New Spiritualibus Blog Posts – Excerpts

From being somebody
And relishing it so much
To step or be kicked out
Into the big wide world
To be after all a nobody
It seemed such a loss
When actually it was
The max gain possible
Our spiritual freedom
Self-realization for one
Realization of God for all
While manifesting this life
The present moment now
With all its past and future
Everything in divine love
It embraces you and me
Unifies our very hearts
Carrying no one but all
This current of spirit
Life, light and sound
The flow of the river
The ocean of love.

Dare take the plunge
To be some nobody
No more somebody
As ways and rock fall
From a mountain high
Have no legs but wings
To fly up far out and free.

“The Far Side where Opposites Unite” — and the circles close

The fundamental nature of gifts

“That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage… The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. This is hard to grasp for societies steeped in notions of private property, where others are, by definition, excluded from sharing. Practices such as posting land against trespass, for example, are expected and accepted in a property economy but are unacceptable in an economy where land is seen as a gift to all.” — p. 27

“Many of our ancient teachings counsel that whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again. From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the ‘gift’ is deemed to be ‘free’ because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a ‘bundle of rights,’ whereas in a gift economy property has a ‘bundle of responsibilities’ attached.” — p. 28

From Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

From being some nobody

In the embrace of love
A quiet space of silence
Not so much doing now
But mainly being here
All inclusive we can live
One experience at a time
From early dawn to dusk
Everything is in between
One day was the very first
That’s what we usually note
Each day brings some news
Firsts in its unique own way
And another day will come
Or not — if it was the last
This we might note later
More likely than before
We have gone beyond
Leave all ways behind
Where we once were
Then letting it all go
To be without doing
In spiritual freedom
While doing all good
Earning the hard way
Still the easiest possible
Is quite difficult enough
As much as any one can
Thus letting it all just be
In the embrace of love.

One more tonality to come: LoReachUpMaj

From Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“The Skywoman story, shared by the original peoples throughout the Great Lakes, is a constant star in the constellation of teachings we call the Original Instructions. These are not ‘instructions’ like commandments, though, or rules; rather, they are like a compass: they provide an orientation but not a map. The work of living is creating that map for yourself. How to follow the Original Instructions will be different for each of us and different for every era.” — p. 7

“In Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as ‘the younger brothers of Creation.’ We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus most to learn — we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out. … We need to learn to listen.” — pp. 9 and 10

In the embrace of love and sound