Star, Star, Shining Bright

All the stars are coming out tonight
They’re lighting up the sky tonight
For you

For You

You light the skies up above me
A star so bright you blind me
Don’t close your eyes

Don’t fade away

Don't fade away

Beirut

Beirut

Awesome Band

Amazing Sound

www.beirutband.com

www.myspace.com/beruit

Listen to the track "Nantes"

Self and Other

We all have a personal decision to make;
To reclaim compassion or not.
You can make feeling with the other personal.
Listen to the other.
Feel their emotions be it joy, love, fear or pain.
The other should not and cannot be ignored forever.
Listen carefully.
If you were in their place you may feel the same.
From there you can build a relationship and seek understanding.
From the point of compassion reconciliation and peace can begin.

This Year

One day we're talking

The next it stops

Our connection parted

Clouds drifting

Memories racing unbound

No propitious explanation

To sooth a restless soul

All's lost in this place

Until on high a rainbow

Appears smiling in the sky

Shining down a sign

On both sides now

Lifting the veil to reveal

A momentary state of grace

A new reality

Love expands

Leaving a space

In my heart

For you

Who is standing in the way of the life-sustaining society?

Businessman and corporate consultant Robert Greenleaf has a sobering answer;

"Not evil people. Not stupid people. Not apathetic people. Not the 'system'. Not the ... reactionaries. The better society will come, if it comes, with plenty of evil, stupid, apathetic people around and with an imperfect, ponderous and inefficient 'system' as the vehicle for change. Liquidate the offending people, radically alter or destroy the system and in less than a generation they will all be back.
The real enemy is fuzzy thinking on the part of good, intelligent and vital people and their failure to lead. Too many of us settle for being critics and experts. There is too much intellectual wheel spinning, too much retreating into research, too little preparation for and willingness to undertake the hard and high risk tasks of building better institutions in an imperfect world, too little to see the problem as residing 'in here' and not 'out there'. In short the enemy is good people who have the potential to lead but do not lead. They suffer, society suffers."


Quoted in 'Developing Ecological Consciousness' by Christopher Uhl (p.348)

We were made for these times ...

Extracts from an article by Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount in The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 2005, Volume 24 p.90-91.

http://www.transpersonalstudies.org/volume_24_2005.html

Czech president Vaclav Havel, speaking at Harvard University, said, “I am persuaded again and again that, lying dormant in the deepest roots of most, if not all, cultures there is an essential similarity, something that could be made—if the will to do so existed— a genuinely unifying starting point for that new code of human coexistence that would be firmly anchored in the great diversity of human traditions” (1995).

A saying attributed to the Hopi Indians says, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

How can we respond to this situation?

1. Promoting the renaissance of holistic culture, drawing from old spiritual traditions, cultivating the real nature of man as a manifestation of the true nature of all creation, reclaiming the sacredness of life and death;

2. Enhancing the evolution of humankind from homo tribus to homo holos. The tribal human is preoccupied mostly with the tribal drives of the first three chakras—basically having to do with territory and survival. The holistic human is able to raise awareness to the heart and the crown chakra level, and embrace the entire Earth community;

3. Inspiring new women’s movements to reclaim feminine power and wisdom, and to bring in more love and respect for the Earth and all living beings;

4. Developing the politics of awareness, fostering a new sense of planetary consciousness that is interfaith and multicultural;

5. Supporting culture and communication without violence; and

6. Co-creating a new code of co-existence based on the values that underlie the great spiritual traditions.

The Story of Our Times

"The universe is a commune of subjects, not a collection of objects."

Thomas Berry

We live inside a story and that is the story of the universe. It is as much a part of us as we are a part of it. There is no separation, therefore, what we do to another we do to ourselves. If we are sacred, all is sacred. Our thoughts and actions should begin with communion and reverence. Listen to what the trees are telling you, what the birds are singing, the sights and sounds of all that is around. Reconnect with that that is in us all and that we share with all that is part of our universe. We are all one and the same only manifest in different forms. In that sense there are no beginnings or endings, simply remanifestations.

