A mix of Maori, Eastern and Celtic Pagan mysticism.
Learn some new words in Māori during Mahuru Māori/Māori Language Month. Here are the various times of the day...enjoy! Waenganui pō - Midnight Te Pō - Night Atapō - Before Dawn Ata Hapāra - Breath of Dawn Atatū - Just after sunrise Awatea - River of Light Ata - Morning Poupoutanga o te rā -…
Continue reading ➞ Wāhanga o Te Rā/ Times of the Day in Māori
Do you need some hope in your life? Do you want to feel some love and light in your bones and restore some wairua (spirit) to your life? Here is a beautiful Māori waiata (song) Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art). I'm not really that religious, but this song made me feel something in my…
Continue reading ➞ Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art) by Hollie Smith & Teeks
For every force, there is a counter force. Violence, even well intentioned, Always rebounds upon oneself.
*No spoilers Recently translated into English from German, The Pine Islands tells the story of Gilbert Silvester, a stuffy middle-aged lecturer in Germany. His area of academic specialisation is beard fashions in film. One day he finds out his wife is cheating on him (or so he believes, we never discover the truth). So he…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann
Wherever you are, whatever stresses you are feeling, just remember the free and beautiful moments and memories from your world, relish and collect them and hold them close to you. They will sustain your heart when it feels fragile and sustain your soul when you are riven with fear. You have oceans of love inside…
Continue reading ➞ Hold the shell of your consciousness to your ear
Today is the longest night and the shortest day in one of the most southerly capital cities in the world. There rain and hail is incessant and the amber glow of my salt lamp guides my thoughts towards reflecting on life, love, and the progress of time. Yule is a time to give thanks and…
The Book of Symbols is a masterpiece of art history, philosophy, mysticism, psychology, anthropology, biology and spirituality. It brings together the history of various symbols, concepts and objects from many cultures and civilisations.
The Greek goddess Athena had as her sacred animal familiar the owl, also known as the Athene Noctua in Latin. The Romans, fond as they were of stealing from the Greek pantheon, renamed Athena to Minerva. Athena and her owl are considered to be symbols of wisdom, in both cultures. Silver tetradrachm coin at the…
Continue reading ➞ Ancient word of the day: Athene Noctua or Athena’s Owl
This crisis that everyone is in right now poses a range of unique opportunities for us as the dominant species on earth. This is the first time in human history that we as a sentient and conscious species have a three opportunities for growth as a collective: Limitless capabilities for (virtual) communication across time and…
Continue reading ➞ Comforting Thought: Within crisis is opportunity for growth, compassion and love
"Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it." — Marcus Aurelius (The Emperor's Handbook)
We do a lot of looking; we look through lenses, telescopes and TVs. Our looking is perfected every day - but we see less and less. Never has it been more urgent to speak of seeing...we are onlookers, spectators. 'Subjects' we are, that look at 'objects'. Quickly, we stick labels on all that is, labels…
Briana Saussy writer and founder of the Sacred Arts Academy in San Antonio, Texas has written an intimate, enjoyable and joyful guide to the art of creating spiritual rituals and ceremonies in your home. Making Magic is organised by technique and material. It makes the everyday rituals in our lives sacred and adds pleasure and…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: Making Magic by Briana Saussy
“Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favor of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff."
“That’s the dream of replication: infinite attention, infinite regard. The machinery of the internet has made it a democratic possibility, as television never could, since the audience in their living rooms necessarily far outnumbered the people who could be squeezed into the box. Not so with the internet, where anyone with access to a computer…
Continue reading ➞ Infinite attention, infinite regard and the minor deities of the internet
Just keep laughing...that's all we can do... https://twitter.com/finty_williams/status/1240249008125337602 Teach me Senpai https://twitter.com/AnimeCuIture/status/1240707906955145216 21st Century Masters: Still Life with Bog Roll & Hand Sanitiser Feline Powered Gravity https://twitter.com/ziyatong/status/1240303392188248070 Hungry Hungry Sock Puppets https://twitter.com/gnuman1979/status/1239523796542992387 Have you seen any other funny things out there on the wilds of the internet lately? I am finding the more serious this…
Continue reading ➞ Being in isolation brings out people’s sense of humour
He who rules men lives in confusion;He who is ruled by men lives in sorrow.Yao therefore desiredNeither to influence othersNor to be influenced by them.The way to get clear of confusionAnd free of sorrowIs to live with TaoIn the land of the great Void. Chuang Tzu (300 B.C.) Water of Leith at dusk, Edinburgh. Copyright…
And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. A terrace house in Sevilla, Spain. © Content Catnip 2010 And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the…
Continue reading ➞ Comforting Thought: And the people stayed home by Kitty O’Meara
It may be when we no longer know what to do, We have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, We have begun our real journey. Wendell Berry (b. 1934) is a poet, farmer, writer and activist. Frozen Lake Menteith in Scotland during mid-winter. Copyright Content…
Continue reading ➞ Comfortingh Thought The challenge of a life’s time and a lifetime
The time will comewhen, with elationyou will greet yourself arrivingat your own door, in your own mirrorand each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat.You will love again the stranger who was your self.Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heartto itself, to the stranger who has loved you Watermelons during…
Continue reading ➞ Arriving at your own door by Derek Walcott
“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I…
“The desert could not be claimed or owned–it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names... Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished…
This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesas an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still, treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you outfor some new delight. The dark…
Continue reading ➞ Comforting Thought: This being human is a guest house
Vladimir Nabokov on butterflies and timelessness
The last gasp of Victorian spirituality infused cutting-edge science with old-school mysticism. Theosophy was all the rage; Many weird and and wonderful ideas being developed at the turn of the century around death, ghosts, the fourth dimension filled the Victorians with a palpable sense of possibility.
