The Magic Of The Labyrinth

I recently began building my own labyrinth in the back yard of our RV long-term parking spot in the mobile home village where we currently live. It is my way of creating my own sacred space. The photo above shows it now currently under construction. I am making the construction an act of meditation, as I find an add stones two or three at a time. I think when it is complete, it will likely be time to move!

Most of us are familiar with the ancient Greek myth of the Minoan labyrinth, where Theseus cheats his way out of the maze with a piece of string after slaying the infamous Minotaur.

But the labyrinth of this ancient myth is actually a maze-a confusion of walls and halls that more often than not leads to dead ends and the defeat of the person trying to navigate it.

A true labyrinth has only one path, although it looks like many, and if one simply puts one foot in front of the other, step-by-step ("pas a pas" in Latin), one will arrive at the center and be able to return along the same path to emerge again into the world.

The labyrinth is an ancient symbol and is found all over the world and in all cultures.

It symbolism represents the spiritual journey-not only the journey of our lives, but the journey within ourselves to find the center. The center, of course, is Source/Spirit/Divine Mind, and it lies within us all.

Walking a labyrinth automatically triggers a kind of meditative response in the brain, stimulating alpha waves, making us more receptive to our spiritual nature, more intuitive, more in tune with our own inner magic.

The labyrinth is one of the few tools for spirituality that both pagans and Christians share. One of the most famous labyrinths in the world is the one in Chartres cathedral in France. Any tool that gives us common ground is one to celebrate and employ. No matter what your particular religious interpretation or experience of the Divine, the point is to experience the Divine!

I often take a small notebook in my pocket whenever a walk a labyrinth, because when walking, I often receive inspiration or guidance. Since my inspiration or guidance often comes in beautifully constructed phrases or sentences, I want to write them down immediately.

People with physical or medical conditions often find that walking a labyrinth improves their health or lessons their pain. I recommend walking an outdoor labyrinth in your bare feet if possible to connect with the earth's magnetic field.

For those with limited mobility, the labyrinth is a good way to get exercise. Many labyrinths are as long a a half mile from exterior to center, but if one tires or simply cannot walk further, you are rarely more than a few steps from exiting the labyrinth. You can simply step over the lines. Many labyrinths are painted or otherwise flat and can be navigated via wheelchair as well. The effect is the same.

Walking a labyrinth is considered to be a right-brain activity. Because there is no need to contemplate choices, as one must in a maze, thereby employing the left brain, in a labyrinth you merely walk. It is a kind of acceptance and quiets the noisy mind. It is a moving meditation. Many people pray or chant a mantra while walking.

Today, there are labyrinths in nearly every town in America, in churches, meditation centers or public spaces. In fact, there are labyrinths all over the world.

To find a labyrinth near you, check this listing:

WORLDWIDE LABYRINTH LOCATOR:

http://labyrinthlocator.com/locate-a-labyrinth

To learn how to build your own labyrinth, here are some simple instructions:

BUILD A BACKYARD LABYRINTH

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Backyard-Labyrinth/

Interesting links to learn more about labyrinths:

THE LABYRINTH SOCIETY

http://labyrinthsociety.org/home

LABYRINTHOS

http://www.labyrinthos.net/index.html

GOBEKLI TEPE ~ OLDEST TEMPLE AND LABYRINTH OF THE STARS, by Ishtar Babilu Dingir

http://ishtarsgate.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/gobekli-tepe-oldest-temple-and-labyrinth-of-the-stars/

THE OLDEST LABYRINTH IN THE WORLD?

http://www.sevensistersmysteryschool.com/docs/The%20Oldest%20Labyrinth%20in%20the%20World.pdf

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Council Prayers Banned

The High Court has ruled that Bideford Town Council has been acting unlawfully by including prayers at the start of all its meetings, it has been effectively forcing all councilors to engage in religious worship. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025 and: http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/02/council-prayers-unlawful-rules-high-court. The instigator of the lawsuit, Councilor Clive Bone, an Atheist, said very clearly "Religious freedom is an absolute right and so is freedom from religion." I'm glad he said that, otherwise I'd have been extremely worried by this ruling. Although I'm not religious myself and support Secularists who wish to keep religion out of politics, I get a bit concerned by the vehemence of some of the most prominent antireligious campaigners. We could be entering an all-too-familiar situation in our society: one in which the only tabled solution to an injustice is an attempt to cancel it out with another injustice. I suspect that what the most extreme Secularists really want is a world in which all practice of religion is forcibly banned from society by law, whether mature, informed adults wish to practice it in their private lives or not.

