From the Heart . john wingfield

Tucson Tragedy

2011-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Snow fell silently as I awoke this morning. Beautiful white crystals like frozen tears falling from the sky. Wonder if angels in the heavens cry when tragic acts of senseless violence happen. I feel deeply saddened by the tragedy in Tucson over the weekend when a young man killed six innocents in attempt to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford. Our hearts are broken. Can they be broken wide open?

‘Let the preachers preach in their pulpits’ and politicians say what they may, and though this week will be full of speeches, articles, stories and expert explanations stemming from this slaughter, I’m afraid next week it will be a fading echo like a train whistle gone past. I’m afraid so because we have become so inured to violence; Columbine, Moses Lake, Blacksburg, Ft. Hood, Lakewood, drug cartels and local gangs and common thugs. Was Pogo right? We have found the enemy and the enemy is us!

The President has called for healing and for us to listen with empathy. I agree, this we can do. Healing, not only of the immediate tragedies but also healing of the fears and pains of the past that contribute to the attitudes, opinions, beliefs, atmospheric undercurrents that contribute to the destructive ways of our society and our world. This is a time for compassion and empathy for all of us.

But is there something we can do about it? Can we unlearn the ways of the world that are considered human nature, such as violence, greed, hate, rage and victimizing innocents and learn better ways of living, thinking and being? Can we unlearn the belief that it is normal and natural to strike out at others who are in our way or representing ideals or powers that seem to oppose us? Those are aspects of human weakness, ignorance, fear and pain. Why continue to justify and perpetuate them? We can see things differently.

Are we capable of having and holding seeming contradictions while not loosing our place? Didn’t Master Jesus say, “Love your enemies”? And did he not say, by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned? Can we learn ways of communicating our thoughts and feelings that are not destructive or damaging to ourselves or others. When will we ever learn?

And can we learn better and healthier ways to treat mentally ill people? They are our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They are part of us. Can we develop ways to include them in the compassionate circles of healing as well?

Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were two heroes of mine who brought about great change and advantages for people who were oppressed, misused and exploited while insisting on non-violence. They were both martyred for it. The powers that use violence as a means to their ends are very strong indeed; whether strictly business, religious, tribal or patriotic. Jesus was martyred for his life and teachings that threatened the powers that be.

But we don’t have to be. We can communicate our thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, beliefs, opinions and attitudes without hurting anyone else and without setting ourselves up to be hurt. One thing I have been working with for years is Nonviolent Communication, NVC developed by Marshall Rosenberg. Also A Season For Nonviolence is an international observance between January 30^th and April 4^th, the memorial anniversaries of Gandhi and King, to deepen nonviolence as a way of life.

What does this mean to us? Well, to me it means to not entertain thoughts or words, feelings or emotions that will hurt anyone, including myself. It means not saying or doing things that will hurt others. It means not adding energy to the insanity of the society in which we live or any culture, tribe, club or association which we identify with.

Now, when the sky seems to shut down and clouds are like curtains closing down with rain or snow, or depression or fear, anger or pain we can know there is a way through it. There are other choices and other ways we can choose than the old ways that we grew up with. Old attitudes of ‘well, that’s just the way it is’ can give way to new possibilities and better ways to say and listen to what is needed, what is wanted and what is important in our lives and our world.

2010-11-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

It is Thanksgiving and I am waxing nostalgic as we are snow bound at home. Sunny and cold out today with the winter wonderland outside glistening, good for a walk to remember. Perhaps you were with us…

It was Thanksgiving 1972. And I am borrowing (without permission so I guess that is stealing) from an essay written by Jane’s Dad, Larry Dillon, two days later. The ceremony was scheduled at dawn. As we drove in darkness through the forest of pines it was raining, hard for the Northwest, and it was chilly. Just to the north were the snow capped Olympic mountains overlooking vast areas of untouched forests – the last area in the nation that remains as it was when man first arrived. One could only think this is as pure and majestic and as calm as the world will ever be again and it is a good day for a marriage. Janie had told me when I questioned her about the early hour “Our friends will be there” and they were. The small church was filled and many were standing perhaps a hundred friends had come to join their celebration. The friends were kindred spirits, symbolic beards, long hair, beads, long dresses and the always present jeans. Twink (Jane’s sister) was there – she had come from London, hitched hiked from New York across the southern route through Texas, Arizona, New Mexico (that would be about Route 66) and finally for forty-eight straight hours up the west coast to arrive in Seattle at 4:00 am the day before – to be at “the wedding.” It had a strange magic. Both Jane and John wore long robes with hoods and could have been first century Christians. Twink had sent Joe (Jane’s brother) a similar robe from Morocco and he wore it as he lit the alter candles to initiate the ceremony. He liked that. Basically the ceremony was one that John and Jane had compiled and was extremely simple. John’s brother (Jim) sang the Lord’s Prayer, the marriage vows were read by a Methodist minister and communion of the congregation was performed. This consisted of the entire congregation standing, joining hands in a large irregular circle, rather difficult in this small church, and repeating certain spiritual requests at the direction of a female minister of (Millie Purdue) “Unity.” As it all ended, in a atmosphere of general spiritual awareness I felt the marriage had been celebrated in a manner certainly fitting the personalities of these two people, serene, spiritual and simple. I looked out the huge east window across the wet green farmland toward an invisible Mt. Rainier and the equally invisible sun and knew it had dawned as scheduled; because we believe in the sun even when it rains.

For the many friends who came I was delighted and celebrated and still celebrate their friendship and love. For the family and relatives that came I apologized, I don’t know how many times over the years for having our wedding at such an ungodly hour and on Thanksgiving day. But now, after looking at pictures in our album and reading and re-reading and then writing out these words from Larry I am warmed to the core and so happy we did what we did. And after all these years, who would have thunk…. that Jane would put up with all my zaniness and crazy ways, that we are still together. And you are together with us as well.

Now we are planning and scheming how we can cross country ski into town to a restaurant on the waterfront for dinner.

So much to be thankful for. Friends, Family, many adventures, mountains, hiking, sharing silence and so much more. I know this sounds hurried as I don’t have time to sit with it and re-read it over and over to smooth it out as I must get it off to you before Jane finds me out or I change my mind. But one thing I won’t change my mind about is how thankful I am for life, for love and for you in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving, John

August in New York

2010-10-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

New York. The Statue of Liberty rose above the grain elevator, out the west window as we visited our daughter Lianna & Billy and son Connor & Jenn in Brooklyn recently. Lady Liberty stood tall above the industrial park and commercial area of west Brooklyn with pulsing, throbbing energies of life, business and beneath 4^th Ave subways scream through the cacophony of it all. At the mouth of East River with ships, boats, barges, ferries, sailboats and cruise ships moving and resting all around her she beckons; bring me your poor, your weary and your broken hearted…. Reminding me of the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, which most people seem to forget these days:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is not for just a select few, nor for corporations but for the people, we the people of this Union.

Seems to me that the people who make the most noise and fuss about the Constitution these days know little of the context and the intention, to establish and insure a union based on freedom. And not on anger, limitation and exclusion. “Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty.”

New York has all that and more. In the streets, subways and stops of the boroughs surge people in all shapes, appearances and orientations. Of which Walt Whitman sang: “Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.” We rode the subways from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back many times, from downtown to uptown, from Union station to Harlem. Walking through Central Park we came upon a Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, was a delight. We found our way to the Met, MOMA and Brooklyn Museum for such excellent art, preserved and set for all to see.

We visited a new friend at St. Bartholomew’s Church, which stands in marble elegance beside the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. Yet they serve 600 homeless pilgrims a week and help countless others with clothing, education and guidance to find their way. A place of heart centered compassion that served as a triage center nine years ago in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedies. It serves the walking wounded today.

We walked the Highline, a former elevated train track turned delightful walk-way by friends with fine landscaped architecture and art installations from West Village to Chelsea. Across the Hudson we could see the New Jersey shore. At the Hudson’s mouth stood the Statue of Liberty still. We ate foods of many of the diverse and delicious cultures. We shared stories.

New York is people, people who go there to find their dreams, people who live there to dream their lives, people who end up there to live. For whatever reasons, there are people in a crazy crush at every turn, on every street, stoop and corner. And there is a spirit that is surprisingly friendly and alive. Haw ya doin’! And we have all come to look for America, as the song goes. And Walt Whitman sang on; “Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand and with voices I love call be promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face? Which fuses me into you now and pours my meaning into you?” Indeed Walt Whitman walked those shores and his spirit lingers there still.

And this morning, as I awoke in P.A., the full moon danced above the Olympic Mountains. Here is peace and here is beauty.

Peace, John

2010-09-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

China 2

2010-09-30T22:08:00.001-07:00

Echoes of China Part 2

It was a misty Sunday morning in May as we went to the Wall. North of Beijing, into the mountains, out beyond the flat basin where Beijing sits is the Mutianyu entrance to the Great Wall. The massive stonewall, after 2000 years of wall building, crawls along ridges for 2500 miles. This portion was built by Yongle the third Ming emperor, six hundred years ago. After climbing up and down along the Wall, Jane finds an inconspicuous place to sit and sketch while I enter a watchtower to play the flute. In the valley below a red hawk soars above the green forest, beneath the white misty sky. It is the same sky we all live beneath today.

Back in Beijing, dinner with Jing Jing’s family was delicious. Her step-father said something to me and seeing the empty-sky look on my face he said it again, only much slower with careful articulation of his Chinese words. This cracked us up; especially as Jeremy and Jing Jing, shared it with us, it was a hoot. How many times have people here in America spoken to foreigners who had no clue what was said, so the speaker repeats himself, speaking slower and louder? Being the foreigner in a restaurant in Beijing brought it all home.

We flew to Hangzhou, near Shanghai, took a bus to Tongziang City and pedicab to Wuzhen. Wuzhen is an ancient water town 1300 years old. The canals that run through the village provide a charming serenity with stone bridges and streets for visitors to walk, talk and relax. Shops allow crafts people to continue ancient arts of making fans, indigo print fabrics, shoes, wooden items, shadow puppets, water theater and a silk factory, which still demonstrates the process of making silk from cocoons to the looms for stunning silk items. A pagoda towers above the town, beside the Jinghang Grand Canal, the longest canal in the world. Nearby are a pavilion for Guan Yin and a Temple of Love.

