An evolving page, to which you are welcome to contribute, on the theme of HOPE! and the strength and courage needed for allowing us to have a Vision of Hope for the future.
— ‘Portal’, —
– batik and acrylic painting –
We are grateful for this contribution by artist Nina O’Connell
Advent
In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint
that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself.
You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart.
The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only
by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.
Advent is the name of that moment.
Frederick Buechner
(click on the photo for a link to an article about
Advent, Midwinter Solstice and Christmas and New Year, on the One Spirit Alliance Website)
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Song to the Spirit
(extract)
What would I have been without you?
Without you, what would I not become?
Marked by fear and worry
Alone in a world of one.
Nothing known for certain,
Uncertain what I loved,
The future veiled and voiceless
A heart gone silent—numb.
In loneliness, love and longing
Ate at me day and night.
Distracted and depressed
I roamed the tracks of life.
Meaningless motions!
Strife, a homeless heart—
Who can endure
Such friendless sky and hearth?
The light of the world, the Logos,
Made known to me within,
And certainly, how swiftly
The darkness comprehends.
I find myself as human
First by this transformed,
And India blossoms lovingly,
Even in the north.
Life! One hour-burst of loving
The world sprayed forth in bliss
An herb that heals the wounded,
Full free—each heartbeat blessed.
For all the thousand gifts
I remain a humble child,
Sure to have Her with us,
Whenever two come round.
Extract from ‘Song to the Spirit’ by Novalis
(original in German, translation: Bruce Donehower)
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Whole World View Newsletter, December 2024
“All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke
Right now ‘good men’ are living in increasingly kind, cooperative and compassionate ways, yet politicians, corporations and a range of influencers seem to be propelling us towards divides of so many kinds: pro Trump/anti Trump, pro Starmer/anti Starmer, pro Royalty/ anti Royalty, pro Israel/anti Israel etc. Within the unity community we are trusting in the ultimate oneness of all life, knowing how deeply interconnected we are and that the Golden Rule enshrined in every faith tradition makes sense. This rule strongly states “Do unto to each other as you would have them do unto you.”
Traditionally this injunction has been understood in terms of other humans but increasingly we are realising that as all is consciousness, energy vibrating at different frequencies, that the Spirit of Life (known by so many different names) is in all the diverse expressions of this one life. Yet, a question posed by Peter Russell in a recent presentation to the Scientific and Medical Network was “How can such an intelligent species have become so dangerous to each other and to our planetary home”? Building on this he warned that we are entering into a time of exponential change which looks like creating exponential growth. Technologically the swiftly emerging challenge of AI, economically the endless pursuit of economic growth and profit at all costs, will be unsustainable- endangering not only the natural world but also our mental health.
The challenges ahead for us might well be both:
1. The need to hold a steady vision of a creative, holistic way forward – not just in our heads but also in our hearts. This requires us to remember the biblical warning in the book of Isaiah “Without vision the people perish”.
2. The need to act in whatever way we can. Firstly by ourselves living in a loving and sustainable way and by remembering at all times that all life forms are a sacred expressions of the one Source of All and actively playing our part, remembering our own so soul contract and engaging with that however we can.
Now at this time of advent we are reminded of the First Coming of Universal Consciousness (known by some as Christ Consciousness) and now seems time for the Second Coming which is clearly the awakening of us all- as humanity – inspired not just to enjoy this beautiful world and all it offers but also to consciously co-create the world we want to see for ourselves, our children and for the next seven generations down the road. In the next newsletter I propose calling for examples from as many as you as possible of initiatives, endeavours, projects and undertakings that are building a golden brick road towards a golden era.
The call that Dr.Martin Luther King, perturbed by the direction public life was taking at that time seems equally relevant for us today:
“This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Dangerous passions of pride hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the compliant adjustment of the conforming majority but through the creative maladjustment of a non- conforming minority.”
That’s us folks!
Janice Dolley, December 2024
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Three Quotes from a Favourite Book
“Be calm in adversity, be untouched by criticism, by praise or blame. Go steadily forward on the path of life, serving one another. Follow the Star.”
“Thought creates form, but it is the love, the love in your heart, that gives life to that form.”
“Darkness will not touch you if you are radiating light.”
From THE BOOK OF STAR LIGHT, by White Eagle (contributed by Colum Hayward)
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Joyfully Embracing our Human Responsibility – a vision of hope
‘We envision a future where the whole community of life on Earth is thriving harmoniously and sustainably due to the emergence of new ways of seeing, being and doing. We see this vision being supported by a rising “movement of movements” that weaves together bold and collaborative initiatives in cultural change. Such initiatives are already here and already collaborating -pioneering and facilitating whole systems change from unsustainable patterns of consumption and separation towards more holistic, compassionate and beneficial responses to our civilizational needs. In this future, we are grounded in the beauty, truth and goodness of the evolution of life itself, and we joyfully embrace our human responsibility to contribute to its flourishing’.
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Soul Calendar verse for the Winter Solstice time
To bear the light of Spirit into world-winter-night
Aspires blissfully my heart’s desire,
That soul-seeds luminous
In cosmic grounds be rooted,
And that God’s Word in senses darkness
Resounds, transfiguring all life.
From ‘The Calendar of the Soul’, by R. Steiner
(see The Soul Calendar Verses on our website for more)
The Dead
The deceased did not die. Their vesture died.
Their bodies crumbled; their spirit and will live.
They are always united with you
In your soul’s deep temple silence.
In you and in them rests a united realm
Where death and life exchange words.
In it, you can, like your own thinking,
Listen to the quiet voices of your dead.
And you can speak, as you once did,
Your words silently to your dead.
Our spirit’s path is unchangeable
And the gate of death is eternally open.
Build bridges in you to the land of the dead
The dead build with you constructing the earth.
Walk hand in hand with the dead, aware,
So that the whole world will be filled with spirit.
Manfred Kyber, ‘The Dead’
(original in German)
Autumn 2024
We sojourn on earth
so the new can arise
out of freedom and love
in the course of aeons
so that what we shape
can at last become
the glad dwelling of gods.
Erika Beltle
Preserve in your soul the pure strength of wonder:
all things, after all, whisper of miraculous worlds of spirit.
Herbert Hahn
May I live this day:
Compassionate of heart
Gentle in word
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought
Generous in love.
