Category: Main blog

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Resisting or postponing the collapse will only make it worse. Finding new ways to grow the economy will only consume what is left of our wealth. Let us stop resisting the revolution in human beingness. If we want to outlast the multiple crises unfolding today, let us not seek to survive them. That is the mind-set of separation; that is resistance, a clinging to a dying past. Instead, let us shift our perspective toward reunion and think in terms of what we can give. What can we each contribute to a more beautiful world? That is our only responsibility and our only security. 

~Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics~

How refreshing it is for me when I encounter people who are open to and preparing for collapse! How draining it is when I encounter those who attempt to convince me that I’m delusional and that collapse can be prevented, avoided, or at worst, that it will never happen.

Echoing Eisenstein’s words above, for any of us to resist collapse is to resist “the revolution in human being-ness.” This demise, unraveling, Great Turning—this dissolution of life as we have known it is endeavoring to pull us downward together into a planetary, collective descent for the purpose of transforming human consciousness and restoring our relationship with the earth community. At the same time that each of us is manifesting personal collapse in our individual lives (the microcosm), the macrocosm is drawing us conjointly inward and more deeply toward the earth. If we are willing to move with the descent, we have the capacity to experience the revolution in our human being-ness. If we resist, we re-commit to our separation and abdicate our transformation.

Re-union, both on the microcosmic level of the individual psyche, as well as in the macrocosm, is waiting to happen to us. The collapse of industrial civilization is humanity’s golden opportunity for re-union on every level. It beckons us to discover what can happen to us as individuals and as communities when we begin thinking in terms of what we can give to each other and what beauty we can create. Indeed, it is our only responsibility and our only security.

Father Sky and the Cosmic Christ
Meditation #24, June 4, 2019     Balancing Gender, Reinventing Culture

Talking about Father Sky means talking about the cosmos.  Thanks to scientific discoveries of the past 100 years launched by the seminal breakthroughs of Albert Einstein and Ernest Hubble, we now know that we belong to a universe that is vast and expanding, full of creativity (a star is being born every 15 seconds!) and deeply mysterious (96 percent of matter is either dark energy or dark matter and thus very difficult to see and full of mystery). 

The universe we dwell in, our home and matrix, is 13.8 billion years old and all its “stuff” is related, since it began smaller than a pinpoint and has developed and expanded ever since.

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In the crowded hall of Bellingham’s Village books, I listened with growing enthusiasm and emotions as my friend Mirabai Starr introduced us to her latest book, ‘Wild Mercy.’ (https://g.co/kgs/Ew4FCi) I knew at that moment that a deep yearning I had felt for a long time was being addressed. And as a white cis-gendered male perched uncomfortably on the pinnacle of privilege, I also knew this was another important call to action. 

My friend Aziz Gary Guest and I were working on the facilitation of a men’s group for our spiritual community’s gathering over Memorial Day and this was obviously the subject that we needed to address. As men in this patriarchal society, it is often hard to recognize the ocean of privilege we swim in and the consequent woundedness that we have suffered along with our marginalized siblings. With the Shekina prayer as our compass (we read it over many times during our time together) – the men found the beginnings of guidance toward a different way to envision the culture, the planet, our siblings, and the world we walk through each day. We were inspired to find new ways to be in that world and to pray Hineni (Hebrew: “Here I am”) each morning for the Divine One to guide us toward the “purpose Thy Wisdom (Shekina!) chooseth.”  (from a prayer by Hazrat Inayat Khan a Sufi master who brought Sufism to the West in the early 20th Century). 

This is work that not only begins to heal our own wounds but has the potential to lift us all into the birth of the new humans we can and must become if there is to be a future at all. Aziz and I, Wakil, hold deep gratitude to our dear sister Mirabai and to the many feminine icons and teachers to whom she has pointed us for guidance in ‘Wild Mercy.’ May we walk this path together, hand in hand, heart to heart, in love, harmony, beauty, compassion, empathy, and remembrance.

Amen.

This is a subject I have been working with for some time. I very much treasure the work of folks like Carolyn Baker, Andrew Harvey, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Joanna Macy, Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, and many others who have been so deeply engaged in this work.

This is another excellent article from an author new to me but with some inspiring ideas about how we navigate this challenging reality and what it means to embody mystical activism.

