Richard Rohr

Dayle in Limoux – Day #66

September 9, 2022

Elton John gave tribute to Queen Elizabeth at his concert in Toronto in last night.

‘She Worked Bloody Hard’: Elton John Honors Queen Elizabeth With ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me’

By Jon Blister, Rolling Stone

“I’m 75, and she’s been with me all my life, and I feel very sad that she won’t be with me anymore, but I’m glad she’s at peace, and I’m glad she’s at rest, and she deserves it. She worked bloody hard. I send my love to her family and her loved ones, and she will be missed. But her spirit lives on. And we’ll celebrate her life tonight with music.”

And from the government of France today, a remarkably eloquent and gracefully written  statement historically honoring the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II.


M

A

R

C

H

E

 

D

A

Y

in Limoux. And it was 74 degrees! J’adore 74.

Épices! Beautiful.

The Grand Cafe                              Oui, s’il vous plaît.

This book.

“Those who dance are often condemned by those who cannot hear the music.”

Love every single page, all 721 of them. It’s been an education and beautiful guide book for the history and contemporary journeys into the sacred mysteries of our beloved Languedoc.

p. 673

There is only one way, and I repeat one way only, in which to understand the word forgiveness. By practicing it. And while practicing it, it is important to be aware that another judgment is not hiding within this forgiveness of the person or thing that is forgiven. For example, are you able to forgive yourself?

Be not afraid. There is nothing to be feared. But be aware that every thought, every word and every action has an impact in the cosmos. Remember that a wrong word said on one side of the globe is all it takes to creat a tidal wave on the there. Step outside fear.

p. 675

May the eye rest only on that which is new.

May the hand no longer take, but give.

May thought in the future be free in the service of the Exalted.

The heart is the mirror of the universe.

The heart is the true Grail.

All this week Father Richard Rohr, the Center for Action and Contemplation, has been writing about the Grail. Juxtaposed with ‘The Manuscript,’ powerful and confirming.

“After our own Grail experience, our lives are characterized by some measure of perpetual dissatisfaction. Nothing lives up to our standards: not the church, not ourselves, not our country. There is a radical, aching longing: Ordinary life will never again be good enough, yet it is not meaningless either.

After the Grail experience, the ordinary forever becomes extraordinary. God is both perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed in everything.

A peak experience can be disconcerting. Sometimes we might even be ungrateful for it. We don’t fit in anymore. We live the rest of our lives at a tilt, wandering like Parsifal. We might feel a bit off-center. We can’t get excited about things most people get excited about. We just don’t believe they’re important anymore.

We get wounded in the hip, like Jacob (Genesis 32:26), and we limp the rest of our lives, but we’re not worried about the wound. We’re utterly confused, but we’re not confused by our confusion. We can live with our confusion now because, behind it all, we know.

Does that sound like double-talk? When one gets into Grail language, it’s all paradox. Everyone wants to pull us back to the first language of logic, law, and ego-tower building. But we can’t go anywhere with that. We have jumped off the ego tower. Once Parsifal has seen the Grail—even though he returns to the world—he is radically different ever after.”

Indeed.

À bientôt.

✿´¯`*•.¸¸✿

Dayle in Limoux – Dayle #43

August 17, 2022

  * .  .   ✧

* ✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧ ✧   *    .     .     ✧     .     * .  *   . ✧  ✧   *    .   * ✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧

* ✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧ ✧        *    .    *    ✧     .   *   .   *✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧  * .  .   ✧ .  *   .    * . .   *   * .  .   ✧

.  *   .    * . There is magic in this world and you’re part of it.     *    .   *

 ✧        *    .    *    ✧   * .  .    -Sydney Azari    .   *   .   * ✧  ✧   *    .   *
 .  *   .    * .  
.   ✧        .✧  ✧   *    .   * ✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧   * .  .   ✧

 ✧  ✧   *    .   *        .       .     *.     .✧  ✧   *    .   * ✧  ✧   *    .   *

 ✧   *    .     .     ✧     .     * .  *   . ✧  ✧   *    .   * ✧  ✧   *    .   *   * .  .   ✧

  * .  .   ✧

‘I use my body as it was meant to be used, as a vessel of light, to express ℒℴve. I protect my body against the assaults of modernity from thoughts of

  c h a o s

to the contaminates of the physical environment, infusing my body with the light of the divine.’

-Marianne Williamson

🌼

Marianne’s prayer is basically a Cathar approach to their beliefs. There’s a devil and a god and that everything material (including the body) was the domain of evil, and the ethereal soul was the domain of God and that life was about the keeping the soul GOOD and PURE. To be a light and a conduit for spirit. Baptism was a vessel of purification. They revered John the Baptist. If in this life they did not achieve their goal, the goal of purity, they were reincarnated. Not unlike the Hindus belief of samskaras (earthly conditioning) and moksha, ending the cycle of death and re-birth through purification at the Ganges River in Varanasi, India. The underlying similarities between many religions and faiths is truly remarkable, especially in the Jewish faith and practices in Egypt and Iran. There was a lot of borrowing and re-shaping over the centuries, and yet, the ugly inhumane violence and destruction in the name of those beliefs is beyond understanding. The Cathars would probably just say, “Well, yeah. That’s the Rex Mundi part of this existence, the evil…the devil. The human experience.”

Might be a good time to listen to the ever optimistic Coldplay with their song ‘Humankind.’ I listened to it today after Rolling Stone posted about the group’s new video for the ‘Music of the Spheres’ track. They’re holding on to h o p e for the humans.

Rolling Stone

Coldplay Break Out the Fireworks for Euphoric ‘Humankind’ Video

I know, I know, I know
We’re only human
I know, I know, I know
How we’re designed
Oh I know, I know, I know
We’re only human
But we’re capable of kindness
So they call us humankind

Some of us, especially in the u.s.a., just need a lot more practice.

It rains in France!

And it’s 72 degrees!

Woo-Hoo! Doing the Languedoc happy dance. :)

Now, bring on the flooding since the drought has dried everything and the earth can’t absorb. You know, I think the river already looks higher. They run these test sirens for flooding that sound like WWII air raids. Glad I had been told me about them early after my arrival or I would have taken shelter under the bed thinking Putin had gotten feisty.