A wild bus ride and taxi took us to the Hangzhou Xihu State Guesthouse on the banks of West Lake. This was a favorite get away for Mao, during his days as Imperial Ruler. In the morning we rode bicycles around the lake to the towering Leifeng Pagoda. Hangzhou was one of the eight capitals of China, around 893. Long ago a war-lord’s troops were storming the pagoda to capture it and the princess hiding inside. They tried to burn her out, but she turned into a white snake and chased them all away. I love legend and mythology. We went up to a mountainside tea plantation for delicious lunch and dined in an elegant place of peaceful beauty. To the other side of the mountain to Lingyin Temple, circa 326, with 340 carvings of Buddha in grottos along the“Peak Flying From Afar.” Incense flamed in caldrons between three halls leading up the mountain. Within the main hall sits the largest carved wooden gold-guilded statue of Buddha in China. As we entered the hall from the front, a procession of monks entered from the back, chanting sutras with percussion, incense, drums and gongs. A wonderful worship with the old Abbot leading prayers and even Kanzan and Jitoku walking about. Many people stood around the temples in reverent prayer. I found taxi and bus rides in south China to be great exercises in Zen meditation… being fully aware in the moment with no attachment to the outcome. It felt like being in a nascar race. Now and Zen.

Back in Beijing, after Starbucks Leo takes us to The Birds’ Nest, a tight-rope walker is on the high wire atop the Olympic Stadium. At the Temple of Heaven, a Taoist Temple, I offered prayers for friends back home. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is where the Emperor would offer prayers and sacrifices for the year to come on winter solstices, until 1914. In the Tiantan Park surrounding the temple grounds of heaven and earth, musicians played classical Chinese instruments. Among old hutongs, on narrow alleys that have been the hub of Bejing life for 700 years, we found an ink brush factory, tea shop with Jasmine, Chrysanthemum teas, open markets and a vibrant pulse of humanity. The last dinner, a party with Jing Jing’s father, a composer and professor who spoke no English (and did not speak to me slower) and Shauzing, an ink brush artist and family. Wonderful food and sharing the last night.

Free Tiger Returns to Mountain was a new show at the Pace Gallery in “798”, paintings of tigers (a power symbol for China), of ash and water. Under shade trees and along canals we saw groups of men playing mahjong and card games. Horns honking, bicycle bells ringing, children playing, nannies walking their charges, workers continuously working, destroying old hutongs and building more tall buildings. I fly away with feelings of connection and appreciation for the people of the Middle Kingdom and the ancient civilization of China with its art, artifacts and vibrant humanity. I could feel in the depth of meditation, walking along canals and sitting in café’s a true connection with the human spirit there. And a strong feeling of the spiritual renewal in and through it all. We are one.

Now we can concentrate and work on peace. Be peaceful. Practice peaceful ways of communicating and working things out.

Peace.

2010-09-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

China

2010-09-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Echoes of China Part I.

We flew around the Pacific Rim; over P.A., Vancouver Island and many other Canadian Islands, Alaska, Far East Russia, Sakhalin, Manchuria, mountains that resemble the Bad Lands, then farms, rivers and into Beijing. Met with open heart by our son we eased into the fourth ring. The sounds in the city, honking horns, construction and many millions of people join in a cacophony like a symphony tuning before a concert. The food we shared was marvelous, from the first night at a North Asian Fusion Restaurant featuring Max, a chef from New Orleans.

One of the eye opening places, to me, was the art district called “798”. It was a factory site for munitions, textiles and electric products, built in the 50’s with help from East German engineers and equipment. Now it is the home of art galleries, studios, shops, cafes and coffee shops. Beautiful creative use of space. Artists, curators and gallery owners and people just like us.

Went to the Palace Museum after lunch at Ho Hi along one of the many canals connecting the country with the capital. A crush of people poured in and out of the Forbidden City as we wove our way through the fascinating maze of walls, gates, gardens and halls of stone and wood. Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Persevering Harmony, Gate and Palace of Heavenly Purity, built with sacred geometry for the emperor who was deemed Son of Heaven. The Purple City has been the center piece of political cosmology since its inception 600 years ago. Outside the east gate we found Courtyard Gallery, infamous haunt of art dealers here and there. At the Tiananmen Gate, Gate of Heavenly Peace, we paused for pics with Mao whose portrait adorns the massive red wall. Across Tiananmen square we found rest and refreshment in a Starbucks with familiar songs of Rosemary Clooney.

Bicycles, tricycles, rickshaws, pedicabs and bikes used like pickups with beds to haul just about anything they could manage, crowd the streets and squares. The jingling of bike bells and horns fill the air as we walk in the city. Into a classic Chinese noodle café where we are greeted with a startling shout in our ears, which occurred each time new customers entered the place… ‘hey, here we have another one…” Good food.

Back to “798” to read and relax while Jane sat and sketched colorful scenes. Then to the Dirt Market, in west Beijing where merchants and traders have brought antiques and statues to sell for centuries, originally some dug up from graves, now mostly things for locals and tourists, the sounds were wonderful. I thought I heard Paul Horn echoing in the throng.

2010-05-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

Snow fell low down the northern slope of the Olympics this first week of May. Strong winds blew off the northern Pacific, above the rollers, with a brisk chill as if this first week of May were the Ides of March. Yet looking around we see the flowers still in bloom, apple, cherry and other blossoms fall like snow in orchards, gardens and lawns. And looking farther we see the floods around Nashville, twisters in other areas of the South and other tragic things happening, both natural and man made disasters, such as the gulf oil and coal mines and we realize how blessed we are.

Birds are singing stronger and sweeter with the sunshine warming their bodies and stimulating their souls. Children are playing outside in the loop. All of life is busy being alive.

We honor mothers everywhere for their goodness. With love, respect and gratitude we think of all the contributions our mothers have made in our lives and in our world. As we all know, we wouldn’t be here without our mothers. The same with birds and all the rest of the flying, walking, swimming and crawling critters.

Thank you Mothers, my Mom, my wife and all the rest of the best kind of people in my life and in our world. From our hearts to your hearts, thank you.

Earth Day

2010-04-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Olympic Spring is in resonance with the Appalachian Spring in a symphony of colors and shimmering sounds. Many hues of green in the leafing trees and bushes sing out as notes from the woodwinds. Blossoms of dogwood extend out of the forest as oboes singing their solitary songs, or sometimes as a spray of a fountain in blossom. While the red of stripping madrona and red cedar feel like the bassoon playing their lonely notes. Winter wrens, song sparrows, swainson’s thrush and red wing black birds sing from the branches of the forest and marsh. Frogs provide the bass. Some unknown bird in the forest sings a sonata for clarinet. A symphony of simple elegance and beauty. Spring. The earth is alive and beautiful. Trillium and periwinkle dance about the forest floor.

Around the neighborhood the azaleas and rhododendrons are beginning to bloom. Cherry blossoms are giving way to apples blossoms, daffodils have given way to tulips. Lilacs are bursting from what were recently bare twigs.

East of the mountains the apple orchards are in blossom and the vineyards show thumbs pointing up for the new crops to come. The high desert plateau along the Columbia blushes green with desert flowers sounding their solos like violins in the clear, clean air.

The earth is alive, beautiful and sacred. We have been placed here to care for the earth and serve all of life, and not just ourselves. One of the key practices of spiritual living is to be of service, to other people and to other living things, such as birds, plants, animals, mammals, et al. For it is then that the principle of love is put in motion, in giving is the receiving, as we give, so we receive. And not, we get, so then we can give.

Every day is Earth Day and a good time to remember to practice giving and receiving with the earth. Give life enhancing nutrients to the earth and not harmful things, products and actions. I remember the first Earth Day, just weeks before I graduated from college 40 years ago. Then I didn’t really understand the significance of standing for the earth, rather than just on the earth, but I stood anyway. In the years following that day legislation provided protection for the earth, air, water and endangered species; environmental protection agencies and ecology. Even though we had to endure the 80’s and 2000’s when it was attempted to dismantle or disguise our intentions to care for the earth with economic and expedient overrides, we have endured.

As the First Nations Brother prayed years ago in the Mission San Luis Obispo, during a Thanksgiving service we conducted: “Take care of the water, you may have to drink it, take care of the air, you may have to breathe it, care for the earth, you may have to live on it.”

As I was returning home from my walk along a country road, enjoying trillium, dogwood and other songs of spring, I met a neighbor who was heading for a bus stop, a mile away. He told me that Dr. Masaru Emoto, (Messages from Water), was in Olympia to do a ceremony at the artesian well, downtown. So we jumped in my car and drove to the well. It was so exciting for me, and such an honor to be there and participate in a ceremony of blessing the waters. And with Dr. Emoto was a host of First Nations people to welcome him and all of us and they spoke and sang some sacred songs for the healing of the waters.

The first thing that Dr. Emoto had us do and the First Nations elders, including a wise Grandmother, was to get us to ask the waters of the earth to forgive us for all the damage we’ve done. Indeed! Forgive us, sacred Mother. Then we shared in speaking what he called the Grand Invocation. First in Japanese, then in English we recited this three times:

Daidangen The Grand Invocation;

“Uchu no Mugen no Chikara ga Korikotte

Makoto no Daiwas no Miyo ga Naninatta”

The Eternal Power of Universe has gathered itself

to create a world with true and grand harmony”

Now is the time for us to think, speak and do what we can to make this world a better place and to allow the earth to heal. Join me in picking up trash along the road - you do your road - I'll do mine; when you go out for your walks, help make it clean.

I call it ‘picking up after the kids’. Let’s join together and do what we can with love and gratitude to make this holy earth whole again.

Miracle Song (sung by a woman from the desert which I caught)

Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo.

Peace, John

Easter

2010-04-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

Trillium are rising out of the ground, I saw some today, walking in the rain. Daffodils have been dancing on the earth for weeks now, about to bow down to the flurry of tulips and iris that are bounding out of the garden ground. The earth is alive. We are alive!

It’s Easter! Easter comes to us every year as a celebration of life coming back, beginning again after long, cold, lonely winters, as they sing. Easter was derived from Eostre, a Germanic goddess of spring. The date for current day Easter was set in 325 C.E. at the Council of Nicaea as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.

