Things may be beginning to cool down, reaching a peak of vitality and culmination of the season past. These times can feel immensely overwhelming if we open ourselves up to face the world. We want to go into the world with tender open heart, but the rising floods, choking smoke, and raging storms that tear at our hearts for their attention to tend to what is truly at hand can smother any flame of resolve we harbor in them at times. The doom and gloom is what is paralyzing, and the naive hope is what inspires one to take action. Either one can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What happens when millions or billions of people begin acting from the Story of Interbeing, in which no action is insignificant? The world changes.That is why we from The Mountain wish to share some inspiration from our vantage points. Inspired by preparation our More Beautiful World weekend.

Theres an antidote to this chaos if we are willing to believe in its power.

Our own power. A confidence in the significance of all that we do, even when our vision cannot penetrate the mysterious, meandering paths through which our actions arrive in the larger world.The universe calls forth different of our gifts at different moments. When the call is for the small and personal, let us heed that, so that we develop the habit of heeding it when it is big and public. Let’s cease listening to the logic of Separation, which would devalue the small and personal. A new Story of the World gives practical expression to the heart knowing we call hope; then it becomes authentic optimism. Our unreasonable hope is pointing us toward something true.

Enjoy a fresh start to this day, greet the sun with gratitude, despite the harshness at times. For it shines on all equally, and illuminates the darkness, in which that is hidden can be seen, to be treated and healed. Our healing will come from the margins. How could it be otherwise, as the center falls apart?  

What's on the Horizon?

We wish to invite you to make the small changes in your own life. 

Join us in this journey at this time, we are in this together. 

New RotarACT Community Club of Highlands Receives Grant to Provide Financial Relief and Remove Invasive Species

 This project will  provide a platform for something that we can do together to beautify and take pride in our town and help each other make it through a very difficult time" RotarACT’s first Project Work Day will take place

Saturday, September 12th. Workers will be asked for a time commitment of 9am-3pm.

The club agreed that everyone working will be paid for a full 6 hours at $15/hour in the form of a $90 Ingles gift card. Lunch will be provided by Mountaintop Rotary. With the current amount of funding the project will be able to hire a maximum of 40 workers.

If you are interested in working for the project, please send an email to the RotarACTclub at RotarACT828@gmail.com

If you would like to join RotarACT, volunteer to work on the project, or are willing to loan tools for the workday, please also reach out to us with an email.

RotarACT clubs bring together people ages 18 and older to exchange ideas with leaders in the community, develop leadership and professional skills, and have fun through service. In communities worldwide, Rotary and RotarACT members work side by side to take action through service. The Highlands RotarACT Community Club, sponsored by Mountaintop Rotary, was formed in 2020.

We are thrilled and honored to announce that author CHARLES EISENSTEIN has agreed to virtually participate in A More Beautiful World Weekend - Call to Sacred Activism next weekend here at The Mountain! Charles will be meeting exclusively with our group on a private zoom call for Q&A on Saturday evening. You're in Luck! It's not too late to register. This weekend program promises rich conversation, insights and spacious health-conscious connection with others. Check out the full schedule of workshops and activities.

As an addition to Beautiful World Weekend we are inviting near by folks to join a workshop sponsored by The Many Hands Peace Farm, around the topic of seed saving. Start your journey by begin to better cultivate the parts of the garden you can touch.

In connection with this workshop and how it can truly play a role in creating a more beautiful world, you may wish to consider watching SEED: The Untold Story. Which follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. 

In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these reluctant heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel.

What's Growing Down Below

Learn With The Many Hands Peace Farm

World Peace Day Sing Monday Sept 21 6pm EST

We’re excited to bring you our World Peace Day sing from The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center in Highlands, NC.  In this 30 minute prayerful sing, we will learn 4 songs with easy parts for any voice.  We will join our voices virtually and our intentions globally as part of One Day One Choir.  ODOC is “an inspiring global peace initiative which uses the harmonious power of singing together to unite people around the world on Peace Day”.  *1   

Your song leader is Sandi E, graduate of Village Song Leader Training, co leader of One Heart, an aural tradition community choir in Franklin, NC, and music coordinator for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Franklin.  Sandi has led ODOC popup choirs for World Peace Day in 2019 and 2018.