Morning Prayer, by John O’Donohue
The deepest secrets of the human form I’ve seen
I know this world and that on which ’tis based,
I know that love, yea, love is what they mean,
And that to love I here on earth am placed.
I stretch my arms out wide as He had done of old,
I would that I, like Him, might all the world enfold.
Christian Morgenstern
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An inspiring book:
Speaking with Angels: Life Lessons from the Angelic World
by Iris Paxino. Temple Lodge, 2023
In this book, Iris Paxino describes in some detail the different angels who interface with us as human beings with different tasks, from our guardian angel to our leading angel, to our shadow angels – often referred to as our ‘double’, and also to those angels who work in broader contexts, such as the family and community angels. The picture briefly enlarges to the relationship of our angels and ourselves to the higher angelic realms, for instance the archangels. She describes also the relationship with our guardian and other angels between death and rebirth. Lastly, she looks at how we can further work on and develop our relationship with the angelic world.
Speaking with Angels is a book full of inspiration, written with warmth and at the same time a shining and refreshing clarity.
For a review and extracts, click here.
Spring 2024
“The meaning of human life is the establishment
of the kingdom of God on earth. And that means
the replacement of the egoistical, hating, dictatorial
and irrational things with a life of
brotherhood, freedom and reason.”
Leo Tolstoy
“Now for the first time we recognise clearly
that people think quite wrongly of the future.
They hope for the future or they fear the future. We ought to create the future…
This world does not come of itself, it comes out of the “I AM” of Christ.
But this “I AM” desires to come into our “I am” , to penetrate it, and it can break into the old world only through our “I”…
Now we see how we must work, so that we may gain the right view of the future, in details, and also as a whole.
We must bring our will into activity, for only we can resolve to do so.”
Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Christian Community Priest
in his book, Meditation
“Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it.
Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants,love everything.
If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.
Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.
And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”
Dostoevsky , from The Brothers Karamazov
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Pythagoras – Prophet for our Time
A book review of
WHEN THE DOG SPEAKS, THE PHILOSOPHER LISTENS
by Nigel McGilchrist
London (Genius Loci Publications/YPD Books), 2022.
isbn 978-1-3999-2242-5 (hardcover), 978-1-3999-4497-7 (paperback)
It’s an age-old mystery, why Pythagoras is so important. He left us nothing in writing, and even his most celebrated ‘discoveries’, the theorem and the mathematical relation of musical tones, he probably had from Babylon and/or India. For me, though, a new book by Nigel McGilchrist has been a game-changer, and it makes the ancient teacher really relevant to us.
He wrote nothing, not because writing was in its infancy (Homer was already history and Thales and Heraclitus happily put their philosophy into words) but because he saw true understanding only existing in the realm of experience. And to experience musical chords and understand their relationship, and to experience the special relationship of triangles, was literally a bringing of order out of chaos. In short, the post-Pythagorean world inherited the world as harmony, where the pre-Pythagorean world was merely fragments.
Science has become deeply materialistic and has lost its Pythagorean roots, though it may be ready to find them again. The joy of McGilchrist’s book is to put the importance of the Pythagorean moment into the world of beautiful utterance (it is eloquent indeed) and also into a context of humankind discovering beauty in all sorts of related ways. In the process, he also rediscovers the idea of the soul.
One thing we perhaps lack today is a recognition of the power of beauty. McGilchrist’s little list of precepts is surprisingly helpful:
- Do no deliberate harm to any living being – human, animal or plant
- Foster and hold to harmony as the greatest aspiration of our earthly life and seek to understand its meaning
- Look for beauty in all aspects of our life: create it and cultivate it with care
- Respect silence and remain always receptive to intuition
- Train and free the mind to think and reflect
- Be open always to other ways of seeing and thinking.
It doesn’t sound revolutionary, but the more I live with McGilchrist’s book the more I believe it is.
Review by Colum Hayward, 2024
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An invitation to a course with Charles Eisenstein:
Conversations with Orland Bishop, mystic, peacemaker, mentor
The following (below) is from Charles Eisenstein’s website, where he describes the course. Click here or on the photo above (https://charleseisenstein.org/courses/orland-bishop-course-one/) to go directly to that page and for joining the course. In the two paragraphs below, ‘I’ is Charles writing.
About this Course
“This program originated as a two-day filmed conversation between Orland Bishop and me, Charles Eisenstein. I approached Orland because I recognize him as a profound mystic who draws on deep knowledge and training in West African, South African and European Hermetic traditions. Yet he is no mere philosopher, having done groundbreaking work as a peacemaker and mentor in Watts, Los Angeles. The conversation takes the form of an interview, in which I pose questions and ideas for Orland to comment on. Orland’s responses carry multiple levels of meaning that reach deep into the psyche. I hope that others benefit as I have from his words, which transmit to me some of his clarity, will, and compassion.
Program Structure
This program is made up of five sessions that flow in the sequence they were recorded in our original conversation. Very little has been edited out. Our intention is that you feel present to the conversation. Each session consists of about 4 segments totaling 30-40 minutes. I suggest listening to one session a day for five days. That will give you enough time to sit with the material; by returning to it daily, you can become entrained in the “informational field” Orland speaks from. I find my comprehension of his words increases with regular listening.”
“Every thought and every action that arises from self-reflection, non-violence, and peace work creates a space of hope in the collective consciousness in which war, for example, does not find fertile ground. In this context, Bishop poses the following questions from a phenomenological perspective: What moves life forward?…”
A two sentence sample of thoughts contained within PART ONE (of five) of the course.
Click here or on the photo above (https://charleseisenstein.org/courses/orland-bishop-course-one/) to go directly to that page and for joining the course.
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Bridges Take Us from Here to There…
“As once the winged energy of delight
Carried you over childhood’s dark abysses
Now beyond your own life build a great arch of unimagined bridges”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Bridges take us from here to there. Throughout the last 2000 years much of the western world has rested on the recorded understandings of the life and teaching of Jesus, and the religion rooted in that has provided a map for the spiritual journeys of so many seeking to live a life of meaning and purpose. They have found assurance from the institutional churches but in the fast moving world of today we are hearing the call to build bridges from our roots to our future.
