At 2:30 a.m. EST December 2nd we will experience the first of two full moons during the month of December.  As we’ve shared in prior posts, full moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. Those tribes of a few hundred years ago kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred.  December usually marks what is known as the Full Cold Moon or Long Nights Moon, signalling the coming of winter.

From an astrological perspective this Full Moon occurs in Gemini.  Because Gemini is so oriented towards communication and the sharing of experiences, this is a wonderful time to bring people together to share new ideas and to learn more about each other.  Then December 31st will give us the 2nd full moon of the calendar month, commonly referred to as a “Blue Moon.”  On top of all this December holds the Solstice, the beginning of a Mercury Retrograde and a 12/31 partial lunar eclipse on that day.  In other words, this is a great month to watch for how celestial events influence your daily life.  I’ll be writing more about each as the month rolls on.  Stay tuned.

 

President Barack Obama said tonight he is sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next summer to speed the battle against the Taliban and plans to start bringing some home in 18 months.  The goal, Obama said in a prime-time televised address, will be to fight the Taliban, secure key population centers and train enough Afghan security forces so they can take over.  Obama’s gamble that a troop surge will turn around a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan marked a defining moment in his presidency.

Trying to convince skeptical Americans, Obama recalled the spirit of unity after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by al Qaeda in 2001 and warned that the militants were plotting fresh attacks.  “If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow,” he told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

So now the debate begins among partisan factions, policy wonks and media talking heads about whether or not President Obama has made the right decision.  But the question that is most on my mind at this moment (as it was when the former President declared war on Iraq) is not on the political level, but the very personal spiritual level:  How does war live in me?  What beliefs do I hold about my place in the world and my connection to others that creates either war or peace on the planet?  How can I shift my own beliefs to help create a world that embraces peace, prosperity and equality?  What do you think?

Today marks World AIDS Day, held to highlight the continuing fight against a disease that’s infected an estimated 33-million people around the planet and about a million in the U.S.   Yesterday the U.S. has announced a new commitment to fight the disease.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the U.S. would host the 2012 biannual AIDS conference.  She also confirmed the U.S. is getting set to lift a ban on visits by foreigners infected with HIV.

To learn more about World AIDS Day observances worldwide click here.  On the spiritual level, what have we learned from the presence of this disease…what have we yet to learn?  What do you think?

In the moments it takes you to consider this question, a child will die from AIDS.  A young man in America may become infected.  Two minutes later another will die.  There are solutions and there is hope.  Please listen to this message from former U.S. President Bill Clinton about his foundation’s efforts in Africa:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.  On this Thanksgiving Day, I discovered an effort to bring the world together…

I hope you’ll join me in affirming the Charter for Compassion.  Happy Thanksgiving.

This morning I was reading a news story about President Obama’s proclamation of Thanksgiving…here’s an excerpt:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 26, 2009, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all the people of the United States to come together, whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place where family, friends and neighbors may gather, with gratitude for all we have received in the past year; to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own; and to share our bounty with others.

I think that certainly sets an appropriate intention for the day, focusing on gratitude and service.  A few days back I wrote about Pilgrims and Puritans and I am mindful about the true roots of this holiday.  So today, in preparation for tomorrow’s American holiday of Thanksgiving I’ll simply offer this Sioux prayer for the harvest:

You, O God, are the Lord of the mountains and valleys. You are my mother and my father. You have given rain to make the corn grow, and sunshine to ripen it. Now in your strength the harvest begins.

I offer you the first morsels of the harvest. I know it is almost nothing compared with the abundance of the crop. But since you have provided the harvest, my gift to you is only a sign of what you have given to me.

You alone know how many suns and moons it will take to finish reaping. You alone know how heavy the crop will be. If I work too hard and too fast I forget about you, who gave me the harvest. So I will work steadily and slowly, remembering that each ear of corn is a priceless gift from you.

The second movie installment of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful Twilight series reveals the supernatural secret of the Quileute tribe: some of their clan have the ability to turn into extremely large wolves.  Pictured here is the character Jacob Black (played by actor Taylor Lautner) who discovers he has this special power.  This element of the book and movie are actually based in Quileute legend that the tribe is descended from wolves who were changed into men.  Even the tribal name “Quileute” comes from their word for wolf, Kwoli.

The Quileute tribe is actually a group of Native American Indians who now reside in La Push, Washington.  They are a small group of around 700 people, but they still continue the legacy of their great ancestors from the past, the original Quileute tribe.  Quileute folklore tells that those who have the ability to turn into animals are called skin-walkers. They also have been told to have the ability to read people’s thoughts.  Unlike the classic werewolf transformation described in classic literature that occurs with the rising of the full moon, the change depicted in Twilight is more consistent with a type of shapeshifting.

John Perkins, author of Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation, talks about shapeshifting being a much broader concept than supernatural.  He often talks about shapeshifting as possible on three levels.  The first is cellular, and that is when a person of an indigenous culture shapeshifts into a plant or animal, or in our culture when a cancer grows in someone and then miraculously disappears.