Easter is a religious holiday observing the resurrection of the living Christ. What is more important than that? To acknowledge the living Christ resurrecting our lives. It happened, not only two millennia ago, but it has happened many times in the lives of so many people who have failed and begun again, people who have lost it all, even their entire families, but carried on and found happiness.

It has happened to me and to you perhaps as we awaken to life within as a spiritual and deeply personal experience, and not just what happens on the outside. It happens when we experience change that is an aspect of transformation, as we morph from earth bound caterpillars to spirit bound butterflies. Or, you pick your own image, be it a bumblebee or honey bee, a hummingbird or hawk, heron or eagle, a bear, wolf or whale, dolphin or turtle.

Easter is a wonderful time in which we gather together to remember that what happened as Jesus Christ walked through the barrier of death to reveal much grander and more vast dimensions of life in this universe than mankind had ever imagined or believed. It’s time to take a leap in joy, just as the trillium, leaping out of the ground to proclaim, “I’m alive!!!”

2010-02-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Buds are beginning to burst on trees. Alder and others in the forest are beginning to offer their seedpods and pouches of pollen. Branches and limbs that have been naked are beginning to restore their color and vibrancy again. In our back garden the Japanese plum is pushing its bold pink blossoms through the branches’ hard shell covers there to protect them from the cold. Cold is gone today. Heather is blooming in the neighborhood and a tree is starting to unfold its tulip like petals, while crocus are pushing up through the earth’s surface.

While some people have been wondering what Punxsutawney Phil saw this morning, in other cultures it’s Imbolc in the Celtic Calendar, which marks the first day of spring. Imbolc is the mid-mark between winter solstice and spring equinox. It is the time when ewes begin to birth their little wooly jumpers on the moors of Yorkshire and other regions where the wild heather is still green, waiting to bloom in the summer.

Imbolc is also the time of Brigid or Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fertility, Maiden of Spring. Fascinating legend about Brigid is that she grew up daughter of Daghda, the “Great God”, of the Tuatha de Danaan. She was a Woman of Wisdom whom poets wrote of and lore of healing and regeneration were wound about. Then she experienced a transformation, experiencing the Living Christ, she became a Nun and started her own order, a sisterhood of compassion and light. Saint Brigid or Saint Bride, is one of Compassion and Light. Outside her convent in Kildare, Ireland, the followers of Brigid’s sisterhood had a fire burning for over 500 years. Friends went there several years ago and stood in the now dormant fire pit, over eight feet deep. Holders of Light. Winter can still be harsh around the British Isles and across the Continent, just as here at home and across Asia. Yet we have glimpses and hope of spring to see us through.

We have this opportunity, to hold and carry light. In our work, in our families, in our homes, wherever we go. Holding the light, to me, means being patient and compassionate in how we think, speak, and act, in whatever we do regarding others or ourselves. We don’t have to convert to anything or turn away from anything to hold the light. We only have to be ourselves.

Interesting that the medieval Catholic Church turned Imbolc into Candlemas, though it is still a celebration of light. In Celtic tradition it remains a sacred time when the doors between the worlds remain open and miraculous and magical events can happen. A baby, full of love, giggles and laughs. A bird, a Winter Wren, fills the forest with song. Buds turn to blossoms of beauty, breaking the spell of winter.

It’s good to be alive!

Christmas And Traditions of Light

2009-12-26T10:40:00.000-08:00

SOLSTICE “SUN STANDS STILL”

The Winter Solstice is perhaps the most ancient holiday. Anthropologists suggest it may go back 30,000 years. When daylight diminished days shorter and colder people built bon fires and had rituals to induce or seduce the Sun to come back and bring light and life back to earth. Tradition of decorating our homes and trees with lights is passed down from those ancient bon fires of calling for the light.

In ancient countries and civilizations they built sacred structures to welcome the light. Stonehenge and other henges were arranged to receive early rays midwinter sun

BRUG NA BOINE New Grange, Ireland,

AN LIAMH GREINE “Cave of the Sun” there is man made cave dark all year but around Winter Solstice light from rising sun passes through narrow slot above doorway and sweeps down 80 foot long passageway into the heart of the central chamber striking back wall it illuminates a series of intricately carved spirals and solar discs… for 17 minutes then dark again.

Holly became symbol of male plant with bright red berries and sharp prickly leaves while Ivy, clinging and gentle perceived as female.

Greek Myth gives story of the girl who danced before the god Dionysus with ardor of a flame – only to fall dead at his feet. Dionysus moved by her passion placed her spirit and thus her name on the plant which bore her name (nature) it clung and embraced everything to which is came close.

NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS

In CHACO CANYON in New Mexico a Native American Shaman sat on roof top for days/nights until he felt it was solstice “SUN STANDS STILL” now we find Solstice sunrise creates shape of two daggers flanking a spiral cared into a cliff face.

Also Zuni SHALAKO Hopi have Sun-Rites Sun Chiefs

At Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico light of rising sun crawls down steps of Kukulkan pyramid forming shape of a serpent (a sacred animal to ancients).

ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS/CULTURES

Solstice is also in China, Dec 22^nd Emperor led annual sacrifices to the god in Temple of Heaven. When monarchy fell in 1912 this ended.

In Japan known as TOJI marks time when days grow longer/ nights shorter sacred to farmers. People take holidays, light huge bonfires encourage return of the sun and attend ceremonies at Temple to celebrate their ancestors.

When we lived in Tokyo, Japan 1974 we had Banzai Tree as Christmas Tree.

In Taiwan, blend of China and Japan bigger reception. Dish called “Tang Choeh I or “Winter Balls” served red or white, as cherries – Big Feast.

Roman God Saturn associated with Midwinter Roman Saturnalia Festival. Roman presence in Britain from second century B.C.E. Romans suppressed many of older practices of the Celts. Solstice part of Celtic Wheel/Calendar. Saturnalia developed from older rituals of Midwinter into riotous assemblage of fun, laughter and gift giving. From this we have gift giving. Saturn was Roman god of Agriculture.

SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS

CHANUKAH is Jewish Festival of Dedication. After years of oppressive occupation by Assyrian rulers, 168-65 rebellion led by Priest Mattathias and his son Judas the Maccabee (the Hammer) over-through rule of Antiochus IV (Epiphanes=”the risen god”). In rededicating the Temple found one cruise of oil that lasted for 8 days and 8 nights. Dedication of Light. Only Jewish festival associated with war and only one not in Bible, Original Testament.

Rabbis of School of Hillel wrote in Talmud that lighting of another candle each evening of Chanukah symbolizes that we should strive to increase light and joy in the world.

RAMADAN is Moslem time of a month of purification and dedication. Fasting, giving alms to poor, up to 20% is given away… Dedicate to God.

KWANZAA, African American Observance began 40 years ago by Dr. Manlengo Kareng. Based on ancient history and culture from African countries, the roots of African Americans… to Celebrate themselves.

Seven Principles and guidelines for year-round living:

1. Unity – gathering together for communal activity, ritual, sharing

2. Self Determination

3. Collective Work and Responsibility

4. Cooperative Economics

5. Purpose

6. Creativity

7. Faith

Number Seven significance African Culture, KWANZAA 7 letters. Last 7 days or the year. 7 Principles.

DIWALI – HINDU FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

Bringing in the Yule. In Sweden the Midwinter festival begins December 13^th “Little Yule” also known as “St. Lucia’s Day” when young queen Lucia came out of the sea with crown of candles. Now every year “Queen Lucy” chosen from among young women of villages of Sweden and in US towns and cities.

MITHRAS, God of the Morning

Originally and Iranian/Persian deity dating back to sixth century B.C.E. Like Apollo, Mithras was solar deity sent to earth by the supreme God of Light to slay a huge bull whose blood was source of all fertility on earth. Roman Emperor Aurelian declared Dec 25 Mithras birthday. Constantine follower of Mithras until he adopted Christianity after his conversion.

Now enters another theme of Christmas. Santa Claus. Complex origins.

One is of Saint Nicholas of Patara, a third-century Bishop of Myra, near present-day village Demre in Asia Minor, born in Turkey in 270 C.E. he became well known for his anonymous gifts to the poor. Tradition has it he left gifts of money or food in shoes of children, sneaking in at night.

Good Old Saint Nick, 1200 years later Middle Ages.

Nagogeorgus the author of Latin Vita Sant Nicolai

The mothers all their children on the eve do cause to fast,

And when they every one at night in sense sleep are cast,

Both apples, nuts and prayers they bring and other things beside, As caps, and shoes, and petticoats, with kirtles they hide, And in the morning found, they say: “St. Nicholas this brought.”

From a verse of: The Longparish Mummers’ Play

In Comes I, Old Father Christmas. Welcome – or welcome not,

I hope Old Father Christmas Will never be forgot.

The ancient Shaman’s drum and bells are recalled by Santa’s jangling reindeer harness.

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

0 Christmas Day: Birthday of Jesus, Mithras, Attis, Aion, Horus, Dionysus and the Unconquered Sun.

1 Day 1 St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, Day of the Wren

2 Day 2 Mother Night and St. John’s Day: (Frau Holle-Goddess)

3 Day 3 Holy Innocent’s Day: Childremass

4 Day 4 Feast of Fools

5 Day 5 Bringing In The Boar: “Then the grim boar’s head frowned on high, Crested with bay and rosemary.” Sir Walter Scott

6 Day 6 New Year’s Eve: Hogmanay… Scottish tradition more import

7 Day 7 New Year’s Day: The Kalends of January- riotous fun festival

8 Day 8 Snow Day: pay respects to snow

9 Day 9 Evergreen Day

10 Day 10 St. Distaff’s Day William Shakespeare

”Some say that ever gainst that season comes wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, the bird of dawning singeth all night long.”

11 Day 11 Eve of Epiphany, Festival of Three Kings

12 Day 12 Epiphany Twelfth Night Calends of January

Saint Nicholas Day, December 6^th honors Nicholas, pilgrimage to Jerusalem at 17 sailing home beset perfect storm off coast of Lycia near Myra Nick prayed storm abated he at once found church to give thanks for safe delivery.

