Friday, April 10, 2026
Mon Rovîa’s Wide World
I’ve been listening a lot lately to Bloodline, the debut album of Mon Rovîa, the stage name for Janjay Lowe, an Afro-Appalachian singer-songwriter from Liberia who grew up in the United States.
The album’s track “Oh Wide World” seems an appropriate one to share this evening as I wing my way from the U.S. to my homeland of Australia for a month-long visit. Enjoy!
Related Off-site Links:
“Why Was It Me?” Mon Rovîa on Going From War-torn Liberia to U.S. Folk-pop Stardom – Jewly Hight (The Guardian, January 21, 2026).
Becoming Himself, Mon Rovîa Helps Us All on Our Journeys of Becoming – Martyn Pepperell (The Bluegrass Situation, January 28, 2026).
A Review of Mon Rovîa’s Bloodline – Andrew Gulden (Americana Highways, January 8, 2026).
Other featured musicians at The Wild Reed:
Dusty Springfield | David Bowie | Kate Bush | Maxwell | Buffy Sainte-Marie | Prince | Frank Ocean | Maria Callas | Loreena McKennitt | Rosanne Cash | Petula Clark | Wendy Matthews | Darren Hayes | Jenny Morris | Gil Scott-Heron | Shirley Bassey | Rufus Wainwright | Kiki Dee | Suede | Marianne Faithfull | Dionne Warwick | Seal | Sam Sparro | Wanda Jackson | Engelbert Humperdinck | Pink Floyd | Carl Anderson | The Church | Enrique Iglesias | Yvonne Elliman | Lenny Kravitz | Helen Reddy | Stephen Gately | Judith Durham | Nat King Cole | Emmylou Harris | Bobbie Gentry | Russell Elliot | BØRNS | Hozier | Enigma | Moby (featuring the Banks Brothers) | Cat Stevens | Chrissy Amphlett | Jon Stevens | Nada Surf | Tom Goss (featuring Matt Alber) | Autoheart | Scissor Sisters | Mavis Staples | Claude Chalhoub | Cass Elliot | Duffy | The Cruel Sea | Wall of Voodoo | Loretta Lynn and Jack White | Foo Fighters | 1927 | Kate Ceberano | Tee Set | Joan Baez | Wet, Wet, Wet | Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy | Fleetwood Mac | Jane Clifton | Australian Crawl | Pet Shop Boys | Marty Rhone | Josef Salvat | Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri | Aquilo | The Breeders | Tony Enos | Tupac Shakur | Nakhane Touré | Al Green | Donald Glover/Childish Gambino | Josh Garrels | Stromae | Damiyr Shuford | Vaudou Game | Yotha Yindi and The Treaty Project | Lil Nas X | Daby Touré | Sheku Kanneh-Mason | Susan Boyle | D’Angelo | Little Richard | Black Pumas | Mbemba Diebaté | Judie Tzuke | Seckou Keita | Rahsaan Patterson | Black | Ash Dargan | ABBA | The KLF and Tammy Wynette | Luke James and Samoht | Julee Cruise | Olivia Newton-John | Dyllón Burnside | Christine McVie | Rita Coolidge | Bettye LaVette | Burt Bacharach | Kimi Djabaté | Benjamin Booker | Tina Turner | Julie Covington | Midist/Wasim | Durrand Bernarr | Cold Play | Keiynan Lonsdale | Sharon Jones | Sylvester | Warumpi Band | Bad Bunny | Fantastic Negrito | Gordon Lightfoot | Diana Trask | Bruce Springsteen
Henry Giroux on the State of the Democratic Party
Scholar and cultural critic Henry Giroux penned the following words over six months ago. Sadly, they remain as relevant and true today as they did then.
