"Interconnectedness is not a value limited to Pagans--it's one that is found at the heart of every spiritual tradition I know of. Is there a spiritual teaching or sacred text anywhere that proclaims, "Let the little children starve while the rich amass more wealth, drive the lower middle classes from their homes and reward corruption?" It's the role of religion and spirituality to challenge people to think beyond themselves and their immediate prospects for gain, to remind us that we are all in this together and bear responsibility for one another and for the earth we stand on, and to speak the hard truths that politicians do not tell us."
----Starhawk, from her article in the Washington Post: An Economy of Interconnection (September 17, 2008)
Two weeks back, I spoke on Wheel of Wonder about the current state of the globalized economy, its overreaching power, sustainable alternatives, and how to build a different model for the economy that does not rely on exploit and overusing the people and natural resources of our Planet Earth. One of these is a Generative Economy: "The generative economy is built on a foundation of stakeholder ownership designed to generate and preserve real wealth—resources held and shared by our communities and the ecosystems we live in. These enterprises don’t have absentee ownership shares trading in a casino economy, but ownership held in human hands."
--- Marjorie Kelly, from "Can there be "Good" Corporations?" YES Magazine Issue 61, Spring 2012
Last week, on Wheel of Wonder we spoke of Theosophist ideas, or the principles of Ascension. Ascensionists believe the Human kind, and Mother Gaia (The Planet Earth) are on the verge of a Spiritual Ascension, one that can take us beyond the limitations of "Third Dimensional /Linear Existence" and closer to the source of all creation. This has to do in part with the shifting of vibrational frequencies and the idea that all matter is merely energy vibrating at a certain speed (much like string theory) and that we, as humans have the innate mental and spiritual capacity to shift our own state of energy and by so doing we can help shift the energetic state of not only our spirits, but the entire world. Part of this process is based in viewing the world and all humanity from a perspective of compassion and love. We used source work in part from Christopher Penczak's book Ascension Magick.
This week, in the Spirit of the Journey I'll focus on the idea of The Bardic Journey, or the Journey to enlightenment based in some part on Celtic ideas drawn from Druidry, and perhaps some interesting connections between these ideas and the legends and beliefs of other religious and spiritualist paradigms. Some source work this week will be from the book "Journey of the Bard" by Yvonne Owens (1997, Horned Owl Publishing, Victoria, Canada). As always and as with the last two weeks, we will also be hearing great New Age, Celtic, Indy and Eclectic "music of the spirit" as you have come to expect on Wheel Of Wonder. Check us out at kaosradio.org Sunday Morning (PST) and now, Playlists on spinatron.com (click the link to KAOS). Hope you'll join me for the Journey!
The Picture above was found in the Spiritual Awakening section of the website thegic.org