Power To The People!
 
Soul Source
Autumn Newsletter 2015
 
 
In This Issue
Autumn Equinox
We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For
Re-defining Community
We Are From The Future
Eruption of Human Goodness


 

 

 





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Matt Harding
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THRIVE Theme Song Video

 

 




































 
ARTICLES:




 

 










 








Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world.

~Martha Postlewaite
  





























  
It is one Light
which beams
out of a
thousand stars,
It is one Soul
which animates
all men.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson


































Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
to produce 
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great 
intangibles about us.
  ~David Whyte

























































The old threads are unraveling,
Get your needles ready. 
We are stitching a new quilt 
of humanity.
Bring your old t-shirts,
worn out jeans, scarves, 
antique gowns, aprons, 
old pockets of plenty
who have held Earth's treasures, 
stones, feathers, leaves,
love notes on paper.
Each stitch 
A mindful meditation. 
Each piece of material 
A story.
The more color the better, 
so call in the tribes. 
Threads of browns, whites,
reds, oranges
Women from all nations
start stitching.
Let's recycle the hate, the abuse, 
the fear, the judgment. 
Turn it over, wash it clean, 
ring it out to dry. 
It's a revolution
of recycled wears.
Threads of greens, blues, purples
Colorful threads
of peace, kindness, 
respect, compassion
are being stitched
from one continent to the next 
over forests, oceans, mountains.
The work is hard
Your fingers may bleed. 
But each cloth stitched together 
Brings together a community. 
A world, our future world
Under one colorful quilt. 
The new quilt of humanity.
~Julia Myers




























 

 






























 

 

 




Autumn Equinox 
Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 4:22 AM, EDT

As the leaves begin to fall and the air grows cool here in the Northern Hemisphere, the winds of change are being felt on deeper and wider levels. There is a quickening, a palpable feeling of the people rising up into their innate sovereign power. The Power of Love is dawning within us and being expressed all over the planet.  What we can do together is unlimited.  What we can do together is our shared responsibility to discover and manifest. These are potent times.

Elisabet Sahtouris, an American evolutionary biologist and futurist, speaks about the process of the caterpillar becoming the butterfly.  In that process the caterpillar begins to dissolve, there is a great change held within that dissolving, uncertain and unknown time.  This is likened to these times we are living now.

Elisabet explains that:
"a caterpillar can eat up to three hundred times its own weight in a day, devastating many plants in the process, continuing to eat until it's so bloated that it hangs itself up and goes to sleep, its skin hardening into a chrysalis. Then, within the chrysalis, within the body of the dormant caterpillar, a new and very different kind of creature, the butterfly, starts to form. This confused biologists for a long time. How could a different genome plan exist within the caterpillar to form a different creature? They knew that metamorphosis occurs in a number of insect species, but it was not known until quite recently that nature did a lot of mixing and matching of very different genome/protein configurations in early evolutionary times. Cells with the butterfly genome were held as disclike aggregates of stem cells that biologists call
'imaginal cells', hidden away inside the caterpillar' all its life, remaining undeveloped until the crisis of overeating, fatigue and breakdown allows them to develop, gradually replacing the caterpillar with a butterfly!    

Such metamorphosis makes a good metaphor for the great changes occurring now. Our bloated old system is rapidly becoming defunct while the vision of a new and very different society, long held by many 'imaginal cell' humans who dreamt of a better world, is now  emerging like a butterfly, representing our solutions to the crises of predation, overconsumption and breakdown in a new way of living lightly on Earth, and of seeing  our human society not in the metaphors and models of mechanism as well-oiled social machinery, but in those of evolving, self-organizing and intelligent living organism."

Here at Soul Source we have long been "imaginal cells" holding a new vision and sharing that with you.  This is our SOUL SOURCE purpose. This month we journey to Washington, D.C. to participate in a Wisdom Gathering, where we will join with others from around the world to meditate together, to explore the Divine Purpose of our nation, to honor the Divine Purpose of each and every nation on the planet and to discuss cooperative leadership and how we can all work together more effectively to create what is good, true and beautiful.  We hope you each, in your own way, are feeling these winds of change and responding to the impulse to rise up, to participate, to be an "imaginal cell" within the body of humanity as we transform and become all that we were always meant to be.  Together what we can imagine is equal to what we can create.  Be still and listen, something is trying to emerge through you right NOW. We invite you to be inspired by these stories of Power, Love and Creativity we share with you this Autumn Equinox.  And we hope that this inspiration will translate into inspired action in the world, in small ways, in big ways, in all ways.
Suchitra Davenport

Autumn Equinox Blessings to you all from Soul Source.
 