The Democratic Party has forfeited every claim to moral and political credibility. It is not a bulwark against fascism but an accomplice to it, a party of cowardice and complicity that props up the most barbaric features of gangster capitalism - extending from staggering levels of inequality to its refusal to support national health care. Its leadership, craven, visionless, and drunk on Wall Street money, has become a machinery of war and despair. It is wedded to the military-industrial complex and normalizes through its silence a culture of war, misery, and cruelty. . . . It is a party of whiners, trapped in ideological smugness and a flaccid discourse of compromise. Given its political and ethical weakness, it is ironic that on occasion it drapes itself in the hollow language of “resisting Trump’s authoritarianism.” This becomes more obvious when it advocates, on occasion, working with the regime, even as it props up authoritarians abroad and tightens the screws of neoliberal cruelty at home. . . . Its neoliberal policies have hollowed out working-class communities, shredded social protections, remained largely moot in calling out Trump’s regime as a criminogenic organization, and left despair in their wake, conditions that became the breeding ground for Trump’s authoritarian ascent. They created the void that fascism fills, and now they tremble before the monster they helped unleash.
. . . [T]the Democratic leadership refuses to lift a finger for candidates who represent genuine hope. Their refusal to support Zohran Mamdani in New York [was] not an oversight but a betrayal. Schumer and Jeffries embody the Party’s moral bankruptcy: Schumer the coward, Jeffries the gutless tactician, both locked in servitude to corporate power, both content to preside over a politics of endless war, mass incarceration, obscene inequality, and the normalization of state terrorism. They are the pallbearers of democracy, not its defenders. ... these two politicians embody not individual cowardice, but a party that supports genocide in Gaza, refuses to stand up to the military-industrial-academic complex, and could not care less about the future they are destroying for young people.
The American people deserve more than these moral zombies. What is needed is a new party, one unafraid to fight for radical democracy and the dignity of all. A party that calls for the end of staggering inequality, a universal wage, free health care, free quality education for all, housing for everyone, strict gun restrictions, the abolition of poverty, and the dismantling of the warfare state. A party that will slash the bloated defense budget and redirect those trillions into schools, hospitals, homes, and the expansion of social rights. A party that will name criminalized capitalism for what it is: a death-dealing order of greed, violence, corruption, and disposability.
. . . The Democratic Party is too compromised by its allegiance to corporate power, too wedded to the financiers of misery, and too invested in the politics of fear to offer anything resembling resistance.
– Henry Giroux
Excerpted from “The Democratic Party:
Architects of Cowardice, Accomplices to Fascism”
CounterPunch
September 8, 2025
Excerpted from “The Democratic Party:
Architects of Cowardice, Accomplices to Fascism”
CounterPunch
September 8, 2025
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Authoritarianism With a Blue Sticker
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Tony Pentimalli on the Fallacy of the “Safe Political Center”
• Genny Harrison on Brian Tyler Cohen’s Interview with Obama
• Progressives and Obama
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’s Book, 107 Days
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden/Harris Administration
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in 2024
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• David Sirota: Quote of the Day – January 26, 2021
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Butch Ware: “People Really Want New Options in Politics”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• Introducing California’s Gubernatorial Candidate Butch Ware
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Butch Ware and the Gatekeepers Within the Democratic Party
Image: Marianique Santos.
Thursday, April 09, 2026
Third Parties and the Historical Record
Writes David Keith Cobb:
For the last 100 years, nearly every major progressive reform in the United States was first championed by third parties — and opposed or ignored by both Democrats and Republicans.
• Populists (1890s): Mary Elizabeth Lease and James B. Weaver demanded public banking, railroad regulation, and the eight-hour day. Republicans defended industrial capital; Democrats were divided and often aligned with business interests.
• Socialists (early 1900s): Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas called for Social Security, unemployment insurance, and labor protections decades before the New Deal. Both parties marginalized them while courts and politicians repressed labor organizing.
• Progressives (1940s): Henry A. Wallace ran on desegregation, anti-lynching laws, and coexistence with the Soviet Union. Southern Democrats upheld segregation, while Republicans largely avoided confronting Jim Crow laws at the federal level.
• Black Power (1960s–70s): The Black Panther Party and leaders like Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, and Eldridge Cleaver, advanced community control, free social programs, and police accountability. Federal agencies and local governments surveilled and repressed these efforts rather than adopting them.
