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Namaste and welcome.

I'd like to start off by recounting a story told by a great American historian, journalist,

author James Aggie. He recounts an experience during the Great Depression that struck me.

He found the impoverished elderly woman in the hollows of Appalachia. She was living in

this tiny shack with dirt floors and no heat and no plumbing.

So he asked her, well, what would you do if someone came along and gave you some money

to help you out? She was rocking in her chair and shook her head and she said, well, I guess

I'd give it to the poor.

And what struck me so much about this is it really has within it one of the greatest

of the spiritual teachings, the teachings of awakening, which is for true happiness,

it's our life is not about the what's happening but how we're relating to it.

So we can be in any state, but whether or not we're happy, whether or not we're feeling

our hearts are open, it's going to depend on how we're relating to what's happening.

And as reflecting a lot on us here entering, we've already entered it, the holiday season,

the season of the holy days and the meaning of the holy days and how through history,

they were times of pausing so that we humans could reconnect with something that was sacred

that we cherished and live in a more awake way with each other relating through creativity

and song and dance and relating through prayer and so on to really be living in a way that

reflected the divine at that holy quality.

And so I think about that here we are and that's the invitation.

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