The ancient people gave thanks to the change of the four seasons
and praised and worshiped the movement of day and night
Observing the radiant law of the universe
and the movement of the earth
they glimpsed at the mystery of heaven
They recognized God in everything
and they named and qualified each one
Human beings in ancient times
behaved so modestly and humbly and revered everything
They always looked at the sky with respect
and built shrines to admire the gods
Everyone respected peace, often celebrating it with songs
All living things existed just as they are, and acted just as they do
Without compromising the natural order of great nature
They acknowledged each other
and cherished, cared, helped and loved one another

Everything was set
Everything was perfect

All living things on earth were observed by God
guided and enveloped in infinite love
Humanity built the foundation
of evolution, creation, harmony and peace on earth
The creation of heaven and earth
resounds in magnificient, heavenly sounds on earth
as the sacred light flows extensively into all humanity

The sun, moon, the earth, the mountains, the sea, water
and the galaxy...
Everything has a big romance and a great existence in itself


a portion of "The Universe" taken from the booklet Poems of Masahisa Goi and Masami Saionji

"Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying"

Baba Ram Dass


" I am part of all that I have met"

Alfred Lord Tennyson

What are you thinking of as I pass my fingers
through your manes coarse wool?
I take your cheek into my palm
You root my coat for food,
shiver a little.  It is cold here,
in the bare fields, under blank cloud
You wander between the
stark wire, bending to eat,
running now and then.  I would
do the same removed from
home and company, taking
the warmth of a strangers
hands light and hesitent,
like the rain..

In celtic culture, and in the old Irish Celtic world, there was an immense respect for wisdom.  Since the Celtic world was primarily a matriarchal society very many of these wise people were women.  The Celts had a wonderful tradition of wisdom which subsequently continued into Irish monasticism.  When Europe was going through the Dark Ages it was the monks from Ireland who had preserved the memory of learning.  They set up centres of learning all over Europe.  The Irish monks recivilized Europe.  That learning became the basis of the wonderful medieval scholasticism and its rich culture.

Traditionally in Ireland each region had its own wise person.  In County Clare there was a wise person called Biddy Early.  In Galway there was a woman called Cailleach an Clochain, or the old woman of Clifden, who also had this wisdom.

When people were confused in their lives, or worried about the future, they would often visit these wise figures.  Through their counsel, people learned to engage their destiy anew;  they learned to live more deeply and enjoy protection from imminent danger and destruction.

Wisdom is often associated with the harvest time of life.  That which is scattered has no unity and belonging.  Wisdom, then, is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy;  it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity. 

Our society would be very well advised to attend to the wisdom of old people, to integrate them into the processes of decision making.  The wisdom of the aged could be invaluable in helping us to articulate a vision for out future.  Ultimately, wisdom and vision are sisters;  the creativity, critique and prophecy of vision issues from the fount of wisdom.  Older people are great treasure houses of wisdom.

A friend passed on a booklet this week which I read and this paragraph "spoke" to me

Stimulus...

The second great stimulus to man's forward growth will come from far Aquarius.  Already, as our sun enters more and more deeply into the field of influence of that mighty constellation, a ferment of change arises in the hearts and minds of men. 

The essential quality of Aquarius is "Synthesis", a quality rarely seen in today's life on earth.  However, in gathering momentum, the quality of Syntheses will gradually replace, in all departments of life, the fragmentation and disharmony of today.

Men will come to understand the meaning of Unity, and to recognize that they are brothers and sisters of one family journeying together on a voyage of discovery.

Man's emerging divinity by the Master - through Benjamin Creme

There are four seasons within the clay heart.  When it is winter in the world of nature, all the colours have vanished;  everything is reduced to grey, black or white.  All the visions and beautiful rich colouring of nature thin out completely.  Grass disappears from the land and the earth itself is frozen and perished in a bleak self-retration.  In wintertime, nature withdraws.  A tree loses all its leaves and retires inwards.  When it is wintertime in your life, you are going through pain, difficulty or turbulance.  It is now wise to follow the instinct of nature and withdraw into yourself.  When it is winter in your soul, it is unwise to pursue any new endeavours.  You have to lie low and shelter until this bleak, emptying time passes on.  This is nature's remedy.  It minds itself in hibernation.  When there is great pain in your life, you, too, need sanctuary in the shelter of your own soul.

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart"

Mahatma Gandi


"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;  what is essential is invisible to the eye"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery


"In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing"

Antonio Porchia

In reference to the powerful book Small Miracles:  Extraordinary Coincidences from Every Life by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal, there is this amazing story of forgiveness across time...