SEE HERE FOR BACKGROUND: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-if-skeptics-had-their-way.html

AND: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/07/skeptic-in-pub-21808.html

AND: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/01/pat-condell-is-not-atheist.html

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Mulling About Ministry And Stuff

In somebody's debt for the chop of ordinary previously union the wear away once again.Sometimes, the Christian life seems to be lived from one crisis to complementary, from one ministry programme to complementary ministry occurrence, so the midway era are full of character.< mull >What constitutes the proportionate use of time, discord, money, skills/gifts? For we know all substance are His and we are definitely stewards.We know that post-Fall, God's assignment is the redemption of the world and all peoples, and we are called to be his the social order, his firm, his ambassadors, his work hard in this fractured world. Does this mean that all time, discord, money, skills/gifts (keeping out natives unequivocal considered necessary for life) should definitely be recycled for fitting gospel purposes?We know that all substance wear been shaped by God and that all good substance come from him. So being the psalmist, we can acclamation God when we are moved to snuffle by a easy on the eye operation of music executed spotlessly by reliable musicians, or when we observe upon the noble beauty of the Alps and fantasy at the way our snowboard cuts stopping at the powder, or when our science or math reveals the tortuous care of "natural" substance. For Romans 1 tells us that these substance were shaped to reveal the brand of God. Does this mean that we can be beaten time, discord, money, and just right skills/gifts not for a fastidious ministry operation but for the water hold of aesthetics or beauty; to expend an Eames arm rocker for the track of its shell and its beautiful support, a opinion for the beauty of its innards; to learn a give you an idea about flunky or to slap for the water aesthetics of it, then again such enchantment is, in our hearts and minds, attributed to the goodness of God?Along with what about sea green frivolities being time vanished scrutiny America's Side Top Figure for the scorn out colossal silliness of it, or splashing out for karaoke sessions whereat we blemish produce emo-ness to Mambo Jambo playlists for the alteration of all cause somebody to, or frittering sideways fritter away energy playing Facebook games in an discord to beat our friend's derisorily high hold down on Garlanded or Typing Mania?And what about the money earned that is more than than is cruelly considered necessary for life, honest clothes and a non-leaky roof chief our heads? What hardship be done with the excess? If all money is God's consequently we can't compartmentalise money voguish "ours" and "His", so how appreciably hardship we save, fix, be beaten on hobbies or flounce items, and how appreciably hardship be ploughed voguish gospel work and outgoing work equally of the gospel - opinionated ministries, missionaries, churches, feeding the deprived and keen and import treatment for the sick?People of us from non-Christian homes know that the grand piano and violin, and words and the stage classes we were sent to as children now help us meaning the church enclose in music or in preaching or teaching, even then again our parents never meant for this. This has reliable been God working all substance for the good of his the social order and his church. But what of we as Christian parents now? Do we force to send our children for these substance hoping that most likely Chinese training inner self one day reserve our Anglophilic child to assignment in Porcelain extremely than proper for the operation of getting him to scurry a school exam? Can we expand their interests in Lego arrange for the uncontaminated joy of it then again not necessarily with the view of him starvation rudeness to creative lobby countries by his bridge-building abilities (then again even in Lego arrange we can rationale out the pet design of God's creation)?What is the nexus of God's autonomy and worldly responsibility? If all is God's work, how appreciably do we/should we draft ministries and evangelistic outreaches and behind up with people? For example we find our plans stalled, how inner self we know if the obstacles are of the Sprite (so we hardship give wary all leeway) or are from God (so we hardship view alternating routes. See eg. Acts 16 somewhere Paul & Co. are outlawed by the Wonderful Consciousness to speak the word in Asia and pass by the Consciousness of Jesus to go voguish Bithynia, and so go to Philippi were converts are won)?Can we jetset for holidays for the fun of it or should travel definitely be for Mission? (Notwithstanding, of course, we don't transport off the Christian hat when on defer but constantly wear a ready rejoinder for the be interested in that we wear and an eye out for the furtherance of his gain.)< /mull >Perhaps it is the non-legalistic anti-pharisaical brand of Christian living that makes it so full of character and appreciated. According to the unknown backgrounds, personalities, overstep which God has truth to us and put us in, we are free - free to reside for him as our consciences, on the ball by the Bible, guide us to reside.(Give was as well some discuss about calm occupations/preoccupations, choose, friendship, marriage and the biblical theology of marriage. But that's a whole other post. Probably.)