• Greens and independents (today): Ralph Nader and Jill Stein advance Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and corporate accountability. Democratic leadership resists structural change; Republicans openly oppose it.
The historical pattern is consistent: third parties introduce transformative ideas, the major parties resist or suppress them, and only later adopt watered-down versions under pressure.
That’s not theory – it’s the historical record.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• “People Really Want New Options in Politics”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• Introducing California’s Gubernatorial Candidate Butch Ware
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear
Wednesday, April 08, 2026
The Resurrection of Jesus: “An Archetypal Map of Transformation”
– “Older Light” by Dan Hillier
The following by “Craig (Rei Rei)” serves as a fitting follow-up to my Easter Sunday post, Christ Consciousness: The Inner Flame of Divine Self. I again have Beau Childs to thank for bringing this piece to my attention via Facebook. Thanks, Beau!
As [we] embrace the Easter holidays, [let us] focus today on the sacred process encoded within the human journey, one that transcends religion and speaks directly to the architecture of the soul. The resurrection story of Jesus is not merely a historical or theological event: it is an archetypal map of transformation. It reveals the pathway through which the human being sheds the density of the lower nature and awakens its innate divinity.
Your lower nature is not “bad,” but it is limited. It is conditioned by fear, attachment, illusion, and the perceptual constraints imposed by the space-time matrix. These veils are powerful, designed to immerse consciousness fully into the human experience. Yet they also obscure your true essence: your eternal, multi-dimensional self.
The resurrection begins when the false self is allowed to die. This death is symbolic, yet deeply real. It is the surrender of identities, wounds, karmic imprints, and inherited belief systems that keep you bound to limitations. It is the willingness to release control and step beyond the known to embrace the unknown, even when the ego resists. In this surrender, something ancient within you begins to stir. Your true self has never been lost: only dormant.
It waits beneath layers of self-forgetfulness, beneath the noise of the conditioned mind. When the lower self dissolves, the soul rises. This is the resurrection: the re-emergence of your divine nature into conscious awareness. It is not granted from outside but activated from within. To embody Christ Consciousness is to live as this awakened self.
It is to perceive beyond separation, to act from unity, and to anchor higher intelligence into physical reality. In this state, you are no longer confined by the illusions of space-time, rather, you become a bridge between dimensions, a living expression of the Infinite Spirit beyond creation.
– Craig (Rei Rei)
See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Easter: The Celebration of the Sacrament of Transformation
• Christ Consciousness: The Inner Flame of Divine Self
• He Is Risen, and So Are You
• Marianne Williamson on the Alchemy of Easter
• Easter for Mystics
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• The Risen Jesus: Our Integral Ground
• The Triumph of Love – An Easter Reflection
• Resurrection: Beyond Words, Dogmas, and All Possible Theological Formulations
• A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life
• God’s Good Gift
• Easter Bodiliness
• The Two Entwined Events of the Easter Experience
• Resurrection in an Emerging Universe
• Resurrection: A New Depth of Consciousness
• Considering Resurrection
• A Girl Named Sara: A Person of the Resurrection
• Easter Reflections
• Jesus Lives!
• Not Metaphor, Not Guilty Revision . . . But Something Else
• He Is Risen!
• “You Will See Him”
• Easter Exultet
• Thoughts on Mallorca’s “Naked Easter” Calendar
• Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness
• Jesus: Our Guide to Mystical Love in Action – Part 1 | 2 | 3
• “We’re Living at a Time of Spiritual Evolution”
• “This Spring, May We Renew the World”
• Andrew Harvey on Our “Divine Identity”
Image: “Older Light” by Dan Hillier.
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
Butch Ware: “I’m Trying to Take Care of People”
Why I Hate Politics is a podcast hosted by a self-described “progressive, democratic-socialist political commentator.” It’s dedicated to “breaking down the chaos of modern politics, exposing corruption, calling out bad-faith elites, highlighting real working-class issues, and reacting to trending political moments with honesty and clarity.”
