I don't know if you saw a chest this year. There was a competition. Many people could submit white box implementation of PAS and then people could also try to break it. And it was very impressive to see that most of the solutions could be broken just in a day. So I think it would be very interesting to have Pascal point of view for white box crypto. So please join me to welcome Pascal for this invited talk. Thank you. Thank you. You're making me blush. Thank you very much. First of all, to Yoshi and Toma for having me. It's an honor to address the Asian crypto audience. So what I'm going to talk about today is white box cryptography. I think it's a subject that has been largely overlooked in cryptography. Essentially a lot of people think that if you look at the background in the literature, you can see that some papers have been published on designs for white box implementations and all of them have been broken. So basically when you talk to people about white box crypto, they roll their eyes and they say this is a snake on security. This cannot exist. But actually I think there is a lot more to it. And I wanted to share today a few thoughts that I had recently about white box crypto that I entitled white box crypto menu. So first of all, what is white box crypto? It's not necessarily completely trivial to define what it is. So the concept at a very high level is pretty simple. And you can explain it to kids with a few words or kids who know how to program. So basically when you take a cryptographic program, so we don't care exactly about the functionality, it could be a block cipher, it could be a signature scheme, it could be whatever. You have a program here, which is generic in the sense that it takes as input the algorithm's input, like the plan text, if you would like to encrypt for instance, the key has a separate input and then you put let's say the cipher text. So this program here is very generic and this is exactly what you find in libraries. So when we talk about white box implementations, we're kind of changing that paradigm to our code, a given key into the program. So the program now is not generic anymore towards the key. The key is completely fixed. It's our code into the code. But the program here is going to take an input and output the correct output, but with that key embedded inside. So it seems very easy to explain and understand. But usually there is some infusion between what white box crypto is as opposed to what obfuscation is. And if you think about general proposed obfuscation, it's something that is way, way stronger actually than white box crypto. For obfuscation, actually we're talking about a transformation that takes as input a program like any program that puts another one obfuscated. And what we want to hide is basically everything about the program, like basically any property that the program may fulfill, we want to hide it.  I mean, the only thing that you can do is basically to execute it as if it were a black box article. And there is nothing that you can extract from the code of obfuscation. And so there is, of course, this question, how realistic obfuscation is. I think the, I mean, the paradigm of obfuscation has been around for years. We still don't have, I mean, satisfactory solutions for that problem. And we also have known impossibility results. But if you actually, if we come back to the black box crypto, we can see that it can be seen as a very different in the sense that it's way more respected. So here we don't want to hide any general program. Basically, we want to consider programs that actually code a certain, a certain function F. And F is basically a perfect primitive. So not every program can be a graphic program, right? So we're, what we're looking at is a very restricted class of programs. And also we don't want to hide any property, but just some property. So for instance, you want to hide that it's AS that you're using, just want to protect the key. And so when you think about it and when you try to basically model the security of white box programs, there are some cases where, I mean, viewing the code as a black box oracle makes sense only in some contexts and nothing like that. And also we do not know of any possibility results that could occur in a very general way. And at this point, it's very unsatisfactory. I mean, because we don't know of any example of a construction, even for AS, for instance, that will be probably secured. So there's been proposals, but basically they've been broken. And we don't know if white box crypto even just exists at all. So it's a very mysterious subject. So you can try to approach this subject by two ways, the practical side and the theoretical side. And so the practical side, it's a very, I would say it's a very active area in the industry. And there are some people in the industry who claim to have secure solutions. And of course they do not reveal the design, meaning they would not tell you how their white box programs were designed and generated. This remains proprietary, but you can have access to the programs and you can try to reverse engineer them. And so we've tried to, with a white box contest, so it was this year's chess capture the flag event. It's a competition that we co-organized. It was about AS implementations. You can look it up. The URL is here. There were 94 challenge implementations that were posted on the submission system. They all have been broken. There was a considerable effort invested in there. 200 people were working day and night. You could see that some implementations that were submitted were broken like half an hour after. And the longest implementation has survived is 28 days, basically. And it was eventually broken by DuMuay, a PhD student, crypto experts. And then the adoring process reached 406 strawberries, so there was a system of points with strawberry points and banana points, but whatever. So if you were attending chess, probably you know more about what happened during the competition. There was a presentation on their own session. So the conclusion of that is that everything that has been submitted has been broken. And in the competition, you didn't have to reveal exactly how your challenging implementation was made. It's just you just had to provide it without exactly telling how it was designed. And also the competition was anonymous to invite people from the industry to propose their own challenge competitions. But the conclusion is that everything was broken and it's long here to us. Just see if in practice we have, they are out there solutions, I mean programs that could survive longer than 28 days. And on the theoretical side, it's still very unclear because we can define white box crypto in theory. We can define security notions, right? But the big question is, I mean, there is the question of existence. Can we actually build the construction, even if it's theoretical, even if it has nothing to do with practice, can we have even just a single construction of white box crypto out of indisputability of education, for instance, or can we do it the other way around? We don't know that. Apparently, there is no obvious connection between the two. So we don't even know if it's possible to achieve it. And to me, it's one of the biggest open questions. So I wanted to, usually when we talk about white box crypto, it's about block ciphers. So we're going to implement AES typically. And here I wanted to actually focus on something else, which is public key signatures. And I'm going to talk about public encryption after that. So how does it work? So of course, when we talk about the security of white box implementations, we're not talking about breaking a particular program, but breaking a distribution of programs. So the distribution, the programs about how it's built by a code generator, which includes the design and all the intricacies of how the program was generated. So we call that a white box compiler. So we have basically a white box compiler. But what is it exactly? Well, you generate a pair of keys for your signature scheme. And you just take this deciding key and get just to the compiler to go with some randomness. And the public key possibly you press the button, and then the code generator is going to give you a program that unbates that key and that signs anything. And so again, I would like to stress the difference, the big difference between a function and Oracle and a program. And so a function is an algorithmic description of a medical object. It's in specifications, if you will. And Oracle, Oracle's are what we use in global security. So Oracle's are basically a process running somewhere in the sky. It can be a schedule, that is, it remembers over time all the queries that you make to it. You can have only remote access, you don't know anything about how it's done inside, you just have input output access to it. And it can use some private randomness, if it wants. So it's like you're interacting with something that is on the other side of the planet, and you have no way of knowing what's going on in that process. All internal variables and so on. And the program is completely different. So the program is basically a word in the programming language. It's a string. And so it is completely stateless, because you can always reboot it. You can always copy it, transfer it to somebody else. You can observe each and every internal variable. You can modify each and every internal variable. And of course, assuming that the program is allowed to make some system calls, you can just capture the system calls and simulate the system as you want and reply with anything of your choice. So a program is something that is in an environment that is, I mean, the program is an object that is dreaming about being in an Oracle. But it cannot be an Oracle because basically it's memory-less. So you can just erase it, start it from scratch, and repeat. And so it's completely different. So if you will, this would be a Twitter smart card. You cannot open it if you assume that it's temporary system. And here you have executable software. And basically you can, as an attacker, you have much more power here than here on this thing. So first of all, so there's a question of whether it makes sense or not, actually, to try to have a white box implementation of a signature scheme. So basically you would be given a program that unbays, that artcodes the signing key inside the program.  