Judge Voids the Billion-Dollar Con, Iran Closes Both Straits, ICE Shoots the Wrong Man Twice, and the President's Deranged Speech: The Week That Was July 12-18 2026
Our Unity spiritual community had Rev Robert Brumet as a guest speaker and he reminded us of an ancient Tibetan prophecy:
The Shambhala Warrior prophecy is a 1,200-year-old Tibetan Buddhist teaching from the Kalachakra tradition. It foretells a time when Earth is imperiled by destructive forces. Instead of fighting with conventional arms, "Shambhala Warriors" are ordinary people who rise up armed only with two spiritual weapons: compassion and insight.
He said: courageous presence is contagious. That we rise as warriors of consciousness to meet this moment, and our interconnection is the key
Sally, I am so moved by what you’ve shared here. I’m going to look into this more because I was not aware of this prophecy but it certainly feels like we are living through it right now! Compassion and insight - that’s just the perfect descriptor of what we need right now!
Thanks for the link. Have you ever checked out shambhala.org? If you enjoyed the guest speaker's talk, you might find it interesting. I first became aware of it in the mid-1970's but only actually got involved a little over a decade and a half ago. It's not just a legend or prophecy, it has actually taken root.
Wiz, not sure if you meant Sally Jean or myself, but there is an animated short on YouTube that runs just under 7 minutes published back in 2020 narrated by Joanna Macy which I just found a link to on this site https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/the-ancient-shambhala-warrior-prophecy/. Much of the sermon seems to be virtually identical although I haven't compared the transcripts, and the five essential characteristics referenced at the end of the sermon aren't in the other video, the scripts deviate at that point. [MAHB is the Millenium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, but Joanna Macy's name is familiar to me and I had never heard of MAHB until I just stumbled upon it. When I dug a little deeper I soon learned that Joanna Macy died on July 19, 2025, at 96 years of age and noted the day she died was one year ago -- as I typed those words my computer clicked over from 11:11 PM 2026-07-19 to 11:12 PM. She was a Buddhist scholar and ecological activist, among other things, but I just read an excerpt from an anthology called "All the Rage: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger and Acceptance." I am pretty confident she was part of the Shambhala sangha, as were/are many Buddhist scholars. If you want to know more about the modern Shambhala Warriors, I recommend you Chogyam Trungpa's book "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior."
Each week I am taken to my knees over the acts of the current administration. Every Sunday you pull me put to standing, re-energized and ready to welcome the work of building a new world. Thank you.
Yes, I’m with you. It’s just unfathomable what is coming out of this White House, but as horrible as it is, it’s all part of the necessary collapse, clearing space for something better to rise from the rubble in time. Stay hopeful. Onwards!
As always, I look forward to Sunday to read your take on the week we just went through and what lies ahead as your perspective always helps to put it within a tangible framework. Thank you, thank you!! 💜
Some weeks I look at the dumpster fire that is the news and wonder how to make sense of it all. But this week, it really struck me that the fact it doesn’t really make a lot of sense is actually how we make sense of it. The old world is losing its legitimacy, it’s losing it’s ability to hold itself together. That’s the story, and it’s distressing, but also affirming. What’s coming is not more of what’s falling apart, at least not in the long term. Once the collapse is done, then something better grows from the rubble. We just have to hang in there. xx
Yes!! Thank you! I agree. It is all just falling apart. I am aware of what is going on but trying to keep my main focus on what we are building next. You have helped tremendously in keeping my focus on that. Your writings have been a life line for me through all of this by providing me with a better understanding of what is going on under the surface and living from the heart. Much gratitude for you and your work!💜
Beautifully, eloquently and plainly said Wiz. Thank you for sharing this inspiration from the unlimited wisdom of the all. It will not be easy these coming days, months and years but we are the workers who are building an amazing planet of the future. And we are doing it with love and passion.
Yes, we are walking a difficult path, and it will not be easy. But if we pay attention, we can see that the path has not been easy for some time now. We are getting good at walking this path of uncertainty, and we can face what comes next. May we anchor in our hearts as we walk, and hold on to each other as we go. Onwards!
Gently, Mr. Wizard, please stop, even in a throw away sentence, marginalizing the whole nation of Canada as just one large forest, now on fire, impacting Americans. Canadians have lost their homes and communities to fires. Canadians are also suffering from terrible air quality due to hazardous smoke. And as for the fires, they burn in America too: Oregon, Washington State, Minnesota. Facts matter and Canada as to 'blame' for American suffering is straight out of the Trump playbook.
If you want to talk about the end of an age, here's one: Canada is tired of only being mentioned if somehow it's an impact to Americans. Robin Williams once referred to our country as a 'nice apartment over a meth lab', and we're oh-so-very over the outsized impacts on our own sovereign nation to the point of use disappearing unless there's some sort of terrible thing. Please don't perpetuate that.