The Call of the Sphinx
by Jan Detrich

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

The dawning of the Aquarian Age, accelerating expansion of the Universe, changes in the heliosphere, a rise in solar and seismic activity, and a reorienting of the Earth's axis, indicate monumental changes are underway on planet Earth and throughout the galaxy.

Likewise humanity has been undergoing a very strenuous and persistent seven year cycle of recurrent cardinal sign activations concentrated in an epic square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, which are historically game-changers, bringing about cultural, social and political transformation, volatile conditions and unrest. Cardinal squares galvanize action, seed new beginnings, and initiate new cycles for humanity. They intensify the relationship between the spiritual and material dimensions, bringing the world into greater alignment with directional impulses that set entire new eras into motion.

Barely on the heels of these powerful cardinal squares, there are other celestial patterns emerging in the heavens which suggest that the seeds of this new era have now taken root and are beginning to come to life. Although perhaps subtle and inconspicuous to many, at least for the foreseeable future, there will be a definite surge in momentum which powerfully favors ordinary citizens, grassroots efforts, cooperative leadership, the global community, and the common good.
The signs Leo and Virgo figure prominently in the astrology of this year, through mid-2016 and beyond. Together, the signs Leo and Virgo encompass the astrological sign known as "The Sphinx" which blends the two signs, Leo and Virgo, into one sign that depicts all creative processes of manifestation. These two signs reflect a marriage or union; a coupling which produces something new that is more than the sum of its parts. The presence of The Sphinx puts us on notice that there is a shift in tide and a new evolutionary development. Something new is being born and taking form that will foster greater unity, shared responsibility and common purpose.  

In 2012, during numerous cardinal squares and a rare transit of Venus over the Sun, the fixed star Regulus-a star of planetary direction--changed signs from Leo to Virgo, bringing over two thousand years of patriarchal rule and the reign of Kings (Leo) to a relative close, while opening the door to unified awareness and a re-emergence of the Divine Feminine which supports shared leadership (Virgo) and cooperative endeavors. This transition shifts the power from the oligarchy to the people, from an "I" to a "We" perspective, from dependencies on external sources of authority to conscious interdependence and mindful attention to the sacredness of all life. Regulus in Virgo is aptly said to be "the era of the common person." It will favor the workforce and efforts toward global community and groups who are oriented to the common good.

A key factor in this new birth can be attributed to the internet and to Uranus' position in Aries since 2011,  which has sparked new technological innovations in the form of social media, providing a platform and a forum for uniting people around the world in common interest and concern. Humanity has a new environment for information, education and a collective voice. Rather than being isolated from one another, used wisely and discriminately, this technology is an enormous opportunity to strengthen and connect people around the world in a global community.       

The Virgo maiden carries wheat-the Bread of Life-in her arms. Throughout a long season of gestation and labor, she has fully prepared Herself for birth. Her harvest includes spiritual and material sustenance-tools, gifts, and nourishment that will be necessary for sustaining and enriching the infant life. She knows that it will take the whole community working together to raise the child to maturity. In her tireless devotion and love for the newborn child, she offers the wisdom of her experience along with her heart. She fully registers the importance of this early development, the fragility of the newborn and the need for nurturing and safeguarding the infant until it can mature. In the most simplistic terms, Virgo represents the hands of God at work. The heroes and heroines of Virgo will be ordinary people doing extraordinary things; the methodology of Virgo begins close in with the small, practical details of daily living and spiritual livingness.

Virgo is the zodiac sign most associated with health, wholeness and well-being. Because Virgo is nature's natural herbalist, we may see further movement in this new phase toward natural healing and alternative healing modalities, increased care and respect for the Earth, a blossoming awareness of co-creation and the use of co-creative tools, an emphasis on healthier food and nutritional practices, improvements in farming and growing our own food, a rise in bartering and a surge in the use of shared community goods and services, a redefining of waste and a trend toward universal and more natural healthcare and a deeper respect and appreciation for animals and their therapeutic value.

