centered thoughts
March 1996
Solstice means "sun stand still," and Equinox, "equal night." The turning of the globe we inhabit around the larger globe we also interpenetrate, affects us in innumerable ways. We are a part of the whole, a shining spark from the ray brought forth, intimately connected to the Source. Our actions and our thoughts are inextricably interwoven in the fabric of life, of ethical causation. We must pattern our lives after the sublime models who have lived in concert with the spiralings of the universe -- cosmic examples of 'working with Nature.' -- PNT
There are four turning points of the year: the solstices of winter and summer, and the equinoxes of the spring and of the autumn. The cycle of the year among the ancient peoples was always considered to be a symbol of the life of man or, indeed, of the life of the universe. Birth at the Winter Solstice, the beginning of the year; adolescence - trials and their conquest - at the Spring Equinox; adulthood, full-blown strength and power, at the Summer Solstice, representing a period of initiation when the Great Renunciation is made; and then closing with the Autumnal Equinox, the period of the Great Passing. This cycle of the year likewise symbolizes the training in chelaship. -- G. de Purucker
The earth, at any point, can be located by its relationship to the sun. -- Hildegard of Bingen
The heavens declare God's glory and the magnificence of what made them. Each new dawn is a miracle; each new sky fills with beauty. / Their testimony speaks to the whole world and reaches to the ends of the earth. / In them is a path for the sun, who steps forth handsome as a bridegroom and rejoices like an athlete as he runs. / He starts at one end of the heavens and circles to the other end, and nothing can hide from his heat. -- Psalms
God loves a curved universe. -- Buckminster Fuller
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense of sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the minds of man . . .
-- William Wordsworth
Seasons occur because the spinning of the earth is tilted in its yearly orbit around the sun . . . The year and its seasons are an essential component of the natural order of things. Our ancestors judged it necessary to act in harmony with the natural order . . . The natural order is aligned with ethical behavior and not with evil. We see the pattern of the year in the inescapable limits of our lives. Because the seasons really do require a sensible response from us, the pattern they impose means more than just a change in the weather...Failure to act in congruence with the moral order is like a greedy search for apples in a blizzard. It threatens survival. -- Dr. E.C. Krupp
Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance. -- H. P. Blavatsky
Consider frequently the connection of all things in the Universe, and their relation to each other. All things are in a manner intermingled with each other, and are therefore mutually friendly. For one thing comes in due order after another, by virtue of local movements, and of the harmony and unity of the whole . . . The Universe, compact of all things, is One. Through all things runs one divinity. -- Marcus Aurelius
A useful contact with the earth places man not as superior to nature but as a superior intelligence working in nature as a conscious and therefore as a responsible part in a plan of evolution, which is a continuing creation. -- L.H. Bailey
. . . we are born of the moon, children of the sun, offspring of the stars, and inheritors of the cosmic spaces; for space itself is we and we are it, for we and he Boundless are in essence not twain but one. -- Dr. de Purucker