Some excerpts:

“To call these “end times” is hardly hyperbolic. We are in trouble and the signs are everywhere: extreme political divisions; xenophobic violence; enormous wealth inequity; poverty and homelessness; sexism and ageism; arms buildups and unending wars; and, most frightening of all, escalating climate disruption.”

“Driven by left-brain beliefs, illusions, addictions, and obsessions, we race headlong toward the collapse of civilization. Fortunately, the solution to these mounting crises also lies in the human psyche, arising from a most surprising source: the right-brain’s natural mystical consciousness. But our survival depends on whether we understand and resolve this paradox in time.”

“Humanity’s renewal is less a matter of faith than of transformed vision. Just as the divine world is never finished, neither is mystical revelation—we will be divinely guided through the death and rebirth of civilization if we pay attention. As the mind clears, so too does the path.”

Here’s the link to the full article:

Mystical Activism: Transforming a World in Crisis

In the Sufi world, we would call this Wali – that entity that walks with us and has always been there. What Fr. Richard Rohr might call the Christ Energy.

“Guardian Angel”

By Rolf Jacobsen

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,
and your closest friend, whom you can never know,
blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,
and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.
The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day
and makes you feel so fantastically happy.

I am the one you have loved for many years.
I walk beside you all day and look intently at you
and put my mouth against your heart
though you’re not aware of it.

I am your third arm, your second
shadow, the white one,
whom you cannot accept,
and who can never forget you.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

— Jane Kenyon

I’ve seen this referenced a couple of times recently and I love the concept. This is my self-care mode of choice, so I totally understand how it can be one of the most restful and restoring practices.

I love the idea of doing this in groups as a silent practice as well – and I heartily recommend finding ways to share this within your communities.

Here is an article: http://time.com/5259602/japanese-forest-bathing/?mc_cid=cd41b60036&mc_eid=aba969cd81

With a big thank you to Brother Saladin for sending this out to his lucky Mureeds today.

This is such profound and timely writing – a chapter from a new book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. So full of hope and reality. Please take a look and discuss here and with your community

Some quotes:
“Despite deep fears of economic instability, terrorism, or being overrun by migrants, the anxiety that is present in our culture does not come from any outside force. We fear that we are losing our way of life, and in that we are correct. But not in the way we understand or react to. The danger of climate change is real, but in the depths of our psyche we are sensing that something in our foundation no longer holds. This is the deep reason for our collective unease, which we project onto outer forces that appear to threaten us.”

“Much of our present insecurity comes from a deep knowing that our governments and cultures are planning for a future that will never happen. They may talk about economic expansion and increased prosperity, but we sense that these are just sand castles as the tide comes in”

“In the simplicity of our ordinary selves, living our ordinary lives, with our prayers and devotions we create a container that can help humanity make this transition. Rooted in the depth of our being we link together the inner and outer worlds so that the energy can flow more freely into the outer. And we do this not out of fear, which would contract us, but with love and joy to be of service, knowing that another cycle of revelation, another chapter in the story of our world, is unfolding.”

Full article:

https://workingwithoneness.org/articles/colliding-forces/

I find it is so crucial in these challenging times as we witness the degradation of our leadership and our planet and the suffering of our siblings – to remember joy and wonder and beauty and compassion. It is there if we choose to recognize it, and it has the capacity to hold us up and create resilience as we continue our work for justice and peace. Mr. Zinn is, as always, a font of wisdom:

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time.  To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.  It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.  What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.  If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. 

~ Howard Zinn ~

On this day of gratitude for our mother earth and our earthly mothers I found this practice from Richard Rohr’s blog simply exquisite. Please follow the link to listen the the absolutely beautiful rendition of this choral piece while reading and meditating on the words of e.e. cummings.

Practice: Alive Again

This Easter week we’ve explored Jesus’ resurrection as an archetype of the universal pattern all life follows. In the midst of suffering, grief, or depression, it can be hard to remember that this, too, shall pass. While we can’t skip over or rush through pain to get to a happy ending, sometimes it helps to focus on resurrection. Can you recall a time when you came out the other side of a hard experience, a day when you suddenly felt free? Can you imagine joy and healing and actually feel it in your body?

From this space of hope and possibility, read aloud and listen to a choir sing this poem by e. e. cummings. Try whispering and shouting the words. Listen in stillness or while dancing. What is it like to be “alive again today”?

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes 

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened) 

Listen to the audio recording here.