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| The Prosperos Assembly 2025 Integrity – The Key to Freedom Expanding consciousness through new paradigms of wholeness September 5 – 8, San Diego, California For details about Assembly registration and hotel arrangements, Please see our Assembly Fact Sheet, below!  In the midst of cataclysmic changes around the world we will use this weekend experience to explore the Ontological message: Back and behind the universe of time, space, and change lies a fundamental and changeless reality. It is exactly in times such as these that we have the opportunity to turn our vision from “wars and rumors of wars” to the ever-living Truth that provides each person with their keystone for bringing Integrity forth in their personal life and finding their way to communal wholeness.From the Aloha settingto our dynamic program, and activities -You are warmly invited to join us in person! We are coming together at the Island Palms Hotel on the Hawaii-infused Shelter Island next to the Bay in balmy San Diego ! This is your opportunity for reconnecting in community, rejuvenating in nature and re-discovering the Self each person has that can heal a fractured world.More information, including hotel and event registration can be found on The Prosperos website at: Assembly 2025 announcement. For details about Assembly registration and hotel arrangements, Please see our Assembly Fact Sheet, below! — FACT SHEET —  aLOCATION: Best Western Plus–Island Palms Hotel & Marina 2051 Shelter Island Drive, San Diego, CA 92106 a Hotel information is available at: https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotels-in-san-diego/best-western-plus-island-palms-hotel-marina/propertyCode.05326.html a RESERVATIONS: Special Prosperos event room rate: $179 per night, 2 Queen beds or 1 King bed (+ tax) To reserve your room online: You can use this link for booking. NOTE: Use the edit link on the right side of the link’s landing page to customize your arrival and/or departure dates. If you run into any difficulty booking a room, please contact Joseph Stanley, Sales Coordinator: jstanley@islandpalms.com, (619) 222-0561, during business hours. (CAUTION: After hours and on weekends, you will automatically be transferred to the out-of-state Central Reservations office, which does not know about our group.)  aGETTING THERE: By air: Closest airports are Long Beach (LBG), Los Angeles (LAX), & Orange County (JWA). (Long Beach airport is the closest, but flights are usually more expensive, with fewer choices) Taxi from Long Beach airport runs $20 – $30, depending on traffic. Shuttles are available from LAX & JWA: Call Super Shuttle at 800-258-3826 Fees: From Los Angeles, $17 per person; from Orange Co., $37 for first person, $9 all others. By car: Hotel is south & west of the I-405 or I-5 Fwy (see map on hotel website) From the north: Take I-5 south (or 405 Fwy south, then I-5 south), exit at Exit 20. Stay right onto the ramp for Camino Del Rio south. It becomes Rosecrans St.; stay on Rosecrans St. southwest for 2.5 miles. Turn left onto Shelter Island Dr. At the roundabout, take the first exit, turn right, and continue along Shelter Island Dr. to the hotel. From the south: Take I-5 north to Harbor St. west to Scott St. Turn left onto Shelter Island Dr. At the roundabout, take first exit, turn right and continue on Shelter Island Dr. to the hotel. Parking: Directly on hotel property, or in a covered garage behind the hotel on 1st Street. Self parking $25/day; no valet parking. Save money! Ask other attendees about sharing rides from your home area,or from the airport where you land! ASSEMBLY FEES: a Full registration includes all class activities, plus Sunday evening Banquet. General or Life Member: $279.00 Child 14-18: $105.00 Early Bird (before August 12): $249.00 Children 13 and under: Free Banquet only: $85.00 (Please let us know of any special dietary needs)You may pre-register online via The Prosperos website: https://www.theprosperos.org/prosperos-events/assembly-2025On-site registration and sign-in will take placeFriday, Sept. 5, 6-7 pm, and Saturday, Sept. 6, 9-10 am – Join us for a Welcome Reception on Friday, Sept. 5, beginning at 6:00 p.m.–For more information, please contact The Prosperos International Ontological Center P.O. Box 4969, Culver City, CA 90231 – www.TheProsperos.org SD/0925/Assem  |
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Honoring Joanna Macy
(hello@emergencemagazine.org)
Photo by Adam Loften
“You are not a separate being. You belong to the living body of Earth. You are the Earth, looking up at the stars. You are the Earth, becoming conscious of itself.”
