W

wahi -  For the Siona, well-being involves more than the physical health of the individual;  it also implies the well-being of society.  When speaking of well-being they use the term 'wahi', representing the growing force of life, that which ripens. - langdon

war - 1)   . . . seeks to kill the disabling pattern.  The pattern is judged the enemy (e.g. bubonic plague), not necessarily the being that bears it (e.g. the rodent).  Hence it is not the Nazi that is bad, but Nazism. - john mcmurty . 2) ‘War is the public agenda for the hidden desires of a private elite’  -- Bodazey.  3)  you end wars in the world when you end them in your mind – Pleiadians  4) ‘People are sick and tired of being pitted against each other when there's already so much suffering and the Earth itself is under assault. They're ready to reconnect and honor the life we share. That is the great adventure of our time.’ -- Joanna Macy  4) It (The Bush Administration) evokes a war frame, and with it, the idea that the nation is under military attack -- an attack that can only be defended militarily, by use of armies, planes, bombs, and so on. The war frame includes special war powers for the president, who becomes commander in chief. It evokes unquestioned patriotism, and the idea that lack of support for the war effort is treasonous. It forces Congress to give unlimited powers to the President, lest detractors be called unpatriotic. And the war frame includes an end to the war -- winning the war, mission accomplished!  The war frame is all-consuming. It takes focus away from other problems, from everyday troubles, from jobs, education, health care, a failing economy. It justifies the spending of huge sums, and sending raw recruits into battle with inadequate equipment. It justifies the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It justifies torture, military tribunals, and no due process. It justifies scaring people, with yellow, orange, and red alerts. . .  - G. Lakoff   5) My acquaintance with lung cancer following Hodgkin’s disease will probably not live very long; wars eventually take us down.  We can say that he will die of cancer or we can see that he will die of war; the war against cancer, or the war within his body, or the lingering consequences of the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, or the war against the earth.  Healing such a condition requires a change of mind down, as it were, to the cellular level. - Deena Metzger  6) Martin Prechtel reminds us, ‘for want of grief – we go to war.' 7) war is a bad habit - Amma

warrior - In Angeles Arrien's cross-cultural typology, winter is the season of the ‘warrior’. Warrior qualities for many cultures include mature wisdom, responsible leadership, pure motivation, powerful presence--not aggression or violence.  Angeles suggests we do ‘warrior work’ in winter, whereas in spring we turn to visioning, in summer, healing, and in fall, teaching. -  C. Holt

walking in balance - . . . . means paying attention to internal as well as external ecology. 

web lines -  a ‘web’, often visible under the influence of ayahuasca, is the source of the intricate designs used by Conibo and Shipibo to decorate their clothing and other objects.   ‘I watched as Juan used chanting and delicate hand movements to manipulate and repair the fragmented web lines around those being healed’

weed - 'Weed' is a state of mind, a plant looking for a use.  What we often think of as prickly, poisonous weeds are there from human land use practices (slash & burn, overgrazing) and are part of the biological habitat healing process. - Soaring Bear

weorold -  old english for ‘world’

Western culture -  like an  . . . algae bloom. 

white hole - "There’s a black hole and a white hole. This is the white hole. That is energy errupts into the three dimensional cross-section of reality that we call the existential world. Like a star is born, as they say. So think that you are continually being recreated, reborn recurrantly. That’s again a concept of Islam, recurrant rebirth." - Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

wild animals -  non-working pets. ‘In the post-industrial world, where virtual reality is increasingly replacing normative reality, the traditional real world is becoming transformed into a realm of fantasy, and experience in nature qua nature is being replaced by actual (e.g., dirt bikes and ‘personal water craft’) and vicarious thrills. Animals become valued with no understanding of their life-cycles and ecological situations and are understood to be utterly divorced from food. Cellophane wrapped meat is not understood, from either the emotional or the religious standpoint, to come from living animals, just as factory-manufactured, cellophane wrapped bread or pasta is not understood to come from living plants. The various traditional ritual relationships with animals and plants completely disappear to be replaced by concepts of ‘cuteness’; wild animals are perceived no differently than non-working pets. Hence, campaigns are mounted against hunting in general, regardless of potential disastrous consequences for non-competitive herbivores in terrains where natural predators have been exterminated, and hunters become the epitomé of evil.’ - Jordon Paper

