BeautyDialogues

Commitment

The essence of my Summer Solstice celebration, as I have come to know it, is to take a few days every year at this time to be immersed in nature – both inner and outer, to acknowledge the gifts I've received in the last cycle of the sun, and to contemplate what's mine to give back as I go forward into the next cycle.

I do this in community, within a circle held by the good folks at Resonance, supported by those at Pathfinders & Heartland.  A circle with beauty at the center, always - this one an evolving work of art created by the translucent Sue Blondell:

At its core my Summer Solstice ritual is a commitment ceremony, and I want to share these words from Ken Carey's Return of the Bird Tribes that convey the strength a clear commitment can give:

"Creation does not take place
where there is a scattering and dissipation of energies.
Creation requires a gathering together and focusing
of your power within a circle of commitment —
like a seed, an egg, a womb or a marriage.

Consider wisely the ways in which you would
use your power and then around those ways
draw the sacred circle of commitment.

In the warm atmosphere of that circle, the power
of love builds like a storm above the wet summer
prairie until suddenly the circle can hold no more
and explodes in the conception of the new.

This fire is more powerful than any one of you."

And so I speak my commitment for this next year into the circle of this larger community, that holds me too:

In this next cycle of the sun I commit to hold myself lightly and speak my truth with confidence; to joyfully take leaps of faith when they are called for; and to continue to hone and refine the craft that carries our voices out into the world and nurtures connection and love between us.

If you too held the time of Summer Solstice in such a way, what would be your commitment for this next cycle of the sun?

Happy Solstice!

It's Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere today, the sun comes full circle and begins its cycle anew. I'm off celebrating among redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains, enjoying my yearly ritual with friends old and new.

I'll no doubt have lots of stories to share when I return, but I wanted to have something here to greet you on this day. So I found this great photo on Flickr (God, I love Flickr!), taken by "Simon & Vicki": Greeting the dawn at last year's Solstice celebration in the great circles of Stonehenge.

Lovely, isn't it?

Dreaming

Last week about this time I emerged from a four-day Dreaming ceremony in the Santa Cruz mountains I have been doing every year with FireHawk and Pele of Resonance.

This time has become very important to me, as a way to re-calibrate myself with the natural rhythm of nature and the seasons and give myself a chance to re-align with my own internal pace. Entering this dance with time gives me a rare opportunity to slow down and reflect, to remember who I am beneath the busi-ness of my everyday life.

Swedenborgian Haven

This months’ Thought Leader Gathering was held at the Swedenborgian church in San Francisco.

No, I'm not referring to a congregation of Swedish ex pats, but a branch of Christianity based on the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, co-founded in the 1800s by a group of English nature-lovers including the mystic William Blake and his wife Catherine (I was delighted to find this little factoid surface from the depths of my English Lit-trained memory).

The 100-year old chapel of this national historic landmark is particularly lovely, with its nave’s bow of madrone arching overhead and bits of branch and stone decoration lit by what seemed like a thousand candles along the walls (weddings here must be beautiful).

The little churchyard surrounding the chapel is graced by what is probably one of the very few mature yew trees in the region - powerful earth magic indeed. I’d never even heard of it, and it warmed my heart to know something like this could exist right in the heart of a city.

Solstice Light

My friends at Resonance will be starting the Solstice fire at Coyote Ridge this afternoon for those who would sit in circle around it this night, completing this last cycle of the sun and ritually welcoming the return of light at dawn.

I love the ceremonies and celebrations of this season, which in my hemisphere all seem to gather us around light in one form or another - warmed by both the external lights of electricity and fire and the internal sun of family and friends. This is a good time; a time of gratitude and reflection, and today I give thanks for all the circles that hold me, and for all those I am privileged to hold.

May this next season bring the light of love ever more fully into our lives and hearts; may it give us the capacity to hold ever widening circles until we can hold all of humanity and the earth that sustains us as dearly as our own beloveds.

Ode to Light

If you were reading the Beauty Dialogues last year, you might remember I have a ‘thing’ for the lights of this season, and as the cycle returns I find the love affair has lost one of its brilliance.

Every night I turn on the LED lights that frame my front window and sit happily looking at my twinkling, forest-smelling tree. I faithfully lit the Hanukkah candles each night for the ritual 8 nights even though my mother isn’t Jewish and I don’t know the music or words for the proper prayers.

As deeply as I enjoy these personal pleasures of lucidity, something new dawned on me the other day during walk at dusk. I was looking at all the glittering trees and strings of light in my neighbors’ windows and suddenly it stuck me as very profound that we decorate the OUTSIDES of our houses, and place our trees in the window so that others can enjoy them.

On one level, I thought, perhaps these lights are a way to signal and inspire each other with our knowing that the light will return, a collective celebration of gratitude for the beauty and power of light.

Bioneers ~ Day Three

Drummed in by the transformational art of the women of Ojala – they really know how to start a day – I found out that they offer an annual residential drumming camp for women in Point Bonita, CA.

In her very personal introduction, Nina Simons says we are in a crisis of relationship – within ourselves, with the ‘others’ of humanity, and with the natural world. The wounding is deep inside us, the critical mind of the oppressor that we have embodied turning in on us and keeping us from finding and being our true selves.

From the universal resistance experienced by women in the women’s leadership trainings Nina has been offering she says it’s clear that we have inherited some very flawed models of what it is to be a leader, what it means to lead.

Bioneers ~ Day Two

After the soul-grounding performance of all-women percussion and voice ensemble Ojala, the 2nd day of Bioneers again starts with a pre-plenary welcome from Nina Simons and Kenny Ausabel.

This time the roles are reversed and Nina is the one addressing systemic change, publicly acknowledging each Beaming BIoneers satellite location, and Kenny Ausabel speaking emotionally and personally about Bioneer family member John Mohawk who died since the last gathering.

Equinox in Dorset

Fancy a magical mystery tour of the Dorset hills this weekend, exploring the ancient hill fort of Hambledon Hill?

(photograph by Simon Pascoe)

If so, you're in luck, because RedEarth and their merry band of elemental pranksters are up to their alchemical magic tricks! Music and Art will be loose in the landscape this Sunday starting at 5:30 GMT, echoing in the largest Neolithic enclosure in Europe in celebration of the Equinox.

Have a look and see what they're envisioning for this performance installation - 'Enclosure' - on the RedEarth website and in the Dorset InsideOut pages.

Sacred Space in 2nd Life

If you know me or have read this blog for any length of time, you know that bringing sacred space into the online sphere has been one of my strongest dreams and passions ever since I entered this field. In my work I am always seeking to create environments of peace and beauty where silence is welcome and hearts connect, where we are aware of all our relations within the natural and spirit worlds and can enter deeply into our essential nature as Humans and relate together in the sure knowledge that we are one interconnected spirit and body.

I’ve been integrating color and images and movement into user interfaces, cultivating the practice of kindness and respect in conversational forums, and generally evolving these sensory-based language(s) as my ground-of-being online. I have been blessed with many successes, large and small, in beginning to realize my dream, but the other night my ability to imagine what is truly possible took a quantum leap.

My friend and playmate in this realm FireHawk Hulin (aka DragonWolf Goheen) invited me to join him in Second Life to explore something he and the ever-amazing David Sibbet (aka Sunseed Bardeen) had been working on with the exquisite Michelle Paradis (aka SingingHeart Amat) … something truly unique in my experience, and totally magical.