Welcome to our new Humanity Stream where you'll get 12-months of unlimited access to our most popular Masterclasses (including all bonus material), 350+ other programs, and 450+ hours of total content with inspirational leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Deepak Chopra, Yoko Ono and many others. You also gain access to our virtual community where we all support one another on the conscious journey, as well as weekly community calls where we come together to share stories, inspirations, projects, and more!
Bookmark this page and please join us every Friday at 12 noon Pacific (US) / 3 pm Eastern for our Accelebration, a global community gathering to celebrate and support one another on the conscious journey.
Each week we have special guests, Masterclass Module clips, and more! (see schedule below).
Upcoming guests in April are Karen Noé,
Neale Donald Walsch, Debra Poneman
and Nathan Crane.
You can find replays of our previous calls here
Please join us on humanitys.team, our new spiritual social network, where we come together in community to support and build each other in love, truth, and joy.
24/7, you can join the conversation on our conscious social network, Humanitys.Team where you’ll find inspirational groups to join, including Masterclasses, A Course in Miracles, Conversations with God, and Heart-Centered Gratitude (or form your own!).
On Humanitys.Team you’ll also have access to numerous other free LIVE streaming events throughout the month, including Agape Services with Michael Bernard Beckwith, A Course in Miracles Discussion groups, MinistersTalkinSh!t, HeartOfPeaceMeditation and ScienceOfMindAndSpirit.
Easter as a rite of spring, April 4
Most major holidays have some connection to the changing of seasons. This is especially obvious in the case of Christmas. The New Testament gives no information about what time of year Jesus was born. Many scholars believe, however, that the main reason Jesus’ birth came to be celebrated on December 25 is because that was the date of the winter solstice according to the Roman calendar.
Since the days following the winter solstice gradually become longer and less dark, it was ideal symbolism for the birth of “the light of the world” as stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John.
Similar was the case with Easter, which falls in close proximity to another key point in the solar year: the vernal equinox (around March 20), when there are equal periods of light and darkness. For those in northern latitudes, the coming of spring is often met with excitement, as it means an end to the cold days of winter.
Spring also means the coming back to life of plants and trees that have been dormant for winter, as well as the birth of new life in the animal world. Given the symbolism of new life and rebirth, it was only natural to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at this time of the year.
The naming of the celebration as “Easter” seems to go back to the name of a pre-Christian goddess in England, Eostre, who was celebrated at beginning of spring. The only reference to this goddess comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede, a British monk who lived in the late seventh and early eighth century. As religious studies scholar Bruce Forbes summarizes:
“Bede wrote that the month in which English Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus had been called Eosturmonath in Old English, referring to a goddess named Eostre. And even though Christians had begun affirming the Christian meaning of the celebration, they continued to use the name of the goddess to designate the season.”
Bede was so influential for later Christians that the name stuck, and hence Easter remains the name by which the English, Germans and Americans refer to the festival of Jesus’ resurrection.
From "The Conversation"
Did you ever wonder where the idea for Easter eggs came from?
The practice of painting eggs goes back to ancient times when decorated shells were part of the rituals of spring. Instead of chicken eggs, however, ostrich eggs were used.
The first Christians to adopt this tradition were from Mesopotamia, and they colored their eggs red, in memory of the blood of Christ.
From https://www.learnreligions.com/
People recite special blessings or prayers, make a particular effort to visit a synagogue or listen to readings from the Torah and eat a ceremonial meal. Readings of the Haggadah, the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery and their exodus from Egypt are particularly important.
The center of the ceremonial meal is the Seder Plate and red wine or red grape juice. Each food has a special meaning in relation to the Passover story.
https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/jewish/last-day-of-passover
April 4, Qingming Festival, also called Tomb Sweeping Day or, literally, ‘Pure Brightness’ Festival in English, is a traditional Chinese festival and an important day for most people (including the Han Chinese and some of China's 55 other ethnic minorities) to go and sweep tombs and commemorate their ancestors.
On this day, tomb sweeping is one of the most important and popular activities to show respect to ancestors. It usually falls on April 4 or 5. In 2021, the Qingming Festival falls on April 4, the same day as Easter. The public holiday in China is from April 3 to April 5, 2021.
Celebrating with traditional foods also take place, such as Sweet Green Rice Balls.
From https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/qingming-festival.htm
During Ramadan, adults of Muslim faith do not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, practicing fasting, which is a fundamental principle of Islam. At the end of the daily fast, during the night, Muslims share meals with each other, with family or friends which are called iftar.
As fasting is seen as a spiritual principle, Ramadan is also a time where people abstain from anything impure such as alcohol consumption, cigarettes, bad behaviors, and impure thoughts, and instead dedicate themselves to prayer and charity.
One of the main prophets of Islam was Muhammad. It is believed that in 610 A.D. Allah started sending him messages and revelations through the angel Gabriel. These revelations were only delivered during Ramadan, and it was through the course of five Ramadans that Muhammad compiled the messages into a 114 chapter book that would become known as the Quran, the holy book of Islamic faith, that Muslims believe holds the words of Allah.
From https://www.calendarr.com/united-states/ramadan/
April 22 is Earth Day, widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.
Now, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day.
As the awareness of our climate crisis grows, so does civil society mobilization, which is reaching a fever pitch across the globe today. Disillusioned by the low level of ambition following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and frustrated with international environmental lethargy, citizens of the world are rising up to demand far greater action for our planet and its people.
The social and cultural environments we saw in 1970 are rising up again today — a fresh and frustrated generation of young people are refusing to settle for platitudes, instead taking to the streets by the millions to demand a new way forward. Digital and social media are bringing these conversations, protests, strikes and mobilizations to a global audience, uniting a concerned citizenry as never before and catalyzing generations to join together to take on the greatest challenge that humankind has faced.
By tapping into some of the learnings, outcomes, and legacy of the first Earth Day, EARTHDAY.ORG is building a cohesive, coordinated, diverse movement, one that goes to the very heart of what Earth Day are all about — empowering individuals with the information, the tools, the messaging and the communities needed to make an impact and drive change. Spring adds new life and new beauty to all that is.
From www.earthday.org
This anonymous man found a tiny parrot egg at a pet shop. If he could incubate it, would he be able to raise it? With these big human hands? It's mother had just been sold. This meant the egg would have no chance without this man giving it a try. Smiles guaranteed. Click here or on the graphic to the right to watch this miracle.
Meet Loredana Man, our Country Coordinator for Humanity's Team Romania. Humanity's Team Romania invites all spiritual activists to present their activities, events and courses to their community through a spirituality resources directory. Community donations have assisted their charity projects since 2010. As Loredana says, "We manifest as ONE!" To visit their website, click here. Thank you Loredana for all you do!