UUFranklin has sermons in story and song, as well as traditional sermons.  Follow them on FB or subscribe to their newsletter for the zoom link https://us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9640bb5cb2fcf0a5bb15e9984&id=bff6f15e55

Sep 20, 11 am Friction Farm

Oct  11, 11am Eric Bannan

Nov 8, 11am Maggidah Shoshona Litman

Register to sing with them on Sept 21 6pm eastern 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkdumuqjsqG9H7pA5w7wrXk3fJT6jJEemj

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Here’s the facebook link to the registration is you want to share it

https://facebook.com/events/s/world-peace-day-sing-live-from/3259447190799202/?ti=icl

* 1 onedayonechoir.org

Other News from Franklin UU

Donn will be starting a winter book group on The More Beautiful World

Understand White Privilege and Become an Anti-Racist 

Sep 23 - Oct 28

A Six-Week Series on Wednesdays from 12 noon - 1:30 

Acquire guidance and answers to these questions and more:

• What is white privilege?
• Why is it so difficult for white people to talk about racism and how can we do better?
• What is the difference between a racist, a non-racist and an anti-racist?
• How can each one of us authentically become an anti-racist?

Register - Learn how to Be More. Learn More. Do Better.

Looking to learn more on your own in the meantime before our program starts? Consider YES! Magazine as food for thought. YES! Magazine falls in line with the values of The Mountain. Through rigorous reporting on the positive ways communities are responding to social problems and insightful commentary that sparks constructive discourse, YES! Media inspires people to build a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world.

YES! analyzes societal problems in terms of their root causes and explores opportunities for systemic, structural change. Their stories uncover environmental, economic, and social justice intersections. Their solutions reporting spotlights the ideas and initiatives of people building a better world. 

You can join YES! for a free event on “This Uprising: How to Make Black Lives Really Matter,” a virtual discussion with Michael Harriot of The Root and historian Jamon Jordan. Thursday, Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET.

 Open to the public via Zoom. 

Join us for a Farm to Table Cooking Class 

Join us at The Mountain for a hands-on approach to al fresco Italian dining! If your favorite food and wine event may have been cancelled this year, The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center can fill that gap with a COVID-friendly, farm-foraging Italian dinner that will feed your culinary heart!

Join Chef Sandra Stefani, originally from Pisa, Italy. Sandra arrived in Washington DC in 1979 and started her career at the famous Italian Restaurant Cantina d’Italia, learning to cook “hands on” from the late great Chef Joseph Muran de Assereto. 

Together tour and learn more about the mission of The Mountain, bringing community closer to their food, by picking fresh ingredients from The Many Hands Peace Farm on site. Chef Sandra will then teach you how to prepare a four-course dinner, which you'll then enjoy with wine and good company “Al Fresco”, with spectacular Mountain views.

Accommodations available for a night in the lodge after dinner.

Limited space available. 

To book your place click here! 

Help us Celebrate Lee

In honor of Lee Knight and his tremendous impact, bringing joy to countless children with his songs and stories. Former Campers and Staff of The Mountain have decided to dedicate The Mountain's Campership Fund in his name. The Lee Knight Campership Fund has been started with the generous donations from the cancelations of the 2020 MountainCamp year. The Mountain hopes to continue to grow this fund into the future with your support, to become a sustainable fund available for generations of campers to come to experience the wonders of MountainCamp, just as so many have over the past 41 years. Thank you Lee for being there for it all!

Contribute today to inspire the youth of tomorrow.

Online Resources 

UPLIFT TV

Uplift Tv UPLIFT stands for Unity, Peace and Love In the Field of Transcendence. It's like the Netflix of wellness. 