From France 24 and AFP News:

‘The French weather service warned Wednesday of flash flooding risks across much of the south, where a historic drought has parched the rugged Mediterranean hills, a day after fierce rainstorms lashed much of the country.’

And the fires. Spain firefighters are having a harrowing effort battling blazes as have many in France this summer.

The Independent

‘Firefighters ran from towering flames as they tackled the Bejís fire in Castellón, eastern Spain, on Tuesday afternoon, 16 August. Footage shows firefighters repeatedly shouting “fuera”, which means “get out,” as huge flames and plumes of smoke close in. The fire has burned over 1,900 acres (800 hectares) so far. Around 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, Valencia’s president Ximo Puig said. At least 11 people were injured after they evacuated a train travelling near the flames through Castellón.’

There’s always music in Limoux! ..•*¨`*♫.•

´*.¸.• .¸. ❥❥¸¸.☆¨¯ ♫.¸.¸¸.☆¨¯`❥❥

With the rain, lots of reading and research today. One of my favorite things is unlimited time and be surrounded by books and journals. Divine grace. Learning so much about the deeply layered history of this area, along with Egypt and Spain. I hope to visit a number of the ruins and villages I’m reading about, although getting there is going to be tough without a vehicle; cell phone service is precarious in some of these places too, to be able to fetch a ride from a taxi service, if…big if…they want to drive to the places I need to go for drop-off and pick-up. I’m going to look into some day tours, too.

http://www.enigmatours.com/EnigmaTours-Rennes-Le-Chateau_en.html

And found another site, too, with great visuals and history of the Cathars and Languedoc/Occitanie region.

‘And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’ -F. Scott Fitzgerald

My favorite place to be.

https://www.payscathare.org/en

‘I believe the spiritual realm is so enmeshed with the physical that it is imperceptible. I believe in the mysterious nearness of my ancestors, but I believe they are located at the site of my own blood and bone.’ -Fr Richard Rohr

Oui! Or, as they said in Languedoc before they were overtaken by French kings and the Catholic church, ‘Oc!’ Yes. They had their own language, although not far from some of the French language. The dialect is so different here in this region and most likely the reason NOBODY UNDERSTANDS MY SIMPLEST OF FRENCH WORDS. Pronunciation. It’s mauvais. <sigh> Just wrong. It’s going to take me awhile. There’s a food server here I’ve gotten to know and she’s helping with my French pronunciation. So kind. She has trouble saying my first name. It’s very ‘flat’ sounding, I think…just kinda falls, well, flat. But! When I told her my middle name and try putting both together, it was beautiful! Dayle Ann…only she said it with her French accent and blurred the two names. It was parfait! Perfect. I think my new French name is now DayleAnn. My family once called me that when I was a little girl because I was named after my dad, Dale. So, DayleAnn it is. :)

À bientôt.

Dayle in Limoux – Day #33

August 7, 2022

To be a projection of higher value. As I begin this day, I am open to receive. May my mind stay open and may I not deviate from things that are pure (Cathar) and true. Beyond the illusions of this worldly plane. I surrender to you my doings this day. 

From Fr Richard Rohr, The Center for Action & Contemplation

‘In his book Coming to Our Senses, historian Morris Berman makes the point that our first experience of being alive is not through the visual or auditory experience of knowing ourselves through other people’s responses; it is primarily felt in the body. He calls this kinesthetic knowing. We know ourselves in the security of those who hold us, skin to skin. This early encounter is not so much heard, seen, or thought. It’s felt. That’s the original knowing.

Hopefully, our caregivers’ early gaze told us we were foundationally beloved. But when we inevitably begin to see ourselves through eyes that compare, judge, and dismiss, then we need spirituality to help heal the brokenness of our identity and our world.

It parts the veil and tells us that our primal experience was trustworthy. It tells us that we are beloved, whether we received that mirroring gaze or not. It reassures us that we live in a benevolent universe, and it is on our side.

The universe, it assures us, is radical grace.’

︶⁀°• •° ⁀︶

How do you dream?

‘In Bhutan, they dream of rainbows.

In countries throughout the world, even in countries where there are no snakes, the most common dream is one based on our (it must be) genetic fear of snakes.

But in Bhutan, they dream of rainbows.

The dreams might be consistent, but the way we talk about them clearly isn’t. Perhaps the dreams we remember and talk about have something to do with culture.

Conversations are contagious.’

-Seth Godin

︶⁀°• •° ⁀︶

‘It is fashionable to be pessimistic about humankind — look at the assorted messes we’ve got ourselves into, and the undoubted evil that pervades the whole earth: war, poverty, child abuse, slavery, drugs, corruption of various sorts, racism and sexism, bigotry, hypocrisy — the list is depressingly long. Finding it impossible to comprehend that a good God would be concerned with such a hell, the Gnostic developed the idea that there were two Gods, the evil one who ruled the Earth, and the good God who lived in Heaven. Undoubtedly almost every individual who has ever lived has had some experience of this life as living hell, but without necessarily adding to it him, or herself.

[…]

Free of priests, gurus and dogma, the progress of our spirit is, perhaps terrifyingly, nothing more or less than our own responsibility.’ [Shades of Emerson.]

-Lynn Picknett, ‘Mary Magdalene’

‘The imaginal realm is real, and through it you will never be separated from anyone or anything you have ever loved, for love is the ground in which you live and move and have your being. This is the message that Mary Magdlane has perennials to bring. This is the message we most need to hear.’

[…]

‘It is clear that Mary Magdalene knew a good deal about that realm. At that spiritual tipping point where “no longer the object of my affection, he has become the subject of my truth,” a new energy emerges: pure (Cathar) creativity and effortless action. This is the “spiritual procreativity” described by both the Gospel of Philip and the poet Rilke.’

-Cynthia Bourgeault

‘The Cathars left behind no magnificent church architecture, for they believed that the essence of Christ’s teaching was humility and an indifference to material possessions. The temple of God lay within us for He was approached through the heart.’

