Leo's 2022 Blessings

This page is from Leo's Holiday Season email to people he knows and loves...

Dear Ones,

The end of a year is a good time, as are all days, to express gratitude.

In the Northern Hemisphere days are cold; winter solstice has begun the dance lengthening each day's light.

The first record of chat during HR in Stan's archive may be Day 45 and I started contributing as early as Day 56, posting slide content; and on Day 62 repeating Jim's remark (at 1:53:44) that the root of our problems is that humanity has cut itself off from nature, ie. from Jung's Mother archetype. Jim further said this makes us susceptible to tyrannies, neuroses, and disease; and that an ongoing theme for HR is how to reconnect with nature.

Stanley Pokras opened his Zoom room July 20, 2020 for Afterchat on Day 60. The Afterchat Community has welcomed hundreds of HR guests and viewers to post-presentation conversation. Stanley opens up every day and Shannon McArthur is almost always on hand to co-host. She even traveled from British Columbia to the UK to meet up with some of our virtual community in person!

My first post in Afterchat was Day 75, repeating a chat comment Stan had made during HR:  "We need to expect the coming of the age of helpfulness. Helpfulness is a generator of gratitude." So, thank you, Stan and Shannon, and Jim Garrison and the HR team who have provided 605 episodes of Humanity Rising with over 2,000(?) guest presenters, and for the unique ways participants can interact and make connections. You certainly live Stan's motto of helpfulness.

I'm sending this thank you and season greetings to only about four-score members of HR's Fan Club. Some of you I know only slightly; many have offered meaningful insights you can review in Stan's rich library of archived recordings and chat records. A few of you I call friends due to familiarity, longevity or email communication, but not by Facebook's liberal usage of the term (we have a niece who claims 3,100 Facebook "friends".)

I call Christmas a celebration of potentiality, incarnation--a star to show us the way. From stranger to friend to family to community to human family to our planetary home the cosmos is ablaze with potential. The diversity of HR guests and of the Afterchat community has given me new names for our universal desire for a better world, a rising humanity.

We count many blessings in 2022. Both our children and families arrived at our home on Christmas Day. As we lit the dinner candles we gave thanks for you and all who bless our lives. We walk with you on the Way--our common pilgrimage.

Love & Joy,

  Leo & Janet

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To maintain my practice (and reputation for better or worse) of providing links here are three for your Christmastide:

1. A reflection of "E.E. Cummings and the Joyful Poetry of Advent," a 4-week devotional used by many churches. In zoom discussion I heard a novel interpretation of the famous love poem (below)--Mary as the narrator speaking to Jesus in her womb (literally within her.) Or a cosmic view--the Creator speaking to all of creation. Can you imagine the universe being called "dear," "darling" and "sweet"?

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

by e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

< ::https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in::

Devotional resource, and weekly video accompaniments.

2. Pope Francis empowering young people to respond to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor: The Pope, the Environmental Crisis, and Frontline Leaders | The Letter: Laudato Si Film. ::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rps9bs85BII:: (1:21:41 or visit ::https://TheLetterFilm.org::)

3. Jacoby Jewels 2022 for news you can't find anywhere else--see attached.

All is Blessing. Here's to Harmony in 2023.

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