Creation's Paths

My friends often joke that I am a predictable, spiritual stereotype. They joke that they can predict my answers and ideas based on the punchlines of comedians who mock the religious… They aren’t wrong.The Meaning CrisisI am one of those people the meaning crisis beat into the darkness from which I thought I would never return. Over my life I became increasingly disconnected from my family, my friends, my faith and my life. My family tend to judge me without care or compassion for my own mental or physical health. I am an avatar for their wishes, dreams, and expectations and not a person in and of myself. Friends are physically so far away, because I have lived all over the country, my friends live all over the country and it is hard to keep in touch with them, especially as it has become harder for me to travel. The church abandoned God for the Republican Party. My body keeps me from doing so many of the things I want to do as my chronic ailments have gotten worse over time.The results of all of this is I am left drowning in the same sea of disconnection and loneliness as everyone. I’ve been able to keep my head above water, but it is so tempting sometimes to just let myself go under. While I know or at least see a path to the shore, riptides keep pulling me back out to sea.Current events don’t help. Every time I watch the news, my faith in the social contract, progress, and our ability to correct errors is shaken and cracked. I know historically, the ideological pendulum swings back and forth. It is hard to live through this prolonged swing to the right especially when as the mechanics of the state have been twisted to cover up and prevent the pendulum from swinging back the other way.I know I am not the only one feeling all this, but I don’t see enough spiritual teachers being honest about it.The Light in the DarknessAt the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to became a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.- Emma Goldman, Living My LifeWe are not at our best when we are serious and solemn, entirely focused on the Cause, whatever the “Cause” might be. We are at our best when we are really and truly alive and bringing that vitality to our causes.Anarchism is simply the rejection of unjust hierarchies and working through right relationship in accordance with the sovereignty of ourselves and others to build an equitable world. I want to build and live in a just, equitable, and compassionate world. That goal is the light on the path out of the meaning crisis for me. That is why I share it to the best of my ability.Science and reason are great, but they have nothing to offer to the search of meaning, purpose, or fulfillment. We can study those things all we want, but their is no way to objectively measure happiness, fulfillment, meaning, purpose, and connection. We need a different technology for those things, and we have three: religion, spirituality, and magic. The problem is they have been used to control, dominate, and suppress people. Any technology can be misused, that doesn’t mean we throw it out. We have to reclaim it for its proper and good use.How do we find meaning?These are like diagnostic questions you can ask about in order to (sort of) measure how much meaning in life you have. What do you want to exist even if you don’t?Second, how real is it? Is it really real? Third, how much of a difference do you make to it now? If you can answer all three of those you have meaning in life. If one of them is missing, it’s reduced. If they’re all missing, you’re in trouble.John Vervaeke, Metaphysics of MatteringThese are the diagnostic questions to discover how much meaning we have in our lives:* What do we want to exist even if it doesn’t?* How real is what we want to exist? * How much of a difference do we make to building it now? The better we can answer those questions, the more meaning we have in our lives. I want to live in a world without unjust hierarchies, where everyone has access to meaning. I want to be a part of a movement where everyone can and does dance when they want. That is why I am a practitioner of Creation Spirituality.Creation Spirituality and the Meaning CrisisCreation Spirituality offers a clear and simple pattern to find meaning for ourselves individually and as a collective. That tool is the Four Paths, which is one of the most powerful spiritual technologies I have ever found to build and rebuild meaning and never forget to dance.Path One: The Way of Awe (Via Positiva)The first path begins with Awe, reminding us that we are born in Original Blessing in a world that is good (ki tov), that grace is always available to us and we exist as conduits for that grace to enter the world. How does the first path answer these questions?What do we want to exist on the first path even if it doesn’t?We want to experience the jaw-dropping awe of the cosmos, savoring it with all our hearts. We use those experiences to build communities of hospitality where we, like Earth, are welcoming to all.We want to experience joy in our daily life, where we work from the desires of our hearts to build a better world for each other and the world to come.This exists on a small scale in our personal lives, but we desire to see this joy, awe, and enjoyment of life be available to all.How real is what we want to exist? This world is available to all, but is kept from most of our grasp by the greedy and the power hungry. We make enough food to feed everyone on Earth and have enough housing for a roof over everyone’s head. It is only greed and the need of a few to dominate others that we are not living in that reality now.How much of a difference do we make to building it now? The more we work to help everyone savor the joys of life, the closer we get to it being a reality for all. Through mutual aid, collective bargaining, community organizing, and deep friendships, we grow ever closer to bringing this reality to all.That might not seem true, but that is because there are too many people striving to keep power, wealth, healthcare, food, and shelter under the control of a greedy and fearful elite. The more of us who are working for the liberation of all, the fewer there are taking food, safety, and life from those who are deprived of their birthrights.Path Two: The Way of Mystery (Via Negativa)What do we want to exist on the second path even if it doesn’t?In path two, we let go of the delusional certainty that we know everything and we reject the lie that we must ignore suffering and those who are in pain. What we want is the space to acknowledge our wounds so they might be tended and healed. We want the room to speak the truth to power that power fears. We want the mindfulness to sit with our pain, acknowledge it, and reveal the depth of harm existing in the current system.How real is what we want to exist? Some of us have a mindfulness practice and have built support groups and healing circles. We see the hope and healing they bring into our lives. With a little effort and collective will, we can open space to air the issues we have and are enduring, because there can be no reconciliation without the truth coming out first.How much of a difference do we make to building it now? The work we are currently doing helps so many people, but through the circumstances imposed on us by the systems that exist now, so many others fall through the cracks. We need to continue to offer the help we are now and build a world where the resources exist to make these resources available to everyone.Path Three: The Way of Creativity (Via Creativa)On the third path, we trust our voices, our hands, and our bodies to bring the wonder we found in path one and the maturity and strength we found in path two into the world through creative conversation, organizing, cooking, poetry, writing, art, and countless other means. We channel the compassion and wisdom we generate in the first two paths into modes of sharing that compassion and wisdom to others.What do we want to exist on the third path even if it doesn’t?While our culture does not embrace the importance of art in all its varied forms, some of us embrace it and offer the fruits of our labor to the world. Our work is very real, which is why the powerful and the greedy work so hard to commodify it and control it by the whims of the rich and powerful.How real is what we want to exist?Even through the efforts of the powerful to co-opt and control creativity and our imaginations, so many continue to work from the heart. If we found better ways to support the arts and those who create it, even more would be able to share their glimpses of the world through their own eyes. Creativity is real, but we need to do more to encourage everyone to take part in the creativity yearning to break free from their hearts. How much of a difference do we make to building it now? Cr

Gratitude in a Mixed WorldThere is a strange quiet that settles over the landscape this time of year. Not silence exactly, but the thickened hush that comes when winter begins to gather itself at the edge of the horizon. The bright colors fade into deeper tones. The days shrink. The nights stretch. And somewhere inside that long dark, something ancient begins to stir.Gratitude always feels different in this season. It does not arrive as a cheerfulness or a forced smile. It comes more like breath in cold air, visible for a moment before it disappears, reminding you that you are alive, still moving, still here. This year especially, I feel the weight of a world that is hurting, and the resilience of a heart that refuses to close. Gratitude has become less about counting blessings and more about choosing to see that there is another way to live.Because let’s be honest. Many people have chosen to live life on “difficult mode.” They cling to a belief that the only way forward is to make someone else fall behind. They accept stories that tell them scarcity is inevitable, cruelty is necessary, and the suffering of a neighbor is simply the cost of their own survival. Governments amplify these lies. Systems reward them. And people absorb them until they feel like it is the only possible shape of the world.But gratitude, real gratitude, is a radical act. It refuses that worldview. It says: there is more than this. It whispers: you can choose differently.And that is what has been sitting on my heart this year. Even in the midst of hardship, even with so many living in fear, even with power systems grinding down the most vulnerable, we still have the ability to imagine better. Gratitude does not erase pain. It does not ask us to pretend. It invites us to see the small openings that remain, the slivers of light that widen into possibility.Every November, the same story tries to reassert itself in our collective memory. A story of pilgrims and Indigenous people sharing a peaceful feast, a myth invented long after the fact to soothe a national conscience uneasy with the truth. The real history is far more complex and far more tragic, shaped by violence, theft, and cultural erasure. And yet the myth persists because something in us longs for the image of people sitting down at one table, recognizing each other’s humanity.I don’t honor the myth, but I do honor the longing.That longing is a tender thing. It points toward the world we wish we had inherited and the world we are still capable of building. It asks us to tell the truth about the harm done and still find a way to nourish the good that remains.This is where gratitude becomes holy. Not as denial, but as practice. Not as distraction from suffering, but as one of the ways we refuse to let suffering be the final word.We begin with awe, the first of the Four Paths. Awe at the simple fact that we can feed one another, that despite the greed of corporations and the cruelty of policies, we still live in a world where abundance is possible. Awe that we can see what is happening in the world rather than living in the dark, because our phones let us witness what once would have stayed hidden in silence. Awe that even in grief, we are capable of compassion.From awe, we move into the Via Negativa, the honest naming of what is broken. Gratitude does not deny harm. It looks directly at it and refuses to let it consume the entire horizon. Gratitude says: yes, this is true, and yes, there is still something good. It is the art of holding both at once, of letting sorrow deepen us without hollowing us out.Then gratitude leads us into the Via Creativa, because once you recognize small goodness, something in you wants to protect it. You begin to imagine ways to nurture it, expand it, share it. Gratitude makes us inventive. It makes us curious about what might grow if we cared for it. It turns us toward actions that feel humble and hopeful at once.And finally, gratitude draws us into the Via Transformativa. The small good we recognize, the small good we celebrate, becomes fuel for justice. Gratitude gives us the energy to tend the world, to push back against cruelty, to choose a path that leads toward healing. Gratitude is not passive. It is preparation. It is the way we gather strength for the work ahead.Brian and I harvested our sunchokes this year, waiting as instructed until the first hard frost had passed. We planted them without knowing what to expect, without knowing how they’d take to the soil, without knowing if they’d flourish or fail. When we finally pulled them from the earth, they were generous. And as we washed them and sorted them, we found ourselves instinctively doing what people have done for millennia. We measured the harvest. We appreciated the effort that led to it. We saved the seeds, thought about next year, and planned how to care for the soil that cared for us.That cycle is older than any nation, older than any holiday, older than any myth. Gather the seeds. Plant them. Tend them. Harvest. Share. Repeat. Gratitude is the thread that runs through the whole pattern. It keeps us from taking what we have for granted. It reminds us that we are part of a living world. It keeps us humble enough to learn from our mistakes and hopeful enough to try again.Even abundance teaches. We noticed where we planted too closely, where the light didn’t quite reach, where the soil could use more care. We didn’t fixate on what didn’t go perfectly. Gratitude pointed us toward what went well and gave us the courage to improve what needs tending. This is the wisdom of the season: not everything will flourish, but what grows will teach you how to grow more.Thanksgiving, as practice, is not about reenacting a myth or pretending everything is fine. It is about choosing to create a sacred space where honesty and gratitude can coexist. Sometimes that means setting boundaries with kin who drain rather than nourish. Sometimes that means choosing your chosen family, the ones who hold you up, the ones who care in ways blood relatives may never understand.Sacred space is not neutral. It has structure. It has intention. It has rules meant to protect what is tender and alive. In our home, we keep Thanksgiving as a feast day. And part of the feast is naming what we are grateful for. Not to ignore pain. Not to suppress anyone’s truth. But to build the kind of atmosphere where celebration can open us to hope.Protecting sacred space is an act of love. It is how we make sure the meal nurtures us instead of draining us. It is how we remember that we belong to each other in ways deeper than blood.So here we are, standing on the threshold of winter. The world feels heavy. Many people are hurting. Systems are grinding along with impersonal force. And yet gratitude calls us still.Gratitude says: measure what is good. Not because the good is winning. Not because the good is loud. But because the good is real, and naming it helps us keep going.Gratitude says: tend what is growing. Celebrate what is alive. Protect what is tender. Let joy be an act of resistance.Gratitude says: imagine a better world. Dream of abundance, not as fantasy but as a path already unfolding beneath your feet.And gratitude says: you can choose differently. You can plant new seeds. You can harvest new possibilities. You can live in a way that does not demand someone else’s suffering for your survival.This year, Thanksgiving feels less like a holiday and more like a vow. A vow to tell the truth about harm. A vow to nurture the small goods that sustain us. A vow to keep imagining a world where we feast together in justice and joy.Winter is long. But gratitude fills the lantern we carry into the dark.And that light is enough to guide the way.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Thanksgiving #GratitudePractice Chapters:00:00 Introduction & Opening Thoughts01:41 The Myth of the First Thanksgiving02:18 Modern Thanksgiving Origins04:10 The Importance of Acknowledgment & Gratitude05:45 Finding Gratitude in a Mixed World06:53 The Power of Documentation & Visibility08:16 The Art of Balanced Gratitude09:05 Gratitude Practice: Finding Sensation in Pain09:56 Jewish Practice of Blessings11:08 Compassion: Balancing Positive & Negative12:12 Thanksgiving as Active Practice13:32 Winter Planning & Preparation14:55 Sunchoke Harvest: A Personal Example16:24 Celebrating the Harvest17:12 Redefining Family for Thanksgiving17:56 Setting Boundaries: Gratitude as Sacred Space19:04 Chosen Family & True Connection19:55 Hex-Giving: Making Space for Goodness20:28 Upcoming Study: Creation’s Path Book22:23 Closing Prayer & Farewell Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

