a return to our earth nature

There is a learning curve of how to tend to oneself and each other during this time of dismemberment and simultaneous rememberment. Mostly our minds are focused on what is broken and what is not working. 

We do need to take actions now and in the future but first we must have the energy to deal with what is coming. A period of growth is required to gather the energy for our continued journey that does not end until our soul decides it is time to go home.

When we move into a state of growth and take our place in this life, we must remember that we came here to be caretakers of the Earth.

art by Autumn Skye

We must step out of the dimension of division and constantly return to the divine spark that lives in all of us. That is connected to the creative forces of the universe which are always singing the song of dismemberment and dissolution as well as the song of rememberment and new creations.

When we step into the dimension of recognizing that there is only oneness, love, light, and lessons for our spiritual growth we can be held by a state of inner peace within.

But we must let go of fear, self-hate, division, and hyper vigilance. We need to ground to the land and feel the land supporting us for that is the real support we need. 

We need the support of all the elements who have been here for billions of years and have been through and contributed to the storms of change that we have been going through since life began on this Earth. 

You can read the full message of Sandra Ingerman on her website. 

covid coloniality

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging around the world, people are still dying of other preventable diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and Ebola. With the arrival of the latest mutation, Omicron - we're realizing that ignorance, entitlement, and hardheadedness can kill us just as easily too. 

Colonialism refers to the political and economic subordination of a nation or people to another nation. Distinct from colonialism, coloniality refers to the long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism. 

That's especially true in underdeveloped countries, places physician and anthropologist Eugene Richardson calls the global south. 

© AFP / Ed Jones - 'Fearless Girl'

The global public health system is broken because it perpetuates an imbalance of power rooted in colonialism. Reparations and economic investment are needed to improve public health and medical care in these countries.

awed & inspired

Throughout the ages, the Milky Way has hung above humanity in the sky, a beautiful marvel shining steadily each night. 

Nowadays, most city-bound folks rarely see the full splendor of our home galaxy stretching across the heavens. 

Luckily, there are photographers all over the world with the skills to show off what many sky watchers are missing. 

Take a look at the winners of the 2021 Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition from the travel and photography site Capture the Atlas. 

Pablo Ruiz - Riaño, Spain

this new year

Surrendering to spirit revelation
I gain the light of cosmic being;
The power of thinking, growing clearer,
Gains strength to give myself to me,
And quickening there frees itself
From thinker’s energy my sense of self.

(Rudolf Steiner, Verse 39 - translated from German by Ruth and Hans Pusch)

Originally published by East of the Sun | West of the Moon. 

The longer we spend apart, the harder it is to return. The harsher the rub on tender and exposed parts. The bigger the resistance to input. The sorer the spots of vulnerability. The thicker the amor required. The heavier its burden to bear. 

winter solstice 2021

The date of the winter solstice varies from year to year and can fall anywhere from December 20 to 23, but the 21st and 22nd are the most common dates. For 2021 here in the East Coast, it falls on Tuesday, December 21, at 10:59 am EST.

Getty Images

Today Yule also marks the winter solstice although this is far from how it originated. It is the shortest day and longest night of the year - as the Sun gets its lowest elevation in the sky. Apart from the marking of a new season, the winter solstice also holds a significant symbol for the Sun. 

Saint Nick & Santa

“The modern American Santa was born in the Mediterranean, evolved across northern Europe, and finally assumed his now-familiar form on the shores of the New World.” ~ National Geographic, 2013

This reference to Saint Nicholas of Myra (more popularly known as Santa Claus), other characters such as the Dutch SinterKlass (directly inspired by Nicholas), and the English Father Christmas as well as some Germanic and Scandinavian folklore. 

the many renditions of a holiday icon

conserve life in death

According to a study published in the Berkeley Planning Journal, funerals use enough wood to build 4.5 million houses each year. Two thousand seven hundred tons of copper and bronze are buried annually, along with 104,272 tons of steel and 1.6 million hectares of forest. Maintaining the manicured appearances of traditional cemeteries, with their perfectly tended lawns, requires gallons of fertilizer and hours of lawn mower use. ~ Garielle Anctil, A Death Full of Life

For as long as humans have lived, we have also died. As populations increase and cemeteries multiply - risks of death and disease spread quickly.

