Additionally, one of the callers mentioned the name of a woman I had met in Hawaii in 1992 and had lost contact with. After the call I searched the web and found that she has written a book on a near death experience (NDE) she had. I found her email address, wrote to her, and then clicked on a link where I found the following account by the now late George Rodonaia. In 1976 he was hit by a car and left in a morgue for three days before he was revived as a doctor began to make an incision in his belly! This is an excerpt from his tale:

During this time the light just radiated a sense of peace and joy to me. It was very positive. I was so happy to be in the light. And I understood what the light meant. I learned that all the physical rules for human life were nothing when compared to this unitive reality. I also came to see that a black hole is only another part of that infinity which is light. I came to see that reality is everywhere. That it is not simply the earthly life but the infinite life. Everything is not only connected together, everything is also one. So I felt a wholeness with the light, a sense that all is right with me and the universe.

Many people have asked me what I believe in, how my NDE changed my life. All I can say is that I now believe in the God of the universe. Unlike many other people, however, I have never called God the light, because God is beyond our comprehension. God, I believe, is even more than the light, because God is also darkness. God is everything that exists, everything - and that is beyond our ability to comprehend at all. So I don't believe in the God of the Jews, or the Christians, or the Hindus, or in any one religion's idea of what God is or is not. It is all the same God, and that God showed me that the universe in which we live is a beautiful and marvelous mystery that is connected together forever and for always.

Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. To serve God's creation with a warm and loving hand of generosity and compassion - that is the only meaningful existence.

Thank you so much for attention and for the opportunity to share my passion and enthusiasm with you. We barely touched on Nassim’s encyclopedic work with many more equally profound implications that challenge our old notions about death, our past and our future. Please sign up for my newsletter and let me know if you’d like to explore this work in greater depth. The paper will be posted on my website as a blog. I would love if you’d like to join me in a seminar where we can really dive into the material. If you like, in call & response fashion, let’s conclude with a verse and chorus from my song, The Great Mystery Verse Chorus (call & response) We are the Uni-verse as we We are the dark; we are the light We are not a separate me We are the dark; we are the light We are the Uni-verse, we’re one We are love; we are delight Before the cosmos was begun We are love we are delight We are The Great Mystery Unison Chorus We are the dark; we are the light We are the dark: we are the light We are the dark; we are the light We are love we are delight We are love; we are delight We are The Great Mystery We are love; we are delight We are the dark; we are the light © Esther Frances, July 15, 2003 We are love we are delight We are The Great Mystery

© Esther Frances, February 18, 2010 www.EstherFrances.com estherfrances@earthlink.net

P.S. Unfortunately the blog format doesn't transfer my footnotes nor my italics or bold print. I quote from a variety of my songs and poems in the essay.

Haramein’s paper “The Schwarzschild Proton” received the prestigious “best paper award” at Leige, Belgium in August 2009. This paper describes the nuclei of an atom as a mini black hole! At the November Delegate Training that I attended, Haramein said “Our Universe can be considered to be a black w-hole, that is why it is black at night. “ “Gravity is the force that that holds to the center. It is the mother holding the child. The force that held all the information that exists today. Gravity is the support that supports everything you do - your link to the Mother/Father, your link to the infinite nature. This statement concurs with cosmologist Brian Swimme’s description of gravity as allurement or love, the force that holds us together.

“There is enough stars that we would have light at night from the stars if we were not in a black w-hole. There is a singularity at the center of all things. The space inside universe is highly curved.” And here it gets even more amazing---white and black w-holes are one and the same! The white w-hole is around the black w-hole. The light radiating stars are the outside of the black w-hole within them. There is a constant relationship between the expansive and contractive parts.” They are not separate!!!!! What an affirmation for the equality and complementary nature of the dark and the light---the female and the male!

I have to confess that this excites me enormously because back in the seventies the awareness of the holographic nature of the Universe came to me in a revelation. I had no science to confirm it, but I received this information clearly and powerfully in a cosmic, intuitive download. The first song I wrote, in 1981, was called “The Holographic Love Song.” Some years later when I wondered what to call my band, the name “The Holographic Donuts” came to me. Then the Uni-verse gave me the gift of a song called The W-hole in the W-holographic Donut in 2001. It is thrilling when intuitive insights are confirmed by scientific discoveries. Here’s a sample verse and the chorus of the “Donut” song. A dog will dig a hole to bury her bone Holographic connections don’t need a cell phone Black holes, white holes, we’re all rollin’ round Singin’ our music, diggin’ our sound We are kin to the stars The Earth and the Sun We are made to be happy, Enjoy and have fun!

I’m the w-hole in the w-holographic donut Whole in the deep blue sea W-hole in the w-holographic donut Part of the Mystery I’m w-hole as w-hole as wholly can be I’m the w-hole in the deep blue sea!

Recently the magazine New Science reported, “Our world may be a giant hologram.” In a holographic image if you were to cut off the trunk of an elephant you would not have section with an image of the part of an elephant that is a trunk. You would have an image of the entire elephant, but on a smaller scale than the original! The implications are that we all fractals, containing and contained within the w-hole. Electrocardiogram or ECG readings of the heart confirm that the human body produces an electrical field which radiates 12 to 15 feet beyond the body. Recent research suggests, as well, that the electromagnetic (or em) energy produced by the heart spirals out and curves back towards the heart in the shape of a torus, the shape of a donut ring. This torus is holographic; any point within the torus has access to the information of the whole field of the heart. This means that any point within the heart’s electromagnetic field contains all the frequencies of the heart’s spectrum.

If electromagnetic torus fields are holographic, any point in the heart has access not only to the heart field, but also to universal information. According to Joseph Chilton Pearce, the universe is a "nested hierarchy of toroid energy systems that extend possibly from the minuscule atom to human to planet, solar system, and ultimately, the galaxy. Being centered in the heart is, in effect, being centered in the universe, allowing one access to a universal source of power.”

Chilton also predicts, “Our whole cosmology will shift dramatically when we realize what I call the "holographic heart." But, you see, at the very time we're moving into a period of total chaos and collapse, this other incredible thing is simply gathering. I think of Ilya Prigogine’s comments that so long as a system is stable, or at an equilibrium, you can't change it, but as it moves toward disequilibrium and falls into chaos then the slightest bit of coherent energy can bring it into a new structure.” This awareness can help us to accept and trust that the breakdown or death of the old structures that we are experiencing is also the catalyst to the breakthrough and birth of a new way of being.