Bridges take us from here to there. Across the river, across a social divide, across from a world of getting and spending to one based on love, on trust, on sharing, on giving. Whatever bridges we travel over as life’s journey takes us forward, each crossing involves a change in some way. In the past, shifts and changes have been slow enough to be absorbed without much distress. Today the pace of change is accelerating rapidly. The parallel tracks of our technological evolution and the inner evolution of our consciousness are both increasing at a rapid rate. If the pace of the first trend exceeds that of our shift towards new horizons of understanding and new ways of being, then it seems a crisis may occur to show us that something new is being called for.
Certainties are the thing of the past and we now realise that the future can no longer be fully known; so it is being true to the present, noting what is arising from deep with ourselves together with learning from others through books and conversations that will enable us to live authentically and observe the advice given by Shakespeare in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true and thou shall be false to no man.”
As we reflect on the Christian story and are inspired by the essential message of Primal Christianity, free from the distortions of later generations keen to establish doctrines that anyone not wishing to be labelled a heretic needed to profess, we can begin to perceive with new eyes.
Life is a journey, and the evolutionary impulse is moving us on at a rapid rate bringing huge shifts in understanding which are requiring us to be open to the call of the future. Our role today is to be a bridge builder to the new and follow the advice of the poet T.S.Eliot:
“And at the end of all our searching
We return to where we started
And know the place for the first time”
This return is underway today as we look with new eyes and shift our understanding in a way that makes sense to a world where science and an esoteric understanding are coming together to realise that set beliefs need to be viewed as “a tent in which to rest a summer’s night” and that, as Earl Balfour went on to suggest, we can respond to the call to “take up your bed and walk”.
As we do this our view of God shifts from the old man in the sky image to the supreme source and sustainer of all life, omnipresent in every leaf and every being, human and other than human. We no longer see Christ as the surname of Jesus but a term that reflects his embodiment of the Christ consciousness which is seeking a place in our own souls and which we are called to “go and do likewise”.
It must have been hard for Jesus the Christ who could perceive the vibrating energy of love permeating all creation offering benevolence of beauty to describe it in terms that the unscientific folk of the time could understand. However, today our evolutionary scientists are telling us that “Consciousness is not something that we have but what we and the whole world are “(Dr Jude Currivan) and that there are many dimensions of being. Our lives are firmly rooted in the third dimension of materiality and our daily concerns can sometimes prevent us from taking time to connect with an inner or fourth dimension to find that the truth lies deep within us from where the voice of limitless love and truth can always guide us forward. This was made clear in the gnostic versions of the story of Jesus which were based on deeper perceptions at the time but buried in earthenware jars at Nag Hammadi when it became apparent to the people of the time who saw that the rulers of the day were taking over the growing religion in the fourth century and developing doctrines based on an exoteric or outer understanding and were establishing creeds that had to be believed. These documents were discovered in 1945 and the fragmented remains pieced together painstakingly have deepened understanding ever since. From this a more universal path can open ahead so that these essential messages can become relevant and available for a world beyond Christianity as a religious institution.
Inspirations such these can lift our minds to the vast cosmos and reconnect us with our role as stewards of its beauty and co-creators of communities of faith that can lead the world forward towards a church of love to which ‘all who belong, belong.’ Then beyond our own lives and streams of understanding we will be able to ‘build a great arc of unimagined bridges’ and engage in a collective imagining of what the future could be if we worked together in trust that it will be so. May the vision and hope offered by ‘primal Christianity’ which has been God’s gift to us become a world transformed and renewed as our gift back to God.
Janice Dolley, 2024, Gloucestershire, U. K.
On the importance of being old, and the seven I AMs of Christ
This short write-up relates an incident from just over a hundred years ago, about a person who lived in Switzerland at the time of Rudolf Steiner.
“A severely ill person who lay paralysed in bed and who had to be fed, aroused such pity in a member of the [Anthroposophical] Society that she mentioned this in a conversation with Rudolf Steiner, suggesting that it would be better if the ill person were relieved from her sufferings. Dr Steiner replied, ‘No, every hour she lives is of great importance for the whole of mankind. The forces of old people are the counterbalance to the unused forces of those who die young. These forces help to realise future aims of humanity, whereas old people help preserve the earth – the earth is only kept alive because there are people who remain in their bodies for a long time and who transform their body. They help to tear the Earth away from Ahriman.
People who become very old on this earth spoil Ahriman’s concept, diminish his power. Ahriman wants to tie man entirely to the Earth and to possess the whole planet. His aim is physical immortality. But something completely different happens, the more the body decays the more the part of man, which is independent of the body, grows. ‘In Christ death becomes life’.’
The account is extracted from the quarterly journal of the Anthroposophical Society, Spring 2024
It is a sombre reflection that euthanasia is increasingly being spoken of and practised. In the Netherlands there has been talk amongst political circles of encouraging people above 80 years of age to end their life by this means. In Canada, Trudeau has spoken of supporting the possibility of those with mental illnesses or incapacities ending their life by this means. It is, in my view, a very materialistic view of life – based no doubt on the calculation of ones ‘usefulness’ being what one can contribute to the public purse. For Ahriman, apparently, economic considerations rule – along with a totally ‘logical’ thinking completely devoid of spirit. The soul plays no part, is indeed strongly denied, and any spiritual ‘fancying’ is just a subjective ‘psychotic episode’, as some may term it. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the being of Lucifer, in Steiner’s description of the balance of spiritual forces in the world, who would be happy with people divorcing themselves from earthly matters, enjoying a full life of feeling, flights of overly idealistic thinking and indeed spiritual experiences but without their feet on the ground. It is the balance, a fine path in the middle, that we are being called to tread, one that can look up to the light and yet, at the same time, realise the spirit in our ‘daily bread’ – the bread of life. The mediation is in the soul, in the heart forces. We can gain strength for these challenges, according to Steiner’s descriptions, through the Christ forces, there for all, newly revealed and present in spiritual form in our time.
