We are a 'kaleidoscope of butterflies!

Recently, my friend Sarah Hunter posted this image of a beautiful weaving she made. To me, it looks like a butterfly flapping its wings causing ripples of air to spread. It reminds me of that proverb: When a butterfly flaps its wings, it can lead to a great wind-storm on the other side of the world. In other words, small actions can lead to large and distant effects.

Butterflies don't exactly move in flocks or schools; they don't seem governed by herd mentality. Each one, in its own fluttering way, seems to be following unique inner guidance as it moves from flower to flower; sipping nectar, laying eggs.

 

And yet science does have a name for a group of butterflies: a swarm, flutter, rabble or, my favorite, a kaleidoscope!

 

I like to imagine myself, in concert with all my other butterfly friends, each doing our part to make this world a better place: pollinating, 'laying eggs' (planting seeds).

 

I like to imagine that our wingflaps form a kaleidoscope of blessed change that touches the world, both near and far.

 

I'm not much of a warrior. I don't have the courage and fortitude to fight against all the 'wrong' in the world. But I AM a gardener; a nurturer, an artist, a friend.

 

I need to believe that, each of us doing our part, using our own unique set of gifts and skills can help bring about a better, more healed world. A kaleidoscope of change.

And...if this post struck you as too 'woo woo' and philosophical...Here's a funny meme I found while searching for quotes about the effects of a butterfly's wingflaps. I couldn't resist - teehee.

Inter-faith To Inter-Pilgrim: Alive In The Search

 

--by Ravi Ravindra from Awakin.org

The following essay, excerpted from a longer piece speaks to my heart and soul. We are in a time of great divisions; people wanting to prove that their point of view is right and 'the other' is wrong. This piece speaks to the wholeness of spiritual truth above what our minds think/analyze; to the Unity of God/Nature out of which we spring and which we are each trying to find our way back to.

I have wished to engage in what may be called an inter-pilgrim dialogue. In my judgment, there is something wrong with interfaith dialogues. When the East-West or interfaith dialogues are too much bound by the past, the dynamic nature of cultures and religions, and above all, of human beings, cannot be appreciated. If one has never met someone from another culture or religion, interfaith or inter-cultural conversation is obviously a good idea. But I wish to suggest as strongly as I can that interfaith dialogues are at best a preliminary stage of human-to-human dialogue and can even be an impediment to a deeper understanding. 

A dialogue of cultures and worldviews, in which the parties involved declare their adherence to one or another faith or culture, can fix these faiths and cultures into the entities that they were. In fact, these cultures and religions are alive and dynamic and are undergoing large and serious transformations right now. An inter-pilgrim dialogue, which is of necessity somewhat trans-cultural, trans-religious and trans-disciplinary, is needed to move into a future of a larger comprehension. We don't need to stunt the growth or prevent a radical reformulation of the traditions by insisting that everyone declare their adherence to one or another version of the past. Every major spiritual teacher, especially the truly revolutionary ones like the Buddha and Krishna and the Christ, points out both the great call carried in the subtle core of the traditions as well as the betrayal (a word which comes from the same root as tradition) of the real living heart of the Sacred by them. To fix the other, or myself, in some past mold and thus to deny the possibility of a wholly unexpected radical transformation is surely a sin against the Holy Spirit: treating the other as an object rather than a person, an 'it' and not as a 'Thou.'

[...] The search for Love can become merely a personal wish for comfort and security, just as the search for Truth can become largely a technological manipulation of nature in the service of the military or of industry--of fear and greed. Whenever truth and love are separated from each other, the result is sentimentality or dry intellectualism in which knowledge is divorced from compassion. Partiality always carries seeds of violence and fear in it. Thus, in the name of 'our loving God' many people have been killed, and many destructive weapons have been developed by a commitment to 'pure knowledge.' But such is not the best of humanity –in science or in religion. Integrated human beings in every culture and in every age have searched for Truth and Love, insight and responsibility. Above the mind, the soul seeks the whole, and is thus able to connect with wisdom and compassion.

Let us not conclude for the Truth is in Vastness beyond all formulations and forms. In being alive in the search one is alive. Openness to the Sacred always calls for sacrifice, primarily of one's smallness, which is buttressed by an exclusive identification with a particular religion or nation or creed. A person who occupies neither this place nor that -- physically or intellectually -- may be uneasy, but this is the price of being free and in movement. The only one realization which is needed is that there is a subtle world, and that I am seen from that world. My existence now, here, is in the light of the subtler world. To realize the presence of the subtle world and to live in the light of that vision requires a continual impartial re-visiting of oneself, which in its turn requires a sacrificing of self-occupation. What is needed is the bringing of the religious mind (which is quiet, compassionate, comprehensive, and innocent) to bear on all matters. Not only to science, but also to technology, arts, government, education, and other affairs.

And the religious mind--which is the mind which is suffused with a sense of the Sacred--is cultivated in an individual soul. It is not a matter of bringing knowledge systems or abstractions, such as science and religion or theology, together. What is needed is a cultivation of a religious mind. The new paradigm is always the perennial one. It is possible to have a level of consciousness-conscience that sees the uniqueness of each being as well as their oneness with the All. This is largely a matter of metaphysical and spiritual transformation which requires an on-going sacrificing of one's smallness -- even more in the heart than in the mind. The new forms will naturally be different. Truth has no history; expressions of Truth do. The new dawn, when we will no longer be there to look at it with the usual eyes, will bring a new song and a new word. But the Essential Word shall abide, often heard in the silence between words.

