Stardust

I am just a modest little

blogger

who, when I began this modest little

blog,

thought I could say something

that would impact someone.

I've since come to realize

that my little blog is just a blip 

on the larger screen,

like a distant star

in a distant galaxy,

in a landscape of babble.

I'm always a little shocked 

and amazed

when someone responds to a post I've written.

It's sort of like a voice from the other side of the universe.

And for those of you who are reading this:

It's nice to know you.

*

I ramble on

about whatever, and my words spin out

into the ether, sort of like that wonderful

to that film Contact,  that I think

Carl Sagan helped produce.

Remember that?

I kind of imagine the internet that way,

this scramble of voices

of impulses

of history,

emanating from our earth,

embracing the earth,

producing lasting traces

of we,

our history.

Cosmos left a big impact on me,

when it first came out.

It was one of those media events,

like the first time we landed on the moon,

that asked me

and everyone else,

to see our planet

from elsewhere,

to put our planet in its true perspective.

This is a fairly awesome thing to do,

in the truest sense of the word

awesome.

I've been recently made aware of another film,

that places us back into that space perspective,

and asks us to look at earth

from space

and consider our responsibilities.

It's called Continuum, and from what I can see,

its makers are/were looking for funding to 

suport it at Kickstarter.

I think it's worth it.

Here's a trailer for it:

I'm getting used to the fact

I'm a blip on the internet screen,

and we

as a race, perhaps,

are getting more used to the fact

that we are but a blip

in the universe,

yet when you're 

an inhabitant of the blip,

well, it's worth taking the time to take care of it.

Indeed, 

as I've said before,

that particular issue overshadows

all else.

Coming out from a long cold winter. . . .

Wow,

I'm in the Spring

of 2013. 

We made it to the other side.

I will admit, I've been way too busy

to even find words.

I'm deluged in the words of others.

The words of young people,

some of whom

are strangers in the land of written words.

Still,

I could write for hours about what my students say.

I heard a great idea today:

A student named Anthony presented an argumentative paper to me,

and his thesis was that we have to train everyone to be able to recognize

the signs of depression. 

And I said:

Everyone?  How can we do that?

And he said:

Change the education system.

He went on to say:

We worry about physical health,

and we have to take classes about that,

but why not mental and emotional health?

He proposed changes to curricula, beginning at the lowest grades,

in which we teach young people about their emotions.

We can teach them, he said, about the fact that they'll

be sad and happy and frustrated and angry

all in the same day,

and that's normal.

We can teach them ways to manage

their emotional states.

(Like yoga and meditation, I would add.  He didn't say that.)

And we can make it mandatory, Anthony said, throughout their education.

Because our emotional needs change, you know?

Yeah, I know, I said.

Anthony also thought we should teach, in this class,

morality and ethics,

separate from any religion.

So the young know that's it feels best

when they do the right thing.

As Anthony left my office, I thanked him.

And I felt exceedingly 

happy.

Because I think Anthony has a fabulous idea,

that could change the world,

and if Anthony,

and the thousands of young psychology majors in the world

all feel the same way about this,

well, 

we may be going in the right direction,

after all.

mantra

                                           

Every day                                                    

        

                                                           is

Another day

                                                            to

practice

                             being happy.

To be it

                                                          despite

the hurt;

                                                          to smile

through the fog

                                                           to love

through the apathy

                                                          until

You can do it

                                                           everyday

                                 without a hitch.

                                    Today is

                                  another day to

                                    practice

                                  being happy.

                                  being happy.

                                  being happy.

                                  being happy.

                                  being happy.

Love Poem For Today

(from: senior hiker )

My grandmother always said

the honeymoon's over

when you fart in bed,

and then the test of true love starts,

a love that sometimes ignores the heart

and demands a patience greater than

that of the wisest fisherman.

Well,

 you and I are growing old

and seek a fairy tale more real

where companionship is the moral

and star-struck ever-afters, vile,

and bed a place to sleep,

to caress,

to talk and cry

and

to die.

I'll lie by your side,

my gentle prince

and forgive fragrant emissions.

They mark a life

well lived, and full

of wisdom and

forgiveness.

Of pain and disappointment too,

and respect for every hour,

and the worship

of the sacred

in a budding flower.

This love I welcome:

well worn,

flawed,

but always new,

and pray I give the same

to you.