The world soon became overpopulated and polluted and causes of death have multiplied along with growing numbers. Famine, wars, disease, pandemics, genocide - countless natural and manmade causes for humanity's demise and disposal became a growing concern.

image by Ashim D. Silva in Unsplash

One thing is certain - cemeteries can play an essential role in hosting ecosystems. Although with good reason they also have a bad environmental rap.

City planners, in particular, can play a key role in promoting conservation burials by incorporating burial practice into the larger context of public infrastructure planning. Taking a role in the development of the next generation of cemeteries. 

we are the lucky ones

“I’ve been lucky,” Stephen Sondheim said in his last major interview.

Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times

That was Stephen Sondheim one week ago, speaking to our theater reporter about the two Broadway shows he was about to see. It would turn out to be his last major interview.

There was little indication that Sondheim was unwell. One of the greatest songwriters in the history of musical theater, he died on Friday at 91, leaving “a life’s outpouring of rapturous, hilarious, gorgeous and tortuous song in his wake,” our theater critic writes in an appraisal.

Impromptu wakes filled New York City piano bars with tunes and tears. “Our industry and our art form owes everything to him,” a voice teacher said.

Stephen Sondheim, the dexterous composer and lyricist of musicals including Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, and Sweeney Todd was the elder statesman of American theater even if he always stood outside of its trends. 

An iconoclast whose vital music tested preconceived notions about what belonged on stage, he created songs for a murderous barber, a neurotic neo-Impressionist, and a vengeful witch. His work always teemed with moral ambiguity, never providing the easy answers some looked for in musicals. 

Reticent to share anything about his own life, Sondheim constantly examined the nuances and complications of being human in his work. He proved that breaking out into song didn’t need to be trite or simplistic, but could contain frustration and confusion. 

*Reprinted from NYTimes & Vanity Fair

Mary | holy mystery

"This holiest of mysteries, of which one was also disinclined to speak, was the connection between Mary and the Holy Spirit, that Mary was felt as giving human form to the Holy Spirit. . . .

"The Holy Family" by Pompeo Batoni detail

If mankind would experience Christ in His new approach to man, it must undergo a change in consciousness. Just as the first Christ-event was directed to the being of mankind, so the second Christ-event, towards which we are moving today, is directed to human consciousness.

But then, in order to Experience the Christ, a heightening of consciousness is needful, from the level of mere intellectual consciousness to an ensouled spirit-consciousness so that the ability may arise to feel and gradually to recognize the sphere in which Christ is approaching.

Insofar as this can be realized, the second Christ-event will awaken a new epoch of the Holy Spirit for humanity.

A form of Christianity must arise which gives cosmic content once more to consciousness, and which reunites human knowledge with the feelings of piety which live in the soul.”

~ Emil Bock (translated by John Meeks)

The whole lecture ‘The Mystery of Mary’ can be found in ‘Golden Blade 1986’

in & out

As the day dawns I light some incense and the candle on the mantle. Smudging some sacred smoke over myself and out into the world. I offer up the day's prayer and purposely encircle each room as I fan the wafting smoke all around myself and my space. 

I sit in silence for a quieting moment. Breathing gently and intentionally. Centering carefully before my day begins. Lots of thoughts - floating and bobbing, coming and going. Surrounded this way in suspended animation - a fetus in its amniotic fluid. 

Enclosed in the cocooning world of a warm and throbbing womb. All externals muted out and drifting far into the fog. Waves circling and undulating as I sink into the emptiness. Submerge deeper. Slowed down. Each atom of my being weighed down more and heavier. The self disintegrating into the void. 

Immersed. Isolated. Internalized. Into the vast unknown I go. 

elements in space & time

Change beyond the speed of thought. A dozen years ago I stepped out of community life. Bereft and adrift I stayed clear of any group. I took a masters in adult education and training. Loved what I learned, the gang who shared this with me, and how I absorbed the new with the old.