It returns the signature on that message. And so if you're given a program, do you actually, I mean, what is the meaning of trying to extract the signing key from it? Because you're given the functionality, right? So there's a response to that, which is available, actually. So typically in a white box implementation, you would be given an implementation that is password-protected. The same way a smart card that signs an email is being protected. So in the case that when the program is password-protected, it means at some point when it was generated, a password was given to the compiler. And if you give the correct password together with the message, it would get the signature. If you give something different, it would give you some object, something that does not validate as a signature on a message. And so in that case, if you're not given the password, usually the password is there to protect against code lifting, which is the attack where the attacker remotely accesses your device, like your mobile phone, for instance, whether the program is running, steals it, and tries to recover the key or use the functionality. So in this case, actually extracting the key makes sense. Also, you can have what is called compressible white box implementations, where the code is voluntarily made very big, very, very large, or artificially consumes a lot of RAM, for instance. And you would like to actually extract the key so that you can perform the signature operation much quicker or with less resources. Also, the code could be traceable in the sense that even if the same signing key is used, we could have several programs where basically if, so the different programs are given to users, and if at some point you find one program over the internet, you can incriminate one of these users. So the code is traceable and you cannot remove the watermark. And also, you could have a restriction of messages. For instance, the program could just agree to sign messages that are in a certain subspace or verify a certain format. So here, I'm just going to assume that there is no password. There is no restriction on the message space. But we're typically in the scenario where we're given an incompressible or traceable implementation. Right. So now it's short signatures. So in this you're all familiar with short signatures. We use basically a group of other key. We're given a generator of this group. And then we use a hash function basically to have the message together with a random element of the group. And then we compute the other part of the signature. And we have this verification equation here, which involves the hash function and the two parts of the signature as NC. So it's known that short signatures are basically distention infortable in the random model. We know that this is not true in the standard model. But we know that it's probably in the standard model probably a difficult problem to forge. And so this is a very basic signature scheme. And I'm trying to look at how we can actually implement it with a white box program and what happens when we want to do that. So basically this is the Schnorr signing procedure again. So we take this file on K, exponent it so G to the K, we hash that together with the message, get the commitment part of the signature, multiply with X, the prime key, and then we subtract that from K and we get this part of the signature. So basically an implementation of Schnorr signature should resemble something like that, right? Except that everything here in this blue perimeter, we don't know exactly how it's implemented. It does functionally something equivalent to that, but it could be obfuscated, we don't know exactly what it does. So, but so wait a minute. So I said at some point earlier that if we're given a program, we can simulate all the system calls, right? And here we're making system calls, right? I mean we're calling a random number generator to have our K value here. So actually what this means is that if we take the textbook version of Schnorr and if the program really makes a system call to have this K here, we can just intercept that and put whatever value of our choice. And then if we put any value, we can recover truly the private key by just looking at a single signature, right? So it means the the textbook version Schnorr signature scheme cannot be implemented as is, right? We need to already we need to make modifications in order to ensure that it's realistic to try to have a world-class implementation of it. So we can try to have to use a pseudo-random generator inside the program. Obviously if it depends only on a system call, again we can either, I mean if we know the parent you can know this value, we need only one equation. If we don't know it but we can call it on different messages, there's two equations and we can recover the key as well. And so depending, I mean the program could could create K as a using a PRF on M, but it's not good either because you can if you can extract this function then your seven attack applies again. And putting so the only solution that seems possible is that the program actually doesn't doesn't make any call to an external source but computes the random that it means as a pseudo-random both in the message and in the private key. And in that case we can assume that yeah it's a I mean a way about secure implementation could exist. Now way boxed with Romania, what do I mean by that? So way boxed with Romania is the place where the the program that signs given the secret key is safe and cozy. So it's safe and cozy in the sense that we have somehow, we have this security game, so I'm supposed I'm having an adversary here, I generate a random key pair, I give to the adversary this the random public key as well as a program that unbates the secret key. And I ask the adversary to send me back the secret key. And if we, I mean if we're in Romania we believe that this is hard to do, right? So what we mean by Romania is that if we define this game here played between the teenager and the adversary at some point we can claim that there is no efficient adversary that successfully does that. Right? So we don't know exactly why but we assume at some point maybe in the future, maybe in two years, maybe in five years, maybe never, maybe we assume that we can prove we have a security proof and we can prove that this this attacker essentially does not exist. I mean it cannot be efficient and have a non-legigible, perpetual success. So we have it. So now it means once again using the techniques of global security we created something, an implementation that is probably secure, right? We're in Romania so we solved the problem. So now it means essentially that we can we can distribute in the wide programs that are safe because you cannot extract secret keys from them. So it means basically that we solve the problem which is enormous in this industry which is having tamper proof software. So we can get rid of all this immense zoo of secure objects of trusted hardware and we can essentially replace them with software and because with some magical way we found a way to prove that this is hard to do we essentially have the same security. So Pyptomania assumes that, right? It's an assumption. I'm not telling you how to prove that or how to design how to design the white box compiler so that you can prove that this is hard. I'm just assuming that we have a compiler for which we have a proof that this is hard. So before I go on we need the classical security notions for signature schemes. So basically, so there are plenty of different security notions but there are at least these nine ones here. So the the weakest one is actually unbreakability under a key only attack meaning you're given the public key and you're asked to find the super key. And then you have unbreakability under a known message attack you're given message signature errors and here at CMA you're given an article that signs whatever whatever you want. And we have this column here where all the adversaries here are trying to recover the key. We have these these adversaries that try to find this signature on a randomly chosen message and we have existential forgeries where the adversary can choose the message. So actually if we look at Schnauz signatures we know that this is hard basically this is a discretized problem but we also know that these two notions are actually fulfilled under the one more discretized assumption. But actually when we talk about these notions they are good enough to capture what we mean by white box victory implementation. So we need to introduce something more basically known program attacks. So in a known program attack it's actually what I've said before now we're not providing the adversary with any signing article which is providing it with a program this time. And so this is basically unbreakability under a known program attack. I give one program I expect to see the signing key out of that adversary. And the first thing that you can see is that if you define that way unbreakability under a known program attack there is an objus connection with unbreakability under a chosen message attack. Why? Because essentially if as an attacker you can extract the secret key from the public key by just being given an oracle access to the signing function. Well in particular if you're given a program that signs you can just do the same thing. Using the program in a black box fashion the same way you would make a call to the oracle. I'm not saying anything fancy here it's very simple right? So we have actually this reduction that plays the role of the ubiquity PA attacker. You give a program and then the reduction just uses that as an oracle to simulate the signing oracle to the adversary. So we can convert this adversary the ubiquity CNN into a ubiquity PA. But now we come to the point where we need to make more precise what we mean by white box cryptomania. And white box cryptomania means that essentially even if even if this notion here is actually strictly weaker than this one in cryptomania which means we're losing something from switching from an oracle access to the signing function as opposed to a programative access if you will to the signing function. We don't want to lose anything either. In cryptomania we assume that we're not losing anything meaning that basically these two notions are equivalent. So in that world it has to mean that there is a reduction in the other direction. That there is also a security reduction that takes a ubiquity PA attacker and that converts it into a ubiquity CNA attacker. So there must be a reduction that does exactly that. You give it a public key access to a signing oracle and it converts an adversary that given a public key and a program returns the secret key and the reduction completes the game here returns the secret key and has a certain success probability depending on this we said probability of the adversary. So we assume that we must have some kind of a reduction of that nature. That's what white box cryptomania here means. So now we see that we can actually build a meta reduction. So if we forget about the white part here what we have here is exactly the same thing as this slide before we assume that there exists that reduction that that takes the ubiquity kp adversary and converts it into a ubiquity CNA adversary. So we assume that this reduction exists and we can see that we can build a meta reduction that basically simulates the adversary here towards the reduction simulates the challenger here and will solve the following problem. So the meta reduction here is given a random public key is given access to a signing oracle and will output a program and the way it works is essentially I mean it's very easy to see the meta reduction just launches R forwards the public key to R every time hard is making an oracle call to the signing function it will just forward the query to the signing oracle and same thing for the output and that's on point M will receive the input for the ubiquity kp adversary which is basically a public key and a program. So what happens now is that M the meta reduction will just stop and will output this program there. Does that make sense? Yeah everybody seems to be staring at the screen. Okay so if you take so there are a few details in there but if you take my word for it these words. So basically what it means is that we now have a way this meta reduction if we assume work box to come in here it means we also have a meta reduction that transforms access to a signing oracle into a natural program that does the same thing and that seems a very strong very strong statement. So