Friedrich Rittelmeyer, priest and one of the founders of the Christian Community, gives meditations which can help in this task, based on the seven I AMs of Christ in the St John’s gospel. (see Meditation: Guidance of the Inner Life, by Friedrich Rittelmeyer — many different publishers over the last 50 years). I AM the light of the world (John 8:12), living into this enables one to lift ones soul life to the spirit, to all that lives in the expression ‘light of the world’. I AM the bread of life (John 6:22), goes of course far beyond the literal ‘bread’ – to the Christ being, the spirit light of the world, living in all that lives, grows, and exists here on earth. I AM the door (John 10:1), holding the balance of the first two I AMs, leading one to a new revelation and resolution for life — a new door for us to pass through, enabled and accompanied by the Christ being. The image of the door in this respect can be a powerful meditation; it takes a resolution of will to pass through. It may lead us then to an inner revelation: we are not here in this world for ourselves but for others and all beings of creation — the meditation of the fourth: I AM the good shepherd (John 10:11), who lays down his life for the sheep. The active experience of our higher self, living in Christ, is one of selflessness, of selfless love, being the wellspring of life, and one comes to the fifth: I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). One has arrived at a way forward, for the future. Not only in transformation for this life but — accompanied by the Christ light in me, living in the Christ being, true life carries on, in all future lives to come. In the context of the previous I AMs, the sixth takes on new meaning: I AM the way and the truth and the life (John 14:1). Truth as living in a much higher reality than one can even approach understanding in our present day mindsets of limited intellectuality. One comes to feel and find oneself connected to, living in, the ‘source’ as a continual wellspring of inner nourishment and life. I AM the true vine (John 15:1).
The above is only lightly touching on the endless potential of the seven I AMs for meditative contemplation. Rittelmeyer delves much further into all of these in his inspiring reflections and meditations, also in relation to other elements of St John’s Gospel.
This brings us back to the initial reflection. It is perhaps in older age that one more easily comes to a feeling for the application of the above I AMs to life, of the importance of life not being the material pursuit of wealth and other material possessions, of the ‘gift’ older people can give to the young out of their wisdom gathered from life, in transforming ‘the bread of life’. In doing so, they are partaking in an inner transformation, an inner resurrection, wresting their body and soul away from pure materiality. They give then of themselves not just through what they speak and do, but in just being there. A spiritual presence, for us. For the world. And there is another consideration. I cannot lay my hands on the source of the quote one person wisely made with regard to the mentally infirm, which could also apply to elderly who are physically infirm: they are there to teach us loving care for our fellow human beings, in warm recognition of the spark of spirit in each and every person. A love which is selfless and knows no boundaries — and certainly cannot be evaluated economically! (I Corinthians 13 gives an inspiring Hymn to Love).
contributed by Richard Brinton
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‘Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care,
but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.’
William Blake
From ‘Songs of experience’
“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which you have power.”
Leo Tolstoy
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VISION of HOPE —some inspirations for reflection
Our world stands at the threshold or possibly the most significant evolutionary step the human race has or will ever take. The shift of consciousness that we may soon be able to make will move humanity out of the bondage self -created through the polarity of love and fear and the willing acceptance of the separation between the physical and the spiritual, between the head on the heart.
The next step for humanity will take us into the unknown. It will be a spiritual journey with profound material consequences. The prospect of it is threatening to the status quo because humanity and planet earth will never be the same again. Therein lies the source of the struggle between the light and the dark that we are now experiencing
But we are not helpless victims propelled by the vagaries of chance but are designed to mature and take up our responsibility for creating a future that works for all. But this requires us to have and to hold a steady vision of who or what we would wish ourselves and our world to become#
Several visions that have come to us channelled from higher sources
from “Matthew “via his mother, spring 2024
Please don’t give your energy to preoccupation with conditions that have to be fixed. Instead, help materialise benevolent changes by envisioning images that emit high vibrations ……. such as seeing mother earth immersed in golden white light or joyful children playing with animals -whatever images or thoughts that let you feel light hearted and peaceful..
Channelled by Ken Carey in a book called “Visions” 1985
“All creation is an ever unfolding picture of what I conceive. The starfields are my canvas, humans are my brushes, biology is my paint. The picture I create lives and dances, sparkling in multi- dimensional form as together with my people I journey down the living corridors of time. My consciousness is the gift I offered to all children, all women, all men of all races, tribes, nations who choose to dedicate themselves to lives of love”
Channelled from the Federation of Light by Blossom Goodchild ,April 2024
“Life is a game, created by life itself. Life is love. Love created life…. You have to accept that Love is the isness of all that is. It cannot be explained in any other form. So, Life in order to be lived has to become.
Love cannot know itself .It has no expression of itself other than its” isness”. Therefore love created Life. The biggest ongoing game that ever was and ever will be. A game to find out more about itself, by creating creators to create.
By love, allowing” Life” to be in existence, it can continually expand upon itself and shall always do so. Life can never go backwards, it cannot shrink.
So this hologram you are playing within upon Earth was created to be the playing field in which to experiment with ……in the case of your planet ….. free will”
Jean Houston in the introduction to” Visions” by Ken Carey, 1985
“ Although each channeler reflects in some way their own cultural and religious bias, they each speak to a vision and a gnosis deeper than any culture, more universal than any theology. What they all receive is the message “ it’s time to wake up now “. The human race is about to join a universe larger than our appreciation and richer than our dreams. It is time to prepare ourselves for being co- trustees of the evolutionary process, time, for the love of God, to re- educate ourselves for sacred stewardship”
Contributed by Janice Dolley
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Until this ‘die and be born again’ is yours, you are but a sorry tenant in a gloomy world.
Goethe
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Robert Frost (1874-1963), 150th Anniversary
This year is Robert Frost’s 150th anniversary (of his birth). Though he was regarded by some as an atheist does not tell the full story. Rather, he kept his distance from organised religion and often in his poetry followed existential if not even metaphysical themes, wrestling with ambiguities he perceived in the world, in the seeming duality of God and earthly life, yet nevertheless seeing the One as permeating the other, trying to come to terms with it. His poem, The Trial by Existence, reflects thoughts on the incarnation of souls, and of reincarnation. As a tribute to Robert Frost on this anniversary, we reproduce this poem below (the poem is in the public domain).
The Trial by Existence
Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide field of asphodel fore’er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.
The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light for ever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angel hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave;—
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.
And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!
And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.
And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life’s little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.
Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in its nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth’s unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.
But always God speaks at the end:
‘One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.’
And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.
’Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.
(1906)
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Eckhart Tolle
“…If you bear within you the consciousness that your work is imbued with the truth, then you will simply say to yourselves: when it comes to spiritual movements, neither external size nor numbers matter, only inner strength. That strength will work if it is upheld with a strong consciousness of its own nature.
But this is what one must have: a strong awareness of the truth and the capacity not to become discouraged by the fact that the truth is hated more than anything else nowadays. If you were wanting to disseminate some sectarian error or other, life would be easy for you; then you would worry no-one. But just because it is the truth that you want to proclaim, people sense this – and that is when you will encounter the strongest opposition.”
