Seven years old. Lying on the floor gazing intently upon a scratchy black and white television set. Watching the presidential debate between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy. Finally, the debate is over: I turn to ask my father and older sister, "Who do you want?" Marilyn was quick to respond, "Nixon." My father, ever the independent, wouldn't say. I added my emphatic, "I want Kennedy!"

My next political memory was purchasing an LP Recording of President Kennedy's inaugural address in the old "Monte Mart"... and then came the Cuban Missile Crisis... and then a dreadful voice over the elementary school intercom: "The President has been shot. Students are to immediately walk home." Just ten years old, yet walking home with the knowing that everything had instantly changed... for everyone in America... But it was to Bobby Kennedy that I had all along been attracted to...

I loved reading of Bobby's attempt to walk fifty miles in twenty-four hours... of daring the rapids of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon... of climbing the newly named Mount Kennedy in the snow... but most of all, for questioning power and standing by the worker living in poverty, the black trapped by decades of Jim Crow and every conceivable barrier erected by prejudice, and the Mexican farmworker in the fields of California... and questioning again power and its unjust, criminal, war in Viet Nam... Bobby marched with Cesar Chavez and broke bread with him... At the very same time a young pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr. was galvanizing blacks in the quest for equality and justice: never mind that black slaves had bent their backs and shredded their souls to build America for their masters: entrenched power resisted and fought back. Lynching, raping, and beating, the KKK and supporters fought everywhere they could: and when such efforts failed, took to bombing and shooting... And in the fields where the farmworkers organized, thugs did their work under the protective eye of watching sheriffs... I saw the stories of John Steinbeck come alive before my teen-age eyes... And Bobby campaigned for President, opposing the war, endorsing the passions of the young, supporting the quest for equality and justice for women, blacks, browns, and reds... And then Martin was gunned down... And then came the California Primary: everyone said that the winner would probably face Nixon for President: what a great birthday present for me! Yeah, Bobby won: but he, too, was gunned down...

But at least we had the music! We had the Monterey Pop Festival and then the Great Mother of Festivals, Woodstock! Yeah, we got shafted by Nixon and his "secret plan" for ending the Viet Nam War: expand it: bomb the hell out of North Viet Nam: bomb and invade Cambodia: destabilize the entire of Southeast Asia: But we marched: everywhere we marched! Everyday I had on my black armband and peace sign in High School... "Power to the People!" "Revolution" "Helter Skelter" and "Give Peace a Chance" were the anthems of the change sought by youth everywhere. Only later would we learn that the million or so anti-war demonstrators who had marched on Washington, D.C. and elsewhere had scared the crap out of Nixon and his "secret plan" of dropping a nuclear bomb on Hanoi was dropped instead: he feared that America's youth would revolt and overthrow the government... so instead of bombing Hanoi he tried to drive our "Working Class Hero", John Lennon, out of the country... He couldn't do that either, though! 

The pictures though, oh the pictures: "Give Peace a Chance" sounded different with the pictures of running children, aflame with American napalm: running the dirt paths away from their burning villages... Yeah, John Lennon was gunned down too: but the music goes on: it's harder and harder to smile as you kill: our black President is straddling two worlds: that of Power, and that of the People: sometimes he leans this way, only to be pulled back "that way" by the power of Power: but what if? What if another million or two was to gather this coming beautiful spring in Washington, D.C. and stand in opposition to Power and for the People? Do you see how the bloodied memories we share of John, Martin, Bobby, and John our W.C.H. need to be unleashed from the cages of our broken hearts? Do you see how the blood they poured out upon the soil of America, for America, only needs the activation of our wills to effect the changes that we require!

And what do we require? Let's be clear and let's be loud: we require the radical integrity of peace: we require equality and justice for all, now: we require the absolute end of corporate domination over any aspect of our lives including culture, politics and economics: we require a reverence for our soils, our seeds, our air, and our water: we require liberation from greed, unlimited profit, and consumerism: we require guaranteed jobs and a living wage for everyone willing and able to work: we require absolute transparency from our government: we require an end to the arming of the world and gun control on American soil: we require the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and the Get The Money Out Amendment to the Constitution: we require the recognition of food, shelter, health care, education, work, living wages, access to land, and social security as human rights and our rights as Americans: and all of this is just our warm-up act! Our spirituality is "occupy the heart with compassion": and our politics is "occupy power with global transformation". Imagine. Just Imagine!

Why not? And for good measure, what if? "Imagine" says it all... But if you are looking for some guidebooks consider "The Chalice & The Blade" by Riane Eisler, "The Hope" by Andrew Harvey, "The Great Turning" by David C. Korten, and "Occupy Spirituality" by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox...   

