To Friends at Home
To friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
The fair, December the beloved,
These from my blue horizon and green isles,
These from this pinnacle of distances I,
The unforgetful, dedicate.
~R.L.Stevenson
Cosmic Mother
Oh Goddess Mother
You are the mystery of Night
Your radiant shine is the Day
Infinite realms cascade within You
Abundance is Your essence of Being
Blessings flow from You Limitlessly
Your Universe is harmony and tension in Balance
Within each of us, You are Alive
~ Abby Willowroot
Lao-tsus Balance Prayer
Lord, let us empty of all doctrines,
The Tao is wisdom eternally inexhaustible.
Fathomless for the mere intellect,
The Tao is the law wherewith all things come into being.
It blunts the edges of the intellect,
Untangles the knots of the mind,
Softens the glare of thinking,
And settles the dust of thought.
Transparent yet invisible,
The Tao exists like deep pellucid water.
Its origin is unknown,
For it existed before Heaven and Earth
Sermon
A Meditation on Balance
In this time between Autumnal Equinox and the turning of Yule we all experience the brief moment when the time between day and night are balanced. For those of us in the North as that brief moment passes it turns our focus to the expectation of the cold. In the south, down where many of us wish we could be, it is the time of the year where we look for the warming of life. Whether it be Samhain or Beltane we dance spiritually about that fleeting center.
As seasons change between both halves of our world in the eternal dance of Yin & Yang, the planetary cycle of life moves around us in a mostly unseen and imagined river, currents of the air and light set patterns that are easy to recognize yet almost easier to ignore as we chase after our individual lives. Our buildings now note the change and start to warm or cool us, as do our unconscious minds as we slip into our cars and have the AC or the seat warmers make sure our journeys are ones completely isolated from our surroundings. The things that used to let us know we lived, small pains or joys are silenced in our rush to be surrounded by an artificial womb which no matter how we design it is no place of real comfort. Separation from the real world and its continuous movement has made us ill; many suffer from anxiety, depression, and loneliness as this unrecognized gap in our lives goes unfilled.
Modern connivances have gone a long way in making many of the aspects of our lives better. However, they have all been introduced piecemeal without individually weighing their pros and cons. This act of giving up control I believe has left a great deal of the Western world looking and longing for things they cant identify. Whether we like it or even desire it each of us is on a spiritual journey that is an integrated part of our lives.
As we go about our day to day life we have to continuously ask the question, Do I need this? This question is deceptively simple because our whole culture and society is lined up to answer for us with a resounding yes. Yet we each have to ask that question while looking at the complex and always moving nature of our world. The word need requires us to look at the actual value of any given choice. Will each choice enrich or diminish our lives? If the choice diminishes our lives in some way then what is actually driving us to walk into its arms? Here in the west we pagans, and everyone else for that matter, have all that we need. When you consider the daily needs of most of the worlds 6 billion people we have been blessed & burdened with a bounty that would make any of the Gods of history blush at its imbalance of casual overuse. All but the extremely poor have some lured into level of luxury seduced by a free a lose credit market and look where that has lead us to in this point of history.
So when you ask the question of need, I am going ask you to approach it by saying no. No, I do not need this next video game, no I do not need an SUV; if you do this for all things you will find that the burden on your spirit lessens sometime immediately and certainly with time. When we put ourselves and our entire civilization out of balance we get back the woes three fold as can be clearly seen within the state of almost panic that is running around the world. There was no mysterious group of men at the top that made this all happen it was each of us going with the default yes that piled on all of the negative energies which have finally given way.
I ask you to look around your home, look around your shared spaces, look at your internal state of being and ask yourself what do you not need? Write those things down so they are not lost and then take action to pass on useful items to others that may truly have a need for them. If it is knowledge; teach. If it is food; feed. If it is to shrink your social circle, say goodbye to those that you only just know and understand that you will never know more of. A network of friends is only truly a community if you all share skills, experiences and emotional interaction. A list of names on a social network or in a paper address book only lengths the chains of negative energy we drag around with us.