Cosmology is the bridge that translates scientific findings about “what is” to the consciousness of humans. Cosmology transforms knowledge into wisdom. Information is linked and the implications of the discoveries are woven into the cultural awareness that shapes and informs the way we live. This territory, where the perennial questions of “who are we, why are we, and what are we” exist, are where my ears perk up and my blood quickens. How fortunate we are to live at this time, where despite the challenges of the old dysfunctional forms coming apart all around us, new perspectives about who we are and our relationship to everything else is simultaneously arising.

Haramein’s work complements and continues the legacy of “The Universe Story” as written by the late Thomas Berry and the contemporary cosmologist Brian Swimme. They proposed that the scientific and astronomical discoveries about the nature of the Universe are revelations about Life itself. Humans now share a common creation story, a story that allows us to view ourselves within the context of the Universe.

We are the recipients of information generations before us never had. All the religious traditions that have shaped the human concepts of god, the universe, and life itself did not have the vantage points we now have. Even the mystics, shamans and founders of religions, who had direct experiences of Divinity and the interconnection of all Life, did not have the awareness of the micro and macro uni-verse as we are now discovering it to be. The implications of this are enormous. All of our primary societal, spiritual and architectural traditions are based on a world-view that no longer concurs with what science is unveiling.

The idea that creation was a one-time event in the past is being shown to be inaccurate. The idea of a linear uni-verse, progressing one-dimensionally doesn’t concur with what we are finding out. We live in an omni-dimensional web of life where creation is an on-going feature of what is! Even the big bang theory, as it is currently being lauded, is being challenged by Haramain, who says, “ The universe is constantly banging.”

I believe the late visionary Buckminster Fuller would concur. He said “God is a verb.” Contemporary spiritual teacher, Bhagavan, founder of The Oneness Blessing Movement, says the same. We are discovering that we are all not only part of creation but co-creators, always in connection, and as part of a universal feedback system, always contributing to all that is.

Bucky also said, “We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer, unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody. He had great faith in the power of any single individual to change the direction of the whole, using the example of the tiny rudder, called a trim tab, that enabled huge ships to turn. Haramein’s optimistic that solutions to our energy crisis will be found by tapping into the huge energy potential of the vacuum. He is encouraged that we will soon be able to have all kinds of technological breakthroughs that will free us from the scarcity paradigm and prevent us from further devastating Mother Earth in our appetite for fuel.

We are on the threshold of taking a collective leap, a metamorphosis from what I call “caterpillar consciousness,” obsessed with consuming, to “butterfly consciousness,” feeding on the nectar of being. Recognition of our mutual divinity is the key to our ability to create a mode of being which is harmonious with each other and Mother Earth.

I am going to leave you with a couple of challenges: First--- I invite you to recognize the limitations and inaccuracy of rigidly posing one position against another, as we see how this fallacy has created tremendous discord and conflict. The idea that an answer is an “either/or,” either this or that, has created an atmosphere where people “fight to be right” instead of learning what the other position has to contribute. Now we learn that the very structure of the Uni-verse is a both/and and beyond, in this case the beyond being synergy, the w-hole that is greater than the sum of its parts. We can step out of the “no-winners circle” and instead respect a plurality of vantage points, looking to learn from each. Indeed, we discover each one of us is a unique vantage point, all sharing the same internal oneness. “Paradox rocks, paradox sings, paradox lives in the heart of all things” is the way it expressed itself in one of my poems! And as synchronicity would have it, Nassim made the following statement on last night’s teleseminar: “When I’ve encountered the largest problems in the research I’ve done, specifically when I realized that it wasn’t one or the other, but most likely both, that I got my largest revelations.”

How did we carve the Cosmos into bad and good, dark and white, as if it were a turkey’s carcass, there for our dismemberment? Is not birth the cause of death? And what is death but a birth canal to the beyond?

We take complementary inter-connected twin-doms and put them in opposite corners of a boxing ring. We root for our favorite to upset the “foe” we’ve imagined into existence by dissection. We watch the wrestling match we’ve created and feel victorious when “our good” pins down “their bad.” The social implications of this split and resulting schizophrenia havs created countless, needless, suffering.

Secondly --- I invite you to catch yourself when you use language that equates good, awareness and spirituality with the light and bad, ignorance and evil with the dark.

We do not have to look far to realize that persons of color and women have been the two most oppressed people on Earth. Mother Earth Herself has been regarded as a thing to be raped and converted into “resources” with no regard for effects on Her or the whole-Earth community. As we realize that everything is sacred, and that you are everything, there is no more “other” to be violated! All becomes kin, whether Mother, brother or lover! And the way to live with our kin is to be kind and compassionate.

Lastly --- I invite you to: See the miracle that you are; Let your love shine like a star Let yourself be pleased to be; Celebrate the miracle of you and me This was to be my end point for today, but I have to share some synchronistic happenings that just occurred. Last night I joined a teleseminar that Nassim offers every month. I had the opportunity to let him know that I would be featuring his work in this talk. I asked him, “If there was one thing you’d like to convey at this time, regarding your work, what would it be?” He replied, “I think the most important thing is that we are reaching unification and that we are starting to realize that each point in our universe, each point in our body, each section of our existence, is connected to all other points in the universe. It is all

Everything on our planet is an expression of Earth. All creatures are the ears and eyes, ecstasies and cries, of our Mother. We are cells. To be “cell-f conscious” is to be awake. Ego’s viewpoint is like mouse, not seeing beyond its whiskers. Gliding upon hawk’s wings we expand our views of consciousness and board a new flight of fancy and imagination. We are the spokes-people. The planet is our hub. The wheel that turns is the circle of life.

We are in the middle of perhaps the most significant transformation the human species has ever experienced. Today we will take a look at some of the key notions that are lifting us out of the ideas that have kept us trapped in divisive, conflictive, modes of being, bringing untold suffering to ourselves and our Earth. I have faith in the innate power of our in-heir-ent divinity to weather the crisis as we journey down the birth canal. We have the opportunity to be born again--- not into any particular faction of belief--- instead, into an experience of unity, joy and creation the likes of which we have never seen on Earth before.