Virgo favors humility and simplicity. In Virgo we do more with less. We make the best of our time, our gifts and our energy and we lean into one another for strength, support and commonality. In Virgo we heal, we clean up our acts, our lives and our planet, we live more naturally and organically, we work with rather than exploiting Mother Earth in an effort to be sustainable.

Virgo reminds us that we need one another to get where we are going; by cosmic design, every person has a job to do or a gift to contribute. There are no spectators. We weep and laugh together, we rise and fall together, we witness and bear each other's joys and burdens. We encourage and challenge one another. As a member of the global community, it is a good time to ask, "Are you a spectator or a participant? What gifts do you bring to the table? In what ways can you be an instrument in birthing a new and better world?"

In Virgo, we essentialize; we cut the wheat from the chaff in our lives. We recognize that we are both human and divine and we act in alignment with that awareness. Soul-based astrology teaches that the sign of Virgo and the incoming new Age of Aquarius have a unique and powerful relationship because the Moon representing the Holy Mother is the soul ruler of Virgo and the universal ruler of Aquarius, while Jupiter, the planet most associated with consciousness, love and wisdom, is the soul ruler of Aquarius and the universal ruler of Virgo. Their interrelations carry a cross-pollinating affect; when we ban together in service to the whole in Virgo, the entire revelation of the brotherhood of mankind and its purpose to reveal and express the Love of God in Aquarius is more fully realized. We are a long way from the fullness of that revelation, but together we can each do our part in this moment to be the hands and feet of God and Goddess in the world.

"May the light that always has been be seen; the love that never ceases be realized, and the radiance, deep concealed, break forth into Being."  --Alice Bailey
 
Re-defining Community
by Chara Armon

Are you as interested as I am to observe current global explorations of "transitional" lifestyles?  I mean those that are responding to ecological instability and social problems via lifestyle modification with the goal of preserving life on planet Earth.  You may know people who are motivated by scientific evidence about climate change or environmentally caused health problems; perhaps you know others who worry about the economic effects of the predicted decline of fossil-fuel energy.  Others are feeling personal dis-satisfaction with industrialized life, and still others are motivated by secular morals or spiritual beliefs regarding defense of the natural world.  

What's noticeable is that a segment of the global population is making lifestyle and career decisions according to convictions that inter-relationships between the natural world and human life require repair.  Think of the people you may know who are participating in the work of diverse environmental organizations, from Sierra Club and 350.org to the No Impact Project.  Maybe you know others who are involved with organic or biodynamic agriculture, food justice, or alternative fuel transportation.  You may have neighbors who are part of the urban/suburban homesteading movement and are growing their own vegetables or keeping chickens or bees.  If you want to get a sense of how many and how diverse are the organizations world-wide that are leading what I call "transitional lifestyles," take a look at Paul Hawken's book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming  (New York: Viking, 2007).  

Activists, politicians, scholars, and other interested observers are just beginning to examine how a sustainability transition may look in practice.  What I believe is key to the sustainability transition is what appears to be a global effort to re-define "community."  Activists and scholars all over the world are re-thinking which living beings should be included in our understanding of "community." Granted, this may be happening more in the developed world, because it's in the developed world where we've most tragically lost our awareness that all people and all members of the life community count within "community."  

Scholars in science and religion, and international leaders such as the authors of the Earth Charter, have spent the past few decades pointing out that community really is best understood in its largest context: Earth community, life community, and/or Universe community.  You can find some statements of these views on-line in the Earth Charter (2000), The Assisi Declarations (1986), The Global Forum's Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion (1990), the Union of Concerned Scientists' World Scientists' Warning to Humanity (1992), Earth's Climate Embraces us All-A Plea from Religion and Science for Action on Global Climate Change (2004), and The Blue River Declaration (2012).  And these are just a few of countless similar documents!

Assertions that maybe our understanding of "community" should include a lot more than just people also have developed out of 20th century science and its discoveries that Earth is composed of many living systems that are intricately inter-connected.  I'll give you two examples, but we could list millions.  Honeybees need healthy pollen to gather for their sustenance, and humans need honeybees to pollinate the large percentage of our food that will grow only after it's pollinated.  We're now finding that pesticides and herbicides we use are hurting bees.  While most people didn't realize that a lot of our food supply is dependent on bee health, it is.  Now that the bees are sick, our food supply may be threatened.  The bees are part of our life community and our food system, and we need to live in mutually healthy interdependence with them if we want to eat.