The veil thins. Candles flicker in windows, pumpkins grin like little guardians of light, and the wind itself seems to carry whispers. On this night of Samhain, the air is crowded not just with ghosts and shadows, but with memory. The ancestors are near. They gather around us not as specters of fear but as companions in the long struggle for freedom.They murmur their old refrain: No Kings.It isn’t only a political cry; it’s a spiritual declaration. No kings over conscience. No kings over the sacred spark in each soul. No kings over the earth that belongs to no one and to everyone.And yet, empire still rides: headless, hungry, searching for a new crown to wear.The Headless Rider of EmpireEvery age has its horseman. Ours rides draped in flags and algorithms, clutching power with a grin that never reaches the eyes. Empire doesn’t always look like soldiers on horseback; sometimes it’s the dull hum of propaganda, the endless scroll of outrage meant to make us afraid and divided. Fear is the tyrant’s favorite sacrament. It is how empire keeps us bowed.But Samhain teaches another kind of reverence, the courage to face the dark and discover that we are not alone in it. When we remember the ancestors, we remember that empire has fallen before, that courage has survived worse nights than these.As we light our candles this year, we are not warding off ghosts. We are calling them in.The Communion of the Courageous DeadTo honor the dead is to remember their unfinished prayers. Our ancestors were not perfect saints; they were human beings, flawed and luminous, stumbling toward freedom. Some resisted tyrants with sword or song. Others sowed seeds, healed wounds, or hid the persecuted in their homes. Some were themselves entangled in empire’s lies and it is ours to set those wrongs right.Their presence tonight is not sentimental. It is strategic.They come to remind us that the fight for freedom is ancient and ongoing, that our bloodlines are braided with courage. Every generation must reclaim liberty from the jaws of fear. The dead lend us their memory so we can stand our ground without trembling.So when you feel the chill tonight, do not recoil. Let it steady you. It is the breath of all who refused to kneel.The Spell of FearEvery empire survives by casting the same spell: Be afraid, and obey.They conjure phantoms of scarcity and strangers, they whisper of purity and order. They tell us that power is safety and obedience is peace. But fear is a liar.Samhain breaks that spell. It invites us to laugh at death, to dance in the graveyard, to mock the old specter of control. In every carved pumpkin grinning against the dark, there is an act of rebellion. Every costume is a playful reminder that masks can liberate as much as they conceal.We can take the tyrant’s favorite tools, fear and spectacle and turn them inside out. Make them ridiculous. Make them lose their power. Empire cannot stand when its priests of fear become the butt of the world’s laughter.This is holy mischief. Sacred mockery. The ancestors knew it well.No Kings: The Theological HeartWhen we say No Kings, we echo both the prophets and the mystics. The Hebrew scriptures warned Israel what kings would do: take sons for war, daughters for labor, and the fruit of the land for greed. Jesus of Nazareth refused a crown and washed feet instead.To walk the Christopagan path is to remember that divinity does not enthrone it indwells. The Holy is not found in palaces but in the gathering of people who love one another enough to live free.Every tyrant dreams of being worshiped. Every mystic knows that worship belongs only to Love.The Work of Ancestral HealingTo honor our ancestors is not to whitewash them. Many of us carry lineages tangled in empire’s violence colonizers and enslaved, oppressor and oppressed. Healing that wound begins with honesty.The ancestors cry out, not to defend their sins, but to urge our repair.In Hebrew mysticism this is called tikkun olam the mending of the world.Our task is not to make the past pristine but to fill its cracks with gold, like kintsugi pottery. To make beauty from brokenness. We do this through truth-telling, solidarity, and mercy.We the LivingWe are the living continuation of their courage. The blood of resistance runs in our veins. We, too, must stand in our time as they did in theirs against tyranny in every disguise: political, ecclesial, corporate, or psychological.But take heart. The ancestors are not trapped in dusty graves; they walk with us in every act of conscience, every laugh that punctures fear, every community that chooses cooperation over control.When you light your Samhain candle, whisper their names. But also whisper your own. You are part of the lineage now.Practice: The Circle of Memory and FreedomCreate an Ancestral Altar of Resistance* Gather tokens of courage. A photo of an ancestor who stood up for justice, a candle, a stone from the earth you walk on, a symbol of freedom a feather, a leaf, a key.* Name your lineage honestly. Speak aloud the gifts and wounds you inherit. If your ancestors caused harm, acknowledge it and commit to repair.* Invite them to stand beside you. Say: “Those who fought for freedom, walk with me. Those who seek to heal, guide me.”* Make a pledge. Choose one concrete act this season: volunteering, mutual aid, community defense, voting, or organizing to embody their courage in your day.* End in laughter. Remember the sacred mockery that disarms fear. Tell a story, sing, or dance. Joy is resistance.A Call to the Living CircleThe season ahead will test us. But remember: the tyrant’s power is built on isolation. The medicine is community.Gather your people. Light the fires. Tell the old stories again. The witches who cursed the bombers, the marchers who faced dogs and hoses, the workers who sang on picket lines. These are your kin.Let your laughter carry through the thinning veil so the dead know their struggle was not in vain. Let your courage rise like a hymn the empire cannot drown.Because when we say No Kings, we are not only defying rulers we are proclaiming the sacred truth of creation:that Love alone is sovereign.And love, once awakened, cannot be ruled.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Samhain #NoKings #ancestors #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #AntiEmpire #Druidry #SpiritualActivism #FreedomAndFaithChapters:00:00 Introduction: The Veil is Thinning01:27 Welcome & Episode Overview02:20 Samhain: Hearing the Ancestors’ Call05:58 Making Tyranny Look Ridiculous07:19 Dismantling the Myth of Whiteness10:13 The Practical Work of Ancestor Awareness11:59 Honoring Ancestors Who Fought for Freedom15:09 Our Inheritance: The Love of Liberty17:19 Planning for the Harvest Ahead19:22 Honest Judgment: Learning from Our Ancestors’ Mistakes21:08 History as Lesson, Not Justification22:25 Extending Grace & Standing Together23:55 Closing Thoughts & Homework Assignment Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