-Margaret Long, author

︶⁀°• •° ⁀︶

Went to a wonderful concert tonight for the community at Saint-Martin’s. The organist and the alto soprano were beautifully in tandem. And the acoustics! Those 12th century builders…they knew. :)

At one point in history, Saint-Martin’s was actually a cathedral. In 1316, after the Albigensian Crusade, Pope John XXII created a small diocese, centered here in Limoux.

╰ღ╮╭ღ╯


Reading in France tonight about the U.S. Senate vote today:

Senate Democrats pass $740 billion tax, climate and health care bill. [Axios]

Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for The Washington Post, writing:

Biggest-ever climate bill: Massive industry clean energy money; $80B for EVs, heat pumps, home solar installation

Up to $7,500 to buy an EV — Up to $2K for heat pump — 30% off home rooftop solar — $840 for electric cooktop — Up to $9K for electric panel/home insulation

The planet continues to burn, and climate breakdown is painfully and frighteningly  real.

From VOX:

The Senate just passed one of the biggest bills to fight climate change, ever.
What’s in the “game changer” climate bill nobody saw coming.
by, Rebecca Leber

Aug 7, 2022

David Goldman/AP

‘After nearly 18 months of haggling and 15-straight hours of weekend votes, Senate Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act on a strict party-line vote on Sunday.

The bill contains $369 billion in funding for clean energy and electric vehicle tax breaks, domestic manufacturing of batteries and solar panels, and pollution reduction. It is the single most important step the US has ever taken to combat the climate crisis. And arguably, it’s one of the single biggest investments ever made on climate in the world.

If the bill’s policies work as intended, it would push American consumers and industry away from reliance on fossil fuels, penalize fossil fuel companies for excess emissions of methane, and inject needed funds into pollution cleanup.

The bill uses tax credits to incentivize consumers to buy electric cars, electric HVAC systems, and other forms of cleaner technology, leading to less emissions from cars and electricity generation, and includes incentives for companies to manufacture that technology in the United States. It also includes money for a host of other climate priorities, like investing in forest and coastal restoration and in resilient agriculture.

These investments, spread out over the next decade, are likely to cut pollution by around 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, according to three separate analyses by economic modelers at Rhodium Group, Energy Innovation, and Princeton University. The legislation helps move the US a little closer to its stated goal of cutting pollution in half within the decade.’

[Full piece]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/28/23281757/whats-in-climate-bill-inflation-reduction-act

And we can all do our part to contribute to the shift to save and heal our Gaia. We must.

YES! Magazine

“Earth repair is a participatory sport: a grassroots response to evolving global crises.”

While mainstream environmentalism has historically pursued either preservation or conservation, Schwartz’s new book, The Reindeer Chronicles (Chelsea Green 2020) explores a third option: regeneration.

She looks at community efforts to restore ecosystems the world over. “We’ve been trained to believe that finding solutions is a job for the experts,” she writes, but “Earth repair is a participatory sport: a grassroots response to evolving global crises.”

We may not know what the future climate is going to look like, and she acknowledges that not knowing is really hard. “But we’ve got to try,” she says matter of factly. “We’re here now … Just start.”

“There is no natural law that says profit must supersede other types of reward,” she writes. “The truth is, we are what we measure—or at least our actions are largely determined by how we gauge success. What if environmental healing, social engagement, and a commitment to the future governed our companies and institutions, and therefore our work lives?”

“We’ve all got places,” she says. “Places have their own ecological logic. Let’s do what we can where we are and learn from each other.” That idea of connecting with place and community is central to her worldview. “The ‘we’ who can address climate change is everybody,” she says.

“There is no one size fits all for climate action.” Schwartz says we need to protest oil companies and make art and grow healthy food and feed one another and, in her case, write—all using our respective skills to imagine a more resilient world.’

#

The Guardian

Photograph: SbytovaMN/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Clever use of water in the garden saves untold time and effort
You’d be amazed at how much time some gardeners spend watering

  1. Plant in the ground, not pots
  2. Use Mulch
  3. Water in the cool of the evening

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/aug/07/james-wong-on-gardening-clever-use-of-water-saves-time-and-effort?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1659858077

“At first there’s no path…and then someone bravely makes a step, and others join…just start.”

-Jacqueline Novogratz

🌏 ℒℴve

À bientôt.

🌷Practicing resurrection.

April 17, 2022

“A rabbi friend taught this prayer to me many years ago. The Jews did not speak God’s name, but breathed it:

Inhale=Yah

Exhale=Weh

“God’s name was the first and last word to pass their lips. By your very breathing, you are praying and participating in God’s grace. You are whoo are are, living God’s presence, in the simplify and persistence of breath.

God creates things that continue to create themselves.”

-Fr Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation


What Did Easter Mean to Early Quakers?

Quakers insisted that the spirit of Christ that was experienced by Jesus’s disciples after the resurrection, by Paul on the road to Damascus, and in gatherings of the early Church, is universally available to everyone in all ages, locations, and cultures.

For early Quakers, Christ was not tied just to Jesus, but, as with the Word in the Gospel of John [Gospel of Mary Magdalene-dayle], was present from the beginning and is manifest in the prophets of Judaism and other religious traditions. One might say today it does not matter if the resurrection of Jesus was physical or spiritual, for, from the beginning, Quakers have insisted that Christ’s spirit can be experienced by any of us anywhere. Hence Mary Fisher, one of Quakerism’s founding Valiant Sixty, felt confident she could minister to the Sultan of Turkey, because he would know the same universal spirit of God or Christ that she did.

Let us then think of the risen Christ  [consciousness] as a transforming experience of the Divine that is available on any day of the year without regard to religion or theology.

What Did Easter Mean to Early Quakers?


 

[The Beloved Companion/The Complete Gospel of Mary Magdalene,

by Jehanne de Quillan]

The Gospel of Mary

In our present age, we stand at a crossroads in our history. No one can deny, as well at our world today, that all about us we see turmoil and suffering, war and economic exploitation, corruption and greed; while torture, rape, and murder have become politically justifiable weapons of war. In our clearest moments, we must recognize that these are the first signs of the collapse of our social and economic forms and institutions. Perhaps, in the midst of this seemingly endless change of chaotic events, we need to look very closely at the value sand beliefs that have brought us to this place. For only be amning our past can we come to understand our present, and perhaps, by learning from our mistakes, begin to change our future.