Here's another example: it seemed bad enough that fish and frogs throughout the world were being discovered to have malformations of their sexual organs, but now scientists are pointing to evidence that the same chemicals that are hurting fish and amphibians appear to be responsible for low sperm count in human males, and various reproductive disorders in human females.  Mutual flourishing for both human and amphibian reproductive health is likely going to require a cessation in our use of many toxic chemicals.  

If you thought that what's going on in the natural world isn't closely related to you and your well-being, think again!  All life forms need clean air, clean water, clean food, and an otherwise healthy ecosystem.  It's starting to look like my life community isn't just composed of my human family, neighbors, friends, and colleagues, but of the trees that give me oxygen, the insects that pollinate my plum tree, and the beneficial soil bacteria that help everything to grow.

We can also turn to genetic arguments.  Harvard entomologist and ecologist E.O. Wilson is one of many who remind us that if we look back across billions of years, every creature or plant alive today shares common ancestry.  Wilson and other scholars such as cosmologist Brian Swimme have even suggested that since all life descended from common ancestors and continues to be deeply inter-related, humanity can be thought of as the mind of the biosphere.  Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis agreed, postulating that humanity may be like the brain of the gigantic organism that is the Earth.  If indeed we're the Earth's brain, maybe it's time to use our smarts to stop our life-threatening ways.

Thinking about the life community from an economic perspective, Jeremy Rifkin describes what he believes is a developing empathic civilization whose members possess a large-scale biosphere consciousness and engage in the Third Industrial Revolution in order to achieve a clean-energy transition.  If you aren't yet buying renewably generated electricity, start now and be a part of the Third Industrial Revolution.  

Scholar-activists in the area of religion have a lot to say about new definitions of community, too.  Joanna Macy suggests that a "Great Turning" is occurring in which people are shifting in consciousness to create a society that is life-sustaining rather than life-damaging.  She believes the process is visible in three parts: actions that slow the damage to the planet and its systems; creation of new ways of living; and shifts in worldviews and values.  Macy and colleagues point out that as we develop a clearer sense of the "interbeing" of all life forms, "what's catching on is commitment to act for the sake of life on Earth as well as the vision, courage, and solidarity to do so."

In very practical terms, the worldwide Transition movement is mentoring communities in changing their social interactions, energy use, means of transportation, and food production in ways that are friendlier to people, lower-carbon, are gentler on the Earth.  Check out Transition online, or better yet, join a Transition Towns endeavor in your local community, and be inspired!

In movements such as Transition, we seem to be seeing changes in human culture that benefit individuals, human culture, the human species, and the comprehensive life community of Earth with all its other-than-human life forms.  As more people and groups talk about the interconnectedness and interdependency that characterize life on Earth, we may be reforming and renewing human culture in order to achieve Earth renewal.  

You can find Chara Armon, Ph.D., at http://mutualflourishing.org, where she writes and offers e-courses and flower essence consultations designed to support people working for healing the human relationship to the Earth.
We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered...

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know
your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, "This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the one wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word 'struggle' from your
attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

--Hopi Elders' Prophecy, June 8, 2000
 

We Are From the Future
More information at: WeAreFromtheFuture.com


.

I traveled to my native Sweden late August to attend a family gathering and take care of some business. Little did I know that I would end up immersed in this eruption of love that is Europe this week. When TV showed Germans waving flags and applauding as Syrian refugees arrived to a train station last week, we could not imagine that would set off an unprecedented outpouring of care, food, clothes, shelter, and help to refugees, all over this continent. It's not all that clear why it broke loose this very moment, but I surmise a confluence of many factors: having witnessed the desperate hardship of refugees, and the letdown of the people of Greece; and how racism slowly but surely was taking a stranglehold on traditionally European values, and then the invitation by those Germans, so explicitly showing a different way, a fresh approach - one hinging on humanity and care.

Racism - or to use the Swedish term, "stranger-aversion" - has slowly but surely expanded across this continent over the last decade or so. The nationalist party is one of the largest in Sweden as per last year's election but somehow was kept out of government by some creative coalition building. None-the-less, what we see and hear in regular media has made it seem like there is no more heart - only individualism and materialism - left in this place which used to carry its solidarity and humanism with pride. And now an influx of large numbers of refugees - a recipe for tension.