There’s a rhythm to panic.It begins as a whisper, something dark is coming for your children, your faith, your way of life. Within days the whisper becomes a flood. Media blares, pulpits thunder, and neighbors begin to look at one another with suspicion. Each new generation dresses its fear in different clothes: witches, rock music, rap lyrics, foreign dolls, queer joy, or artificial intelligence. The names change, but the spell is the same. Fear becomes a liturgy.Satanic panics are not born from spiritual warfare; they are crafted through power’s deep insecurity. History shows that whenever people in authority feel their grip loosening: when women, workers, youth, or marginalized communities begin to claim their voice, someone declares that evil is afoot. The panic becomes a tool of empire, sanctified in religious language. Fear does what swords and laws cannot: it convinces people to police one another in the name of holiness.Creation Spirituality asks us to start from a different ground: Original Blessing rather than original fear. The cosmos is not a battlefield between God and darkness. It is a living communion of being, a web in which even tension can be transfigured. To believe that God can be outmatched by any adversary is to confess a smaller god than the one who breathes galaxies into being.The Mechanics of FearFear functions like static, when it fills the air, it drowns out truth. It narrows perception until everything feels dangerous, even difference itself.Empire has always known how to tune that frequency. In the early witch trials, fear justified the theft of land and silencing of women’s wisdom. In the 1980s, it sold records, elections, and purity rings. Today it drives algorithms and fundraising emails. Every panic has its merchants.The pattern is older than the word Satan. In Hebrew scripture, “the satan” simply meant the accuser, a prosecutor within the heavenly court. This figure worked for God, not against, testing integrity rather than spreading evil. Only later did the concept harden into a cosmic enemy. When imperial religion absorbed that dualism, it found a useful weapon. Once you can label your opponent “satanic,” you no longer have to understand them; you only have to destroy them.A Practice of DiscernmentSo what does resistance look like?Begin by asking the question that every prophet has asked: Who benefits from this fear?Whenever a headline, preacher, or politician insists that your neighbors are dangerous, pause. Take a breath. Feel your feet on the ground, the air in your lungs. That moment of embodied awareness breaks the enchantment. It creates the space where Spirit can speak.Then, look for the fruit.Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.” Does the message lead to compassion, justice, and community or to suspicion, profit, and control? Discernment is not about having secret knowledge; it is about noticing outcomes. The fruit tells the truth.A second practice follows from the first: curiosity.Fear collapses complexity, but curiosity expands it. Ask what story is being told beneath the story. What wound or insecurity is driving it? When we meet fear with curiosity, we transform it from weapon into teacher. The empire thrives on reaction; the kingdom of God grows through reflection.Fear, Insecurity, and EmpireCharlie and Brian named the heart of it in the episode: “Equality to the privileged feels like oppression.”That single sentence explains much of Western history. When those accustomed to superiority encounter genuine equity, it feels like loss. Empire trains us to measure value through hierarchy, so the movement toward balance feels like descent. But in truth it is an invitation to live no longer as masters or victims, but as kin.Creation Spirituality reminds us that all life participates in the same divine energy. Fear fractures that awareness; it convinces us that safety can only come through dominance. Every satanic panic, from Salem to social media, has served that same illusion. When we remember our interconnection, the illusion loses its power.Media Literacy as Spiritual DisciplineThe next great panic may not be about witches or music but about machines. Already we hear whispers that artificial intelligence will replace souls, that technology itself is demonic. But as Charlie observed, the danger is not the machine it is the human tendency to hallucinate, to fill gaps in understanding with stories that flatter our fears.To resist this, we must treat media literacy as a spiritual discipline.Before sharing, pause.Before believing, verify.Before reacting, breathe.Truth requires patience, and patience is a kind of prayer. In a culture addicted to immediacy, waiting long enough to discern reality is an act of rebellion. It is how we refuse to be ruled by the algorithms of panic.The Practice of GroundingTry this simple act whenever the world feels too loud:Place your hand over your heart. Feel its rhythm. Whisper, “I am held in the web of life.”Let your breath lengthen. Picture roots extending from your feet into the soil of being, drawing up steadiness from the earth itself. This is the Via Positiva in motion, communion with creation as a living sacrament.When you feel fear tightening its grip, do not shame yourself. Fear is not sin; it is signal. Listen for what it is asking you to protect, and then widen that protection to include others. Fear transfigured becomes compassion.Beyond Panic: A New Imagination of PowerThe antidote to panic is not apathy but imagination.When Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he was not romanticizing passivity. He was redefining power as relational rather than coercive. Peacemakers do not suppress conflict; they transform it through presence. That same spiritual technology dismantles panic. Instead of shouting down fear, we hold it gently until it changes shape.Imagine a community that meets every accusation with curiosity, every rumor with research, every threat with prayerful composure. That is what spiritual maturity looks like in an age of hysteria.To cultivate it, begin in small circles.Read together.Listen deeply.Bless the ones who think differently from you.Each act of trust disrupts the machinery of panic. Each moment of calm discernment becomes a quiet revolution.The Voice of Reason and the Light of HopeFear is contagious, but so is calm.When one person refuses to react, the contagion slows. When a community chooses love over outrage, the empire of fear loses its fuel. The voice of reason is not cold; it is compassionate. It says, Wait. Let us see clearly before we judge.And when judgment comes, let it be in service of truth, not power.Because the truth the scandalous, liberating truth is that God has no rival. The cosmos is not divided between good and evil battling for dominance; it is unfolding in love that absorbs even its shadows. The panic narrative collapses under that revelation. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.Closing ReflectionTake a moment tonight to turn off the news and step outside.Look up at the night sky. Every star you see burns because of balance, pressure and gravity, heat and space, held together in tension. That same equilibrium sustains your breath. The universe is not panicking. Neither must you.When the next wave of fear arrives, remember: you are part of a creation rooted in blessing, not curse. You are capable of discernment. You are free to step out of the storm and into the steady work of love.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Creation’s Paths book: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://wisdomscry.com/Creation+Spirituality/00-+Creation’s+Paths/00-+Creation’s+Paths. Please share your feedback with us we want to hear your experience.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #ChristianWitch #Paganism #Esoteric #Magic #Druidry #Mysticism #Spirituality #Occult #WitchCraft #Wicca #IrishPaganism #CelticPaganism #Magick #Polytheism #Enchantment Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Alban Eilir00:15 Personal Connection to the Holiday01:12 Welsh Pronunciation Challenges02:20 Understanding the Spring Equinox05:23 The Significance of Angus and Songbirds09:25 Dreams, Transformation, and Ceridwen16:38 Eclipses and Liminal Spaces21:01 Hope and Resilience in Nature23:10 Celebrating the Equinox25:09 Closing Thoughts and Blessings Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

The modern obsession with leaving the world began, oddly enough, with a fall. In 1827, John Nelson Darby tumbled from his horse, banged his head, and started writing a new idea into the Christian imagination. He sketched a future where the faithful are whisked away from the grit and grief of history while the rest of creation burns. A quick exit. An escape hatch. A promise that the real home is elsewhere and that the earth is disposable, like a cracked cup you set in the bin.This is not ancient. It is not apostolic. It is recent and it is seductive. It tells a suffering people, your pain will be over soon, the plane is already boarding, no need to change anything down here. If you have felt that tug toward evacuation, you are not foolish. You are tired. That fatigue is understandable in an age of fires measured in miles, plague-years mapped by grief, and a public life where cruelty is mistaken for strength. The promise of escape is shaped to meet that ache. It is also a lie.The Kin-dom is already here.That is the heart of realized eschatology, the teaching we carried in the episode and carry again in this essay. “Eschatology” means the study of last things. Realized means the future is not only ahead of us. It is breaking in now. Jesus described it as a reign spread out among us, hidden like yeast in dough, like a seed in soil, like light within the body. The Kin-dom is the web of right relationship in which all can breathe, eat, heal, and flourish. Not a passcode. Not a flight plan. The Kin-dom is a way of living.From DespairDespair is honest. It names what is broken. The temptation is to make despair a home. Rapture-thinking offers a furnished apartment in that neighborhood. It whispers, if the world is going to burn, the moral thing is to detach. Sell your goods. Quit your job. Leave your lease. Tell yourself it will be over soon and the pain will end. The trouble is simple. People get left behind in our leaving. Children, neighbors, the unhoused, the exhausted caregiver down the hall. And the earth herself.We must say this plainly because our faith is not a riddle. Jesus did not ask us to decode news cycles. He asked us to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and the imprisoned. These are not optional extras. They are the criteria he gave for what salvation looks like when it is walking around in a body. If we are known by our fruits, then escapism is sterile ground. It cannot grow love.There is another reason the escape story keeps getting told. It flatters power. If we are leaving any day now, then the powerful do not have to reckon with what their choices do to air, water, soil, and bodies. If the earth is a demo model to be replaced, who cares about rivers turned to poison or forests to ash. If the poor are props in a cosmic drama, who cares whether they eat. History shows the same pattern again and again. Doctrines that separate faith from works turn out to be very useful to those who profit from our apathy.To DiscoveryDespair does not have to be destiny. What if the ache we feel is not proof that the world is ending but a summons to begin. The Kin-dom has already arrived. We do not wait for permission to love. We do not ask empire how to heal. We participate in the life that is present.The early church learned this quickly. Expectations of an immediate ending gave way to the discovery that Christ is already here. Not absent. Present. Not awaiting return from a distance. Active in the web of relationships that make for life. If that is true, our question shifts. Instead of asking when we leave, we ask how to live. Instead of hunting for dates, we look for neighbors.This is where realized eschatology becomes simple and practical. If the Kin-dom is here, then our daily life is the place of devotion. Prayer is our breath when we choose to share air with one another. Eucharist is the shared table where food becomes love. Repentance is not a sad impossibility. It is repair as ordinary as changing a habit, paying a debt we owe to a community, or stepping back from a lie we learned to speak without thinking.There is an old word for hell in the gospels, Gehenna. It was a trash heap outside the city. When Jesus warns that some will be given over to Gehenna, he is not talking about a theme park in the afterlife. He is asking whether we want to live in a world organized like a dump, a society that treats people and places as disposable. The counter-picture is the Kin-dom. A shared life where no one is tossed aside.To DevotionDevotion is what love looks like on repeat. Not a one-time burst of zeal. A cadence. A rhythm. A set of holy repetitions that strengthen the soul for a lifetime of service. In the episode, we joked that rapture apparently means selling your Xbox and leaving a note. That is darkly funny. It is also a parable. If you can decide in a weekend to abandon your life, you can also decide in a weekend to begin again. The choice is yours. The drills are daily.Let us choose a set of practices that make us steady, supple, and brave. Think of them as everyday drills of freedom. No need for special terms. No need for perfect conditions. We begin where we are and repeat.1) Begin with breath and blessing.Each morning, sit for three slow breaths. On the in-breath, say inwardly, “Here.” On the out-breath, “Now.” Place a hand on your chest and another on your belly. Say out loud: “The Kin-dom is within and among us.” This is not a trick. It is a way of waking the body to reality.2) Touch the ground.Step outside if you can. Touch soil, trunk, leaf, or light. Name what you feel. Cool. Rough. Wet. Warm. This is devotion, not escape. The earth is the altar. You are a priest of the living world. Ask quietly, “How can I tend you today?”3) Choose one work of mercy.Every day, do one small act from the list Jesus gave. Feed someone. Offer water, literal or metaphorical. Share clothing or blankets. Write a card to someone ill. Give to a bail fund or visit someone who is locked away. If you cannot leave home, support a group that does. Make the Kin-dom tactile.4) Tell the truth with kindness.Practice a single sentence of truth-telling to pierce a lie you meet often. Not a speech. A sentence. For example, “No one is disposable.” Or, “Health care is not a luxury.” Or, “Libraries are sacred.” Use it when the moment comes. Gentle. Steady. Clear.5) Learn to say no.Refuse demands from power that require you to harm your neighbor, yourself, or the earth. Start small. Decline gossip that erases someone’s dignity. Decline a purchase you know funds harm. Decline a schedule that turns you into a machine. Each no makes room for a larger yes.6) Make and keep a neighborly promise.Choose one ongoing commitment in your place. A monthly food distribution. A tenants’ meeting. An interfaith meal. A neighborhood garden. Keep showing up. Devotion turns from idea to muscle when it is scheduled and communal.7) End the day with examen.Before sleep, name one wound you witnessed and one repair you practiced. Offer both to the Holy One. If you failed, ask for strength to try again. If you succeeded, give thanks without vanity. Tomorrow you will begin again.These are not random acts. They are kin-making acts that reveal the Kin-dom that already is. They keep us from the trap of despair and the temptation to acquiesce to the demands of power. They grow fruit where propaganda said nothing could grow. They teach the body that hope is not a mood. Hope is a practice.The History We Carry, The Future We ChooseIt helps to remember how we got here. After Darby’s invention took root, other ideas cleared the way for it. Some preachers told us we are saved by believing the right things, not by doing the right things. Others taught that destiny is already set and our actions do not matter at all. Across centuries, those messages made it easier to bless wealth, ignore the poor, and outsource responsibility to an imagined timetable. Power liked that. Power still likes that.Creation Spirituality says no. It says the Holy is immanent, present in the soil, the river, the neighbor, the stranger. It says original blessing, not original sin, is the first truth about you. It says the Four Paths are a way to live: Awe that opens our eyes, Letting go of lies and fears, Creativity that builds what is needed, Transformation that turns wounds into wisdom. The Kin-dom is not hiding in the sky. It is shimmering in our shared life, asking to be chosen again.Scripture keeps the edge sharp:“The Kingdom of God is within you.”— Luke 17:21, WEB“Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”— Matthew 25:40, WEBRead those lines slowly. If the Kin-dom is within and among us, we cannot leave without leaving Christ. If Christ meets us in the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned, then love is measurable and daily. Faith is not nullified by works. It is made visible by works.A Pastoral Benediction For Beginning AgainHoly One, Light within all lights, you who kindle stars and soup kitchens, gardens and grief groups, teach us to stay. Unmask the cheap promise of escape. Give us instead the costly joy of devotion. Take our despair and convert it into discovery. Take our discovery and convert it into daily love. Let our hands become sacraments. Let our words become shelter. Let our homes become small monasteries of repair. The Kin-dom is here. Help us live like it.Amen.How We Keep GoingWhen the next prediction comes, and someone names a date for leaving, remember what Jesus said about dates and hours. Remember how relief can trick the heart. Then look around. Where are the needs at the bottom of the hierarchy. Food. Water. Shelter. Medicine. Safety. Belonging. Begin there. Begin again tomorrow. This is how we refuse the empire of abandonment. This is how we become citizens of the Kin-dom.You are not powerless. You are not alone. You are not late. The future you long for is arriving in y

