Spirituality leaps where science cannot yet follow, because science must always test and measure, and much of reality and human experience is immeasu… - Starhawk

The essence of nonviolence is choice: acknowledging that we always do have a choice about whether or not to use violence, and posing an expanded range of choices to those in power. In fact, we had a broad range of choices we as a society could have made in response to 9/11. The soldier at the checkpoint could have chosen — and eventually did choose — to let the group of men he was detaining go home to their village. No court in the world would have convicted the police officer on the horse for refusing an order to trample a young woman — and, in fact, the order never came and the police instead withdrew. It was clear to me, in each case above, that the authorities were saying “I have to” in order to absolve themselves of responsibility, to avoid choice. But as I thought about those incidents, I began to become uncomfortably aware of how often I said “I have to” to myself.

Clarity of intention is the key to creating a powerful skill or ritual.

A real relationship with nature is vital for our magical and spiritual development, and our psychic and spiritual health. It is also a vital base for any work we do to heal the earth and transform the social and political systems that are assaulting her daily.