man would hold that sparkling orb
in his clasp of iron
to covet and to pillage
emboldened by
the might of his arm and voice
drawing on that glimpse of mind
he espies from the shore
never cognizant
those verdant greens and vibrant blues
are but the edge of all that matters
beautiful and resonant with
joyful purpose
###
Thank you once again to Eugi’s Causerie. This week’s prompt, “Round the World.”
Stand for Freedom!!
all these years later
she can’t help but notice
those moments when
she is still ready to run
ready to flee at a moment’s notice
ready to hide
to shrink into invisibility
ready to cower placate apologize submit
to be silent
ready to protect defend shield
guarded always
as the shadows continue to ricochet through her life
and yet somehow
the one who wrought those sad reflexes
must carry even more damage and suffering
worse
whether consciously or not
must live with the knowledge of what they did
and the legacy that lives from it
on so many levels
why do so many seem to spend
years and years of their lives in healing
and others spend those years
simply refusing to see
their own desperate need to heal?
###
Note: In writing the above, I couldn’t help but recall this one I wrote some years ago here.
A segregated society is neither free nor healthy.
This is a lesson taught too many times already, and yet, here we go again down this destructive and terrible path. Fear makes it all too easy to lure one down this ugly road.
There is still time to stop it, to say no to the devastation of further segregation and all that goes with it. We must have the courage to stand against it.
In an environment drenched daily with fear, we must say no to the fear and reach instead toward our own inner intelligence and compassion. It is a matter of survival: our own, our children’s, and for healthy and free societies around the world.
Do not be one that stands aside and watches as your brothers and sisters are shunned and segregated. If you would be healthy and whole, stand now for love, stand for freedom.
###
Can’t help but be thoughtful today about freedom and government. Today marks US Independence Day, commemorating the moment when the colonies shook off King George III and declared their independence.
“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” the declaration tells us, are “unalienable Rights,” and that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
And here we are, 245 years later, now with firsthand experience of a noun that shouldn’t really be in a democratic lexicon, “lockdown.” Now, in a time when we have somehow adjusted to government/corporate censorship of individual voices and information, and, especially of late, the labelling of dissenting views as “extremist.” Now, when our personal information, communication, medical choices, and whereabouts are tracked on an epic scale. Now, when the sudden bombing of a distant nation, also holding people with unalienable rights, barely registers, and when information is suppressed, withheld, or manipulated by what was once known as a free press. Now, when taxes are siphoned from the masses and put to pockets and purposes perhaps not quite in keeping with the notion that “all men are created equal,” as the declaration noted.
But such things happen dependent on the consent of the governed and on the tax dollars of said governed. It is with the forbearance of the people that malfeasance blossoms.
Just like other animals, each one affirming Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, we need to be present, alert, and protective of those unalienable rights. It is on us to actively pursue and empower leadership that supports and implements our rights and the vision we hold for our free country and world. And, in that respect, each one of us must be a leader, awake to and informed by our innately compassionate hearts.
###
The nation looks on with sadness and grief at the Miami-area building collapse. As each day passes, some victims are found, many more still missing. It breaks our hearts to think of what happened to those individuals, and to think of the terrible impact on their families and friends left behind.
And yet, in the midst of this grief, as if there is not enough death and destruction, the Biden administration sees fit to launch airstrikes Sunday targeting “Iranian-backed” groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.
According to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, seven people on the ground were killed. This comes after February’s destruction of nine buildings by the US in Syria, killing at least 22 people, also targeting Iran-backed militias, with seven 500-pound bombs.
Iraq’s military spokesman decried the US air strikes as a “breach of sovereignty.” As if anyone should have to put that in words.
As we embrace the terrible unfolding of grief in Miami, it should also give us all pause to consider the grief of victims and their families on the receiving end of military strong-arming around the world. So much incredible loss and grief through the years.
Let’s put a stop to such intentional death and destruction. Let’s look instead to healing, communication, and cooperation for a world in which we can all live safe and free from designed, deliberate disasters.
Stand for love. Stand for peace.