With respect, the fires in Canada were presented in this piece as a counterpoint to Trump repealing environmental laws, even in the face of wildfires and the nation choking on smoke. Wasn’t intended to diminish the experience of Canadians - this piece really focussed on the collapse of the United States and how, even in the face of striking evidence of climate change billowing in from just across the border, the administration still is not interested in caring for the environment.
I think you just proved my point. Our whole nation just a prop to create a point about the United States, when it could be simply changed to say "North American wild fires". Here's a map to show you just how on fire the United States is: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-100.6,43.4,4.0z
The larger problem to what's happened this week politically with the forest fires is how Americans so easily have taken up the Trump administration line that Canada can't be trusted (we are too busy having Pride parades) to deal with our forest fires, so we need to become the 51st state so THEY can take care of it. Every time someone objectifies Canada as an empty space on fire, this only reinforces this narrative. You should understand why we have our backs up over this. It is quite simply existential for us (be it people losing homes to fire OR the manifest destiny of our once-friends turned bad neighbours).
As an Australian, I understand how it often feels like America sees itself as the centre of the world, and other nations become just side characters in America's story. It would certainly never be my intention to write in that way or add to that narrative. My intention here was to try and speak to the fact that climate change is something that every nation should be tackling, and that when a nation actively repeals laws designed to protect the environment as America has done under Trump, it has a knock-on effect beyond its own borders, the effects of which it will feel eventually, as happened this week with the smoke from the fires in Canada crossing borders. Mother Nature knows no borders, and respects no nation's laws and policies. Fires in Canada are a problem all of us must take responsibility for, as is the earth quakes in Venezuela and the heat waves in Europe. That this particular White House is wilfully blind to the effects of climate change, and actively operating in a way that will only make it worse, that was the point I was trying to make. I realise I probably could have made it a little more clearly, and used a few more words - thanks for your understanding. Sending love to you in Canada from the Land Down Under. xx
Thank you Mr. Wizard. Indeed you are right about all of us owning the fires. But Trump has told us all not to worry, he's got a big faucet he's turning on that runs from 'California to Canada' (presumably the Columbia River) that will extinguish them! The Universe must have some dark sense of humour to visit this person upon us all. Love back to you. xx
I know Canadians are hurting right now. But believe it or not, so are Americans. This appalling behavior by the American government is not who we are, so please don’t confuse the “people” with the “government.” Heather Delaney Reese wrote about the Canadian fires and made this same point:
“We cannot ask you to trust us simply because we say the right words tonight. Trust does not work that way. It has to be earned through what we do next, through the people we elect, through the alliances we repair, through the promises we keep, and through the courage we show when cruelty is being carried out in our name. We will vote these people out. We will hold them accountable. We will rebuild what they have broken. And we will find our way back to one another. I know that may take years. I know it may take decades before we prove that this country will stop placing its most selfish, reckless, and morally empty people in its highest offices. But we will prove it. The American people are still here, still fighting, still speaking, and still refusing to surrender our country to the men who confuse power with greatness.”
I don't confuse "people" with "government" but words matter right now. Very much so. There are plenty of every day Americans that repeat the Trump/ Russian talking points (the Russians, because they love to sow division) that blame Canada for everything from fentanyl to factories closing, and many more who treat Canada as an object or prop in the narrative of the United States and nothing more. This is what I am flagging here. The fact is that there are North American forest fires, not just Canadian ones. Right now, ones burning in Oregon are impacting air quality in British Columbia. Yet this piece just blindly follows the Trump talking point that "Canadian" wildfires are impacting the United States. That's the problem. Words MATTER.
Fellow Canadian here, Clever Fish. I see you follow Bob Rae, and I don't recall now who else I recognized from your profile page. If you are concerned about our sovereignty, as I am, I wonder how you feel about our Indigenous peoples and how disproportionately they are being negatively affected by not only the forest fires, but a lot of other things going on here and elsewhere these days that impact all of us. Brandi Morin's Substack "Indigenous Insider" is a great source of information and inspiration to me, but there are plenty of other Canadians sharing on various issues of interest to many. Hope to see you around, and welcome to Substack if you are relatively new here. The more the potentially merrier!
Thanks for the recommended links. I am, of course, very concerned about the Indigenous communities impacted and what will be available to them to rebuild.
Our Unity spiritual community had Rev Robert Brumet as a guest speaker and he reminded us of an ancient Tibetan prophecy:
The Shambhala Warrior prophecy is a 1,200-year-old Tibetan Buddhist teaching from the Kalachakra tradition. It foretells a time when Earth is imperiled by destructive forces. Instead of fighting with conventional arms, "Shambhala Warriors" are ordinary people who rise up armed only with two spiritual weapons: compassion and insight.
