2025: The Threads That Weave the Patterns of Nature – The Garlands of the Goddess/Nature/Universe
Time | Space | Shape | Energy | Physicality | Consciousness | Mystery
In this new year, I am eager to explore the threads in the Patterns of Nature that weave through us and the universe, the interconnectedness between Nature, ourselves, and the mysteries that bind them. I am particularly moved by the insights found in the latest episode of the Emerald Podcast, which delves into The Mother Goddess. I was brought to stillness when Schrei describes the "Garlands of the Goddess," and they are the same words as our WIM threads for this year, although we add physicality, consciousness, and mystery. His expression of the Goddess, as Nature and the Universe, exists both beyond and within us.
Listening to this and in some other break explorations, it became clear that the work we have been engaged in, exploring how the world operates, is inherently reciprocal. At the core of this exploration lies our foundational principle: the more closely our actions and strategies align with the flow of the world, the more effective they will be. In other words, when we harmonize with the Universe, we are not fighting against it, but flowing with it. This echoes what we have come to understand as human/wholeness-compatible learning. But there is another side to this understanding—by our longing to comprehend the nature of Nature, by observing the principles that animate the world, we perform an act of honoring Nature itself. This is an act of reverence, a form of devotion in the Hindu worldview.
As always, the work of WIM and Patterns invites us to look through many lenses. We can approach the study of how the world works—how a pattern manifests in the Universe—through a scientific lens, observing its physical properties and dynamics. We can also hum with the pattern, acknowledging the deeper currents of connection that flow beneath it. These patterns can appear across cultures, times, and spaces, forming a meta-pattern, a bridge between our lives and the greater forces of Nature and the Universe. At different moments, we may engage with these patterns through the lenses of physicality, consciousness, or dynamic energy.
What feels particularly alive to me during this time is the idea of exploring/dancing the Patterns as a gift—offered as an act of honoring Nature. This is a practice we've touched on before, notably with the Orpheus work, which invites us to sing Nature alive, to awaken the earth's wild song. We can see this too in doing the Earth to Sky sequence as a morning physical poem or prayer, that embody our connection through time and space and to the world around us. These forms of reciprocity have been present with us as we have awoken to the relational essence of our being.
In this context, I invite the possibility that the practice of engaging with Patterns can be, if you wish to embrace it this way, an offering back to Nature. A dance, a song of honor and love in the midst of the tumult and richness of life. As we awaken to the threads weaving through the Patterns of Nature we may strengthen the threads of the Goddess/Nature, and the Universe that weave through us all. We are supported by the Patterns and we support the Patterns.
From Keeney Newsletter
The late Bushman healer, Cgunta Elae, amplified this message when he once told Brad:
God sleeps in our hearts when we are not dancing. When we dance, he wakes up. When we get angry, or jealous, or irritated with someone, all we can do is wake up God. God then chases the trouble away. To wake him up, we must dance.
But now comes the tricky part, the other side of the ecstatic koan: Everyone can dance or shake, but not everyone has God sleeping in their heart. I didn’t, not in the beginning. Not sufficiently, at least. To clarify, when Cgunta says he dances to wake up God, he means he dances to wake up his feeling for God, the Big Love he feels for the Sky God. If this sacred emotion isn’t sleeping in our heart, then all the shaking and dancing in the world can’t wake up its medicine. We’re not born with this feeling-for-God inside us, but we are built for it. We’re built to catch it and be caught by it, to carry it, grow it, and wake it up when needed.
So which comes first, the feeling or the shake? It doesn’t really matter, but both have to be present for the fire to light, the switch to flip, the n/om to awaken. And of the two, the feeling is the most essential. An old southern preacher may have said it best: “Before God can use a man, that man must be hooked in the heart.”⁵
Meaning before God can:
shake us
dance us
heal us
shake through us
dance through us
heal through us
sing through us
play through us
write through us
art through us
cook through us
or use us for anything,
we must be hooked in the heart.
Every longtime, recent time, soon time, and future time ecstatic is himma-hungering for that hook.
“Worldly rubble” is one of our favorite phrases from Ibn ‘Arabi’s Journey to the Lord of Power, translated by Rabia Terri Harris. It refers to earthly materiality, including the notion of a material self separate from God. Himma is defined as spiritual inspiration and motivation, but inside the heart of a mystic it grows to become something closer to n/om. Inspired by Ibn ‘Arabi, the Islamic scholar, Henry Corbin, called himma “a creative power of the heart.” For a discussion of the different levels of himma, see Lala, Ismail. 2023. Turning Religious Experience into Reality: The Spiritual Power of Himma. Religions 14: 385.