To reclaim balance in our lives every day of the year we have to do things that are positive energy creators. As I hinted at above when you move parts of your life along, you are actually both cleaning out the negative and creating a positive in the same act. Giving, in what ever form - is one of the best and simplest ways to create a healing creative flow back into your spirit. Giving, is something that the divine and all around you can easily see benefit from and if your lucky follow the lead you have set.
I know some of you at this very moment are thinking you have nothing to give your life is so full of negatives that how can giving any of it away create positive feedback? Well the answer is in starting small. Go outside and pick up all the litter that you can find on your block and recycle or dispose of it responsibly. Give a friendly hello to anyone you encounter as you do this task. You could also simply sweep the dirt and soil that has found its way to your sidewalk back to the grass or other plants that need it for in support of their lives. One step grander is to look around and offer to help an older person or a younger person to complete any task. You dont have to talk much, just simply be kind. Let your mind wander to all the other things that you could give that have absolutely none of the negatives you fret about. Once you are done look back and see how your negatives disappeared or at least lessened while you where giving. Note that your negatives dont have that strangle hold on you that you given them in the past, then remember the positives again and make a plan to recreate and expand on them each day.
Being a true Unitarian Universalist is not following the dogma that was dreamed up by any given human, it is a life style that says live in the world now for it is the world that is scared and therefore it is you that is sacred. Your actions tell the story of your life, your actions create the magic, the life force that everything needs to survive. Go out today and make your story a good, kind and giving one.
Shalom, Salat, and Blessed Be
The Balance Wheel - Anne Sexton
Where I waved at the sky
And waited your love through a February sleep,
I saw birds swinging in, watched them multiply
Into a tree, weaving on a branch, cradling a keep
In the arms of April sprung from the south to occupy
This slow lap of land, like cogs of some balance wheel.
I saw them build the air, with that motion birds feel.
Where I wave at the sky
And understand love, knowing our August heat,
I see birds pulling past the dim frosted thigh
Of Autumn, unlatched from the nest, and wing-beat
For the south, making their high dots across the sky,
Like beauty spots marking a still perfect cheek.
I see them bend the air, slipping away, for what birds seek.
To friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
The fair, December the beloved,
These from my blue horizon and green isles,
These from this pinnacle of distances I,
The unforgetful, dedicate.
~R.L.Stevenson
Cosmic Mother
Oh Goddess Mother
You are the mystery of Night
Your radiant shine is the Day
Infinite realms cascade within You
Abundance is Your essence of Being
Blessings flow from You Limitlessly
Your Universe is harmony and tension in Balance
Within each of us, You are Alive
~ Abby Willowroot
Lao-tsus Balance Prayer
Lord, let us empty of all doctrines,
The Tao is wisdom eternally inexhaustible.
Fathomless for the mere intellect,
The Tao is the law wherewith all things come into being.
It blunts the edges of the intellect,
Untangles the knots of the mind,
Softens the glare of thinking,
And settles the dust of thought.
Transparent yet invisible,
The Tao exists like deep pellucid water.
Its origin is unknown,
For it existed before Heaven and Earth
Sermon
A Meditation on Balance
In this time between Autumnal Equinox and the turning of Yule we all experience the brief moment when the time between day and night are balanced. For those of us in the North as that brief moment passes it turns our focus to the expectation of the cold. In the south, down where many of us wish we could be, it is the time of the year where we look for the warming of life. Whether it be Samhain or Beltane we dance spiritually about that fleeting center.
As seasons change between both halves of our world in the eternal dance of Yin & Yang, the planetary cycle of life moves around us in a mostly unseen and imagined river, currents of the air and light set patterns that are easy to recognize yet almost easier to ignore as we chase after our individual lives. Our buildings now note the change and start to warm or cool us, as do our unconscious minds as we slip into our cars and have the AC or the seat warmers make sure our journeys are ones completely isolated from our surroundings. The things that used to let us know we lived, small pains or joys are silenced in our rush to be surrounded by an artificial womb which no matter how we design it is no place of real comfort. Separation from the real world and its continuous movement has made us ill; many suffer from anxiety, depression, and loneliness as this unrecognized gap in our lives goes unfilled.
