2012 is finally here, and it gives us the opportunity to step forward as mystics who are willing to participate in making this a year of great positive transformation for the entire world and all her kingdoms. In this we will be joining spiritually-minded people all over the world who hold the dream of a New Earth based in compassion and cooperation, rather than greed and competition. We launch the 2012 Mystical Musings by looking at ways that we can, with just an adjustment of attitude and self-perception, make our contribution, as a community and as individuals, toward bringing about these great changes.

What are the changes we wish to see happen in this monumental year? How as mystics can we help to create them? We get inspiration and guidance by looking at some discoveries of quantum physics and applying them to our desire to help bring about the 2012 transformation. Surprisingly, we can have very powerful effect on the world, on its heart and mind, instantaneously and with very little effort. We can do this individually and as a community. Our prayers together in this Musing can be of the "quantum-think" sort and together we can bless the Earth and all Her kingdoms in a joyful and unified and very powerful way. Please join us and we will bless the world together.

In this time of exceedingly rapid evolution of consciousness, we experience often unexpected extremely challenging times, and also sudden states of expanded joyful realization. When we put both of these experiences in the context of the collective, of the Oneness, we find that knowing our participation in the healing of the planet in both the difficult and the joyful times takes on new meaning. And this knowing leads us, first, to take things less personally, and, second, to bring into awareness our willingness to help evolution along by welcoming the universal healing that comes with both the contractions and expansions. We will talk not only about attitudes that are helpful in these times, but also techniques for making our experiences support the common good.

Floods, fires, infestations, political standoffs and strife: chaos abounding outwardly and inwardly as well. What's a good mystic to do?

If the mystic path is about anything it is about love and compassion, which have been abundant in the face of the Texas floods as well as the many wildfires plaguing the nation; there are so many examples of ordinary people rising up extraordinarily to help their fellow citizens. Compassion seems to be part of our genetic code and is thus a great practice in these chaotic times. And of course compassion is for others but also for ourselves, especially those dark corners of our childhood woundings that now more than ever need the light of our love to help ourselves consciously evolve, deepening our mystic practices.

Michaelangelo said in late old age, I am still learning. And so Curiosity about even Chaos as well as Compassion is a foundation for all of our contemplative work and will thus be our parting gift to our fellow mystics, curiously exploring body, mind, heart, spirit.

How do we keep our mystic boat afloat in turbulent waters? How can we keep our sense of oneness in such polarizing and divisive times? In time for our Mystical Musings hiatus until September 17, we explore some fundamental strategies for evoking our mystic presence and for cultivating our mystic practice.

The message that Jesus brings is Love. The magic and power of Easter is that Love returns, embodied. The message is Love! not just the Law, not the power-of-the-strongest, but Love! and not just when it is convenient and easy and flowing, but also and even especially when it is difficult and challenging.

Herein our mystic passion is being forged.

In a culture of conformity, the iconoclastic mystic faces challenges with and from the status quo. Remaining oriented toward Love, our mystic paths are our refuges- along with community and the Avatar- amid the stormy evolution. Easter reminds us and evokes from within us the Christ-spirit, Love ongoing.

These are transformative times as institutions, cultural touchstones and some individuals are crumbling, others rising anew, resurrecting. As the mystic core of love and union guides us through...we ourselves are resurrecting, an embodied resurrecting, renewing and transforming, ever-deepening and expanding our capacity to Love.

With a collective sense of humanity in America, and to some extent the world, being anxious and uncertain amid the rapidly evolving political and environmental scenes, we need as never before to access our genetically encoded sense of joy/peace/love; we need this access as a daily mystic practice to help heal what is ailin' us. And Hey! it's Springtime, a significant return of the basic codes of our earthly existence, offering us cyclical renewal as a balm for the oppression of current events and unfolding planet-wide changes. With renewal comes fresh perspective, new opportunity and new ways of living our lives and maybe, just maybe, irrational exuberance. Join us for our Spring Equinox Mystical Musings.

In terms of the daily living of our lives, perfection is the enemy of the soul. Kindness, lovingkindness toward one's family and friends, tribe and worthy opponents, and towards oneself, is a mystic practice in great demand right now. The Japanese philosophy of WabiSabi is a paradigm founded on the Buddhist three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering and emptiness, which cultivate kindness through compassion. The WabiSabi aesthetic includes simplicity, intimacy and deep appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of the natural world. Let us find our way toward deepening lovingkindness, together in this next Mystical Musings.

Do we lose our innocence or just misplace it? Does innocence end

because of the seemingly inevitable effects of growing older or does it get transformed, so that

we often don't recognize it anymore? In this complex and challenging world is access to innocence even desirable?

Innocence is our true inner sense; we are born with Buddha nature, with purity, presence, wonder and joy. Innocence/Inner Sense is our platform for our being human and for learning anything especially the spiritual art of the mystic. Please join us as we begin our fourteenth year of Mystical Musings as we celebrate what feels to us as an unfolding of a whole new cycle of endeavor personally and collectively.

Such love does

the sky now pour,

that whenever I stand in a field,

I have to wring out the light

when i get

home.

-St Francis of Assisi

The inner journey in nature, no matter time of year, offers opportunities for letting go, for deeper presence, absorption, sometimes even rapture or ecstasy. And so we wring out the light with the utter delight of deeply knowing that God is Love, Love Is, and I am Love. Wringing out the Light,

we go deeper, we open more deeply than ever to the Light and to the Dark, the Great YinYang of the felt universe. We wring out the light when we are consciously living on our growing edge and work with whatever arises emotionally, spiritually, energetically.

Let's wring out the light together at our next Mystical Musings.