For millennia mystics and poets have told us that “All is one” and yet we feel ourselves surrounded by separation, antagonism, and isolation! With help from some intrepid dung beetles, science ambassador JD Stillwater takes us on a tour of findings from mainstream science that reveal an underlying wholism in everything, from human bodies to ecosystems to the very fabric of space-time. In short, science agrees: “All is one.”
I hope you are looking forward to participating in 2025 NAUA Summit- this year hosted on the new Zoom Events portal. This post is meant to help you navigate through this environment – using a Bee analogy.
I used to keep a few colonies of bees and have just finished a delightful book “Bees” by Laline Paull. Thus, in Bee mode, I hope to help you navigate the Summit Events platform.
Clicking on the “register and access sessions button” directs you to the landing pad. Here you can scrutinize the sessions, schedule, speakers and get a sense of what awaits you in the hive. Like all hives, this hive is protected and only allows entrance to those who have been invited. Unlike Bees, it is not a familiar smell that is the key to entry – humans use a credit card for entry the first time and thereafter their zoom login and password.
Past the Landing Pad you enter the Lobby. Here forager bees dance a map to successful food sources. Here, they catch up on the latest hive smells, while worker bees unload their supplies of pollen and nectar. Like bees, humans in the lobby can meet and chat with friends. They can also see upcoming sessions, and even watch sessions they have missed.
Bees use pheromones to identify each other and the roles they perform. For humans, the Events platform provides a profile in which you can list your location, favourite activities, super powers and other data that helps you find and connect with like souls. You can also toggle on or off your interest in being social and chatting with others in the lobby.
Beyond the Lobby in a bee colony are the food stores, nurseries and sleeping quarters. Beyond the Summit Lobby are the session rooms where humans gather to listen and participate, vote on resolutions and otherwise work and learn together.
Terry Anderson, Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Gail Sandlin will lead the August NAUA Service. She will explore our relationship with the environment and climate change as a moral and spiritual imperative. We, in the NAUA, rely on pillars of science, justice, and faith to guide us in our lives. Gail will explore how concern for a healthy environment is both fundamental for our future and inherent in our religion, building her talk around the theme of “Climate Consciousness.”
Climate Consciousness is a way of being, perceiving and responding that is shaped by spiritual insight and ethical commitment. This service will provide a brief overview of the key elements and spiritual practices of Climate Consciousness revealed by spiritual teachers such as Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dali Lama, Aldo Leopold and Rumi.
“As the Yin and Yang symbol illustrates, there is a piece of each in the other, teaching us the importance of empathy and understanding.” The July Service will be conducted by NAUA’s worship team. The theme will be “Yin and Yang: How is it possible to have opposites come together, and if they are together, are they that much different?”
The June Sunday Service brings together the scientific view of nature, along with the mystical and spiritual view, with a sermon by Dr. Gary Nelson. Dr. Nelson’s training in electrical engineering and applied mathematics encouraged views of the cosmos as mindless, meaningless matter in motion. However, his great-grandmother was Native American, and he grew up with a grandmother who was a trance medium who introduced him to a spirit guide that was a helper.
His path to a PhD was unconventional. He built and operated two “beatnik “ coffee houses, did a stint in the USAF as a computer repairman and then attended college. He has been a student of spirituality since childhood. This presentation incorporates his interests in Vipassana Buddhism and the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.