Every life has been created for the dance of Radiance. Every heart has been created for the surprise of Ecstasy. Every love has been created to mirror the One Compassion... This is who we are: and this is our meaning and purpose...

Meditation, mindfulness, surrender, and adoration are the essential interior practices of those intent upon exploring and unveiling their divine possibilities.
Similarly, service freely given, community organizing for justice, advocacy for equality and peace, and the building of a new society within the shell of the old are the essential elements of unleashing our rEvolutionary  possibilities. For both the unveiling and the unleashing, compassion is key...

We are the wounded tiger living in mortal agony: individually and collectively: who is willing and able to love enough to change either themselves or the world? We are the darkness and the fire: who is willing to raise her arms and spirit as antidote to our fears? We are the cold stone floor of civilization: who will remove her shoes and dance upon our backs and cause us to believe again that we might be beautiful?

Intentional practice is to dedicate one's breath always for the Other: the One and the neighbor: and the good of every being. Liberating our need to need to succeed: we can slough off our attachments, like the unfulfilled desires of yesterday, for the reality that is divine today: it is only compassion that opens the door of possibilities. Nothing will change without compassion leading us: being us: the more we love, the more we share, the more we give: we open to the essential Nature of the real Reality. For this we were made!

The Light is where we adore and surrender. The Light is where we love without fear dictating limits. The Light is where we open our minds and hearts to the absolute delight of Being Alive: and everything becomes delight, music, poetry, dance, and revelations of beauty. Living the Light: in the deep understanding of our inter-dependence and inter-being is to live stepping into the future for which we dream... The mystic-activist is the person who activates the compassion in her heart: listening to the inspiration of the One Love, acting without attachment to either success or failure, and uniting prayer, work, play, and rest in a passionate -- yet relaxed -- wholeness. All questions as to "being good enough" are set aside for the integrated simplicity of always doing / being one's best. Whatever the chosen action that follows after doing / being one's best will then be free from ruinous self-judgment. This "quantum shift" of perspective from control, manipulation, and domination (the normal ingredients of both spirituality and action) and into the freedom of life as "passionate play"  is living light... Do what it is yours to do: with, in, and for compassion: then your life will become a direct transmission of grace...

What if?

Has there ever been a more magical question than "What if?"

What if the entire Universe is Divine -- not as if an after-thought -- but in its very nature?

What if everything, and everyone, is shining with a diaphanous Light... but the shining and Light are both secrets meant to be discovered?

What if the "One Love Consciousness" is in-filling everything, in order to "lift" it into higher and higher stages of evolution?  What if evolution will one day have the entire Universe ablaze with the Light of Love Consciousness? What if this Consciousness of the Divine were to become the next stage of life upon Earth?

What if the ecstasy of love-in-action is the bridge between the world of our dreams and the world of reality? In the face of all the tragedies of our lives -- and of human history -- what if you have nothing to say? What if you decide that you have nothing to give? What if upon you was placed the failure of humanity -- would you still open a Soup Kitchen in hell?''

What if the Divine Mother is resting upon the fallen Tree of Life: waiting for someone to take the least little cutting and love it into growing again: will you?

"Ecstasy is being love from the deepest, truest, point of our being: Only One"...
"Ecstasy is the opposite of giddiness: it is bold and creative."
"Ecstasy is the Action of Being that flows from awakening."
"Ecstasy is living awake: giving each moment its spectacular due."
"Ecstasy is the purity of heart to choose Love over anything easier."

I invite you to read and ponder the essay "Ecstasy as a Spiritual Path" on this website!

According to Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, the Hebrew Scriptures express a "breathless impatience with injustice." In a world in which the suffering poor are left grubbing among stones for sufficient food to eat, the Hebrew - Christian - Islamic Scriptures are a consistent protest against exploitation, oppression, and injustice -- particularly, economic injustice. The Love of the Holy One would turn every stone into the Bread of Justice... and make Mercy flow as rivers about all the Earth... if not for the Greed of small-minded men and the institutions they serve.

The Prophet Isaiah asks on behalf of the Holy One, "What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?" Isaiah 3: 15) Perhaps speaking to Republicans who cut the already meager allotment of food stamps for hungry children, Isaiah said that punishment would come to those "who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right." (Isaiah 10: 1-2) The Prophet Amos declares that the Name of the Holy is profaned when people "trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted." (Amos 2: 7) Later, the Spirit of Wild Love called to Yeshua "to set at liberty those who are oppressed." (Luke 4:18) Matthew's Gospel depicts a fantastical scene of final judgment -- in which the entire history of nations comes before the Lord of Time and Space: this same Lord is identified as having waited in the hungry, naked, sick, and imprisoned for justice: for both policies and practices that would ensure their full development and liberation. (Matthew 25: 31 - 46) When we pray for "our daily bread" we are not praying for a slice of Luigi's Pizza! We are, instead, praying for the courage and grace to pursue justice in all of our affairs and to become agents of social transformation that every life might experience the fullness of her divinely given possibilities...

