The Burning Times

We've entered the season of Fire, and boy, are we feeling it here in northern California, where the 100+ degree temperatures and heat lightning have touched off hundreds of wildfires, many raging unchecked as there are simply not enough firefighters to attend to all the blazes. Smoke diffuses the sunlight; the air hangs heavy and rank, and we are advised to remain indoors with windows shut.

Amusingly, my favorite healthy cereal heralded this conflagration: when I bought a new box of it several days ago, just before the fires broke out, it tasted charred. I returned it for another, and the second box was the same. It seemed the company had burnt the entire batch. Micro-macro; as above, so below. Coincidence? Not really ...

In these times of alchemical transmutation, when everything that no longer serves must burn clean, synchronicity runs as high as ancient emotions, and promises a wealth of new doorways. I decided to type "fireandwater.com" into a search engine, since Fire and Water is the title of several different articles I've penned and a long-running theme in my life, and behold, it's the site for renowned author Paulo Coehlo, who wrote The Alchemist. So far this is the only book of his I've enjoyed, but I've now found a relevant source for summer reading. The Witch of Portobello is a highly intriguing title, especially for these Burning Times ...

Ballooning Into Solstice

Thanks to Canadian muse Eileen Balint for this evocative Summer Solstice poem:

Ballooning Into Solstice


The longest day of the year is dawning
In between dreams ...
I retreat to my humble garden, it's tradition!
Amidst champaign bubbles of fortune teller dew
Magic is afoot ... for those with scrying eyes.

An iridescent lattice of spidery lace
In looking glass style, illumines the landscape
Another reality surfaces ... still under the influence
Of a ripe full moon.

The spiderwebbing decorum, conjures an ‘oily doily’
Of crystalline dragline silk,
Drenched in mother of pearl drops
Spiderlings ballooning all night, into Solstice.

The rhythmic sway of maidenhair fern
In between dreams ...
Succumb to Pan's flutey woodwind
Like garden seaweed floating in an ocean of emerald shade
Bestowing spores of invisibility.

Spiderwort blossoms invoke indigo consciousness
Unravelling yet another matrix, a grid of goodness and grace.
Elders and saints polish their berries and wort
Soon the realm of in-between shall revel once more

I can hear the whales and naiads too!
In solidarity, singing their ancient ancestral songs
A cosmic solstice canon of songlines
Indra's Net is but a dream catcher for those gone fishing.

A midsummer's night encounter awaits you
In between dreams ...
I have a gift for you ... 'tis the ivy crown of Titania, queen of the faery
We shall ready ourselves for
Ballooning into Solstice

Summer Solstice & Last Chance Pluto Dance

We're on the cusp of the longest day/shortest night of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere; the seasons are reversed for our allies Down Under). Everywhere, it seems, we're cooking, both literally in solar heat waves, and metaphysically, as the global mental meltdown accelerates to warp drive, preparing us all for the Shift of the Ages.

Here's an article I published last year that's still relevant:
Summer Solstice: An Opportunity to Become More Whole

This Summer Solstice is also aligned with the full moon, increasing the potency by a factor of 240M (the approximate distance from Earth to Moon in miles; it's 384,000 km).

As for Pluto, astronomers can call the planet of transformation whatever they like, but they can't demote its preternatural power. Pluto danced with our Galactic Center multiple times in 2006-2007. From now through November, we're in the final passage this lifetime, since Pluto's orbit is just under 250 years.

In her e-zine Cosmic Time, astrologer Allison Rae says, "The planet of creative destruction passed back and forth in exact alignment with the black hole at the center of the Milky Way in 2006-2007 before entering Capricorn in January this year to begin wreaking havoc with the structures, systems and institutions of the material world. Now he's moving retrograde into the late degrees of Sagittarius, closely conjunct the Galactic Center, to reconfigure the infrastructure of our minds - our ideals, beliefs, philosophies and faith.

"If you want to have fun with it, let go of what you think you know. Surrender to higher truth. A new life is waiting on the other side of this historic transit. Deep meditation and shamanic journeys are perfect for this communion. Try it before bedtime and notice your dreams.

"It's time for what's been lurking in the individual and collective subconscious to be healed, transformed, reunited with Source. Dancing with Pluto is intense, to say the least. The payoff is deep, lasting change, a new worldview and a new life, as we merge with Essence, the Core."

Obama Lama? New Wisdom for a New Age

It's clear we're living in what the Chinese maxim euphemistically refers to as "interesting times." Legalized gay marriage. An African-American U.S. presidential candidate. Human potential pioneer Louise Hay profiled in The New York Times magazine (albeit with the skeptical, slightly sarcastic tone with which the Times treats subjects outside its normal purview.)

Like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in years past, what's happening now is a herald of human evolution. One reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle even calls Obama a lightworker, in a conversation-provoking piece that expands his role beyond that of mere politician:

Is Obama An Enlightened Being?

