Spiritual innovation & Goose #4
Riding the phase of the moon. Spiritual innovation around the world and in my own backyard. Wild Goose Festival #4: 400 sessions in 3 and a half days. The commonwealth of god.
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Slow moon, Wild Goose Fest #3
Slow moon. Paying attention. Becoming what we behold. Wild Goose Festival #3.
Wild Goose Festival 2025 #2
On NOT preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. A review of the pre-festival day at Wild Goose 2025.
Wild Goose Festival 2025 #1
A sample schedule from the Wild Goose Festival 2025, including indigenous wisdom, African-American spirituals, atheists, lovers of god, beer & hymns, and french toast.
Is it a new moon if you can't see it?
A moonlit walk with Einstein, lunar phases in wisdom traditions, moonsighting in Islam, and the face of god.
Plum Village and prophetic witness
How Quakers overcame empire and became the first religion to forbid members from participating in slavery. How Plum Village thrives outside of capitalism.
Working for god, not money
The day of silence gets awkward: navigating silent interactions within the empire. How to live in poverty yet flourish: group industry without private property. The economics of love: guaranteed employment for life.
Sharing wealth: Plum Village, Bruderhof
Commonwealth starts in the mind. Sharing the same worldview or philosophy allows us to make commitments to sharing wealth and taking care of each other. That is no ordinary decision or commitment, it requires vows.
Exiting capitalism, entering commonwealth
To question capitalism from a wisdom perspective is not to endorse marxism, communism, socialism, or any other economic theory. Rather, lovers of wisdom criticize capitalism for elevating love of money above love of god. And they manage money as commonwealth, not as private property.
Seasons change, systems change
Note: There is plenty of bad news these days. Lovers of god tend to not focus on bad news. Rather, they pay attention to what is alive and life-giving. In that spirit, this post is about the change in seasons, and changing systems that cause harm and thrive on bad news.
why the moon?
Amid tensions between god and empire, between life and money, between nature and machine, we have a choice. We can choose to ignore the natural month – the new moon – or we can choose to participate in it. To organize part of our life around it. To be alive to it.
new moon, may 2025
In the face of unjust systems, multiple crises, and deep despair, what can we actually do? What am I going to do? “If there aren’t large-scale solutions to large-scale problems, it’s all about the small scale.”
empire • freedom • imagination
To renounce anything (besides addiction) is not common in our society. Yet, renunciation is central to loving god. It is at the heart of every major wisdom tradition, the second step on the Path of Love. Until we renounce empire, we serve it instead of god or the common good.
mother power
Note: Today is Mothers Day in the U.S. But this place has another, older name – Turtle Island – given to it by its first peoples. Today I cede this time and space to mothers of Turtle Island. Their message is so very relevant to the climate emergency, and their words are more eloquent than mine.