 

Pink Moon 

‘Focus on the feminine aspects of beauty, forgiveness, compassion and healing.’

-Power Path

‘All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

-Julian of Norwich

‘History is set on an inherently positive and hopeful tangent.’

-Fr Richard Rohr


R

I

L

K

E

‘Ever again, though we’ve learned the landscape of love

and the lament in the churchyards names

and the terrible, silent abs where the others have fallen;

ever again we walk out, two together,

under the ancient trees, ever again find a place

among wildflowers, under heaven’s gaze.’

The origin of the order can be traced to Mount Carmel in northwestern Israel, where a number of devout men, apparently former pilgrims and Crusaders, established themselves near the traditional fountain of Elijah about 1155; they lived in separate cells or huts and observed vows of silence, seclusion, abstinence, and austerity. Soon, however, the losses of the Crusading armies in Palestine made Mount Carmel unsafe for the Western hermits, and around 1240 they set out for Cyprus, Sicily, France, and England. [Britannica]

Carmelite philosopher Edith Stein:

“I do not exist of myself, and of myself I am nothing. Every moment I stand before nothingness, so that every moment I must be dowered anew with being … This nothing being of mine, this frail received being, is being … It thirsts not only for endless continuation of its being but for full session of being.”

St. Teresa of Ávila

Of all the movements in the Carmelite order, by far the most important and far-reaching in its results was the reform initiated by St. Teresa of Ávila. [Britannica]

Ileo Delio:

“For Stein, the very existence of ‘I’ means the ‘I’ is not alone; the ‘I’ experiences loneliness only when it becomes unconscious of its very existence.”

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil:

“Whoever says ‘I’ lies.”

[The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, p. 61.]

A final thought in memory of my late sweet friend Marilyn Andrews:

“How do we give thanks and give back to other earth — G A I A ❀ — and the cosmos and all the blessings our species has inherited?”

Rabbi Abraham Heschel teaches that a prophets primary task is to interfere.

Julian of Norwich, by calling us to interfere with patriarchy and heal the wounds that it has wracked upon human history and the human soul and the earth, beckons us from folly to wisdom. Are we listening?” -Matthew Fox

Are we practicing resurrection? -dayle

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

April 5, 2022

I often contemplate, particularly now, where our country would be without the influences of Rupert Murdoch and the state media he has created in the U.S. He began his residency in 1974 and became a U.S. citizen in 1985 after relinquishing his Australian citizenship, the legal requirement for US television network ownership. He established the FOX News Channel in 1996, the same year former president Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act, overhauling 60 years of regulation. Murdoch thrived. And he is destroying us.

Astute and true:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her country doesn’t have to deal with the “rage of older white men” because “we’ve never allowed Rupert Murdoch to set up a media outlet here.”  

The veracity of the quote is being questioned. Regardless, he shouldn’t have been able to start his media empire here, and Clinton shouldn’t have sold us out. Cue Roger Ailes and Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. And here we are.


•DT
•Insurgency
•Plague
•Climate Crisis
•War

Our existential soup. Could we please hold off on adding any more ingredients? Maybe let this batch simmer for awhile.

Gen. Mark A. Milley on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: “We are witness to the greatest threat to peace and security in Europe – and perhaps the world – in my 42 years of service in uniform.”

Ukainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) speaks to the press in the town of Bucha, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, on April 4, 2022. – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 3, 2022 the Russian leadership was responsible for civilian killings in Bucha, outside Kyiv, where bodies were found lying in the street after the town was retaken by the Ukrainian army. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP) 

Anne Baring, The Dream of the Cosmos-A Quest for the Soul:

p. 273

“Evil has its origin in this deeply unconscious predator-prey pattern of behavior. I think that, in relation to the harm we are capable of inflicting on the human beings, evil may be defined as the act of inflicting terror, suffering, humiliation, torture or yeah on an individual or group of individuals ranging in kind from the murder of a child to the atrocities currently taking place in Syria (2012) to the viciously cruel attacks on others on Facebook and Twitter. One of the most difficult things to recognize is that each one of us in capable of acting in a hateful cruel or evil way, or of being complicit in these ways of behaving, whether as an individual or as the member of a government, institution, corporate body or nation. […] The fact that an International Court of Justice now exists to try those who commit such crimes against human unity is evidence of collective progress in moral awareness. But this progress requires perpetual vigilance lest we slip back into old unconscious habits. [2013]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to the United Nations Security Council today. Here is the link to watch his speech and listen to the statements by various countries after he spoke. There were technical issues with the video he wanted to share with the council, at about 1:15:00 into their remarks, the video was shown. We want to look away, we can not. Ever.

From The Hill:

‘If Russia is not removed from the council, Zelenskyy said the body should just be dissolved.

“If there is no alternative and no option, then the next option would be dissolve yourself altogether,” he said.

The Ukrainian president proposed a global conference to convene in Kyiv to discuss reforms to the United Nations.

“It is now clear that the goals set in San Francisco in 1945 for the creation of a global security international organization have not been achieved, and it is impossible to achieve them without reforms,” he said.’


“I don’t know where we fall in the legacy of life.”
-Sean Penn

We crave leadership, and authenticity.


Matthew Fox, a spiritual theologian.

“Rabbi Heschel teaches that a prophet’s primary task is to interfere. Julian of Norwich, by calling us to interfere with patriarchy and heal the wounds that it has wracked upon human history and the human soul and the earth, beckons u from folly to wisdom. Are we listening?”

Fr Richard Rohr:

“Stage One people: At this level tend to be preoccupied with the pleasure, security, safety, and defense of their material state. And that extends to their morality: If it makes me feel secure, it is moral. Life is largely about protecting myself. This is seen in the endless need for war and guns, but little need for education culture, the arts, and spirituality. Stage One people are mostly dualistic, either/or thinkers, and frankly represent a rather sizable minority of humans. Their morality largely has to do with maintaining their group, and regarding their group as superior.”