Ravi Ravindra is a mystic, inspired by close connections with J. Krishnamurti and Jeanne de Salzmnann in the Gurdjieff tradition. Excerpted from here

An Amazing Synchronicity! (and a woman who's lived 'money-free' for ten years!)

 An amazing synchronicity!!!

Yesterday, I came across an article about a woman in Australia who "...quit her job and closed her bank account ten years ago. Today, she’s more committed than ever to her moneyless life".

I found her story to be so inspiring that I immediately copied the URL and switched to my email account to record it with the thought of sharing it through my network at a later time. As I opened my inbox, there was an email that had just been sent four minutes earlier (!) by a dear friend in Vermont who had also just been reading the exact same article and had copied the URL to send to ME since she thought I'd be interested. What are the odds of that happening?!

Here are a few quotes from the article to whet your appetite:

"All through history, true security has always come from living in community."

“I love being at home and I love the challenge of meeting our needs without money – it’s like a game.”

“It’s very different to bartering or trading, which involves thinking in a monetary, transactional way: I’ll give you this if you give me that. In the early days people would say, ‘Come and do this for me and I’ll give you such and such in return.’ And I’d say, ‘No, I’ll just come and do the work and you don’t have to give me anything’.”

“I actually feel more secure than I did when I was earning money,” she says, “because all through human history, true security has always come from living in community and I have time now to build that ‘social currency’. To help people out, care for sick friends or their children, help in their gardens. That’s one of the big benefits of living without money.”

 

Here is the article in full: Meet the woman who lives without money: ‘I feel more secure than when I was earning’ By Louise Southerden - The Guardian

 

And remember: "The miracle is this: The more we share, the more we have."

Guaranteed to Make you Smile! - I Look to You

Here is a beautiful, joyous, sweet song performed by Masaka Kids Afrikana. Guaranteed to make you smile!

 

Feed Each Other: The Radical Power of Free Grocery Stores

How This Kind of Mutual Aid Transforms Hunger Relief into Community Empowerment

Reprinted with permission from JM Heatherly

Imagine walking into a grocery store where there are no price tags, no checkout lines, and no guilt attached to taking what you need. Free grocery stores embody this vision—a radical alternative to the commodification of food and a powerful expression of mutual aid. They enable us to embody the ideal that food is a human right.

Free grocery stores operate on a simple yet transformative principle: access to food is a human right, not a privilege. Unlike traditional food banks, which often require proof of need, free grocery stores are open to all, fostering dignity, solidarity, and community. Their shelves are stocked through donations, community gardens, food rescue programs, and local partnerships.These stores exemplify mutual aid by addressing systemic food insecurity while also challenging the profit-driven model that suppresses wages and perpetuates hunger. 

Below is a powerful video embedded in the article about a group called "Food Not Bombs" in which  volunteers from the organization were interviewed. They outlined the simple principles that are the foundation of their organization: vegetarianism, non-violence and consensus decision making. 

Food Not Bombs, founded in 1980, is a grassroots collective that uses food as a tool for social and political change. Operating in hundreds of cities worldwide, the organization focuses on recovering surplus food from markets, bakeries, and other sources to create free, nutritious meals for anyone in need. By doing so, they not only combat hunger but also challenge the systems of waste and inequality inherent in capitalism.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military ‘defense’ than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

JM's article features other videos and links to organizations that demonstrate a range of Free Grocery Store models. To read the full post, go to Feed Each Other: The Radical Power of Free Grocery Stores

 

What happens when you set a river free?

Virtually all the UK’s rivers have been physically altered in one way or another – straightened, dammed, dredged or restrained by barriers in some way along their course. Which is why the National Trust decided to do a radical experiment, to see if it is possible to the ecological equivalent of a complete reboot.

They filled a river in west Somerset in and let it take its own course through the landscape. Our climate editor, Justin Rowlatt, has been finding out how the project worked out. 

Teach the children a helping way...

This is a quote excerpted from a conversation between a Lakota Sioux elder and the author of  a wonderful book I've just read (see below). It speaks to the importance of living a life of generosity, focused on vision, not fear.

"In the old way there were no locks on our doors. We had no fences to make lines between 'mine' and 'yours'. To be great among our people was not to gather the most for ourselves, it was to be the biggest giver and sharer and to protect the weak. We honored those who could help the most, not  those who could have the most.

"Once a person starts to live in your way, everything changes, because everything has to be protected. You start making rules about what people can't do, not what people should do. Look at those Ten Commandments you tried to teach us in the boarding school: 'Thou shalt not, thou shalt not.'

"I'd rather have rules that say, 'You should, you should.' It teaches us who we should be, not who we should not be. All your way does is tell someone how not to be bad. It doesn't tell them how to be good.

"When we teach the children this fear way, we set their feet on a bad path. We teach them to grow up thinking about themselves. Sharing is just a small stick they hold out to other people, not the strongest branch on the tree of their lives. They learn to protect, not to give, and it builds a wall around their hearts.

"We need to change this. We need to teach them a helping way. We need to teach them that the way to be strong is to help the weak; the way to have wealth is to give things away; the way to lead is to serve. We need to let them know that they are an important part of the circle of life, and if they do not play their part, no one else can.

"If we teach them these things they will have hope in their hearts."

                                                          from "The Wolf at Twilight - An Indian
                                                           Elder's Journey through a 
                                                           Land of Ghosts and Shadows" p 307-308
                                                             By Kent Nerburn