Our attention is pulled from one horrific unfolding to the next in a constant onslaught of news and information. Just when we didn’t think it could get any worse. Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

And I hear so many wondering what we can do, especially within this current situation of hibernation and physical distancing. We can’t hold rallies. We can’t march and protest. We feel helpless. 

Yes, there are many amazing stories of neighbors helping neighbors and communities taking care of their people. It’s what we can do. Yet on a larger scale of politics and legislation and social injustice, we feel powerless to react with anything but frustration.

What we can do.

We can choose not to swim in the turbulent waters of constant rage, outrage, and emotional reaction. 

We can choose instead to stand in a calmer place of detached witnessing to what is happening.

We can stay grounded and centered and take care of ourselves emotionally and spiritually.

For it is from this place of ground and center, that we will know what we can do. We will know when it is time for right action instead of reaction.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith @stonefires.com

Elder & Ancestor Wisdom

I am the fiery life of the Divine Essence.

I am the flame above the beauty in the fields.

I shine in the waters. I burn in the sun, the moon,
and the stars.

And with the airy wind, I quicken all things by an unseen, all-sustaining life.

Hildegard von Bingen
Mystic & Saint
1098-1179

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Photo: Statue of Hildegard as a young woman.

Elder & Ancestor Wisdom

Life. There is a balance and harmony to it all. To sit on a hill apart from human beings you may be able to feel all this. Then it may come to you that you are not an outside observer. You are one with all Creation, a relative to all that is.

The truth of Creation is within you, within all of us. Let therefore your own spirit debate or confirm or expand these messages passed to us by the elders, thought upon and verified by centuries even millennia of human experience.

Manitonquat
Elder. Now ancestor.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Pan and Green Man
walked into a bar.
Lucky bastards.
pandemic humor

I understand Pan had a great sense of humor. However he is more commonly known for being an unbridled creative force of nature. In ancient Greek spirituality and mythology, Pan is the god of of wild places and wildlife, of groves, caves, and wooded glens where he enjoyed the company of forest deities. His dominion also included hunters, shepherds, flocks, pasturelands, and rustic music. Through his deep connection with Earth cycles and seasons, he was a symbol of fertility and sexuality. The stories abound. 

One of the oldest of Greek gods, there were no temples built to him. He was worshiped in places of nature. For in the early spiritual traditions, there was little distinction between the spirit, natural, and secular worlds. People saw themselves intrinsically woven with the natural world and the natural world was woven in them. This was reflected in Pan’s countenance of being both man and animal with the legs, hindquarters, and horns of a goat.

This harmony, this weaving of human and nature, is not just the purview of Pan. In European cultures, we see this in the Green Man. And this representation of the intrinsic relationship of humans and the natural world is also found in early cultures and traditions around the world. Egypt, Borneo, Nepal, India, Lebanon, Iraq, Tibet, and Mexico all have similar mythic archetypes.

Over time, and with the influences of religious doctrine, people were told to turn away from the natural world. And they came to believe that the natural world was something to fear. It was named wild and dangerous, untamed and unpredictable. The natural world, and those who represented it, became something to rule over and destroy.

And from this fear, we have the word panic. 

Some say that in these times of unprecedented change and chaos, panic is natural. Nothing could be more antithetical. In these times, we are called to return to the natural world, not run from it. Indeed, as Floyd Red Crow Westerman shared in the Hopi prophecy, our alienation from the natural world is what got us here. We have lost our sense of being in harmony with nature. We have lost our original instructions. 

Panic!?! No. Panic is exactly what we don’t need as we navigate our way through these turbulent times. What we need is realignment with the forces of nature, especially the creative forces that can inspire and guide us.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Elder & Ancestor Wisdom

We were told that we would see America come and go. In a sense America is dying, from within, because they forgot the instructions of how to live on earth. It’s the Hopi belief, it’s our belief, that if you are not spiritually connected to the earth, and understand the spiritual reality of how to live on earth, it’s likely that you will not make it.

Everything is spiritual, everything has a spirit, everything was brought here by the creator, the one creator. Water is sacred. Air is sacred. The tree breaths what we exhale, we need what the tree exhales. So we have a common destiny with the tree.

We are all from the earth, and when earth, the water, the atmosphere is corrupted, then it will create its own reaction. The mother is reacting.