The rosary has always been a kind of technology.A loop of beads strung together to steady the breath and keep the hands busy while the heart listens for God.But like all good tools, it changes in the hands of each generation.For centuries, the faithful have told a story about St. Dominic receiving the rosary from the Blessed Mother herself in the midsts of a terrible thunder storm. The story still moves me, even knowing it’s a legend shaped by time and longing. What matters isn’t whether it happened exactly that way, but that someone felt the need to place prayer beads in human hands as a bridge between heaven and earth. Somewhere in that imagination is truth.Today, on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosaries, I find myself drawn not only to the miracle but to the method. The rosary, like all living practices, survives because it adapts. There isn’t just one rosary; there are many: Dominican, Franciscan, Anglican, Brigantine and each one invites us to join the conversation in our own language of touch, rhythm, and breath.The Body Remembers What the Mind ForgetsPrayer begins in the body.That’s why a string of beads matters. It gives the restless fingers something holy to do.When I first learned to pray the rosary as a child, I didn’t understand its power. I thought it was about remembering the words: fifty Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, all lined up like soldiers in a row. But the miracle was never in the repetition alone. It was in what repetition made possible.After the first few rounds, the mind lets go.The mouth keeps moving, the beads keep sliding, and something quieter rises beneath the noise of thought.The prayer becomes breath.The prayer becomes listening.This is the contemplative secret of the rosary: it distracts the body so the soul can pay attention.Spiritual TechnologyWhen Brian and I talk about spiritual technology, we mean the humble tools that shape the interior life.A candle. A cup. A breath. A string of beads.The rosary gathers intention the way a river gathers rain, one drop at a time until the flow is strong enough to move the landscape of the heart.Each bead is a point of focus, each prayer a pulse of energy. Through rhythm and touch, intention begins to cohere.You can dedicate a rosary to almost anything: gratitude, justice, grief, courage, clarity. What matters most is that it brings your scattered self into alignment. The prayers don’t have to be perfect. They only have to be yours, repeated until they teach your hands the shape of devotion.The Many RosariesThere are countless ways to enter this practice.The Dominican rosary with its five decades of ten beads.The Franciscan rosary with seven sets.The Anglican rosary with four weeks of seven.Each is a pattern of circles within circles. A small cosmos designed to hold intention.And then there are the rosaries yet to be made.Many of us in Creation Spirituality and Christopagan practice are rediscovering what the rosary can become. We are writing new prayers, crafting beads for Brigid, for the Elements, for the Four Paths: Via Positiva, Negativa, Creativa, and Transformativa.The point isn’t to replace the old but to join the lineage of makers who found their way by rhythm.The first time you sit down to create your own sequence, it may feel awkward. You may worry about getting it wrong. Don’t. The earliest rosaries were simply strings of knots. Like any craft, prayer is learned in the doing. Write, pray, revise. Let the rhythm teach you.A Practice for Neurodivergent SoulsOne of the unexpected gifts of the rosary is how kind it is to a neurodivergent mind. The beads act like a fidget for the spirit, a sensory anchor for wandering attention. Each movement provides feedback: a gentle click, a shift of texture, a return to center.In that simple tactile motion, the scattered mind finds coherence.It’s no accident that monks once used knotted cords, and devotees of every faith found something physical to hold. The body is not an obstacle to prayer; it is its doorway.The beads remind us that the sacred is not abstract. It lives in motion, in muscle memory, in the rhythm of the breath we already carry.Writing the Prayer That Fits Your HandsA traditional Hail Mary is short. That rhythm is what makes it powerful. When crafting your own prayers, remember that the rosary teaches through pacing. Keep them simple. A few phrases that flow easily through the lips. Something that can be memorized by the hands before it ever settles in the head.If a line feels awkward, change it.If a phrase feels hollow, replace it.The rosary rewards patience and play. You are allowed to experiment until the words hum in your chest.Every person’s rosary will sound a little different, like accents in a shared language.That variety is not disorder it’s creation in motion.A Universal PatternThough we call it the rosary, the practice of counting prayers is nearly universal.In Buddhism and Hinduism, the mala carries mantras through 108 beads.In Islam, the tasbih praises the 99 names of God.In the Eastern churches, the chotki keeps the Jesus Prayer alive in the breath.Each path strings intention into matter. Each one teaches that holiness is rhythmic, embodied, and endlessly adaptable. We aren’t stealing from these traditions when we notice the resonance. We are witnessing the divine imagination repeating itself through many hands.Contemplation in MotionThe rosary is a teacher of balance.It gives you something to do when you don’t know what to say.It gives your body a rhythm when the mind is full of static.It teaches that the sacred and the ordinary are separated only by attention.When we pray the beads, we don’t escape the world, we enter it more deeply. Each repetition polishes the mirror of awareness until the face of Christ, the Lady, the Light, the Flame, whatever name you whisper, shines clearly in your own reflection.That is the quiet revolution of contemplative practice: it makes the heart spacious enough to hold the world.BenedictionBlessed Lady of the Rosaries,who turns the rhythm of human hands into prayer,teach us to count our days not by fear but by love.May every bead we touch remind us that the Holy is near,within breath, within heart, within the pulse of life itself.Guide our fingers through doubt,our minds through noise,our spirits through the long night of forgetting.May we remember that every prayer,whether whispered or woven,is one more spark in the chain of lightthat binds creation together.Amen.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #Rosary #Mysticism #SpiritualPractice #PrayerBeads #Interspiritual #MagicAndMystery #Brigid #SacredTechnologyChapters:00:00 Introduction: The Rosaries00:47 Host Introductions01:13 Episode Overview & Call to Action01:54 The Legend of St. Dominic and the Rosary03:23 Types of Rosaries Explained05:56 Creating Your Own Rosary Practice07:08 The Rosary as Spiritual Technology07:50 Benefits for Neurodivergent Practitioners09:03 Intention and Focus in Rosary Practice11:39 Developing a Brigid Rosary14:24 Crafting Your Own Prayers15:58 Flexible Approaches to the Rosary16:46 Getting Started: The Anglican Rosary17:19 Creation Spirituality Rosary17:55 Crafting Your Own Rosary18:55 Tips for Beginning Your Practice19:48 Journaling Your Experience20:26 Prayer Beads Across World Traditions21:28 Empowerment Through Personal Rosaries21:44 Engagement & Discussion Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

We live in a culture obsessed with fairness. The word is heavy with scales, tallies, and invisible scoreboards. Did I do my part? Did they? Am I getting what I deserve? Is someone getting more than me? Fairness sounds righteous on the surface, but when you live inside it, fairness is a trap. It drives us inward, judging ourselves and everyone else against an impossible standard, measuring every crumb, every kindness, every silence.When fairness rules, love shrinks. We second-guess our own thoughts, scold ourselves for favoritism, and keep our generosity under lock and key so we won’t “give too much.” Fairness whispers that compassion must be rationed, that care must be weighed like coins, that justice is about sameness instead of healing.But the ancient call of Spirit is not fairness. It is equity.Equity is not about everyone receiving the same thing. It is about giving each person what they need. When I stop worrying whether I’ve distributed care evenly across every relationship, and instead ask, “What does this one need from me right now?” something shifts. Relief floods in. My shoulders unclench. I no longer have to police every interaction or keep score of invisible debts. I am free to meet the human being in front of me.That is the heart of justice. Justice is not sameness. Justice is not balancing a ledger. Justice is seeing clearly and acting rightly. It is equity.The Trap of FairnessFairness has become one of the most cherished myths of our time, especially in societies built on meritocracy. We are told from childhood: if you work hard, if you follow the rules, if you wait your turn, things will be fair. But fairness is fragile. It crumbles the moment we see how wealth, health, opportunity, and power are not evenly spread. It fractures when we notice how privilege tilts the scales. And it collapses entirely when we realize that life itself is not fair: illness, disaster, and tragedy visit without rhyme or reason.When fairness fails, many double down. We chase punishments and rewards, lawsuits and policies, hoping someone, somewhere, will enforce the rules of fairness. But the more tightly we cling to fairness, the more bitter and exhausted we become. The constant comparison, who has more, who has less, who “deserves” what, keeps us in a state of judgment, always suspicious, always resentful.Fairness was never enough.The Relief of EquityEquity breaks the spell. Equity says: stop measuring. Stop comparing. Look at the person before you and ask, “What do they need?”Some need encouragement, others need listening, others need space. Some need bread for their table, others need a place to belong, others need protection from harm. Justice is not everyone receiving the same thing. Justice is everyone receiving what will allow them to live, to heal, to flourish.When we shift to equity, the anxiety of fairness dissolves. Instead of wondering, “Am I doing enough for everyone equally?” we ask, “Am I present, honest, and caring in this relationship?” It becomes practical. Relational. Human.That first step is where the practice begins: check your relationships. Are you being equitable with those around you? Not fair, but equitable. Does your friend who is grieving receive your tenderness, even if that means you cancel plans with someone else? Does your coworker who is struggling receive your help, even if it takes more of your time than another? Do you allow yourself to receive what you need, even if someone else doesn’t understand?This is equity. It feels like a deep sigh, a release from the tyranny of fairness.From Personal to CommunalThe small shift in our relationships points toward a larger horizon. If justice is equity in the personal sphere, then justice is equity in the communal sphere as well.When we give only what is fair, society becomes rigid. Schools, hospitals, workplaces, and governments end up enforcing sameness, not care. But when we design systems with equity in mind, we look at who has been excluded, who has been harmed, who carries heavier burdens, and we act to rebalance.Equity notices that some need ramps, others need interpreters, others need affordable medicine, others need safety from violence. Equity doesn’t ask who deserves it. Equity doesn’t weigh worthiness. Equity simply acts to provide what is needed so that everyone can participate fully in life.To treat one person unjustly is to treat everyone unjustly. Because once we decide that someone can be excluded, neglected, or silenced in the name of fairness, we set a precedent that eventually comes for us all. Equity protects the whole by tending to the part.Scarcity and the Lie of DeservednessOne of the deepest obstacles to equity is the myth of scarcity. We are taught to believe there is not enough: enough food, enough time, enough money, enough love. And in a world of scarcity, equity sounds threatening. If they get what they need, will there be enough left for me?But scarcity is a lie. Our world already produces more food than we consume, more wealth than we distribute, more capacity for care than we unleash. Scarcity is an invention of empire, a tool to keep us grasping and competing instead of sharing and creating.Deservedness is scarcity’s twin. We spend endless hours debating who deserves help, who deserves opportunity, who deserves compassion. But nobody deserves anything. Deserve is the wrong question. The right question is: what do they need?When we stop asking “Who deserves?” and start asking “What is needed?” the world changes. Compassion flows more freely. Communities grow stronger. Justice becomes possible.Living Into the PossibleThe call is not abstract. The call is practical. Begin with your relationships. Ask what equity looks like in your friendships, in your family, in your community. Practice it, even in small ways. Notice the relief it brings.Then lift your eyes. See the wider society. Ask: who around me is not receiving what they need to flourish? What can I do, in partnership with others, to change that? Sometimes the answer is mutual aid. Sometimes it is advocacy. Sometimes it is simply showing up and standing alongside the vulnerable.Justice is not waiting for laws to be rewritten or for leaders to act. Justice is practicing equity now, in our daily lives, in our choices, in our commitments.The dream is an equitable society. A world where no one is left behind, no one is cast aside, no one is told to earn their right to live. Every small act of equity is a seed of that world. The more seeds we plant, the more inevitable that world becomes.A Call to ActionSo here is the call: stop chasing fairness. Stop policing yourself with invisible scales. Stop rationing compassion. Let relief wash over you.Practice equity in your relationships. Ask what each person needs, and respond with love.Then widen your practice to your neighborhood, your community, your world. See where equity is missing, and act.Because justice is not a concept. Justice is a way of living. Justice is equity. Righteousness is right relationship. And the Spirit who made us longs for both.To treat one person unjustly is to treat everyone unjustly. But to treat one person equitably is to open the door for justice to grow everywhere.May we live as if an equitable world is already possible. And in our living, may we help bring it into being.Now find a quiet place. Sit comfortably. Close your eyes if you wish.Take a slow, steady breath in.Breathe in calm.Breathe out calm.Let your body settle. Let your spirit rest in the present moment.Now, softly speak these words aloud, letting each phrase open like a seed within you:May I treat myself with equity,giving myself what I need in this moment.May I treat my loved ones with equity,giving them what they need in this moment.May I treat my friends and community with equity,giving them what they need in this moment.May I treat my enemies with equity,giving them what they need in this moment.Rest again in silence. Feel how each phrase widens the circle of your care, from self, to loved ones, to community, to those who oppose you.Stay here as long as you need. Let the practice reshape your breath, your thoughts, your life.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/This essay grows out of the podcast episode **“Justice, Not Judgment: Equity and Right Relationship.”** It is not a transcript, but a written reflection that expands on the themes we explored in conversation. If you’d like to listen to the full discussion, you can find the episode above.New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#christopagan #creationspirituality #justice #equity #rightrelationshipChapters:00:00 Introduction to Justice and Righteousness01:34 Understanding Hebrew Concepts of Justice and Righteousness02:41 Right Relationship and Moral Laws04:34 Modern Interpretation of Ancient Laws05:51 Equity vs Equality07:29 Questioning Deserving and Worth08:52 The Myth of Scarcity11:45 Reimagining Work and Society14:22 Education and Creative Freedom19:49 Embracing Change and Moving Forward23:02 Closing Prayer and Outro Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