will current - The refusal to experience painful feelings results from the misconception that they will annihilate you or that they will prove that you are no good.  This misconception must be challenged and replaced. If it is not, you will not allow yourself to experience painful feelings. The refusal to do so also causes you to create a tight will current to ward off what you believe to be annihilation. - Pathwork 193

winds of change - winds are driven by imbalances between pressure centers.  They are therefore expressions of balancing forces.  Pressure gradients are likewise built up in social situations when one cultural ideology dominates to the exclusion of others.  Hence . . .  revolution is in the air . . . 

winnowed wisdom – perennial philosophy;  a convergent report found distilled in the world’s great enduring religions – Huston Smith

wisdom – adaptability to (divine) Ignorance - Adi Da 2) "For they who are in the good of love and charity, as to the internal man, are in heaven, and as to that are in an angelic society which is in similar good. Hence they enjoy an elevation of mind towards interior things, and, consequently, they are in wisdom; for wisdom can come from no other source than from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord; and in heaven there is wisdom, because there they are in good. Wisdom consists in seeing truth from the light of truth; and the light of truth is the light which is in heaven. But in process of time that ancient wisdom decreased; for as mankind removed themselves from the good of love to the Lord, and of love towards the neighbor, which love is called charity, they removed themselves in the same proportion from wisdom because, in the same proportion, they removed themselves from heaven. Hence it was that man, from being internal, became external, and this successively; and when he became external, he became also worldly and corporeal." - The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, by Emanuel Swedenborg, 3) the truly wise know that the wisdom is infinite. . .

witch - whether we need a scapegoat on whom to blame barrenness, a negative role model with which to warn our children, or a high priestess of cultural renewal, the image of the witch will always be there to scare or inspire, reinforcing the regrettable idea that there is something anomalous, something otherworldly, something not quite human, about a powerful woman. – Rob Hardy

womandalas - the balance of form, pattern, and expression; and to invoke a return to a holistic perception of humanity's relationship to the earth, as life was appreciated in the ages of goddess worship  -

wonders never cease -

words – mischievous arrows

worldview – the eco-niche of the mind – Huston Smith 2) In order to understand our moment in history and where we can go in the future, we have to know what brought us here. In order to be strategically intelligent, we need to be able to comprehend the sources of our world. Our world is shaped by our worldview. How we approach reality is defined by the kinds of assumptions we have about that reality, and that, in turn, shapes reality and feeds it back to us. The subject and the object are deeply implicated in each other. In this sense, it's very important for us to understand the sources of our worldview and therefore the whole history of our philosophies, our sciences, our religions that have led us to this point and shaped the worldview that we now find ourselves in. - Richard Tarnas

work - (can be) love in action

worry – 1)  negative goal setting  2) ‘worry is not preparation,’ and ‘I have experienced many terrible things in my life, most of which never came to pass.’ – Mark Twain

wow  - an expression used to express wonder, amazement, or great pleasure.  Also:  ‘mom’ spelled upside down.    

written tradition - ‘The written tradition is one that some date back to Martin Luther's reformative move of ‘locating the means of salvation in reading the Bible, not in priestly ritual or knowledge outside of the text’ (Trimbur, 1990, p. 73).  Ultimately, this move led to the understanding of written texts as authoritative and autonomous and products merely, divorced entirely from any reference to their construction.’ 

wisdom - What is wisdom? It is a lot more than knowledge. Knowledge acquires information, but wisdom  requires understanding. Knowledge informs us, but wisdom transforms us.  Knowledge empowers, wisdom enlightens. Knowledge is something we have,  but wisdom is something we have to become. I suggest that wisdom is a deep understanding and practical skill with the central—especially  the existential and spiritual—issues of life.