The Wild Reed: October 2026

Wednesday, October 07, 2026

Quote of the Day

This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss.

The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians – including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them – all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes.

Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.

To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.

– Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani
New York City
October 7, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
NYC Mayor Mamdani’s Statement Marking 3 Years Since October 7 Attacks Calls Out Israeli Government’s "Ongoing Genocide" – Jesse Zanger, Ali Bauman (CBS News, October 7, 2026).
Israeli-American Council Criticizes NYC Mayor Mamdani’s October 7 Statement – Amanda Castro (Newsweek, October 7, 2026).
Zohran Mamdani’s October 7th Anniversary Statement Causes Unwarranted Controversy – David Doel (The Rational National, October 7, 2026).
October 7: The World Must Stop Starting the Story in the Middle – Mohammed Altaj (Common Dreams, October 7, 2026).
The Problem With Israel Goes Much Deeper Than “Netanyahu’s Extremist Government” – Eric Ross (Common Dreams, October 7, 2026).
Gaza Genocide “Not Over,” Says U.N. Expert as Israel’s Onslaught Enters Fourth Year – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, October 7, 2026).
Israeli Activist Maoz Inon Lost His Parents on October 7, Decries Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza – Democracy Now! (October 7, 2026).
After October 7, I Learned That Movements Need Grief Spaces – Alison Avigayil Ramer (Waging Nonviolence, October 6, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’” (2023)
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• A Year of War Against Children (2024)
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
• Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important
• Two Years of “Indescribable Horror” (2025)
• No Justice, No Peace
• The Architecture of Settler Colonialism
• Do Nation States Have the “Right” to Exist?
• Chris Hedges: “The Genocide in Gaza Is the Beginning. Welcome to the New World Order”
• Jonny Rashid: Quote of the Day – August 10, 2026
• Genevieve Fraser: Quote of the Day – August 26, 2026

Image: Yuki Iwamura / Associated Press.

Sunday, October 04, 2026

In continuing with the Wild Reed’s series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Course in Miracles, I share this evening a quote from Marianne Williamson, one of the most well-known teachers of the Course. Her 1992 book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, remains one of the most popular and beloved writings on the Course.

Williamson recently shared the following via social media under the title, "Light: What Is It That We Don't Understand?"

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In A Course in Miracles, light is defined as “understanding.” To live in spiritual darkness is literally to “not understand.”

What is it we don’t understand? That what we see with our physical eyes is never the whole picture in a situation. The bodily level of things is rarely the ultimate reflection of what people are actually feeling and thinking. Our love, the essence of who we are, is often covered over by layers of fear, defensiveness, and emotional armor. To “see the light” is to understand that, to extend our perception beyond what the physical eyes can see to what the heart knows to be true.

That’s the real meaning of forgiveness: to recognize the light in someone, to remember who they really are, even when their mortal self is expressing fear. All of us are tempted to forget who we are sometimes, and through forgiveness we are reminded. In a space of misunderstanding, we can choose to understand.

– Marianne Williamson
via social media
October 5, 2026

NOTE: Marianne Williamson will be teaching a new seven-week online seminar devoted to the 50 Principles of Miracles as presented in A Course in Miracles. As she writes online:

If you’re ready to get serious and go deep, this seminar will help you. It begins on October 13 and you can learn more and register here. I hope you’ll join me. Come ready to change.

Friday, October 02, 2026

Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message of Oneness

My exploration of – and walking on – the mystical path of love known as the Sufi Way continues with my sharing this evening of an excerpt from Caravan of Souls: An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan, the 2022 updated edition of the 2013 book compiled and edited by Khan’s grandson, Pir Zia Inayat Khan. Caravan of Souls is a guidebook to the Sufi path of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), a spiritual philosophy/school (the Inayatyya) of love, harmony, and beauty. This excerpt is from a foundational writing by Inayat Khan entitled “The Sufi Message.”

Note: “Hazrat” is an Arabic and Turkish honorific title used to show respect to a righteous person, prophet, and/or teacher. It is commonly used in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. It is comparable to traditional English honorifics addressing high officials, such as “Your Honour” (for judges), “Your Majesty” (for monarchs), or “Your Holiness” (for clerics). “Hazrat,” the Persianate pronunciation of ḥaḍra), is also a common takhallus (pen name) for Muslim poets in the Indian subcontinent. “Pir” is a title for a Sufi spiritual guide.
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The Sufi message is not for one nation, race, or community; it is for the whole of humanity. Its one and only object is to bring about a better understanding between the divided sections of humanity by awakening their consciousness to the fact that humanity is one family. . . . The Sufi message, therefore, is a call to unite in wisdom. . . . The Sufi Movement is a movement intended by God to unite humanity in kinship and in wisdom.

