What Do We Carry With Us When We Depart This Life?

What do we carry with us when we depart this life?  Our/selves.  What is our self? No/thing.  What is no/thing?  Energy perpetually shifting, changing shape every instant.  Where are we going? On another journey to another journey.

Moses’ Face Shone

Moses’ face shone with the light of the Source (Ex 34.29), the reflected radiance of a divine encounter and its presence (Shekinah) in the world through moral injunctions inscribed on stone tablets.  Light–inner awareness of the Source and of being–arises in us (as with Moses) when we connect a mystic moment to life. This is one purpose of our human incarnations:  to integrate being and becoming through right intention and action–character and ethics.

Fox Not News

How is Fox News called “News”?  Its purpose is not news, but spreading corporate ideology.  Calling it news is Orwellian.  Fundamental dishonesty is a core element of morality, and what Fox promotes is counter to basic ideals of integrity.

And Media Matters reports how Fox lied about the Wisconsin situation:
http://mediamatters.org/print/research/201103020013

And now we find that the head of Fox news, Roger Ailes, asked an employee to lie:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25roger-ailes.html?hp

Prime Minister’s Harper’s attempt to repeal the Canadian law that prevents false and misleading news information is rejected.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/fox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html

Poem of the Day: C.P. Cavafy, “In the Same Place”

“In the Same Place” by C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933):  my translation

Surroundings of home, cafes, a neighborhood,
that I have seen and walked through year after year.

I gave you form amid joy and amid sorrows:
with so many incidents, so many details.

And you have transmuted into a feeling for me.

—————————————–

Στον ίδιο χώρο

Οικίας περιβάλλον, κέντρων, συνοικίας
που βλέπω κι όπου περπατώ· χρόνια και χρόνια.

Σε δημιούργησα μες σε χαρά και μες σε λύπες:
με τόσα περιστατικά, με τόσα πράγματα.

Κ’ αισθηματοποιήθηκες ολόκληρο, για μένα.

Ultimate Questions

What is death? A transitional period of life.

What is life? Becoming.

Where are heaven and hell? Right next to each other, like the back and front of a door.

What is hell? A place in which we decide to reside until we decide to live elsewhere.

What is heaven? Home.

Who are we? No/thing, energy, crossing time and space, but not confined by them.

Who is the Source? Pure no/thing, raw energy out of which form emerges.

Time Never Stops

Time never stops. It is inexorable. In moments of joy and tragedy, the earth continues to rotate and the seasons continue to alternate. Shabbat and meditation offer a glimpse of existence outside of time. There we reside in the presence of the Source: no limits, no boundaries, only the vibrations of no/thing.

Warriors and Heroes

Those who live in pain–emotional, physical, or spiritual–who wake up in the morning, get out of bed, and engage in life are courageous warriors, authentic heroes.

How to Start a Peaceful Revolution: The Story of Gene Sharp

A wonderful story about a mild-mannered man whose ideas have inspired non-violent uprisings worldwide against dictatorships.

Tajii Dolphin Hunt Ends One Month Early in Japan

At least this is one victory and another indication that there is a little space for humaneness in the human heart.  There is also increasing evidence for a growing inventory of unsold dolphin and whale meat in Japan, with Japanese consumers increasingly refusing to buy and eat this meat.

Even eagles need a push…

A moving story of an eagle and her child.  ‘The Push, about a mother eagle’s supreme act of love – to give her children a push – when her offspring were ready to leave the nest”:
http://newsletter.simpletruths.com/a/tBMytFMB8PINaB8VatcNnRfx68F/movie

We Are Not Our Habits

We think we know who we are based on the activities in which we normally engage, by our personalities, by our hobbies, by our socio-economic statuses, ethnicities, and religions, by the ways we hold and move our bodies, or by the personal and professional roles we acquire in our lives. But do we? Are these what ultimately define us? I’m sure that these contribute to our development as beings and to our self-understanding, but they comprise only part of a much larger framework and foundation. We often focus on the easier-to-identify elements, but we don’t notice what may be even more illuminating and revealing.

James Kugel: The Little Self and the Big Self

I found this moving. It’s certainly not what I expected, and it reminds me of the classical mystical experience:  when you realize how small you are, how truly beautiful that is, and how you then can access the divine in ways you never thought possible.  We could also refer to it as the withdrawal of the ego.  To realize how interconnected we are, we must realize how small we are.  Those who have this experience are blessed and privileged.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/02/07/2742888/approaching-god-from-the-still-small-self

Our Life Paths

A life path can seemingly take us up to the top of the mountain looking down or down to the bottom of the mountain looking up.  But our authentic selves are there in both places, waiting for our egos to set them free.

Poem of the Day: The Universe Breathes

Louise Bogan, “Night” (1954)

The cold remote islands,
And the blue estuaries
Where what breathes, breathes
The restless wind of the inlets,
And what drinks, drinks
The incoming tide,

Where shell and weed
Wait upon the salt wash of the sea,
And the clear nights of stars
Swing their lights westward
To set behind the land;

Where the pulse clinging to the rocks
Renews itself forever;
Where, again on cloudless nights,
The water reflects
The firmament’s partial setting;

–O remember
In your narrowing darkhours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.

Not Yet

Something that is not yet can be–if you embody it.