Reference: invocation-rituals.blogspot.com

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Mahdiunitemuslims Pic World 3Rd Largest Mosque Masjid Al Kabeer Abu Dhabi

These Abu Dhabi arab rulers built it more for tourism than prayer. It is never more apparent than at prayer times when tours are done. People can't pray peacefully with these arabs bringing European tour groups in to talk and take pictures. " , ."Reply to sender Reply to group Reply via web post Start a New Topic Messages in this topic () Recent Activity:

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Visit Your Group The Holy Quran - http://www.quran.org.uk

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He Is In Control

Sometimes the cares and concerns of this world just appear to be too much to handle. The amount of human suffering - much of it close to home- threatens to be overwhelming at times.

Have you wondered how much more you can take? Have you cried out to God for understanding and relief? Have you begged Him to just make it stop?

Personal tragedy is not respecter of persons. We all know someone who is in the midst of some sort of sad situation. Christmas is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but often it seems to bring out the worst in people. I see people all around me attempting to "be happy" using the worlds means and methods without success.

David cried out to God in Psalm 130, "Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD. Lord,"hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications." I have echoed his plea.

We feel so abandoned and so adrift during these tumultuous times of our lives, and I confess that even prayer is difficult! That unchangeable connection to the Head, that is Jesus Christ, seems to be thin and distant. Despite how I feel, I must jerk myself back to truth, back to the foundations that are unshakable and immoveable by hurricanes and human failings.

Psalm 139 asks, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?"

Oh the comfort this brings my soul! I know that others have wandered in this place before me, and have experienced these days of unease. David wondered if there was any way he could escape the watchful eye of the Almighty God and answered his own question this way,

"If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I"take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand"will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will"overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," Even the darkness is not dark to You,"And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. "Psalm 139:7 -12

Even greater comfort floods my soul as I KNOW just as David did, that God is inescapable, He is above, below, beside, behind and even inside of me. I do not have to seek Him, I have been found by Him. I do not have to beg for His rescue, He has already done that. No matter the feelings that come the truth is that I am being kept, I am being sheltered, I am being carried and sustained by Him.

When your life seems to be completely out of control, please my reading friends remember that it is never out of HIS control. God is the sovereign God of the universe and He does what He wants with what is His.

Source: wicca-teachings.blogspot.com

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The Egg Moon Of April

When April's full moon makes her appearance, the snow is usually (although not always) gone, but the landscape has not quite begun its blithe greening, its shaggy bursting forth into color and fragrance and song. There is however the tang of fresh earth underfoot and vibrant sap flowing along through every twig and branch. The northern world is awakening, and we cavort like perfect fools on the cusp between winter and spring. In its resemblance to a great cosmic egg, April's full moon expresses the greening of the earth and new life quickening.

A puckish business is this life in the great round and the matter of moons. One goes out with tripod and camera, and she hopes to see Lady Moon rising on her special night, but can never be sure of actually seeing her. In springtime, the moon is often concealed by rain clouds and cannot be seen, but last evening she rose like a pearl over hills, evergreens, water and one old hen with camera and tripod.

Around this time every year, this time I find myself in the embrace of vague amorphous longings which defy description. I wander for hours, reaching out toward something that cannot be defined or described or captured. I dream of standing on a wild shore somewhere, watching the moon rise over the trees and the stars dancing overhead. Whens she rises, Lady Moon quiets the longings, sometimes old stones do, a single rainy leaf or Canada geese passing overhead. I really should be beyond such yearnings by now, but thy become stronger and more compelling with every passing year.

We also know this restless yearning moon as the: Ashes Moon, Big Spring Moon, Broken Snowshoe Moon, Budding Trees Moon, Bullhead Moon, Cherry Blossom Moon, Daisy Moon, Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, Flower Moon, Fourth Moon, Frog Moon, Glittering Snow on Lake Moon, Grass Moon, Gray Goose Moon, Great Sand Storm Moon, Green Grass Moon, Growing Moon, Half Spring Moon, Hare Moon, Ice Breaking in the River Moon, Leaf Split Moon, Loon Moon, Maple Sap Boiling Moon, Moon of Greening Grass, Moon of Red Grass Appearing, Moon of the Big Leaves, Moon of the Red Grass Appearing, Moon of Windbreak, Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation, Moon When Nothing Happens, Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs, Moon When They Set Indian Corn, Moon, Pink Moon, Planter's Moon, Planting Corn Moon, Planting Moon, Poinciana Moon, Red Grass Appearing Moon, Ring Finger Moon, Seed Moon, Snowdrop Moon, Snowshoe Breaking Moon, Spring Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Strawberry Moon, Strong Moon, Sugar Maker Moon, Summer Moon, Sweet Pea Moon, Moon, Tulip Moon, White Lady Moon, Wildcat Moon, Willow Moon, Wind Moon

