By Celia Coates 100-year-old Hugh Van Ellis was in the news this past week. He’s the Tulsa Massacre survivor who said, “We are all one. We are all one.” Those are shining words from someone who was alive when white townspeople killed hundreds of African Americans and destroyed their homes and businesses. Peaceful unity certainly…
Category: Wisdom
Lessons from Whales
by Celia Coates I don’t usually read books about animals, but recently I’ve been fascinated by BECOMING WILD by Carl Safina. He writes about two mammals and one bird with several separate chapters each for sperm whales, chimpanzees, and scarlet macaws. The whole book is delightful, but this post will look only at what he…
Reading WINN
By Celia Coates A few people in my family were concerned that I was addled in my thinking and had a foolish view of reality so, one reason I created WINN in 2016 was to set my views before them in a non-argumentative way. I’m not alone in my take on life. And, I believe…
“We Are All Connected”?
By Celia Coates This week in America, when we are more openly and ferociously divided than we have been in many decades, the idea that we are all connected can seem ridiculous. Still, it is an idea that goes back 3000 years or more to the earliest Vedic teachings in India, and it can be…
Winners and Losers
By Celia Coates Of course the fierce competition to decide who the political winner and loser would be has grabbed our national attention this week, but this post is not about the 2020 Election, or at least, not directly. There have always been divisions and differences in human communities, but this natural aspect of existence…
From Celia
A dear friend e-mailed me after reading last Friday’s pair of posts to say that she always looks forward to receiving WINN but this time she was sad and disappointed that I had published these “purely political articles.” For me these posts are not purely political. This is my response – not a full post – to…
Heroes, Celebrities, & Teachers
by Celia Coates What’s a good person? What’s a good life? We used to have heroes as models to follow while we figured out how to answer those questions for ourselves. It’s been a while since American school children were told about George Washington and the cherry tree: “When he was six years old, the…
Some Thoughts About Evil
By Celia Coates The first three words of the title, “Some Thoughts About …,” are simple and ordinary, but the fourth word, “Evil,” disturbs the calm. It’s been unfashionable to think in terms of Good and Evil since our society became psychologically sophisticated and has preferred to consider the early childhood history of destructive people…
How To Deal With Pandemic Panic
This post is really needed now. Breaking with WINN’s usual practice, it’s from another website – Charles Eisenstein’s. In “The Coronation” he wrote, “Covid -19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible.” To join in a positive common cause we need to be well informed without…
A New Grab and Go Kit
by Celia Coates A friend who had a house in the hills outside of Los Angeles kept a “grab and go kit” stashed near the front door in case an earthquake or wildfire forced her to leave in a hurry. It held the usual essentials for a few days away from a home, a home…
A Little Light
By Celia Coates For many people in many places this is a dark time. I wasn’t feeling cheerful myself after listening to news about hospitals being bombed, giant areas of uncontrolled wildfires, the brutal treatment of children, and ego-maniacal greed and destructiveness. Gaining peace, prosperity, and planetary well-being has always been difficult, but it seems…
Look Up and … See?
By Brian Luke Seaward When I was young, I used to lie on a woolen blanket in my backyard on a summer night and look up to see the millions of lights in the sky. I recall that the Milky Way was so dense that it appeared like a thick cloud. Some nights I could…