Rudolf Steiner, 1923
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The whole world is a series of miracles… but we are so used to them
we call them ordinary things.
Hans Christian Andersen
Late autumn 2023
‘Come, my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world’
– Alfred Lord Tennyson
*******
TODAY
Today I am flying low and I’m
Not saying a word.
I am letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
The bees in the garden rumbling a little,
The fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I am taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
A terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
Into the temple.
From: ‘A Thousand Mornings’ by Mary Oliver
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People look east, the time is near
Venus’ dance with Spica in the constellation of Virgo in the early morning skies in late November (2023)
(image adapted from one by Wolfgang Held
in A Tempo magazine, November 2023.)
It’s a fitting preparatory image to come before the start of Advent: Venus, the planet of Love, wanders through Virgo, a symbol of fertility, seen by the ancient Greeks as the figure of Persephone, daughter of Demeter. Towards the end of November (2023) Venus comes ever closer to Spica, the brightest star of Virgo. Spica is an interesting star. In the Greek image of Virgo, Persephone holds an ear of grain, the ear of grain representing representative of new life potential, waiting to be planted in the earth to bear fruit. There is another intriguing astronomical aspect to spica: it appears to go through a rhythm over four days of becoming brighter and then less bright. This is because it in reality is two stars circling in an orbit around each other, thus a star full of movement — full of life, we could say. This astronomical aspect complements the Greek image of a star representing new life. Thus… at the end of November love and new life come together, two qualities essential for us as human beings moving creatively into the future. And then comes the start of Advent on the first Sunday of December: people look east, the time is near. It is the start of a period of looking forward in anticipation, preparation. Preparation belongs to spiritual rebirth — one cannot sit back and relax and expect the same new birth to happen. An inner effort is required, to meet and eventually overcome the encroaching darkness. With the image from the stars of Venus and Spica, with the start of Advent, we may gain inspiration for the path ahead, and an inner fountain of new Hope.
(contribution by Richard Brinton)
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In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.
Advent is the name of that moment.
Frederick Buechner
Further reflections on Advent, Winter Solstice and the New Year – click here
We wish everyone a wonderful Advent, Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year, full of inspiration and initiatives.
May it bring renewed and strengthened inner spiritual commitment!
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Why now?
Finding our way amidst the conflicts raging around us — and in us
A contribution by Janice Dolley, October 2023
In the last few weeks of October 2023 I have been surprisingly caught up in the present conflict in the Middle East, more so than in other recent atrocities such as the Ukraine, Syria Afghanistan. So I ask myself why now?
Three reasons come to mind. The first is that I have stood on the hill on Jerusalem where the church is called Jesu Flavit. According to the Bible “Jesus stood and looked over Jerusalem and Jesus wept”. Was he despairing at the lack of godliness or goodness in Jerusalem at that time or might he also have had a vision of what would be happening now ? I have also stood in the playground of the Hope Flowers school in the Gaza Strip and looked up to see the row of guns on the border pointing directly at me. Not a comfortable place for children
A second reason might be that I was born in 1935 and lived in Bromley Kent which was close to the Air Force Base at Biggin hill from which the Spitfires set off every night and that the Battle of Britain was fought over our house where we slept in bunkers in our air raid shelters for several years. So I know what it is like to wake in the morning to find the house next door but one gone and all the people within it perished and my school bombed during the night but mercifully the bomb fell in the swimming pool and the nuns rejoiced ‘praise the Lord’ they said next day.
But the third reason is that I have realised that this, as many other conflicts, has been orchestrated by the global elite who are seeking to divide and rule at all costs . Possibly this was the case in other terrible wars; this is just all coming out now and certainly motivating those of us working for The Great Rising, however we see that. Then I pause and think why now?….. To read further, click here
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We do not fight, we do something different: we cultivate love, and we know that, with this cultivation of love, strife must disappear. We do not place strife against strife. We place love, in that we carefully nurse it, against strife… We work for the pouring out of love and found a society that is built on love. That is our ideal… It is not through strife that one overcomes strife, not through hate that one overcomes hate, but that, in truth, strife and hate are overcome only through love.
Rudolf Steiner, 1906
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A CATHAR IDEAL FOR OUR FUTURE
This is an authentic view of a paradise we can realise, by a Cathar from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The pioneer of the Cathar revival in the Ariège ended with a vision of the Cathar paradise, where each soul would have the same happiness as another; they would all be one and each soul would love any other just as much as those of father, mother or children. Here lay the nub of the comfort for the bereaved – a future in which all individual affections and earthly sorrows were caught up in a universal love.
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“Prayers for peace and unity in times of war hold profound significance, serving as a collective plea for an end to conflict and the healing of divided communities. These prayers are expressions of compassion and a yearning for a world where differences are embraced, respected, and reconciled peacefully. They remind us of the shared human desire for harmony and the belief that even in the darkest moments, the power of unity can overcome the ravages of war, paving the way for a more peaceful and harmonious future.
Love is the answer. Unity is the way. May we move towards co creating a world where children will always feel safe living. Our hearts go out to all places experiencing deep conflict right now. May our prayers be heard and ripple through the collective. If you feel called, lay some good prayers down today.”
Jason Shukra, Octoner 9th, 2023
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Faith
‘The wondrous power of faith: all faith is wonderful and wonder-working.
God is in the moment when I have faith in him.
Faith represents the influences and sensations of another world perceived in this one:
it is the perception of a transmundane act.
True faith relates only to the things of another world.
To have faith is to have awareness of waking and working and sensing in another world.’
From a fragment by Novalis 1772-1801
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Do not second guess spirit;
Your lists of preferences
Mean nothing.
Spirit is not interested in your comfort,
But in breaking you apart
Until your shell crumbles
And you are reborn as love.
Tanis Helliwell, Embraced by Love
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
A Maori Proverb
A Saviour, A Redeemer came,
A Son of Man, in love and might,
Who did an ever-quickening flame
Within our souls as fire ignite.