The present-day Sufi Movement is a movement of members of different nations and races united together in the ideal of wisdom; they believe that wisdom does not belong to any particular religion or race, but to the human race as a whole. It is a divine property which humankind has inherited; and it is in this realization that the Sufis, in spite of belonging to different nationalities, races, beliefs, and faiths, still unite and work for humanity in the ideal of wisdom.

[. . .] By the process of Sufism one realizes one’s own nature, one’s true nature, and thereby one realizes human nature. And by the study of human nature one realizes the nature of life in general. It is is self-realization that the mystery of the whole of life is centered. It is the remedy of all maladies; it is the secret of success in all walks of life; it is a religion and more than a religion. And at this time when the whole world is upset, the Sufi message conveys to the world the divine message. What is wrong with humanity today is that it is not itself, and all the misery of the world is caused by this. Therefore nothing can answer the need of humanity save this process of the sages and the wise of all ages, which leads to self-realization.

Life, human nature, the nature around us, are all a revelation to a Sufi. This does not mean that a Sufi has no respect for the sacred scriptures revered by humanity. On the contrary, the Sufi holds them as sacred as do the followers of those scriptures; but the Sufi says that all scriptures are only different interpretations of that one scripture which is constantly before us like an open book – if we could only read and understand it.

The Sufi’s object of worship is beauty – not only in form and line and color, but beauty in all its aspects, from gross to fine.

What is the moral of the Sufis? Every religion, every creed, has certain moral teachings: that this particular principle is right, and that particular principle is wrong. No principle is labelled by a Sufi as either; it is its application which makes it right or wrong. The light which guides the Sufi on the path is his or her own conscience, and harmony is the justification which guides the Sufi onward step-by-step to his or her idealized goal. To harmonize with oneself is not sufficient; one must also harmonize with others in thought, speech, and action; that is the attitude of the Sufi.

The highest heaven of the Sufi is his or her own heart, and that which humanity generally knows as love, to a Sufi, is God. Different people have thought of the Deity as the Creator, as the Judge, as the King, as the Supreme Being; but the Sufis call God the Beloved.

[. . .] What Sufis strive for is self-realization, and they arrive at this self-realization by means of their divine ideal, their God. By this they touch that truth which is the ultimate goal and the yearning of every soul. It is not only realization; it is a happiness which words cannot explain. It is that peace which is yearned for by every soul.

And how does one attain it? By practicing the presence of God; by realizing the oneness of the whole being; by continually holding, every moment of the day, consciously or subconsciously, the truth before one’s vision, in spite of the waves of illusion which arise incessantly, diverting one’s glance from absolute truth [i.e., Love]. And no matter what may be the name of any sect, cult, or creed, so long as the souls are striving towatd that object, to a Sufi they are all Sufis. The attitude of the Sufi to all the different religions is one of respect. The Sufi’s religion is the service of humanity, and the Sufi’s only attainment is the realization of truth.

– Inayat Khan
From “The Sufi Message” in Caravan of Souls:
An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Second Edition, Suluk Press, 2022
pp. 5-8

Thursday, October 01, 2026

The Most Magical Month of the Year

Welcome to the most magical month of the year. October exists in a realm of its own – a time when the everyday transforms, and believing in the unexplained feels natural.

Light the candles. Make wishes on the first evening stars. Take the scenic route home when the dusk settles. Say yes to spontaneous plans that pull you off course. Hold space for good omens, fortunate timing, ancient superstitions, and the idea that life still holds surprises.

For these 31 days, expand your capacity for wonder. Magic remains everywhere; October simply arrives to remind us to see it.

– Collective World
via social media
October 1, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts: October Sweet
• Photo of the Day – October 17, 2025
• October Vignettes (2024)
• October Vignettes (2023)
• October Afternoon
• An Autumn Walk Through the Neighborhood
• Autumn: Season of Transformation and Surrender
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Prayer Tree . . . Aflame!
• “This Autumn Land Is Dreaming”
• Time to Go Inwards
• To Dream, to Feel, to Listen

Art: “Fireflies” by Stephan Vasement.