Dear Reader,

The Sacred Season is a time of miracles – for Christians, hosts of angels and a guiding star that proclaimed the birth of Jesus. For Jews, Hanukkah is a festival of miracles great and small, when a small supply of consecrated oil for the Temple Menorah burned eight days and the Maccabees were victorious over armies of far greater strength. And Yule, the winter solstice, marks the return of the sun to the northern hemisphere. Ancients looked to the miracle of light as a sign of rebirth and a source of hope.

And so, I sometimes wonder in these troubled times, where are the miracles we need today? Matters of the world feel overwhelming and drain away our spiritual energy. Yet, paradoxically, the everyday world also enriches and restores our spirit. Maybe the miracle we seek is closer than we think.

In the Chandogya Upanishad it is said:

smaller than a mustard seed…
This is the Self dwelling in my heart,
greater than the earth, greater than the sky,
greater than all the worlds.

Jesus echoed these words when he said, “the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed”, meaning that the seed of the miraculous is a microcosm of the whole Universe. And when we tend this seed in the soil of our heart, the miraculous bursts forth.

Miracles, enlightenment, union with the Divine – these are not reserved for the educated, the holy, the initiated. The miraculous is for all of us. And as the light slowly returns, that is the promise this Sacred Season holds.

In loving peace,

Kosmos

Visit the Kosmos Gallery of Poets for the Sacred Season 

Selected Poems

Andrea Potos

When the Consolation of a Word Comes to You

Not detach, which sounds too much
about the retina, and this is not about the eye

but the heart, and its gates––
unlatch and allow yourself to roam

beyond what is hurting you, further into the fields
and meadows––there, find a spot

to kneel down in the deep, fragrant grasses,
make a bed for your body where the summer
is still singing your name.

Andrea Potos lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she worked as a bookseller in independent bookshops.  She is the author of six books of poetry, including Marrow of Summer and Mothershell (Kelsay Books).  Recent poems are published in How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope  and The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy, (Storey Publishing). Her new book of poems, Her Joy Becomes, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press later this year.

Jerrice J. Baptiste

Living In This World

To live in this world you must be able to live in communities even where water is scarce. Travel the rough terrain barefoot with a basket of carrots, cabbage, eggplant, malanga, ginger on your head, for miles in the sticky heat, to the street market. Sit your neighbor’s babies on both hips rocking them to your Kréyol lullaby. Give thanks to the white pearl moon and blue stars glowing upon you in the corner of the earth you call home. Listen to the brewing rhythm of grey thunder and give thanks for silver rain drops in your buckets.  Collect water for tomorrow. In your eyes gather the purple night sky, the mauve clouds, and the intimate sound of crickets. Breathe the sweet red air of hibiscus closing petals. Lie still. The days are long. Give thanks to the green earth. Give thanks. Give thanks.

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines such as The Yale Review, Mantis, The Shawangunk Review, Eco Theo Review and many others. Jerrice has been the featured poet on Planet Poet Words in Space, at the Woodstock Poetry Society, and at the International Women’s Writing Guild.

Read more poetry by Joan Mazza, Linda Dimitrioff, Melanie Green, and Rivka Crowbourne HERE

The emerging spirituality is not a new religion, since its members include devout practitioners of a wide range of the world’s beautiful religions along with humanists and atheists. It stands on the shoulders of the interfaith movement of the past century and the explosion of access to scriptures and practices that were once held in secret or confined to groups in the know. In the 1960s and 1970s, Eastern spiritual concepts came into popular Western culture through such modern interpreters as Alan Watts and Ram Dass, while renewed interest in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi grew. Popular music sang out messages of peace and the Beatles spread the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, telling us that “All We Need is Love.” The young Dalai Lama began traveling the world with his infectious smile and emphasis on simple kindness. Eastern health technologies such as acupuncture and yoga gained popular acceptance and, far and wide, people began to meditate. East meets West.

In the meantime, North was meeting South as indigenous cultures began to encounter one another in fulfillment of the legendary Eagle and Condor prophesy, which says that the uniting of the masculine and feminine energies of North and South could bring about a next level of consciousness for humanity. At the same time, respect for indigenous wisdom was growing, especially in the face of looming climate change, runaway pollution poisoning our air, water and soil, and other challenges caused by modern civilization’s disregard for our natural habitat. The recent historic stand at Standing Rock to protect water for future generations increased solidarity among indigenous peoples and those willing to stand with them to honor the Earth.

Our worldview was perhaps destined to change from the moment we saw the first picture of the Earth from the Apollo8 mission in 1968, dubbed “Earthrise,” showing our stunning blue planet rising from the darkness of space. And the new physics is helping us to peer into the mystery with a radically new sense of consciousness pervading all reality.

From all directions, our eyes are opening to one planet, one people, one life in a universe that teems with purpose.

READ MORE

watercolor images by R.Fabian, using DALL-E