Epiphany
A month of noticing what is born when life is invited into being
December 28, 2025
“Are you still open?” I inch my way through the darkened, shuttered door of the used bookstore. “I came back for that Nativity book,” I point.
Carol looks up from restocking, recognizes my familiar face, and offers me passage. She squints at the cover. “Here,” she says, handing over the book. “It’s a gift!” We embrace.
Second Read Books is 175 paces across the street from Hazel’s house, the Hazel Henderson Center, in St. Augustine, Florida. Its modest inventory has, on past visits, offered up divinely ordained finds (a rare copy of The Great Law of Peace, an out of print history of Sun Dance, obscure Sufi poetry). It’s one of the best used bookstores I’ve come across with a collection curated by Carol and her sister Sue for the past thirty years.
On this visit, I ask Carol about The Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche (Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto — Our Lady of the Milk and Good Delivery), the country’s oldest Marian shrine, just a mile from the shop.
“Oh yes,” Carol nods. “It’s a pilgrimage site for fertility, for women wanting to get pregnant. It’s also one of the reasons you see so many kids around town. The families will bring them back to visit!”
December 15 - 18, 2025
Walk along St. Augustine’s historic district during the holiday season and you will see throngs of children strapped in their strollers, toddling down cobblestone streets, awake way past their bedtime, loopy from overstimulation in this, the oldest colonial city in America (1565): pirate shops, ice cream, boulevards of holiday lights, street musicians, taffy, live snakes, telescopes, tour carts driven by the Grinch, face painting. Between Christmas and New Year’s, the town welcomes 600,000 visitors.
Beth, Cathryn, David and I are here at Hazel’s home for the inaugural Power of Yin gathering, the first of what we hope will be many such Web gatherings with all of you.
Nearly fifty years ago, in 1977 and 1978, four extraordinary, self-educated women gathered in conversation: Hazel Henderson (futurist and evolutionary economist), Jean Houston (founder of the Human Potential Movement) and Barbara Marx Hubbard (visionary founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution). Barbara Delaney recorded, transcribed and lightly edited the resulting conversation.
Thirty years later, in 2007, they rediscovered and published the manuscript. Twenty years after that, Sydney gifted me the book.
Here’s the gist of Yin: a leisurely dialogue unfolds over days with tea, snacks, lunch, and Hazel’s special blend of carob and coffee. A tape recorder runs in the background. The book is a transcription, down to when the biscuits are served. Some pages of their prophecy (zoom in - it’s worth it!):
After reading the book, Sydney and I both marveled at the similarities to Linestone sessions. We, too, were moved to fire up tape recorders and save for posterity the spontaneous conversations arising around the table: glittering, fresh, vibrant, alive. Revelations and observations that were only possible in the process of divine communion and fellowship. We were watching the birth of group consciousness, symmathesy itself.
The invitation for this Electric Web gathering went something like this: what if we re-create the conceit of the Power of Yin conversation in Hazel’s home? Over a few days, those who are called (there were exactly four of us) will commune and speak freely.
At every chance, from a ramen supper to Hazel’s daily beach walk, from lazy mornings in the sunroom to long dinners in the library, I’d pull out my phone and hit record. Conversations unfolded against a backdrop of St. Augustine’s holiday festivities: the famed Nights of Lights, Grace Methodist Church’s Children’s Christmas Pageant, the illuminated Boat Regatta. The home, books, and city itself became characters in our conversation.
This year, inspired by the euphoric, immersive celebrations of St. Augustine’s Christmas, studying my Nativity art book, and steeped in conversation about the power of yin, I feel the animacy of creative energy being born. To witness oneself witnessing birth, the start of something, to resist naming what is being born, is an event that calls for focus, faith and participation.
In my study of Nativity scenes I’m astonished at how everyone is present (young, old, men, women, wise men, ox, ass, star), attuned to the new and timeless energy of creation itself. My book tells me: “In the words of St. Bridget: ‘I beheld a virgin of extreme beauty . . . wrapped in a white mantle and a delicate tunic, through which I clearly perceived her virgin body. . . With her was an old man of great honesty [who] brought a burning candle to the virgin.” A old man of great honesty who comes to support with a simple candle. This, alone, is an eternal prayer.
I understand differently these days of awe, from the nativity’s arrival to epiphany’s recognition (celebrated today, on January 6th). As the Christmas carol goes, and we feel with such immediacy this week: “The silent Word is pleading.”
This good word jumps from the page, over and over again, in our yin cocoon. At our leisurely dinner in the library, David and Cathryn both notice the blessed novelty of being surrounded on all four sides by books and their upright spines.
As we head to bed, David picks up essays by E.F. Shumacher, one of Hazel’s friends and mentors. Cathryn notices a book by her teacher, Matthew Fox’s Original Blessing. I leave you with some Blessing quotations, speaking to the epiphany of yin.
“What does God do all day long? God gives birth. From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth.” - Meister Eckhart
“Unless you adults turn and become like children, you will never receive the kingdom/queendom of God.” - Jesus
“The creative process has a feminine quality, and the creative work arises from unconscious depths - we might say, from the realm of the mothers.” - C.G. Jung
“I, God, am your playmate! I will lead the child in you in wonderful ways for I have chosen you.” - Mechtild of Madeburg
“What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not also give birth to the song of God in my time and in my culture?” - Meister Eckhart
Here’s to a year of birthing and listening to the song of God.
#teamworkmakesthedreamwork,
Mara
Upcoming Web Dates & Notes
2/12 - 2/14: Orpheus Performance, Columbia, SC (here are details!)
3/26 - 3/28: Bioneers and my mom’s memorial concert and celebration (3/28), Berkeley, California
David’s Parables of Change cohort begins on February 4th
Two cohorts of MCK’s Community of Practice for Social Creatives
Hearty congratulations to ✴︎ zi starchild on your newest album, INITIATE
Silent Word 💥beautiful share of how simple, deep and vital these human moments are. I feel more hope and aliveness after reading this. Thank you!