This is the shape of our solar system. In the image to the left we can see the concentric orbits of the inner planets around our beautiful sun. In the image to the right we can see that those orbits are all in the same plane. All of the planets in our solar system move in this same plane – except sweet little Pluto, who may or may not be a planet, and whose orbit is a bit askew; theory is something smacked Pluto into a different plane. The plane everything else shares? This is called the ecliptic plane.
You know the plane of the ecliptic; it's the arc that everything in our solar system follows through the sky: sun, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn; the moon, too, with a little wiggle – it dances within 5 degrees of the ecliptic, crossing it twice each month. At my house, this means that the sun, moon, and planets rise from the forest that lies between us and town on the left if you're facing the back of the house. They arc upward around the sky behind the house and set into the forest that lies behind the neighbors on the other side of the road. This shifts a bit with the seasons due the axial tilt of the Earth; here in the Northern Hemisphere, that means the arc of the plane's moves north of east/west in summer, south in winter, and crosses directly east/west at the equinoxes.
I've known this for some years; also, that everything is in this flattish plane because of how it formed, cooling down from a big spinning mass: most stuff condensed to become the central star, our sun; some other stuff condensed into the planets around it... and it's all still spinning. Last week, in one of those moments where your curiosity suddenly notices the edge of knowing, I thought: "But why? What was happening before that? When did it happen?"
We estimate the age of our universe to be 13.8 billion years, and our solar system at 4.6 billion years. Our current theory is that a supernova took place; a star died in a supermassive explosion. We surmise that as the shockwaves of this spectacular event travelled through space, they hit a nebula – a big cloud of interstellar dust and gasses – and caused it to collapse, flattening into a spinning disk which we know as our solar system. One star died and another star was born, death and life flowing together.
The forest where I live teaches me every day about the interpenetration of life and death. Downed trees are dead trees – and so full of life that they're called nurse logs: they are rife with mushrooms and mosses I can see, microbes I cannot see, and all of this nurtures seedlings which become trees again. Nurse logs play a crucial role in the life of the forest. The damp Cascadian forest I call home is also astonishingly lush with fungi, which are the decomposers of the forest, taking what is dead and bringing it again to life, re-cycling nutrients, building soil, and, in some species, delivering nutrients to the trees. The forest makes so evident that life leads to death which leads to life, which dies and... ahhh. This is lingering in my mind with particular tenderness because just after I learned this beautiful theory about our solar system, I learned that one of my teachers had died.
Lorin Roche was a lover of meditation. He was devoted in particular to the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and his version of that, The Radiance Sutras, has been among my heart's dearest companions for 17 years now. This text lit me so aflame that I tattooed a variation of it upon my arm as a statement of my dharma, the purpose of my existence in this form.
I spent much of 2021 immersed in training with Lorin. It was a powerful point of growth and evolution in the path of my being. Lorin's light, his laughter, his gift for meeting each person in their truth; what blessings.
His version of the Vijnana Bhairava's yukti 98 reads:
"Passion and compassion, holding and letting go --
This ache in your heart is holy.
Accept it as the rise of intimacy
with life's secret ways."
St. Martin’s Essentials / Sounds True
Here is a link to the text should you wish to peruse it yourself. A treasure.
This ache in my heart is holy. I aim to treasure it. We ache because we love and because life is change.
Yukti 98 goes on to say more about love:
"Devotion is the divine streaming through you
From that place in you before time
Love's energy flows through your body
Toward a body, and into eternity again.
Surrender to this current of devotion
And become one with the Body of Love."
The devotion spoken of here is bhakti, spiritual devotion, love as a spiritual endeavor. If I translate these words into my own way of speaking, which I have been doing in my classes all week, I might say something like:
The love we feel for life
is life streaming through us.
Love's energy is the life of the universe dancing in human form, flowing
toward what we cherish
and out into the unbroken whole of existence once again.
When we know ourselves as the flow of life and love
we rest in the knowledge of ourselves
as the life of the universe, dancing
in love, as life, ahhhhhhh.