Fear is not a moral failing. We live in a time when many suffer under its weight, and too often they are told their trembling is weakness, their hesitation is shame. Yet the truth is simpler, more human: fear comes to all of us. It rises when news breaks, when uncertainty stalks our steps, when something we cherish feels threatened. The real sign of character is not that we never fear, but how we act after it.I want you to picture this: a calm river, swift in its course, carrying a small flame upon its surface. The water could drown it, the current could snuff it out, yet the flame holds steady, riding the flow. That is courage as care. Not the absence of fear, but the presence of a steady light that moves through the world without being consumed.Naming Fear for What It IsFear comes roaring into our lives uninvited. It seizes the body before the mind has time to catch up. The pulse races, the breath shortens, the old instincts rise: fight, flight, or freeze. None of this makes you lesser. Fear is part of being alive.But if we stay only in that reaction, we become trapped. In this time of social cocoons and filter bubbles, fear is magnified. Social media teaches us to wall ourselves off, to curate only what feels safe, to harden our hearts against one another. Authenticity becomes manufactured, and cynicism spreads like poison. We mock what we love, sneer at tenderness, and call compassion “cringe.”The result is a culture that lives by fear’s script. We let outrage gather the crowd while love stands forgotten in the corner. We repeat what frightens us, but we forget to defend what we actually cherish.From Reaction to ResponseNo one has ever frightened off a bear by cowering. Likewise, no society can withstand storms by shouting at the wind. Fear alone does not guide us; outrage alone does not sustain us. What matters is what comes after the fear.Courage begins with a shift: the move from passive to active, from consuming to creating. We start small, by saying no more. No more letting fear dictate my choices. No more pretending that despair is the only honest response. No more waiting for someone else to build the world I long for.Here, personal action is born. Journal it, pray it aloud, whisper it to the night sky: This is what I love. This is what I will defend. This is what I will build.Faith without works is dead, wrote James. Belief without action is empty breath. The spark of courage is to begin.The Path of VocationUnder empire, most are told they have only jobs, only functions in the machine. But deeper down, every soul holds a vocation, a calling, a longing, a true work. We know it in our bones even when we cannot yet name it.To face fear is not merely to endure; it is to turn toward this vocation. It may not come easy. It may require stripping away the false answers capitalism whispers: that joy comes from status, that meaning comes from consumption. True vocation is found not in profit but in passion, not in what you hate but in what you love.Write it out. Let the pages bear witness: what does a good life mean to me? What matters enough that I would build it even in a time of storm? Courage is not simply gritting your teeth against danger, it is care made visible.From Me to WeThe empire has convinced us we are alone. The so-called “me generation” was trained in isolation, told that each person’s fate was their own burden to carry. But fear multiplies when it is locked in a single chest.Courage grows when we remember the we. It begins personally, but it does not end there. We don’t need a savior from outside. We save us. It’s not me or you, it’s we.Collective action is the river that carries the flame. History shows it again and again: rights were won because people banded together, refused to be silent, and built new contracts of life together. From the Magna Carta to movements for civil rights, the story is the same. Courage is communal.What can this look like for us? It can be as simple as joining a group that aligns with your vision of good. It can be lending your voice, your art, your organizing, your cooking, your letters, your presence. Not everyone will write the pamphlet that sparks revolution, but each of us can be part of the chorus that keeps hope alive.Building Beyond CynicismYelling at the wind is not enough. We must plant shelters, build mutual aid, support the voices already speaking truth, defend the freedom of others to speak, and pour resources into the work that nourishes our communities.Cynicism is cheap fuel. It burns fast and leaves only ash. Love, by contrast, is renewable. It feeds us as we feed it. Outrage may rally a crowd for a moment, but only love builds a world that endures.Imagine again that river, swift and peaceful. Fear is the current, it will always run through life. But courage is the flame, steady on the water. Together we keep it alive.An InvitationSo here is the invitation:* Begin with yourself. Say no more to fear’s reign. Claim what you love. Write it, pray it, act on it.* Step into your vocation. Let your life bear witness to what brings joy, healing, and meaning.* Then join the we. Plug into the movements already stirring, or build with others from the ground up. Let courage as care shape not just your choices but our common life.We live in a fearful time, yes. But we also live in a time when the One Life flows through us, binding us together like the waters of a single river. Courage is how we tend that life. Courage is how we care.The flame is in your hands. Place it on the river. Let it float. Let it carry you toward the world we are meant to make, together.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #ChristianWitch #Paganism #Esoteric #Magic #Druidry #Mysticism #Spirituality #Occult #WitchCraft #Wicca #IrishPaganism #CelticPaganism #Magick #Polytheism #Enchantment Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Alban Eilir00:15 Personal Connection to the Holiday01:12 Welsh Pronunciation Challenges02:20 Understanding the Spring Equinox05:23 The Significance of Angus and Songbirds09:25 Dreams, Transformation, and Ceridwen16:38 Eclipses and Liminal Spaces21:01 Hope and Resilience in Nature23:10 Celebrating the Equinox25:09 Closing Thoughts and Blessings Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

The Autumnal Equinox stirs something complicated in me every year. On one hand, there is excitement: the promise of cooler nights, apples ripening, and the feeling that balance is possible, if only for a brief moment. On the other hand, there’s concern our world feels anything but balanced. Storms, violence, and uncertainty keep pressing in. So when the sun pauses at equal day and night, I find myself both hopeful and wary, pulled in two directions at once.This year, into that tension, a new image has appeared: the Solar Horse. In dreams and meditation, it shows up carrying the disk of the sun, holding it steady. Sometimes it stands alongside Brigid’s other animals. Sometimes it walks through my Interior Grove conversations, my great-grandfather chuckling and calling it the “Divine Pony Express.” The image makes me laugh, but it also makes me listen. The Solar Horse feels like a messenger, a courier between realms, reminding me that balance is not stillness, it is motion carried with care.For my partner Brian, the connection clicked with the Tibetan wind horse, a bearer of messages and prayers. That image rings true: what is more wish-fulfilling than being heard, whether by God, by ancestors, or by each other? The Equinox becomes a threshold not only of balance but of conversation, between abundance and loss, between past and future, between the living and the dead.We could chase history here, and there are certainly fragments to find. Sun gods of the Levant sometimes rode between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Horses and disks appear on artifacts. But the truth is, our practices are young. Paganism in its current forms is half a century old at best. Reconstruction is valuable, but the living practice matters most. History offers us metaphors and reminders, but meaning comes when we take symbols into our lives and see if they breathe.That is what we are doing this year: experimenting. Apples and oats become not only harvest food but offerings to the Solar Horse. A candle flame becomes not just a seasonal decoration but a sign of the sun carried into darkness. Maybe incense rises with our prayers as if handed to the messenger’s reins. All of this feels fitting, and all of it may change. That’s the heart of a living faith.The important thing is honesty. Too often religion drifts into rote repetition: we do it because we’ve always done it, even if it no longer speaks to us. I don’t want a dead ritual. I want something that moves, that speaks, that evolves. A living tradition breathes; it makes room for mistakes, for laughter, for experiments that don’t quite work. It teaches through the trying.So this Equinox, I will feed the Solar Horse. Maybe with slices of apple left aside, maybe with oats stirred into a cobbler, maybe simply with joy shared at the table. I’ll light a candle and watch the balance of flame and darkness. I’ll write in my journal, noting whether this practice settles into my bones or not. And I invite you to do the same.Don’t be afraid to try. Let the Equinox be a time of curiosity. Offer something small and see if it carries a message back to you. Pay attention to your dreams. Laugh when the Divine Pony Express trots through. The world is heavy, but tradition is born not from archaeology alone, it’s born when people risk an experiment in hope.Balance is not stillness; it is riding the horse as it carries the sun across the line between light and darkness. This year, I choose to ride.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #AutumnalEquinox #SolarHorse #CreationSpirituality #Druidry #Mabon #EquinoxRitual #AncestralPractice #Mysticism #WheelOfTheYearChapters:00:00 Introduction and Recap02:01 Discussion of Solar Horse Connection08:56 Spirituality vs Creative Practice11:23 Traditional Apple Practices and Horse Connections15:03 Developing Modern Pagan Traditions18:08 Evolution of Religious Traditions Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

