offer it to others…

i choose to be compassionate with myself so i deepen and expand being this way…

i choose to love beginning with myself and rippling out to all relatives…

please join me in this movement of our choosing this path with heart which sets us free to be one sea of love energy…yes, LALAs, love ambassadors, light ambassadors, it all comes down to being love, period; for in the field of the great beyond we real-eyes we belong to each other, that tthis moment, this day we choose love letting it begin with SELF (Stillness Essence Love Flow)…

the truth is: you are more wonderfilled than you can imagine and it is nothing short of a miracle that you were born at this time on this planet to do your work no matter what it is… we have lived long enough thinking ‘not enough’ is a way of being… today this thinking ends as we commit to love the sometimes fragile and broken and sometimes confused and still glorious SELF that we are where we reinvent in this moment a story about who we are that you would love to tell and live… this is an invitation to unleash your own personal legend transforming the critic into the almighty muse…

thank you for joining in the global community of imaginal cells sharing the medicine of  love…