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Activist

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      What is an “activist”? You can be an activist planting Winter squash, walking in a fern forest, listening to your children, or smiling from your heart at someone who is lonely. True activism means, to gently immerse your whole astonished body in the river of Presence. To be moved by the breath of beauty like a golden leaf, falling right where you are. To drown in the mystery of communion with whoever stands before you, and serve them by Being. Out of Being, doing arises. This is love. And whatever action happens in that moment is your politics. The politics of compassion has no party, and no platform. It is groundless. A disheveled crow, a boy in the rain with his shining basketball, a spider web catching the moon, a crone at the grocery store marveling at all the soup. These are your tribe. This is your native country. It is all a sacred homeland. Now crush a late-summer blackberry on your tongue. Surely this is why you are here. Earth is not transfigured by...
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Sorry

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           Feel sorry for anyone who says, “I am not this body.” My heartbeat is Jesus, my breath, the Magdalene. My bone orchard blossoms at dawn. Under the gristly dome of my fontanel, every initiation, every mystery,  has already happened. My fetus was pierced with doorways,  wounded with portals to higher worlds before I was born. What Bride and Groom ascend  the nave of my spine to kiss in a sanctuary of neurons entangled with stars? My Father and Mother? My first ancestors? Or those two mournful exiles  returning to the garden of my flesh to walk with me in the cool of the evening  while trillions of tiny oceans  sing the sun to rest in a dark valley  just beneath my sternum? Seven ripe diamonds on a serpent's skin twisting up the vagus vine  to pluck an apple of moonlight. Stay, pilgrim.  Don’t go anywhere. Eat of this fruit and dissolve into a m...
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The Gentlest Name

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“And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” ~Mat 1:21 As we explore the gentle power of the Name, let us read this verse of scripture, not as an event in historical time, but an event deep in our solar plexus, in eternity. The name of the Friend is a flame in the heart. This practice of meditation is ancient, coming down to us from the early Desert Fathers of the 2 nd Century CE. Let Jesus be your breath. I will just share my experience of the prayer; you may enjoy your own.   When I feel this flame inside, I don’t need to "believe,” I just feel the warmth. I get lost in the wilderness of the heart, where love can find me. The name is a lantern in the forest. I don't know where the path might lead, but I can step into the next small pool of light. This is enough, this is Presence. The name of Jesus is so subtle, yet substantial, that its essence outshines all other elements. For in the realm of essences, what is gentlest permeates earth, w...
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