Old Bishop retiring, having convocation one of his people had vision in which next day new Bishop would appear named Nicholas

“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, If He’s not born in thee, thy soul is all forlorn.” Angelus Silesius

All of the Traditions of Light and Holidays and Festivals bring us to one thing, the birth of the baby Jesus, the Christ Child, born in us today.

Jelaluddin Rumi:

“CHRIST IS THE POPULATION OF THE WORLD,

AND EVERY OBJECT AS WELL.

THERE IS NO ROOM FOR HYPOCRISY

WHY USE BITTER SOUP FOR HEALING

WHEN SWEET WATER IS EVERYWHERE?”

THE LITERATURE OF CHRISTMAS: GIFT O MAGI

CHARLES DICKENS’ “CHRISTMAS CAROL”

WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW TIL LIVED IN ENGLAND WAS THAT IN OCTOBER 1843 DICKENS CALLED UPON WRITERS AND JOURNALISTS LIKE HIMSELF TO WRITE ABOUT AND EXPOSE UNFAIR PRACTICES AND CUSTOMS/TRADITIONS THAT WERE COOMONLY ACCEPTED FOR CHILDREN AND POOR, SUCH AS CHILDREN & ADULTS WORKING IN POOR HOUSE LIKE SLAVES

SERIES OF STORIES THE LIKES OF OLIVER TWIST , A CHRISTMAS CAROL AND THE CHIMES

WHAT ABOUT CHRISTMAS?

AS WITH OTHER THINGS I ASK HOW DOES IT APPLY OR WORK IN YOUR LIFE?

BIRTH OF LIGHT, AWARENESS, LOVE, HEALING

· ONE THING AT CHRISTMAS HERE IS SALVATION ARMY BELL RINGERS, WHICH I HAVE COME TO LOVE AND REALLY APPRECIATE

· FOR ONE THING, AFTER KATRINA DISASTER, SALVATION ARMY CAME TO THE RESCUE IN GREAT FORM AND COMPASSION.

IN ENGLAND, UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY, WE HELD FOUR RETREATS A YEAR. FOR ONE IN SUMMER WE WERE ASKED BY OFFICERS OF SALVATION ARMY IF THEY COULD DO PRESENTATON OF GRATITUDE MET SANDRA & PAUL IN TEWKSBURY

SANDRA HAD BEEN ILL THOUGHT WAS CANCER CHERRY, LOYAL VOLUNTEER SUGGESTED CALL SILENT UNITY… GOT WELL

· I ASKED OBVIOUS QUESTION, HAVE TROUBLE WITH UNITY METAPHYSICAL/PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY?

· PAUL SAID HE WAS “SALVATIONIST – BUT WHEN HE UNDERSTOOD WE WERE TALKING ABOUT CHRIST WITHIN, SAME CHRIST, SAME GOD, SAME TEAM.

· THEY CAME TO SUMMER RETREAT AT CHELTENHAM HOUSE EDGE OF COTTSWALDS, DID P.P./MUSIC PRESENTATION AND IN THE END WE WERE ALL CRYING TEARS OF JOY…

· HEALING IS CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS IS NOT ABOUT GOD BEING SANTA GRANTING ALL OUR WISHES, PETTY DESIRES

LAST WEEK WE MET GREG MORTENSON

AUTHOR THREE CUPS OF TEA AND NOW

STONES TO SCHOOLS.

GREG DEMONSTRATES MODEL OF CHRISTMAS GIVING … BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN, ESPECIALLY GIRLS, IN AFGANISTAN / PAKISTAN

1. LOVE IS GIVING TO OTHERS,

2. EVEN LOVING YOUR ENEMIES, AS MASTER SAID

3. NOW HAS BUILT 131 SCHOOLS

4. SHOWED PICTURE OF WOMAN WHO BECAME HEALTH CARE WORKER, AND SINCE SHE DID NO DEATHS IN CHILD BIRTH… BEFORE WAS 1 IN 3

DAD … CAROL … VISITED IN U.K.

TOOK THEM TO EAST ANGLIA, WINGFIELD VILLAGE. TOURED ST ANDREWS COLLEGATE CHURCH AND WINGFIELD COLLEGE BUILT 1362

THEN ON DEC 23^RD I WENT BACK WITH FRIEND TO ST ANDREW’S CHURCH FOR CAROLS BY CANDLE LIGHT… THEN MINCE PIES & MULLED WINE… MET LONG LOST KIN, WHO NEVER LEFT VILLAGE, ANCESTORS BUILT CASTLE, 800 YRS…

I FELT ACCEPTED AND INCLUDED, A PART OF THAT COMMUNITY, FAMILY.

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IS HEART OPENING TO OTHERS TO LET INTO YOUR HEART…

ALL FAMILY

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IS AN EXPERIENCE OF THE HEART / YOUR HEART TO SOFTEN RIDGES AND ARMOR AROUND IT AND FEELING ONE, CONNECTED, CARING, WHOLE.

Christmas is coming

2009-12-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

Cold swept in the other night on an artic wind that came down and blew the trees about, shaking out the deadwood, loose branches and bows. Chimes rang with the wind song. The cold stayed the week but the artic wind went on, over many mountains, rivers, prairies and the plains. In the Mid West it reached up and touched the moisture in columns of clouds, pulling them down to cover the ground with snow. The cold wind continued to blow on over hills and dales to the East coast. I remember years ago when, as a young family, we caught the train in San Luis Obispo and rode the Starlight Limited to Seattle. We arrived on Christmas Eve when it began to snow and the snow extended from the summit of Snoqualmie, all the way to Boston.

Clear and cold. I move slower, perhaps everyone does, except the birds, flying from tree to tree to bush to find food. Two eagles sit atop a giant fir with a grand perspective of the Salish Sea and the peninsula and mountains all around.

Snow came on Sunday, just a trace, just a tease before Christmas. Rain came back last night and it’s here to stay, til Easter, or even May. Ice on the pond is swimming under rain water. The creek is swollen again. Just back from a walk

and I’m soaked. But I’m a man and I can change… I must.

As we are preparing for Christmas and enjoying the holidays, I would like to share with you from Words to Live By from Eknath Easwaran, for December 15^th.

“We needn’t rule out the exchange of useful, thoughtful gifts at Christmas, but when we expect something in return, it’s not a gift, but a contract. Using this strict definition, we might wonder if all those gifts under the Christmas tree are really gifts.

Rather than giving expensive, perhaps not really useful gifts, there are really so many meaningful things that all of us can give. If you have been a smoker, you can give it up – not as an act of self-denial, but as a loving gift to your family. It will be a most precious, most treasured gift. If you have been drinking heavily, you can give up alcohol as an act of love. It is a gift that will keep on giving. If you have been overeating, you can start eating nutritious food in temperate quantities, and exercising regularly. It’s a beautiful gift for everybody in the family. These are real gifts.”

Thomas A Kempis wrote: “He does much who loves God much, and he does much who does his deed well, and he does his deed well who does it rather for the common good than for his own will.”

Gratitude

2009-11-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Thank you God for everything! Thank you for the cedar and fir trees that bend and bow in the autumn breeze. Thank you for the leaves that fall with the winds and rain and make me wonder, which will be the last to let go – and then dance to the ground and become the earth from which they arose. Thank you for the rose budding on the bush for one last blossom of beauty. Thank you for the deer that live in the woods around us, even though they come into our gardens at night and eat the roses, blue berries, raspberries and other tasty morsels. They remind us that they, wildlife, were here before us and this earth is their home too, for us to care for as good stewards and not just be exploitive consumers as we are led to believe.

Thank you for enemies or those we have enmity (bad feelings) with, for they call us to love. As the Master said, “Love your enemies;” be they terrorists, bullies, politicians, power mongers, corporate executives or the next-door neighbors. Thank you for those who cause us to look deep within ourselves to see the pain and the lost little child longing for love and to make it home.

Thank you for all those people who protect and defend us the police, fire fighters, EMTs, nurses, doctors, care providers, military and peace workers. Thank you for all who have served.

Thank you for the blessings of being born in this country with loving and supportive parents and brother who raised me well, gave me all they could and not always understanding, opened their arms and let me fly. Thank you, I am so blessed. Thank you for the wonderful wife and children that have come into my life and been my beloveds, teachers and friends. Thank you for all my relatives and in-laws who have called me to be understanding and loving with all our diversity, thank you for all my relations.

Thank you for our cat, who challenges me to love and be who I think and say I am, even when she spits up on the floor or tracks her stuff around leaving smudge marks that I can get down on my hands and knees to clean up, learning humility, patience and kindness. Thank you for all my teachers. Four legged and two legged. Thank you for all the dogs in my life.

Thank you for all the suffering in the world, that calls me to compassion and service. Thank you for those suffering from AIDS and famine for they call us to understand that those are unnecessary and unacceptable and that we can and must change the systems, behaviors and beliefs which perpetuate unnecessary suffering. People don’t have to suffer and go without in order for us to have what we want.

Thank you for this moment and this breath, animating my body. Thank you for all the moments and things I’ve gone through, lessons I’ve learned, places I’ve been, things I’ve seen and done and gone through to get to this moment.

Thank you for the eyes reading these words and the minds and hearts taking in the truths they echo. Thank you.

Praise God! Yeah God! Thank you God for everything.

continued from page one below

2009-10-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

A large brown leaf floats down onto the road beside me; fallen from the large maple tree that stands watching, along the side of the road. They are watching. Trees, deer, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, hawks, cougars, bears, eagles, whales, manatees, sparrows and dolphins are all watching. We are latecomers to this world, only a few hundred thousand years ago, perhaps a few million by some accounts. And we have made such as mess of it. But we can clean up the mess. We can correct our mistakes, change our ways and do it right.

‘No one else can do it for you,’ as the song goes. The government, corporations, even God won’t do it for us. We are stewards of the earth and all its bounty. It is up to us to make the change we want to see happen, over the next 50 days and 50 years. Change from outer gratification to inner meaning, wellbeing, peace.

It is time for us to turn with the season from outward self-satisfying indulgence to inward self-fulfilling intentions. It is time to learn and let learn. It is time to grow and let grow. It is time. It is time to love and live and cease with the distractions that are so confusing and distracting. It is time to turn.