(photo by me)

True Communion

( from: Food52 )

There are words we pass

To pass the time

And words of civility,

And words, like coins,

That fill that rhyme,

And too many of acrimony.

These words we spend

Without a thought,

Disregarding the ceremony

That occurs each time

We pass a word,

Like bread,

From mouth to mouth.

There is a wordspring,

Deep inside, where

Language lingers,

Brooding,

Aching to bond the hearts and minds

Of each sad, solitary human.

So we must treat the sharing of words,

As it should be, as

Communion,

Because in sharing words,

Like bread,

We find immortal union.

(From: Chopra )

Phone Home with E.T.

You can't change the world,

but you can change yourself.

This man is brilliant.

Meditate with me:

return to the garden

(all photos by Makropoulos)

At the moment when the infamous residents

of the original Garden Eden

ate the apple, something happened:

the human brain began so quickly to grow, so

much so it began to rival

God's

.

And not knowing this new power they so quickly had in hand,

they panicked.

If they had not panicked so

A + E may have discovered,
far too early,
 the distinctive 

pleasure of mind, the intense

satisfaction one can gain

from imagining worlds.

Ultimately, they, both woman and man,

might have gotten lost

in their own individual revery.

Like two fools in front of a TV,

they would have climbed inside themselves

-- godlike, indeed, one and only --

and that would have been the end

of the human race,

before it even began.

But that was not the plan.

God had intended all along for woman

and man

to make manifest the many dimensions of Him/

Her/

(Whatever pronoun we must deploy

to speak of God.)

But if so early in the game

the human players got distracted,

it would be the end.

Amen.

So God, in Her infinite wisdom,

put an end to that:

He decided that humans, 

more than any other species,

would have the distinct ability

to take intense pleasure in the act

of coupling, and presto!

it worked. 

Man and wife produced

legions, and with that too came

                         jealousy

                         pride

                         leachory

                               treachory

                             and 

                         falsehood =

all the products of minds misused

and bodies abused, in the 

lusty quest for self stimulation.

But meanwhile we have reproduced

indeed, and invented History

(written by the few, not always the wise;

the wise, in solitude, advanced technology).

And here we are now 

at the crest of infinity.

In our spare time,

we have created a facsimile 

of God=Expansive Mind,

but in our limitations

and morbid manipulations

we cannot see

that God is with us

and in us

right now.

O man, listen to birdsong.

O woman, cease your labors.

The earth pulses with life;

we are her masters.

It is our responsibility to care for her

as it is our appointed duty.

In the word huma, hu represents spirit, and the word mah in Arabic means water.

In English the word "human" explains two facts which are characteristic of humanity:

hu means God and man means mind, which comes from the Sanskrit mana, mind being the ordinary person.

The two words united represent the idea of the God-conscious person; in other words, hu, God, is in all things and being, but it is man by whom He is known.  "Human" therefore may be said to mean God-conscious, God realized, or God-man.    from: The Music of Life, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

The Shimmering Self

So hard to believe my material self
                                           is the very least of me,
not meant to accompany me
                                           into eternity.

Over the centuries, I've grown so very
                                                      very
                                             intimate
with my curves and lines,
with my cracks and groans,
with my nails and toes,
with my hair, and every
crevice of me.
So very hard to believe my physical
                                           disposability.

( with gratitude to The Happiness Rx )

And yet, when breathing deep,
I find my shimmering self exceeds
my mortal limits, is only impeded
by my body's desires, but smiles
              compassionately at my body's
needs for snacking on the fruits of the earth --
                air and sea, wine and bread,
                you and me
                together --
gentle pastimes of the time
we spend clasped in this earth's embrace.

But if one sincerely meditates
one finds the lines of our bodies
only hold us close; we seek to fly,
and we can fly
infinitely.

(photo by Makropoulos)

Why
is it that we fear our dying?
It is because the body
which is a somatic entity
loves the vibrancy
                   the spirit endows it with.


The body is, essentially,
a parasite that sucks the life
off the spiritual source
that created it.
No sin in that, we live mutually,
striving to see clearly
                         the duality
               of each and all.

~ ~ ~

Now what the hell
             you may implore
does this have to do
               with the cost of oil,
               the unending wars,
               the embittered child,
               the Tony awards,
               with Barack Obama,
               or with Mitt or George?
               With the rising debt
               with the setting empire
               with Madonna's tit
               or the unpredictable weather?

With all the awful news today
Why is it that this is all
                I can say?


Because it is all I can say.