When we consider the full dimension of modern economics upon every aspect of our lives and every culture anywhere in the world, we inevitably witness the actual embodiment of Yeshua's Passion. "I was hungry and you fed me -- or you blamed the poor for their poverty instead of the rich for their greed." Across the centuries, one can still hear the rage of Yeshua: "The pox on you who are rich, you've received all the blessing you'll ever get! The pox on you who are full now, you'll find out what real hunger is! The pox on you who laugh now, as you blame and scheme against the poor, workers, and those who teach your children, you'll be soon enough crying in your caviar! But beautiful are you who are poor, I will welcome you home! Beautiful are you who are hungry and oppressed in any way, my home was constructed especially for you! And so beautiful are you who are crying and suffering now, especially you who are organizing for justice and building for peace, you will see my home encompass all the earth with overflowing goodness and blessings!"  (Luke 6: 20 - 26) With St. Gregory of Nyssa, the modern mystic-activist proclaims "All things belong to the Holy who is our Source and the Source of all things. We are all of the same family: all of us are sisters and brothers. And among family it is best and most equal that all inherit equal portions."

The "Come, follow me" of Yeshua the Poet is the secret song of the soul: whether one be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Gnostic, Agnostic, Atheist, or Pagan: for this is not the call of a small-minded religionist and god-intoxicated ego that would have every knee bend in submission: but the Liberation Theology of Planetary rEvolution! "Come, follow me" means complete transformation -- personal and social -- from self-identification as isolated and fragile egos, to the full radiance of the divine beings of the Divine Intention! "Follow me: into true adoration and surrender: practice justice in every detail of your life! Love everyone different from you: especially those marginalized in any way, the immigrant, the prisoner, the LGBT, and the chubby white man afraid of the world outside his door: Love every religion different from yours like different fingers on the Hand of the Holy: Love your enemies by making them your friends -- stand for justice and equality for every people -- insist upon peace as the most viable weapon of war! Insist upon an absolute equality between women and men: know that in liberating women into the fullness of their possibilities you will see the most incredible and rapid change for the good and holy this world has ever seen! Insist upon a new world of as little difference as possible between those at the 'top' and those at the 'bottom' -- this 'as little difference as possible' will be the fuel for a vivification of human consciousness: then you will see universes of possibilities and wonders you cannot now even begin to imagine! But I can! So come, follow me!"

To adore the Holy One and to bend one's knees in submission is in fact the grunt work of the union organizer. To adore the Holy One and to bend one's knees in submission is the raised fist and march of the women of the world for full equality and justice NOW! To adore the Holy One and to bend one's knees in submission is the radical insistence that this precious blue Planet is our Home and worthy of reverence and protection. To adore the Holy One and to bend one's knees in submission is to rise off the floor of cowardice and vapid visions to join the march for Kindness, Oneness, Compassion, Mercy, and Beauty as the Flag of a New Humanity that will finally be worthy of its children. "Come, my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world." (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

(From Sevens in the Rain...)

There is a Mystery in the butterfly:
A squishy caterpillar dissolves in a cocoon
And is somehow imagined into a brand new being.
Somehow, too, we are all the left-overs of star-dust!
For a while we were mutant algae in forgotten waters:
Now we are human beings, still rising
And falling and dissolving: into the butterfly of "Only One"...

Following the pathway of the breath, we may discover our place of rest in the endless depths of our hearts: where harmony and wholeness mirror the Divine Unity... there, in that holy of holies, as the butterfly in her cocoon, we may experience the enlivening of our souls and fly as the caterpillar resurrected into a "soul-bird", or butterfly, into the mind of God... Within each one of us, at the "empty" core of our being, is a secret "knowing" of our oneness with the One Love Consciousness, with the entire manifested Universe, and with every other sentient being... The pattern of Oneness is engraved in our DNA... The vast empty spaces of every atom are filled with the invisible Energy of Imagination sparking every possibility... To penetrate, as deeply as one may go, into this Mystery: the "No" of every definition: is the mystic challenge...

