In May 2017, people from all over the world will gather in Portland, Oregon to share knowledge and wisdom, learn from each other, celebrate, be inspired, and find the tools needed to create and enliven local movements within our communities. Together we will explore sacred oneness, Christ consciousness, eco-spirituality, social justice and the way of universal and personal transformation that honors the Divine in all.
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Thich Nhat Hanh explains the Four Qualities of Love that can bring deep meaning to our lives.
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Last week, I sent my friend Alexis a poem. She sent this one back to me. I love it.
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There is no one single way the soul travels into the deep heartland that is Being itself, yet her pilgrimage of realizing the truth of who she is is the Wisdom path itself, the way of being a Christic gem. We are being called home, but this calling is not to some outward sojourn. The calling is an invitation to commence the inner journey of the soul. The calling is a love-song of the heart, which is a harmonic chorus nuanced and enhanced by different times, cultures, and disciplines, intermingling in a continual counterpoint of completely whole, yet mutually enriching, melodic lines. This love-song leaves traces on our heart, like footprints on a path, which run like a golden thread through the history of spiritual seeking.
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It’s an epiphany – the biblical Greek word for a sudden appearance or manifestation – to discover the difference between looking for and just looking. When I’m just looking, I see things I miss when I’m looking for.. like incarnations of God.
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Yaima will be playing at our Embrace Festival, May 4-6
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As the Winter Solstice approaches in the north, we notice the changes: the days of light are shorter, the darkness is longer, the weather is cold, the trees are bare, and snow is often on the ground. John Matthews, who has lectured widely on Celtic and Arthurian traditions, has written this lyrical passage about Winter Solstice:
“The Solstice is a time of quietude, of firelight, and dreaming, when seeds germinate in the cold earth, and the cold notes of church bells mingle with the chimes of icicles. Rivers are stilled and the land lies waiting beneath a coverlet of snow. We watch the cold sunlight and the bright stars, maybe go for walks in the quiet land. . . . All around us the season seems to reach a standstill — a point of repose.”
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The Christ Child reminds us of the infinite possibilities of life available to us, and we celebrate that vitality in the season of good cheer, gift-giving, and community. Christmas also offers an opportunity to get in touch with our own mystical side, to recreate the Nativity in our hearts. “If we could but mix just a small measure of the child’s naïveté with an intelligent appreciation of the traditional Christmas symbols, myths, and images,” Moore asserts, “we might be surprised at the profundity.” The enchantment of Christmas is a taste of what is possible if human beings could really love each other. The infant in the manger symbolizes new life, the potential all human beings have to be a new kind of being dedicated to agape, a love of the other—whoever that “other” may be.
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“Las Posadas” is an old Mexican tradition enacting the effort by Mary and Joseph to find a place to stay on Christmas Eve. Actors depicting Mary and Joseph wander from “inn” to “inn” asking for a room, with a singing candlelight procession following them through the town. Here I offer my own words for the tune:
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Christmas Poetry: Churches are welcome to use these poems with attribution.
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When you live in nature, in the scent of flowers, in the blessed light of the day and the sweet dew of the morning, you don’t have questions, you simply live and joy together with them. Your heart opens, you cry, cry, and your eyes are wet with dew. This is how this song was born, when your body, mind, and soul opens, God steps next to you in an unguarded moment, and pours her treasures into you.
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The 2016 presidential election triggered an unexpected and nearly unbearable trauma for over half of the American people. For many, it felt like the death of a loved one, or the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy, or the nightmare of 9/11. It felt like a wrecking ball shattering our nation’s fragile architecture of decent human values, urgent climate plans, and steadily expanding civil rights. Like many, I shared my distress wherever I went – in my men’s group, spirituality group, conscious aging circle, and conversations with loved ones, and knew that this threat to our way of life was magnitudes worse for vulnerable peoples – immigrants, religious and racial minorities, and the poor. We discussed protests, marches, political action and civil disobedience. I imagine that many of you had similar conversations in your communities as disbelief, shock, grief, tears, fear, insomnia, and horror fragmented psyches all across our land.
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“If God is the source of life, I worship God by living. If God is the source of love I worship God by loving. If God is the ground of being, I worship God by having the courage to be more fully human; the embodiment of the divine.”
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I stand on a bank of a running river, immersed in a flow of my own called life
Sad, happy, fearful, calm, and joyous awe-filled waves lap up all around me
Alan gave a talk about the result of the US election during the 5-week Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher Training Course in Alicante, Spain.
Listen to the recording:
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For years, I have taught a gem from the Talmud (Pirkei Avot 4:1a) that addresses worth:
Who is rich?
Whoever is happy with what they have.
We invite you to join us in a virtual (but real) social media prayer and meditation. We’d like you to get comfortable wherever you are–at your desk, on the subway or at home. And quiet. Put …
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1. Winter is the season of the revelation of basic structure. If I was to strip away all the paraphernalia of my life what form would it have?
How many of the things which I do are related to the roots
of my spirit.
2. Winter is the season for hibernation. What rhythm do I have for reflection as well as action?
What frequency and length of time do I need in solitude in order to facilitate the growth and quality of my spirituality?