Thursday, March 24th, 2022

March 24, 2022

Slava Ukraini

‘Perhaps Sartre was not far wrong in saying that where freedom is abused, society itself turns into hell.’

L’enfer c’est les autres.


Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation:

“When you say you love God, you are saying you love everything (being Gaia). That’s why mystics can love the foreigner, the outsider; in fact, they cannot not love them, because they see truthfully and fully!”

“Return of the Divine Feminine (Mary Magdalene). As the late physicist David Bohm put it, ‘Something more than siren is needed.’ Values are needed, as well as the passion and courage to live them and put them into practice.”

-Matthew Fox

“Meister Eckhart, “Nature is grace.” Creation spirituality. A return to love.

Gnostic gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary, right practice v. right behavior, the Canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopalian priest:

‘Mary Magdalene’s place of honor is so strong that even the heavy land of a later (300 years), male-dominated ecclesiology cannot entirely dislodge it. […] The high position she held among the close followers of Jesus is more explicitly shown in the Gnostic Gospels where Mary Magdalene is seen as “First among the the Apostles”, not because she was the first on the scene at the ressurectioin but in a more fundamental way: because she gets the message. Of all the disciples, she is the only one who fully understands what Jesus is teaching and can reproduce it in her own life. Her position of leadership is earned, and it is specifically validated by Jesus himself.’

Again, it’s right belief v. right practice. Spiritual Creation is practice. “When you love god, you love everything. That’s why the musics can love the foreigner, the outsider; in fact, they cannot not love them, because they see truthfully and fully” (Richard Rohr).

“The world will only change as we change.”

[Now on Netflix]

Marianne Williamson:

“America has lost its capacity to respond to an emergency. Materialism and consumerism have made us dense and sluggish and unable, or unwilling, to collectively respond to even dangers in our midst.” ❁

 

You belong.

January 29, 2022

Fellowship is a kind of belonging that isn’t based on status, achievement, or gender, but instead is based on a deep belief that everyone matters, everyone is welcome, and everyone is loved, no conditions, no exceptions.
—Brian McLaren


Center for Action and Contemplation

People on all parts of the continuum of gender identity and expression, including those who are gay, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender, cisgender, queer folks, the sexually active, the celibate, and everyone for whom those labels don’t apply. Response: I belong.

People of African descent, of Asian descent, of European descent, of First Nations descent in this land and abroad, and people of mixed and multiple descents and of all the languages spoken here. Response: I belong.

Bodies with all abilities and challenges. Those living with any chronic medical condition, visible or invisible, mental or physical. Response: I belong.

People who identify as activists and those who don’t. Mystics, believers, seekers of all kinds. People of all ages. Those who support you to be here. Response: I belong.

Your emotions: joy, fear, grief, contentment, disappointment, surprise, and all else that flows through you. Response: I belong.

Your families, genetic and otherwise. Those dear to us who have died. Our ancestors and the future ones. The ancestors who lived in this land, in this place, where these buildings are now . . . we honor you through this work that we are undertaking. Response: I belong.

People who feel broken, lost, struggling; who suffer from self-doubt and self-judgment. Response: I belong.

All beings that inhabit this earth: the two-legged, the four-legged, winged and finned, those that walk, fly, and crawl, above the ground and below, in air and water. Response: I belong.

Open table.

January 26, 2022

Father Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation:

God’s major problem in liberating humanity has become apparent to me as I consider the undying recurrence of hatred of the other, century after century, in culture after culture and religion after religion.

Can you think of an era or nation or culture that did not oppose otherness? I doubt there has ever been such a sustained group.

It seems we ordinary humans must have our other! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. “Where can my negative energy go?” is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and also creates that negative energy in others.

The ego refuses to see this in itself. Seeing takes foundational conversion from the egoic self and most have not undergone that transformation. We can only give away the goodness (or the sadness) that we ourselves have experienced and become.


“I rest in the grace of the world and I’m free.”

Wendell Berry, born August 5th, 1934, is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. In 2015 he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. [wikipedia]


Thomas Merton

1965

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

“I pray to have a wise heart, and perhaps the rediscovery of Lady Julian of Norwich will help me. I took her book with me on a quiet walk among the cedars. She is a true theologian with greater clarity, depth, and order than Saint Teresa: She really elaborates, theologically, the content of her revelations. She first experienced, then thought, and the thoughtful deepening of her experience worked it back into her life, deeper and deeper, until her whole life as a recluse at Norwich was simply a matter of getting completely saturated in the light she had received all at once, in the ‘shewings,’ when she thought she was going to die.

One of her most telling and central convictions is her orientation to what might be called an eschatological secret, the hidden dynamism which is at work already and by which ‘all manner of thing shall be well.’

To have a ‘wise heart,’ it seems to me, is to live centre on this dynamism and this secret hope…this hoped-for secret. The wise heart lives in Christ (consciousness).”

p. 44

“…we are part of empires today that are killing rainforests and oceans and countless species […] We engage in the killing of the Christ when we engage in the killing of others who are all ‘other Christs.’

Those others may be other human beings or generations to come of species of animals, birds, bees, finned ones. Standing by while global warming happens is killing the Christ. Ecocide is a form of killing Christ. This is what it means to recognize…as Julian does…that ‘Christ too was part of nature.'”

p. 46

“One hundred yeas before Mechtild, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1181) tells us that ‘divinity is…like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun, nor ended.’ She speaks of our relationship to the divine as something round and compassionate when she tells us we are ‘surrounded with the roundness of divine compassion.'”


More from Thomas Merton:

“Man has lost Dante’s vision of that ‘love which moves the sun and other stars,’ and in so doing has lost the power to find meaning in the world.

Yet, though humans have acquired the power to do almost anything, have at the same time lost the ability to orient their lives toward a spiritual goal by the things that they do.”

[Image: NASA]

2021’s last day. Exhale.

December 31, 2021

She isn’t letting us go gently as she finally releases her grip. Colorado. ♡ -dayle

From Marianne Williamson:

“I embrace each moment as an opportunity for a miracle. 

Infinite opportunity is built into the nature of the universe.

It is not lack of opportunities, but rather the ways I have sabotaged them, that has obstructed the flow of miracles into my life.” 