In the Hopi prophecy they say the storms and floods will become greater. To me it’s not a negative thing to know that there will be great changes. It’s not negative, it’s evolution. When you look at it as evolution, it’s time, nothing stays the same. You should learn how to plant something. That is the first connection.

You should treat all things as spirit, realize that we are one family. It’s never something like the end. Its like life, there is no end to life.

Floyd Red Crow Westerman

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Elder & Ancestor Wisdom

You represent an unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice.

We so easily forget that our clay has a memory that proceded our minds, a life of its own before it took its present form.

Regardless of how modern we seem, we still remain ancient, sisters and brothers of the one clay. In each of us a different part of the mystery becomes luminous. To truly be and become yourself, you need the ancient radiance of others.

John O’Donohue

The magic of the Bealtaine Festival this year was the incredible number of people from tribes and cultures throughout the globe who came together to share the light of our ancient radiance. To celebrate our common bond as one clay, as one people. 

Yesterday I spoke with Marty who lives at the foot of the Hill of Uisneach. He said the land is still vibrating. 

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

The Hill of Uisneach was eerily quiet when David lit the Bealtaine fire. The few family members and lone piper that joined him were in stark contrast to the thousands that normally gather for this ancient ceremony.

Yet thousands were gathered. As I publish this post, the number of people who watched the live stream and aerial videos has reached more than 168,000. People around the world lit fires and candles and joined together in a celebration of light. A celebration of the re-birth of the land and the coming of summer. A celebration of awakening.

And in these times, a celebration of unity and hope. 

As member of David’s family said, “We’re lighting the fire this year as a symbol of hope and to show that in these trying times there is still light going forwards.”

We watched as David and family lit the fire. Then, the camera pulled back to reveal an enormous heart of smaller fires. David’s gift and surprise for us. A heart fire to ignite the hope and passion in every one of us in that global audience. A heart fire of unity. It was powerful and palpable. 

May the heart fire burn brightly in all of us.

If you have not yet had the opportunity to watch the videos, here is the link.
Uisneach Bealtaine Fire 2020

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Feed the babies 
Who don’t have enough to eat 
Shoe the children 
With no shoes on their feet 
House the people 
Livin’ in the street 
Oh, oh, there’s a solution 

A friend just reflected that there is a ridiculously, overwhelmingly appropriate theme song to your post. She’s absolutely right. Here is the link. Turn up the volume. And feel free to dance!

Fly Like An Eagle

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

elder & Ancestor wisdom

This moment humanity is going through, can be seen as a portal or as a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or go through the portal is up to you. If you get tired about the problem and consume news 24 hours a day, with little energy, always nervous, with pessimism, you will fall into the hole.

But if you take this opportunity to look at you, rethink life and death, take care of yourself and others, you will walk through the portal. Take care of your home, your body, don’t lose the spiritual dimension of this crisis, become like the eagle that sees everything and sees more widely.

There is a social question in this crisis, but also a spiritual one. Have faith, you have been prepared to overcome this crisis. When the storm passes, you will be very important in rebuilding this new world, you must feel good and be strong. Keep a high, happy and bright vibration.Take advantage of this time to exercise your vision and seek your rituals. This is what you can do, serenity in the storm.

Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day, good things radiate what you radiate, now it’s the most important thing. Sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love.

Joseph White Eagle
Of Hopi and Cree Ancestry

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom emerges within the alchemy of experience, knowledge, discernment, and reflection. Before this global pandemic, we were a tad shy of the reflection piece. Catapulting through busy lives at warp speed, we didn’t often take the time for contemplative consideration. But now our lives are woven with a different rhythm.

We have slowed down. Most of us. And our life rhythms have changed dramatically. We are spending more time in our gardens and with the Earth. We are walking our neighborhoods. We are cooking and baking and spending time with family. Yes, for many there is a great deal of fear and anxiety as our social and economic structures are clearly not adequate to support so many of our people in this time of chaos and change.

Yet even within the emotional challenges, there is a slowing down. There is the invitation to reflection and contemplation. Will we all invite the alchemy of wisdom into our lives? Probably not. But who knows, it might just arrive without an intentional invitation. 

Yet whether invited or not, the alchemical relationship of experience, knowledge, discernment, and reflection has shifted for each of us. Every one of us around the globe. And whether invited or not, there is the great possibility that from this new relationship and these new rhythms a new wisdom for the future will emerge.

There is such hope and promise in this.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com