He said: courageous presence is contagious. That we rise as warriors of consciousness to meet this moment, and our interconnection is the key
Sally, I am so moved by what you’ve shared here. I’m going to look into this more because I was not aware of this prophecy but it certainly feels like we are living through it right now! Compassion and insight - that’s just the perfect descriptor of what we need right now!
Here is a link to his talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5jtWTNdaBs
Thanks for the link. Have you ever checked out shambhala.org? If you enjoyed the guest speaker's talk, you might find it interesting. I first became aware of it in the mid-1970's but only actually got involved a little over a decade and a half ago. It's not just a legend or prophecy, it has actually taken root.
Thank-you for sharing this! Powerful!!
Wiz, not sure if you meant Sally Jean or myself, but there is an animated short on YouTube that runs just under 7 minutes published back in 2020 narrated by Joanna Macy which I just found a link to on this site https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/the-ancient-shambhala-warrior-prophecy/. Much of the sermon seems to be virtually identical although I haven't compared the transcripts, and the five essential characteristics referenced at the end of the sermon aren't in the other video, the scripts deviate at that point. [MAHB is the Millenium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, but Joanna Macy's name is familiar to me and I had never heard of MAHB until I just stumbled upon it. When I dug a little deeper I soon learned that Joanna Macy died on July 19, 2025, at 96 years of age and noted the day she died was one year ago -- as I typed those words my computer clicked over from 11:11 PM 2026-07-19 to 11:12 PM. She was a Buddhist scholar and ecological activist, among other things, but I just read an excerpt from an anthology called "All the Rage: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger and Acceptance." I am pretty confident she was part of the Shambhala sangha, as were/are many Buddhist scholars. If you want to know more about the modern Shambhala Warriors, I recommend you Chogyam Trungpa's book "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior."
Thankyou! I love this!
Each week I am taken to my knees over the acts of the current administration. Every Sunday you pull me put to standing, re-energized and ready to welcome the work of building a new world. Thank you.
Yes, I’m with you. It’s just unfathomable what is coming out of this White House, but as horrible as it is, it’s all part of the necessary collapse, clearing space for something better to rise from the rubble in time. Stay hopeful. Onwards!
“The mind is a marvel. But what it is not, and what it was never designed to be, is the thing that leads.
The mind was always supposed to have a partner.
Thought and feeling together.
Logic and reason powered by the soul.
Intelligence in service of love.”
Beautifully said. ❤️
As always, I look forward to Sunday to read your take on the week we just went through and what lies ahead as your perspective always helps to put it within a tangible framework. Thank you, thank you!! 💜
Some weeks I look at the dumpster fire that is the news and wonder how to make sense of it all. But this week, it really struck me that the fact it doesn’t really make a lot of sense is actually how we make sense of it. The old world is losing its legitimacy, it’s losing it’s ability to hold itself together. That’s the story, and it’s distressing, but also affirming. What’s coming is not more of what’s falling apart, at least not in the long term. Once the collapse is done, then something better grows from the rubble. We just have to hang in there. xx
Yes!! Thank you! I agree. It is all just falling apart. I am aware of what is going on but trying to keep my main focus on what we are building next. You have helped tremendously in keeping my focus on that. Your writings have been a life line for me through all of this by providing me with a better understanding of what is going on under the surface and living from the heart. Much gratitude for you and your work!💜
Well, I’m glad these writings are helping you hold on to hope. We will get where we are going. Together! Onwards!
Dude! So grateful. Now, where’s my Kleenex?
Thanks for reading. Let those tears flow!
“We are not here to fix the age that is ending. We are here to live, in whatever ordinary and specific way we can manage, the one that is beginning.”
This, for me is the essence of it. 💜
Yes, it starts with us, right here, right now! 🤗
John O'Donohue said: 'A feeling you can trust has a steel edge of thought and a thought you can trust has a flaming heart of feeling’
Beautifully, eloquently and plainly said Wiz. Thank you for sharing this inspiration from the unlimited wisdom of the all. It will not be easy these coming days, months and years but we are the workers who are building an amazing planet of the future. And we are doing it with love and passion.
Yes, we are walking a difficult path, and it will not be easy. But if we pay attention, we can see that the path has not been easy for some time now. We are getting good at walking this path of uncertainty, and we can face what comes next. May we anchor in our hearts as we walk, and hold on to each other as we go. Onwards!
Thank you 😊 for this affirming message to lead with love in our hearts 💕 every day in every way we can.
You’re very welcome. It starts with us. xx
Gently, Mr. Wizard, please stop, even in a throw away sentence, marginalizing the whole nation of Canada as just one large forest, now on fire, impacting Americans. Canadians have lost their homes and communities to fires. Canadians are also suffering from terrible air quality due to hazardous smoke. And as for the fires, they burn in America too: Oregon, Washington State, Minnesota. Facts matter and Canada as to 'blame' for American suffering is straight out of the Trump playbook.