IMG_0856.jpg

December 31, 2021

A Revelation of Heaven on Earth

“We return today to CAC teacher Brian McLaren, who illustrates how one of the Bible’s most challenging books—Revelation—can be a source of wisdom and hope for us today:

There’s a beautiful visionary scene at the end of the Book of Revelation that is as relevant today as it was in the first century. It doesn’t picture us being evacuated from Earth to heaven as many assume. It pictures a New Jerusalem descending from heaven to Earth [see Revelation, chapter 21]. This new city doesn’t need a temple because God’s presence is felt everywhere. It doesn’t need sun or moon because the light of Christ illuminates it from within. Its gates are never shut, and it welcomes people from around the world to receive the treasures it offers and bring the treasures they can offer. From the center of the city, from God’s own throne, a river flows—a river of life or aliveness. Along its banks grows the Tree of Life. All of this, of course, evokes the original creation story and echoes God’s own words in Revelation: “Behold! I’m making all things new!”

Rather than giving its original readers and hearers a coded blueprint of the future, Revelation gave them visionary insight into their present situation. It told them that the story of God’s work in history has never been about escaping Earth and going up to heaven. It has always been about God descending to dwell among us. . . . God wasn’t a distant, terrifying monster waiting for vengeance at the end of the universe. God was descending among us here and now, making the tree of true aliveness available for all.

Earlier in the year, Richard shared the shocking hopefulness of the Bible’s apocalyptic literature:

God puts us in a world of passing things where everything changes and nothing remains the same.

The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. It’s a hard lesson to learn. It helps us appreciate that everything is a gift. We didn’t create it. We don’t deserve it. It will not last, but while we breathe it in, we can enjoy it, and know that it is another moment of God, another moment of life.

People who take this moment seriously take every moment seriously, and those are the people who are ready for heaven.

Brian offers this final encouragement:

What was true for Revelation’s original audience is true for us today. Whatever madman is in power, whatever chaos is breaking out, whatever danger threatens, the river of life is flowing now. The Tree of Life is bearing fruit now. True aliveness is available now. That’s why Revelation ends with the sound of a single word echoing through the universe. That word is not Wait! Nor is it Not Yet!or Someday! It is a word of invitation, welcome, reception, hospitality, and possibility. It is a word not of ending, but of new beginning. That one word is Come! The Spirit says it to us. We echo it back. Together with the Spirit, we say it to everyone who is willing. Come!”

-Brian McLaren

-Father Richard Rohr

~

‘We’ve been studying war for centuries, we must now study how to create peace…conditions for a deep and lasting peace.’ -Brian McLaren

Plan for U.S. Department of Peace

Ending the scourge of violence in the United States and across the planet requires more than suppressing violence. Lasting peace requires its active and systematized cultivation at every level of government and society. The U.S. Department of Peace will coordinate and spur the efforts we need to make our country and the world a safer place. Nothing short of broad-scale investment and government reorientation can truly turn things around.

Both domestically and internationally, we must dramatically ramp up the use of proven powers of peace-building, including dialogue, mediation, conflict resolution, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, trauma-informed systems of care, social and emotional learning in schools, and many others.

“I believe our country’s way of dealing with security issues is increasingly obsolete. We have the finest military force in the world, however we can no longer rely on force alone to rid ourselves of international enemies. The planet has become too small for that, and in so doing, we overburden our military by asking them to compensate for the other work that we choose not to do. We are less effective, and less secure, because of that,” said Williamson.

As its mission, the U.S. Department of Peace will; hold peace as an organizing principle; promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights; coordinate restorative justice programs; address white supremacy; strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking; work to prevent armed conflict; address the epidemic of gun violence; develop new structures of nonviolent dispute resolution; and proactively and systematically promote national and international conflict prevention, mediation, and resolution. In short, we must wage peace. “Large groups of desperate people,” said Williamson, “should be seen as a national security risk.”

The Department will create and establish a Peace Academy, modeled after the military service academies, which will provide a 4-year concentration in peace education. Graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.

The Secretary of Peace will serve as a member of the National Security Council and will be empowered to coordinate with all Cabinet agencies – including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Justice, and State, and the new Department of Children and Youth. 

In 2022, let’s pledge to making this our reality. -dayle

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be free from disease.

May auspiciousness be seen everywhere.

May suffering belong to no one.

Peace

Shanti~Shanti~Shanti

COP26 🌏

November 6, 2021

‘Earth, isn’t this what you want: an invisible arising in us … what is your urgent command, if not transformation?’ -Rilke, Ninth Duino Elegy

For centuries we have been content to patch up holes temporarily (making ourselves feel benevolent) while in fact maintaining the institutional structures that created the holes to begin with (disempowering those on the margins). Now it has caught up with us. —Fr Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation

The cosmic common good provides a larger moral perspective, but it also exhorts us to “sink our roots deeper” into our native place and to work for the good of our place on Earth. —Daniel Scheid, theologian


Washington Post

“The bipartisan measure to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, ports and broadband connections won passage after liberals allowed the vote. The package, crafted by Democrats and Republicans, fulfills a major campaign promise for President Biden. It cleared the Senate on a bipartisan basis in August.”

The infrastructure plan costs $1.2 trillion over eight years, with $550 billion in new spending:

  • $110 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure fix-ups. Of that, $40 billion is new funding for bridge repair, replacement and rehab.
  • $73 billion for electric grid and power structures.
  • $66 billion for rail.
  • $65 billion for broadband.
  • $55 billion for water infrastructure.
  • $21 billion for environmental remediation.
  • $47 billion for flooding and coastal resiliency, as well as “climate resiliency,” including protections against fires.
  • $39 billion to modernize transit — the largest federal investment in public transit in history, according to the White House.
  • $7.5 billion for electric vehicles and EV charging … $2.5 billion for zero-emission buses … $2.5 billion for low-emission buses … $2.5 billion for ferries.

 

 

Spirit & Money

September 19, 2021

Fr Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation:

I’m convinced that money and soul are united on a deep level.

Money and soul have never been separate in our unconscious because they are both about human exchanges, and therefore, divine exchange, too.