The Horse That Would Not LeaveThe Solar Horse That Wouldn’t Let Me GoSome ideas arrive like strangers. Others show up like old friends you had forgotten, standing at the edge of memory, waiting. The Solar Horse came to me like that. I was reading along, tracing through the histories and mythologies of the Levant, when I found a reference to horses dedicated to the sun in ancient Judah. That was it. No explanation. No story. Just a brief note that they were there and then, later, they were gone. The more I searched, the thinner the record became, until there was almost nothing at all. And yet I couldn’t let it go. Recognition hit me first, and obsession followed. It felt like remembering one of my childhood companions, one of those “imaginary” friends who was never entirely imaginary.The truth is: we don’t know much. We have a few scattered pieces. The book of Kings tells us that Josiah tore down the stables near the temple where horses and chariots were kept for the sun. Archaeologists have uncovered small figurines of horses with sun disks pressed between their ears. A cult stand from Tanakh shows layers of sacred imagery, possibly Asherah at the base, guardians in the middle, and at the very top, a horse carrying the sun on its back. That’s all. We can guess. We can imagine. But we can’t reconstruct what was actually done, what prayers were said, or how those who made those offerings understood them. The fragments end exactly where the mystery begins.Still, that was enough. I wasn’t frustrated by the gaps. I was fascinated. Awe and wonder rose up, along with a strange sense of homecoming. This was not just curiosity. It felt like invitation. The Solar Horse began showing up in my dreams. It walked with me in meditation. It carried vitality like sunlight into places that had felt dim and tired. Companion. Messenger. That is how I came to know it.Horses at the GatePart of what makes this image so striking is its place in the story of the temple. Picture yourself approaching Jerusalem’s great sanctuary in the days before Josiah’s reforms. Before you ever reached the outer courtyard, you would pass the stables. Horses and chariots stood there, dedicated to the sun. For many people, depending on their gender and social standing, that courtyard might have been as far as they could go. The stables themselves marked a threshold: animals and vehicles made holy, waiting at the edge of divine space.Josiah’s purge is how we know this devotion existed at all. His campaign to centralize power into one temple, one priesthood, one story required tearing down the rest. The stables were destroyed. The horses were led away. The practice was erased from official memory. The king who claimed divine sanction for his rule rewrote the faith to fit his vision of empire. And the irony is that his rashness also led to Judah’s downfall. His defeat on the battlefield opened the door to the exile. I admit I have little patience for Josiah. The texts celebrate him, but the story behind the story is harder to ignore. Propaganda always is. It is easier to blame exile on sin than to admit a king picked the wrong fight. But tucked inside that propaganda is a memory of the horses. Fragments and OfferingsThose votive figurines tell us something important: people loved this image. They shaped clay horses with sun-disks between their ears and left them at shrines. They carried them as offerings. They prayed through them. We may never know exactly what they asked for, but the practice was common enough that archaeologists find these figures again and again. That persistence says something. Symbols that matter endure.We see echoes elsewhere too. Across the region, sun gods were imagined as riders or charioteers. Shamash drove his team across the heavens. In other traditions, the sun itself mounted a horse. Mythology is not a single stream but a braided river, carrying many currents. The Solar Horse was one of them, important enough to leave marks in both text and artifact, even if its full story was never written down.That is where my research stalled. I could compare, speculate, draw parallels, but no complete account survives. And still, the image pressed in. Sometimes all scholarship can do is show the edges of the mystery. Beyond that, something else takes over.Dreams and VisitationsThe Solar Horse did not remain in my study notes. It came with me into sleep. It showed up in dreams. It walked through my inner grove in meditation. I began to feel its presence not as a historical curiosity but as a living archetype. Not a relic of the past, but a companion and a messenger in the present. It bore vitality. It carried messages. It insisted on relationship.This is where honesty matters. I cannot claim to be reconstructing an ancient devotion. I am not. What I have is an image, a handful of fragments, and a series of encounters that belong to the realm of unverified personal gnosis. Dreams. Meditations. Symbols that keep knocking until you answer. What I can do is name the difference. This is not history. This is mysticism. And still, it is real.Parallels and ResonancesOther traditions helped me make sense of the experience. In Tibetan and Mongolian practice, the Wind Horse carries the wish-fulfilling jewel, galloping across the sky. If you’ve ever seen a set of prayer flags, you’ve likely seen it printed there. In druid teaching, Nwyfre is the name given to the bright current of life-force that runs through everything. Scripture itself says of God:“He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks on the wings of the wind.”(Psalm 104:3, WEB)These resonances do not mean the Solar Horse is secretly the Wind Horse, or that the psalmist was sneaking in a horse reference. They mean that certain images rise again and again when people try to describe vitality, balance, and the presence of the Holy. They emerge not from theft but from convergence. The cosmos calls, and we answer in the languages we know.For me, the Solar Horse braided those threads together. My lunar practices taught me to listen. My earth-rooted practices taught me to stay. Through this image I learned something I had always lacked: how to move with solar energy, how to let vitality flow outward without burning myself or others. That is what the Horse began to teach me.Balance and the EquinoxThe more I sat with this image, the more I felt its call to balance. In many myths the sun’s horse carried messages between realms, bearing souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead, and back again. That threshold role matters. As the Autumnal Equinox approaches, equal day and equal night, I cannot help but see the Horse holding the sun steady in its stride, refusing to collapse light into darkness or darkness into light. Balance is not compromise. It is courage: the willingness to walk with both radiance and shadow without making either an enemy.That is what the Solar Horse began to embody for me. A living archetype that refuses the binaries empire prefers: all light or all dark, all power or all surrender, all purity or all exile. Instead it moves between, carrying vitality where it is needed, guiding us to walk steady where extremes would tear us apart.Invocation and ReflectionThis is not about reviving a forgotten Judahite cult. It is about listening when a symbol knocks, when dreams return, when an image refuses to let you go. For me, that image has become prayer:Great Horse of the Sun, bearer of bright life, carry to us the strength we need for the work ahead. Lend courage to our words and compassion to our deeds. Bear our prayers across the wind to those who need them most. Return with the truths we avoid and the hope we have forgotten. Teach us to ride in balance, equal day and equal night, so the world may be healed by our passing.Recognition is not superstition. Sometimes it is grace returning in a form our lives can finally bear. I do not know who first pressed a sun-disk between a horse’s ears and called it holy. I only know that when the image came, I felt at home, as if something old had found me again. When such a visitor arrives, do not rush to explain it away. Turn toward it. Test it. Walk with it for a season. Let it teach you courage. Let it show you balance. That is enough to begin.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #ChristianWitch #Paganism #Esoteric #Magic #Druidry #Mysticism #Spirituality #Occult #WitchCraft #Wicca #IrishPaganism #CelticPaganism #Magick #Polytheism #Enchantment Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Alban Eilir00:15 Personal Connection to the Holiday01:12 Welsh Pronunciation Challenges02:20 Understanding the Spring Equinox05:23 The Significance of Angus and Songbirds09:25 Dreams, Transformation, and Ceridwen16:38 Eclipses and Liminal Spaces21:01 Hope and Resilience in Nature23:10 Celebrating the Equinox25:09 Closing Thoughts and Blessings Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

Breath is so ordinary that we forget it is extraordinary. It comes unbidden, steady as a tide, unnoticed until something interrupts it. We know the sudden gasp of fear, the shallow rise and fall of exhaustion, the ragged breath when we are sick. Yet beneath all those moments lies the same truth: breath is life.In this episode of Creation’s Paths, we began with the simple reminder that life in our breath is our life. Too often, spiritual traditions turn breath into something to control, to discipline, even to constrain. An effort at restraining life itself. But the practice we explored was not about constriction. It was about letting breath become prayer, letting the air itself speak the Name of the Divine.This is the kind of practice that first feels like a gentle breeze on a cool fall day: soft, refreshing, peaceful. But it doesn’t stop there. Beneath that quiet surface, the practice deepens, grounding us like roots pushing into rich soil and rising like the charged air before a storm. Breath becomes both anchor and surge, weaving us into the great current of life.The practice begins with ancient names. Matthew Fox, in his teachings on Radical Prayer, pointed to a way of praying the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter Name of God, by shaping the mouth and throat as though speaking YHVH while breathing in and out. No vocal cords, no sound, only the rush of air forming sacred syllables. The Name itself becomes breath.Later, Rabbi Rami Shapiro deepened this understanding in Judaism Without Tribalism, distinguishing two ways we encounter the Divine: Yah, “I Am,” the inward presence; and Ehyeh, Being itself beyond us. Breath carries both: the inhale, “Yah,” turning us inward, centering us in selfhood; the exhale, “Ehyeh,” releasing us outward into community, creation, and relationship.Jewish tradition also speaks of two inclinations, the yetzer ha-ra (the self-directed impulse, sometimes mistranslated as “evil”) and the yetzer ha-tov (the communal or altruistic impulse, “good”). Breath, again, becomes the place of balance: the inhale honors the self’s need for oxygen, life, renewal; the exhale honors the world’s need for creativity and creation it’s self. In this back-and-forth, the Name of God becomes the rhythm of our very existence.Layered upon these roots are Creation Spirituality’s Four Paths: Positiva (awe and wonder), Negativa (letting go, emptiness), Creativa (birthing newness), Transformativa (healing and justice). Breath can move through these paths, each inhale and exhale carrying us through transformation, wonder, surrender, and creativity.What begins as simply saying the Name with breath grows quickly into a deep meditation on self and cosmos. Inhaling, we are filled, self affirmed, grounded, alive. Exhaling, we are emptied, poured out for others, surrendered into communion. It is the yesh and the ayin, fullness and emptiness.The practice reveals subtle truths: selfishness is not always evil, for inhaling is necessary to live. Selflessness is not always holy, for endless exhaling leaves us collapsed. We need both: the courage to take in life for ourselves and the generosity to release life for others. Brian put it plainly: if all we do is inhale, we faint; if all we do is exhale, we expire.There is also mystery here. Each breath can feel like the ocean becoming a drop and the drop returning to the ocean. Each cycle of fullness and emptiness is a miniature creation, a tide that carries both the particularity of the self and the vastness of the cosmos. Thich Nhat Hanh called mindfulness the greatest magic because it brings us into the only moment that exists, the present. In this practice, mindfulness and prayer merge, each breath becoming spell, prayer, offering.Breath touches everything. What I exhale becomes food for trees; what trees exhale becomes food for me. Breath connects species, people, and places into one vast circulatory system of life.Prayed in this way, breath also connects traditions. It holds the Jewish mystical sense of the Divine Name too holy to speak, yet spoken in every breath. It carries the Christian vision of the Spirit as breath or wind (ruach, pneuma), moving in and through all. It resonates with Buddhist mindfulness of breathing as doorway to presence. It sits comfortably in Druidry, which sees the breath of the wind as the breath of the world.Breath also connects the personal and the political. Our balance between inhale and exhale mirrors the balance between self and community, between individual needs and collective responsibilities. Too much inwardness leads to narcissism; too much outwardness leads to unthinking conformity. But when the two dance together, we breathe justice.The advanced practice Brian offered makes this even more explicit: inhaling as transformation, holding in awe, exhaling as surrender, holding in creativity. This rhythm trains us not only to pray but to live: taking in the world’s wounds, holding them in wonder, releasing them in service, and pausing long enough to let new worlds gestate.So how do we embody this? Begin simply. Sit or lie down comfortably. Let your shoulders relax. Inhale, shaping your mouth as though saying “Yah.” Exhale, shaping your lips as though saying “Ehyeh.” Don’t force sound, let the air itself be the word.Feel the rhythm: fullness and emptiness. Notice the peace, like a cool autumn breeze. Notice the grounding, like roots drinking deeply. Notice the rising energy, like the charged air before a storm. Let your awareness sharpen until you feel not just your lungs but the whole web of life breathing with you.Practice safely. Don’t force breath-holds. Don’t clench your throat. This is not a contest of endurance. It is prayer. Breathe naturally, gently, and if discomfort rises, release.In time, you may add the pauses. After an inhale, hold for awe. After an exhale, hold for creativity. Let the Four Paths shape your breath: becoming, beholding, surrendering, birthing. Let the cycle turn until it becomes second nature, until every breath becomes a liturgy of transformation.This is not meant to be lofty or distant. It can be morning centering, evening unwinding, or a quick re-grounding in the middle of the day. It can accompany your prayers, or it can be your prayer. What matters is that it keeps you alive to the presence of Spirit in and around you.For me, this practice begins as peace: a soft breath, like the wind through trees on a fall afternoon. That peace sinks into my bones as grounding, reminding me that life is not abstract but in this air, this body, this earth. Then, without warning, the peace turns electric, a rising surge like storm-air alive with possibility. Awareness sharpens. Connection hums. I feel the life of trees, the pulse of animals, the hush of stones, all tied together by breath.This practice reminds me that holiness is not locked in temples but carried in our lungs. Every inhale is the gift of being. Every exhale is the offering of self. Breath is the Name of the Holy One, spoken not with voice but with life.And so my prayer is simple: may we learn to notice our breath. May we let it carry us into peace, root us in life, and awaken us to the storm-charged presence of the Divine all around. May each breath we take be offering, communion, and blessing. Amen.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#christopagan #CreationSpirituality #breathprayer #mysticism #druidry #Brigid #breathwork #contemplation #sacredpractice #prayerChapters:00:00 Introduction: The Divine Breath01:07 Host Introductions01:16 Overview of Divine Breath Practice02:08 Matthew Fox's Radical Prayer Teaching04:34 Understanding Divine Connection: Internal and External15:08 Advanced Practice: Four Paths Breathing18:15 Safety Guidelines for Breath Work20:04 Closing Thoughts and Blessing Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