But instead, this: A self organized grassroots movement for helping refugees to safety. And. In Sweden also a migration authority that is prepared to receive even more than are coming, and with political backing to provide permanent status for those from war zones. Each country have their own limits and process. And, it turns out, it's own way of interpreting international statutes, which creates part of the hassle and in some cases hazards for those seeking refuge.

After following the fate of that first group of refugees being mistreated in Budapest a few days ago, then helped to the Austrian border, then getting free passage - and cheers upon arrival - to Germany, I also wanted to "do something" when some of them reached all the way to Sweden. So I went online, joined "Welcome Refugees to Sweden" Facebook group, and then another, and then one more, initially to figure out what time was best to go to what location to help and maybe wave a flag. But then I started answering questions that came up online. And then I saw an important article that I posted to those groups... and after a short while it just grew and I quickly got quite immersed - from the comfort of my computer - with several threads of intense discussion and problem solving going on in parallel. The overall goal? To shepherd those fleeing people who want to come to Scandinavia, help them get all the way here where they can seek asylum. So, talking with ferry lines, looking up schedules, following news to get updates from developments on their routes, and trying to tease out the legalese of what constitutes trafficking and what is humanitarian help, so that those in cars knew what risks they were taking when following their hearts. The whole thing happening in conversation, online, in multiple threads in a handful of Facebook groups, all at once. All infused with so much care. And so much stuff, too, that organizers had to say "no more for now" to donations of food, clothes, bags and sleeping gear.

We get reports "40 refugees made it onto ferry xx" and "make sure there are people to meet up". But also requests: yesterday someone suddenly posted pictures from inside a train. I didn't get what was happening, but a few back-and-fourths later, I realized this man had his brother on a train that was stopped by police in Denmark. His english poor, his anxiety obvious. "they say passport or go back" and "can you help, maja"... scramble scramble, I had seen a link to legal help in regards to asylum in Denmark, I mentioned that, but also gave empathy, tried to maintain hope. Pray. Cry.

Maybe my newfound colleges had seen this coming and organized well ahead, but I don't think so, for the most part it seems to all be erupting in front of my eyes. There are some key people, someone I know from college years. And we're making it up as we go, giving advice to people who are in touch directly with those on the road. Everyone cares about their safety and successful arrival to whatever country they want to be in. Yesterday when Denmark suddenly stopped all trains and started forcing fingerprints and passport controls, we tried to get the word to people in Germany "take the ferry, take the ferry" (direct from Germany to Sweden). And then we shared a unified but nonsynchronous "hurrah" when late in the evening Danish Chief of Police decided to just let everyone go, let them continue through Denmark to reach the other Nordic countries. Why or how that happened I don't know, it's tempting so imagine that the love surrounding the decision maker was contagious. What happened at the site of the stopped train is more clear: they let all refugees get off the train where they had spent all day, and within minutes masses of cars were there and transported some 200 people to the Swedish border.

I know what this is, I've studied it for years. This is what nonviolence looks like in action.

We're not against anyone. And we're just trying to help where the systems are cruel or lacking. Help people reach safety. There are options for improving the official systems - someone created a petition for Humanitarian visas, for example - but while the rules are inhumane, hoards of caring humans make up the difference. This is what society could look like, all the time! Trust, caring, dignity, helpfulness. Sharing. Solving problems together, in dialogue. Social media helps, of course, a platform for putting out requests, coordinating needs in real time. But this has been done here before, in greater secrecy and with greater risks, when people helped Jews escape the occupation of Denmark in WWII, crossing the sound in small sailboats in the dark of night.

In September 2015 I wonder how this all is possible, and then realizing that threads of preparation have been going on for years, although I doubt anyone knew "for what": In city of Malmö - the current vortex of the local goodness, and the main entry point to Sweden for refugees - there are initiatives for sharing economy, like gifting circles, and even a gifting clothes store. There is year round political activism. And a diverse community and probably much more that I don't feel the pulse of from far away. All in all, some of what we talk about as "constructive program" could probably be detected here, with relationships being built over time, and shared values and projects to ground those. Enough of a core to hold the heartful chaos that thousands of welcomers-of-refugees bring to a joint purpose.

Maja Bengtson
Lund, Sweden
on September 10, 2015
PS. after writing this, I went back online, and there was a message. "My brother arrived now Thanks Maja."

SOUL SOURCE
Virtual World
Delaware CountyPennsylvania 19078