Daily Signet

Image by Tony Mucci on Unsplash

In apocryphal tradition, the Hebrew women: Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca and Rachel all knew the heartsong that could bring forth a miraculous wellspring of water in the midst of the desert. Tradition has it that Zipporah, Moses’ wife, taught it to her sister-in-law, Miriam. Together the two women tended this wellspring through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness and were known for their abilities to heal the sick and restore hope to the despondent. The story goes that wherever the people journeyed, the well-traveled with them, and when they camped, it settled opposite the Tabernacle. Twelve crones, one chosen from each tribe by Miriam and Zipporah, would bring their spindles to the well and declare, “Spring up, O Well” and the water would shoot up as high as the tallest date palms, then cascade into great rivers. And each day the people would sail in ships down the rivers to visit one another. The waters emptied into the plains that surrounded the camp, and it nourished the fruit trees under which grew the fragrant herbs that the women used as perfume, as well as the soft mosses that provided beds and pillows for the poor. 

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Conrad Aiken born in Savannah, Ga., 1889, died 1973: poet, writer, Pulitzer Prize recipient
Works: “The House of Dust”, “Blue Voyage”, “A Love for the Gods of Mexico”
Quotes: “All lovely things will have an ending. All lovely things will fade and die; and youth, that’s now so bravely spending, will beg a penny by and by.”
“I love you, what star do you live on?”
“Separate we come, and separate we go, and this be it known, is all that we know.”

Daily Signet

K’un over K’un hexagram

Earth above, earth below. K'un over K'un. 
Three broken lines over three broken lines. 
The Chinese hexagram for Yin or the receptive. 
Its attribute, devotion; its image, earth. 
Yin, the receptive.
Its power, in devotion, 
its glory, through reception. 
The creative initiates; 
the receptive gives birth. 

Three broken lines above.
Hear our prayer, O God.
Three broken lines below.
Use us. Use us. Use us.
K'un above—an asking in.
K'un below—a response of service. 

O Beloved Spirit,                                                 
Pair our need to be still, to listen, to receive 
with our longing to be more, to create, to achieve. 
Teach us the three broken lines above,
placed over the three broken lines below 
that we may channel the earth of us 
and give birth to the best of us.  Amen.                                              

Benjamin H. Martin

On This Day…

Percy Shelley born in Sussex, Eng., 1792, died 1822: Romantic poet
Works: “Ozymandias”, “Queen Mab”, “Adonais”
Quotes: “O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

Daily Signet

Mother Mary Francis

I have come to know that revelations are not to us, but of us. We are to make revelations of ourselves—our deepest, realist Selves, and to recognize and be grateful for the revelations of others. As Mother Mary Francis wrote, “We are all mysteries of God’s love, private revelations of his wisdom.”                                                                 

Donna Piper Leichtling

Daily Signet

Image by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

The Greeks held that philo-sophia—the love of Sophia, wisdom—begins in wonderment. One of the greatest wonderments is that “understanding everything,” having it all figured out, can be a big roadblock to wisdom. It seems correct to have personified wisdom as a woman, Sophia. Wisdom is living knowledge, earthy, blood-rich knowledge—the knowledge of the womb, and when personified as the Hindu Goddess, Kali—the knowledge of the tomb, as well. To wonder, you need a capacity for bafflement or an ability to imagine a world as other than it commonly and good-sensibly appears. You can’t be close-minded and filled with wonder, both. Only when you stand empty of answers, can you be filled with hope. Only the receptive can give birth.

Teri Martin

On This Day…

James Baldwin born in New York City, 1924, died 1987 in Paris: writer, social critic
Works: “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, “Another Country”, “Notes of a Native So”
Quotes: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
“Love does not begin and end in the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is growing up.”

Daily Signet

Fill us with the music of water
and the nurture of mountain, 
the truth of labor,
the power of submission.
May our He and She be conjoined
so we may conceive, 
give birth, be born again.
For She enfolds all that was, that is, that will be
and yet, she unfolds into all that is new, 
that is young, that is alive. 
In Her timeless pattern, She carries us 
upon Her waves of labor and brings us to our birth 
over and over again.                                                               

Benjamin H Martin

On This Day…

St. Joseph of Arimathea

Lammas - old English church festival of harvest when loaves of bread made from the first grain harvested are consecrated

Lughnassadh - pagan celebration of the beginning of harvest season