Cultivate the Wisdom Within the Wild: Biomimicry as a Spiritual Practice

Cultivate the Wisdom Within the Wild: Biomimicry as a Spiritual Practice

We are approaching the threshold of Winter, and these days that come before that elemental edge are known as Advent, a sacred time of the year when rituals attune ourselves to the growing darkness and hope is kindled by the coming of light. Finding nature-based practices that deepen our sense of this season are a challenge to come by. Biomimicry is a powerful way to look to Nature as a wizened and warm teacher, who guides us into a meaningful and rooted way of being both through the holidays and in the seasons to come.

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Waiting in the Whispering Dark by Sarah Steinke

Waiting in the Whispering Dark by Sarah Steinke

Today you are offered wise and beautiful insight from Sarah Steinke: poet, mother, graduate student, wife, yoga instructor. These words are a gift to you these halcyon days of Solstice.

"You are a maker. And you have what it takes—whether you make poetry or paper snowflakes, clear clutter or ivy, sing the most haunting music or longing howl, maybe you draw or dance or color or entrain with the ocean, maybe you dig with your hands in the earth, or work at teaching your children that we all are neighbors, even the trees. Whatever draws you nearer to life, do it. It matters. This is poiesis, making something that is not yet. Every time we live out our poiesis, we grow our capacity to listen, to see, to know that wholeness includes and incorporates the dark."

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The Silence Breakers: Mother Earth Says #METOO

The Silence Breakers: Mother Earth Says #METOO

Time Magazine rightly recognized the countless women behind breaking the silence of patterned sexual assault as the 2018 Person of the Year. It is not a surprise that our cultural consciousness is cracking as it experiences a reckoning in response to the #metoo movement during this season of stretched out night. Advent comes during utter darkness, and yet there is yet hope in the coming light. There is another female whose voice we must elevate alongside all the other voices who have spoken: Mother Earth otherwise known as Gaia. 

 

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The Pilgrim's Path: Surprise in the Familiar

The Pilgrim's Path: Surprise in the Familiar

The work of bringing down heaven to earth is no easy task.  And it always takes time...and a lot of it.  This is the epic work of pilgrimages and journeys, deserts and dreams.  There is always such fanfare and exhilaration when one picks up the walking stick and marks, and crosses into, the beginning of the journey.  The vision of the destination is so clear, so lucid--it seems you could just reach across a short breadth of time and realize every desired detail.  But soon you find your arm is tired from being extended for so long...for so very long.  

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