International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

“Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away tonight.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.”

Remember by Joy Harjo, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, 23rd US Poet Laureate

“Mother Earth is serving us; the sun, the moon and the stars all serve us. What can we do in return for their selfless service?”

Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known as Amma

“With tired feet I scrunch the pebbles at the shoreline, walking hard, pushing my body at the wind as if I could break through the choices and enter the place of peace. A long tree trunk, white with ocean washing, soft with the long slow tempering of time, beckons my body and I sit, then lie along its narrow surface.

And from that prone and precarious balance, I see a tree whose fruit, above the picking line, waits for autumn winds to gather.

I see a hedge of foxglove and blueberry, queen anne’s lace and ragwort, audience to the butterfly ballet choreographed by the unseen master of the dance.

I hear the triumph song of crickets and the satin swish of ocean-tumbled pebbles and my heart reminds me that God is here, not commanding, judging, threatening, or punishing, but creating a world so wonderful, a prayer so obvious that could I but cease in my fever of petition, I could witness its beauty, too.”

Reverie on an August Afternoon by Elizabeth Tarbox (1944 – 1999), UU minister

““Miracles have ceased.” Have they indeed? When? They had not ceased this afternoon when I walked into the wood and got into bright, miraculous sunshine, in shelter from the roaring wind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882), writer and Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.”

Arnold Bennett, writer (1867 – 1931)

“Most of us are sufficiently distanced from our own ancestral wisdom to feel disoriented in a time when indigenous knowledge is being reevaluated. How do we rekindle the ancestral fires once again? Where is the wisdom that will help us through the night of ignorance and doubt? Instead of elders, we now have elected politicians who speak with corrupt and self-serving voices; instead of fragrant local wisdom, we have homogenous civil law and institutionalized religion to guide us.

Ancestral wisdom does not cease because the elders are no longer important in our society. Indeed, the wisdom is retrievable and implementable now. Part of the solution lies with ourselves. By changing the way we think – extending our planning to include the next ten generations rather than just our own lifetime and vigorously upholding the rights and privileges of elders in our community – we shift from a basis of neglect to a more respectful and empowered position.

If we genuinely want to look to our recent or ancient past for wisdom, then we must give time, effort, and study to our own spiritual and indigenous traditions, or to the traditions of those lands whence our ancestors came. Whatever is useful, whatever is practical, whatever is wise will never be lost as long as one person is practising it.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

“By morning she has lost
a husband, a home, a dream,
a night of her life
that will never return.
She tries not to think
of what she will do,
of what this means
in the long history of loss.
There are tigers dying,
she knows, nuclear threats
that might eradicate
the world.
Forests are disappearing
and seas are being emptied.
She tries not to think
of her hunger
against the magnitude of all this.
Her small hunger against
the failure of civilizations.
She thinks instead
of evening,
how once again
it will grow long and bright,
how eternity that seemed
so paltry just minutes ago
could become eternal once again.
She thinks of the moon
rising in the cleft of the distant hills.
It is the only comfort
she allows herself–
to relinquish the things she loves
as if they were never hers.”

From Here, Poems for the Planet by Tishani Doshi

“In every breath
if you’re the centre
of your own desires
you’ll lose the grace
of your beloved

But if in every breath
you blow away
your self claim
the ecstasy of love
will soon arrive

In every breath
if you’re the centre
of your own thoughts
the sadness of autumn
will fall on you

but if in every breath
you strip naked
just like a winter
the joy of spring
will grow from within

All your impatience
comes from the push
for gain of patience
let go of the effort
and peace will arrive

All your unfulfilled desires
are from your greed
for gain of fulfilments
let go of them all
and they will be sent as gifts

Fall in love with
the agony of love
not the ecstasy
then the beloved
will fall in love with you”

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, from Rumi: Fountain of Fire translated from the original Persian by Nader Khalili.

“Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It’s like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person doesn’t have to do much, just be themselves, and the situation can change.”

From Peace Is This Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh

Lughnasadh / Lammas Eve

“A bird’s song calms your nervous system. Breathing in soil helps you to feel safe and release serotonin within. Medicines and wild foods grow at our feet. The air holds anti-inflammatory bacteria. Our oxygen is a continuous reciprocal relationship with the rooted ones and the rivers and seas.. Death is alchemised into life by the fungi and insects. If you listen, look and feel the land’s true stories you will see how each moment you are held by this life, by this earth. The wild isn’t the nonsensical, chaotic, dirty, cruel place. It is kind, reciprocal and nourishing, and it has woven you into belonging since your first breath.”

Brigit Anna McNeill