Being Pagan

"When one defines oneself as Pagan, it means she or he follows an earth or nature religion, one that sees the divine manifest in all creation. The cycles of nature are our holy days, the earth is our temple, its plants and creatures our partners and teachers....

... I am so sorry, but this post has been moved to my new website, Feathers and Bones hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com. It can be found in its entirety here: Being Pagan

Our Bible

"If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain."

~Herbalist Carol McGrath as told to her by a Native-American woman


Note: I am in the process of moving the information on this blog to my new website, shirleytwofeathers.com, you can find more quotes and cool stuff at the new and improved Feathers and Bones.

Ask Now of Death

Then Almitra spoke, saying,
"We would ask now of Death."

And he said:

"You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day
cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life....

... I am so sorry, but this post has been moved to my new website, Widdershins, and can be found in its entirety here: Ask Now Of Death

Breath

Breath flows in, then surrenders to flow out again.
In this moment, drink eternity.

Breath flows out, emptying, emptying,
Offering itself to infinity.

Cherishing these moments,
Mind dissolves into heart,
Heart dissolves into space,
Body becomes a shimmering field
Pulsating between emptiness and fullness..

-Verse 3, The Radiance Sutras

Calling Spirit With Chant

We do not call Spirit into being through our chanting - God is already present. It is our own clinging to who we think we are that gets in the way. But if we sing with great ardor, our controlling, grasping, anxious energies may be consumed in the fire of chanting. And if we are so graced, we may taste love's sweet nectar and be nestled in the invisible embrace of the Divine.

~Robert Gass

Thought for the Day - What we can imagine

What we can imagine, that we shall have. Today we are living through what collectively and individually we imagined in the past. Tomorrow we will be living through what we imagine today, for we are creative energies like the Great Energy in Whose image we are made, whether or not we realize the living force of our creations, whether or not we understand the power of our thoughts.

~ Evelyn Eaton

Not Easy

It is not easy to be a Witch, a bender, a shaper, one of the Wise; nor is it safe, comfortable, "laid back", mellow, uplifting, or a guarantee of peace of mind. It requires openness, vulnerability, courage, and work. It gives no answers, only tasks to be done, and questions to consider.... It functions in those deeper ways of knowing which our culture has denied, and for which we hunger.

~ Starhawk

Thought for the Day - Emotional Baggage

"We have to become more conscious of our feeling-world. By learning to identify the ‘emotional baggage’ and manage our feeling-world reactions, we can view life based on current information instead of being held captive by our past."

~Doc Childre

Thought for the Day - Emotions

"Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance."

~Deepak Chopra

To test life

To test life, to allow life itself to lead you and to care for you, is not a parlor game. In order to move into your way, you may have to put everything on the line.

~Rick Jarow

It is not the critic who counts

It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds
could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena;

whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short
again and again;

who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at best knows in the end
the triumph of high achievement;
and who at the worst

if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly;
so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.

~Theodore Roosevelt

Morning Meditation - False Face

"Take your false face off.
There is no need to throw your hands up in despair!"

~what's this?

I am like a bear.
I hold up my hands
Waiting for the sun to rise."

~Ute Saying

What is dark

What is dark clings to what is light and so enhances the brightness of the latter. A luminous thing giving out light must have within itself something that perseveres; otherwise it will in time burn itself out. Everything that gives light is dependent on something to which it clings, in order that it may continue to shine.

Thus the sun and moon cling to heaven, and grain, grass, and trees cling to the earth. So too the twofold clarity of the dedicated man clings to what is right and thereby can shape the world. Human life on earth is conditioned and unfree, and when man recognizes this limitation and makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he achieves success.

~I Ching

Emotions Are Energy In Motion

"The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get around them by devising all sorts of tricks; but to accept them directly, as they are."

~Takahisa Kora

Emotions are energy in motion. They bring us information if we are willing to experience them. Unfortunately, many of us are afraid of the energy of emotions and so we automatically resist them. And when we refuse to experience our emotions, we block them up. They become trapped and that entrapment drains our energy and brings continuing discomfort.

Don't let emotions push you into action or reaction. Just STOP and PAY ATTENTION. Allow them to be and to speak to you. Once they are acknowledged, their energy is released.

Circle of Life

Everything the Power of the world does is done in a circle... birds make their nests in circles, for their's is the same religion as ours.

~Black Elk

The Nature of Things

The Sioux idea of living creatures is that trees, buffalo and men are temporary energy swirls, turbulance patterns... that's an early intuitive recognition of energy as a quality of matter. But that's an old insight, you know, extremely old - probably a Paleolithic shaman's insight. You find that perception registered so many ways in archaic and primitive lore. I would say that it is probably the most basic insight into the nature of things, and that our more common, recent Occidental view of the universe as consisting of fixed things is out of the main stream, a deviation from basic human perception.

~Gary Snyder