Christopaganism is cringe. Or at least, that’s what I’m told now and again. Maybe it is a little cringe to believe in something, to put your trust in Spirit, and to do the work of faith. In a culture that wants everything spoon-fed and easy, Christopaganism doesn’t oblige. It isn’t the kind of path that gets done for you. It’s a living, embodied faith that you make your own. Step by step, ritual by ritual, day by day.If I could go back, there are five things I wish I had known before I started naming myself Christopagan. These aren’t just private reflections, they’re woven from the questions and confusions that so many of us carry. And the truth is, many of us were already Christopagan long before we admitted it.The Surface: Incoherence or Wholeness?The first stumbling block was the accusation of incoherence. Isn’t this just syncretism? A messy mash-up of two incompatible religions? I used to wrestle with that a lot. Raised evangelical, I was drilled on the need for a “cohesive worldview.” Anything less was a sign of error.But history undoes that fear. The early Israelite religion had a divine council. Christianity developed over centuries out of Judaism. Judaism itself absorbed influences from surrounding cultures. Multiplicity was always part of the tradition. What we now call “religion” is a relatively modern category, invented in the 18th and 19th centuries. For most of human history, faith wasn’t a box you fit into, it was a way of living, a relationship, a cycle of practice and story.Once I stopped demanding a monolithic voice and started listening for the harmony in many voices, the charge of incoherence melted away. Christopaganism isn’t a contradiction; it’s a continuation of what faith has always been: plural, evolving, seeking coherence in practice rather than in dogmatic system.The Roots: Belonging and TraumaThe second lesson was about belonging. Many Christopagans wonder, “Do I fit in either world?” Too pagan for Christians, too Christian for pagans, it can feel like an exile. But what I learned is this: most resistance is not about you. It’s about wounds carried by communities.Many pagans bear scars from Christian family, churches, or cultures that condemned them. When they bristle at your presence, it isn’t you they’re rejecting, it’s the harm they survived. The healing comes not from demanding acceptance, but by showing that you are not that kind of Christian. That you are safe, open, willing to listen.And for Christians who would ostracize someone for mixing paths? If their concern for “purity of doctrine” outweighs their care for the sick, the poor, the brokenhearted, then they are not the kind of community Jesus pointed us toward. Better to knock the dust off your shoes and walk on.The Hidden Depths: Woo Woo, Simplicity, and PracticeThe third lesson was learning to face the sneer of “woo woo.” It’s a phrase often flung at mysticism, at magic, at embodied ritual. Some of the criticism is fair. There’s a difference between shallow consumer spirituality and the hard, humble work of a living practice. But there’s nothing foolish about seeking a spirituality that breathes, moves, and changes you.Magic, for example, is not a vending machine. It’s more like Habitat for Humanity: you put in the sweat equity, Spirit puts in the grace, and together something new rises. Prayer, ritual, spellcraft, they aren’t meant to be empty gestures. They are meant to work. They’re meant to change you, and to shape the world around you, even in small and quiet ways.And here’s what I wish I knew earlier: practice doesn’t have to be elaborate. It doesn’t have to exhaust you. A simple prayer, a cup of tea brewed with intention, a nightly offering to the house spirits—these small acts ripple with power. Consistency matters more than complexity. Faith is not proven by how many tools you collect, but by the fruit that grows in your life.The Interconnection: Already OneThe fourth and most surprising lesson is this: I was already Christopagan. Long before I named it, my life was shaped by myth and saint, by story and Spirit. I read Greek myths for their wisdom. I prayed to Brigid long before I called her Saint or Goddess. I talked to the birds, watched for omens in clouds, felt the Divine alive in nature.Denial is a river, and I drowned in it for a long time. But the day I admitted what was true, something changed. A deep sigh came over me. The fight was over. The armor cracked. Calm and release came first, followed quickly by joy. Suddenly all the oddities of my life: the quirks, the practices I never had a name for made sense. They belonged. They fit. I had been Christopagan all along.This is the reassurance many of us need: you don’t become Christopagan by magic words or sudden conversion. You recognize it. You name what was already true. You come home to yourself.The Center: Living What You KnowSo what do we do with this? We trust our instincts but we don’t stop there. We explore, investigate, test all things, and hold fast to what is good. That is what Paul urged, and that is what our ancestors in every tradition have done.Christopaganism is not about serving two masters. It is about serving the one Source of life, who is God, through many faces and voices. We eat and we drink; we live by ritual and by prayer. The point is not to prove our coherence to anyone else, but to embody love, justice, and reverence for creation.I encourage you: if you have felt the tug of myth, the pull of saints, the call of earth and Spirit, stop fighting the denial. Breathe the deep sigh. Allow the oddities to line up into a path. You may already be Christopagan, and naming it may give you the courage to walk more freely.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #ChristianWitchcraft #Mysticism #Paganism #Druidry #CelticSpirituality #Magic #ChristianPagan #SpiritualPathChapters:00:00 Introduction - Addressing Misconceptions About Christopaganism01:03 Host Introductions02:20 Topic 1: Perception of Incoherence in Christopaganism09:15 Topic 2: Identity and Acceptance in Both Communities12:44 Topic 3: Addressing 'Woo Woo' Misconceptions21:05 Topic 5: Realizing You Were Already Christopagan28:20 Closing Prayer and Outro Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

For many, the very sound of the word atonement stirs unease. It may recall the tightness in your chest when a preacher spoke of God’s wrath, the guilt-heavy sermons that made love feel conditional, or the sense that your worth was forever in question. In some traditions, atonement was framed as paying off a cosmic debt to a God more feared than loved. This fear-based telling left its mark: a false scarcity mindset where grace is rationed and belonging must be earned.But even in the shadow of this baggage, something deeper calls. Beneath the layers of fear, there is a quieter knowing that perhaps the word could mean something else. Perhaps atonement is not a shackle but a key, not a sentence but an opening. The hope lingers: that atonement could name the mending of what’s broken, the restoration of a bond never truly lost.To rediscover that meaning, we look back to the roots. In the Hebrew scriptures, the word for atonement means to cover over a breach, to mend a broken connection. Ancient covenant life understood that relationships within the community and between a people and their God would sometimes fray. Atonement was the process of repair, not payment. It was an act of right relationship.The shift came with translation. Moving from Hebrew into Greek, the language changed. Greek terms leaned toward commerce, ransom, payment, buying back. This transactional framing spread quickly in the early church, raising questions foreign to the Hebrew imagination: Who held us captive? What was the price? Who was paid? In the centuries that followed, these questions hardened into doctrines, bolstered by medieval church systems that saw spiritual debt as a tool for control. Retributive justice, punishment as the measure of righteousness, took root in both church and culture, and the older vision of relational restoration faded from sight.Christopagan practice invites us to dig beneath those later layers. When we do, the older vision re-emerges: atonement as the ongoing work of mending relationships, living in right relationship with ourselves, with Spirit, with one another, and with the living world.This deeper truth speaks directly against the false scarcity mindset. Divine love is not meted out to the worthy few — it is unending, abundant, unbreakable. Even our pain, even our sense of falling short, is not proof of rejection but proof of life. The ache we feel when something is broken is the sign that we are still connected enough to long for repair.Like a mother cradling her child, Spirit does not withhold love until we prove ourselves. The embrace is there before the apology, before the change and it is that embrace that makes change possible. Atonement in this light is not appeasement; it is participation in the endless flow of love.This personal restoration cannot remain inward. Once the beam is removed from our own eye, once we have reclaimed our right relationship with self and Spirit, we are able to help mend what is broken in our communities. Personal healing becomes the soil in which communal healing grows.In Christopagan practice, this often looks like small but steady acts: repairing trust with a friend, reconciling after conflict, ensuring that our circles of belonging are truly open. It also shapes the way we resist harm. Rather than perpetuate cycles of retribution, we seek restoration. Rather than closing the door forever, we create space for those willing to return in honesty and humility.Atonement becomes the pattern of our life together, not as a one-time event, but as a shared rhythm. When harm is done, the question is not “How do we punish?” but “How do we mend the breach?” Sometimes that mending restores relationship; other times it simply brings peace and prevents further harm. Either way, it moves us toward wholeness.To live this way is to make atonement a daily choice. It is a personal decision enacted through action, renewed each day as we move through the world. It begins in the quiet of our own hearts. In prayer, in discernment, in the willingness to see clearly where the breach lies. And it comes alive in what we do: offering a needed apology, returning what was taken, showing through our choices that we will not repeat the harm.Spiritual practice fuels this work. Prayer and ritual keep us grounded in love’s abundance. Discernment helps us hold grace and boundaries together. Ethical action gives form to what we believe, making our faith visible in the way we live.Not every relationship can or should be restored. There are harms that require distance, boundaries that protect the vulnerable. But as a people, we can create communities that make repair possible, that honor both justice and mercy. This is what it means to embody atonement. To let it guide not just what we say, but how we move, how we mend, how we belong.Christopagan atonement is not a chain but a key. It is not a demand for payment but an invitation to return. At its heart, it is the work of mending, the living choice to be in right relationship with ourselves, with Spirit, and with each other. It is the repair of a bond that fear could not destroy, the reconnection to love that never left us.In this light, atonement is hope. It is liberation from the false scarcity mindset that tells us love must be earned. It is the healing of wounds left by retributive theologies. It is the steady hand beneath us as we learn to walk in love again. It is the voice of Spirit whispering, “You are mine, and you are loved,” even when we feel lost.And as we heal, we become healers. The work that begins in us flows outward, mending the fabric of our communities, helping others remember that love is endless, that the breach can be healed, and that we belong to one another.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #RightRelationship #RestorativeJustice #SpiritualHealing #Atonement #PaganChristianity #Metanoia #HopeAndLiberation #HealingTheBreachChapters:00:00 Introduction to Atonement in Progressive Faith01:12 Host Introductions02:21 Channel Updates and Series Information02:48 Traditional Understanding of Atonement05:53 True Meaning of Atonement in Covenant Faith08:33 Historical Evolution of Atonement Concept12:27 Christopagan Perspective on Atonement20:22 Actions vs Words in Right Relationship24:27 Making Amends and Societal Restoration29:14 Closing Thoughts and Prayer Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