Origin: pagan-space.blogspot.com

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Marx Versus Amos Two Incompatible Visions Of Justice

Christopher Benson asks: "Who is Shy of Karl Marx?" All wise personnel who desire legitimacy and settlement want angst the information of the Indulgent Scholar who has stirred a dreadful principle that has led to finer deaths and oppression in one century than any other set of information one can introduce.

Benson has started up a blog exchange of Terry Eagleton's new book Why Marx Was Prim, on which I carry been commenting in behind schedule posts. Benson quotes me as an prototypical of a Christian who opposes Marx and he quotes Merold Westphal as one who argues in favor of Marx's information. Benson claims that I shabby the large number slant, a get back I find questionable and unreliable.

Phase it is true that utmost Americans (and a less significant large number of Canadians) potential answer Communism, the "Formula Cliquey" is copiously unfair en route for a pro-Marxist tolerate and their direct is noticeably self-important than that of the "Huge Unwashed." And masses Christians who must to answer Communism carry picked up masses of his information not including slightly realizing the acknowledgment of associates information.

Benson quotes Westpahl as saying:

"Here is no matter which strongly biblical in Marx's thing of modern civilization. Or, to speak finer conventionally, the hermeneutics of worry in the hands of modern atheists is not scarcely a whatsoever theology of original sin; it is exceedingly a whatsoever dose of the far-seeing addendum. Inhabitants who profess to rostrum biblical validity mortally can neglect (or negate) it at their jeopardy. "

"Some may like to respond: "But we carry Amos, so why do we transport Marx?" The challenge is fair and deserves not one but two answers. Experimental, we transport Marx as well as Amos, perhaps Marx as a letter on Amos, having the status of Marx is about us in a way that Amos is not."I carry run participating in this speck of view very regularly all together with simple, methodical personnel, who carry swallowed a jump line and together with experienced, scholars, who really must to know snooty. Some publicize this line knowing it is deceitful as jade lie down for ideological reasons. I carry down to say to them except: "For shame!" But masses personnel parrot this line totally situation it is true and that Marx is virtuously a modern dose of Amos. It is associates personnel I wish to command in this post.

Simply put, my article is that the information of Marx

and associates found in Amos are frantically incompatible.

Amos is just, Marx is not exact, and the finer you summon with

Amos the finer of Marx's information you order transport to entrust up.

A blog post can scarcely offer an edge of an argument; a book is badly considered necessary on this emerge. But, appearing in is a beginning of a impolite edge of an clash.

1. Amos is addressing the full, the rulers, and the civilization as a whole, at the same time as Marx addresses the working class, that is, the substandard.

Amos calls on the full to do do two things: (1) enforce the law - that is legitimacy and (2) tract their supplies - that is patience. Amos is a close insofar as he believes that the law of Moses is abundance and virtuously needs to be implemented. He looks to the back for his ideals; for Amos the development is not the eschatological Utopia envisioned by Marx but have a preference the dark and misgiving Day of the Peer of the realm. (5:18-20) It is the assignment of the full to be bountiful and it is the assignment of the Bench to circulate legitimacy jointly to the full and to the substandard. Equivalence by means of the law, have a preference than equality of finances is the quintessence for Amos. It is the Peer of the realm who order bring evaluation upon Israel.

Marx, stagnant, addresses not the full but the the herd and he tells them that the law is innocuously a tool of the oppressors to keep them down and that patience is a humorous. He urges them to effectively up an unrest against the rulers, defeat the ceremonial, expropriate personal property, escalation taxes and after that repositioning the wealth according the essence of "from each according to his special - to each according to his transport." For example someone has to elect who needs what and who can show mercy to what, associates who jump on the mutinous bandwagon quite hurried carry an recoil in applying for associates windfall positions in the new order. Marx preaches that the herd of the world carry void to lose but their manacles and entices them with visions of a new world in which unicorns bring lollipops from by means of the rainbow. Subsequently the repression of the proletariat gets power, what may possibly possibly go wrong?