there's a small problem with what I said which is I assumed that the public key that was given here was the same as the one that we forwarded to the reduction and in practice it could be different. I mean the reduction could apply some transformation on this public key and provide a program that actually signs with respect to a different public key and so the meta reduction would not work because we're given a public key access to a signing oracle for the signing key matching that public key and essentially the reduction we don't know how it works but we just launch it and give us a different public key and different program. So what can we do there? So we would return that program but we don't know exactly how it relates to solving any problem with respect to the initial public key. So this is where we need algebraic programs so we're going to assume that actually the reduction here is algebraic and algebraic is a very easy notion it just means that an algorithm that is algebraic over a group at some point if this algorithm outputs a new group element it must have been built from previously seen group elements with exponents that can be reconstructed given the code the code the precise code of the algorithm so you can look at it like that. So at some point so we have an algorithm at some point you run it and as input there are a number of group elements right but if at some point this program outputs a group element then it means that given the code that is between here and there there is a way by just by just using that code to extract the exponents here that there is each was built by just composing the previously seen elements and there is a way by just looking at the code to reconstruct exactly the exponents that were there so actually there are all the essentially all the security reductions that we know are algebraic and it's a notion that is very simple I mean it's very simple to to describe but it's actually more powerful than the generic model okay. So now we come back to our problem with the reduction which is we're given a significant


Hello. I'm very excited to be here. It's very nice to be in this old venue where I used to go to school dances in the 90s. So that's nice. And my name is Osa Bjarne-Dell, and I'm trained as an architect, but I work mostly with urban planning and urban design, and working with cities and the development of cities. We always need to think ahead, a long time ahead, because we work with really big-scale projects, and it takes a long time to build them, so we always have long timelines. And so usually, like 20, 30 years ahead, that's nothing out of the ordinary for us. But even in that perspective, Kira and I have quite an exception to have to move a whole city and to do it over the course of 100 years. That's quite something, and it needs a lot of power, deceptions and lies, I think. So... This is Kiruna today. Kiruna is in the north of Sweden. It's about 1,400 kilometers north of Malmö. So it's like north of the Arctic Circle, it's far away. And the city was founded in the year 1900, and it was founded to accommodate the people who moved here to work in the mine with housing. And this mine is a very big mine, and it's very important for the whole Swedish economy, actually. The revenue from this mine, it gives about 1-2% of Sweden's GMP, it's from the revenue, so this is a big national importance, this mine. And that's also why, now that a couple of years ago, they started noticing that the ground on top of the mine was starting to collapse with big deformations. You can see them here. This is actually the mine up here. You can see the deformations, like this moon-like landscape in front of the mine. And the iron ore is kind of like a big slab that goes underneath the city. So now rapidly, this deformation is coming closer and closer to the city of Kiruna. And since the mine is so important, the city has to move. We can't stop mining. And this was kind of what we knew when we, me and my colleagues, we went up to Kiruna about a year ago to take part in, we were invited to take part in a competition, an architectural competition together with nine other teams about how the future city center of Kiruna, what that was supposed to look like. So this is kind of the deformation that they're expecting, the progress of it. And it's kind of, they're running out of time. You can see in 2015, the city starts to fall down. They actually already have to close the train station. And that's disappearing now. And now the city hall is next and in a couple of 10, 15 years, big parts of the city center and another couple of decades, the whole city will be gone. So, and this was kind of what we knew when we went up there a year ago that this was happening. We knew a bit of the history and of course how important the mine is. But as we were, when we were there, we learned a lot about more. We were there for a couple of really intense days, moving around in the city, talking to people. And we learned what this meant for the people of Kiruna. And there were four things that kind of stood out for us. The first thing, of course, is the trauma, the sadness of losing your home, your home city on all these kinds of places that are full with collective and individual memories that are just going to be gone forever. So that's a big thing that has to be handled for the population of Kiruna. But there's also another thing. They've known this has been going on for a while. So many of the people in Kiruna, they're kind of pragmatic and they're used to living in the shadow of the mine. So they kind of are at the station where they want to move on. They want to take action. They want to kind of plan their lives. And they are kind of experiencing a very big frustration now because they're in limbo. They don't know what's going to happen to their town. There's no plan for what we do, where should we move. So there's a big crisis of confidence in the people ruling Kiruna that they can't decide. So they're really frustrated, the people of Kiruna. So that was the first thing that we learned. The second thing is there is no safe ground in all of Kiruna, not in the city and not in the landscape around. Everything is a potential mine. So there's no ground we can trust. And that as an urban designer, it's really stressful. So this, of course, we need to have a very flexible plan. We always do that when we plan. We always need that when we plan for 20, 40, 50 years into the future. There's so much about the future that we don't know. There are so many opportunities and challenges that we can't dream of them now. We just need to have some kind of preparation that are the schemes that we propose can handle them. But this is extreme, of course. And then the third thing that we learned about was this kind of the relationship between the mine and the city. And historically it has been very uneven relationship. The city kind of stands some falls with the mine. They're totally dependent on the mine. But that is slowly starting to change. And like many other businesses around the world, the mining company El Cabe have noticed that they need to get the workforce that they need. And they need more and more skilled workforce. It's getting more and more advanced with the mining, especially as deeper they go down into the mine. These people want, they don't just want to work. So to get, to kind of recruit and keep these people, they need to offer something more. They need to offer a great place to live. So they start to need the city for good housing and for all those other things that comes in living in the city, the urban life. But they also need a city that is self-sufficient that can offer other kinds of employment than working in the mine so that the people can bring their families and their spouses, husbands and wife and everything also can find a job. And that's a really big challenge for Kirina today because there is nothing except for the mine. And the fourth and last thing that we found out was people have been living in this area for thousands of years. So when the city of Kirina was founded about 100 years ago, it was founded just on top of three Sami villages. So they have been migrating their reindeer here for thousands of years when they go from winter to summer camps. And that was not taken into consideration in the year 1900 when they founded Kirina. They just put it on top of their important land. And as Kirina has been developing, they've been more and more squeezed together so they can't really continue their way of life soon. It's getting to be really a problem for them as well. So problems, problems, problems. But still the kind of big feeling that we got from Kirina was also this is a really loved city. And the people of Kirina are extremely proud of their city. And it is a very international city. It's very well connected to lots of other places around the world. And it is this kind of this really gathering of a lot of social and urban overlapping of people and social connections that are kind of put here in the midst of this big, great, arctic landscape. It's something that the people, they love this and they want to stay. They're not just sure that they can. So that's the big problem. And since working with cities or what defines cities actually, it is the people who live there and the kind of social connections that they do, the economical, cultural networks that they build. That is the city. And if we were going to talk about moving a city, to make that a successful move, those connections, networks, that's what we have to move. If we can do that, there is a chance that Kirina can survive this. And that kind of this feeling of, so it goes back to trust. Since they don't trust that there is a plan and that they can stay there, we need to present some kind of vision for the future so they feel that they are secure enough to invest their time and energy and money and commitment into Kirina also in the future. So we need to create the feeling that Kirina is going to be there forever. So that's kind of the vision or the motto that we came up with for our proposal. And now the big question is, how do we get there from the place where we are today to this place where we want to be in the future? So to kind of rally all these different things that needs to happen around a couple of strategies that we all kind of can work with, we came up with these three that's up here, step by step, leave no one behind, and the new ideal city. So I'm just going to go through this briefly. I just need to know how much time I have because I can talk about this forever. But the first one, step by step, and this is about a couple of things, but of course, we thought, first of all, we thought it was really important that through this whole process that Kirina is one city all the time so that we don't start developing like a satellite city center somewhere else that for many years are going to be in, compete with existing. So we needed to be one city as this move goes along. And the other thing is that, well, a city is more, it's not a static thing. It's something that kind of keeps changing all the time. So we need, even though we need this end picture of knowing what would it look like in 100 years, we also really need to know what the first step is going to be. And that's actually the biggest challenge to defining the first step. And we wanted this first step to kind of be grounded in the existing city. And therefore, after, we found this place that was in the east of the existing city center, there