From my perspective, when money and soul are separated, religion is the major loser. Without a vision of wholeness that puts money in its soulful place, religion “sells out.”

Commerce uses the metaphors of religion far more than it realizes: we purchase bonds and trusts, enter into covenants, forgive debts, are granted grace periods for repayment, enjoy indemnity, reconcile accounts, and redeem coupons.

All four Gospels in some form speak of “turning over the tables” of buying and selling. [2] Even with this forceful gospel teaching, our faith became transactional instead of transformational, calculating instead of consoling.

[2] See Matthew 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–18, Luke 19:45–46, John 2:13–17.

Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money Institute

“Our relationship with money can become a place where, day in and day out, we can engage in this meaningful spiritual practice.”

Center for Action & Contemplation

August 30, 2021

 

New Podcast: 

The Cosmic We Featuring Barbara Holmes and Donny Bryant

The Cosmic We podcast goes beyond race and racism to consider relatedness as the organizing principle of the universe, exploring our shared cosmic origins though a cultural lens that fuses science, mysticism, spirituality, and the creative arts.

Together with prominent cosmologists, shamans, biblical scholars, poets and activists, CAC core teacher Barbara Holmes and co-host Donny Bryant unveil the “we” of us beyond color, continent, country, and kinship to conjure unseen futures in exploration of the mystery of Divine connection.

Listen to The Cosmic We online or subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

~

You can expect regular updates on our progress in Returning to the Center, as well as institutional history, community stories, staff essays, videos, and even opportunities to contribute. You will find the latest posts on our website as well as social media and in the News from New Mexico, the CAC’s monthly newsletter. cac.org

Center for Action & Contemplation

July 10, 2021

Praying the Lord’s Prayer

“Perhaps some of the most comforting words Jesus shared in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels are the prayer Christians call the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer.

While the prayer is most often said in community or as part of ritual prayer, this prayer can also be a contemplative practice when prayed slowly and mindfully, perhaps even as lectio divina.

We invite you to pray this modern version of the prayer of Jesus from the Anglican Church of New Zealand, which both honors and reflects indigenous Maori culture.”

-Father Richard Rohr

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples
        of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
        sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
       now and for ever.

Amen.

Om.

Shanti. 

~

Church of the Province of New Zealand, A New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (Collins Liturgical Publications: 1989), 181.

Center for Action & Contemplation

June 27, 2021

One of the goals that is emphasized in our culture is finding answers—solving problems, answering questions, removing doubt. We want to know who, what, when, where, and why—and we want to know now. When we listen, we are trained to listen for the answers. . . .

Reflective listening distinguishes a response from an answer. It is a practice to get to know your inner voice, and it takes time and patience.

“Not knowing what to do is the work for you now.” -Francesca

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you then may gradually, without noticing, one day in the future live into the answers.” -Rilke

[Image by Lily Qian, © All Rights Reserved.]

Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
‘What a world you’ve got inside you.’

A new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet has been released in a world in which his voice and vision feel as resonant as ever before. In ten letters to a young person in 1903, Rilke touched on the enduring dramas of creating our lives — prophetic musings about solitude and relationship, humanity and the natural world, even gender and human wholeness. And what a joy it is to delve into Rilke’s voice, freshly rendered, with the translators. Krista, Anita and Joanna have communed with Rainer Maria Rilke across time and space and their conversation is infused with friendship as much as ideas.
https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-and-anita-barrows-what-a-world-youve-got-inside-you/

Magic.

June 23, 2021

Allysha Levino:

RIGHT NOW, those of us who are CHOOSING CONSCIOUSNESS are gathering our tools and training, trusting our intuition, and hoping that humans will make the great evolutionary leap toward a world that works for everyone.

Wherever this roller coaster takes us, we’re all in this together!

So here’s my BIG QUESTION for you today:

→  What are YOU Noticing?

  • Are you sailing through feeling graceful?
  • Are you seeing everything in the old paradigm that doesn’t work anymore?
  • Is your body or mind struggling to make the leap?
  • Are you feeling the tension of the widening gap?

Noticing can help us reach a place of equanimity no matter where we are on the journey… and wherever you are right now is perfect.

Notice. Trust. Breathe.

Allysha is the Founder of Real Life Magic
& Sacred Mystery Tours
www.AllyshaLavino.com
www.SacredMysteryTours.com

It is important to consider what we might know about ourselves and how we interact or respond in the ways we do, or what we perceive or believe about our own faith, theology, and identity. As we endeavor to live fully into this notion of belovedness, we must be introspective and self-aware, carefully uncovering and discovering our most authentic selves while staying connected to Spirit, utilizing the resources of prayer and other spiritual practices. This is the basis of how we live out our spirituality.

Father Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation


Full moon update for Thursday, June 24th from Power Path:

 

This is an optimistic time, and could be very prosperous if you can move through the challenges of the distractions of drama and ego-driven negative behaviors in yourself and in others that may crop up. Honesty, emotional vulnerability, humility and a good spiritual base are important foundational aspects for success during this time. It can be a very expansive time especially if you can harness the positivity and optimism. It is a good time to reflect on the containers of your life. What is too small, too big, completed etc. We have some good momentum to initiate the creation of some new containers for ourselves for this cycle.

One the one hand you have the excitement and inspiration of a new container and new possibilities for expansion and partnerships. On the other hand, you may have the personal challenges of self doubt and sifting through some of the negative aspects of your personality that may get in the way of truth and clarity of intention. Even though the energy is moving more freely now, there is still some residual tension around restrictions, delays and right timing. Be patient, enjoy the process, love your friends and community, have a little gratitude, be creative.


The shadow he gave was was enormously devastatingly encompassing, and in the box the magnificent light revealed. I am grateful for gifts of darkness. -dayle

Inter-be.

May 29, 2021

We’re not in a race to check off as many boxes as we possibly can before we are out of time. Instead, we have the chance to use the time to create moments that matter. Because they connect us, because they open doors, because the moments, added up, create a life.

-Seth Godin

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. . . . Without non-paper elements, like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.” –Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh

What do you see?


‘I bring a sun-shift to others when I shift my light. Darkness does not exist in the light.’ [A Course in Miracles.]