"The news of his father's death came as a shock to Joey.  They hadn't spoken since he'd turned 19 and had questioned his family's traditional Jewish beliefs.....
It was in a small cafe in India that a friend found Joey and shared the news of Joey's fathers death.  This was the first Joey had heard of his passing.  He immediately returned home and begun to explore his Jewish heritage.  Deeply moved by new insights into his background and his father, Joey found himself making plans for a personal pilgrimage to the land where the roots of his family's traditions began:  He was on his way to Israel...

The story now takes a mystical turn!

Joey found himself at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem...
Joey had written a note to his father, declaring his love and asking forgiveness for the pain that he had caused his family.  Following the custom, he's planned to leave his note in one of the many cracks and crevices that were formed when the original mortar fell away from between the stones.  It was when Joey found the right place to leave his note that something amazing happened - something that has no rational explanation in the eyes of  traditional Western science.

As Joey put his note in the wall, another paper suddenly fell from between the stones, landing at his feet.  It was a prayer that someone else had written and placed in the wall weeks or possibly months before.  As Joey reached for the rolled-up paper, an odd feeling came over him.

When Joey opened the note and began to read its contents, he recognized the handwriting - it was his fathers!  The note Joey held was one that his dad had written and left in the wall before his death.  In it, he had declared his love for his son and asked God for forgiveness.  At some time in the not-too-distant past, Joey's father had travelled to the very spot where Joey found himself at that moment.  In an ironic twist of synchronicity, his father had placed his prayer in that same precise location within the wall, where it had remained until Joey walked by...

When you really listen to music, you begin to hear the beautiful way it constellates and textures the silence, how it brings out the hidden mystery of silence.  The gentle membrane where sound meets silence becomes deftly audible.  Long before humans arrived on earth, there was an ancient music here.  Yet one of the most beautiful gifts that humans have brought to the earth is music.  In great music the ancient longing of the earth finds a voice....

Music is, perhaps, the art form that brings us closest to the eternal because it changes immediately and irreversibly the way we experience time.  When we are listening to beautiful music, we enter into the eternal dimension of time.  Transitory, broken linear time fades away and we come into the circle of belonging within the eternal.  The Irish writer Sean O'Faolain said, 'In the presence of great music we have no alternative but to live nobly".

From the book The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden


For all intents and purposes, the operating system of a computer is fixed and doesn't change.  In other words, it "is" what it is.  When we want to see our computer do something different, we don't change the operating system - we change the commands that go into it.  The reason why this is important is that consciousness appears to work in precisely the same way.

If we think of the entire universe as a massive consciousness computer, then consciousness itself is the operating system, and reality is the output.  Just as a computer's operating system is fixed and changes must come from the programs that speak to it, in order to change our world, we must alter the programs that make sense to reality:  feelings, emotions, prayers and beliefs.

opened at random to page 125...

In your clay body things are coming to expression and to light that were never known before, presences that never came to light or shape in any other individual. 

To paraphrase Heidegger, man is a shepherd of being, we could say: man is a shepherd of clay.  You represent an unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice.

Often the joy you feel does not belong to your individual biography but to the clay out of which you are formed.  At other times, you will find sorrow moving through you, like a dark mist over a landscape.  This sorrow is dark enough to paralyse you.  It is a mistake to interfere with this movement of feeling. 

It is more appropriate to recognize that this emotion belongs more to your clay than to your mind.  It is wise to let this weather of feeling pass;  it is on its way elsewhere.

We so easily forget that our clay has a memory which preceded our minds, a life of its own before it took our present form.  Regardless of how modern we seem, we still remain ancient, sisters and brothers of the one clay. 

In each of us a different part of the mystery becomes luminous.  To truly be and become your self, you need the ancient radiance of others...

GRATITUDE TO THE EARTH

My feet touched the earth.  Accepting them warmly, the earth embraced my soul.  I walked on the earth in silence, and the earth was in peace.  The earth always welcomes us tenderly, without uttering a word.  Always, the earth embraces us in silence.  Even if trodden upon, hurt, or polluted, the earth never tries to take revenge.  The earth only gives.  In heartfelt gratitude I touch the earth and become as the earth.  Oh, beloved earth - on behalf of all humanity I thank you.

Masami Saionji - You are the Universe

Thank you dear wind for refreshing me through to my core
Thank you dear sun for uplifting my spirit and warming my earth body
Thank you dear water for enveloping me in your gentleness and cleansing my soul
Thank you dear earth for your steadfastness and your never-ending support
Thank you Great Spirit for your eternal love and profound wisdom

Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.  Exploring and analyzing the nature of all components involved in a nurturing activity puts one in touch with life extending itself.  This is the feminine presence.  The earth is woman.

Bernice J Reagon