was a commercial point and it was, we learned that that was kind of an important meeting place in Kirina today. And that was also along one of the main roads connecting the city center to the airport. So that became our starting point to develop that existing point and then let the new city kind of grow along this existing main road eastwards away from the mine. And as time progresses and that new things fall down in the mine and we need to put new public places, we can put them along this kind of road and making new kind of public nodes along it. And in this way, we can also be flexible in our planning that for each step we can see what is it we want to do right now, what are the challenges we need to work with. So that was the first one, step by step. And this one, leave no one behind, it's a very important one and it has to do with getting all the people of Kirina on board. So we came up with a couple of three different things that we wanted to do to make this happen or at least have the possibility to happen. The first one we call the Kirina dialogue and that's about information, getting the information out to the people of Kirina about what is happening right now and in the long term. And because that was the big frustration and people are different in how we can take in information, also how much we want to kind of interact. Some just want the information, some want to act on it, be able to have a dialogue about it. But we're all different in that way, so we need to both reach out to people and invite them. And we need to use the existing kind of social structures formal and informal that's already in the city to get the information out through them. We need to be with the people out. They shouldn't have to do an extra labor to go and get informed. We need to get the information to them where they are. So that was the first thing. And then we thought of another thing that we wanted to do and this big image is supposed to illustrate something called the Kirina portal. And this is for when you want to take action. You go to the Kirina portal. So this is like both a physical and virtual meeting point where the people of Kirina, businesses, builders, constructors, different kind of developers to meet within the actual projects, the actual things that are going to be the new city centre when they are going to be built and the new companies and whatever. So for instance, we imagine that here is the assembly hall for the new houses. This is where they're going to be built and you can visit and see your new house be built and we can also reuse a lot of the old building materials as the houses are being torn down. And this is both an environmental thing but most of all an emotional thing. You can bring the windows and the beautiful door or an old fireplace or something from your old house and put it in the new and together that would be a richer thing in the future. And then the third thing that we thought of was a Kirina biennale. And this is about talking about your experience and kind of gathering up all the people of Kirina and they can share with the world what is happening to the city and how they're dealing with it. They can invite other cities that are in the same situation or just other people that are interested and they can also talk about the next step. So this was like the third thing that we thought would be important. And all these three things, the dialogue, the portal and the biennale has to do with making the movement of the city centre a collective experience for all the people of Kirina. So it's something that happens to everyone and not just the individuals that are affected at each time of this long process. And the third is the new ideal city. And the reason why we talk about ideal city here is when the existing city centre was created it was actually considered an ideal city. It was very much studied and copied. And it was also the way one of the main things was how it's situated and on this kind of south slope and how it interacts with the climate. It kind of protects from the northern winds and taking the sun and the views of the south. But that is what the situation and the new situation with the new city centre is moving. It has another climate and we are in another time and we need new principles for how we design this new part of the city. And what we wanted to do, of course, was to take this when we talked about to the people of Kirina what they thought was important or what they loved about the city, this kind of combination of this urban density and the social life of the city. And then very closely the big landscape and the open landscape that was this combination of this contrast is what they love about the city. And we wanted that to be there also in the future when the city kind of grows eastward. So this is the structure for the new city as it moves along and it kind of develops along this existing main road. And we try to put as much density and happenings around this core of the city. So this is where as much people as possible are living and working and where they meet and interact. So this is going to be kind of the heart of the city. But then just a couple of blocks out, the city stops in a very sharp edge of the city and you have the landscape. So that's going to be kind of the character of the city. This kind of really quick movement from very dense urbanism to kind of end of the city. And this is then an image of the new city square of Kirina with the new train station, the new city hall. And this is along this kind of main street with the cableway connecting the station to the mine and to the airport. And then just a couple of blocks away, this is the situation where the city kind of builds a front and looks out into the landscape and also invites people into the city. So with these three strategies, we want the kind of aim of working like this is to gather all these different things that need to be happening simultaneously and all these different processes that is moving a city to kind of still have some kind of moving in the same kind of direction or something they can rally around. And they're not just, they don't just handle physical structure but also all the social structures and other things as well. So we can talk about connections and density and dialogue and process and economy and ecology with the same kind of three important strategies. And then the brief of the competition was actually just to look 20 years ahead. And so we did that as well. So this is maybe what Kirina could look like in 20 years. Some of the new kind of urban nodes have been established. But we really, really felt the need to go further. So we wanted to go to the year 21-13. So this is what we imagine it could be if you kind of fly over it in 100 years. They're just getting ready for the 50th Biennale. And the city is now going to develop into a self-sufficient city. And it's like a key city in the Berndt region. The mine is emptied or the old mine is empty. It's been transformed into an astral park and a kind of historical heritage. And the deformations that are closest to the mine has now settled so the rangers can come back and walk in their old tracks again. And, yeah, so we think this could be really, like it's still a city that is really urban but still very well connected to the landscape around it. And just to sum up, why do we need to plan 100 years ahead? It's a bit silly, maybe. And the reason is, of course, as I said in urban planning, we need long timelines. We need to plan on lots of things that we propose. They take a long time to plan. They take a long time to build. There are big political decisions. There are lots of economical things. There are expensive things to do. So we usually need to start planning in them 20 years ahead or something for them to actually be there when we need them. And that's the human aspect of the people living in Kiruna right now to feel. Now in 2013 to feel that in their perspective and the perspective of their children, Kiruna is going to be there forever. And that's important. Thank you.


All right here, so I get this question all the time like What do you do when people are quitting on their journey or they don't want to can sit continue on their journey? most common question I probably one of the most common questions I get and You know, I just did it live with somebody. I'm like, it's a spider. I gotta do another one So I'm gonna do this live on not giving up like and it's funny because when you think about it it's probably the single hardest thing that people have to go through is Their own willingness to keep moving forward Because it's easy just to stop like when people run a health journey, they're going to lose weight And they're not losing weight fast enough. What happens is they stop and Inevitably they like they searched for 20 30 40 things the reality is what they started with was probably the closest thing to get Them going it's usually that simple and it's just to be business. It could be anything, right? It's like, you know, you start Things are always hard I was talking about like, you know, even you got to feel like LeBron James LeBron James is going through it right now The end of his career. He's the best in the world one of the best ever basketball players But yet he's going through this do I give up or do I keep pushing through and then there's a time where you have to retire? Transition life and that's a whole nother topic, but let's talk about health journey really quick So people that are going through a health journey. Maybe they're not health. They're not well They're maybe they're overweight. Maybe they're not fit And they start the gym they get New Year's resolution come up They start the gym and at some point it's gonna get really hard It's gonna be uncomfortable and the question is is what why do some people move forward some down the lady that I just interviewed Jen? If you guys know Jen Jen man, she's doing well. She's down 70 pounds, but she started Five years ago.  That's really what it was. That's all it was and Because the now she'll drink the flavor right doesn't really care because she's committed to changing her life and Two years ago she started again. She started over three years after starting. She started again, but why did she not quit this time? Does it make sense like what what about this time was different and It's either the pain was big enough or her desire to change her life was greater Or she was looking forward to something in the future and it's just really interesting. Hey, Jen I'm talking about you. You got me all inspired about this Give me enough thing. I had to just come on and do my life on it But you know, we hear these stories from history all the time like the light at the end of the tunnel Right, it's the darkest before the dawn. Is that is that how the statement goes? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong It's always the darkest before the dawn and Or the grass isn't the one that that my brain works with is like if you have a this is the earth This is dirt earth piece. This is the seed of grass grass is underneath the earth And right before it punctures through the earth, right? You're right before it punctures through the earth is when it's the hardest things are the hardest So it's that moment right there when you can just give up Or if you break through Everything can change right the whole world open and I was I'm a Jen and right now her whole world is changing and what's interesting for me is I get to see this and then I Know that there's so much more she has to see now And she still it's all new it's like a newborn baby You're kind of like oh look at that look at that look at that go to the Disney World for the first time You're just like oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is amazing. It's the first time you've ever seen it Now if you go there a hundred times, it's kind of like is Yeah, right so she's in this new world right and so we're always trying to break through to a new concept If you become the greatest basketball player of all time or one of them and then you retire You have to break through again. It doesn't change. It's still there Now it may be it comes a muscle and our CEO Brian Underwood talked about this a lot You have to build the muscle of the breakthrough that it is going to be a little challenging And if you can find a way to embrace that challenge you can life can forever change But it's just interesting because it's like at the end of the day What keeps you from quitting and giving up and I don't I don't have an answer at all if you guys have any answers Tell me because it's easy to say. I think I said this in my one of my writings I said it's easy to say it the words don't give up or one of the easiest things to say But yet one of the two most challenging things for you to do and they don't know and what happens when people give up Is it you you justify it in yourself? Like you find a way to? Convince yourself that that's what you're gonna do and that makes any sense Like there's a reason behind it and I have a few situations in my life where I would say I quit or gave up I hate using the word quit But in essence maybe I did it's interesting because I don't know because it's like part of me It's like I I I did but I didn't like so I was in a recon unit in my very first evaluation that I did I actually was in the treading water and I could do it but for whatever reason I was panicking I was literally drowning myself. I was like I couldn't stable. We had to trip water for 30 minutes Which isn't that big a deal. We had our boots on and our clothes on but still not that big of a deal Yes, I'd already been up for five hours. Yes, I'd already ran three miles into my pull-ups in my other all my other tests Yes, we had a got hazed and yes, we had to do a lot of other stuff But I called I'm like and I went and touched the side of the pool and I was out I was done I gave up now interesting enough. I went back and did it again. I got through right and so I didn't quit I guess but I gave up in that moment and it's an interesting thing because I know I could do it Like that's the thing is that I knew that I could get through like anything that starts a journey You know, you can do it but then there's something that stops you but after I quit or gave up I constantly was like, you know, the boots and I Constantly in my head with trying to justify why I did it so that I made myself feel better, right? So I didn't go crazy. I didn't want to go crazy. So it's just really kind of an interesting journey and so yeah, it's it's a If you have the secret to not giving up and keep persevering forward what I can't tell you there's a muscle in there what I can tell you that Something to do with you, maybe what kid thing my wife and I we were up really late last night Get your heads out of the gutter We're just discussing we've been doing these late night talks and it's good I really enjoy it. Although it gets really good. You get really late But we were talking about like our kids in this whole same concept like what's what's worse And that's not the right way to word things but what's worse Making things really fun and easy for your kids without challenging them or holding them to a high-stand and then me not working you as much Maybe then having some just because we have some friends that you know Their parents really are hard on them were hard on them But they're all like extremely successful like like they and they have good lives But yet what's the trade-off like right if their parents would have maybe not been that way and maybe there's something in the middle I don't know we're working on that but it was just interesting You know teaching Innately inside of us, right? Do we have a tendency to not like does it different is a personality trait? I don't know. I'm just it's all fascinating to me. Why do people give up? Why are people starting our product and then stop me when you know It's the number one supplement in the history of the world and this is my quote, but the science is just there It's it's I'm pretty well qualified to make that statement It's I mean, we're literally I'm talking with Outer space like NASA former chairman of NASA. I'm talking about like going to outer space and Mars trips in ketones And you know somebody's like I didn't lose five pounds on the product Like it has been tested as the number one performance product ever Performance that means for anybody not not just athletes anybody to perform better. Like it's pretty magical, right? What we have is is Remarkably magical. So it's not the product, right? But people will sometimes say that like I didn't like the flavor or oh, I you know It messed my GI track had to adjust and I didn't like that. So they stop on changing their life forever Even though that it's all there for them. And so it's just a real interesting Concepts and so I wish I had a better answer what I can tell you though After eight years of doing this and it been in the coaching world for 20 plus years is that Everybody comes back People start and stop and that's just something I had to get used to as a coach because you just like you hide Somebody and here's the funny thing is is most of the time when people started with me and they quit and they came back They felt guilty. They gave up on me. I Thought it was interesting, right? It wasn't about me But meaning like they committed to working with me to get changed alive.  However, you don't quit You don't really fail unless you fully quit I guess so maybe they gave up but then when they came back They always felt like man, I'm so sorry. I let you down. I'm sorry that I wasn't fully committed You know, I was I'm like, why would you be why you apologize to me? Like apologize to yourself, but don't do it again next time And so, you know, we have a kind of a kind of a rule It's like if you if if two times it happens then it's you you need to change you, right? Like there's no evidence to suggest that it won't happen again That makes any sense So what's changing in you and and this is something I asked myself my wife and I came up with this really cool thing That's another story, but a really cool agreement because I as a as a practitioner Clients would come to me with the same problem sometimes and I'm like I already addressed that and she goes It's not them. It's how you deliver the message and I was like Because it was the problem was me not them, right? It was easy for me to blame them, but it wasn't I was giving them the solution But they were receiving the solution if that makes any sense and I kept blaming them for it She goes well Why don't you look within change the way you deliver it and see what happens and I did that and it's remarkable How much better they got so big anyway? So going I have no idea where this is going, but if you guys have any advice I'm not giving up What I'm gonna tell you is this is that we all go through Challenges like people will look at my life and go my god It must be nice having this so bad or this or that I mean I got struggles like I'm just telling you We have we have things that make things hard, you know, like you set a goal and you want to go achieve it It's sometimes easier just to stay in bed. It truly is And it doesn't have to be work, but you have to stay focused excited You have to know that it might get challenging don't expect it to get challenging don't expect it to be hard That's a buddy of mine mess that one up We always say that the person has the most success the person that overcomes the most problems So he started looking for problems don't look for problems. They'll find like I don't even like to use the word problems, but complications Learning experiences we're gonna are gonna find you right as soon as you go into a new if you go and if you've never been to Dubai And you travel to Dubai you're going to find situations that you've never been in before So you have to overcome that like that's an easy thing to kind of understand Right you have to overcome that experience before but once you do it a few times It's easy. So the person that has the greatest success is the one that puts themselves in environments to overcome more things They're getting uncomfortable to grow. They're expanding their capabilities of accomplishment, right? And that that builds strength and momentum to get better And that's why I give Janet Jen a big shout out because you know, they're going she never did alive before I met her She'd never traveled much ever I don't know she'd have been on an airplane the first time she got an airplane She definitely never traveled alone and now she just got her passport Right, and now she's been on multiple trips travel alone done. I mean doing all these crazy amazing things and To me that's super super remarkable because she's she doesn't realize how much stronger. She's becoming she probably does But she also may not see yet how much she's changing the people around her because she's willing to go through and Make it even though it seems hard or complicated. She's building a muscle making things easy, you know, so What's up Michael a little UK in the house Way to go Jen. Yeah, I super excited big shout out to miss Norma. No, I need to do our live Maybe we'll schedule that this week next week. I don't know when we should do that, but if you guys Ever want to you know, I just I It's interesting like why do some people give up one people simple don't I I don't know It's just one of those things. I don't know like it's easier It's easier to not do it than it is to do it probably But you also have to live with the fact that you never did it and I don't know if that's easier That makes any sense. That might be a good quote. I don't know it's easier to not do it than to do it sometimes when it's hard, but you also have to live with the fact that you never did it and You know the the I guess living with regret probably one of the most torturous things Maybe that is the definition of hell. Maybe maybe maybe that's that had to be it, right? that the the closest thing that we could ever in this planet, you know in this earth to have is the regret of what it could have been and I Couldn't imagine. I mean that's that may be it right the regret. I mean I've watched my I've watched people pass on I'm not gonna give details, but I've watched people pass on to this planet into another you know another world and In their eyes you saw the regret you saw the the fear and the scarcity and It's the worst feeling in the world ever see right watching somebody pass that didn't That regretted a lot of choices that they made Couldn't imagine, you know, I just couldn't imagine that that's what I'd go out and maybe that's that that's the thing Is maybe that's the but that's a negative thing I hate they put a negative light content on it, but that's when I saw that I just made me realize is that I like I owe it To not I don't want that's that's my hell is to regret something. So the other way I looked at it was We went to Germany and so I told Jen the story