Images Created by Aunt Barbara Merlotti

A Full Corn Moon reveals its harvest in the skies on September 2nd, 2020, followed by a New Moon in its wake on Thursday, September 17th, and the Autumn Equinox on Tuesday, September 22nd.

Daylight is waning in the Northern hemisphere these days, as is brighter hints of fall in the air, and as seen on the leaves.

Can you hear the acorns dropping from the trees, and popping onto the ground?

Do you appreciate the beautiful rainbow spectrum of foilage on the trees, and the colorful shades of hues that decorate our human family?

Light and dark will be equal again on the Autumn Equinox, and then the dark will rise till its climax on the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year after the election and eclipse season are over at the tail end of December.

What new suprises are awaiting us between Tao and Zen?

When I think about squirrels, I am inspired about what they do with their nervous energy. I like the way the channel their chi in ways that find balance between work and play.

Squirrels have an intelligence about them that just knows what to do right now so that they have enough supplies gathered for food security for leaner times ahead.

They seem to know how to have fun in spite of how busy they are right now.

If only we humans can remember that during this season of transition, in our back to school, back to business mentality in schools, and other workplaces.

And even thought they often forget where they bury their acorns, they trust their sense of smell to guide them to dig into the earth to shed light on the mystery of their forgotten fruit.

How they don’t lose their minds, and go nuts in the process is beyond my human comprehension.

Seems to me that our world could stand to learn from our fellow spirited woodland creature friends.

Squirrels show us that they have their own rainbow of diversity. Red squirrels are smaller, but more brazen, vocal, and animated in their approach. Gray squirrles aren’t particularly quiet either, they don’t like strange squirrels, and they aren’t afraid to speak up on that.

But there is an old world respect of the rules that they play by that we humans can stand to adopt, nurture in our own doings, and coregulation with one another.

Black Lives Matter and Me Too are merely accentuating the power of that sentiment, just like a black panther captures the magic and mystery of the primal forces that awaken within the depths of the unknown.

It is a tragic and sad day when another black person dies at the hand of an unfair and unjust playing field that leaves all lives strangulated whether realized or not. It is a suffocating feeling, people are tired, and have had enough. The looting and rioting are chaotic manifestations from that anger.

Preschoolers notice differences but do not judge those differences as better or worse. We are taught to do that, and you begin to see prejudicial thought forms developing by Kindergarten.

Move beyond your judgments and see historical context for what it is. We have all been deceived to buy into a segregated system of us and them.

You may have had the good fortune to have been taught that you can grow up, overcome any obstacle, and be whoever or whatever you want. Perhaps the shade of your skin was not really a factor in that belief because you were raised by well intentioned parents to be colorblind.

But the reality is, that for black people, indiginious people, and people of color, particularly in America, that has not been their experience, from the eyes of the dominant majority or mainstream cultural norms.

Yeah, we’ve made progress, but we are still carrying the luggage passed down to us from our ancestors. The cycle of poverty and mental health issues are also part of that baggage that needs to be released and let go of.

The soul power of these movements represent shifts toward equanimity within our human family, and reflect the universal pillars of Love and Truth.

Especially now at the tailend of one age, while coming out of the birth canal into a new one.

The Virus has been a catalyst to challenge our modern day human paradigm in ways that reveal how isolated and disconnected we can feel from one another, and the world around us.

But then again, that is something we have needed to come to reconcile inside of ourselves.

Because the truth is, led by the power of love in our hearts, is the wisdom to know that we are never really alone.

The feeling of separation is part of our suffering. The way out of this suffering is to find the courage to step into our fears, and trust that we are all connected in unity, regardless of our diversity.

Empathy, sensitivity, and an appreciation for our different ways of seeing the world are good for us to work on, and play with in our consciousnessness.

That doesn’t happen if you aren’t willing to self-reflect about your judgments or take inventory of your thoughts and emotions.

It doesn’t happen if you don’t dig beneath the surface of your anger, or look beyond someone’s behavior to see the whole person that might have been hidden from your initial, cursory glance.

An American election is coming that faces a divided nation.

A radical political action that I take is to see the inner nobility of someone that I am struggling with inside of myself.

And then, I focus on gratitude for the presense of whomever I am targeting as the focus of inner nobility of that person.

President Trump is a good example for many of us on the planet to focus on our suffering that way.

As challenging as it might be for you, see his inner nobility, and focus on gratitude for his presense in your life.

This is easier to do with someone you like, and you know cares about you.

There are a lot of seductive conspiracy theories out there that are part of the fake news that flood the corporate media.

I heard a real humdinger recently, the one about The Donald being a light worker in disguise.

As ridiculous as that sounds, the point of namaste is to see the light in another person that also resides in you.

You don’t just do that with people you like or agree with politically.

The real challenge is to love everybody.

Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

We should heed his wisdom, and bring back the spirit of his teachings in our everyday affairs.

Till we tweet again peeps,

Ari