Daily Signet

Clouds threaten overhead and thicken in the sky. 
The ground swells and shifts beneath my feet. 
The fountains of the deep burst open 
and the flood gates of the sky swing wide apart. 
All that was known, awash with the unknown; 
all that was grounded, upended and unleashed. 
What was overhead and underfoot, 
now a blur with rain and flood, 
and I am launched in search of dry ground, 
in quest of life renewed. 

From The Mystery of the Quest Service

On This Day…

Navaratri begins (Hindu)— a 9 night festival that honors the Moterh Goddess in all her manifestations, including Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

St. Theresa of Avila: mystic and religious founder, D. 1582

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) born in 70 BC in Virgilio, Lombardy, Italy: Roman poet, author of The Ecologues, The Georgics and The Aneid
Quotes: “Each of us bears his own hell.” “Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.”

Helen Hunt Jackson born in 1830 in Amherst, Maine, died 1885: activist for improved treatment of American Indians and writer remembered for Ramona, A Century of Dishonor and A Calendar of Sonnets   
Quotes: “By all these lovely tokens, September days are here, with summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer.” “Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; each to his passion, what’s in a name?”

Daily Signet

Most of the monsters we meet on the way are brought with us and we see them reflected now in the outer world in their familiars which they have drawn to us. Kill the monsters within and the monsters without will disappear. Don't carry them and nourish them in you as you go. The world will still have challenges to be done but without the hopeless burden of your monsters.                         

William Boast

On This Day…

Annular Solar Eclipse

New Moon

Daily Signet

The fullest experience of truth in this life requires that one anticipate one’s death—both its proximity and its facticity; death is one of our givens.  In order to have the experience of authenticity in our lives, we must face it head on. It is what allows us to live most authentically.

The moment to live authentically is now. Nothing brings us into the moment as does the proximity and fact of our death.  

The time to be deeply and powerfully alive is always now. 
Now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.             

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Anniversary of the death of Nichiren Shonin (Buddhism, Mahayana)

Daily Signet

John Stevens has written a book called The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. He tells of an order of Buddhist monks in Japan whose practice is running. At 1:30 every morning, they start to run and their course covers from eighteen to twenty-five miles. The mountain's most treacherous area is called "the slope of instant sobriety." These monks run every night. They do not change their schedule because of season or weather. They wear white robes rather than the traditional black because white is the color of death, and there is always the chance that they will die while running. While they run, they each carry a sheath knife and a length of rope. If they fail in their nightly quest on this path of danger, they have vowed to take their own lives.                                                                           

Donna Leichtling

On This Day…

Ghambar Ayathrem begins — Zarathushti celebration of the creation of plants, the sowing of the winter crop and the return of herds from pasture

Daily Signet

All quests begin with death—
the death of the old, 
the destruction of baggage, 
the letting go of the acquired self. 
Songs of leaving and letting go, 
songs of seeking and hoping for, 
songs of visions and suspecting more. 
We chant the dance of ghostly warriors. 
We sing the motif of knightly priests. 
Songs of goodbyes and uncharted travels, 
songs of departures and unknown places, 
songs of attaining and pursuing more. 
We lament the loss of those who were holding us. 
We lament the loss of that which we held. 
Songs of farewells and the unexpected. 
Songs of no more and the untested, 
songs of the new and the forsaken, 
we weave a melody of enchantment, 
as we improvise this, our song of death.                                            

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

St. Gomer: 2 C patron saint of unhappy husbands, and invoked against hernias