went to Germany and we actually went to the house Well, my my wife's great great great great. I don't know how many greats it is But many generations go the house they left to come from Germany to America So there's three brothers. They walked out of the house to never go home again And I and I was telling her we were sitting down having coffee after we were at this house And we use it was kind of a scavenger hunt to find out her like it's something I'm passionate about this finding our ancestral lines But I don't want I don't want to just care where they come from. I want to go see where they came from I want to go and like actually go there and Wonder why did they leave this beautiful place to go to southern Minnesota like that seems kind of a place to stop I've another story about that but I Go we kind of owe it to those guys for committing this like think about that think about leaving your house You never go back think about the risk the either how bad it was there or how exciting it was here It's like there's one or there's a reason to go one way or the other right and I was like We kind of owe it to those three brothers and really the whole family right because not just only did the brothers leave it The parents had to let me like go like we'll never see you again We'll probably never see you again But leave this leave this house to never be seen again by us So that you can create more for the future of our family in the next generations I go we kind of owe it to them to give it her all right We kind of owe it like if they're willing to do that What are you willing to go through right and this is how I think I know I'm maybe maybe weird maybe not But like when things are tough you kind of like how tough was it for them? I have a friend of mine his mom literally smuggled them into America They got caught at the border. She didn't speak English And then somehow she still was able to get through raised her her boys or kids in southern Or in Florida so that they could have a whole new life Well, guess what like that's like those that those boys work their butts off because mom did everything She could to give them the chance to have a whole different life. That's how bad things were there She was willing to go through all that and so as we're Wrapping up you're now not only able honoring the people of our past that helped us get to here But you're also creating The new benchmark of what people can create in our future So if you have parents if you have grandkids you have you have sisters and siblings or friends This is an opportunity for you to show them that they can do it too So don't ever give up. Just keep just keep going. Hey, guess what and and I promise you this is like taking a break Is not giving up taking a break sometimes might just be perspective. It might be hey, listen, you know what? It's one of the I love about plateaus if you ever read a book called mastery. It's actually really cool book Plateau doesn't have to be a negative thing too many people think about plateaus a negative thing a plateau is a way to gain perspective Establish a new normal and then build off it and so sometimes we need to maintain that sometimes you can't like people are trying to lose 200 pounds or 150 pounds well It might be the healthiest thing for you to lose 60 and stay there for two or three months So that you can gain better health to go for the rest that might be the best solution for you but what happens is people want to see always moving and When ends of happening is it may they change and then they start going backwards because they change the approach And it was already working the whole time. So plateaus aren't a bad thing It doesn't mean you're quitting or giving up what it means is that it might just be the right thing to do So that's that's tough to it's you might stay at the edge of the grass for a long time before you break through and that's a plateau Right, it's a plateau, but it had to be the right environment up above It was still winter time and because it was still winter time it didn't break through because you would have died Right if that makes it he says man this this grass analogy so good. So oh Steve what's up, man? I hope you're well I hope you're well. Hope you're well Anyway, guys, I got it. I got it. Go have a great day.  Just keep going New year around the corner and let's have some fun But have an awesome holiday Merry Christmas and happy holiday and happy New Year's. Cheers


The Indonesian Armed Forces and the US Indo-Pacific Command recently held an exercise focused on the operational level planning and execution of a combined military operation called Gema Bakti 2022. So we have mutual understanding and so we can collaborate and I hope this exercise will give the benefit for us and enhance our equal partnership between Indonesian Defense Force and the United States Armed Forces. This is the 10th iteration of Gema Bakti. This year's exercise was a staff exercise that focused on the military's role in support of defense-led operations building interoperability in the region. The primary goal of the exercise was to improve joint operational level planning in response to a regional crisis and enhance interoperability and professionalism of the nation's forces. For the Indonesians they have similar missions per se within National Guard. They have a military mission obviously but they're also serve as the the 9-on-1 for this country you know for humanitarian assistance and disaster response as well so it has that flexibility to from one scenario military operations to another that could be humanitarian assistance. The Hawaiian National Guard continued its support of Gema Bakti through the state partnership program. The Hawaiian National Guard brings a broad spectrum of experience forged over the past few years and having built J-staffs to respond to volcanic eruptions floods and the COVID-19 pandemic. So far it's been great they do a lot of things similar to the way us does it and it's a little bit maybe like outdated doctrine that we use so getting that perspective and having that like baseline understanding and then kind of building on it with the new the new processes and procedures that we're using has been has been really great. One of the key differences in this year's Gema Bakti was the implementation of the TNI's Kogob Wilhelm structure in the exercise. The Kogob Wilhelm is analogous to the U.S. forces combatant commands. It's different because you got the Kogob Wilhelm involved in Gema Bakti. In the past Gema Bakti has been an exercise that involved U.S. military and the TNI from Indepakam and the TNI and it always been kind of joint where you had Army, Air Force, Navy Marines on both sides involved in Gema Bakti. But it was more of a general training of the MNCC, the Multinational Coordination Center through the use of the MNF SOP which is the multinational force standard operating procedures and the scenarios have changed a lot throughout Gema Bakti and this one is no different in this case. We have a fictitious island, a nation that is threatening some national security interests of Indonesia and we have the Kogob Wilhelm which is their regional joint commands to come up with a potential joint task force that could address some of the issues that the scenario is presenting here during the training. The TNI and Indepakam provided participants from each of their military components the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines along with representatives from non-governmental agencies. Gema Bakti also provides a personal and professional broadening opportunity for all of its participants. Just my interaction with the TNI has helped me develop as a leader. I think there are different approaches to different problems, to different types of people, to different organizations and I think my experience with the TNI has been a positive one. I think probably the most rewarding experience is learning a little bit about my warfighting function which is intelligence and then sharing what I know with them. But it's never been one way since I've been here. They've always either taught me something or I taught them something and it's never just been a one-way relationship. This is Master Sergeant Andrew Lee Jackson reporting with the Hawaii National Guard.


So the shortest day came and the year ended and everywhere down the centuries of the snow white world came people Dancing singing to welcome back the light They lighted candles in the winter trees They hung their homes with evergreen They burned beseeching fires all night long to keep the year alive When the new day's sunshine blazed awake they shouted reveling Through all at cross the centuries you can hear them echoing behind us listen All the long echoes sing the same delight This shortest day and longest night has promised awakens in the sleeping land They carol feast give thanks and hope for peace And so do we here now this year and every year welcome you all and What a joy to welcome you to our celebration of winter solstice We gather on this night in the early darkness and refreshing cold of winter to be together in the dark to appreciate the restfulness and the peace that comes in these dark times and Also to recognize that this is the point when the light is reborn Gathered here in darkness. We draw a circle of community and Recognize that the darkness is where we hold seeds of hopes and dreams to come Round and round the earth is turning turning always round till morning and from morning round tonight in the northern hemisphere the Sun is peaking lower in the sky and Setting sooner each night grows longer as we await the longest night of the year the winter solstice we celebrate the return of hope to our land and Our planet experiences the first slow turn toward greater daylight Soon we will welcome the return of the Sun and the coming of springtime Many religions have a Sun child born this time of year a child who lights the way back to spring back to life But it's not just children newly born who carry the light and give renewed hope for the world each and every one of us carries the light as We gather this evening. May you hold in your heart these questions How do you carry the light? How will you carry the flame of hope love and justice with you into this new year? How will you carry the light if you will rise now and join us in calling in The spirits please turn to the brightening east Spirit of the east home of the rising Sun. We welcome you into our circle this night We feel the embrace of spring spring winds stirring our minds We hear the soft rustle of air through leaves. We feel life renewing itself again and again Here knowledge is born on light swift wings We kindle this fire today in the east and invoke the spirit of air Flow within us wind of life Let there be truth and knowledge Spirit of the air be with us tonight Please turn to the blazing south Spirit of the south spirit of the noonday sun we welcome you into our circle this night We feel the blast of summer wind igniting passion We hear the sharp crackle of dancing flames Here transformation rains here cleansing fires temper and renew The Sun at the noon of his majesty illuminates the world and ignites the spark of life within us all We kindle this fire today in the south and invoke the spirit of fire Flow within us. Oh flame of life. Let there be passion and inspiration Spirit of fire be with us tonight. Please turn to the watery west spirit of the west Spirit of failing light of the setting sun We feel the cares