This is the first era, that all-over-the planet, humans share the vantage point of looking back at Earth from space and seeing one great, gorgeous sphere---the lapis-lazuli jewel that is our home. Although new evidence is indicating that a few of our ancestors were aware that the Earth was part of a galactic community, we are the first generation, en mass, to learn, through instruments of science, that we live in a galaxy with billions of stars, within super-galaxies with billions of galaxies within them.

Likewise, we are finding that we can go infinitely small and never come to the end or find the smallest particle. Each time we think we find it another tinier particle is found: we went from cells to atoms, billions of which inhabit cells, to protons, neutrons, the nucleus of an atom, then quarks and so on. Nassim Haramein, a brilliant physicist, mathematician and cosmologist, demonstrates that within a boundary there is the possibility of infinite division. He asks, “Why is this important? Well, if you were taking these principles and applying them to yourself, you could start to visualize, you could start to imagine, you could start to experience, that maybe within the confines of the finite structure you are in, is the potential of infinite division, the potential of infinite amounts of information. Philosophically, that has a very powerful impact on someone’s consciousness. It just happens to be very similar to what many of the masters that have walked the earth have talked about, that within is god, the Kingdom of Heaven, infinite boundaries and so on, or infinite potential and so on.” He says, “You are infinitely embedded in yourself.”

Haramein asks, “If you wanted to find something that connects all things what would it be? What makes it all one?” He answers his own question with a word that the ancients also spoke of as the source of the world of form, and that word is space! Haramein says, “Space is everywhere and everything. Even at the atomic level 99% of everything in the material world is space.” The purpose of today’s talk is to re-mind, re-awaken, and inspire you to re-vise (rev-eyes) and realize (re-all-eyes) your “cell-f” as being one with “The One Great W-hole-iness” whose body is the Universe. Wow! That may seem preposterous and really egotistical you might say; yet as we begin to re-explore this identity we call “me,” and this form we regard as “my body,” we are going to discover some amazing new perspectives. Instead of reinforcing a sense of separation or ego, we are discovering how interconnected, amazing and miraculous we all are. My intention is that all of us here today may be inspired to appreciate the unique opportunity we have now, as we approach 2012, to experience a quantum leap in our consciousness, as we awaken to our cosmic dimensions and become the “butterfly human.”

I invite you to join in this awakening, in a celebration of U… the U that U are, and (as congregants so apply named Unitarian Universalists) you can easily remind yourself that U are the Uni-verse with the abbreviated letters “U R U” symbolizing the awareness that the Uni-verse is expressing its great CELL-f through U! Beneath the surface of personality U can look with new eyes, an open mind and a loving heart, at the “awe-sum” being U actually R.

Awakening or enlightenment is no more exclusively about the individual, yet paradoxically, the individual is a key to the transition. We are called to recognize that we are more than we imagined and different than our conneditioning taught us to believe. We are in the pressure cooker and we are the popcorn expanding beyond the hull of the ego. The illusion that we are separate entities can no longer contain or confine us. We are popping out of the perception that we are tiny, separate kernels and discovering ourselves as planetary and cosmic people, thereby transforming and creating a new way of being here on Earth. We are leaving behind the constant consumerism of the caterpillar and transforming into the butterfly human.

Key to this awakening is the embracing of The Divine Feminine, the yin in the yin/yang, the dark as well as the light. Many indigenous elders, including the 13 Grandmothers, the esoteric Council of Grandmothers and Malidoma Some have taught that our human dysfunction stems from the male energies surging out of control. We see that our excessive emphasis on doing, what I call “do-do,” creates this radical imbalance. The neglect of the female polarity is one of the major contributors to the destruction of Mother Earth and to the epidemic of violence against Nature, women and children that rages all around the planet.

Haramein’s work also shows how the yin polarity is the equal partner in the structure of the universe! Within the vacuum there are complementary yin and yang components --- the vector equilibrium and the star tetrahedron. Together they form a sixty-four sided tetrahedron structure, one side that points out and one that points in. Haramein exclaimed, “And now, I had both sides of the event horizon, the radiative and the contractive side, all in one mathematical matrix that was producing both to generate the feedback of creation.”

Yet, he realized there was still more to be found because it is not just the structure but the dynamics that account for the way creation takes place. Einstein said that gravity is the result of space-time curving like the surface of a trampoline. Haramein and his associate Elizabeth Rauscher say, “Yes, when space time curves, it doesn’t just curve, but it curls, just like water going down the drain, and that generates spin, angular momentum. And that’s the source of the spin of all things.”

This space-time curl generates a torus structure which is a sphere with holes in the middle at the North and South Poles. It has Coriolis forces that make the water rotate in one direction in the northern hemisphere and in the other in the southern hemisphere. The result is a double torus structure, a double torus manifold, that when viewed from above is like a rotating yin/yang sign. This makes for a new view of the universe because now space-time is the source for spin, coriolis forces, and the magnetic fields. “Now you have a feedback between the gravitational field and the space time torque.” When the torus is looked at from above, space or the vacuum is in the middle. The middle of the donut has a hole. This is where singularity, an infinity involving curvature in a space-time continuum, would be in the center of a black hole.

Haramein actually has coined the term Holofractographic to describe the holographic and nonlinear fractal structure of the universe. A fractal is a shape that appears to be similar at all scales of magnification and is referred to as infinitely complex. Haramein and physicist Elizabeth Rauscher mapped out a mathematical scaling law that illustrates the fractal nature of the Universe. Michael Dowd, author of “Thank God for Evolution” illustrates fractals with Chinese dolls, nested one within the other. The scaling law unifies everything from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, and demonstrates that all can be described under the conditions of a black hole. Most exciting is their discovery that “The biological resolution is the link between the large and the small.”

Haramein says, “You are the event horizon. And you are the data transfer boundary from the extremely large to the extremely small. You gather information and you transfer it to your internal self that in this view has infinite boundary potential. You are transferring that information to your boundary to the infinite of the Universe within yourself.” This perspective is resonant with the Celtic wisdom of the late poet John O’Donohue, who said ”We come out of the night into the day. All creativity awakens at this primal threshold where light and darkness test and bless each other.”

As a result of realizing that you are this event horizon, Haramein says “your way of being in the Universe, the way you are, how you are, completely changes. Because you start to see the importance of your observation, you start to see the importance of your interpretation of the field and what you are feeding the Universe. “Instead of seeing yourself as an insignificant little dot that means nothing to the Universe, you start to see yourself as the center of creation. Everyone else is the center of their Universe as well and thus we are all equal and we are all One.”