–Joanna Macy
On Saturday, July 19th, eco-philosopher, Buddhist scholar, and dear friend Joanna Macy passed away at the age of ninety-six. Undoubtedly one of the most influential leaders of deep ecology, she dedicated her long life to the Work That Reconnects—a body of practices fostering a remembrance of the interconnectedness between people and the greater web of life; and frameworks for alchemizing despair, anger, and apathy towards loss and harm into constructive change and action. Of our current cultural and ecological polycrises, Joanna said, “The darker the circumstance, the more brilliant the invitation.”
Joanna’s voice was one of the first we sought in our early publishing days, and she repeatedly offered insight and wisdom over the years through her writing, and as a teacher for our Seeds of Radical Renewal leadership program. In her interview with us, she traced the ways a life-long heart connection with the living world cultivated a resounding ecological awareness within her work, alongside a recognition of what she called “the Great Turning”—the possibilities of societal transformation that exist at the core of our unfolding destruction. “I have a lot of grief for what we’re doing to our world and to the future,” she said, “but I know at the same time that whatever happens, there’s nothing that can happen that will ever separate me from the living body of Earth.” Her exploration of how we might return to this “ecological self” as a way to be of service amid the climate catastrophe was central to many of her books, including World as Lover, World as Self, Coming Back to Life, and Active Hope. Joanna was also a seminal translator of Rainer Maria Rilke’s work. Moved by his contemplations on the entwinement of grief, beauty, and spiritual life, she often quoted a particular stanza from Book of Hours:
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may never complete this last one,
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
Through her work and life, Joanna imparted a way of being that does not shy away from collapse, but listens for what is emergent within it. She reminds us that grief is not a failing, and that to feel sorrow for the burning world is to be awake to its beauty: “In the face of impermanence and death, it takes courage to love the things of this world and to believe that praising them is our noblest calling.”
* * * * *
Joanna Rogers Macy (1929 – July 19, 2025) was an American environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology. She was the author of 12 books. She was married to Francis Underhill Macy, the activist and Russian scholar who founded the Center for Safe Energy. Wikipedia
Ramana Maharshi on happiness
(mage from innerspiritualawakening.com)
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
Ramana Maharshi (December 20, 1879 – April 14, 1950) was an Indian Hindu sage and jivanmukta. He was born Venkataraman Iyer, but is mostly known by the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was born in Tiruchuli, Tamil Nadu, India in 1879. Wikipedia
Saturday, July 26
The Gloves Are Off
God Hurting After Eating 20-Piece Spicy Angel Wings
Published: March 14, 2016 (CommonDreams.org)
THE HEAVENS—Staring off into the middle distance for several minutes in obvious discomfort, The Lord Almighty, Our Heavenly Father, announced Monday that He was “hurting real bad” after consuming an entire 20-piece order of spicy angel wings. “Ooh, mama,” said God, who was reportedly sweating profusely and had bright orange “Atomic” angel wing sauce speckling His white beard. “Oh, I’m so dumb. Why didn’t I just get a half-order of the angel wings? Or the honey BBQ kind? Ugh, I’m gonna be feeling these suckers for the next couple millennia.” According to sources, a logy God later suffered severe sunburn after dozing off on some clouds that were bathed in direct heavenly light.
Famine Expert: Israel’s Starvation of Gaza Most ‘Minutely Designed and Controlled’ Since WWII
Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a 1-year-old Palestinian boy from Gaza City, faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, on July 21, 2025.
(Photo: Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This is preventable starvation,” said Alex de Waal. “It is entirely man-made.”
Jul 22, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)
A leading global authority on famine on Monday accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip, remarks that came amid a steadily rising death toll from malnutrition caused by the 654-day U.S.-backed Israeli siege and obliteration of the Palestinian enclave.
“I’ve been working on this topic for more than four decades, and there is no case since World War II of starvation that is being so minutely designed and controlled,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Al Jazeera.
“This is preventable starvation. It is entirely man-made,” de Waal added. “And every stage of this has been predicted, and at every stage action could have been taken—by Israel, by the international authorities, [the] international community, those who back Israel—to prevent what is happening now… Those steps have simply not been taken.”
The Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies—said Tuesday that 15 more Palestinians, including four children, died from malnutrition over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of starvation deaths in the coastal enclave to at least 101, including 80 children, since October 2023. The ministry said that 21 Gaza children have starved to death over the past three days alone.
When combined with lack of medicine, malnutrition has claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives in Gaza, according to officials there.
“I am so hungry,” Ruwaida Amer, a 30-year-old Gaza woman, wrote for +972 Magazine Monday. “We are starving. My body is breaking down. My mother is collapsing from exhaustion. My cousin cheats death every day for a morsel of aid. Gaza’s children are dying in front of our eyes, and we are powerless to help them.”
Another Gaza woman, Amina Badir, told Amer while clutching her starving 3-year-old: “Tell me how to save my daughter Rahaf from death. For a week she’s eaten nothing but a single spoon of lentils each day.”
“She’s suffering from malnutrition. There’s no treatment, no milk at the hospital,” Badir added. “They’ve taken away her right to live. I see death in her eyes.”
Gaza medical officials say 17,000 children are severely malnourished in the strip. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, also known as the IPC scale, 85% of Gaza’s people are in Phase 5, defined as such “an extreme deprivation of food” that “starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident.”
The “complete siege” imposed on Gaza immediately following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel has fueled widespread starvation and disease, and has been condemned as a war crime. The International Criminal Court last year ordered the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged murder and forced starvation of Gazans. The International Court of Justice is also weighing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa.
Amid intense international pressure, Israel partially lifted its siege of Gaza in May. However, de Waal and others say the move is wholly inadequate to prevent the famine taking hold in the strip.
“The partial lifting was not to bring in the kind of humanitarian program that we have been familiar with as humanitarians over the decades,” de Waal told Al Jazeera Monday. “It was to bring in a type of rationed program that is simply an arm of the Israeli military.”
Israel has also come under intense criticism for its method of delivering aid in Gaza via the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose distribution points have been the sites of near-daily massacres. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers and troops say they were ordered to shoot and shell desperate aid-seekers at GHF distribution centers. Officials said at least 10 aid-seekers were killed on Tuesday alone.
“The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible.”
“As of July 21, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near [United Nations] and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys,” U.N. human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told Agence France-Presse.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Tuesday that “the killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible,” adding that the “IDF must stop killing people at distribution points.”Overall, at least 59,029 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 142,000 others have been wounded, and at least 14,000 more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.
Other international humanitarian experts also weighed in on the growing Gaza famine, with Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, telling Al Jazeera Monday that the “man-made” starvation in the strip “is a war crime.”
“Israel has been using aid as a way to bait civilians and has been killing civilians who have been seeking aid,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is the most horrific stage of Israel’s 20-month starvation campaign.”
https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:cpshddqofvb6kgmi3rng4nyv/app.bsky.feed.post/3lujtu6ikcc22?id=9065234159100155&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Ffamine-expert-israel-s-starvation-of-gaza-most-minutely-designed-and-controlled-since-wwii&colorMode=system
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters Tuesday that “our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left.”
“Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in,” he explained. “That’s why we are so angry. Because our job is to help.”