“If you’re tired of the spin and want people-powered commentary,” notes the podcast’s unnamed creator and host (right), “you’re in the right place.”
Why I Hate Politics’ latest video highlights Green Party candidate for California Governor Butch Ware’s recent conversation with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay (above). It’s a 40-minute segment worth watching for both Butch Ware’s insights and the commentary provided by the host of Why I Hate Politics.
Related Off-site Links:
Democrats Panic Over Green Party Candidate: An Interview with Dr. Butch Ware – Bad Faith (March 30, 2026).
Judge Rejects Green Party Candidate Butch Ware’s Bid to Appear on California Governor Ballots – Yue Stella Yu (CalMatters.org, March 26, 2026).
Green Party Candidate for California Governor Butch Ware Kicked Off the Ballot – The Spiritual and Political Podcast (March 27, 2026).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
BUTCH WARE
• Introducing California’s Gubernatorial Candidate Butch Ware
• “People Really Want New Options in Politics”
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• “We Have the Power to Stop the Flow of Money and the False Legitimacy Upon Which Empire Depends”
• Butch Ware on the Hard Knock Radio Show
• Butch Ware and the Gatekeepers Within the Democratic Party • Photo of the Day – March 3, 2026
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – November 26, 2025
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – June 5, 2025
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”: Butch Ware on the Gaza Genocide
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
GREEN PARTY
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• An Opportunity for Organizing Against Duopoly
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear
Monday, April 06, 2026
Inayat Khan on Mysticism
Mysticism is neither a faith nor a belief, nor is it a principle or a dogma. . . . [B]eing a mysic means having a certain temperament, a certain outlook on life. . . . No one can be a mystic and call himself a Christian mystic, a Jewish mystic, or a Muslim mystic. For what is mysticism? Mysticism is something that erases from one’s mind all idea of separateness, and if a person claims to be this mystic or that mystic they are not a mystic; they are playing with a name.
People think a mystic means a dreamer, an unpractical person who has no knowledge of worldly affairs. But such a mystic I would call half a mystic. A mystic in the full sense of the word must have balance; thet must be as wise in worldly matters as in spiritual things. . . . It is not necessary to be unconscious of the world while being conscious of God. With our two eyes we see one vision; so we should see both God and the world as a clear vision at the same time. It is difficult, but not impossible.
Mysticism is an outlook on life. Things which seem real to an average person are unreal in the eyes of the mystic; and the things that seem unreal in the eyes of the average person are real in the eyes of the mystic.
. . . God is not abstract for the mystic; to the mystic God is a reality . . . the stepping-stone to self-realization. God is the gate, the door, the entrance to the heavens. God, for the mystic, is a key with which to open the secret of life, the abode from whence the mystic comes and to which they return and where they find their deepest and truest self to be at home.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness
• Inayat Khan and the Fountain of Happiness Within
• The Alchemy of Happiness
• A Light That Will Always Shine
• A Living Light
• A Perpetual Fire Within
• One Wisdom
• Awakening and Turning
THE SUFI PATH
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home
THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III
• Jesus: Mystic and Prophet
Recommended Off-site Link:
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).
Image: Artist unknown.
Sunday, April 05, 2026
Christ Consciousness: The Inner Flame of Divine Self
I share something very special today for Easter Sunday – a powerful and liberating reminder of the true meaning of “the Christ.”
First shared by Beau Childs on Facebook, this “reminder” was written by Lizz Marion and reflects the ancient mystical understanding and experience of the Christ. It’s a timely reminder, too; what with the rise in the U.S. of Christian nationalism, the antithesis of the Christ.
Thank you, Lizz. Thank you, Beau.
Christ Consciousness is not about a man nailed to a cross two thousand years ago. It is not a historical story frozen in time. It is a living metaphor – a profound symbol of our own divine awakening.
The “Christ” is not just Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ is you, when you remember who you are beneath the layers of illusion, fear, and separation. It is not about belief in a savior – it is the embodiment of your own sacred essence.
Christ Consciousness is the divine frequency encoded in every soul, waiting to be remembered, reclaimed, and lived.