Now hold on to your hats. We’ve all heard of black holes and most of us have had the idea that they devour and suck material into them. Instead, Haramein asserts that black w-holes are the wombs of stars. He says, “Black w-holes have to be there prior to the galaxies.” Matter is produced at the center of black w-holes because space-time

I am feeling a lot of excitement and gratitude for blessings in my personal life and in our collective planetary community crisis which comes at a time to awaken us from a way of living that ushered in an extinction rate that threatens so many of our beloved animal companions, plants, birds and of course our human species. Most of evolutions’ most starting breakthroughs have come at times of breakdown. May we be able to re-invent our economy to be a real ECO-nomy, leaving behind the notion that excess growth and consumption are supposed to be a basis for a functioning monetary system. Remember, humans invented this modality and therefore can reinvent it.

I am looking forward to a new bottom line that is mutual benefit for all life on Earth. The excess-money-makers have been a parasitic presence draining dignity and sustainability from life on the planet. We have much to learn from ecology and nature. We've learned that a standing tree is more beneficial than pieces of lumber. Once we counted the service rendered by the standing tree - its preservation of riverbanks and the forests that provide us with our life breath while monitoring the hydrosphere - we can begin to appreciate the shortsighted, fragmented thinking that has also failed to factor in the value of healthy humans. What would society look like if we were to provide humans with the basic needs that would cut off the need for the sacrifice of soul for the money to survive? What great gifts would come to the community were we encouraged and supported in following our hearts in our vocational service? How many of us would be doing the work that is calling us if we weren’t tied to antiquated “insurance” systems that require us to continue to stay in situations that no longer serve our purpose and thereby compromise our ability to render quality service. What would it look like if we were satisfied beings, sharing and peaceful, once off the treadmill of activity continually in pursuit of a future by sacrificing the present?

Spring is a time of resurrection, flowering and rebirth. May we all be energized and feel a renewal that will enable us to each re-connect and be a part of a new awareness that reveals that we are more than stewards of the Earth. She is calling us to remember that we are of the Earth, dependent on Her clean air for every healthy breath, Her clean waters to quench our thirst, Her “not too hot, not to cold” Goldilocks climate to keep us alive and her fertile soil to feed us. May one of each of us respond to Mother Earths calling by listening to our heart and finding our calling by bringing all our talents to the fore, and devoting ourselves to transform suffering into sufficiency, separateness into unity, and apparent dead-ends into a new, vibrant, journey into creative community.

Saturn in Virgo is very much about integration! The house of Virgo marks the last leg of the personal journey to the descendent. Virgo is the sign where we bring together our basket of experiences, and from them weave something of value and benefit, so we can be of functional service for ourselves and to the whole. Issues pertaining to work, health and humility share the turf of Virgo's sixth house.

Virgo is associated with the archetypes of Vesta, Demeter and Hermes. Virgo is about bringing Spirit or consciousness into daily awareness and tasks. The practices of apprenticeship or discipleship were ways that a person could cultivate practical expertise by working under the supervision and guidance of one who already knew the ropes and could pass on the tricks of the trade. Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, speaks to the necessity of commitment and focus in our work. Hermes or Mercury, as manifest in Virgo, speaks to earthy, practical, intelligence. This is the intelligence of application, or technique, which creates technology. It is not content to know the principles of something but wants the knowledge implemented so it can be of actual use. Demeter is versed in the relationship between nourishment and health. She is sage of soil and plants. She teaches how to enhance and get the maximum benefit from herbs through cultivation and preservation in harmony with Nature’s cycles.

Virgo is also about the archetype of Chiron, known as the wounded healer, teacher and sage. Healing is about the integrity or integration of the parts to the whole and to each other. It is about acknowledging the wounds so they can be healed, the healing process itself, and the wisdom found in the journey.

Saturn is the archetype of the father, authority, limitation, form and what we can perceive through the senses. Alchemically, Saturn represents the lead we must convert to gold. Saturn indicates where our known fears abide, our obstacles or hindrances and its position shows where our work lies. Saturn also speaks to mastery, focus, form, structure, time (Chronos is another of his names, thus chronology and synchronicity) and where we need to apply ourselves. Saturn says, "Pay attention to this. Do not avoid or try to escape me. Work with me and I will work with you."

Saturn’s shadow is the excess desire to control. Patriarchy and hierarchy are two of its expressions that have devastated Mother Earth and many of species including the humans. The shadow seems to reflect the excess and fear born out of the ego. Eckhart Tolle defines ego as total identification with the world of form. It also rises from the illusion of separation. A balanced Saturn isn't rigid; it knows the map is not the territory, the blueprint not the building.

In the body, Saturn is the skin, the skeleton and the knees. It gives the gift of organization, and the persistence to see process unfolding through time to achieve results. Boundaries are important and when unbalanced they are not respected.

When we put Saturn into Virgo we see the need for healing and re-education pertinent to the life areas of work and health. We see the need for humility, cutting out excess, and the integration of the parts for the sake of the whole. Virgo follows Leo, and we now become aware of the excesses of the "royalty of the corporate and Wall Street manipulators." The wound is uncovered, bare for all to see. Now is the time for healing, for stepping out of linear time and into "Chironic time." Chironic time is ironically timeless- time beyond or beneath time, where depth consciousness and holographic connection brings inspiration and possibilities. We realize we are not victims in time but the awareness that is timeless and that from that awareness the impossible is possible.

The polarity is Uranus in Pisces. Uranus is the unexpected, the liberator-Prometheus archetype, bringing awareness and awakening. Pisces is compassion, the universal, cosmic, mythic, and poetic. Pisces is the imagination, music, dance, poetry, inspiration, illusion, maya and ideals. "Yes we can" is the cry of the awakened populace coming out from under the control of the "corporate gods." Uranus in Pisces is also the shattering of the illusion, the upheaval of the financial house of cards, the awakening of compassion brought about by the awareness of the abuse of power and the suffering brought about because of it.

Obama’s victory is indeed the victory of the populace, symbolized by Uranus. The beauty of the black and the white, the yin and the yang, the multi-ethnic One in the Many, all congregated together in celebration, is a visual testament to the actualization of a new phase in the vision articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King. That we have come this far shows we have overcome the bondage (Saturn) of seeing only what appears as difference, that we are no longer slaves of sensory perception but have moved into the realm of intuition (Uranus) which sees through direct knowing. President-Elect Barack Obama is an incarnate integration of a hope that has been yearned for a long, long time.