The world feels raw these days. Heat waves stack one upon another, storms sweep in with fury, and the news from far-off lands carries sorrow and anger in equal measure. On top of that, each of us is carrying the weight of our own daily struggles: illness, loss, uncertainty. In my own life, I recently faced a sudden illness that left me bedridden for weeks, unable to walk unassisted or even muster the energy to speak prayers aloud. It was a season of deep vulnerability, the kind that none of us chooses and all of us will eventually encounter.Yet even in the midst of weakness, I discovered that my Christopagan faith was not an abstract belief to be set on a shelf, it was a living presence, a thread binding me to something larger than my pain. I have prayed every night for years, calling the four archangels, the spirits of earth, sea, and sky, and the shining presence of the Shekinah to watch over my home. When I could no longer speak those prayers, I felt them rising on their own, carried for me. In dreams or visions, the archangels stood their posts, my ancestors whispered courage, and even a beloved cat long gone curled on my chest in comfort. Whether mystical reality or the gift of my imagination, it didn’t matter. The truth was in the experience: I was not alone.Faith, at its best, is not about clinging to rules or policing belief. It is about connection. The Latin root of “religion” means “to bind together,” and in crisis, that bond can hold us steady when everything else shakes. My connection to Brigid, to Jesus and Mary, to the very earth beneath me, reminded me that I was part of a living web that no illness could sever. Brian and I spoke often about how such times ripple out to affect everyone in the circle. The one who is sick can feel like a burden; the one caring for them can feel helpless, even guilty for their own moments of frustration. Faith helps break these spirals, not by erasing the hardship, but by reminding us of the deeper unity between us.This is why practice matters before the storm comes. A deep, rooted faith equips us to meet our anger, fear, and grief without being consumed by them. As Brian reflected, crisis tempts us toward quick, destructive reactions, but the steady discipline of prayer, ritual, and connection gives us other options. It teaches us to recognize the warning signs of a “dark path” and to choose the harder, more life-giving way. It doesn’t guarantee the storm will pass quickly or painlessly. But it hedges our chances. It keeps our roots deep enough to hold fast.And the roots do not all look the same. For me, it is Brigid’s forge, Julian of Norwich’s “all shall be peace,” the spirits of earth, sea, and sky. For others, it may be justice, love, the law, or the tending of the land. The divine dwells in all things, and whatever soil allows you to grow in strength and compassion that is where you must plant yourself. When we are rooted in what is holy to us, no one can poison that soil. The connection remains, carrying us through even the harshest seasons.If I learned anything from my recent trial, it is that rooting ourselves in faith is not a single act, but a habit of presence. We plant the seed in moments of peace, water it with daily practice, and strengthen it through small acts of courage and devotion. Then, when the winds rise, the tree of our faith does not suddenly appear. It is already there, grown over years, able to bend without breaking. In that way, the crisis does not build the faith; it reveals it. And perhaps that is the quiet promise faith makes to each of us: not that we will escape the fires and floods of life, but that when they come, we will find ourselves already held, already connected, already home.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#christopagan #creationtheology #druidry #mysticism #spiritualresilience #brigid #paganism #faithjourney #animism #panentheismChapters:00:00 Introduction00:45 Faith During Dark Times02:18 Podcast Updates and Schedule Changes02:40 Personal Experience with Illness04:45 Impact on Caregivers09:26 The Role of Faith in Recovery15:24 Finding Your Spiritual Path20:17 Justice and Faith25:21 Understanding Divine Presence27:56 Closing Prayer Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

As Lughnasa’s first fruits are gathered, we mark a year of walking Creation’s Path through harvest and hardship, silence and song. This episode reflects on the mysteries of change: how illness, pause, and return can shape a community as deeply as celebration. We share hard earned lessons from a year of spiritual exploration, celebrate the bonds that have formed, and reveal the new paths opening ahead. The invitation: honor your own harvests, trust the turning, and step forward into the sacred unknown.www.fractalkinship.comThanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#Lughnasa #FirstHarvest #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #Druidry #SpiritualJourney #SacredGrowth #ViaCreativa #FractalKinship #PodcastAnniversaryChapters:00:00 Opening & Lunar Celebration01:38 Overview of Changes04:23 First Year Growth & Milestones07:15 New Content Formats11:36 New Podcast Series Announcements17:02 Membership & Support Details19:45 Thank You & Future Plans21:41 Closing Thoughts & Blessing Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

Mary Magdalene stands as one of Christianity’s most mysterious and maligned figures. A saint whose story was rewritten by popes and whose legacy endures through legend, faith, and fierce devotion. In this episode, we untangle the myths and meanings around “Our Lady of the Tower”. Exploring Magdalene as businesswoman, apostle, penitent, and vessel of the Divine Feminine. We invite you to discover not just the history, but the living inspiration of Mary Magdalene, and to ask: What version of her calls you to deeper faith or bold action?Whether you seek healing from old stories or a new model of sacred womanhood, come journey with us down Creation’s path.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#MaryMagdalene #DivineFeminine #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #SacredFeminine #ApostleToTheApostles #GnosticGospels #FeministSpirituality #MagdaleneFeast #WomenInChristianityChapters:00:00 Introduction to Mary Magdalene's Historical Significance00:39 Host Introductions01:28 Channel Information and Subscribe Message01:42 Common Entry Points to Mary Magdalene Studies02:20 Historical Facts About Mary Magdalene04:31 The Easter Egg Tradition05:17 Different Legends of Mary Magdalene's Later Life06:41 Mary's Role in Early Christianity07:16 Discussion of Jesus's Marital Status10:48 The Choose Your Own Adventure Nature of Mary Magdalene Devotion17:38 Personal Connections to Mary Magdalene20:00 Closing Prayer and Outro Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

Mary is the thread woven through every sacred story. The mother of Jesus, the bearer of the Divine, the figure who both divides and unites traditions. In this episode, we journey through Marian apparitions, contested titles, and the ancient tension between mother and goddess, asking: what does it mean to embrace Mary as the matrix of Christ and the Church? Together, we reflect on how devotion to Mary invites us into radical acceptance, deeper belonging, and a love that knows our faces. Where church politics have tried to silence the feminine. Mary remains: uncontainable, transforming, and present in every culture. This is an invitation to find the sacred feminine not just in myth, but in the heart of our own spiritual lives.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#MaryMotherOfGod #DivineFeminine #Theotokos #MarianApparitions #QueenOfHearts #SacredFeminine #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #Druidry #CreationPathsChapters:00:00 21 Mary, Mother of God (Embracing the Divine Feminine)00:00 Introduction: Questions About Mary's Divinity00:45 Host Introductions01:27 Mary's Role in Scripture04:41 Mary's Enduring Presence Despite Church Politics08:02 Theological Debates: Mother of God vs Theotokos14:52 Personal Relationships with Mary17:27 Global Devotion to Mary20:12 Closing Thoughts and Prayer Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

What does it mean to live as a whole, unique self—nested within circles of kinship, woven into the superorganism of Earth, the Noosphere? In this episode, we synthesize the great threads: holons, hierarchy, third story, and the challenge of real connection in a divided age. We explore the tools and practices—affirmation, journaling, narrative work—that help us move from isolation to fractal kinship, healing the wounds of the meaning crisis. You’re invited to walk the unitive path: humble, evolving, and alive with possibility. The journey is slow—until transformation bursts forth.www.fractalkinship.comThanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#FractalKinship #Noosphere #CreationSpirituality #Christopagan #MeaningCrisis #Druidry #Metamodern #SpiritualPractice #SacredCommunity #HolonsChapters:00:00 Living the Path of Holarchy. A Christopagan practice of Fractal Kinship01:16 The Path Forward and Integration of Concepts02:25 Modern Isolation and Social Media Challenges05:01 The Problem of Toxic Ideologies and False Solutions11:57 Tools for Personal Growth and Understanding18:58 Evolution of Ideas and Cultural Change24:25 Narrative Exercises and Creating Change28:26 Closing Prayer and Farewell Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

In a world shaped by hierarchies, is there a better way to live out the sacred? This episode explores holarchy. A living, spiraling web of sovereignty and kinship. Where every circle holds both power and responsibility. How do we build communities that honor the dignity of each, without losing the strength of the whole? Join us as we move beyond thrones and ladders, toward a practice of sacred, ever-unfolding relationship. Reimagine what it means to belong and to build together.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#holarchy #creationtheology #christopagan #fractalkinship #spiritualcommunity #sacredcircles #mutualaid #viaPositiva #rightrelationshipChapters:00:00 Opening Monologue: Kingdom Building01:02 Host Introductions and Moon Phase01:47 Defining Hierarchy vs Holarchy03:47 Sovereignty and Right Relationship in Communities04:47 Party Planning Example: Roles and Leadership06:52 Challenges with Traditional Power Structures09:04 Holocratic Models and the Power of Impermanence14:20 Building Change from the Ground Up17:00 Bottom-Up Leadership and System Reform22:03 Closing Thoughts and Additional Resources Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe

This episode explores the mystical, fractal truth that each of us is both a whole being and a part of countless larger circles: family, community, cosmos. Journey with us into the language of holons, nested selves, and emergent systems, and discover why seeing reality this way can transform not only your sense of belonging, but the very stories we tell about meaning, justice, and change. The invitation? To awaken to the subtle, hidden flows that bind all things so we can shape new, life-giving patterns together.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thank you for Tips / Donations: * https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett * https://patreon.com/cedorsett * https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths* Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/New to The Seraphic Grove learn more For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com Social Connections: * BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com * Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/#holons #spirituality #creationpaths #christopagan #druidry #meaningcrisis #nestedselves #fractalspirituality #systemsthinking #spiritualecologyChapters:00:00 16 Holons & Hidden Systems (A Christopagan practice of Fractal Kinship)00:00 Introduction to Holons and Interconnectedness00:54 Host Introductions01:34 Understanding Holons and Their Structure02:54 The Body as a Holon: Internal Systems and Relationships04:54 Social Circles and Nested Systems07:14 Self-Assertion and Integration in Systems11:07 Systemic Thinking and Social Change15:47 Real World Examples: Scarcity and Economic Systems19:23 Addressing System Disorders and Balance22:51 Closing Prayer Get full access to Creation's Paths at www.creationspaths.com/subscribe