Modern connivances have gone a long way in making many of the aspects of our lives better. However, they have all been introduced piecemeal without individually weighing their pros and cons. This act of giving up control I believe has left a great deal of the Western world looking and longing for things they cant identify. Whether we like it or even desire it each of us is on a spiritual journey that is an integrated part of our lives.
As we go about our day to day life we have to continuously ask the question, Do I need this? This question is deceptively simple because our whole culture and society is lined up to answer for us with a resounding yes. Yet we each have to ask that question while looking at the complex and always moving nature of our world. The word need requires us to look at the actual value of any given choice. Will each choice enrich or diminish our lives? If the choice diminishes our lives in some way then what is actually driving us to walk into its arms? Here in the west we pagans, and everyone else for that matter, have all that we need. When you consider the daily needs of most of the worlds 6 billion people we have been blessed & burdened with a bounty that would make any of the Gods of history blush at its imbalance of casual overuse. All but the extremely poor have some lured into level of luxury seduced by a free a lose credit market and look where that has lead us to in this point of history.
So when you ask the question of need, I am going ask you to approach it by saying no. No, I do not need this next video game, no I do not need an SUV; if you do this for all things you will find that the burden on your spirit lessens sometime immediately and certainly with time. When we put ourselves and our entire civilization out of balance we get back the woes three fold as can be clearly seen within the state of almost panic that is running around the world. There was no mysterious group of men at the top that made this all happen it was each of us going with the default yes that piled on all of the negative energies which have finally given way.
I ask you to look around your home, look around your shared spaces, look at your internal state of being and ask yourself what do you not need? Write those things down so they are not lost and then take action to pass on useful items to others that may truly have a need for them. If it is knowledge; teach. If it is food; feed. If it is to shrink your social circle, say goodbye to those that you only just know and understand that you will never know more of. A network of friends is only truly a community if you all share skills, experiences and emotional interaction. A list of names on a social network or in a paper address book only lengths the chains of negative energy we drag around with us.
To reclaim balance in our lives every day of the year we have to do things that are positive energy creators. As I hinted at above when you move parts of your life along, you are actually both cleaning out the negative and creating a positive in the same act. Giving, in what ever form - is one of the best and simplest ways to create a healing creative flow back into your spirit. Giving, is something that the divine and all around you can easily see benefit from and if your lucky follow the lead you have set.
I know some of you at this very moment are thinking you have nothing to give your life is so full of negatives that how can giving any of it away create positive feedback? Well the answer is in starting small. Go outside and pick up all the litter that you can find on your block and recycle or dispose of it responsibly. Give a friendly hello to anyone you encounter as you do this task. You could also simply sweep the dirt and soil that has found its way to your sidewalk back to the grass or other plants that need it for in support of their lives. One step grander is to look around and offer to help an older person or a younger person to complete any task. You dont have to talk much, just simply be kind. Let your mind wander to all the other things that you could give that have absolutely none of the negatives you fret about. Once you are done look back and see how your negatives disappeared or at least lessened while you where giving. Note that your negatives dont have that strangle hold on you that you given them in the past, then remember the positives again and make a plan to recreate and expand on them each day.
Being a true Unitarian Universalist is not following the dogma that was dreamed up by any given human, it is a life style that says live in the world now for it is the world that is scared and therefore it is you that is sacred. Your actions tell the story of your life, your actions create the magic, the life force that everything needs to survive. Go out today and make your story a good, kind and giving one.
Shalom, Salat, and Blessed Be
The Balance Wheel - Anne Sexton
Where I waved at the sky
And waited your love through a February sleep,
I saw birds swinging in, watched them multiply
Into a tree, weaving on a branch, cradling a keep
In the arms of April sprung from the south to occupy
This slow lap of land, like cogs of some balance wheel.
I saw them build the air, with that motion birds feel.
Where I wave at the sky
And understand love, knowing our August heat,
I see birds pulling past the dim frosted thigh
Of Autumn, unlatched from the nest, and wing-beat
For the south, making their high dots across the sky,
Like beauty spots marking a still perfect cheek.
I see them bend the air, slipping away, for what birds seek.