The Christ as a Metaphor
When people speak of Christ, they often speak of a person. But in deeper spiritual truth, Christ is not a person – it is a state of being. It is the radiant, awakened consciousness that transcends ego, duality, and suffering.
Jesus embodied this state and taught from it. But his life was not meant to place him above humanity – it was meant to reflect what is possible within humanity. He said, “Greater works than these shall you do,” pointing not to worship, but to inner transformation.
The crucifixion and resurrection are not just events – they are symbolic of our own journey. The ego must be crucified for the true Self to rise. This is the death of the false self and the birth of divine remembrance. Christ Consciousness is not external; it is the inner flame that burns quietly within all of us, waiting for the breath of awareness to ignite it.
The Divine Birthright
Every soul comes into this world carrying the divine blueprint. That blueprint is the Christ principle – the inner compass aligned with truth, love, and unity. It is not given to a chosen few. It is not earned. It is inherent. It is our birthright. But the world teaches us to forget, to separate, to look outward for what can only be found inward. We are told to seek the light, not realizing we are the light.
To awaken Christ Consciousness is to remember that you are not your trauma, not your name, not your identity or history.
You are consciousness itself – eternal, unbroken, divine. Christ Consciousness dissolves all illusions of hierarchy, worthiness, or spiritual distance. It brings us into oneness, where we see that every being is a mirror of the same light.
Beyond Religion and Dogma
This understanding goes beyond the boundaries of religion. Christ Consciousness is not Christian – it is cosmic.
It is the same truth spoken through different tongues: Buddhahood, Krishna consciousness, the I AM Presence, the Higher Self. The language may vary, but the essence is one. Religions point to it, but the direct experience of it comes only when you go within.
It is felt in moments of deep peace, unconditional love, and timeless presence. It is lived when compassion overrides judgment, when forgiveness flows freely, and when truth is chosen over comfort. This is not theology. It is spiritual embodiment.
Living the Christ Within
To live from Christ Consciousness is to remember that all life is sacred. It is to walk with the awareness that every thought, every word, every act carries the vibration of your state of being. It is not about being perfect – it is about being present, open-hearted, and aligned with your soul.
You begin to see through the eyes of love, hear with the ears of compassion, and speak from the voice of truth. You become the bridge between heaven and earth – not because you’ve attained something, but because you’ve remembered what you already are.
Christ Consciousness is not the story of one man. It is the invitation for every human being to awaken the Christ within. It is the divine spark that whispers, “You are not separate. You were never less. You are the living presence of the sacred.” It is the journey from illusion to truth, from fear to love, from ego to soul.
This is not a message of exclusion – it is a call to remembrance. You are not meant to worship Christ – you are meant to become it.
– Lizz Marion
See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• He Is Risen, and So Are You
• Marianne Williamson on the Alchemy of Easter
• Easter for Mystics
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• Easter: The Celebration of the Sacrament of Transformation
• The Risen Jesus: Our Integral Ground
• The Triumph of Love – An Easter Reflection
• Resurrection: Beyond Words, Dogmas, and All Possible Theological Formulations
• A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life
• God’s Good Gift
• Easter Bodiliness
• The Two Entwined Events of the Easter Experience
• Resurrection in an Emerging Universe
• Resurrection: A New Depth of Consciousness
• Considering Resurrection
• A Girl Named Sara: A Person of the Resurrection
• Easter Reflections
• Jesus Lives!
• Not Metaphor, Not Guilty Revision . . . But Something Else
• He Is Risen!
• “You Will See Him”
• Easter Exultet
• Thoughts on Mallorca’s “Naked Easter” Calendar
• Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness
• Jesus: Our Guide to Mystical Love in Action – Part 1 | 2 | 3
• “We’re Living at a Time of Spiritual Evolution”
• “This Spring, May We Renew the World”
Image: Artist unknown.