It is time to have fun. Enjoy life. Live in love and share the joy of living. The leaves falling remind me of all the blessings that constantly come to us, they don’t fall from above but flow continually as streams through the universe. The beauty all around us in so rich and vivid, in the water, the rain, the wind, all living things. And love, love is in everyone, whether they/we know it or not. Whether they/we realize it, give it and live it or not, love is here. For that is what we are.

“And the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of nations.”

In the Rumi room we read:

“Inside water, a waterwheel turns. A star circulates with the moon.

We live in the night ocean wondering, What are these lights?

You have said what you are. I am what I am.

Your actions in my head,

my head here in my hands with something circling inside.

I have no name for what circles so perfectly.

A secret turning in us makes the universe turn.

Head unaware of feet and feet head.

Neither cares. They keep turning.

This moment this love comes to rest in me, many beings in one being.

In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks.

Inside the needle’s eye a turning night of stars.

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances.

That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Walk to the well.

Turn as the earth and the moon turn, circling what they love.

Whatever circles comes from the center.

I circle your nest tonight, around and around until morning when a breath of air says, Now, and the Friend holds up like a goblet some anonymous skull.

No better love than love with no object,

No more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

That would be the cleverest trick!

Some nights stay up til dawn, as the moon sometimes does for the sun.

Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way of a well,

then lifted out into the light.

I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small but they see enormous things.

When you feel your lips becoming infinite and sweet, like the moon in a sky,

When you feel that spaciousness inside, Shams of Tabriz will be there too.

The sun is love.

The lover, a speck circling the sun.

A spring wind moves to dance any branch that isn’t dead.

Something opens our wings.

Something makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us.

We taste only sacredness.

Held like this, to draw in milk, no will,

tasting clouds of milk, never so content.

I stand up, and this one of me turns into a hundred of me.

They say I circle around you.

Nonsense, I circle around me.

I have lived on the lip of insanity,

Wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.

It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside!

Real value comes with madness, matzub below, scientist above.

Whoever finds love beneath hurt and grief

disappears into emptiness with a thousand new disguises.

Dance, when you’re broken open.

Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance when you‘re perfectly free.

Turning

2009-10-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

Walking down a country road between waves of rain storms rolling in off the ocean, I was enjoying the turning of seasons. It’s turning from warm to cool, dry to wet, turning from green to yellow, red, brown and gray. Autumn, right in the midst of it. Then someone came out from a lane and walked along the other side of the road. As we passed I said, “hi.” He responded with a nod, “how ya doin?” I said, “Good, how are you?” “School, same sh*t, ya know.” He looked like a Greener (college student), kicking along with a little facial hair, curls sticking out of his beanie. I turned and said with a smile, “You are so lucky! I wish I could go to college. Enjoy!” A bit taken aback he said, “thanks.” And we went on our ways.

Now, I wish I could say that I turned his head around, but I probably didn’t. People in our society today are so bored, young people who have grown up on video games, computers, cell phones and now texting, twitter, FB. What’s next? Feathers? And older people who have had it the way they want. There is even a TV series on HBO entitled Bored to Death. Thanks, Larry David. Where’s Mr. Kastanza to rail at us when we need him? Reruns. Boredom. Apathy.

People in our country, in our society are so blessed and have so many good opportunities laid out before them. All the kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan and all the other places who do not have access to the public education, opportunities and basic choices we take for granted. Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea), has helped build over 300 schools in Pakistan. This is to especially help educate girls to become women with choices for self-determination and not simply continue in the same ways of tradition, culture and conformity they have today. Greg is threatened, not by Pakistanis but by American reactionaries who are incensed, they say, because he is helping the enemy. But who is the enemy? Is it the ones who bomb schools and universities? Is the enemy those who control and manipulate women and children in opposition of learning, growing and unfolding to the beautiful universe beyond borders of religion, race, culture, clan, tribe and tradition. Hitler had books burned. Most totalitarian rulers oppose or oppress education and learning on behalf of control, conformity and blind obedience. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Ivan the Terrible.

2009-09-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Convergence of Hearts

2009-09-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

We spent Labor Day weekend in my hometown with family, my relatives, going to old haunts. Riding bikes along the Columbia River we rounded Columbia Point, across the confluence of the Yakima we enjoyed the colors and textures of grasses, cat tails, sage, trees and the ever present wind. We stopped in the riverside park where a folk festival was happening, Tumbleweed Festival. We discovered that some friends were playing so we got to enjoy their good swing, folksy and Celtic music, along with the wind.

From there we drove down the river, stopping 15 miles east of Portland to see a new installation work by Maya Lin. Maya Lin, you may recall is the artist/architect who designed the Viet Nam War memorial in Washington D.C. We pulled off I-84 at the Lewis and Clark Park into a earthy parking lot at the Sandy River. Turned out to be land cared for by the Nature Conservancy. At the confluence of the Columbia and Sandy Rivers we walked across the alluvial delta where many dogs brought their humans to walk, and run. At the end of the trail we came to the installation, the Bird Blind, a cylinder of vertical oak 2x4s, with names of various species found during the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803-06. Presumably taken from the naturalist field notes of Meriwether Lewis engraved in the 2x4s were species/names of birds and animals and indications if they are threatened, endangered or extinct since then. Roosevelt Elk, black tail deer, gray wolf, red fox, polecat (skunk), bald eagle, winter wren, loon, and many more.

It was impressive to think of all the beautiful birds and animals they found over 200 years ago when the expedition traversed the continent. The raw beauty they found. The civilization that followed has drastically changed all that. That was just the beginning of the American empire. Manifest destiny it was called, wherever we could manifest our will and destiny would be ours. Perhaps those days are coming to an end, as witnessed in Viet Nam, now Iraq and Afghanistan.

Remember that line from John Lennon’s song, “Imagine”, which became somewhat of an anthem for people who long for peace around the world. The second verse suggests we, “imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothin’ to kill or die for, no religion too…” Can we? Can we really hold that thought? Imagine no countries and no religions, that inform us on the necessity to fight, destroy and even eliminate entire peoples who differ from us. Can we do that? Power struggles carried out in the name of religion and nationalism have been so destructive and wasteful during my lifetime, let alone over the past two centuries.

We of European stock nearly wiped out the indigenous peoples of this continent, in our holocaust, when we stormed in to take it over. And those people who survived were called Indians and labeled as savages, not recognizing their spiritual and cultural values so we could justify treating them less than dogs and penning them up in “reservations”.

We cannot change the past. But we can change the present and how we hold the past and how we intend to co-create the future, one day at a time. We can recognize and take responsibility for the mistakes we have made and get on with it. We can let it be, as another great song we sing suggests. We can clean up our act. Personally and collectively.

And we can offer up our highest and best intentions as a prayer to each other and the Divine Mind, to unify our minds and hearts as one. This is the time. This is the day, this is the hour. 9-9-09. We can join in Unity World Day of Prayer 9-10-09 and pray for peace, healing, justice and equality for all. It’s Good to be Alive!

Fly and be free

2009-08-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

The other day we were busy getting ready to go to the cabin for our family get together when Connor called out that a bird had hit the window. He was standing in our living room taking pictures when a little bird swooped through the open door and crashed into one of the picture windows looking out onto our back garden. I rushed in to find a little black cap chickadee crumpled in a heap on the white carpet, one wing outstretched beneath the tiny-feathered body.

It’s eyes were closed but not with X’s over them, so I took a page from our friends at Unity House in Maidenhead, England. I wrote about that in a previous message. Connor got a shoe box while I held the little bird in my hands, concentrating on giving it Reike energy. Connor then formed the paper in the box into a nest shape. As I placed the little bird on the paper nest in the box I noticed it’s eyes and beak were open. Then I put the bird in the box out on the back deck and said a prayer over it and a blessing and stepped inside. A few minutes later I walked out onto the deck and spoke again to the bird, which sat on the nest in the box with wings out stretched, mouth and eyes open, “I honor the Divine in you.” Startled, it jumped right out of the box, bumping into the side of the house, this time beneath the window. So I encouraged it, “No. Fly into the sky, go the other way!” And it flew away.

The window which we humans enjoy because it allows us a lovely view of the garden and towering trees as well as containing the house in climate control through all seasons. But for the bird, which naturally flies free and soars, the window was an invisible barrier. Reminds me of the plate glass used to depict an invisible shield to ‘protect you from cavities’ in an advertisement of a popular toothpaste in years past.

We too, who like the bird long to be free and soar in life, have to watch out for invisible shields and barriers. What are the invisible shields in our lives? Look deep in yourself? What are they? Fear? Anger? Pain? Which lead to confusion and uncertainty? These are common things that we learn and use to protect ourselves in certain situations as we adapt, learn and grow. But there comes a time, a shift in our consciousness, when what served to protect and help us, becomes an invisible shield which we can break ourselves on.

And it is at those times when we need each other. When we run into our own barriers and limitations it is so helpful to have a friend, or to have someone who can hold us in compassionate support. It may be a loved one, a Mother or an impersonal yet passionate group like Silent Unity. It may be your closest friend. It may be your dog. (Remember, dog is really God spelled for the dyslexia minded).

We all aspire and long to be free. Let’s help one another to avoid invisible barriers and pick ourselves up when we hit them. Meister Eckhart wrote: Tell me, where is the soul’ abode? Upon the pinions of the wind. We are all capable of flying like the little chickadee or soaring like the great eagle in the limitless sky of love. But most of the time we content ourselves with staying on the ground. Plato said: We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can: and to fly away is to be come like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just and wise.

Just be yourself and be free.

Peace, John

Fine Seeds, Divine Seeds

2009-07-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

From the Heart of John Wingfield V3H7

Queen Anne’s Lace is standing and dancing in the summer wind. Not to be confused with Gray’s Lovage or Little Pipsissewa, or Queen Anne herself. The Queen Anne’s Lace is of the Parsley Family and related to the wild carrot. Seeing many, many Queen Anne’s Lace along my walk today I kept thinking of it as St. Anne’s Lace. And that took me to a painting in the National Gallery, which frames the north of Trafalgar Square in London. It’s not a painting really, rather it’s a cartoon, a prototype or sketch prior to the finished painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It depicts Mother Mary and the baby Jesus with St. Anne, Mary’s Mother and another baby, perhaps the one who will be called John the Baptist.