Inspiration

Love is the single most difficult part of life because it is the source of all that is good and all that is painful and cruel. When on the receiving end of the harsher aspects of love, life is at its most challenging, difficult and transformative. From darkness can come light, hope and the eventual fulfilment of our dreams. Of all the painful and cruel happenings hold onto the sense of light and love that are surrounding and within, and you will shine in new ways beyond your imagination.

Excerpt from Mental Flight by Ben Okri

You can't remake the world

Without remaking yourself.

Each new era begins within.

It is an inward event,

With unsuspected possibilities

For inner liberation.

We could use it to turn on

Our inward lights.

We could use it to use even the dark

And negative things positively.

We could use the new era

To clean our eyes,

To see the world differently,

To see ourselves more clearly.

Only free people can make a free world.

Infect the world with your light.

Help fulfill the golden prophecies.

Press forward the human genius.

Our future is greater than our past.

And because we have too much information,
And no clear direction;
Too many facts,
Too much confusion,
And crave clear vision;
Too many fears,
And not enough light –
I whisper to myself modest maxims
As thought friends for a new age.
See clearly, think clearly.
Face pleasant and unpleasant truths;
Face reality.
Free the past.
Catch up with ourselves.
Never cease from upward striving.
We are better than we think.
Don’t be afraid to love, or be loved.
As within, so without.
We owe life abundant happiness.

According to Nalungiaq, an Inuit woman

In the very earliest time
when both people and animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if s/he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen-
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody could explain this:
That's the way it was.

in, David Abram 'The Spell of the Sensuous', 1996, Vintage Books, p.87

Autumn Walk

Cocooned in wool

One step follows another.
Down dale, over stile
Soothing water below.
Burnt orange, mustard yellow
Glint in the eye,
Wrapped in the song
Of the Robin.
Tinged by smoke of logs
The village fades.
Spring-backed gates
Reveal lush green fields.
There spy wary Hardwicks
And nonchalent Frescians,
I cocooned in wool
Follow one step to another.

Where is the love?

"What's wrong with the world, mama. People livin' like they ain't got no mamas. I think the whole world addicted to the drama. Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma. Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism, but we still got terrorists here livin'. In the USA, the big CIA, the Bloods and the Crips and the KKK, but if you only have love for your own race, then you only leave space to discriminate, and to discriminate only generates hate, and when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah. Madness is what you demonstrate, and that's exactly how anger works and operates. Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight. Take control of your mind and meditate. Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all. People killin', people dyin' children hurt and you hear them cryin'. Can you practice what you preach? And would you turn the other cheek? Father, Father, Father help us. Send some guidance from above. Cause people got me, got me questionin' 'Where is the love?' It just ain't the same, always unchanged. New days are strange, is the world insane? If love and peace is so strong why are there pieces of love that don't belong? Nations droppin' bombs. Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones with ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young. So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone? So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong? In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin'in. Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends. Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother. A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover. The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug. If you never know truth then you never know love. Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know). I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder. As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder. Most of us only care about money makin'. Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction. Wrong information always shown by the media. Negative images is the main criteria. Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria. Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema. Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity? Whatever happened to the fairness in equality? Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity. Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity. That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under. That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down. There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under. Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found. Now ask yourself, where is the love? One world, we only got one world, one world, that's all we got. The Black Eyes Peas.

Listen to the Trees

Do you know that trees talk?

Well they do.

They talk to each other,

and they'll talk to you if you listen.

Trouble is white people don't listen.

They never learned to listen to the Indians,

so I don't suppose they'll listen to other voices in nature.

But I have learned a lot from trees:

sometimes about the weather,

sometimes about animals,

sometimes about the Great Spirit.

- Walking Buffalo (1871-1967), Stoney-

I am!

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am - I live - though I am tossed

Into nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange - nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod -
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept -
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So, let me lie -
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

John Clare (1793-1864)