Daily Signet

In Juan Mascaro’s translation of the Isa Upanishad it says, “only actions done in God bind not the soul of man.” And our prayer is “May that which is timeless fill all our days.” Don’t let the trivial, the mundane, the destructive, the obsessive, the political, the disappointing smear off on you. Be on the lookout for an unexpected voice to take your breath away, and call out in you something that is unexpectedly urgent and unexpectedly true.

“Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on earth,” says the Isa Upanishad. May we be held in the rapture of being alive; may we behold the rapture of being alive; may we be beholden to the rapture of being alive; may we hold fast to the truth that we are on the holy ground of being alive.                                                                                              

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger

John Fisher by Hans Holbein the Younger

Sts. Thomas More (1487-1535) and Cardinal John Fisher (1469-1535): More was a lawyer, judge, Member of Parliament, scholar, writer and humanist, tutor of future King Henry VIII, diplomat, Lord Chancellor of England who was martyred for his refusal to swear an oath that he believed King Henry to be head of the Catholic Church in England. Fisher was a priest who served as chaplain to Lady Margaret Beaufort, grandmother of Henry VIII; chancellor of Cambridge, he was responsible for the great improvement in the education provided there. He became Bishop of Rochester and was famous for his writings against Martin Luther. Fisher was Queen Catherine of Aragon’s counselor and her chief support during her struggle against Henry’s attempts to divorce her. Leader of the opposition to Henry’s claim as Head of the Church, he was executed along with More.

Daily Signet

From Meditations upon the Prasna Upanishad

Remain a year, a cycle of time, O Satyakama,
In steadiness, purity and faith.
And if you would know the depth of your soul
live for a year on the pond of your OM.
Watch its ripples in summer, spring, fall, winter.
Map your coves and hidden bars of inner and outer and middle.
And when the time comes
with the help of the sacred Word
you may sound the depth of the Spirit immanent
and attain the height of Brahma transcendent.
Stay for a year, a cycle of time, O Satyakama,
as shoreline mountains correspond to caverns beneath
when one season for you moults to the next
you will know both the heights and depths to which you may dive. 

Teri Martin 

On This Day…

Summer Solistice

Midsummer Litha celebration

American Indian Summer Feast in honor of the seasons

Canadian Native People’s celebration of First Nations Day

Taoist festival honoring Shang-Ti heavenly emperor, father of justice, law and manifestation of the Ti (virguous inner power); celebrates the peak of the Yang half of the year

St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591): educated at the court of the Duke of Mantua, became a Jesuit, served in Rome and died of the plague, contracted while caring for plague victims

Daily Signet

I always knew that everything was filled with the spirit of God—not just we upright primates, but all animals, trees, plants, water, stones. It was unthinkable to me that they could merely be chunks of animated or motionless matter.

I am amazed that there are sentient beings who can look at the components of our world and perceive only skin, petals, crystals, bark. Who can view such unfathomable complexity and regard it as an accidental conglomeration of molecules.

I began to consider what vision might be truer—that of eyes who regard not God’s energy within that which they see—who call a silver maple merely a tree, look upon their neighbor as just a walking blob of cells with verbal capacities, or the evening sky as a darkening void occupied only by glowing bodies flung abroad by no hand. Do they see more clearly because they believe nothing to be before their sight but those material items?  They add no quality by their belief in something within or behind what they view. Or do eyes witness with more truth which perceive all to be infused with God, and thus see with heightened resolution?                                                  

Donna Piper Leichtling

Daily Signet

Here we are—21st century man created out of the dust of stars and animated by the Creator’s breath. Our access to this inspiration, this Holy Breath, can become constricted or at least partially blocked. We become short of breath, labored with the immediate and no longer capable of drawing on the inspiration intended for our earthly walk with God. Moses was on the backside of the desert where he was focusing on his daily living—tending the sheep. It was as he approached the mountain of God, Horeb (as the scriptures say), that he was startled into a full expansive breath that awakened every cell. For, “the Lord appeared in the flame of the fire…” and I think that the experience would catch my breath and then awaken me to a whole new onrush of thoughts and inspirations too.

Here we are—21st century man created out of dust of stars and animated by the Creator’s breath. Our access to this inspiration, this Holy breath, can become constricted or at least partially blocked. We become short of breath, labored with the immediate and no longer capable of drawing on the inspiration intended for our earthly walk with God. This is not to suggest that we remove the immediate and become centered on a heavenly kingdom or a better tomorrow or a therapeutic interpretation of the past. Instead, it suggests that we recognize, know again, that this life now is imbued with life always—the Holy Breath. And this life always is alight with joy and should be the fuel for the immediate. We are the burning bush that is not consumed. And this Holy Breath should light our lights and make us into lights and transform our star dust into star light for the world to see.                                                                                                              

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Sikh remembrance of the martyrdom of Guru Arjan

Daily Signet

When you commit to your chosen life, to your Origo, your soul, the Kingdom of God Within You—not to your ego— then you can begin living your own life. Not somebody else’s life. You no longer settle for the life you were trained to live: scarred, twisted, bent or beaten into living. Not the life that friends, newspaper, TV, radio—even PBS—tell you to live; not the life you drifted or were sucked into living. When you commit to living your own life, you take your first step to becoming an Aristoi of God.

When you pray, as a friend once told me he prays—“Oh God, make me that man you mean me to be”— you have committed to your unique individual life.

At the core is committing to your true life—your Origo’s life, your soul’s life, the life of Your Kingdom Within—the life God means you to live. That’s axis mundi. Everything else flows from, is nourished by and is judged by that first commitment. The fruits of your life will be produced from the blossoming of the seed within you and from the DNA of what you’ve committed to. 

Ben Leichtling