The amazing thing about that da Vinci is the profound depth it reaches into you. At least it did into me. The cartoon is in brown tone with Mary seated on Anne’s knee, extending her arm with the baby. What strikes you, or it did me every time I beheld it, was the flow of oneness, there is no separation between Anne, Mary and the Christ Child. Only the other infant is a bit off to the right, as an observer of the incredible movement of oneness into the mystic.

Queen Anne was the last Queen of England, Scotland, Ireland and France, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. And of course, for locals, Queen Anne remains a prominent hill in the heart of Seattle with a commanding view of the surrounding mountains, the Sound and cities.

Huckleberries are ripe on the delicate bushes of the lowland forest. They flourish where the ancient cedar used to grow, like an echo of another age gone by. A very good tasting echo. And those little green apples that God made are bulging on the branches in the miraculous process of becoming delicious apples.

Just as in the apple, also in the wild flowers, there are seeds just waiting to be taken and spread out across the land to spread the fruit and flowers. So too in you and in all of us, there is a seed, a divine seed, which is represented by Mary and Anne, extending forth the expression of the Christ Child in our gifts of life, to life. The divine seed in us contains DNA of love, understanding, vision, balance, wholeness, justice and peace.

Let’s plant the seeds with joy.

2009-07-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

From the Heart Message

2009-07-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

Walking down the road today I was taken back by the song birds singing from the forest, from telephone wires, from tree tops, from all around. I was taken back to a story shared with me by my friends in Unity House, Great Britain.

Swifts migrate from the tropics each year, flying and darting about eating insects. Swifts, the most aerial of birds, fly nearly all the time, up to 200,000 km, they dart about collecting flies and other delicacies for them and their young.

Recently someone in Unity House discovered a swift had gotten tangled in some old wiring high up near a gable in the back of the Edwardian house. It was caught and could not get free. So they rang RSPCA, that usually takes care of these situations, but they were busy and could not get to it in time. So, being Unity House, where Silent Unity is happening, they prayed.

Then someone thought of calling Richard, the gardener who comes round when he can to care for the gardens and helps where he can. They rang him up and asked him to come quickly with his ladders. He climbed up to the gable with Steve holding the ladder and was able to cut away the old obsolete wires. While he was cutting away the wires, amazingly other swifts flew very close to the house as if giving support and encouragement to the bird. They were overjoyed to see the precious bird in Richard’s hands when he climbed down.

They were advised by RSPCA to place the little bird in a box in a dark place for it to settle down after the ordeal and get over the shock. After this they found the little guy was barely lifting its head, as if it had given up. The Silent Unity team stood in a circle and prayed. They placed the box out on the veranda on the first floor. After several minutes the bird did not move nor show interest in moving. Then, as Silent Unity Director, Kimerie Mapletoft mused to Jane Gough, Director of Daily Word, several swifts flew near and around him. He lifted his head, spread his wings and flew away.

Sometimes we feel like that bird, tangled up in old wires that we got into without really knowing how or why. And in the tangle we can’t sort it out and sometimes can’t find our way. But then someone comes along, or calls or offers something that breaks the spell. “It was a powerful moment,” Kimerie wrote of the lesson, “reminding us that we cannot fly alone – we all need each other to fly and soar and be the living and free expressions of God we truly are. So next time you have a problem, don’t try to sort it out all alone. Call on your friends, your family, Silent Unity, and above all call on the divine presence of God and know that together we can fly.”

Today, July 14, is Bastille Day, marking the end of feudalism in France. Let it end everywhere In relationships. In religions. In homes. In hearts. May all be free.

A B C

2009-06-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

I believe we are here to learn, grow and be what we are designed to be. Developing what is inherently within us and giving it expression in our lives is part of learning and growing. And when we are expressing and experiencing who we are and what we are then we are more fully functioning as human beings. We each have a purpose, a reason for being, which probably is not what we do for a living.

Years ago HH the Dali Lama spoke in Portland, OR. After a while of chanting and mounting anticipation among the throng of people filling Pioneer Courthouse Square, His Holiness walked out on the platform and said: “Every human being has the potential to be happy.” That is so simple and so elegant. And it is true. We, in the United States of America live in a society with the hallmark of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

If we develop a unified state of mind then we can consciously co-create happiness. There are certain areas of our lives that are critical for our well-being and our happiness that we will discuss in this essay. Health for one is so important for most people’s happiness. Attaining or maintaining good health is possible. Relationships that are healthy is vital as well. Relationships that work and serve you and others, rather than just getting along are important for well-being and happiness. And having enough; enough money, enough time, enough energy, enough love are all important to being a happy, healthy and whole human being.

With the “cult of success” in post modern America there was a reversal of priorities that began to shift around 1970. Placing money, status, power and outer appearances of success above and beyond ethics, honesty, responsibility and human dignity which all came down like a house of cards in autumn of 2008 with the global economic melt down and subsequent great recession. There is such stress for success in today’s society and with that comes the outfall of stress on relationships, personal health and one’s own state of mind.

Perhaps there is a better way than what is taught in most schools and colleges and what is practiced in most businesses, public thorough-fairs and homes that will result in the kind of conditions we really want: good health, happiness and having enough to enjoy life.

There is a better way, a way that has been developed and shared down through the ages by masters and teachers, sages and saints of many traditions. From Jesus to Buddha, Buckminster Fuller to Baba, and many thinkers of all ages we can gain great insights and wisdom to live fully alive and happy lives.

In order to attain and maintain a state of mind and heart in which we live as happy, healthy and whole human beings we need to combine two things. Principles and Practices which lead to the inner Work for happiness.

From the Heart Message - Part 2

2009-06-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

What would you do? What would you do? If you were the President, or were in any situation where you could decide what to do to make our economy strong and vibrant? What would you do to make our health care system just, reasonable and comprehensive? What would you do to secure peace and security in our country and our world? While Iran is convulsing in after shocks to their presidential elections. While North Korea is behaving like a junk yard dog as their leadership is being handed from father to third son. While Israel is struggling to find alignment within and with the international community as well as with Palestine. While AIDS still runs rampant in Africa and the Roman Catholic Church still stands in opposition to birth control, family planning and safe sex. What would you do? I was telling you about Earthstewards and Danaan Parry during the tense days of the 1980s, Cold War et al. Interest rates soared around 16-19%, everywhere was in a slump...

Danaan Parry and many others who worked directly with him went on for years to plant seeds for peace. He led the effort of citizens’ diplomacy during the 1980s, to break the dreadful wall of fear dividing us from the people behind the iron curtain and other citizens of the world. Planting peace trees became a critical activity as they went to Russia, India and then here in the United States.

Eknath Easwaran wrote: The great Hindu scriptures say that God is absolute truth, absolute joy, absolute beauty. A scientist who is seeking the absolute truth, as Einstein did, is seeking God. Anyone seeking absolute joy, whether in a tavern or in the shopping mall or in Monte Carlo, is seeking God. And anyone who is seeking beauty – on a canvas or a stage or a mountaintop – is seeking God. What lovers of beauty seek in paintings, in sculpture, in dance, in music is just a reflection of the absolute beauty that is God. The real source of all beauty is God, the Beloved.

Danaan Parry had been a nuclear physicist and a member of the Atomic Energy Commission in his first career. He told the story, when we first met, that as a physicist he began searching for the truth, which he could not find in the atom, nucleus, proton, electron and not even the quark. Then he taught for a while in Berkley before developing Earth Stewards and teaching Warriors of the Heart training for peacemaking. This evolved from his doing individual assignments in Belfast, Bethlehem and across America to group exchanges and projects around the country and the globe. Peace trees.

They found that getting inner city youth together to plant trees for peace in Washington DC became an activity of whole learning. First of all, the young people did not know how to conduct a meeting with order and it would usually break down into fighting. So they taught simple procedures of how to have meetings and how to reach decisions with group agreements. Then they knew they had to provide rewards so they began the peace table of delicious and nutritious foods to celebrate a day’s work together. This was so successful they took it to Los Angeles and other cities.

And the final one was when a group of Earth Stewards was prepared to go to Viet Nam to plant peace trees in a location that had been cleared of deadly land mines from our war there decades earlier. And after the last meeting of planning the strategy to the finest detail, Danaan departed. On his way to the ferryboat on Bainbridge Island, his heart, that had carried so many people and cared for so many souls and given so much to the world, that had held so many (hugging Danaan you got a good bear hug like Yogi Bear), simply gave out.

But that was not the final one. Like many others, I have strived to be and to teach peace in what we do, in how we live. Peacemaking at home, in churches, in communities, in families and within ourselves is critical at this time. Learning and living the way of peace means we don’t just say that’s a good idea and then go on with life as usual. It means we deliberately live so we don’t express hurtful criticisms and destructive emotions to others, even those we don’t like. It means finding the common ground, in our humanness. This is doing what Jesus said: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” This is what we can do.

Jelaluddin Rumi wrote: All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea my soul is from elsewhere I'm sure of that,

And I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place, I’ll be completely sober.

Meanwhile, I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

But who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul? I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord,

And I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

Peace, John

From the Heart Message - Part 1

2009-06-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

The other day, Jane and I drove up to Port Townsend. It was a soft overcast day creating subdued colors. Along the way we turned off 101 and drove up Mount Walker. I had not been there since 1971 when I took a bunch of kids from the UPS Group Home up there. And again the mountain was in full bloom with lovely pink rhododendrons lacing the steep forest hillsides. Wild rhodies are all that soft pink, I’m told. The blush of blossoms filled the forest and my heart with beauty.

Port Townsend was dancing with celebration as the Hood Canal Bridge had opened the day before after many weeks of closure for repairs. That meant the way was open once again for tourists to reinvigorate the shops and bookstores in the charming, historic town. A rock and roll band was playing next to a pier and people were dancing in the street to the good old tunes. After walking around, enjoying the shops and book stores we went over to Fort Warden for a bike ride.

Fort Warden, which was strategically placed for sea defense at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, especially during the dreadful days of WWI and WWII. It has been converted into a rich cultural center for education and activities. It is now a state park and has offices and facilities for colleges, environmental and musical events of highest quality and Copper Canyon Press. After riding around a bit and coasting down to the beach we rode past the old officers quarters and back toward the car. Jane was drawn to the rhododendron garden and leaning my bike against a sign I walked into the garden with her. There, standing simply and looking a bit neglected and worn, was a Peace Pole in the garden.