###
Somewhere along the line of my vegan/spiritual journey, I came across a short, affirmative prayer for compassion:
Compassion encircles the earth for all beings everywhere.
The prayer is uttered every day by people like me who have discovered it through the Circle of Compassion website here, or the World Peace Diet website here, or perhaps by meeting someone from whom they learned it. The idea is that every day at noon, we take a moment to stop and mindfully repeat this prayer.
Compassion encircles the earth for all beings everywhere.
Turns out, I find myself saying it almost every time I am out on a walk or a run. Invariably, I will see a squirrel or a bird or deer tracks or a butterfly or a dog, and the prayer comes to my lips. Sometimes, it is a person crossing my path that brings the prayer up in my heart. I usually say it four or five times in English, and then I say it as many times again in French.
Compassion encircles the earth for all beings everywhere.
It changes things. It changes me. In the years that I have been saying this simple prayer, and visualizing compassion encircling the earth, it has helped me to rediscover and feel the depths of my own compassion. It has helped me to feel my own connection with other beings. And those feelings change how I travel through life.
Such a simple thing.
###
happiness alights
in the moment of idea
the rapt work of creation
a thing made that speaks your soul
happiness meanders
whispering through the forest
stealing the breath in beauty
the mystery of which you are part
happiness skips
pausing long enough to see
to offer a smile or a gentle word
an act of aid unsullied by strings
happiness enfolds
seeing the light in your eyes
feeling the touch of your hand
the warmth of you near
alive with creativity
awake in spirit
woven by community
blossoming between souls:
in connection, there to be discovered.
###
Once again, a heartfelt thanks to Eugi’s Causerie for this week’s prompt: happiness.
Some years ago, I became vegan. It happened incrementally over a period of many years, until it became a conscious decision. That decision was a way point along a much longer and larger spiritual journey. I did not realize at the time that it was a choice that would facilitate my capacity to continue deeper on that journey, to walk a path of compassion.
Lately, I have been pondering the spiritual metamorphosis that continues to blossom in ever more amazing ways in my life.
Even as all the church buildings were shuttered last year, I suspect the ensuing months were very spiritual ones for many folks. With so much on our minds, the constant fear peddling, loss, and our limited in-person contacts, who could help but be introspective, reflective about what actually matters?
Now, as we attempt to reclaim our freedom and ways of life, the spiritual self cannot be ignored. The spiritual self is integral to all facets of the way forward. Rather than be corralled into an ever-smaller world of fear-driven mindsets, protocols, and division, the spiritual self expands and aspires to wisdom in the broadest spectrum.
It seems we are at one of those classic forks in the road. We stand at a moment of opportunity to reach toward a much more whole and healthy kind of society.
The spiritual self points to the path of compassion, to love not fear.
###
My eyes open to the soft darkness, instantly aware of the now familiar unease. Closing my eyes again, willing myself back toward rest, I feel the fatigue of this anxiety we are all lugging around. We labor together to haul the uncertainties, the fears stoked to fever pitch and still amply fueled by so much in the gaping absence of trust.
In the quiet, troubled dark, I feel the velvet brush of the cat’s paw on my forehead, so soft and gentle. I can hear his deep, radiant purr. He speaks to me with some other kind of knowing.
I can find my way back to joy. My heart beats not for my place on this chart, my statistical or economic value, my pool of data. No, my heart beats for the unquantifiable. The ecstatic mysteries of life and love are wholly mine, ours. It is there where all possibility remains. I turn my eyes in that direction.
Slowly, I am lulled back to restful slumber, feeling the cat’s soothing undercurrent of purr close against me.
###
he walks out of the darkness, hands in the air, to be met with either a spray of bullets or handcuffs. does one mean life and the other doesn’t? imprisonment began long before the moment of guilt. when the gavel comes down, that cell door slams, or voltage snuffs the breath, then hands are washed but stains persist. mankind asks what kind of man but neglects to query kindness. the fugitive, the walking amalgam, just like other animals, born and constructed, shaped along the months and years of his life, carrying the weight of generations and the stamp of his place and times, finally becomes just a reviled memory, but still and always forgotten, another flawed discard on the manufacturing floor.
###
earth sky air 