Now, lightworkers don't usually appear on the world stage in such a "spiritually demeaning" role as politician, says the article's author. Yet we are living in increasingly intense acceleration as we swoop towards 2012, the Mayan Calendar end date and the moment prophesied in many indigenous cultures as ushering in a Golden Age for the Earth, so it makes sense that our guides would take more drastic measures to facilitate the shift.

Whatever you believe, it makes for healthy pondering. I was a Dennis Kucinich supporter when he was running for president, in both the 2004 election and this one, and would love to see an Obama/Kucinich ticket, personally. Playing with their initials, it sure seems like a win: "OK".

Intensity Rising: Wisdom for Now

Does it feel as though people are in your face and in your space more than ever before? This is part of our melting boundaries as we evolve into Oneness. At the same time, it behooves us to know what's real, what's us, and not to collude with illusion (both of these words mean "in the game").

Aluna Joy offers some highly on-point guidance as we rocket towards a full Solstice Moon:

"This division between the WAS-BEENs and WILL-BEs, the past and our future, is a required step toward the 2012 shift of the ages. We will begin to merge into the collective ONE in the Many'. We will begin to feel less and less boundaries between each other. Any energy that is out of alignment will be more painful, be it coming from ourselves or coming from others. Your neighbor is not your neighbor anymore. He is coming into what was once your private space. You may want to isolate yourself to gain back that space. You may also experience depression and anxiety. These may be symptoms that we will feel just prior to entering oneness. We may feel psychically attacked if the energy we feel is coming from a WAS-BEEN's mentality. The dissolving of boundaries will force us to be more aware of our energy and how we use it. The planetary collective will be gently forced into impeccability and integrity. Darkness and conscious evil intent will be swiftly dealt with."

Peace Through Creativity

I've written about how we can create planetary peace by telling ourselves a new story about the world we've created. Celia Fenn takes this concept a step further by advocating creativity itself as the way through and beyond anger and despair.

In her current Earthlog, she writes, "Peace is not just the absence of conflict ... it is a profound state of consciousness that expresses compassion, love and unity through creativity. In order to move beyond conflict in our lives and globally, we need to enter into this state of creativity, harmony and peace."

What does creative peacemaking look like? Celia quotes Brazilian Jaime Lerner, who speaks about changing cities through stewardship: "When I was governor, we had to clean the bays. In our state we proposed to the fishermen the equation of co-responsibility. We said: 'If you catch the fish, the fish belong to you. If you catch the garbage we are going to pay you. The more you fish garbage, the more money you will have.' The more they cleaned the bay, they more fish they had. That's a win-win solution."

Lerner maintains that global issues such as climate change, food shortages, resource depletion and sustainability are not "terminal"; we must not give up in fear that there's nothing we can do to change what we have created.

The more creative we can be in shifting our perspective on cities themselves, and on the problems that need to be solved, the closer we'll be to a truly new world.

Hogwarts to Harvard

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling gave the commencement address for the Harvard Class of 2008. Topic: "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination." It's real, inspiring (and real inspiring) with the requisite dose of humor. Enjoy!

Rowling's Commencement Address

Beyond Visible Light

In order to stretch into the unknown, we must be able to imagine the unimaginable ~ like colors we've never seen. In my June newsletter, What Shines (now available as a trio of pdf eBooks, with a special bonus offer for June!), I wrote that it's "notoriously difficult to explore what we can't conceive, such as colors beyond the visible spectrum."

Yet Santa Fe glass artist Paul White, whose first spoken word was "light", responds that he's already gone there in meditation. So, what do colors we've never seen "look" like? Here's Paul's insight:

"In my mind's eye the colors have been somewhat velvety and more of the feeling of color. I'd say the colors are something like the dichroic glass I work with but deeper somehow. There was always a warmth to them."

According to my computer's dictionary, "dichroic" means "showing different colors when viewed from different directions, or (more generally) having different absorption coefficients for light polarized in different directions."

Intriguingly, I myself had been trying to imagine colors of a, well, different color ~ it had never occurred to me that the color could become multidimensional, changing hue according to perception and direction. This is precisely the kind of quantum leap we need to make as we "excavate the boulders of belief that cloud our consciousness," as I wrote in the newsletter.

Paul, thank you for your prismatic contribution to our collective evolution, refracting clarity!

Collisions of Stars

In my first year of college, a man who lived on my dorm floor (yes, it was a coed floor; rather radical for 1975, quaint today, when some colleges permit opposite gender roommates!) shared a poem he'd written the summer before. It so entranced me that I committed it to memory, and though I have no idea where he is now, I still love the words, which seem applicable to our current state of cosmic chaos.

Gary van Mook, wherever you are, thanks for your creative genius.

Collisions of Stars

Riding my star
To the corners of you
A fusion of warmth
Obliterates pain.

Chasing my dreams
Through the echoes of youth
A chamber of sound
Recalls through the rain.

Walking the road
To the melting of time
A sense of the night
Erases the moon.

Climbing the hill
To the top of the world
Collisions of stars
Will answer me soon.