“Israel is not yielding,” Egeland added. “They just want to paralyze our work.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Jack Kornfield The Sweet and Radical Joy of Living in the Way
Be Here Now Network Jul 2, 2025 Jack Kornfield – Heart Wisdom Jack invites us to walk the path of joy—no matter the circumstances—showing how living joyfully and tenderly is a courageous, radical, and transformative act. Join the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for monthly livestream Q&A hangs with Jack, and weekly lessons and reflections to keep your year focused on awakening. Visit https://jackkornfield.com/product/the… and use code AWAKEN50 for 50% off entry. In this episode, Jack mindfully explores: *Living joyfully with a positive attitude *Joy as a necessary quality of enlightenment *How can we have joy in times of chaos, disruption, and suffering? *Joy as a true service to others and the world *Uplifting others through our joy and positivity *Wavy Gravy and the Transformative Power of Joy *How suffering is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning of the Four Noble Truths *Bringing joy, beauty, and humor to our protesting, activism, and standing up for what matters *Being hopeful despite the outside circumstances, and emphasizing compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness *The joy and playfulness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu *How we can bless and heal each other with our joy *Living in joy, love, health and peace even amidst hate, affliction, and troubles *Experiencing the sweet joy of living in the way *The radical joyful presence of Ajahn Chah and Maha Ghosananda *Risking delight *Jack’s rapturous experience of meditative bliss *Learning to step out of the battle and embrace life *Thich Nhat Hanh and the practice of smiling *Becoming a make-weight of joy, tipping the scales to hope *Unshakeable integrity, generosity, gratitude, and tenderness *Tuning in with nature, relationships, and the mystery *Father Gregory Boyle and the possibility of transformation and renewal This episode was recorded on 04/07/2025 for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation. “What I’ve seen in visiting refugee camps is that they don’t want you to come in feeling depressed—they have enough of that themselves. They’re not looking for people who are frightened, worried, or downhearted. What they long for is someone who can bring a sense of uplift, possibility, and joy.” – Jack Kornfield About Jack Kornfield: Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, studying as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. Jack is currently offering a wonderful array of transformational online courses diving into crucial topics like Mindfulness Meditation Fundamentals, Walking the Eightfold Path, Opening the Heart of Forgiveness, Living Beautifully, Transforming Your Life Through Powerful Stories, and so much more. Sign up for an All Access Pass to explore Jack’s entire course library. If you would like a year’s worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community, join The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield. Stay up to date with Jack and his stream of fresh dharma offerings by visiting JackKornfield.com and signing up for his email teachings. Jack Kornfield The Sweet and Radical Joy of Living in the Way – Heart Wisdom Ep. 295 – • Jack Kornfield The Sweet and Radical Joy o…
(Contributed by Zoë Robinson, H.W., M.)
Word-Built World: insurrect
A Scene from the January Uprising, 1876
(Poland 1863-1864) Art: Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz
A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
insurrect
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
verb intr.: To rise in revolt against a government or other authority.
ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from insurrection, from Latin insurgere (to rise up), from in- (intensive prefix) + surgere (to rise). Earliest documented use: 1694.
July 24: Restoration of Democracy Day in Greece
From: Zoë Robinson, H.W., M.
Thought you’d like to know . . .
July 24 – The Restoration of Democracy in Greece
Restoration of Democracy Day in Greece, celebrated annually on July 24th, commemorates the end of the military junta and the return to parliamentary democracy in 1974. This day signifies the end of the seven years of military dictatorship and the beginning of the Third Hellenic Republic . .
Greece Remembers the Day Democracy was Restored
July 24, 2015 (GreekReporter.com)
July 24, 1974 is an important day in modern Greek history as it marks the day democracy was restored after seven years of military dictatorship.
A few days earlier, a failed junta-instigated military coup in Cyprus gave Turkey a great excuse to invade the island on July 20 and occupy one third of it. The dictators in Athens, unable to handle the situation, decided to pass the government to the hands of politicians and stepped out. On their part, the politicians decided to call on Constantinos Karamanlis to become prime minister of the Greek republic.
Karamanlis, who had served four times as Greece’s prime minister, was self-exiled in Paris since 1963. At 2:00 am on July 24, 1974, he arrived at the Athens airport with many Greeks welcoming him as a messiah. He was sworn in at 4:00 am by Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece Seraphim and the temporary President of the Hellenic Republic, Phaedon Gizikis.
At noon the same day, a part of the new government was sworn in, comprised mainly of politicians from the Center and the Right. On July 26, the rest of the cabinet was sworn in.
The immediate actions taken for the restoration of democracy were the release of all political prisoners, amnesty for political offenses, the closing of a political prisoner camp in Gyaros and other such camps, the return of nationality to Greeks who were stripped of Greek citizenship by the junta, and all actions required for Greek society to return to normalcy, especially in the Armed Forces and Police.
Other actions were the legalization of the Greek Communist Party and other leftist parties and factions and the adoption of a new constitution. In December 1974, in a referendum in which two thirds of the people voted against kingship in Greece, political history in the country changed forever.