of autumn wind awakening dreams. We hear the ebbing and flowing of the sea Here intuition rains Here emotion flickers in the depths of the dark springs The well fills with the waters of the bosom of the earth the cup overflows with deep wisdom We kindle this fire today in the west and invoke the spirit of water Flow within us. Oh well of life Let there be wisdom and intuition spirits of the water Be with us tonight Please turn to the frozen north Spirit of the north spirit of the star strewn midnight sky We feel the bite of winter wind chilling heart and bone We hear the crunch of snow beneath our feet Here winter grasps the land here darkness rains Dreams are born and nurtured the seeds of peace are sown the visions of a new world are nourished We kindle this fire today in the north and invoke the spirit of earth Grow within us. Oh tree of life. Let there be strength and courage spirits of the earth be with us tonight and now we face again the front of the sanctuary As we light our chalice Symbolizing our center Please join together in the words printed on the screen Welcome the night the longest night has come once more The sun has set and darkness fallen The trees are there the earth asleep and the sky are cold and black Yet tonight we rejoice in this longest night Embracing the darkness that involves us We welcome the night and all that it holds as the light of the stars shines down Please be seated night is the solstice badger in the very beginning when the world was young It was always summer The sun walked unhurriedly across the sky in joy each day But there came a time when his head grew heavy His light was weaker and all the first creatures wondered and worried One evening as he was descending beneath the earth and the moon was rising She called to him across the gulfs of the sky My brother you seem sad. What is wrong? Oh? Sister I am so lonely Everything on earth down to the little fieldmouth has a companion Even you have the stars But I am alone he sighed. Oh I see she said I will spread the word dear brother and we will find you a friend The moon whispers to the sea each night and the sea listens on this night She told it what the sun had said The sea told the fishes and the fishes told the birds the sun is lonely Soon all the creatures of the air had heard the news and they gathered to discuss the matter What could be simpler called the first crow ruffling her pure white feathers? I Myself will fly to the sun and keep him company So it was that in the morning as the sun began his journey He saw a tiny white speck flying toward him It grew bigger as it approached and the Sun thought joyfully someone is coming to see me It took crow a long time to reach him But she was as strong as she was stubborn and Finally a lighted breathless on the Sun's strong arm. I Am here to accompany you. She gasped bowing respectfully But the Sun was dismayed for her feathers were blackening as he watched I Thank you for your courage and your compassion little grandmother But I fear that if you stay with me you will soon burn up all together Please go back home Crow her last white feathers frizzling away was hurting too much to speak She nodded and left The next day the hummingbird declared that he would try Things that move quickly don't burn he said and the Sun must have a companion So he shot up into the sky like a comet up and up, but it was much farther than he had thought He wasn't quite halfway there when his tiny breast went crimson with effort, and he fell exhausted back to earth after him Eagle made the attempt and then Osprey and Albatross and even little sparrow All the birds tried and failed The Sun grew more and more dismal Far down under the surface of the earth. There is a river that flows from west to east Carrying anyone bold enough to lie in its swift current It runs from horizon to horizon and both the Sun and the moon rest in its waters Whenever they aren't in the sky Near this east flowing river through a cave and to the left lived the very first badger His tunnels went everywhere and he loved the bright jewels he found in the darkness He ate well on root vegetables mushrooms and subterranean berries His home was a giant geode whose walls glittered and sparkled in his solitude He was content One night he heard someone crying and quickly followed the sound down one of his tunnels to the banks of the River East flowing There he found the Sun who had climbed out of the water for a while so he could weep where no one would see him What is wrong badger asked gently The Sun startled jumped to his feet a new creature.  He said You will not burn me come to my home and have some tea and Smiling through his tears the Sun did They spoke of many things together as Kindred spirits do At length the Sun took his leave for it was nearly time for morning That day he rose so clear and bright all things living on the earth knew That he must have found a friend and they were happy That night he went straight to Badger's house where his own light was refracted and beautified by the crystal wall And they continued their talks and their stories Badger loved to hear of the doings of those things he called The surface peoples whom he had never seen So the Sun obligingly told him tales of turtle and otter of horse and tree and bird and vine So vividly that Badger could close his eyes and see them The Sun was so engrossed in storytelling Badger had to remind him when it was past time for him to leave The next night it was Badger's turn to speak He told of the heartbeat of the mother that you can only hear with your bones and of the fire Sprites that dance in the glowing molten places His adventures among mountains roots in underground geysers and down echoing pitch black natural stone wells Had to be recounted He told of the shallow tunnels from which he could listen to the surface if not see it and they both Forgot the time and the Sun left even later than before Things went on this way for six full moons The Sun would rise a little later every day and walk a little faster across the sky He was so preoccupied with thinking over things his friend had said Or laughing over a joke they had shared that he didn't notice that the world below was changing The leaves were falling the winds were bitter and the very first snow began to fall The trees took it patiently because trees always do But all the creatures were miserable Came a day when the Sun fairly sprinted through the sky for he remembered a story He hadn't told Badger yet and he couldn't wait to tell it But when he reached the geode house his friend was standing in the doorway looking sad Come with me said Badger and walked away The Sun Hesitated before running to catch up after all in all this time. He had never gone into the dark places far from the river Badger led him through many twisting branching tunnels until he was quite lost Now my friend Listen he whispered and the Sun realized they were in a shallow tunnel He listened and heard the sigh of the wind and creaking branches He heard sounds of shivering and sneezing But no bird song and no scampering feet You have spent too much time with me Badger said gently The world misses you The Sun was filled with remorse over his thoughtlessness He would have rushed to the sky and stayed there for weeks But again his prudent friend stopped him Hasty repairs make weak burrows. He said We must act wisely now. So we must consult The wisest of all things You know the world and I do not Who should we ask for guidance? The Sun pondered deeply for a moment his brow furrowed and then said The trees are the oldest things on earth And pine is the eldest of the trees I think she will know what I must do But she may be angry with me I will go to her Badger said and I will take gifts to soothe her anger Together they returned to Badger's home where they filled a sack with all the most glorious gems he had collected And enough food for a mighty feast Wait here for me he told the Sun Then for the first time torch in paw he tunneled to the surface Pine stood in a glade in the forest She was blanketed with snow, but her dignity and foliage were unchanged by the changing weather Her spreading boughs sheltered a great many first creatures She had hatched from her cone long before the first sunrise and had seen all things born of nothing So she was not easily surprised Thus it was that when Badger scrabbled to the surface before her she greeted him calmly Hello small animal who befriends the Sun she said And her deep voice caused the ground to quiver Welcome He bowed low before her and said my friend wishes to undo the harm he unwittingly caused If he went back to his old ways would the world be healed? If he brought the warm back tomorrow Pine said the world would drown in snowmelt And all would be chaos There was a short silence while the wind howled Eventually Badger spoke again Wise one I have brought gifts for you. Will you accept them with our apologies and tell me what advice to give my only friend He opened his sack to reveal foods beyond count and jewels without price Pine looked at them thoughtfully A generous gift she told him and one I have no use for Give them to the creatures who have all suffered more than I as for the solution. It is simple The Sun must regain his old habits as gradually as he lost them All good things in this world happen slowly seeds and eggs and seasons alike Badger bowed deeply in thanks and turned to go You will miss him Her voice deep as a drumbeat forestalled any lie Badger nodded and tears filled his eyes You need not The voice of the pine became so resonant. It seemed to come from everywhere at once My roots are on great mother's pulse and she speaks now through me When seven cycles of the moon have passed the days will be as long as ever But then your visits together may grow again After 13 moons the pattern will begin anew For the sun must have a companion And the badger must be rewarded for his selflessness and the mother has decided to welcome the dark times and call them winter All things alive held their breath in a moment of awe Badger joyfully cried so moat it be And on this night of every year I promise to come to the surface and give gifts to all the small beasts Gifts of thanks and blessing and love and a token of the sun's return He held his torch up high and sang here take it call them Pine bent forward and grasped the light when she straightened it could be seen held firmly in her top most twigs Far and near the creatures of the forest saw it flickering in the dark and began to draw closer As they arrived one by one they saw that badger had been busy Pine was covered in jewels that shimmered and sent rainbows dancing all over the glade On the ground was spread a banquet enough for everyone and more Badger watched the glorious feast begin Well satisfied then tunneled back home as fast as he could to tell the sun the good news And the next morning began a little earlier As it was then when the world was young So it is today The seasons turn on the linchpin of friendship Each day the sun watches the world and everything in it For he is collecting stories to tell badger Their visits together grow longer every night for half a year At the darkest times we still honor the wise old pine by hanging jewels and lights in her branches And on the longest night of all Badger still comes to the surface bearing gifts He gives them to all the small creatures who bear patiently the cold and the darkness Knowing that even the winter will forever be joyful As long as the solstice