The human is the manifestation of the possibility of the Divine knowing Herself. Lucky us: to be mirrors of the Divine Potential! Transcendence and immanence meet and mingle in the awakening consciousness of each person: calling forth a response of adoration and surrender and then the activation of compassion... The vision of a Planetary Culture of Harmony, Kindness, Equality, Justice, and Peace arises within the mystic heart from the very "Heart of the One"... And the Earth, Herself, is embraced as Mother of Our Inter-Being... The budding mystic-activist labors to free her consciousness from the prescribed limitations of culture and religion into the freedom of a radiant life without limits: in service to those who suffer, and in the passionate pursuit of a Planetary rEvolution...

Listen deeply to the stirrings within your heart! You know, even if you can't put a finger on it, that you have been made for so much more than life as a "squishy caterpillar"! Endless work and endless consumption are the playing fields of the caterpillars... not even the hope of occasional rest is cure enough for the restlessness that is the fruit of an essentially mindless pattern of social domination! Maybe week-ends off and maybe a house you can finally call home will never satisfy the craving potentials ready for flaming in your heart! Realize: you have been created at this moment in time precisely because you have within you the extraordinary possibility of transformation! The Divine Mother exists for all eternity on the maternity bed of "One Love Consciousness": we are each called to emerge from the "cocoons" of our very small self-identities into the limitlessness of Her Wild Love...

In this Wild Love: all Power exists only to serve and liberate: Greed is transformed into the Common Good: Injustice becomes Equality and Justice: Exploitation and Oppression become Harmony and Solidarity: Consumption becomes Abundant Simplicity: and the Religions of Domination become the New Age of Perfect Liberty In Love... In this Wild Love, there is no theology that can control, politics that can manipulate, or money that can buy submission... In this Wild Love, there is the joyful liberation of the "possibilitarian" just waiting to finally bust loose from the "cocoons" of yesterday, and into the unleashed "skins" of Radiance...

The mystical essence of awakening into the Divine Feminine is the radical re-orientation from the image of "God" as an old man in the sky with long flowing white hair and beard -- otherwise known as the theory of duality -- into the even more ancient remembrance of the Universe and the Earth, as Mother... with the resultant surety that the essence of divinity is present in every single thing. The non-duality of the Divine Feminine is perhaps the most important foundational spirituality necessary for the saving of this precious blue Planet and all the life that it sustains. In essence, the mystic principle of non-duality is the stunning realization that there is "Only One Reality" -- more intimate within us and with everything than the blood that flows within our bodies -- or the atoms that give structure to matter: and further, that "that" Only One is the "One Love Consciousness": neither masculine nor feminine alone, but "something / one" entirely different: manifesting as "Mother" birthing all creation within every breath through the "will" of the Seed of the "Father". But again: "Not Two, Only One" for this is a mystery experienced in the heart, not in the mind, which naturally seeks to understand through separation... 

If you approach reality through the appearance of separation then that essential perspective of duality will influence every aspect of your life: God -- Self, Good -- Bad, Beautiful -- Ugly, Useful -- Expendable, Worthy -- Unworthy, Saved -- Unsaved... and on and on: a useful practice, but no more to the point than teen-age rebellion to establish one's possible, or momentarily preferred, self-identity. One sees this played out in every possible way in politics, in religion, in economics, in culture. and in every single social institution: "division" is practiced as theology, and has been for thousands of years, with practical ramifications for all and every society. But the ancients, before the advent of the Dominator Paradigm, tended instead to witness creation and life from the deeper wisdom of Unity, of Oneness: the Mother in-filled everyone and all creation with a pan-sacramental relationship with "things" and "life", differentiating only to the degree necessary for elemental communication: the Divine does not "begin" at some "point" as if from the "outside", but exists in each and every existent... The wisdom of the Divine Feminine is this: everything is pervaded by the Divine: not as in "I" -- "Thou": but instead as, "Only One" -- "One Love"...

This liberated feminine perspective is essential for true reverence for the Earth. Only true reverence will be capable of altering the fouling powers of the Dominator Paradigm which asserts that "heaven" is "up there" and so we are officially authorized to exploit and oppress this Earth to our mind's addictive delight. Only the realization that this precious blue Planet is Alive as our Mother and always worthy of veneration and our just stewardship will usher in a new era of reconciliation with Nature, with one another, and with the deepest yearnings of every human heart: the transcendent and the imminent are One... and that One is present in the Love that we will to unleash from our hearts...  

Enlivened by the One Love Consciousness of the Divine Feminine, we awaken into the illuminating perspective of every so-called mundane activity having within it the seeds of the Divine: the Earth and every life that it sustains is holy: we may, through the practice of reverence, adoration, justice, care, and compassion directly experience the Sophia, the Wisdom, of the Divine... and fulfill our destiny of re-creating the Garden of Eternal Delight about this entire precious blue Planet...