working on oneness

 With a bit of adaptation this would work for almost anyone. It’s still a beautiful piece.

Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the children of the earth.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

The air is precious, for we share the same breath.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

This we know, the earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

This we know, all things are connected;
Like the blood that unites on family.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

Our God is the same God,
Whose compassion is equal for all.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

We do not weave the web of life;
We are merely a strand in it.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

Whatever we do to web, we do to ourselves.
Every part of the earth is sacred.


From the Rhythm of Life by David Adam

David Adam was vicar of the parish on the island of Lindesfarne for many years. Although he is now retired he still lives on the island. Also known as Holy Island, it’s all of two square miles in area. The island has had some kind of religious foundation since 635 AD. It’s a place where you can be immersed in the sounds of the sea, the birds, the wind and the old church bells.

ELEMENTALS

 This is a repost that fits in with what I'm reading now and I hope will act as a sort of foundation. 

 I wrote this back in 2013. Considering the push back on the environment, and just about everything decent that has been done in the last century or so reposting this seemed appropriate.

The veils between the physical and spiritual worlds seemed thinner in the past. There was a time when it was easier to believe that there were spirits in the rocks, the trees, the streams. A vision of the world that’s still often dismissed as “Nature Worship” by mainstream society.

I don’t believe that the old Celts worshipped Nature as I understand word.  Perhaps we should say they did their rites in Nature.  They were much more in touch with the world, seen and unseen, around them. This immersion in the spirit world seems to have persisted longest on the fringes of Europe. In Ireland, where Rome’s writ never ran. Or in the highlands and islands of Scotland beyond Hadrian’s Wall. Even the people of Wales held onto most of their independence until the thirteenth century and the invasions of England’s Edward I.

I’m not even sure that the Celtic concept of creation or creator is the same as the world view I grew up with. They certainly have enough different words to work with. And heck, maybe it doesn’t really matter unless you’re trying to learn how to speak one of these jaw breakers of a language.

The word often used in Irish for creator, Duileamh (always capitalized and pronounced dool-yev) doesn’t have the root word for create. It doesn’t have the root word for God, or the Almighty, or Supreme Being; all those words our world view equates with a supernatural Creator.

This difficult, for us, to pin down word can mean “being in the elements,” or “one who is in the elements” or “one who is the elements.” To make it even more interesting the root duil can also mean desire, hope, fondness or expectation. They’re all related, I guess, maybe…….oh heck I’ll take their word for it. Try asking Who is fond of What? Who desires What? Careful, the next thing you know you just might decide that Creator and Creation are caught in a web of desire, hope, and fondness that we aren’t used to facing in our world view of the sacred confined to a few hours on a certain day and tucked in the closet the rest of the time.

The highlanders of Scotland used to bless each other in a way that turns the way we treat each other and the world around us on its head.

“The love and affection of the moon be yours.

The love and affection of the sun be yours.

The love and affection of the stars be yours.”

And work their way through all the things of nature around them until they end with

“The love and affection of all living things be yours.”

Adapted from Yearning for the wind.

Perhaps it isn’t so strange to feel a kinship with the sun. The sun feeds the plants, the plants feed the cows and the cows feed us. I guess you could say we carry a bit of sunshine with us through the day; and the night.

If we really believed that the local river had love and affection for us we might treat it like the irreplaceable creation that it is instead of as a sewer. If we could stretch our minds around the idea that the mountains and valleys might love us perhaps we’d think twice about carving off the top of a mountain to get at the coal and dumping the tailings in the valley below. If we truly felt the living web instead of seeing board feet when we look at an old growth forest maybe we’d be more careful as we harvest the trees we need. As it stands we don’t believe we have the love and affection of our fellow human beings much less the rest of the world and the creatures in it.

The elements of creation. “The Love and Affection of the Elements. The Pure Love of the Elements. The Being of the Elements. The One Who is the Elements.” Tom Cowan notes that the participants were trying to discuss these concepts at a workshop for Celtic Shamanism. One woman in the group wished our language had words like these. Another broke in with “Wouldn’t it be great if our culture had ideas like this.” Taken from Yearning for the Wind.

Just wouldn’t it though?

THIS MAY BE A FIRST

 A triple post in three journals. Now that will probably not happen very often. I had hopes back in the day of using this blog as a place sort some things out and then sort of forgot about it. So we'll see how long I remember it this time. 

THE RIGHTS OF THE REST OF CREATION

 

Salmon image from the Haida people of islands off British Columbia. Now the Columbia River tribes are a little further south than BC but I expect the images the tribes like the Umatillas aren't much different. 

"If this nation has a long way to go before all our people are truly created equally without regard to race, religion, or national origin, it has even farther to go before achieving anything that remotely resembles equal treatment for other creatures who called this land home before humans ever set foot upon it...while the species themselves... fish, fowl, game, and the habitat they live in-have given us unparalleled wealth, they live crippled in their ability to persist  and live in conditions of captive squalor...this enslavement and impoverishment of nature is no more tolerable or sensible than enslavement and impoverishment of other human beings...perhaps it is because we are the messengers that not only our sovereignty as Native governments but our right to identify with a deity and a history, or right to hold too a set of natural lass as practiced for thousands of years is under assault. Now more than ever, tribal people must hold onto their timeless and priceless customs and practices. Ted Strong in the introduction to All Our Relations by Winona LaDuke.

Mr. Strong is an activist with the Columbia River Tribes speaking for the rights of our non human neighbors, especially the salmon people.

RADICALS

 Rufus JOnes Quaker mystic and pacifist

Abraham Muste Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, finally Quaker, mystic and radical, Libereation magazine

Willaim James  the Varieties of Christian Experience

Ghandi WAr Without Violence  by Krisnalal Shridjarani

Philip and DAniel Berrigan, Mennonite John Howard Yoder

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day

Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited,  The Luminous Darkness, The Search for Common Ground

Meister Ekhart,  Francis of Assissi

Brother Cadfael's Herb Garden

Is planted with rue, sage, rosemary, gilvers, gromwell, ginger, mint, thyme, combine, herb of grace, savoury, mustard, fennel, tansy, basil, dill, parsley, chervil, marjoram, peonies for spicy seeds, poppies for pain. And I would add lavender and true marigold.

AGAPE

Anamchara seems the best place for these ruminations. Was surprised at the size of the book of MLK's writings but it also includes his books. Can't understand what the man was saying until you understand the words he used. English has one word for love. The Greeks had a least three. When King said love you neighbor Agape was the word he was using. Something tells me I'm going to be here a lot more often. Then it's the Liberation theologians and the pagans. Interesting how basic ideas cross "party" lines so to speak.

“Agape means nothing sentimental or basically affectionate; it means understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. When we love at the agape level we love men not because we like them, not because their ideals and attitudes appeal to us, but because God loves them. Here we rise to the level of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed he does.

…There is something at the very center of our faith that reminds us that Good Friday may reign for a day, but ultimately it will give way to the triumphant beat of Easter drums. Evil may so shape events so that Caesar occupies a palace and Christ a cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split BC from AD, so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name.  Martin Luther King Jr. from A Testament of Hope. Excerpt from Nonviolence and racial justice 1956.