California passed proposition 2 and put the first death blow to the horror of factory faming. Virgo is associated with small animals. Awakened compassion (Uranus in Pisces) prevailed and said no to a method that has tried to make animals into things without soul or feeling to exploit for selfish purposes (Saturn in Virgo in shadow mode).

This year is a turning point. This short commentary touches on some of the issues and is in no way exhaustive of all that is symbolically present in this transit. It will be ongoing through August, and we are all invited to home our skills and rollup our sleeves (Saturn in Virgo) to bring forth a compassionate Earth Community with caring instead of money as the bottom line.

Change is the voice of Uranus, compassion the fruition of Pisces, Saturn the work before us and Virgo the willingness to serve. Bob Dylan said it best when he said "We all got to serve somebody." Let us serve each other and bring forth the opportunity for us to leave behind jobs that diminish and create the opportunity for each to serve in alignment with their gifts and visions. May all have access to excellent health care and insurance, may no one be left out. Inclusion that celebrates diversity is the keynote of a new way of being on Earth.

Saturn in Virgo also brings us air cars, solar technology, geo-thermal design, permaculture and ZERI methodology that gives us the "where-with-all" to bring a sustainable, quality life to all. We are ushering in the Ecozoic Era, a term coined by Thomas Berry for the time on Earth where we learn to live in mutual benefit to each other as humans and to the benefit to the Whole Earth Community. This is a blessed new day and I am so thankful that we are witnessing and participating in the transition into sacred community that transcends the old divisions of religion, class and color.

As the great Hollywood movie reminds us, everyday is "Groundhog Day," so there is a message here that I believe is relevant regardless of the calendar!

Many Blessings, Esther

Fire of the Heart: Imbolc In Our Time of Planetary Transition

Good morning! Today we celebrate and give thanks for increased Sunlight. We will look at the role of consciousness, symbolized by the Sun, in the transformation of ourselves and the awakening of a new human presence on Mother Earth. At this time of year, we celebrate the midpoint between Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. It’s the time of the Chinese and Tibetan New Year. Groundhog Day, which has its root in an ancient celebration associated with the goddess Bridget and the rising of the snake, also marks this time. How many of you have seen the movie “Groundhog Day?” It is one of my favorites because it is a reminder that each day is a new beginning and opportunity.

The Celtics celebrate this time as Imbolc (pronounced 'im'olk'). The name comes from an Irish word that was originally thought to mean 'in the belly' although many people translate it as 'ewe's milk. This is the time when herd animals have their first kids and when their milk is beginning to flow. It is also the time for blessing the seeds and consecrating agricultural tools. Offerings are made to the nature spirits and rituals are performed to ensure a steady supply of food until the harvest. Fires are lit to honor the maiden and fertility goddesses, growth, renewal. It’s a time when hearth fires are put out and re-lit, and a broom is placed by the front door to symbolize sweeping out the old and welcoming the new. Candles are lit and placed in each room of the house to honor the re-birth of the Sun. Christians reformed and named the holiday Candlemas, light candles to remember the purification of the Virgin Mary.

We can ask ourselves “How is this holiday relevant in our time? What new seeds are awakening in us now? What is the light of consciousness revealing to us at our moment in time?

I’ll share with you some of my thoughts and hope they may be a catalyst for your own insights, feelings and ideas. A new identity: One of the most significant transformations taking place on our planet is that we are finding a new human identity. We are beginning to realize that our primary identity is not our personality nor our body but the limitless field of awareness from which the world of form and time emerges. Modern physicists, cosmologists and biologists reveal a world that echoes the revelations of mystics. As Michael Dowd presents so eloquently in his new book “Thank God for Evolution,” we are nested beings. What we call “God,” and Universe, are both immanent and transcendent. To be holy is to identify with the whole, the entirety of life, visible and invisible, creature and cosmos, individual and collective, human and non-human.

The good news, the earth gospel of our time, is that despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, which are the wars and exploitation based on the illusion of separation and the dominance and inequality that we see in the media, we are seeing a grass-roots emergence, all across Mother Earth, of the realization that we are interdependent and essentially One—one with each other, the “Uni-verse,” Mother Earth and all her life forms. As evolutionary biologist Elizabet Sahtouris suggests, we can consider the different continents and nations as differentiated organs of one planetary body. We can know that when we harm any one organ we are injuring our self.

As we greet our neighbors today let’s see through the lens of the personality and gender, into the sacred presence beneath the surface identity. Let’s allow ourselves to see and be seen as a miraculous combination of consciousness and cosmos, student and stardust, beauty and bacteria, confusion and creativity, flesh and energy, emptiness and form that we are. And with a shake of a hand or a hug, we can extend our blessings and good wishes to each other, remembering that each person is indeed part of our self. Let us plant the seeds of awakening, peace, wisdom, and creativity and water them with out wishes and intentions that we, all of Earth’s children, may continue to grow and blossom in the springtime and year to come.

I’d like to share with you a verse from a recent poem I wrote that speaks of this new identity: I am star-speaking-flesh, Earth-Mother’s child, Awakening in the arms of the Universe. Yippee-kiyi-oh! The universe is dancing within all of us! We are carbon-seeded, regenerated, star-fire: A synergy of life-forms ancient and wise. We are interpenetrated by fungi and composed of a ratio of ten parts bacteria to one part human! Rain and rotted leaves gave birth to us. We are the mess, the messenger and the message. We are miracle and mirage, mystery and revelation. (c) Esther Frances 2008

A new Era - The Ecozoic Era: I like to consider this time one of transition from the Age of Ego to the Era of Eco! We are making the transition from the age of separation into the awakening of the awareness that we are, in essence, one, indivisible life presence. As we cease to see our selves as separate, we recognize that the whole lives within us, as we simultaneously live within the whole. To be holy is to be one with everything.

Our time is critical. According to the Mayan calendar we are at the end of a 26,000 year cycle, which will culminate in December 2012, as the Solstice Sun aligns with the Milky Way near the Galactic Center. Other traditions call this time the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Thomas Berry says we are at the end of the 65 million year Cenozoic Era, a time which brought forth the great diversity of flowers, birds, mammals, insects and fish. We are now in a spasm of extinction that can be followed by the beginning of what he has coined the Ecozoic Era, a time when humans choose to be a benevolent presence to each other and the planet.

