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 ~

some moments of eternity these words are easier to re-member than others and they are always true, paradoxical and true… our interesting times are filled with challenges on so many levels and like ocean waves they rise and pass away and the ocean of joy still remains, peace at the center of the dancing stillpoint… for in this moment, this beautiful moment, we are one vast sunflower field of radiant love… yes, suns exist and moons and rains and clouds and tears and pains and injustice and joy in this moment, in every moment, in every wild precious moment…

i love when the transcendant function, grace, kicks in… in every moment of feeling that i can’t take one more step, an angel appears in so many different forms… visitor, caller, writer, sharer, inspirer, transporter, elemental, vibration, dream, “random” thought, memory and the path opens… thank you, beloved, thank you beloveds…

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 nine years 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 ~

“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

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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 wanes 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 under old 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…

“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 ~

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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…

“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 22nd 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, 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 – 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~

On June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. Ninety-nine years earlier, on June 19, 1865, we celebrated the first African-American Emancipation Day, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States… Let us celebrate on this bittersweet day, made the sweeter with Juneteenth now being a federal holiday beginning in 2021, with the words of President Obama back on June 19. 2016…

“Just outside the Oval Office hangs a painting depicting the night of December 31, 1862. In it, African-American men, women, and children crowd around a single pocket watch, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect. As the slaves huddle anxiously in the dimly lit room, we can sense how even two more minutes seems like an eternity to wait for one’s freedom. But the slaves of Galveston, Texas, had to wait more than two years after Lincoln’s decree and two months after Appomattox to receive word that they were free at last.

Today we commemorate the anniversary of that delayed but welcome news. 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 remember that struggle as we reflect on how far we’ve come as a country. 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.

Juneteenth is a time to recommit ourselves to the work that remains undone. We remember 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 fought so hard to steer our country truer to our highest ideals.”

here we stand in this moment of eternity, a mere six years later but it feels light years away 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 intent on taking former President Obama at his word with this old spiritual singing me… “woke up this morning with my mind on freedom”… grateful to be spending this day with a communion of beings who have devoted decades and decades to bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice and feeling we are witnessing a baby step in the bending toward being beloved community…

may we all wake up each moment 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…

“Lift every voice and sing   
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.   
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.”

~ James Weldon Johnson ~

it is the moment of eternity to turn away from the outer and focus on the inner, listen for the soul song and serve spirit…

awaken today re-membering it is the long awaited day of the 21st century version of the Poor Peoples Campaign which i will be attending virtually rather than being in the streets of DC and i feel a momentary inner sadness that, once again, a long held dream is going to be stillborn (borne in stillness) with the i (soul and spirit) doctors singing and whispering i am to travel inwardly right now… what a rousing day to be in solidarity with thousands of siddhizens committed to moving forward together, not one step back as we ride the peace wave of love in unity for all relatives to live in harmony… how beautiful to see such a display of justice, love made public, on this eve of juneteenth…

we are dreamweavers 
dreaming the world of unitive field awake
here and now… always and forever… and so it is, and so it is, and so it is…
blessed bee, blessed bee, blessed bee…

on this day ninety-four 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, 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…

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“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…

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.

~ Pema Chodron ~

let’s listen again to Pema…

…”But it’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for this is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.”

excerpted from

~ Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change ~

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may we all open to living beautifully and gracefully with what is – uncertainty and change – trusting in great mystery’s impeccable flow of the implicate order…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with a blessing offered 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…

along with the prayer of thank you, thank you, thank you, this prayer of saint francis, these intentions, are central to, are the organizing matrix of my life… on this day of beginning the 100 day countdown, well i didn’t quite make it as today is the 98th day, to the International Day of Peace on 9/21, this prayer picture needs sharing as does the theme…

every year on 21 September, the United Nations calls on all nations and people to put down their weapons and reaffirm their commitment to living in harmony with one another and creating a culture of peace… this year’s theme of “End Racism. Build Peace” reflects the need to promote dialogue and address root causes of inequality as racism poisons societies, normalizes discrimination and spurs violence…

let us come together over the next 98 days and beyond to safeguard the rights of all and create peaceful and inclusive environments… together we can manifest this vision, our destiny as a world free of racism…

as we come together to meet the many challenges facing us, our voice is more important than ever… in these turbulent times of shifting consciousness, this International Day of Peace is dedicated to fostering dialogue and collecting ideas on healing our planet and ourselves… we can always dream together…

let us celebrate “End Racism. Build Peace.” by spreading compassion, kindness and hope in the face of the pandemics of militarism, materialism, racism, environmental disruption and poverty by standing together in unity for the benefit of all beginning in this moment with this breath… yes, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me and thee…

well come to this moment of eternity, another moment to acknowledge the astonishing light of our being, a light shining so brightly in the core of our being, a light that has been shining since the beginning of beginningless time, a light calling us to listen, listen, listen to the soulsong singing our one body to come home to the heart, to the present moment, the only moment… this moment is all the more moment-ous as it is the 75th anniversary of my parents’ wedding on a day in which in their time zone venus conjuncts the north node of the moon in taurus, the goddess of love, beauty and abundance meets destiny and in my time zone it was 11:11 the night before, the master number of angelic presence, the moment of eternity where a new and more expanded picture of reality emerges with revelations to weave and dots to connect on the the spirit path, the beautyway we all are walking each other home…

so many shoulders, roots, mycelial networks supporting us, such a boundless circle, a communion, a common union, our one body perfectly created for these times… what follows is one of the thousand thousand fold expressions of this living truth, the cosmic wisdom of the astonishing light of our interbeing that i have shared before and this moment of initiation, of separation, ordeal and return, calls out for this healing balm…

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We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

“You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

~ Hopi Elders’ Prophecy, June 8, 2000 ~

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let us rise and descend simultaneously into the call for life, liberty and justice for all in our every thought, word and deed with every breath and step… and so it is… blessed being the astonishing light we are…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with a blessing 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…