It's hard to believe,
yet it may be time
to believe
that our materials selves
are the very least of we
not meant to accompany
us
into eternity.

nature

(Huffington Post: "Human Induced Ocean Warming" )

Do It Now

( greenprophet )

The simple problem of humanity

is that we've built a world

- our perfect world -

so well, it hides the world

whose very imperfections whisper

the secrets we all seek.

With each inhale,

with each exhale,

with each slumbering purr and fart,

our earth speaks

the mystery of her own creation,

and our creation too.

We fumbling creator creatures,

so self important in our mimicking

of the sublime voice that breathed us into life,

and 

in our petty perfecting of this temporary place

this material space

built with expendable ingredients,

that we don't see the aging mechanisms behind the curtain

on the stage of our pursuits.

( dogugaeshi )

Be brave now,

dear friends,

live simply on our planet home.

Now,

dear friends

Now.

Peaceful Christmas Wishes To The World, from Makropoulos

Whether you believe the story or not,

the sentiment of it is important:

Peace on Earth,

Good Will To All --

on this Christmas,

during this tumultuous time,

may we all find the Jesus within us all.

As I've said so many times before,

if only we could all do that,

Jesus would come

again, 

or truly,

for the first time.

forbidden fruit

( knoxnews )

There's always been a forbidden fruit,

and there always will be.

There's always something that

within our conscience,

we know we should not do.

(Our conscience, by the way, is that ever flowing,

border crossing,

spiritual entity

that both dictates our individual actions

and unites human - kind.

Essentially, our conscience

is the essence of the Creator

that we all share.

)

The moment of The Fall was

the moment of evolution

during which

humans recognized they could discriminate,

understand,

and make decisions

that are both in tune with the

and, 

more significantly,

contrary to 

the will of the Universal Conscience.

It set us in motion to become
Creators
in our own right --

So, to reinterpret

that story that I love to interpret

and reinterpret so much:

some early humans

with the initials A and E

once upon a time

were the first to have the capacity

to make a choice 

,

to ignore the voice of Conscience

and do something contrary to the wishes

of the Universal Good,

and then, they also chose

to pretend that what they did

was just fine.

Thus began

the game of deception that we call Civilization.

( igniq )

We have made the terrific mistake

over the centuries

of believing that our conscience

is individual,

when in fact

it is the steady constant

that provides universal ethics

for harmonious living.

The voice of God

screams out from the depths

of the You

you currently occupy;

it demands

that You cooperate

and collaborate

with your fellow Humans

(and the other animals, as well).

We have stifled the Voice Inside for far far

too long.

If you hear a voice screaming

in your head right now,

as I do,

a voice you cannot ignore,

it is the voice of our shared consciousness

and our source

demanding to be heard.

Listen to it.

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted (by Rumi, illustrations by Odilon Redon)

(  oceansbridge)

This place is a dream.

Only the sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world,

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves 

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes come now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be.

(this, and the above, from
artunframed )

And this groggy time we live,
this is what it's like:
                             A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.
                    In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes
the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

artinthepicture

The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze.
But we are older than those cities.
                                 We began
as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life,
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.


venu

                     That's how a young person turns
toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans
toward a breast, without knowing the secret
of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.




canvaz

Like a Prayer: To My Mother

( susanwrotehere )

Hanging up the phone tonight, after talking with my ancient mother, I said to her, as I always say: "I love you."  Obligatory, yes, and yet, I know I truly mean it.  I know that if tomorrow, if I had not said it, and if I were to receive the call that told me she has finally departed this domain, I would tear myself apart for not having said those three words to her the last time we spoke on this beautiful planet.

Those three words are an obligation, and yet they are all I want to have ever said to my mother, because they summarize all of my messages to her, over the years, over the decades, over the centuries:  my messages of hope, of expectation, of disappointment, of demand, of guilt, of sadness, of hurt, of happiness, of intentions, of plans, of relationships, of joys, of men, of women, of children, of change, of desire, of despair, of impatience, of patience, of giving up, of acceptance, of life, of life, of life --- all those messages I've ever shared with my mother over my multiple lifetimes, which she has listened to so patiently, are best summed up with one message: I love you.   And so I say it, dutifully, every night when I call her before she goes to bed.  It's true.  I do.  Like a nighttime prayer, I call my mother, listen to her litany of pains and changes in her aching aging body, and then I say "I love you," and "sleep well."