Shift.

If you feel uncomfortable with anything, you should re-consider your situation.

Cut your losses.

Far better to admit a mistake than to persist in it and allow it to develop into a nightmare.

-A. Stoddard

 

 

Dualities and Dance

May 22, 2021

“Our world thrives on dualities, our systems depend upon it, and participating in separation has become so normalized that it feels as natural as breathing.

How can we create balance within our selves? We change the system by changing the people who keep it alive, and that change begins with ourselves.

We contain within us the same fundamental forces that are found in nature: stability (tamas), energy (rajas), and harmony or basic goodness (sattva). These are called gunas in Sanskrit.

These three intertwine, in various ways, to create everything (visible and invisible) in the universe and within ourselves as well. All of this weaving together happens without us being conscious of it, but we can learn to pay attention to their individual characteristics so we can figure out how they work and how we can work with them.

The Gunas in Nature and Within

A sattvic world is one of abundance, beauty, order, and balance.

To achieve sattva, things need to get moving, and rajas is the guna that makes that happen.

Rajas governs the beginning of the life cycle, brings birth and growth. It’s what causes a seed to grow into a plant and the plant to flower.

Tamas predominates the end of the life cycle; it’s the destructive force that causes the plant to break apart, die back, and return to the soil. Sattva is the time in between, when the flower is in full bloom and beauty is all around us. Nothing can live without energy (rajas) There can be no harvest, no beauty without sativa, and there can be no rebirth without tamas.

All of nature depends on a healthy relationship between creation and destruction, rajas and tamas, to support the health and the vitality of the planet and all who abide there (sattva).

Just like in nature, our physical and mental health depend on the proper interplay among the gunas. When all three gunas are in balance, everything arises (rajas), abides (sattva), and dissolves (tamas), whether we’re talking about the life cycle of a plant, an idea, a pose, or a stage of life. 🌏

Rajas is the in-breath; tamas, the out-breath; and sattva, the gap in between, the silence where liberation can happen, where magic resides, and where everything is whole.” -Seane Corn

Patience. Presence. Prayer. Moab. And India.

April 29, 2021

The 21st century, the United States of America, capitalism, our churches and our political parties, and all the rest are passing away. We might recall the Buddhist heart sutra “Gone, gone, entirely gone” when we watch old movies—even celebrities and stars die. We can take this as a morbid lesson, or we can receive it as the truth ahead of time, so we’re not surprised, disappointed, and angry when it happens in our generation. 

In times like these, our prayer may need to be expressive and embodied, visceral and vocal. How else can we pray with our immense anger and grief? How else can we pray about ecocide, about the death that humanity is unleashing upon Mother Earth and upon ourselves? How else can we break through our inertia and despair, so that we don’t shut down and go numb? – Fr. Richard Rohr

Walk. And pray. Contemplation.

Terry Tempest Williams

Who have we become? “This is a violation against ever woman and life-giver,” says Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk

A prehistoric petroglyph panel near Moab was defaced with the words ‘White Power’

The Bureau of Land Mangement is offering a $10,000 reward for relevant information about those who committed the vandalism

Salk Lake Tribune

Known as the Birthing Rock, the boulder features petroglyphs on all four of its accessible sides that date from the Archaic period to more modern Ute inscriptions, including dozens of ancestral Puebloan-era images, including a woman giving birth.

Sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday, however, vandals descended on the roadside rock and scratched it with obscenities, a crude penis and the words “white power” directly over the top of two anthropomorphic figures.

The Bureau of Land Management is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the vandalism.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2021/04/28/prehistoric-petroglyph/801-237-2900/

Al Jazeera English

‘India’s devastating second wave was fuelled by a series of crowded events, including mass rallies addressed by PM Narendra Modi, religious holidays and pilgrimages on the Ganges river — in pictures.’

India opened too quickly, no masks, large gatherings, few vaccinations…by choice.

331 (M) people in the U.S. Masks eased outside. Be wise. Distance. Small groups. Oregon is surging and variants are circulating. And please. Read the science. Vaccinate. -dayle

“They had no idea the virus could spread this fast.”

Fear and Loss: Inside India’s Coronavirus Crisis

The Dailey

New York Times

Jeffrey Gettleman, The South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Delhi.

Your corner of the sky.

April 3, 2021

“Liminal space, the time between waiting and knowing.” -Fr. Richard Rohr

‘Our only truly essential human task here is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into the kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood.’ —Cynthia Bourgeault

‘…it is to look upon the face of anyone and choose to say: You are a part of me I do not yet know.’ ‘When I get overwhelmed, I ask: What is my role in this moment? I only have to shine my light in my corner of sky.’ —Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist & civil rights lawyer

 

Very.

March 28, 2021

“Stay passionate and let’s do what we can to lift each other up! Life is so short.”

~Korby


 

Escalante, Utah, 1936. Dorthea Lange. Village dwelling.

‘What brings us to tears, will lead us to grace. Our pain is never wasted.’ -Bob Goff

It’s hard for us religious people to hear, but the most persistent violence in human history has been “sacralized violence”—violence that we treated as sacred, but which was, in fact, not. Human beings have found a most effective way to legitimate their instinct toward fear and hatred. They imagine that they are fearing and hating on behalf of something holy and noble: God, religion, truth, morality, their children, or love of country. It takes away all guilt, and one can even think of oneself as representing the moral high ground or being responsible and prudent as a result. It never occurs to most people that they are becoming what they fear and hate.

-Richard Rohr

 

Release the fear. Then, hate dissolves. What remains? Only love. -dayle

 

More from Fr Richard:

Simplicity of lifestyle and freedom from the competitive power game, which is where it all begins. It is probably the only way out of the cycle of violence.


I am like one, who sees in dream, and when the dream is gone an impression, set there, remains, but nothing else comes to mind again, since my vision almost entirely fails me, but the sweetness, born from it, still distils, inside my heart.

-Dante/Paradiso


 

Ketchum, Idaho. March 27th, 2021

Full Moon/Power Path:

‘…keep your focus on beauty and what is good in your life. Trust your intuition and your heart and always come from a place of compassion and love.’

 

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