Calm and Bright

Sacred.  It cannot be manipulated by our thoughts, even when the thoughts are heartfelt.  It is here, continuously present even when we are not paying attention to it.  The sacred is at the most simple plane of being.  There are countless ways to come to it.  When we find it, we realize it has been looking for us too, for it is a mirror to our knowing.  The knowing it mirrors is the kind of knowing that is waiting there for us at the moment when we open to the sacred expressing itself.   Only to find, with exuberant inhale, that we are the expression of the sacred. 

Untitled  2013   by Glee 

When we find in our body a hunger, a thirst, a need to witness to the sacred, we are ready to experience expectant worship. In this place, there is an opening between the sacred divine and the song of our souls, and it can flow into the present like wind blowing through an opening in the rocks or through the ancient trees.  Something vibrates just enough, as if it is harmonic to the sacred divine moment we are seeking.  In this moment, we find ourselves in the act of vocal ministry. 

There is a moment, in the presence, when we sense an utterance forming in our throat, but it does not have a sound.  It has a vibration, an expression given to us from the sacred divine presence, and it is not coming out or staying in.  It is not silence or sound.  It is the utterance before the utterance. 

We are sacred.  Our words are sacred.  Our waiting is sacred and divine.  When we wait, we find it is waiting for us, too. 

Advice To A Clerk

Lead as if you are looking through a kaleidoscope, at something that can only be seen when light shines through the moving pieces of our sentient experience. 

Looking at one piece of the fractured rainbow of colors cannot obscure the presence of the other pieces.  Together, we are in the present.  In the light of the perfect moment, we are willing to put an eye to the darkened tube, at the end of which lives the light.  Don’t burn your eye by looking straight at the light, look at it through all of us, for we are never separate and we are never alone.  The light passes through all of us equally.  At times, we can see the vision of our greatest dream, all lit up in the warmth of this perfect presence.  Can we be leaders by this vision?  Can we lead our lives in community by seeing truth through a kaleidoscope? 

Through A Child's Eyes by Glee 2010

There is more.  Who catches the light?  How do we find the light?  We wait individually for it to arrive again.  The light sleeps, just like the sun. And we rest in darkness, to rekindle, to seek, for seeking is to find.  Some take a turn witnessing to the light when it is shining brightly, so brightly it cannot be denied.  We walk with it, for it lights the way.  We can construct candles, flashlights, and fire to guide us.  Or we can look up, unsheltered, to the open and infinite sky, and find the light waiting for us.  The cool and feminine light of night, of Nuit, the goddess overarching, is holding us through until the warmth and heat of the day.  

The day is for work.  There is the resting light and the working light.  There is a time to be held, and time to venture out with a different kind of trust.  The evening trust is a sense, a vastness.  It is outward reaching, with an overwhelming feeling of being held in our Mother’s womb.  The daytime light pushes us to see and yet not to look, to work, to grow, to gather, in the knowing of full sunlight.  We follow it through the sky on a chariot of purpose.  Despite its different qualities, it is light.  On any given day, it is for lighting the glass, for expression, feeling, and inspiration of color, and it can push the energy up and up to the leaping and hollering of white water rapids in the river of life.

A Circle of Love

Watching the autumn garden fade and fresh green plants return for another cool, wet season, it is easy to find ourselves contemplating the celebration of the seasons.  We see the dyeing of plants and the dropping of seeds into the hopeful soil of the future, when the glory of spring returns.  

Hydrangea flower by Glee 2008

When Christ died at the hands of humanity, the sun went away.  And in our darkness and grief, seeds of hope were planted in each living soul.  These are the spiritual ancestors, in which was born a faith that grows from within, reaching outward to find a garden of life in which to grow.  This loving presence dies and returns in every moment and again with each lifetime, and it has many faces. Like the endless variety of life in our biosphere, we cannot fathom the number of patterns in which Christ returns.  For me, this is our connection to our earthly body.  When we travel and carry this message of love to one another, how do we stay connected to the essence without suffocating continuing revelation? 

A Declaration of Living Water

We believe there is a spiritual, social, and scientific connection between the survival of human beings and the health of our shared bodies of water above and below. We declare the waters of Earth an essential and endangered living entity to be protected from harm along with all of life on Earth as an integrated living system. 

The signing of this petition demonstrates our compassion for water as a living entity.  The closed system of Earth’s water cycle is unique and undeniably present in all aspects of human and non-human life.  This water has existed for billions of years, passing through each of us in turn.  It is as much a part of our common experience as is our need for breath.  We are born from our mothers’ waters and have each known an intimate relationship to its life giving properties.  

Being simultaneously a living entity and also a part of all of life on Earth, we understand that mystics and theologians alike are capable of feeling what water feels, knowing what water knows, moving, quenching, and transforming like water.  We cannot deny that water carries our poison, our discard, our birth waters, and even our inactive DNA, that it is co-mingled with minerals, food, blood, and medicine.  We know that it carries the power to grow food and to keep our world from either withering or washing away.  Knowing all of this, we conclude that water has the right to be clean, flowing, and equally shared on this living planet. Much like each human has the right to certain life sustaining rights; so does the water.

We share the responsibility to express our common need for equal access to the forms of water essential to sustain the cycles of life on Earth.  We witness to this imbalance by speaking and acting to bring human activity into “right relationship” with Earth’s water cycles as it connects to gasses, liquids, minerals, carbon based life forms and more.  Freedom, for water, refers to the water’s ability to care for itself, to be clean, to be born from the depths of Earth in its own time, and to remain chemically autonomous, as much as humans can firstly do no harm. 

When water is denied these basic needs, it affects life on Earth in ways detrimental to the continuation of this great continuum of life that makes up our common experience on Earth.  

In accordance with this compassionate treatment of water, we recognize that violence, neglect, and imprisonment of humanity is also mistreatment of water.  We are of the water and the water is of us. 

Respectfully submitted by people of Earth as representatives of this inseparable living system we call home. 

 by Glynis Lumb 2015 

The author asks,"What would it take to make this petition a reality?"  

Learn More: (click on the link) 

Read A Declaration of the Rights of All Waters 2014 2nd Gathering of the Women's Congress for Future Generations 

 Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/new-zealand-whanganui-river_n_1894893.html

Water Security has been defined as "the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks."^[1] Sustainable development will not be achieved without a water secure world. A water secure world integrates a concern for the intrinsic value of water with a concern for its use for human survival and well-being. A water secure world harnesses water's productive power and minimises its destructive force. Water security also means addressing environmental protection and the negative effects of poor management. It is also concerned with ending fragmented responsibility for water and integrating water resources management across all sectors – finance, planning, agriculture, energy, tourism, industry, education and health. A water secure world reduces poverty, advances education, and increases living standards. It is a world where there is an improved quality of life for all, especially for the most vulnerable—usually women and children—who benefit most from good water governance.^{[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_security}