The second level is personal Shapeshifting. That is when we decide to transform our personality — and usually that means becoming more of what we most expect in ourselves. It might mean when a person honors themselves as a good writer or a better dancer or politician. It could also mean transforming an addiction.

The third form of Shapeshifting is about transforming the society that we live in, whether its at the town or city level, or the corporate level — the place where we work — or the institutions that help shape our lives.

In his book, John makes this important point about the reality of shapeshifting: “From a shamanic perspective, shapeshifting begins with intent. You then give it power if you want it to occur in this world as opposed to the other worlds of non-ordinary reality. Action follows.  Intent, energy, and action: Only when these three human forces are in place can you have true shapeshifting.”

Perhaps the images portrayed in The Twilight Saga: New Moon will frighten and titillate, but perhaps for a few it will open their minds to imagine that we all have the capacity to shapeshift at some level…that each of us can shift into being more of the self we most respect and want to emphasize, bringing about fundamental changes in our attitudes, perceptions, prosperity, health, appearance, and personal relationships.  What do you think?

It has been a while since I’ve scanned the world wide web for shamanism in the news.  These few cover quite a bit of territory:

Release of the movie 2012 has generated interest in the Mayan calendar.  The Los Angeles Times ran an opinion column quoting shaman/priest Calixta Gabriel who said Mother Earth — Madre Tierra — would suffer “hunger, wind and thunder,” but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

A news source in Australia, The Age, reports that a man purporting to be a ”North American Indian shaman healer” with the power to cure cancer has  falsely represented himself as a shaman healer and had breached professional boundaries by initiating sexual relationships with female clients.

With the debate on health care reform at a fever pitch in the United States, I thought it was interesting that Mongobay.com recently ran a story about how rainforest shamans treat disease.

Finally, I’m sorry I’d missed a story earlier this month announcing a lecture on Shamanism by Dr. Stanley Krippner, professor of psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco.  “Shamans: The First Psychologists,” explored the various ways in which shamans receive their “call” and some of the elements of Shamanic practice that are therapeutic in nature.

That’s all for now.  Feel free to share other stories in the comments section.

A few weeks ago a friend loaned me a book entitled The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, a regular contributor to Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life.”  The book deals with Colonial New England and the Puritan’s influence on our national character, so I thought that with the American holiday of Thanksgiving just a matter of weeks away it seemed like it would be an interesting read.

Publishers Weekly said that Vowell “revisits America’s Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country’s present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. While the Puritans who had earlier sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower were separatists, Winthrop’s followers remained loyal to England, spurred on by Puritan Reverend John Cotton’s proclamation that they were God’s chosen people. Vowell underscores that the seemingly minute differences between the Plymouth Puritans and the Massachusetts Puritans were as meaningful as the current Sunni/Shia Muslim rift.”

I loved the book and highly recommend it.  To give you a sense of it, here is an interview with the author by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow:

Academy Award winning actor Robert Redford is helping to promote a terrific new book by National Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke that could profoundly change the debate around global warming and help spur Congress to action at last.   As Mr. Redford tells in a recent email: 

“Her book is called Clean Energy, Common Sense. What is at stake is nothing short of staggering. What kind of Earth will we leave our children and their children? Will we bequeath them only photographs to learn what a glacier was or what a healthy forest looks like?

The evidence before us is overwhelming. Temperatures are rising. Ice caps are melting. Deserts are spreading. Majestic landscapes from Montana’s glaciers to Utah’s Redrocks — places I used to view as enduring symbols of American grit — are withering.

As Frances says in her new book, “We know it is only going to get worse until we stand up and summon the will to stop it. And we know what it will take to do that. We must find the courage to begin.”

This book calls on everyone to rise to the challenge of global climate change, an environmental ill of astounding proportions, while we still have time to act.   Clean Energy, Common Sense can be ordered by clicking here.

 

Happy Halloween!  Yesterday I wrote about the link between this holiday and the Celtic festival of Samhain.  Today I wanted to make brief reference to its roots in festivals of the dead, specifically  El Día de los Muertos – The Day of the Dead.

The Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in Mexico and by Latin Americans living in the United States and Canada.  The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.  People go to cemeteries to communicate with the souls of the departed, and build private altars, containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so that the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them.

In most regions of Mexico, November 1st honors children and infants (“Día de los Inocentes”  or Day of the Innocents), whereas deceased adults are honored on November 2 (“Día de los Muertos” or Day of the Dead).  It is believed that the gates of heaven are opened at midnight tonight, October 31, and the spirits of all deceased children are allowed to reunite with their families for 24 hours.   On the afternoon of Nov. 2, the festivities are taken to the cemetery. People clean tombs, play cards, listen to the village band and reminisce about their loved ones.  The spirits of the adults are believed to come down to enjoy the festivities that are prepared for them.

Similar observances occur throughout Central and South America.  Variations on the Day of the Dead also occur throughout Europe and Asia.  Ultimately these days between Oct. 31st and Nov. 2nd signal the recognition that death is a part of life – that we not only honor those who have gone before us but we celebrate the life that is ours today.  I hope these days are ones of joy for you and yours!