Dear Kosmos Family,

Some people ask us why we are not preparing our readers for civilization’s ‘imminent collapse’. The perfect storm of converging crises we face does feel insurmountable at times. Yet, it is neither the role of Kosmos to speak with scientific authority, nor to add to the hyperbole that floods much of the media. Our focus is not on the world that is ending, but the world that is struggling to be born.

For twenty years we have acknowledged a world in crisis, even as we bear witness to the simultaneous awakening across many fields of endeavor to a fresh consciousness of cooperation, ancestral wisdom, community-building, and sharing. We foresee also the eventual rise of sacred technologies derived from the sun, hydrogen, light, wind, plants, and scaling geometries found in nature. This is transformation that goes beyond ‘inner’ or ‘outer’. We are an arising Earth Unity, conscious on numerous dimensions. Our ‘brains’ may ground us in this dimension, but with practice can also access and download wisdom from higher dimensions, or fields.

And so, as world events continue to unfold, one of the most important things we can do is take care of our own emotional and spiritual wellbeing. This is an important way we can help others and be a solid presence in times of instability and fear, even as we work to protect life on Earth.

How do you prepare for the unknown? Enjoy the beautiful things that renew you – the blue sky, precious time with loved ones, a walk in nature. Take refuge in your faith and spiritual communities. Do the important things you have been putting off. Replenish joy and gratitude in the life you have now. This will sustain you later. Stay informed, of course, and simplify everyday needs. Seek wisdom in stillness and inner guidance.

Our experience on Earth is fleeting, yet our presence here is purposeful.

I hope some of the Kosmos articles and poems below uplift and inspire you.

In peace,

RF

Kosmos Winter 2021 Gallery of Poets

Read poetry by Nancy Austin, Melanie Green, Felicia McCarthy, and Jack Slocomb, curated by Kosmos poetry editor, Carolyn Martin.

Because You Listen
………………..(after Adrienne Rich)

in such times as these it is no longer
necessary to talk about trees, which way
grass grows, how roads sheer to shadow,
abandoned meeting houses, the disappeared.

But here, not somewhere else, as the world
arrives at the darkest of our fears, the dread
is constant, while the invisible has its way
sweeping through the population.

Because you will listen to the poets, we come
together, talk about science, words, and remedies
and women’s work of watching, keeping things
going. We’ve long experience with patience.

The wolf boys cry out and hoard supplies.
The elders, especially the grandmothers,
gather curing weeds and heirloom seeds
prepare to call everyone to the table.

–Felicia McCarthy

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Thanks to your generosity, ‘Visionary Spirit’, the Winter Edition of Kosmos is ‘unlocked’ for all to enjoy.

David Berkeley | Oh Quiet World: Vision and Purpose in a Pandemic

KOSMOS WINTER 2021

“The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed him a ‘musical poet’. His articulation and delicate fingerpicking are reminiscent of a young Cat Stevens. David Berkeley attended Harvard, where he graduated with a degree in literature. He has been a guest on This American Life, won the Kerrville New Folk competition and ASCAP’s coveted Johnny Mercer Songwriter Award. Berkeley has released six studio albums, one live album, and authored two books..

David says, “Oh Quiet World is a prayer for the world written during the time when everything stood still a while.” The whole album plays like a prayer, beginning with the call to “wake up in the early light,” and ending with the word, “amen.”

LISTEN AND READ

ESSAY | Headwater, by Jack Slocomb

KOSMOS WINTER 2021

“Maybe in another time I would have been like Ishmael, drawn along by the articulations of the creek to the big waters and Moby Dick and the whales. But today what is being pressed into the weave of my genes is the irresistible instinct for cold upland creeks. This is where I want to stay. And I believe then that the urging will be given down through some newly minted gene and could affect generations.

I can imagine some of my progeny waking up on a hot, steamy morning and feeling sudden cool rivulets veining their bodies, driving out the hangover of sweaty heat killed sleep. What is seeping into me may be my one worthwhile segue to the future. I may have no other such lasting connective tissue as this itinerant spirit of stream, this bloodline of heedless clear waters.”

READ THE ESSAY

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Dear Darkening Ground | Daniel Christian Wahl

“…Falling in love with all life will help us remember our own intimacy and kinship with all of its magnificence. Love for life can help us bear the pain of sitting with the trauma and the grief of being complicit in a major extinction event on this living planet. Wise pathways into an uncertain future can only be charted from a deeper understanding of our own fragile interdependence with the health regenerating patterns of the biosphere.

For the people of the Navajo ‘living in right relationship’ with the Earth is to ‘walk in beauty’ (Hózhóogo Naasháa Doo) and their advice is: ‘if you walk into the future, walk in beauty’. We are now all called to redesign the human impact on Earth within the lifetime of the generations alive today. To do so we will have to walk in beauty with deep love for all of life, including ourselves and each other.”

SEE THE SHORT FILM directed by Martín Haas and Toni Balseiro, collectively animated at The Im/possible Future.