Egos are defined by the idea and experience of separation. Eco’s are interdependent. Eco’s are aware, that while they are distinct and individuated, they are inherently one with the entire fabric of life. Ego’s thrive on duality, on the notion of right or wrong; this or that, mutual exclusion. Eco’s thrive on oneness, on the notion of both/and and more; the awareness that we are multi-dimensional and that life forms are complementary. Ego’s overemphasize competition and hierarchy. Eco’s embrace co-operation and see the equal worth of all the members of the community. Ego says “my way or the highway;” and tends to be dominating and threatened by disagreement. Eco’s enjoy new points of view, thrive on diversity and encourage new perspectives and co-creation. Ego over identifies with form and difference: I am male or female; Eco recognizes the female in the male, the yin and the yang, the one in the many. You may still want the trained and qualified pilot to fly the plane but you don’t think that he or she is inherently more important than the passengers, except in regards to this specific role. We begin to realize our little “i” is subsumed in a capitol “I’ and that “th-I” is not a separate entity removed from who we are and our innate creativity. Instead we can regard “th-I will” as the greater intelligence that takes into consideration the needs of the entire community that we are nested within as well as our strictly personal desires. Our current ego-system I call “topsy-turvy,” because it creates as its shadow, the distorted memory of oneness, and then attempts to create a totalitarian system that wants every thing to be or wear a uni-form. Instead of recognizing our inherent spiritual Oneness and inter-connectedness, it tries to impose a “pureed” oneness in the external life. It likes mono-culture, mono-language, mono-crops and now even cloning, mono-malls and sundry “mono-tonous” forms of entertainment. The monopoly game and the classroom teach that sharing is cheating and that the objective is to win, which means amassing the most property or attaining the highest grade or status, regardless of the impact to the community. Control and “power over” are substituted for a true empowerment that cultivates diversity, and is designed to further the blossoming and well-being of all. Stephen Buhner, in The Lost Language of Plants, says “nature is a testimony to the interpenetrating and complex web of life that is woven of the threads of plurality and cooperative endeavor. Cultural diversity, species diversity and habitat diversity all are threatened by human behavior that fails to appreciate the inherent spirit and value in all life. Nature’s resplendent diversity is systematically being erased.”

We can view crisis as the birth canal of transformation: The transition from human caterpillar consciousness to the human butterfly

Peter Russell says, “The global crisis we are now facing is, at its root, a crisis in consciousness- a crisis born of the fact that we have prodigious technological powers but still remain half awake. We need to awaken to who we are and what we really want. It is time to awaken and step into the wisdom required to use power for the benefit of all beings.

In our caterpillar consciousness we suffer from the illusion of human superiority. Theodore Rosak says, “As the prevailing reality principle would have it, nothing could be greater madness than to believe that beast and plant, mountain and river, have a ‘point of view.’’’…As a result, trees and lizards and plants and bacteria can be treated as things to be owned, cut down, experimented on, sold, processed, killed or consumed without regard for any interior depth or intelligence on their part.” Stephen Buhner in The Lost Language of Plants says “Extending equal value to plants - to treat them as human beings - is as laughable and inconceivable to most people now as it once was to extend equal value to women or slaves.” Yet, in the book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird they report The scientist Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose, (in the early 1900’s) was able to demonstrate visually that all the characteristics of animal tissues were also found in those of plants. Perhaps you’ve heard about the two caterpillars crawling on the ground together: They look up and see a butterfly flying by. The first one says, “What the heck is that?” The second caterpillar takes a look and says, “I don’t know but you’ll never find me up there in one of them!” We are likewise so convinced that we are a mind-body package that has a spirit, it is difficult to fathom that we are primarily infinite consciousness, manifesting in form.

When caterpillars transition into butterflies, there is point at which the first butterfly cells, which are called “imaginal” cells, are destroyed. They are perceived as enemies to the caterpillar consciousness. It is only when there is enough of them coming into being at the same time, that a system’s shift takes place. Once the shift takes place, butterfly becomes the prevailing paradigm. Perhaps Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, were among the first “imaginal cells” of the human butterfly, perceived as a threat to the old caterpillar mentality. Many of you may have heard the story of a compassionate person who tried to help out an emerging butterfly by making a cut in the chrysalis as it was struggling to emerge. The result was that the butterfly was never able to fly. We learn that even the struggle can be considered part of the birth pangs, difficult but necessary for us to build up the required muscle needed for us to “take flight.” As we make the transition, from thinking that we are a separate human beings, to realizing that we are intrinsic infinite awareness, one with all that is, we transform ourselves from caterpillar to butterfly. Henry Beston, in “The Lost Language of Plants says only through the earth may we be as one with all who have been and all who are yet to be, sharers and partakers of the mystery of living, reaching to the full of human peace and the full of human joy.

So, In the light of what we now know: What caterpillar behaviors, mind-sets, circumstances, or beliefs would you like to leave behind? You can imagine yourself taking a broom and sweeping them into a fireplace. You can then ignite them and see them disappearing into sheer energy, readily available to bring life to the new seeds you wish to plant. What are the seeds that are growing beneath the surface in your life? What new seeds do you wish to plant? Imagine what it is that you would like to see growing in your life and imagine planting these seeds in the Earth. “See-ds” are our vision and they are by their nature a “pre-view” of what is to manifest! You can water them and leave an offering as a token of your appreciation to Mother Earth for fertilizing and bringing them to blossom and fruition. Imagine the Sun and all the elements conspiring with you to fulfill your dreams for the benefit of you and the community of life. You can imagine lighting a candle to represent your commitment to do your part in making your dreams come true. And later on, when you are back home, you can enact this process by sweeping away, planting a seed and lighting a candle.

Song: The Great Mystery I’ll leave you with the following observation by Mellen-Thomas Benedict, who was officially dead for over an hour, of what he learned from his experience: In its total energy configuration, the galaxy looked like a fantastic city of lights. All energy this side of the Big Bang is light. Every sub atom, atom, star, planet, even consciousness itself is made of light and has a frequency and/or particle. Light is living stuff. Everything is made of light, even stones. So everything is alive. Everything is made from the Light of God; everything is very intelligent.