We estimate that the Vijnana Bhairava tantra is 1,200-1,300 years old. These words have passed through many hands, many lives. They passed through many hearts and minds to reach Lorin and his love for them has brought them into forms which flow onward to and through me and many, now including you. May the Lorin's death sends his words like seeds into life. Life and love and death flow, onward, onward. All of this is the life of the universe, dancing.
Yukti 90
"Radiant One,
Please listen to me.
The essence of teachings is right here.
Open your eyes.
With a soft and steady gaze,
Look out upon creation.
Receive waves of light as they enter your eyes,
Singing of infinity.
The light touching the back of your eyes
Is immortal, born in the primal sun.
Be present to this enlightenment.
This is the ancient knowing,
A sanctuary that is everywhere.
Galaxies are flowers on this altar."
Flowers are afoot where I live. The quince behind the house began to bloom this morning and I said to them, "Oh, this might be your most beautiful day of the year!" though I know that I may think this again tomorrow as we go deeper into blossom. Fabled Flora spring flower CSA , grown by my friend and student Emmy Gran, are gracing the dining table and the sun room now, each blossom a galaxy on the altar of my life. The sanctuary of life is everywhere. This ache in my heart is holy. Love is the dance.
I know that many of you are aching in your own ways. If I know those ways, I hold them in daily prayersong as I stand at the altar in my temple. I sing of my love for you and yours. I believe that everything hears. I believe that it matters to sing. To dance. To ache. To love. To blossom. Thank you for sharing these moments of your own blossom with me.
Love,
Dahlia
Resources
Eaglets at last
Jackie and Shadow are eagles. They are partners who nest in Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino National Forest. Their nesting site is camera-wired. Longtime readers may know I've enjoyed watching them off and on for some years. They currently have a pair of 3 week old eaglets in the nest, which you can watch live at the link below, or catch highlights of here. Such a gentle, connective way to enjoy screentime. Sometimes in these live feeds I can feel the chafe of my neurochemistry, which expects things to flow faster than the wild does, and ah, it is a good thing to rest in that, to listen to the wind in the trees, to let my mind reset.
The Best Medicine
Gina Yashere is a British comedian, a lesbian, a woman whose parents migrated to London from Nigeria before she was born, and she is hysterical. If you enjoy the clip below, she's got a tone more on her website. Thanks to Stella
Taking care
A new study published in BMJ Open found that half of the information given by AI chatbots in response to medical questions was"problematic". Grok was the worst at 58%, ChapGPT followed at 52%, and Meta AI 50%. If you'd like to hear more from the researchers involved, here's an article I found useful.
You are what you eat
Last fall one of my dearest thrust Samin Nosrat's Good Things into my hands when I visited, warmly encouraging me to give it a look and oh, was she right! I am particularly smitten with her recipe for marinated goat cheese. Perhaps you know her from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; I know it was widely-loved, but I never got to that one because it came out during our living-at-sea years. It's on my wishlist! In the meantime, Good Things, which speaks to both the love of gathering and the love of food, is warming my heart and my belly, and I was tickled to discover that Samin has a bunch of recipes on her website that you can explore for free. Thanks to Aimee
Resistance
My second Thai Yoga Massage Workshop to support my local food bank last week was connective, relaxing, introduced me to lovely new people, and I'm delighted to say that it sold out. If you'd like to get on the notification list for the next one, late summer, drop me a line.
Communities Not Cages is an April 25 day of action against ICE warehouses. My link for this last week was incorrect; apologies and here is the right one.
May Day Strong is a May 1 day of Workers Over Billionaires marches and walkouts. I've taken the day off my work schedule. Join me?
I've got a doc for collecting resistance resources over time for ease of access. It's new, so there's a lot of room to grow. I'd love your suggestions for additions.
Supporting me in supporting you
This is entirely human work – my work, done by hand, with my own mind and heart. I do not use AI in the creation of what I offer you. I don't have one. The half day I devote to creating this each week is a labor of love for which I earn about $15/hr. You can chip in on giving me a raise! You could make a one-time donation of any size, or upgrade to a paid subscription for as little as $5/month.
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