I remember when we planted that Peace Pole. In 1986 we were part of a peace gathering there with Earthstewards. Our late friend and great teacher, Danaan Parry called us all together and hundreds of us held a sacred ceremony in placing the Peace Pole in the ground. It states let there be peace in English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. We sanctified it and dedicated that place and ourselves at that time to the holy way of peace. Well that’s nice, you say, they planted a Peace Pole, so what came of that?

Remember, 1986 was the height of the cold war and we were pouring in millions and millions for nuclear and other forms of national defense. Remember the star wars defense touted by President Reagan and many others? And the secret wars of the CIA, the Iran Contra affair and such below the table tactics that were going on? It was also a time when farmers in Iowa and across the mid-west were sinking in debt and loosing everything and agribusiness was taking over. It was time for the people to do something for a better world than those at the control panel of power and greed.

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts,

for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

William Law

I know of some good things that came of that. Later that summer I was working in Seattle and attended a special education event sponsored by John Denver and the Snowmass Institute. They placed a Buckminster Fuller geodesic map of the globe on the floor and had people stand on different locations representing different nations, food and energy consumption, food production and water availability. Resource distribution and consumption. John Denver’s songs were a great set up to prepare us to get it. After the event I ran into a couple that had been at the Earthstewards Gathering, they were busy collecting donations to take on an old school bus from Seattle to central Mexico. There they had already made an initial visit to an orphanage, run by a priest in a building, which had been a hospital but was severely damaged in an earthquake. The priest had moved in, secured the structure, cleared away the rubble and taken in homeless children. My friends had taken many things the first time and told me of what a simple gift could do, such as a skate board someone donated became a means for a little girl, born without legs, to get around with ease and great freedom. And they had many other stories.

Another person among the Earthstewards owned a well digging business. He went to a Central American country and helped the people in a village to dig a well. Sounds simple enough, but for those people it was the first time in their history that their village could get fresh, clean water from the earth and not have to rely on surface (stream) water, carrying hosts of bacteria for many illnesses. Health, healing and happiness are natural outcomes of the holy way of peace.

May it be loving before us

May it be loving behind us

May it be loving above us

May it be loving below us

May it be loving all around us

In loving it is begun...

Navajo Prayer

Peace, John

Love, Dance, Live

2009-06-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

Dive deep, O mind, dive deep

In the ocean of God’s beauty;

If you descend to the uttermost depths,

There you will find the gem of love.

Bengali Hymn

That one I love who is incapable

Of ill will, and returns love for hatred.

Living beyond the reach of I and mine,

And of pain and pleasure, full of mercy,

Contented, self-controlled, of firm resolve,

With all his heart and all his mind given to me –

With such a one I am in love.

Sri Krishna (Bhagavad Gita)

Most of us think of love as a one-to-one relationship, which is the limitation of love on the physical level. But there is no limit to our capacity to love. We can never be satisfied by loving just one person here, another there. Our need is to love completely, universally, without any reservations – in other words, to become love itself.

Eknath Easwaran

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand.

Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

F.M. Dostoevsky

2009-06-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Dance as though no one is watching you

Love as though you have never been hurt before

Sing as though no one can hear you

Live as though heaven is on earth

Principle, Practice, Process

2009-06-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

Each step of the way in spiritual growth, spiritual life actually, is based on these three aspects: principle, practice and process. Spiritual living is not determined by what one believes, although much of religious life is. Spiritual living arises from understanding universal principles and finding practices to integrate them into one's life. For example, the principle of the oneness connection is correlated to the practices of prayer and meditation. Affirmative prayer is the practice of affirming the truth in order to instill it in your mind, in your consciousness, so you know it is real. Meditation is the practice of quieting the mind and focusing to know the real depth of oneness within you with all of life. And the third aspect is process, which is the journey one takes and the amazing awareness one arrives at on the journey, over and over again. It's like traveling across the country, whether on foot, bicycle or by car and opening to the incredible journey, including all the unexpected lessons and discoveries. The poem, The Blue Sky, by Gary Snyder, describes it beautifully. Happy Trails.

2009-05-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

2009-05-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

LAWS OF MANIFESTATION

These universal laws are what we work with every day of our lives, for this is how the universe works, governed by universal laws. We understand gravity as a law that is consistent in nature. But these laws, described herein, based on the pioneering work of Charles Fillmore in his classic book Christian Healing, first published in 1906, describe how it works. By this I mean how we manifest things in our lives and in our world. Understanding this helps us to know that we do not have good health, success and quality relationships by sheer chance or mere luck: if we do then it’s a gift. But we can consciously apply the principles described below with certain practices and enter into the process and see it happen consciously. So let’s take a sample look at the Laws of Manifestation.

THOUGHT

Thoughts held in mind produce their kind. Thought creates.

“Whatever things are true and honest… think on these things” Phil 4:8.

“As a man/woman thinks in his/her heart, so is he/she.” Proverbs

Thoughts are things, they have power, they have energy, they have life.

WORD

Word is the “Creative action of Universal Mind”

“And God said, Let there be light” Gen. 1:3

“In the beginning was the word and that word was with God” John 1:1

Affirmations of what is true instill in mind the truth that you deserve and can manifest in your life what is good, healthy and happy.

IMAGINATION

Imagination is the creative workshop of the mind.

“God created man in his own image” Gen. 1:27

Imagine what is possible for you as a child of God, a child of the Universe.

FAITH

Faith is the perceiving power of mind, the power to see what is possible.

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen.” Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the connecting power of mind in that it connects you with the Source and draws upon the resources to manifest what you desire/deserve.

LOVE

Love is what you are, you were created in love, by love and as love.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your might and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself.” Mat 22:37

Be the love you are.

WILL

Will is the executive power – it is the doer in you.

“Thy will be done” Matthew 6:10

Will is like the bus driver, like our personal ego, but it must take direction from headquarters.

APPRECIATION/GRATITUDE/PRAISE

Appreciation and gratitude express and enhance value

Express love, appreciation and gratitude and then let it be.

Praise God. Praise those you love. Praise the good in others.

“In all things give thanks.” I Thes. 5:16

Life is Consciousness

“Life is Consciousness” is commonly said in Unity and similar spiritual orientations today. But what does this mean, beyond rhetoric and platitudes? Consciousness means more than being alive or being awake. Consciousness means all the attributes and aspects that comprise the mind, both conscious and subconscious mind. Some of the aspects of the functioning mind are beliefs, opinions, attitudes and habits including mental - emotional conditioning.

When we look at the world we live in, we know life is consciousness. Whether it is the mountaintop mining destroying the Appalachian Mountains or banks and brokers mining mortgages other financial resources we know the mind set of greed and expedient profits were involved. All the wars and resulting suffering and starvation, sickness and slavery are results of consciousness of fear, power mongering and control. These are not things that just happen our of the blue but as manifestations of consciousness.

Likewise when we look at the life of a beloved teacher who manifests love and touches the hearts and souls of all those open and receptive students, we know there is one living or manifesting the consciousness of love. A mother caring for her infant, watching it, holding it, nursing it, letting it play, even bump its head, is manifesting love consciousness.

The world we see and experience is the result of all that we do, think, believe, feel, want and need. And the life we live is the outcome of all we believe, think, feel, want and need with a dash of attitudes, opinions and everyone and everything else.

2009-05-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

2009-05-30T23:19:00.000-07:00

Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God... and the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelations

2009-05-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

2009-05-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

Tree of Life and the Leaf

2009-05-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Sages speak of the immutable Tree of Life

with its taproot above and its branches below.

Sri Krishna (The Bhagavad Gita)

Most of the Tree of Life is not physical. The whole phenomenal universe - matter, energy, mind - is only it canopy of countless little leaves. This is all we can see. Each leaf grows from a twig, which grows from a branch, which in turn grows from a vast trunk. And supporting the trunk and all its twigs and branches - completely hidden - is the taproot extending into pure being. The taproot of this tree is the Lord, the eternal, changeless self.

This image is more than poetry - it is personal and practical. As long as we live on the surface of life we believe we are separate individual leaves. We lead private lives that bear little relation to the rest of the tree even though when we are cut off from that tree we have no life. Driven by self-will, we cannot imagine that we are forfeiting the whole of life for the individual leaf we call our individual personality. So when you get up in the morning, remind yourself of this magnificent simile which asks us to which asks us to claim the whole Tree of Life and not be content with being one seasonal leaf.

Eknath Easwaran

2009-05-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Thought

2009-05-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

We are formed and molded by our thoughts.

Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts

give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.

Buddha

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in a inhabitual way.

William James

It is done unto you according to your beliefs.

Jesus

As a man (woman) thinks in his (her) heart, so is he (she).

Proverbs

We are what our thoughts have made us;

so take care about what you think.

Words are secondary.

Thoughts live; they travel far.

Swami Vivekananda

All that we are

is the result of what we have thought.

Buddha

You are what your deep, driving desire is.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

All mystics speak the same language,

for they come from the same country.

Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

LOVE

2009-05-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

Love one another as I have loved you.

Jesus

Love seeks no cause beyond itself

and no fruit: it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment.

I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.

Saint Bernard

This is the true joy in life,

the being used for a purpose recognized

by yourself as a mighty one.

George Bernard Shaw

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The soul is made of love

and must ever strive to return to love.

Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness

in other things. It must lose itself in love.

By its very nature it must seek God, who is love.

Mechthild of Magdeburg

2009-05-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child.

Buddha

When you discover the divine core of your being:

call is Christ, or the Buddha, or Krishna, the Higher Self

or simply the Infinite - you are transformed and in process

of complete change from the inner to the outer you.

You are no longer in love merely with people, you become

love itself. You live in the consciousness of love.

Every person on earth calls you to love. This is your true nature.

You strive to live your life so that you never infringe on the happiness

or the well being of anyone. You make contributions to solving the immense problems that face the whole of humanity today. And to work to relieve suffering. This is loving.

Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.

William Shakespeare

2009-05-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains:

whenever any of these hundred yields less,

your pleasure is diminished.