Saturday, April 04, 2026
A Blessing for Holy Saturday
By Jan Richardson
In the Breath, Another Breathing
See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Within the Mystery, a Strange and Empty State of Suspension
• When Love Entered Hell
• The Passion of Jesus – Jesus Among the Dead
• A Wretched Death, a Wretched Burial
• The Unthinkable
• A Brave Hope
Artwork: Michael O'Brien
Holy Saturday. This is the day that calls us to breathe. This is the day that invites us to make a space within the weariness, the fear, the ache. This is the day that calls us to hold our anguish and our hope in the same hand. This is the day that beckons us to turn toward one another and to remember we do not breathe alone.
________________
A Blessing for Holy Saturday
Let it be
that on this day
we will expect
no more of ourselves
than to keep
breathing
with the bewildered
cadence
of lungs that will not
give up the ghost.
Let it be
we will expect
little but
the beating of
our heart,
stubborn in
its repeating rhythm
that will not
cease to sound.
Let it be
we will
still ourselves
enough to hear
what may yet
come to echo:
as if in the breath,
another breathing;
as if in the heartbeat,
another heart.
Let it be
we will not
try to fathom
what comes
to meet us
in the stillness
but simply open
to the approach
of a mystery
we hardly dared
to dream.
– Jan Richardson
From Circle of Grace: A Book of
Blessings for the Seasons
Wanton Gospeller Press
2015
From Circle of Grace: A Book of
Blessings for the Seasons
Wanton Gospeller Press
2015
See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Within the Mystery, a Strange and Empty State of Suspension
• When Love Entered Hell
• The Passion of Jesus – Jesus Among the Dead
• A Wretched Death, a Wretched Burial
• The Unthinkable
• A Brave Hope
Artwork: Michael O'Brien
Friday, April 03, 2026
Good Silence
– “The Art of Crucifixion” by @saidelatabart
By Phillip Clark
This day is called “Good”
When God is silent
A silence leaving us orphaned
Horrifically loud silence
Swallowing the Crucified One
Enveloping futures
As a bomb severs a schoolgirl's hand in Minab
While she recites Rumi
The Nazarene writhes in naked agony
Colonial sentries jeer at his form
Mangled scarlet by a flagellum's cackle
Settlers gather on hillsides
Cheering on splintering shrapnel
Drenching a Palestine still occupied
Certainty no longer exists
Are we naive for believing it did?
“Why have you abandoned me?”
The Son of Humanity's lonely plea rings out
Through the centuries
Pealing unceasingly
In a world incinerated by silence
Where indifference scorches hope
To indifference
Yet holiness remains
Lodged in fear of state violence
Present in the midst of hunger pangs
Sojourning through death-filled valleys
Nailed to a tree
Can we ever comprehend why today is “Good?”
Maybe not
Rain begins to fall
Breaking the stillness
Quenching parched throats
Of those sentenced to be forgotten
As the sky sheds tears
From an ocean of souls
See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Via Dolorosa
• Feeling Abandoned
• From Spiritual Death to Rebirth
• Good Friday Reflections
• Jesus and the Art of Letting Go
• No Deeper Darkness
• The Most Dangerous Kind of Rebel
• The Passion of Christ – Jesus is Nailed the Cross
• The Passion of Christ – Jesus Dies
Thursday, April 02, 2026
Holy Thursday Prayer
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Passion of Christ – Last Supper
• Trusting God’s Generous Invitation
• Francis: The Servant Pope
• Jesus at the Border
• Gospel Leadership
• A Priesthood Set Apart and Above Others is Not the Way of Jesus
• The Model of Leadership Offered by Jesus: “More Like the Gardener Than the Owner of the Garden”
• Genuine Authority
Wednesday, April 01, 2026
In Remembering All Who Suffer From Violence, We Remember Jesus
Shane Claiborne, author and founder of The Simple Way, has shared a “new presentation of the Stations of the Cross” for Holy Week 2026. Writes Shane:
This week is Holy Week. As we remember Christ – the Prince of Peace – we also remember all those who suffer from violence, for it was Jesus who said “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” We are grateful to our friends at the Guatemalan-Maya Center for creating these images.
