A ROOTS AND WINGS BLOG by GLENN SCHIFFMAN

2/02/2023

1/31/2023

1/30/2023

Rumi poem

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

S/He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi

1/19/2023

1/16/2023

The Universal Language

"He who knows the secret of sound,
knows the mystery of the whole universe."
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

1/13/2023

The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts or gravitational wave events. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present in our bodies in only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all known life. The featured periodic table is color coded to indicate humanity's best guess as to the nuclear origin of all known elements. The sites of nuclear creation of some elements, such as copper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.

1/11/2023

See the Journey Whole

For Those Who

Have Far to Travel

"If you could see the journey whole, you might never undertake it,  might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not.

Call it one of the mercies of the road: that we see it only by stages as it opens before us, as it comes in to our keeping, step by single step.

There is nothing for it but to go, and by our going take the vows the pilgrim takes:

~to be faithful to the next step;  to rely on more than the map; to heed the sign posts of intuition and dream; to follow the star that only you  will recognize;

~ to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend the path; to press on beyond distractions, beyond fatigue, beyond what would tempt you from the way.

There are vows that only you will know: the secret promises for your particular path and the new ones you will need to make when the road  is revealed  by turns you could not have foreseen.

Keep them, break them, make them again; each promise becomes part of the path, each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel to offer the gift most needed— the gift that only you can give— 

before turning to go home by another way."

~ Jan Richardson

1/07/2023

Old Folk Aphorisms

Dance Pray Heal

Seven steps

Jung Gratitude Quote

Stone Man Says

12/28/2022

Whitefish Xms

The Rich

Gaia

Hitchens

Tree of Life

Screenshot

12/23/2022

Shamanic shift

Describing her childhood training in the Indigenous Sciences

of the Oneida tradition, our teacher and colleague,

Paula Underwood Spencer, wrote:

"Since Universe is Energy, part of the process of understanding, at least as I experience it, is to learn to 'see' flows of energy and specificities of energy.

Both are necessary. Because, you see, Universe is both Whole and Specific. Western science is beginning to understand this through explorations about particle and wave.

Both particle/particularity/specificity of Universe and the wave/flow of Universe were aspects I was encouraged as a child to apprehend and understand. I was asked to 'see' the dancing points of light and then to apprehend the shift from location to flow. Much of shamanic practice has to do

with developing the ability to enter and use this shift."

12/16/2022

Ravens and Wolves

12/05/2022

The Veil lifts

"God is not always silent and humans are not always blind. In every person’s life there are moments when there is a lifting of the veil at the horizon of the known, opening a sight of the eternal. Each of us has at least once in our life experienced the momentous reality of God... The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith.In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response." ~ Rabbi Abraham Heschel

2/05/2023