We only now saw heaven open
As our ancient fatherland,
Now were faith and hope awoken,
We felt ourselves at God’s right hand.
from Spiritual Songs, by Novalis
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A short inspiring video, by Charles Eisenstein
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Inspirational Words
— on the effects of our thoughts —
Each time you grasp a thought, you bring about a change in the spiritual realms. First the thought rays out, like a wave of light from a light-fountain. Then one can see how noble thoughts living amongst people are received by certain things in the spiritual realm where they form themselves into the shape of certain flowers, flowers that are not found here on the earth. These flower-like thought beings have the most beautiful geometric forms. They then move towards the person about whom the thinker was thinking. The advanced student of the spirit learns to work with this dynamic, and strives to produce only thoughts which bring forth beneficial consequences in the divine realms. (Rudolf Steiner, 1904)
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CHRISTMAS SUN
Cradled on wooded hillside,
Basking in winter sun,
Breathing into serene air,
Slowing in expansive release,
We are centred in the moment
Together.
Light slopes and shades away
Along the angled treeline
While behind and beyond
A brooding mountain presence
Watches over the deep ravine beneath.
The hum of running water
Wafts up from far below –
The churning turmoil of the world
Is just a distant echo.
Yet this is the same world,
A world of beauty and horror
A world of kindness and cruelty,
A world of bliss and agony,
A world of birth and death,
Of darkness and light
In ceaseless transformation.
The cracked record of history
Endlessly repeats archaic patterns
Of upheaval and violence,
Of war and suffering,
Profiting the few
While sacrificing the many
On the altar of greed and worldly power.
Even in this very world
Christ can be reborn
And rise again in every soul.
Our hopes can be enacted,
Our light can shine,
Our love can radiate –
So just take heart,
Take your courage in both hands,
And dare to forge the world anew.
David Lorimer
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Turn on your light – an excerpt
by Ben Okri
You can’t remake the world
Without remaking yourself.
Each new era begins within.
It is an inward event,
With unsuspected possibilities
For inner liberation.
We could use it to turn on
Our inward lights.
We could use it to use even the dark
And negative things positively.
We could use the new era
To clean our eyes,
To see the world differently,
To see ourselves more clearly.
Only free people can make a free world.
Infect the world with your light.
Help fulfil the golden prophecies.
Press forward the human genius.
Our future is greater than our past.
The new era is already here:
Here the new time begins anew.
The new era happens every day,
Every day is a new world,
A new calendar.
All great moments, all great eras,
Are just every moment
And every day writ large.
Thousands of years of loving, failing, killing,
Creating, surprising, oppressing,
And thinking ought now to start
To bear fruit, to deliver their rich harvest.
Will you be at the harvest,
Among the gatherers of new fruits?
Then you must begin today to remake
Your mental and spiritual world,
And join the warriors and celebrants
Of freedom, realisers of great dreams.
You can’t remake the world
Without remaking yourself.
Each new era begins within.
It is an inward event,
With unsuspected possibilities
For inner liberation.
We could use it to turn on
Our inward lights.
We could use it to use even the dark
And negative things positively.
We could use the new era
To clean our eyes,
To see the world differently,
To see ourselves more clearly.
Only free people can make a free world.
Infect the world with your light.
Help fulfil the golden prophecies.
Press forward the human genius.
Our future is greater than our past.
Easter 2023
The Glowing Egg
Space opening up within
Discloses
A delicate egg
Glowing in the dark.
New life gestates inside,
Beaming steadily,
Moving inexorably
Into our expectant world.
Tend this egg with care,
Listen intently,
Silently,
To its insistent
Whispering message
Pulsing in your heart:
“I am the Light returning!
I am Love reborn!
I am the very energy of Life!”
And so – dear reader – are you!
David Lorimer,
from Better Light a Candle
———————————————————-
A conference:
All Life is One
A Celebration of Human Kinship with Nature
7th October 2023 at the White Eagle Temple of Light at Liss in Hampshire
A day about awareness, acknowledging that our spiritual awareness of nature is the beginning of our resolving the problems of human interaction with the wider world. We can develop awareness so that we shun cruelty; we can develop awareness so that we discover our own healing in nature; we can develop awareness so that we replace goals of ever-increasing growth with those of regeneration and mutual survival with other species and forms of life. Awareness can open us to the subtle spheres of life; it can also help us fully and consciously live as part of a whole, giving and receiving. Within the whole, endangered peoples just as much as endangered animal species are important.
Our programme is not so ambitious as to believe it can offer a simple solution to the world’s problems; more, it aims to broaden and enrich the platform from which a full and transforming understanding can be developed.
Jane Upchurch is one of the speakers at this event, with other speakers including Justine Huxley, of the Centre for Reconciliation, St Ethelburga’s Church, London and Cofounder of Kincentric Leadership; Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming; Michael Dent, Fundraising Director, WWF; Hein Fleuren, Tilburg University/World Food Programme; JaneUpchurch, Christians Awakening to New Awareness; June Boyce-Tillman, academic, composer and author; and a speaker from White Eagle Lodge.
More details: www.white-eagle.org.uk/events; info@white-eagle.org.uk
——————————————–
Resolution
by June Boyce-Tillman Feb 9th 2022
It was finished.
His body relaxed as
he was taken from the cross
into the arms
of all those people
who had loved him
And stayed by him.
He felt himself lifted into a rocky hole
And from there he was
carried into the Centre of the earth.
He floated gently through the tunnel
passing dinosaurs, mastodons, pterodactyls
Dodos and many strange unknown creatures
Fossils, shells and colourful rocks and stones.
At the end of the tunnel
he saw a distant figure draped in black
Head lowered
With a vestige of a rope at his neck.
He remembered his own words:
“Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?”
He drew nearer
“Judas”, he said, “Will you allow me to kiss you?*
Written in the period leading up to Easter, with its theme of death, resurrection, rebirth.
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A report from the gathering at White Eagle Lodge on 25th March 2023, by Jenny Cuff (April 2023) —
AWAKENING TO NEW AWARENESS THE EVOLUTIONARY EDGES OF CHRISTIANITY
A joint exploration by White Eagle Lodge and CANA March 25th 2023
I was fortunate to have attended the White Eagle Open Day in October 2022 and this event on 25th March 2023, my second visit, was just as awe-inspiring.
The first thing that strikes you is the extraordinary care and meticulous attention to detail in the temple. Not just the planning and structure but also how its beauty encourages a personal direct link with the heart to attune into the atmosphere of vibrant love energy. This is a place of light and open to all who enter in.