If you want to talk about the end of an age, here's one: Canada is tired of only being mentioned if somehow it's an impact to Americans. Robin Williams once referred to our country as a 'nice apartment over a meth lab', and we're oh-so-very over the outsized impacts on our own sovereign nation to the point of use disappearing unless there's some sort of terrible thing. Please don't perpetuate that.
With respect, the fires in Canada were presented in this piece as a counterpoint to Trump repealing environmental laws, even in the face of wildfires and the nation choking on smoke. Wasn’t intended to diminish the experience of Canadians - this piece really focussed on the collapse of the United States and how, even in the face of striking evidence of climate change billowing in from just across the border, the administration still is not interested in caring for the environment.
I think you just proved my point. Our whole nation just a prop to create a point about the United States, when it could be simply changed to say "North American wild fires". Here's a map to show you just how on fire the United States is: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-100.6,43.4,4.0z
The larger problem to what's happened this week politically with the forest fires is how Americans so easily have taken up the Trump administration line that Canada can't be trusted (we are too busy having Pride parades) to deal with our forest fires, so we need to become the 51st state so THEY can take care of it. Every time someone objectifies Canada as an empty space on fire, this only reinforces this narrative. You should understand why we have our backs up over this. It is quite simply existential for us (be it people losing homes to fire OR the manifest destiny of our once-friends turned bad neighbours).
As an Australian, I understand how it often feels like America sees itself as the centre of the world, and other nations become just side characters in America's story. It would certainly never be my intention to write in that way or add to that narrative. My intention here was to try and speak to the fact that climate change is something that every nation should be tackling, and that when a nation actively repeals laws designed to protect the environment as America has done under Trump, it has a knock-on effect beyond its own borders, the effects of which it will feel eventually, as happened this week with the smoke from the fires in Canada crossing borders. Mother Nature knows no borders, and respects no nation's laws and policies. Fires in Canada are a problem all of us must take responsibility for, as is the earth quakes in Venezuela and the heat waves in Europe. That this particular White House is wilfully blind to the effects of climate change, and actively operating in a way that will only make it worse, that was the point I was trying to make. I realise I probably could have made it a little more clearly, and used a few more words - thanks for your understanding. Sending love to you in Canada from the Land Down Under. xx
Thank you Mr. Wizard. Indeed you are right about all of us owning the fires. But Trump has told us all not to worry, he's got a big faucet he's turning on that runs from 'California to Canada' (presumably the Columbia River) that will extinguish them! The Universe must have some dark sense of humour to visit this person upon us all. Love back to you. xx
I know Canadians are hurting right now. But believe it or not, so are Americans. This appalling behavior by the American government is not who we are, so please don’t confuse the “people” with the “government.” Heather Delaney Reese wrote about the Canadian fires and made this same point:
“We cannot ask you to trust us simply because we say the right words tonight. Trust does not work that way. It has to be earned through what we do next, through the people we elect, through the alliances we repair, through the promises we keep, and through the courage we show when cruelty is being carried out in our name. We will vote these people out. We will hold them accountable. We will rebuild what they have broken. And we will find our way back to one another. I know that may take years. I know it may take decades before we prove that this country will stop placing its most selfish, reckless, and morally empty people in its highest offices. But we will prove it. The American people are still here, still fighting, still speaking, and still refusing to surrender our country to the men who confuse power with greatness.”
I don't confuse "people" with "government" but words matter right now. Very much so. There are plenty of every day Americans that repeat the Trump/ Russian talking points (the Russians, because they love to sow division) that blame Canada for everything from fentanyl to factories closing, and many more who treat Canada as an object or prop in the narrative of the United States and nothing more. This is what I am flagging here. The fact is that there are North American forest fires, not just Canadian ones. Right now, ones burning in Oregon are impacting air quality in British Columbia. Yet this piece just blindly follows the Trump talking point that "Canadian" wildfires are impacting the United States. That's the problem. Words MATTER.
Fellow Canadian here, Clever Fish. I see you follow Bob Rae, and I don't recall now who else I recognized from your profile page. If you are concerned about our sovereignty, as I am, I wonder how you feel about our Indigenous peoples and how disproportionately they are being negatively affected by not only the forest fires, but a lot of other things going on here and elsewhere these days that impact all of us. Brandi Morin's Substack "Indigenous Insider" is a great source of information and inspiration to me, but there are plenty of other Canadians sharing on various issues of interest to many. Hope to see you around, and welcome to Substack if you are relatively new here. The more the potentially merrier!
Thanks for the recommended links. I am, of course, very concerned about the Indigenous communities impacted and what will be available to them to rebuild.