I share today some of the images of this “new presentation,” one focused on the dehumanizing policies and actions of the U.S. government as they relate to immigration. To see all of the images, click here.
I have to say that these powerful images and the message they convey remind me of the “Economic Way of the Cross” which I participated in over 25 years ago in Washington, DC. Following is how I described this event on my Faces of Resistance website.
The Economic Way of the Cross
Washington, DC – April 10, 2000
Washington, DC – April 10, 2000
In April 2000 I traveled from the Twin Cities to Washington, D.C. to participate in a range of rallies, demonstrations, and teach-ins aimed at protesting the structure and policies of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – two organizations that, along with the World Trade Organization (WTO), are the key architects of the corporate global economy.
Collectively, the various events in Washington, D.C. of April 2000 were termed A16 – a reference to April 16, the main day of protest. A16 brought 15,000 people onto the streets of the capital and, like the protests in Seattle against the WTO in November 1999, united a range of people – environmentalists, union members, students, religious people, peace activists, and individuals representing organizations from those countries most devastated by the unjust policies of the World Bank and IMF.
By far the most powerful event I was part of was the “Economic Way of the Cross” on Monday, April 10, 2000. Organized by the Jubilee 2000-aligned Religious Working Group on the World Bank and IMF, a coalition of over forty religious organizations, the Economic Way of the Cross was a prayerful procession through the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. The event sought to draw attention to the policies and practices of various corporate and governmental institutions that devastate the lives of millions of people throughout the world. The Christian underpinnings of the event reflect the theological understanding of Christ being continually crucified while ever people and other aspects of creation experience suffering and death as a result of oppressive structures of power.
“The Economic Way of the Cross invites people of faith to relate prayerfully the Passion of Jesus Christ to the suffering of women, men and children throughout the world today,” noted key organizer Anne Pettifor. “Often, this suffering is the result of unjust economic relationships, what we call social, or structural sin.”
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Jesus at the Border
• Protesting Trump’s “Dystopian” Immigration Policies
• Honoring Óscar and Valeria
• Demanding Justice and Embodying Compassion for Separated Families
• Let Us Be the Wise Ones They’re Waiting For
• A Prayer for Asylum Seekers Being Tear-Gassed at the Border
• Opposing the Trump Administration's Inhumane Treatment of Immigrant Families
• “What We’re Seeing Here Is a Tipping Point”
• Jeremy Scahill on the Historical Context of the Trump Administration's “Pathologically Sick” Anti-Immigrant Agenda
• 2000+ Take to the Streets of Minneapolis to Express Solidarity with Immigrants and Refugees
• Rallying in Solidarity with the Refugees of Syria and the World
• A Prayer for Refugees
• International Migrants Day
• Fasting, Praying, and Walking for Immigration Reform
• May Day 2007
For The Wild Reed’s 2025 Holy Week posts, see:
• Palm Sunday: A Sacred Paradox
• Via Dolorosa
• Silent Saturday
• Marianne Williamson on the Alchemy of Easter
For The Wild Reed’s 2024 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Joyce Rupp’s book Jesus, Companion in My Suffering: Reflections for the Lenten Journey), see:
• Recognizing the Truth
• Powerless
• Feeling Abandoned
• Joy Beyond Suffering
For The Wild Reed’s 2023 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Marianne Williamson’s book, The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life), see:
• From Spiritual Death to Rebirth
• A Vortex of the Miraculous
• Tomb Time
• He Is Risen, and So Are You
The Wild Reed’s 2022 Holy Week posts:
• “The Most Authentic Statement of Created Life”
• Good Friday Reflections
• “This Spring, May We Renew the World”
• Easter for Mystics
The Wild Reed’s 2021 Holy Week post:
• The Final Say
The Wild Reed’s 2020 Holy Week posts:
• Holy Week, 2020
• God’s Good Gift
The Wild Reed’s 2019 Holy Week post:
• In This In-Between Time . . . of Both Loss and Promise
