Credit: Native People's Network (Facebook) "The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) has officially regained ownership of the sacred Nikwasi (Noquisiyi) Mound in Franklin, North Carolina, marking one of the most significant Indigenous land restoration milestones in the southeastern United States. The transfer was completed on February 26, 2026, following a deed-signing ceremony between EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks and Franklin Mayor Stacey Guffey. The return came after the Franklin Town Council unanimously voted to remove the remaining legal barriers to transferring the site directly to the Tribe. Built around 1000 CE, Nikwasi Mound served as the ceremonial, political, and spiritual center of an important Cherokee mother town. In Cherokee tradition, Noquisiyi means “Star Place” and is associated with the Nunne’hi, spiritual protectors described in Cherokee oral history. After Cherokee communities lost control of the site during the early 1800s, the mound remained under non-Tribal ownership for more than two centuries. In 1946, local residents helped protect it from industrial development, and it was later added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Tribe plans to preserve the mound for future generations and has also acquired nearby property to develop an educational center where visitors can learn about Cherokee history, culture, and the significance of the site. Returning sacred places helps protect Indigenous history, culture, and future generations—what are your thoughts? 🪶 #LandBack #Cherokee #heritage #nativeamerican #nativehistory Sources: • Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians – Official announcement. • Town of Franklin, North Carolina – Official meeting records and deed transfer information. • Noquisi Initiative – Project information. • National Register of Historic Places – Nikwasi Mound listing."

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#ShadowWork #MarieLouiseVon Franz

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Credit: Poetic Outlaws (Facebook) “The aim of life is to live it intensely, to be fully born, to be fully awake. To emerge from the ideas of infantile grandiosity into the conviction of one’s real though limited strength; to be able to accept the paradox that every one of us is the most important thing there is in the universe – and at the same time not more important than a fly or a blade of grass." ~ Erich Fromm

On days when my neighbors do laundry, the air is so full of that horrible synthetic detergent smell, I have to go inside. It didn't used to be this way.

Credit: Seer and Sage (Facebook) “Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul’s beauty.” ~ Augustine of Hippo Do you seek beauty in the fleeting reflections of the mirror, or in the boundless capacity of your heart to encompass others? True beauty is not a superficial trait found in physical perfection or temporary aesthetics. It is an expansive, vital force that flourishes only when we open ourselves to the profound needs of another. When we cultivate charity, we are not merely performing good deeds: we are expanding our very essence. As love takes root within us, it illuminates the hidden corners of our being, transforming our internal landscape into something radiant. The soul becomes a garden that blossoms through the constant nourishment of selfless compassion. Every act of true charity strengthens this inner bloom, making the spirit more resilient and luminous to all who encounter it. To love is to invite beauty to reside permanently within your core. Therefore, the ultimate measure of your personal splendor is found not in what you possess, but in how much room you have made for the well-being and joy of all living things." #Beauty #Charity Art by Alphonse Mucha

Credit: I Heart Intelligence (Facebook) "Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies at his home in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The ones he had looked after as caterpillars seemed to recognise him. Wild butterflies fled. His didn't. He was in second grade. He wrote a four-page letter to Dr. Martha Weiss, an entomologist at Georgetown University who had studied whether moths could retain memories through metamorphosis. He asked if she could help him design a version of her experiment for butterflies. She said yes. Using a muscle therapy device, Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70 per cent of them still avoided the lavender. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis. The memory survived anyway. Then he bred them. The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, two generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to a scent their grandmother had been taught to fear. Jo documented it all in a 33-page research paper and presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10. A second-grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations." #nature #Entomology

Credit: The Cosmic Dancer (Facebook) “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.” #AccenuateThePositive ~ Howard Zinn [Art: Era Leisner]

Credit: Sharnael Wolverton Sehon (Facebook) "When you lose someone you love, your brain does not accept it. It starts searching for them. Scientists scanned the grieving brain and found something nobody expected. Grief does not feel like sadness to your brain. It feels like hunger. Ancient traditions understood this completely. The research came from Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor at University of Arizona. Published in Neurolmage. She spent over two decades studying what happens inside the brain during grief. What the brain scans revealed changed how scientists understand loss - and why it hurts the way it does. Think about the last time you lost someone. The waves that kept coming. A song. A smell. A moment that reminded you. You were not choosing to remember. Something was pulling you back. That pull had a biological source. Dr. O'Connor found exactly where it was coming from. What the research documented. When grieving people saw photographs of the person they lost, the nucleus accumbens activated. The brain's reward and craving center. The same region that activates during hunger. During longing. During searching for something, the brain expects to find. Your brain was not grieving. It was looking. Then she found something that explained everything. Your brain builds a map of the people you love. Where they are. When will they return? What their presence feels like. When someone dies, the map does not update immediately. Your brain keeps sending the search signal. Looking for someone the world says is gone. Think of grief like a GPS that lost its signal. It knows where you were going. It keeps recalculating. Searching for the route. Trying to find what it was navigating toward. Grief comes in waves because that is when the GPS recalculates. Not because you are broken. Because your brain loved someone deeply enough to keep looking. What ancient traditions understood. Every major ancient tradition built specific mourning rituals around grief — not to rush it but to honor the search. Jewish Shiva - seven days of communal mourning prescribed to give the brain time to witness. Islamic mourning practices - prescribed periods of grief with the community present. Sufi tradition - lamentation poetry prescribed as the language of the searching heart. Indigenous mourning ceremonies - prescribed to help the soul complete what the mind could not accept alone. All working with what Dr. O'Connor measured. Then she found something that reframed everything. The intensity of grief directly correlated with the depth of the bond. The stronger the love, the stronger the search signal. The more the brain was activated during grief, the more it had loved. Grief is not a malfunction. It is love with nowhere to go. And a brain still trying to deliver it. Your practical guide. Do not rush the search - your brain needs time to update its map. Grief has a biological timeline. Forcing it to end early leaves the search signal running without resolution. Let the waves come - each wave is the brain recalculating. Fighting the waves prolongs them. Moving through them completes the search cycle. Seek witness - research shows grief processed in the presence of others resolves more completely than grief carried alone. Ancient traditions never grieved alone. There was always a community. Dr. O'Connor's research on the reward system and grief focused primarily on complicated grief and prolonged unresolved bereavement. Normal grief activates different patterns. What is consistent across all grief research - grief is a genuine neurobiological process. Not weakness. Not something to overcome quickly. A process that the brain must be allowed to complete. So ask yourself honestly. Is there a grief you were told to get over — a loss you buried instead of mourned - a search signal still running quietly underneath everything? Because your brain does not forget what it loves. It keeps the map. And somewhere beneath the surface - it may still be looking. Dr. O'Connor concluded. Grief is the price we pay for love. But it is also a neurological process - the brain learning to update its model of the world after someone central to it is gone. That learning takes time. And it cannot be rushed without cost. Your brain did not break when you lost them. It started searching. Because that is what love trained it to do. Science confirmed it was never a weakness. It was your brain refusing to stop loving. Give it the time it needs.🙏🏻❤️‍🩹 Watch my video on this 🙏🏻❤️‍🩹 Grief and Neuroscience...How does Grief or Loss affect Your Brain? Dr. Sharnael" #Grief

Credit: We Arethe Medicine Circle (Facebook)

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