Sitting in the circular temple, one’s eye is drawn upwards through a ring of light to focus on the six pointed star in the apex of the glass ceiling and then beyond to a vista of the sky and moving clouds above.
Embedded in every aspect of this space are the laws of sacred geometry enabling qualities of serenity, peace and stillness to flow through. The gift of a perfect silence shared with others in the round persists, and so the matrum, “As above, so below” is called to mind quite naturally………….. for the full report, click here (this will download a one-page A4 document).
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“Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks, or water or sky, or in our hearts.”
John Muir
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Steadfast I stand in the world,
With certainty I tread the path of life,
Love I cherish in the depth of my being,
Hope shall be in all my deeds,
Confidence in my thinking.
These five lead me to my goal;
These five give me my being.
Rudolf Steiner
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Cana newsletter, Spring 2023
contributed by Janice Dolley
Each of us has been on a different journey to reach the stage we are at today, whatever that stage may be, so I would like to start my contribution with a quote from Sir George Trevelyan in his book “Exploration into God.”
“ I saw that the emergence of the spiritual and holistic worldview in our time was calling and challenging us to go beyond the academic and traditional view points and really take our own initiative and explore into the field of God thought”
When I first heard Sir George say this in the early 1970s and then write it in his book “Exploration into God” it rang deep bells within me as from at least eight years old I had begun to think for myself rather than accept the teachings of either the Anglican Church of my home or the Catholicism of my school and saw that in different ways each was describing the same reality. In my early 30s I discovered Sir George Trevelyan and found he affirmed what I already thought and also inspired me to have ideas that we are all part of ‘one stupendous whole’ and that the flow of Life pulsates through each of us. Through his insights I was able to see the deeper meaning of the sayings of Jesus such as “ Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”. It seems that all these teachings can be heard and understood from several levels which is why he used to say, “Let them who have ears to hear let them hear”. One example is the misleading translation of the Greek word ‘metanoia’ which really means not repent as we commonly understand it but a change in our thinking and that the “Kingdom of heaven is within you”, linked with “Greater things than I do shall you do also” helps us to understand that divinity is within each of us, awaiting our discovery. In a way these two insights underpin what I am still trying to communicate today which is the twin ideas of both understanding what is currently called the whole worldview of the oneness of all and the consequent deep interconnectedness of all life, together with the abiding love of the Supreme Creator of All as two fundamentals. If these fundamentals were widely accepted beyond religious teachings so western civilization would come closer to the indigenous insights that all Iife is sacred.
The world faiths in their different ways have done so well in at least keeping alive the essential spiritual ideas through a dark age of materialism and also by giving us a springboard into the more universal stage of faith that is emerging now. This transformation or change in our thinking underpins both the relevance of the One Spirit Alliance as supporting an evolutionary movement towards a greater universal understanding. The new evidence from evolutionary science affirms what the Mystics have always told us, together with what we learn from the increasing opportunities for globally wide exchange is awakening us to the realisation that it is we, humanity, that now need to change our attitudes if, as the human species, we are going to survive and avoid possible extinction.
If anyone reading this feels called to explore or communicate this further then please do let me know. An intelligent and loving universe is awaiting our long overdue co-creation towards the New.
Janice Dolley ( janice.dolley@btinternet.com)
(You can also view this on a separate web page: onespiritalliance.net/cana-newsletter-spring-2023/)
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Christmas Sun
Cradled on wooded hillside,
Basking in winter sun,
Breathing into serene air,
Slowing in expansive release,
We are centred in the moment
Together.
Light slopes and shades away
Along the angled treeline
While behind and beyond
A brooding mountain presence
Watches over the deep ravine beneath.
The hum of running water
Wafts up from far below –
The churning turmoil of the world
Is just a distant echo.
Yet this is the same world,
A world of beauty and horror
A world of kindness and cruelty,
A world of bliss and agony,
A world of birth and death,
Of darkness and light
In ceaseless transformation.
The cracked record of history
Endlessly repeats archaic patterns
Of upheaval and violence,
Of war and suffering,
Profiting the few
While sacrificing the many
On the altar of greed and worldly power.
Even in this very world
Christ can be reborn
And rise again in every soul.
Our hopes can be enacted,
Our light can shine,
Our love can radiate –
So just take heart,
Take your courage in both hands,
And dare to forge the world anew.
David Lorimer,
from Better Light a Candle
——————————————–
Book Review
from Heather Giles
If I were to choose one book to refer to on our spiritual past,
present and future it would be:
The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul
by Anne Baring
This is a review by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee:
“The need to heal the split between spirit and matter – the need for the return of the feminine – is one of the most important stories of our present time. As we wake up to our ecological crisis, we sense the imbalance that lies at the root of our culture, the result of the loss of our contact with the sacredness of our earth that is the cornerstone of all indigenous cultures. But few have dared to penetrate to the very foundation of this cultural split and see how it has evolved over the centuries, to comprehend the real depths of the imbalance that now threatens our whole planet. Anne Baring’s extraordinary personal journey has taken her to that deeper vision and understanding. Her book is a testimony to the Feminine, it is the story of what we have lost and what we need to regain.”
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“The Power of Reframing”
from Positive News
This contribution from the Positive News magazine (in an online newsletter by the above title, 20th April 2023) struck a… positive chord! In a time when news media is full of apocalyptic reports about extinction being closer than ever, one link in particular stands out, entitled: The end isn’t nigh. Why we should be optimistic about the future (Click on the title to go to the article). An excerpt from the beginning of this article:
“Doom has become a profitable industry. Do a quick search for ‘wipe out humans’ and Google will spit out page after page of the-end-is-nigh predictions: ‘Researchers warn artificial intelligence could one day kill everyone’; ‘Study says zombies would wipe out humans in less than 100 days’.
It’s all great Hollywood fodder. Clickable content. But, as the scientist and writer John Hands argues in his latest book The Future of Humankind, when these types of forecasts are tested against their eventual outcomes, they are always disproven – often wildly so… The former University of North London lecturer, has spent the last six years delving into the evidence surrounding the main existential threats to humankind, and offers a different take: we should be more optimistic.”