Poem of the Day: In honor of those who do the work behind the scenes and move the world forward

Marge Piercy,  “To be of Use” (from The Art of Blessing the Day:  Poems with a Jewish Theme: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out

The work of the world is common as mud
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Justice

Justice is rare, but always worth pursuing.  It is the hidden light we seek.

Patterns of Meaning and Purpose

Every move we make, even the mistakes, fit into a pattern of meaning and purpose, which reveals itself in time through wisdom.

A Speck of Light

Finding a speck of light in the midst of darkness–sometimes that’s all we can do.  And that’s more than enough.

Fallow

The fallow allows for the fertile.

I and You

The I resides in a body, but the authentic You resides everywhere.

What is the Source like?

What is the Source like?  Like the wind.  You cannot hold or see it, but it’s there just the same.

Freedom

Freedom is a choice we have every second of every day.

Starting Blocks and Finish Line

We do not start in the same place at the beginning of our lives.  It’s not where we end up that matters, but how far we travel.

“Maybe this is the Moment to Put Our Trust in Freedom”: Natan Sharanksy

I stand with Sharansky.  Freedom is the only real hope for peace.  In the end, if we support dictatorships against democratic movements, we will alienate the vast majority of Arab/Muslim populations, and we will give them only one option:  the Muslim Brotherhood.  A truly democratic society, not only with elections, but with independent institutions and the capacity to pursue whatever wants to pursue (i.e. freedom), sounds the death knell for extremist, violent, backward-looking, tyrannical, theocratic religious movements.  Freedom is also what the U.S., Israel, and other democracies are supposed to stand for.  Of course, failure is possible, but the risk is worth it:  http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=207745

See also the excellent article by Jackson Diehl on the upsides of Egypt’s revolution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/12/AR2011021200483.html

How Large is God?

We should think of the Source (God) not as an enormous entity, but as the tiniest particle in existence–that from which everything originates.  That’s why we need to let go of our I, our ego.  It’s just too big.

We will do and We Will Hear (Ex 24.7)

We will do and we will hear (Ex 24.7): Action is the avenue to contemplation and enlightenment.  When you do a good deed, an act of lovingkindness, go and meditate afterwards. The universe will open to you in your humility.

Floating on a River

So often we seek to go somewhere, to reach a goal, but we’re all floating on a river toward the same place.

Israel-Palestinian Peace Treaty So Close

So agonizingly close–still.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=1&hp

What Size Are We?

We are as small as a quark, as large as a universe.

Yoko Ono’s Message of Peace

Sometimes simple ideas are what we need to practice:  “IMAGINE PEACE.”

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/imagine-peace-2011

“God”

Instead of using a word for “God,” perhaps we should simply form an out breath–a glottal stop, like the Hebrew letter, “alef.”  When you want to say “God,” just speak with an exhalation.

Slaughtering and Torturing Dolphins in Taijii, Japan

If you are squeamish, please do not watch this video.  It is hard and painful to see.

The slaughtering and torture of dolphins is a tradition that no longer makes any sense.  Dolphins (and whales) are highly intelligent, sophisticated, relational sea mammals.  In Greek tradition, dolphins were sacred and viewed as friends of humans.  This video and others have brought attention to a horrible practice that we need to stop not only because of its violence and the slow, painful deaths of dolphins, but because it degrades our own moral conscience as human beings.

Blessings,
Larry

http://www.youtube.com/user/delfinusdelphis#p/a/u/0/dY2Fd9eQGZE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/14/dolphin-slaughter-hunting-japan-taiji (an article that summarizes the practice in Taijii)

http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

“God”

The word, “God,” is a label that often cuts us off from “God,” our Source.

Labels

Rigid labels close us off from one another and ourselves.

Rebel Yoga: Tara Stiles

While many (including me) emphasize the religious and spiritual roots of yoga, Tara Stiles takes another approach.  She just wants people to do yoga and improve their lives and bodies.  She rebels against those teachers who see themselves as gurus.  Her goal is to make yoga accessible rather than difficult and total.  Deepak Chopra is among her students.  I am impressed by her authenticity and determination to simplify this ancient tradition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/nyregion/23stretch.html?sq=yoga&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all

Anger Transformed

Anger transformed can repair a world and heal a universe.

Google Art

http://www.googleartproject.com/

This is a momentous development, making the art of the great museums available to anyone with an internet connection.  It will have a profound impact on world culture, erasing many geographical and socio-economic boundaries.  (Via Nelson French)

Al-Jazeera and a Free Press

http://www.thenation.com/blog/158183/washington-embraces-al-jazeera

This is an excellent discussion of Al-Jazeera and its crucial role in the Middle East.  The Bush administration hated Al-Jazeera when it did reporting that was not supportive of US policy in Iraq, and it went after their reporters.  Of course, presidential administrations in the past have not liked a lot of US media either and have targeted them as well.  Now we see the essential importance of an active, free press, and the current US government finally embraces it.  Democracy and freedom depend upon it.  The more openness and transparency that a truly free press demands, the greater the chance for truly humane, compassionate societies to evolve.  Ironic that it took an Arabic-language news organization to show us this.

We Are All Adam

We are all Adam, part of the same cosmic body, reaching out from one end of the universe to the other.

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