Author: admin

Dearest friends on the path,

With the New Year and the return of the light, we have an opportunity to renew our hope and embrace new beginnings. There is much to be done in this new year and together we are truly making a difference. I send blessings to all of you with prayers that you will find the guidance, grace, support, and resilience you require to wake up every day with gratitude, compassion (for yourself and others), and passion to make a better world.

Here is an inspiring essay from Michael Meade on New Year’s potential:

“The Threshold Of Change”

Pondering New Year’s Eve,

With Michael Meade

On a mythic level, New Year’s Eve can be seen as a collective rite of passage, a ritual intended to mark the end of the old year and the celebratory start of a new period. All of life has a chance to begin again, as a timeless moment brings a renewal of time and with it a return of life’s hidden potentials. People instinctively kiss each other in that moment; friends hold each other close and even strangers hug one another as if to embrace the mystery of renewal and catch the spark of life beginning again.

As the first month of the New Year, January takes its name from Janus, the old Roman god of doorways and thresholds, who ruled over all transitions. Ancient depictions show Janus with two faces looking in opposite directions, representing past and future, the old and the new. Mythically, Janus was connected to chaos as well as renewal. The backward glance of the god looks all the way back to the primal chaos that existed before the formation of the world. Thus, in order for time to start over and a new year to begin, chaos has to be present.

To this day, New Year’s Eve can bring disorder and unruliness as wild parties, loud music and an abundance of spirits reflect the old idea that chaos must reign before any renewal can occur. Yet, besides the presence of chaos, a return to the beginning brings with it a renewal of all the potentials of life. Not simply the notion of a fresh start; but the deeper sense that what begins in chaos can lead to a greater sense of creativity and even a deeper sense of wisdom. 

There is no doubt that we live in chaotic and troubling times. The radical effects of climate change evidence that; the toxic levels of partisan politics and the rise of authoritarian figures also say that. The increase of bigotry, misogyny and self-serving ideologies all bespeak a chaos that has been loosed upon the world. Yet, amidst the chaos and collapse of one period, the next shape of life takes form. It does so, not after all the chaos is over; but as at New Year’s Eve, in the midst of it all.

The world renews itself all the time in the secrecy of forests, in the inner mysteries of quantum exchanges; but also in the hearts of those who commit fully to life. If people can remain open-minded and open hearted, whether it is the dark of the year or the darkest time of one’s life, renewal and recreation remain a possibility.

Consciously or unconsciously, we stand on the threshold of time turning over and can assist the world to begin again and thereby tap the unseen potentials of life and love and the magic of change.

May the threshold of the New Year open before you in ways that reveal the hidden potentials of life and increasing ways to live in truth and contribute beauty and meaning to the world.

Today was an intense day. The family and I spent the day in the Peace and Justice Memorial and Museum and the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of our Civil Rights tour.

On sacred ground you walk through hanging, rusty, metal rectangular boxes – hundreds of them – each representing a county or parish of states in which lynchings have occurred and each with names engraved of those thousands of our beloved siblings who lost their lives to this terrorist tactic. It is hugely painful, yet cleansing to participate in this recognition and repentance of our sins.

We are deeply moved and reminded of the love and beauty and hope that so many have worked and suffered for – I took this picture of a small tree with a nest cuddled in its branches and just putting out some new buds in the shadow of the memorial as a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is the intrinsic hope, beauty, and renewal of life that we in the north celebrate at this time of year.

I was also reminded of this poem of remembrance from an indigenous poet:

From Writer Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo is a poet and musician, and a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has published seven books of poetry, including: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and She Had Some Horses. Among Joy’s honors and recognitions are the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy now resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Dear friends,

Please enjoy this beautiful Irish music and photos celebrating the longest night of the year in our Northern hemisphere.

In harmony and beauty,

Wakil David

From Richard Rohr’s blog on the Center for Action and Contemplation site.

Mirabai Starr writes in her book God of Love [One of my favorite books in the world – Wakil]:

The unifying theme in [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] is that God loves us unconditionally. . . . A hadith [saying] of the Prophet Muhammad expresses the unconditional love of God: Allah says, “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you” (Hadith Qudsi).

The great Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan [1882–1927] placed special emphasis on the sacred phrase Ishq Allah Ma’bud Allah, which he translated as “God is Love, Lover, and Beloved.” [1] In Love, Human and Divine, Inayat Khan writes, “The Sufis say that the reason of the whole creation is that the perfect Being wished to know Himself, and did so by awakening the love of His nature and creating out of it His object of love, which is beauty.”. . .

This love dance is not some rarified state reserved for long-dead saints and the occasional living master. We do not have to go insane with longing. Few of us will relinquish the last traces of ego and walk away from our life in the world. [But] we can feed the fire of divine love by cultivating simple practices that expand our hearts and raise our consciousness, such as meditation and chanting, reciting ancient prayers or conversing with the Beloved, in silence or in lifting up our voices, in solitude or in community. “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” says Rumi. [2]

Avideh Shashaani describes prayer within Islam as “a state of presence where the soul is in communion with God. ”Ablutions—ceremonial washing—are ways to open heart, mind, and body to God’s love:

By washing the face with water we put aside the five senses that are engaged with the world; the washing of the hands signifies giving to the world what belongs to the world; wetting the head means putting all thoughts aside, and wetting the feet means redirecting our steps from the world to God. It is after we have cleansed ourselves of our interactions with the world that we are able to stand before God and declare our intention to enter the heart and walk on the straight path that leads to the Divine presence. [3]

[1] Inayat Khan, A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914), 29.

[2] Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing: 2012), 60-61,136-137.

[3] Avideh Shashaani, “An Islamic Perspective onTransgression: Oneness,” “Transgression,” Oneing, vol. 2, no. 1 (CAC Publications: 2014), 25.