“If we could set up a stop-frame film of the solar year and point it up toward the northern heavens, we would see revealed the dance of the circumpolar stars about the polestar in a fantastic circle dance. Among the peoples of the north, the polestar is called “the nail of heaven” because of its unchanging position in the sky: an unfailing and welcome guide to travellers and sailors in the darkest night.

Discovering our own true north as the compass point of our soul’s direction is a worthwhile enterprise on our spiritual path. Our true north may not be an actual belief system or ideology, not a religious figure or archetype, if we are still searching. It may be something that is nearer to an instinct or feeling of travelling in the right direction, something that we sniff in the wintry air or intuit from the glancing rays of the sun through the leafless trees.”

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

International Day of Neutrality

“You see, when the world becomes too solid for nuance, when it hardens up and crystallizes into a binary that forces you to pick a side, compelling you to become intelligible to the hardness that creeps on its once loamy surfaces, cracks become the first responders. We need a politics of tenderness more than ever. Not tenderness as capitulation to particular conclusions that have already been made. Not tenderness as “if you don’t see the world as I do, there’s something wrong with you.” But tenderness as the nurturing of grace that allows something different, something even beautiful, to be born in the midst of the fires.”

Báyò Akómoláfé

“It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good…

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008), Soviet dissident writer, born on this day

“Prayer is as natural to man as speaking, sighing and seeing, as natural as the palpitation of a loving heart; and actually that is what prayer is: a murmur, a sigh, a glance, a heartbeat of love…

All our bodily acts are the nature of prayer. Our body performs a perfect physiological act of thanksgiving when, thirsting, it receives into itself a glass of water. Or, when on a hot day we bathe in a cool river, our skin sings a hymn of thanksgiving in praise of the Creator, even though this kind of prayer may be non-rational, unconscious and at times involuntary. However we are able to transform everything we do into prayer. Work and labour are forms of existential prayer.”

Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan Catholic priest and liberation theologian (1925 – 2020)

“Like treasure hidden in the ground
taste in the fruit
gold in the rock
oil in the seed
the Absolute hidden away in the heart
no one can know the ways of our lord white as jasmine…

Breath for fragrance, who needs flowers?
With peace, patience, forgiving and self-command,
who needs the Ultimate Posture?
The whole world becomes oneself,
who needs solitude?
O lord white as jasmine.”

Mahadeviyakkha, 12th century India

“In my belief, there’s one spirit. I prefer to call it the Holy Spirit. I don’t think it matters if you call it God or Allah or Jesus or Fred or David or too early in the morning or whatever…

At some point the entire population of the earth is gonna have to look back at the kind of essence of spirituality which is basically caring about each other.”

Sinead O’Connor, singer-songwriter (1966 – 2023), born on this day

“The world is a very puzzling place. If you’re not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else’s mind.”

Noam Chomsky, polymath, born on this day in 1928 – Happy Birthday Uncle Noam!

“This day was honored centuries ago as the feast of Saint Nicholas, progenitor of Santa Claus. Whatever your stance toward mythic Christmas figures, Nicholas also deserves notice as the patron saint of weavers, bakers, and sailors – all people who work with nature intimately, shaping it to their own ends.

Weavers take the raw fibers of the wild and shape them into recognizable patterns, seeing to one of the our most basic needs. Bakers combine grains and other harvest goods with spices and herbs, firing the mixtures until they provide sustenance and flavor our lives. And sailors roam the horizons, testing the limits of our lives and bring back their own harvests from the deep.

Even if Saint Nicholas doesn’t bring presents anymore, he brings us plenty by reminding us to appreciate those craftspeople who help us make the most of this world.”

From Earth Bound: Daily Meditations for All Seasons by Brian Nelson

“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.”

Wu-Men, Chinese Zen Master (1183 – 1260)

“A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”

Crazy Horse, Lakota leader (1840 – 1877), born on this day