Historian Rutger Bregman takes up this theme as well in his book, Human kind (pictured here), in which he notes from his research that, when people are asked, they tend to take a negative view of human nature, for instance that if there is a catastrophe — war, earthquake, etc — people will try to loot the shops, look after their own needs, in ‘survival of the fittest’ mode. BUT a study of people’s actual actions showed the opposite, moving him to conclude that humans in reality are cooperative and kind by nature. In an interview with Positive News, Bregman gives a thought provoking observation:
“Throughout history, a cynical view of human nature has always been a legitimisation of power,” Bregman told Positive News. “A hopeful view of human nature leads to institutions with more freedom. Because if people can’t trust each other, then they need powerful people to look over them. But if we can trust each other, we can live in a much more egalitarian, genuinely democratic society.” (Click on the link for the interview with Bregman).
The interview with Bregman from Positive News is from 2020 at the time of his publishing this book, but it is every bit as applicable now, if not even more so than before.
Adults are bombarded with all the terrible news of what humans are doing; children in schools are often having drilled into them all the bad things that we are doing to the world around us, eliciting the feeling in many: better we weren’t even there. Worse, it is adding to the anxieties, depressions and other mental health issues.
Yet the real story is not generally being told, at least in the main media: by and large human beings ARE good, and there IS great hope for the future, BUT… we need to pay attention to real life, the encounters we have with each other each day, to the positives, the beautiful, the hopeful – in short, making our own judgements, and putting out our own positive energies, rather than paying too much attention to what we are being TOLD by media and often government, which revels in negatives and doomsday stories: we are being told what to think, sometimes passing through us unconsciously, whereas we must instead be ourselves, think for ourselves rather than just accept doomsday views, and spread positive words and actions of love and hope.
THAT is what Bregman found many human beings already do, if they are allowed to be, and allow themselves to be…. HUMAN! 🌞
https://www.positive.news/perspective/rutger-bregman-talks-to-positive-news/
Whatever may come, whatever the next hour, the next day may bring, if it is unknown to me, I am unable to change it, however much fear may prompt me. I await it with entire peace of mind, with entire calm of heart. Anxiety and fear impede our development. Through the waves of anxiety and fear we reject what wants to flow into our souls out of the future.
The acceptance of what is called divine wisdom in the events, the certainty that all that is to come is necessary and that it will have in one or the other way its positive consequences, the evocation of this mood in words, feelings and ideas – this is the mood of the prayer of acceptance.
It belongs to the attitudes which have to be learned in this our time: To live out of sheer trust without security of existence, out of trust in the ever present help of the Spiritual World. Truly we cannot carry on differently, if our courage is not to fail.
Rudolf Steiner
November 1910, Bremen
In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me,
within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Truly yours, Albert Camus
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I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”
May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all.
The words come from the poet Minnie Haskins (1875-1957). She called the poem “God Knows”, although it is now know as ‘The Gate of the Year’ in many poetry collections. The verse is inscribed on a panel by the gates of the George VI memorial chapel in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and in a window at the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy.
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Thoughts about Love
Someone asked me, how can we better shine light into the world? I believe that the important thing to do is just to do it! – that is, not think about it, not prevaricate. It means consciously and generously looking outward from ourselves, but from the strong self. Our creativity – that is, our being in a state of giving, creating – is the same as our loving.
These pages have already seen the quotation from Rudolf Steiner that follows. He is clearly expanding on ‘a new commandment I give you, that you love one another’ (John 13 : 34):
“What then is essential for love? What is essential in order that one person love another? It is this – that he be in possession of his full self-consciousness, that he be wholly independent. No one can love another in the full sense of the word if this love be not a free gift of one person to another…
Christ is the bringer of the impulse of freedom from the law, that good may be done, not because of the compulsion of any law, but as an indwelling impulse of love within the soul. This impulse will still need the remainder of the Earth evolution for its full development.”
(R. Steiner in ‘The Gospel of John’, lecture in Hamburg, 1908).
Although Steiner speaks of freedom and independence, I find in his words something remarkably close to what I am feeling. To love is to love. There can be no prescription around it, no qualification, no sacrifice to any other feeling whatsoever. There can’t even be a focus on the needs of the world, for even that will distract. And it has to be done in full consciousness: ‘that he be in possession of his full self-consciousness’, as Steiner says.
We might put it the other way round. If our commitment is totally to radiating light, totally to emanating love, there simply is that independence that Steiner requires, that freedom.
Another teacher, White Eagle, says:
‘To know all means to renounce all. To love all means to have understanding of everything.’
It sounds a tall order, a big ask. But is it so hard to be, simply, a lighthouse?
Colum Hayward
Feb 2023
Sobering thoughts, finding the courage, on a threshold of hope…
A Message for our Time, and the year 2023 — ‘Fear Not’
contribution by Janice Dolley
I have been re-reading a chapter in a book by my teacher Sir George Trevelyan- “Christ and the Adversary Forces (1) and hope that those reading this will understand the Christ as a great universal energy of love, light and wisdom permeating all creation rather than the link only to Jesus of Nazareth as understood in orthodoxy.
I was writing this just before Christmas 2022 following an experience on 11/11 this last year, when a friend and I sat and meditated together remembering those who gave their lives in two world wars. After our meditation we shared stories about my grandfather in WW1 and his father in WW2. Both survived but suffered what we now call post-traumatic stress syndrome. He showed me his father’s medals for outstanding bravery in service and I told him of the note that my grandfather left with his will apologising for his periodic outburst of anger and saying that” if you experienced what I had experienced you would understand.”
What I was left with was the sense that all those who died did so to ensure the future generations might have FREEDOM and it is our it is now our freedom that is being threatened in subtle and often invisible ways today. If this statement does not ring bells with you then this is the very reason why I’m writing this. It may seem a strange message to send at the Christmas season and coming into the New Year. But is it ?
At the time of the birth of Jesus the population was under the fierce control of King Herod and his minions. Joseph and Mary were travelling to register their details so that Herod knew exactly who was under his control and could be taxed. Then when their baby was born they had to secretly escape to Egypt because Herod was exterminating any possible threat to his power. Doubtless most of the population acquiesced either because they did not notice what was happening or, if they did , they did not have the strength to resist so prayed for a saviour to come and save them. What they received was not a warrior but a gentle baby!
These attempts at domination surfaced periodically and we are told that the twelfth century mystic and Abbess, Hildegard of Bingen, rebelled against the dominance of church and state in the Middle Ages and that her role was to break the cycle of greed, power, and politics that was destroying Mother Earth as well as the soul of humanity.
Fast forward 2000 year… (click here to go to the full essay on a new page).