"State to the strongholds in Ashdod

and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt,

and say, own yourselves on the mountains of Samaria,

and see the spicy tumults within her,

and the oppressed in her midst.'

'They do not know how to do just,' declares the Peer of the realm.

associates who store up ambiguity and prop in their strongholds."

(Amos 3:9-10)

2. Amos calls for the honest of law, which in his context would comprise personal property custody entrenched in the 8th Order, at the same time as Marx calls for advance against the constant order, which he views as while based on personal property custody.

Amos has a high view of the law and sees it as track, impersonal and knowable. Amos calls Israel back to Torah and assumes that the Law contains the answers to the injustices and fruitful problems Israel faces. Amos knows that personal property custody are the basic defense of the secondary classes against associates who would do its stuff them and he knows that the right understanding and enforcement of the law is the best believe for the substandard.

Marx, on the other hand, sees the law show the way the lens of class rivalry and assumes that it reflects class lure and unkindness. It is a expansive fabricate that can cleanly be dismantled and remade with few derogatory domino effect. For Marx, personal property custody necessary be turned participating in myths that can be squander and it this hurts the secondary classes finer than it hurts the wealthy, well, you can't make an omelet with contravene a few progeny.

"Hatred evil and love good,

and surprise legitimacy (misphat) in the gate;

It may be that the Peer of the realm, the God of hosts

order be affable to the pin down of Joseph."

(Amos 5:15)

3. Amos discerns a spiritual rock layer of a avaricious difficulty, at the same time as Marx sees religion as part of the difficulty.

For Amos, existing is a natural and personal railway bridge between sexual sin (2:7), hard-heartedness leading to a neglect of patience (4:1) and idolatry (5:25-27). Why? These are all violations of the conformity and the contravene of precise laws in the Law of Moses. To break the law is to rebellious against the Peer of the realm, the God of the Fathers who delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt. All sins against the neighbor (Commandments 5-10) are entrenched in sins against God (Commandments 1-4) as the very contraption of the Ten Commandments shows us. Idolatry leads to hedonism and covetousness and after that on to bootlegging and all the other sins against the neighbor.

For Marx, on the other hand, religion is with refinement the tool of the oppressors, the opiate of the personnel, a supply for class rivalry and advance. To teach substandard personnel not to covet the wealth of the full is anathema to Marx; it is counter-revolutionary - grudging. He would view Amos' unwillingness to gather for advance as a typically religious move toward to make the world reliable for the position quo which give support to the wealthy and the powerful. He would view Amos' gather for patience as too down too at the rear. He would view Amos' value about sexual sin as small and bourgeois.

For Amos, graciousness is fixed in religion and to one side from religion existing is no spokesperson for legitimacy or clemency. For Marx, graciousness is independent of religion and the transport of the substandard is all the spokesperson for legitimacy that is considered necessary. For Amos, legitimacy development chastisement to the law, but for Marx the law, border on religion, stands in the way of the aggressive, pounding on steal what is due to the substandard not including preconception metaphysical or religious justifications. Transport justifies all.

Amos is a judge of true, purified religion; Marx is the judge of post-Christian Naturalism.

"I irritation, I can't bear your feasts,

and I rostrum no satisfy in your somber assemblies.

Preset at the same time as you postpone me your overdone contributions and feel contributions,

I order not discover them;

and the settlement contributions of your fattened natural world,

I order not announce upon them.

Confiscate absent from me the hubbub of your songs;

to the harmony of your harps I order not chill out.

But let legitimacy record down border on waters,

and decorousness border on an ever-flowing gale.

(Amos 5:21-24)

Decisive Thoughts:

I carry not been emotive to do a adjacent exegetical word study of the terms legitimacy (mishpat) and decorousness (tsedaqah). But, I would grant that the right meanings of these terms is differing from the expansive quintessence of equality of finances attained by coerced rearrangement of wealth preached by Communism. It is easy for good-hearted Christian personnel to read participating in the writing what they carry on sounds sympathetic and fair.

The concept that anybody must to carry what they like and no one want be full at the sum of the substandard is a fascinating plan that sounds unthinkably charming until you actually try to put it participating in practice in a fallen world. In this range, a approach that takes our fallen natures participating in autobiography and recognizes the unkindness that characterizes all of us is preferable to a approach that redefines sin as finances inconsistency and claims to be emotive to spoil possible model and deem sin by development of an fruitful and member approach. In this range, aiming secondary get bigger have a fight, at the same time as aiming too high causes a fall participating in the gorge.

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