FILMS FOR ACTION:

A Library for Chaning the World

Find over 4,500+ films, articles, documentaries and videos about living the change! 

FILMS FOR ACTION'S mission is to provide citizens with the knowledge and perspectives essential to creating a more beautiful, just, sustainable, and democratic society. 

"Films For Action is building a people-powered media library for changing the world.

In the past, we relied on the corporate media to tell our stories and represent us and our movements. We relied on them to be the voice of planetary and human concerns, and in that mission, they have failed, again and again, year after year.

Traditionally, protests were used to raise awareness of an issue that society, government or the media was ignoring — it was a way for ordinary people to reach the ears of a corporate media that would not listen or tell our stories unless we staged a ruckus. But over time, even well-organized protests frequently failed to generate the media exposure they deserved.Observing this, our strategy is to sidestep our dependence on the corporate media altogether by doing their job ourselves.

Films For Action is about reclaiming the power of the media and bringing it under the people’s control. We create our own media and tell our own stories, and we use social media to share and broadcast our messages out to millions of people. So long as the internet remains free, we can do it ourselves — from creation to distribution, we can make the old corporate media giants obsolete.

Global Read: Real Change Mindfulness to Heal the World and Ourselves

The Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth Presents a Showing The Condor and The Eagle

Through Partnering with UUMFE for A More Beautiful World Weekend, Aly Tharp will be briefing us with the latest on the UUMFE's work and how to build a Climate Resilience Action Plan. Along with this, for those not present, The Mountain will be co-hosting a viewing of The Condor and The Eagle on 9/22 with UUMFE. The Condor & The Eagle follows the protagonists as they develop a resistance strategy that matches the level of their opponents – taking their effort to South America, Europe and beyond. Their task is to make local battles an International concern and finally expose criminal corporations responsible for serious crimes. The film promotes an intercultural dialogue by showing how non-Indigenous and Indigenous people come together.

We are looking for you!

Building a Mountain Network

This year for many has been a time to invest in yourself, turn inward, and further develop what you want to bring to the world. Being you is a gift you get to share with the world!

At The Mountain we have had the honor of hosting so many unique and diverse groups and individuals that we wanted to put together a resource for people like you to connect with others who may be nearby. Below you can find a link to a new local talent and resources page. This is intended to be an online community database for those looking to connect and share their skills and talents with the wider Mountain community, and to further communication, skill sharing, bartering, trading and commerce locally. We hope that when we resume regular  programming, this page can be used to connect individuals who are interested in gathering resources to help with their own programming and events. The Mountain aims to be the container for community building, connection, growth and development that enables positive ripples in your lives. 

If this appeals to you and you'd like to share your unique offerings with The Mountain community you can fill out the form below to be added to this page. 

Another Mountain Still life by Greg Benson. 

Reflecting on The Mountain's own pond, brings us a story from Thoreau, at his own Walden pond. One calm September afternoon, he noticed that the water was marred by motes speckling the surface. Where others might see blemishes, Thoreau saw something, "Pure and beautiful like the imperfections in glass." He observed Walden from various vantage points: From a hilltop, on its shores, underwater, by daylight and moonlight. He would event bend over and peer through his legs, marveling at the beautiful inverted landscape.

If you can't change the world Thoreau counsels, change how you see it-

even if that means contorting yourself.

Viewed at the right angle, said Thoreau, "every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow." 

 It is stories like these that are core to The Mountain experience of inspiring people of all ages, transforming lives, and building a more compassionate world. Thanks for being a part of it. If you have a Mountain Memory, story or inspiration you wish to share with The Mountain community, please share at: tanner.csonka@themountainrlc.org 

Take a Moment...

If you are enjoying what we are offering via virtual content, or want to support our continued quest to be an exemplary retreat, camp and learning center for when you return, consider supporting us with a small monthly contribution.