This winter solstice we have been communing with mother country, father fire and community kin. Writing songs and singing in and to the forest, sharing food and story.

All the while Julian Assange is in a maximum security prison outside London, facing extradition to the US for publishing factual documents that expose the sickness and immorality of the Industrial Military Complex and the US empire more specifically.

Assange and the Wikileaks community are just a handful of people who have sent shock waves through that empire. Corrupt US war pundits want revenge. That’s how powerful revealing truth is. While Julian is being punished for doing what a journalist should be doing, can we imagine how things would change if more of us rose up and called for scientific transparency, the return of debate and healthy public discourse on all subjects, the end of lobbying in our political systems, and the deconstruction of the militarised and corporatised states?

This is our contribution to that call.

You can listen to the audio-only version below, and you can read the lyrics here.

Every morning we start the day with a courage ritual. We two adults plunge into icy water and remain in it for 5 minutes. It is also an acceptance meditation. We get out feeling calm and powerful. There are so many mental and bodily gifts received by doing this plunge each day, but the most important one right now is the courage we grow from doing it. We’d love to hear from you what you do to develop your courage. What rituals or methods do you practice? In the coming years we’re all going to need a lot more love, resilience, pragmatism, connectedness, groundedness and courage. How are you emboldening, caring for, and preparing yourself/selves to face what is coming?

Happy solstice, dear friends, summer or winter solstice depending on your dwelling place. May we greet the coming of the light or the dark, without turning our backs on the other.

Sending love from our hearth to yours,
Magpie, Blue Wren, Blackwood and Zero

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