badger keeps his promise And he always will The story is told that in the beginning there were two gods who were brothers And like many brothers they struggled with each other for ascendance and power One brother was a king of the forces of life light and warmth He were a crown made of green oak branches And brought with him all growth and vitality fertility and abundance He was called the oak king His brother were the king of the forces of death cold and darkness He were a crown made of the prickly holly branches and brought with him all withering And decay stillness and hibernation He was called the holly king The brothers were identical in strength and so year after year the same pattern was repeated Each year the oak king would grow strong and mighty and during his time of dominance the light would gradually increase Bringing with it warmth and abundance But each year at the height of his power he would be thrown down by the holly king And in the wake of holly king's victory the light would gradually wane And as it did cold would come and the land would go dormant For at the height of the holly king's power he would be challenged again by the oak king and would fall And that cycle would repeat again and again and again Alone the brothers were equals But soon there came a race of beings known as people The people watched this cycle and pretty soon they began to take sides The people loved the light and warmth And they feared the darkness and cold And so each year they would celebrate the victory of the oak king But they would mourn the victory of the holly king When the two struggled with each other the people would lend the strength of their voices and their bodies Their minds and their spirits to the oak king But the holly king was without their support And so time went by Over time the people's adoration of warmth and light only grew And so they began to invent ever newer ways to find light in the darkness And warmth in the cold And finally if they wished They could spend all of their time in the light that they had created And they could be warm all year round But their efforts to stay always in the light and the warmth were not without consequences Generations passed and generations again And the people did not at first notice the shifts in that balance But finally they could ignore it no longer The people began to notice that darkness was disappearing from the land Driven out by millions of lights that people had created Animals birds plants even people began to suffer the effects of light unbalanced by darkness But it was not just the darkness that was disappearing cold began to flee too The whole world began to get warmer Summer became summer and it sooner and lasted longer Ice had been frozen far longer than the longest memory of the oldest person in the land began to melt Migrating birds and animals began to be confused about when to begin the migration Plants found themselves rooted in climates that no longer supplied their needs The air was changing And the winds that had brought rain and taken it away and began to flow in unexpected directions Causing drought here and flood there The people began to see that their support of warmth and light Over cold and darkness had altered the balance of the whole world They began slowly One at a time to realize that the holly king was dying And for the first time this thought filled them with fear What would happen if the balance continued to be destroyed? Could they even survive in a world without the holly king?  I would like to tell you a story now It comes from the Shinto tradition of Japan In the Shinto cosmology the greatest god is named Amaterasu She is the goddess of the sun And in this story We got to remember that in addition to being the goddess of the sun she has a little brother Named Susanoo who is the god of thunder I don't know if any of you have had a little sibling before Or been a little sibling But sometimes you know you really want The older sibling's attention, right? And that was the case with Susanoo He just wanted his sister's attention But sometimes we let that desire Caused us to do some things we shouldn't do So in trying to get his older sister Amaterasu's attention He ruined her garden just just made a complete mess of it But she did not She did not rebuke him. She did not tell him he did something wrong.  Now, please don't try this at home because I do not want to be held responsible For your horse throwing problems. All right, so he picked up a horse and he threw it through the window And it smashed her loom She was like fine So she went to a cave in the mountains And she rolled a boulder in front of the mouth of the cave so heavy that no one else could move it And she hid herself away from the world The problem is of course, she's not just Susano owes little big big sister. She's also the sun. So the sun Was hidden away from the world and it got very dark and it was night all the time and we need nights to live But if it goes on too long, it's not good for plants and animals and other living things So all of the gods got together they realized this was a big problem And they went to where the cave was but like I said, no one else was strong enough to move that boulder So first they got all the roosters in all the world And they put them all right outside of her cave And they all said But she didn't come out of the cave So They went and got an evergreen tree They uprooted it. They put it right in front of the cave mouth They decorated the branches with colored beads And long lines of paper And they put a great big mirror up in the top branches so it could collect all the light You know, there's still some light in the night sky even when it's dark and it would shine out From the tree and they called in the cave and said they had something really beautiful and interesting to show Amaterasu She didn't come out Now maybe like me you're like, why is there a christmas tree in the middle of this japanese story? But here's what I found out. I went and looked it up and this story is at least three times as old as the earliest ancestors of the christmas tree So no matter what if you think there's a christmas tree in the middle of the japanese story Then you've also got a shinto shrine at home So finally the other gods are basically about ready to give up, but there was one goddess left Ame no uzume who hadn't figured out how she could contribute to the effort yet And she was just thinking about What could she do to get Amaterasu to come out of the cave and she just She just started dancing You know just like really not not like the nervous kind of dancing like like the kind of dancing where you have absolutely no sense of Propriety or expectation that anyone's going to take you just like not caring You're just really getting down right and she was she was dancing like this and Everybody started to laugh They were just really just couldn't help laughing at what she was doing And they laughed so hard that Amaterasu had to peek out from behind the boulder and see what was going on out there And she saw all these chickens first of all And she saw this decorated tree the light from her face was shining back into her eyes from the mirror She saw her little brother with that look on your face you get When you you really ready to apologize And she saw Ame no uzume just getting down And she laughed And the sun came out Because she did i'm glad he told that story and not me I just want to make it clear to everybody that is never going to happen And I appreciate him more now than I ever have I invite you now into a time of giving and receiving where we give freely and generously to this offering Which sustains our community here And this week as in all of our holiday services Provides funding for just danes eviction prevention program Sometimes the difference between a family being out on the street or staying in their home Can be just a little bit of help And so with your help just dain and joining forces for families Are helping people prevent eviction and homelessness So you'll see on the screen that you can donate directly from our website f us madison dot org You will see our text to give information there as well And we thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life we create together Come together to join in this celebration of darkness and light We have come together out of the cold to fill this place with song and stories Let us now join together in filling this sacred space with light and wishes Using our own energy our power our hope and goodwill To encourage the sun to return to us once again We invite you to think about a wish that you would have for our world For your own life For those you love In this season of wishes What do you wish If you had but one wish what would it be? Take your time thinking about it So much is at stake And end to all suffering And end to all violence A solution to poverty and all its ills Would you wish for love For forgiveness and healing Would you wish the world joy Or the wisdom to change Would you wish to understand everything or to know less than you do Take your time thinking about it so much is at stake for a wish is a thought And a thought is an idea An idea leads to commitment And a commitment cries out for action A wish can be a dangerous thing Something daring And it need not be witnessed by the stars to come true Let us be glad that we are not given just one wish in our lives, but many Let us be grateful not for wishful thinking but for The discipline of thoughtful wishing That can lead to change What would your wish be Here in the darkness of our sacred space let us feel the warmth of our community Knowing we are not alone For in the quiet shadow is the glow of life within all Let us know in the darkness the dreams within all and the gifts each one of us bears We are each a small flame A diminutive light and it is a wondrous gift To see another's glow Let us be in awe at this moment as we bring our wishes together And our light envelops this room as our hopes for peace and goodwill Fill this night So as we sing our winter solstice chant we invite you to come forward Bringing your wishes lighting your solstice candles And helping us fill this room with light and love and hope once again Spirit of winter rest Help us to enjoy your peace Remind us to pause during this season Remind us to wish to hope to dream Grant us awareness Keep our gratitude fresh each day May the songs in our hearts be blessings and insights To us and to others And may compassion always shine forth From the depths of our hearts spirits who joined us in our circle May we release them now spirit of the north Power we thank you for your gifts of growth and nurturing We ask for your blessing on this solstice night spirit of the north Hail and farewell spirit of the west Power of water We thank you for your gifts of cleansing and healing We ask for your blessing on this solstice night spirit of the west Hail and farewell spirit of the south power of fire We thank you for your gifts of passion and transformation We ask for your blessing on this solstice night spirit of the south Hail and farewell spirit of the east power of air We thank you for your gifts of clarity and inspiration We ask for your blessing on this solstice night spirit of the east Hail and farewell The circle is open but never broken Mary meet and Mary part and Mary meet again On this winter's night We wish you a season of love and light May you hear the dreams the hopes the shout within you Waiting to be reborn Blessed be