For The Wild Reed’s 2018 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Druid author and speaker John Michael Greer’s essay “The God from the House of Bread” in the 2012 anthology, Jesus Through Pagan Eyes: Bridging Neopagan Perspectives with a Progressive Vision of Christ), see:
• The God from the House of Bread: A Bridge Between Christianity and Paganism (Part 1)
• The God from the House of Bread (Part 2)
• The God from the House of Bread (Part 3)
• The God from the House of Bread (Part 4)
For The Wild Reed’s 2017 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from a 1999 interview with scholar and teacher Andrew Harvey, accompanied by images that depict Jesus as the embodiment of the Cosmic Christ), see:
• Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 1)
• Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 2)
• Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 3)

For The Wild Reed’s 2016 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Richard Horsley’s 1993 book Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, accompanied by images of Juan Pablo Di Pace as Jesus in the 2015 NBC mini-series A.D.: The Bible Continues), see:
• Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 1)
• Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 2)
• Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 3)
For The Wild Reed’s 2015 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Cletus Wessels’ book Jesus in the New Universe Story), see:
• The Two Entwined Events of the Easter Experience
• Resurrection in an Emerging Universe
• Resurrection: A New Depth of Consciousness
For The Wild Reed’s 2014 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from John Neafsey’s book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience), see:
• “To Die and So to Grow”
• The Way of the Wounded Warrior
• Suffering and Redemption
• A God With Whom It is Possible to Connect
• A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life
For The Wild Reed’s 2013 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Albert Nolan’s book Jesus Before Christianity, accompanied by images of Jesus that some might call "unconventional"), see:
• Jesus: The Upside-down Messiah
• Jesus: Mystic and Prophet
• Jesus and the Art of Letting Go
• Within the Mystery, a Strange and Empty State of Suspension
• Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness

For The Wild Reed’s 2012 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – A New Perspective on Christ and His Message), see:
• The Passion: “A Sacred Path of Liberation”
• Beyond Anger and Guilt
• Judas and Peter
• No Deeper Darkness
• When Love Entered Hell
• The Resurrected Jesus . . .
For The Wild Reed’s 2011 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Albert Nolan’s book Jesus Before Christianity, accompanied by images of various cinematic depictions of Jesus), see:
• “Who Is This Man?”
• A Uniquely Liberated Man
• An Expression of Human Solidarity
• No Other Way
• Two Betrayals
• And What of Resurrection?
• Jesus: The Breakthrough in the History of Humanity
• To Believe in Jesus
For The Wild Reed’s 2010 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Andrew Harvey’s book Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ), see:
• Jesus: Path-Blazer of Radical Transformation
• The Essential Christ
• One Symbolic Iconoclastic Act
• One Overwhelming Fire of Love
• The Most Dangerous Kind of Rebel
• Resurrection: Beyond Words, Dogmas and All Possible Theological Formulations
• The Cosmic Christ: Brother, Lover, Friend, Divine and Tender Guide
For The Wild Reed’s 2009 Holy Week series (featuring the artwork of Doug Blanchard and the writings of Marcus Borg, James and Evelyn Whitehead, John Dominic Crossan, Andrew Harvey, Francis Webb, Dianna Ortiz, Uta Ranke-Heinemann and Paula Fredriksen), see:
• The Passion of Christ (Part 1) – Jesus Enters the City
• The Passion of Christ (Part 2) – Jesus Drives Out the Money Changers
• The Passion of Christ (Part 3) – Last Supper
• The Passion of Christ (Part 4) – Jesus Prays Alone
• The Passion of Christ (Part 5) – Jesus Before the People
• The Passion of Christ (Part 6) – Jesus Before the Soldiers
• The Passion of Christ (Part 7) – Jesus Goes to His Execution
• The Passion of Christ (Part 8) – Jesus is Nailed the Cross
• The Passion of Christ (Part 9) – Jesus Dies
• The Passion of Christ (Part 10) – Jesus Among the Dead
• The Passion of Christ (Part 11) – Jesus Appears to Mary
• The Passion of Christ (Part 12) – Jesus Appears to His Friends
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)


