Ending Hymn in circle: “Spaceship Earth” © Esther Frances, January 24, 2008

We face the greatest challenge we’ve ever faced. We are all part of the tree of life. Humans, like other creatures are like the leaves, sitting on many different branches, yet dependent on the very same trunk. Chief Seattle’s wisdom comes to us in the phrase “The Earth doesn’t belong to us. We belong to the Earth.” This is difficult for those of us raised on the cornflakes of human supremacy to swallow, yet unless we digest this essential message we doom ourselves to extinction. Each day newcomers are added to the endangered species list. The absence of the human species on the list is a glaring statement of our failure to connect the dots and acknowledge the interdependence of all life.

A part of our population, fueled by ignorance and greed, is sawing through our trunk. Each being on Earth depends on clean water, clean air, and healthy topsoil. It’s time to realize that our most threatening enemy is our ignorance. Our delusion, that we are somehow separate from the natural world and each other, is what we must annihilate! We can no longer try to make a particular part of our planet or population the scapegoat. The notion that we can get rid of all our problems by removing or imprisoning the part of our population that makes visible the problem is as erroneous as thinking you can get rid of measles and stop the disease from spreading by putting on makeup.

Our planet is ill and reaching critical condition. Humans are engaged in matricide. As our newspapers are glutted with blurbs that tabulate the effects of human pollution, we seem to be paralyzed. We haven’t yet realized that instead of fighting and competing with each other, we can pool our talents, creativity and courage into a cooperative re-visioning of the human community as integral with the Earth.

It’s apparent to some that the “emperor has no clothes.” Yet it is inevitable that we will deny the costume or lack of it, if we still deny that there is an emperor. Our modern Darth Vader is the corporate world, in collusion with government. Faceless and hidden, these mysterious figures deftly and invisibly manipulate the world economics under the table. Who are these masked bandits dictating the policies that devastate our natural world who and who sell us illusions, addictions and distractions?

When my Father and his brothers owned and operated a clothing manufacturing business, the company bore the family name. They lived in the same town as their employees, saw them outside of the work venue; they knew their parents and their children. They were visible and accountable, in contrast to the corporate kingpins, who are so remote from their workers they can easily depersonalize them, turn them into statistics and numbers that they can then maneuver and manipulate with no experience of the anguish their policies create.

Mergers allow benign sounding “cookie making” companies to be the parents of companies that engineer genetic foods, which decimate the insects, kill the birds and poison the soil. Major corporations control the media and newspapers, insuring that news will be censored, filtered and distorted to create appearances that falsify what is really going on. The same company that is your ally in the “war” on tooth decay may also create warfare used on humans and the planet alike.

Our country was founded to combat “taxation without representation.” Taxes go to further the war machine and to subsidize corporations whose top executives make more in a year than many will see in a lifetime. An important value is freedom, yet corporate interests have lobbied to effectively prevent us from even knowing the contents of the food we buy! They hide genetically manipulated or irradiated ingredients by purposefully keeping this information off the labels! How can we think we have choice? Let’s break through the illusion of what we’ve been told to believe and dare to see what’s in front of us. Democracy is dependent upon accurate and full information from which we make our choices.

While it is important to take off the corporate mask and insist that the corporations comply with “Earth Ethics,” we must not single them out as the only embodiment of wrongdoing. If we do, we evade our responsibility, take on the victims’ stance and tell the truth but not the whole truth. The whole truth asks us to ask ourselves in what ways we support and collaborate with corporate power. If we have investments, are they designed to earn the most they can at any cost, or are they in alignment with ecological and humanistic values? Do we run to the megachain- store to save a few dollars and unconsciously put local businesses, the folks we know and who are generally accountable to us, out of business? Do we complain to each other yet fear to speak out or stand up to protect what is threatened?

Corporations may be the culprits but unless we give them our minds and bodies they can’t function. Until enough of us awaken to and see through the illusion of the separate self, the acceleration of “us versus them” will be sure to increase. From the perspective of separation, it is inevitable that we would be pitted against each other. Yet, it is the belief of both “victim and victimizer” that perpetuates the system.

In the Sixties, Buffy Sainte Marie sang the great song “Universal Soldier”- reminding us that no army can function without individuals giving them their bodies. Likewise, if we allow ourselves to be drafted into policies that don’t comply with our well-being, we also play a role in the destruction. From a whole system assessment we can all see that the present crisis reflects a crisis in consciousness. Our false identity as separate and superior life forms has caused us to act out these assumptions in ways that we now recognize are threatening the entire web of life on Earth.

In ecological observation it is noted that great problems occur because of the imported species - the “exotics”- that are not indigenous to a bioregion and which often wipe out the native species. Habitats are successfully restored and rehabilitated primarily by the removal of the exotics. Native species spontaneously come back on their own. It seems that the most destructive “exotic” is the mind-set that has allowed us to think we are separate from each other and from Mother Earth. Letting go of this idea and the behaviors that accompany it, enacts a radical transformation that allows the innate underground knowing to re-emerge and revises the ways in which humans live as part of the Earth community.

Isn’t consumerism the manufactured behavior that eclipsed our natural capacity for satisfaction and fulfillment? We are lured into the mind trap that says our happiness depends on what we own rather than who we are. Yet, the collusion of government and corporation has been fleecing all but the tiny wealthy minority, step by step disassembling the protective laws that were designed to safeguard us against monopoly and centralization of power. “The many” find it harder to cover the bases in basic survival while “the few” are favored with sizable tax breaks and favoritism that enables them to indulge in luxuries.

Nature is paradoxical. We are both the One and the many. We are united in essence and unique in form. When we lose touch with the spiritual experience of unity, humans act out a perverse form of “oneness” in which differences are regarded as something to be eliminated. The dominant western culture has been like a steamroller paving over cultural and ecological diversity. It is both diversity and unity that allow us deep communion. Subjective knowing makes life worthwhile. As more and more of us wake up, we can uproot “monomania” and advocate for diverse solutions, designed for specific bioregions and cultures.

Peace creates peace. The “powers that be” learned from the Vietnam War that hiding news of American aggression keeps Americans in the dark – placid and unquestioning. Adults still seem to be able to distinguish between the Hollywood versions of assault and the “real life” atrocities. The war makers know that what is out of the range of the senses is hard to apprehend. Like radiation, what we do not see doesn’t “make sense to us.” It is too abstract. When we are spared seeing the actual devastation of bombs, it’s much easier to agree with the idea that the opponent is the agent of harm, giving us full justification to take whatever measures we “need to” in order to stop the apparent threat in full ignorance of the atrocities committed by our military in supposed defense. We also discount the destruction of wildlife, soil, water and air, as well as innocent civilians.