But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you,

no longer need you steal from the other fountains.

Jalaluddin Rumi

2009-05-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

To be a Sufi

is to cease from taking trouble;

and there is no greater trouble for you

than your own self, for when you are occupied

with yourself, you remain away from God.

Abu Sa'id

2009-05-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

The secret of health for both mind and body

is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future,

or not to anticipate troubles, but to live

the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

This life of separateness may be compared to

a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow,

a crop of dew, a flash of lightning.

Buddha

2009-05-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

The grace of God

is a wind

which is always blowing.

Sri Ramakrishna

2009-05-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

The control of the palate

is a valuable aid for the control of the mind.

Mahatma Gandhi

2009-05-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

A human being has so many skins inside,

covering the depths of the heart.

We know so many things,

but we don't know ourselves!

Why, thirty or forty skins or hides,

as thick and hard as an ox's or a bear's,

cover the soul. Go into your own ground

and learn to know yourself there.

Meister Eckhart

2009-05-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

A mind that is fast is sick.

A mind that is slow is sound.

A mind that is still is divine.

Meher Baba

2009-05-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

There is hunger for ordinary bread,

and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness;

and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

2009-05-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe,

so no thought or action is without its effects,

present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.

Norman Cousins

2009-05-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Be vigilant:

guard your mind

against negative thoughts.

Buddha

Nonviolence

2009-05-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Nonviolence is the supreme law of life.

Hindu Proverb

The Sanskrit word for nonviolence is ahimsa:

a - means "not" or "without": himsa is violence.

This may sound negative, but in Sanskrit a word

constructed in this way stands for a state both

perfect and positive. Ahimsa implies that when

every trace of violence is removed from the mind,

what is left is our natural state of consciousness: pure love.

Unfortunately, that love has been buried under layer

upon layer of ill will and selfish conditioning.

To have love bubble up to the surface of our life,

all we have to do is systematically remove all those layers.

There are three kinds of violence: one, through our deeds;

two, through our words; and three, through our thoughts.

Most of what we call violence is in the form of action,

and it is with our actions that nonviolence, naturally begins.

But as long as our minds harbor violent thoughts,

that incipient violence will find its way somehow into

our speech and behavior.

The root of violence is in the world of thoughts,

and that is why training the mind is so important.

Eknath Easwaran

2009-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot,

him I call a real driver; other people are but holding the reins.

The Buddha

From the Bible

2009-05-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your might

and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

And the second is like to it,

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus

Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your might.

Deuteronomy

From the Bhagavad Gita

2009-05-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

I look upon all creatures equally;

none are less dear to me and none more dear.

But those who worship me with love live in me,

and I come to life in them.

Sri Krishna

2009-05-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Love seeks not itself to please,

Nor for itself has any care,

But for another gives its case,

And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

William Blake

2009-05-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

Buddy Dog, Loyal Lover, Friend, Philosopher

2009-05-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

"I'm a dog," said Buddy,

"I love my friends, I love my humans,

I love my neighbors, cats, dogs, birds, squirrels, raccoons,

coyotes, foxes..."

"So, why is that?" asked Miss Kitty.

"Cause we are all one.

As that Avatar of old, Baba said:

'You and I are not we. You and I are one.'

Now that's the way a good dog thinks."

2009-05-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

2009-05-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

Love all that has been created by God,

Both the whole and every grain of sand.

Love every leaf and every ray of light.

Love the beasts and the birds,

Love the plants, love every separate fragment.

If you love every single fragment,

You will understand the mystery

Of the whole resting in God.

F.M. Dostoevsky

2009-05-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

2009-05-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

Cats and Dogs

Getting along...

or living with others

Mia the Cat and Buddy Dog lay in the solarium of the house.

Oz come bounding up barking: "Let's go play! Let's go play!

Play! Play! Play! Play!"

Mia says: "Leave me be. I just want to sit quietly. I'll stay."

Buddy says: "OK! OK! Let's play!"

Oz asks: "What about you Mia? Don' cha wanna play?"

Mia looks away: "No. I want to do yoga and meditate. Leave me."

Bob, their human, comes into the solarium. "Hey you wanna go for a walk?"

"Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy! My favorite! Come on Oz! Let's go!" Buddy barks.

"Come on Oz!"

"Yoga? Meditate?" queries Oz. "Does she yoga? Does she meditate? What is that anyway? Yoga? Meditate?"

"Aw, don't worry." offers Buddy. That's what she does. She sits, rolls around the floor and stretches into all these weird positions and then she relaxes. I think she just sits and thinks about nothing. Don't worry. She's cool."

"I don't meditate. I play." barks Oz.

"Exactly!" agrees Buddy. "Ours is not to do what others do or be what others are, but to be ourselves. We are here to be ourselves, to be happy and to love everybody."

"Here comes Pippin! Hiya!" The three become more as they walk down the lane.

"All Right! I'm playing with Freddy!" Pippin romps with them.

"Here's Spooky! What's happening?"

"There's Alicia with all her little puppies!" Buddy turns to her, "How are the little rascals?"

They get to a road and run down the road ahead of Bob, to have a good bark with Sadie and Gus. "Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark........"

Moving along the road they see a deer at the crest of the hill. It turns and bounds into the forest.

At a trail they see a raccoon rambling on. They try to talk with it, but it just growls, doesn't understand their language.

Birds sing and chatter from tree to tree. Pilleated woodpecker pounds into body of an old dead tree deeper in the woods.

"I just love these dogwood trees. Don't you Buddy?" says Bob.

"Dogwood? What's a dogwood?" wonders Oz.

"It's that tree with lovely white flowers. Look up. They flower now in spring." Buddy smiles.

"So, why call them dogwood?" asks Oz.

"'Cause they have such great bark." chuckles Buddy.

"What's that?" Oz turns her head as a gray and brown four-legged crosses the road and scampers up a deer trail into the forest.

"Think it's a coyote." offers Buddy.

"Do they like to play?" suggests Oz as she starts to run.

"No." Buddy stops Oz, "They are wild. Might hurt you if challenged or cornered. To each their own. Let it be. Leave them alone in nature. You tell by their vibes. If they come up to you happy and friendly you have to read their energy to see if they are real, friendly and happy or not. Be careful with all creatures.

A great bald eagle perched atop a giant douglas fir opens its wings and takes to the air to fly. It swoops down, waves it's wings and soars above them and over the forest.

"Come on, let's go home and I'll fix you dinner." says Bob. Buddy, Oz and Bob go home.

2009-05-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

A Celtic Blessing

2009-05-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Deep peace of the Running Wave to you.

* * *

Deep peace of the Flowing Air to you.

* * *

Deep peace of the Quiet Earth to you.

* * *

Deep peace of the Shinning Stars to you.

* * *

Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.

2009-05-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

The Blue Sky

"Eastward from here,

beyond Buddha-worlds ten times as

numerous as the sands of the Ganges

there is a world called

PURE AS LAPIS LAZULI

its Buddha is called Master of Healing,

AZURE RADIANCE TATHAGATA"

It would take you twelve thousand summer vacations

driving a car due east all day every day

to reach the edge of the lapis lazuli realm of

Medicine Old Man Buddha;

East. Old Man Realm,

East across the sea, yellow sand land

Coyote Old Man land

Silver, and stone blue.

Blue, Belo, "bright colors of the flames"

flamen / brahman,

beltane, "blue fire" --

Sky.

[The dappled cloud zone --

Sanskrit sku "covered"

skewed (pied) skewbald (..."Stewball")

skybald / piebald] --

Horse with lightening feet!

A mane like distant rain,

the turquoise horse,

a black star for an eye

white shell teeth.

Pony that feeds on the pollen of flowers

may he

make thee whole,

Heal, hale... whole.

The Spell of the Master of Healing.

Namo bhagavate bhaishajyaguru-vaidurya-

prabharajaya tathagata arhate samyak

sambuddhaya tadyatha om bhaishajye

bhaishajye bhaishajya samudgate

svaha.

"I honor the Lord, the Master of Healing,

shining like lapis lazuli, the king, the

Tathagaata, the Saint, the perfectly enlightened

one, saying OM TO THE HEALING

TO THE HEALING TO THE HEALER HAIL!

svaha."

Shades of blue through the day.

T'cu chueh a border tribe near China

Turc

Turquise: a hydrous phosphate of aluminum

a little copper

a little iron --

In the reign of Emperor Nimmayo

when Ono-no-Komachi the strange girl poet

was seventeen, she set out looking for her father

who had become a Buddhist wanderer. She took ill

on her journey, and sick in bed one night saw

AZURE RADIANCE THUS-COME MEDICINE MASTER

in a dream. He told her she would find a hot springs

on the bank of the Azuma river in the Bandai mountains

that would cure her; and she'd meet her father there.

"Enchantment as strange as

the Blue up above" my rose of San Antone

Tibetans say that goddesses have lapis lazuli hair.

Azure Old French azur,

Persian lazhward, "lapis lazuli"

-- blue bead charms against the evil eye--

(Tim and Kim and Don and I were talking about

what an awful authoritarian garb Doctors

and Nurses wear, really, how spooky it is.

"What should they wear?"

-- "masks and feathers!"

Gary Snyder from "Mountains and Rivers Without End"

Hafiz

2008-02-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

I AM SO GLAD

Start seeing everything as God,
But keep it a secret.
Become like a man who is Awestruck
And Nourished

Listening to a Golden Nightingale

Sing in a beautiful foreign language
While God invisibly nests
Upon its tongue.

Hafiz,
Who can you tell in this world
That when a dog runs up to you
Wagging its ecstatic tail,
You lean down and whisper in its ear,

"Beloved,
I am so glad You are happy to see me.
Beloved, I am so glad,
So very glad You have come."
Hafiz

Songs of The Living

2008-02-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Selected verses from:

SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL By Walt Whitman

Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the universal.

In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart
Nestles the seed of perfection.

In every life a share or more or less,
None born but it is born, conceal'd or unconceal'd the seed is waiting.

SONG OF MYSELF by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD by Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing.
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill'd with them; and I will fill them in return.)

What's What

2008-02-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

Where Jesus lives, the great-hearted gather.
We are a door that's never locked.

If you are suffering any kind of pain,
Stay near this door. Open it.
Rumi