( terawarner )

I love you.  What does it truly mean to say that?  In the long term, when you've lived as long as I have, it is to say this:

You have a place in my heart.

No one else has that place --

only you--

and when I visit it, I am

with you.

The mystery and the magic lies

in this:

my heart has more places

than I can count,

and each has a different shape

                         and size

that can only be found

when its occupant is found --

In other words,

dear reader,

I did not know that place existed 

in my heart, that place

the size of you

until I met you, and then

there it was --

beating, throbbing, flexible, growing

that place in my heart 

that was made for you --

that was waiting for you --

No one else will fit there,

and it will endure,

as long as I endure--

This

is what it means when I say

I love you,

and I do ---

               who

ever you are, my many

silent ethereal, virtual friends --

love you ---

read it every night

before you go to bed

                           like a prayer.   

( activityvillage )

11/11/11, reprise

Hi.

I have republished one other 

of my earlier entries,

and today I want to do that again.

This one was actually originally written

on 10/6/10,

I think,

but it was written about today,

and I actually had a fantasy when I wrote it,

and still harbor that fantasy,

that it would inspire the world.

Well, maybe not the world,

but maybe you.

Here goes:

( laptopprophets )

So, as we all may know,

there's a growing community of folks

who are a bit worried

about the date

12/21/2012.

Somethin' about

Nostradamus

and

the Mayans,

and

some kind of planetary alignment.

Well, I had a revelation

today, and

it goes like this:

That's not really the date to watch

out for.

Well, ok, so it's true;  the evidence

(if you accept that kind of evidence as evidence)

does suggest

something major,

on

12/21/2012

something/anything

ranging from

major paradigmatic shift

to 

ice age

to

metaphysical awakening

to 

alien encounter

to

total destruction

or

fill in the blank

on 12/21/2012.

( somy35 )

But I had a vision today,

and it was

that the really interesting

palindromic

upcoming

temporal event 

will be:

11:11 on 11/11/11

I think it could be

either

a.m. or p.m.

you choose.

~ ~ ~

Anyway,

I would propose that

11:11 on 11/11/11

should be declared

the deadline time

for the one-ness,

and if we meet that deadline,

and stay in a state

of oneness

until 12/21/2012,

well,

we'll pass whatever

judgement day test

God has in store for us

for

12/21/2012.

Get it?

You see,

the deal is this:

if, 

by some weird

outside

chance,

we are facing Armageddon,

then hey,

what the heck?

Would it really hurt us to try,

for a little over a year

to just be at peace,

to just love each other.

This Is My Request,

My Dare,

To The World:

If everyone would meet that deadline:

11:11 on 11/11/11

a.m.  or p.m.,

you choose,

and then

beginning on that date,

just

STOP

stop all the hate.

Stop all the fighting.

Stop all the bickering.

Stop all the competition,

and hating,

and hurting,

and murdering,

STOP IT ALL!!!!

and just start loving,

loving people

who

you never thought you could love.

Find a place in your heart

where you can see

the thing that makes those people

who anger you, or have hurt you,

or who you don't understand

yes, 

those people,

find the thing that makes them

beautiful.

and love them until

12/21/2012.

Well, actually:

 let's say

the danger zone for

a real,

possible

 Armageddon

or

Apocolypse

or

whatever

is

from

12/20/2012

until

12/23/2012.

Yeah,

that sounds good --

those solstices 

can take awhile,

especially when they involve

a realignment

of the Earth's

magnetic fields.

So, given that,

if we get through

12/23/2012

and we're still here

and the sun

is still shining

and Santa Claus comes

and brings you

all the presents you asked for,

well then,

if we're still here after

12/23/2012,

and we've loved for a year,

and we've communicated honestly for

a whole year

and we've given to the poor for

a whole year

and we've forgiven all our debtors

for a year

and our debtors have forgiven us

for a year

and we've built up Iraq's infrastructure

for a whole year

and gone to tea with the Taliban

for a whole year

and the Taliban has gone to tea

with us

for a whole year

So, let's say

we do all that for

a little over a measly year,

and we get past the 

end of the Mayan Calendar

with no Apocolypse,

no voice from the heavens,

no planetary destruction,

why then,

if that year or so of loving

each other really proved

to be a waste of our time

we can start hating each other again,

and go back to fighting each other again.

That's the deal.

That's the deadline.

11:11 on 11/11/11

begin the one-ness