School shootouts and child murderers have come into being. I began this essay in the weeks following the massacre at Columbine. I continue to write while funerals are taking place for school children and teachers who were taken hostage in Beslan, Russia. Why are we surprised when a whole generation of youngsters is raised on nonstop footage of violent “heros” who track down and kill the “enemy?” They learn that the way to resolve conflict is to destroy our opponents – those identified as the problem. Constant repetition desensitizes us to a multitude of violent behaviors.

The all-pervading media machine becomes the omnipresent teacher of children. Their favorite recreation at the malls is the arcade. Parents feed machines quarters in the spirit of providing their kids with a good time. I did it too, succumbing to the pressure of whines and pleas by my young child, he, not old enough and me, not wise enough, to differentiate what was beneficial or harmful to his well-being. We temporarily pacify our kids with diversion. We give them a quick fix - an experience intense and overwhelming to the senses. Aren’t these games the conditioning that makes it easier for them as adults to destroy real people who they regard or label as an “enemy?” We call it entertainment.

Central to these “games” are the activities of finding enemies and shooting them down without the groans that accompany actual pain. They drive too fast and win races without injuries and death. They imagine themselves as sports heros, making vicarious home runs, touchdowns or baskets. What’s wrong with the natural high that come from actual physical activity?

We are taught to sort people into “good guys” and “bad guys.” It’s ok for the “good guys” to act like the “bad guys” if the “good guys” believe that the “bad guys” started it or if we believe that the behavior of the “bad guys” was so bad it justifies and makes it all right for the “good guys” to do the very same actions that the “bad guys” do because it’s done by the “good guys” to combat the “bad guys.” This dualistic thinking creates a non-ending cycle of reactivity that can only cease by seeing the inherent trap in the thinking itself. It is like the right and left hands engaging in a battle for supremacy. Until they realize they are a part of the same body they continue to unwittingly hurt their mutual self.

The media teaches kids that it is ok to return hostility when they feel pain, attack or threat. Marshall McLuhan articulated the statement “The medium is the message.” We are now discovering the significance of his realization. Images filled with sensory and emotional content pack a powerful message unequaled by the “cool” medium of a talk.

Television provides role models and endless examples of pain producing behavior. Children and adults are calloused and our abilities for empathy are stunted. Kids see heads of countries rationalize “war” on foreign enemies, crime, and disease. We wonder why kids opt for these behaviors!

Terrorism creates terror. It is not ok to engage in terrorist actions in response to terrorist actions. This makes no sense.

The media culture venerates youth and belittles elders. Inter-generational contact is minimal. Kids look to their peers, who are as bewildered and alienated as they are, for direction and validation. We can learn from ancient, indigenous cultures, which remember that young and old have a symbiotic relationship. Youngsters keep elders in touch with play while youth are enriched by the wisdom of experience.

The good news is a growing number of people are hearing the “wake up call. ” The liberating and frightening truth is that we are already in the midst of breakdown. Why not embrace a vision of what eco-theologian Thomas Berry has called the Ecozoic Era, a time when human’s live with each other and Earth in a mutually beneficial manner?

We learned the power of intention when humans committed to the vision of putting a person on the moon. Organizations such as ZERI, (zero emissions reduction initiative), and the Rocky Mountain Institute demonstrate that technology can be used in alignment with nature. We can choose to make the commitment.

Stories that inspire us with the wonder of life need to the center of our educational formats. Reverence and respect for all the diverse expressions of life on Mother Earth can be cultivated and celebrated. Science has unearthed for us a magnificent “universe story” which we all can look to for a sense of belonging and blessedness.

Education can emphasize the commonality and interdependence of all life. We can learn that we can respect differences. We don’t need to be afraid of people who don’t look or think the same as we do. We can learn that there are ways to resolve conflict that do not attempt to remove “opposition.” We can take the healing and stewardship of our planet as our mutual and noble calling. We can learn true community and teamwork, cherishing the wisdom of tribal and religious cultures, sifting them to preserve the grains of wisdom that will sustain us in this time of planetary awakening, discarding irrelevant ideas.

We must expose the illusion a country’s government represents the wishes and sentiments of its people. Most citizens don’t know what is being done in their names. If they do know, they are often are powerless to change their governments policy. Yet people are told they have the means to direct and control their government. All over the planet, horrible things are being done by governments, without the awareness and consent of the people living within their borders. If this was fully understood it would go a long way to counter the hate and prejudice that arises from blaming the people for their government’s actions. Witness the planet-wide expression of opposition to the war in Iraq, and the clear evidence that the dominating powers did not represent the will of all the people.

Our most important challenge is to remember that all life is sacred. When everything is regarded with respect and dignity, we cannot rationalize that the means justifies the ends. People could no longer be demonized and the cruel conditions of factory farming could no longer be tolerated.

Peace is a dynamic process. It requires courage, action and awareness. We must awaken to our common threat. We must redirect the energy previously wasted in conflict toward appreciating and preserving the awesome gift of life on Earth. Our common heritage bonds all of Earth’s life forms together. Humans have forgotten that the physical, natural world is a manifestation of divine presence. As we reawaken our sense of the sacred, our latent “sense-abilities” and work together to create a new way of being in residence on Earth, We’ll discover true wealth. The accumulation of money will be seen as a mere token. We’ll turn off the road of competition, fear, domination and hoarding and onto the paths of cocreation and compassion. We will work together to find how to share our resources for the benefit of all.

May we find the courage to initiate the changes we wish to see in the world, the wisdom to carry them out intelligently and the heart to love with generosity and compassion. May we recognize that we are falling apart so we can come together. May we be alchemists and transform the ravages of war to exuberant, creative peace. May we recognize the breakdown of our human domination as the breakthrough to a way of living in harmony with Mother Earth and all of her kin. May we recognize the dark night of our species as the prelude to dawn, new birth, re-birth, into a new era. The myth of separation is replaced with a new story that reinvents and re-defines who we are, rooted in our identity as particle and wave, energy and matter, physical and meta-physical. May we recognize that the “uni-verse” is awakening within us, as us, enabling us to realize we are the Earth in the form of unique human beings, each with gifts to share, in a co-creative, cooperative re-creation of the Earth community. May we live in full respect and wonder for the web of life, in and around us, recognizing the miracle and magnificence of all life from micro to macro!