Author: Jo Beall

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 189 – 6/23/2017

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where there is no vision, the people perish…

proverbs 29:18

~

welcome to the mother of all new moons, hear cancer whispering to great mother ocean… it is the moment for rebirth, for new beginnings, for a vastly expanded vision with a deeper and fuller connection of our soul’s desires, for finding our true home – our one heart and opening wider and wider in strength and courage and trust to face and embrace what is with love and wisdom and compassion transmuting the base ingredients into into a harmonious symphony of the sea riding the waves of pure delight and like the new moon rising, we seed the cosmic field with light

~

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou
~
This contemplation is a gift of love that I AM giving back to source in appreciation for the gift of life abundant…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 188 – 6/22/2017

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on the last day of the sixth moon of this turn around the sun, here is a painted pony image of this pivotal moon of navigating the journey… how do we navigate? when i tune into the wisdom of this painted pony so lovingly crafted by one of my favorite poetic peace pilgrim artists and am transported to a historic lighthouse on the outer banks of the tarheel state, the message is simple and clear… stand still in your radiance and shine; in silence, listen to the whispers of the heart and follow with your whole heart and an unwavering YES!

always being love, always becoming more love…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 187 – 6/21/2017

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If you are seeking, seek us with joy
For we live in the kingdom of joy.
Do not give your heart to anything else
But to the love of those who are clear joy,
Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.
For there are hopes: they are real, they exist –
Do not go in the direction of darkness –
I tell you: suns exist.

~ Rumi ~

some moments these words are easier to re-member than others and they are always true, paradoxical and true… the last few weeks have been filled with challenges on so many levels and like ocean waves they rise and pass away and the ocean of joy still remains, peace at the center of the dancing stillpoint… for in this moment, this beautiful moment, we are one vast sunflower field of radiant love… yes, suns exist and moons and rains and clouds and tears and pains and joy in this moment, in every moment, in every wild precious moment…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 186 – 6/20/2017

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Happy Soulstice!

how i love this day of soulstice and standing still withe sun

re-membering life is a pilgrimage to the inner sun, sol, soul,

the city of gold in the heart within the heart, sacred space of radiance…

holding the treasured wisdom of our true value and how we savethe worlds….

~

A Prayer of Healing

We come together this Summer Solstice under old oak trees, nurtured by the ground, the living green grass under our feet, to honor the longest day of the year. We see the pain of the Earth, the devastation of Her body. But today we celebrate Her. We say Prayers of Healing, for the world and for all Her children.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas.
To rejoice the sunlight.
To sing the song of the stars.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To recall our destiny.
To renew our spirits.
To reinvigorate our bodies.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To create the human community.
To promote justice and peace.
To remember our children.

We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life.We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land.
To restore the waters.
To refresh the air.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To renew the forests.
To care for the plants.
To protect the creatures.

From the United Nations Environmental Sabbath

~

may we all trust in our inner radiance of divine love…

 

 

 

 

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 185 – 6/19/2017

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On June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. Ninety-nine years earlier, on June 19, 1865, we celebrated the first African-American Emancipation Day, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States… Let us celebrate today with the words of President Obama on June 19. 1865…

Just outside the Oval Office hangs a painting depicting the night of December 31, 1862. In it, African-American men, women, and children crowd around a single pocket watch, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect. As the slaves huddle anxiously in the dimly lit room, we can sense how even two more minutes seems like an eternity to wait for one’s freedom. But the slaves of Galveston, Texas, had to wait more than two years after Lincoln’s decree and two months after Appomattox to receive word that they were free at last.

Today we commemorate the anniversary of that delayed but welcome news. Decades of collective action would follow as equality and justice for African-Americans advanced slowly, frustratingly, gradually, on our nation’s journey toward a more perfect union. On this Juneteenth, we remember that struggle as we reflect on how far we’ve come as a country. The slaves of Galveston knew their freedom was only a first step, just as the bloodied foot soldiers who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge 100 years later knew they had to keep marching.

Juneteenth is a time to recommit ourselves to the work that remains undone. We remember that even in the darkest hours, there is cause to hope for tomorrow’s light. Today, no matter our race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, we recommit ourselves to working to free modern-day slaves around the world and to honoring in our own time the efforts of those who fought so hard to steer our country truer to our highest ideals.

~

may we be… free at last… free at last…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 184 – 6/18/2017

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“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”

~Hafiz of Shiraz~

today, we have the convergence of father’s day with the weekly installment of an image showing the astonishing light of your being… by george, i feel this picture does just that with the wondrous, windswept ocean of being…

there was no place on earth my father loved more than riding the waves in the ocean… he initiated me very early into this great love and in so many ways taught me how to negotiate and ride the waves of life… of all the gifts he gave me after the gift of life, the one that stands out the most is his unwavering belief that i could do anything, what an amazing gift to give a child…

what touches me the most is his seeing me as the most imaginative person he knew… thousandfold thanks and happiest of fathers’ days…

 

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 183 – 6/17/2017

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on this day eighty-nine years ago, another first in flight took place when Amelia Earhart embarked on the first trans-Atlantic flight by a woman… flying from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours, she captured our imagination forever… her legendary feats are the very emblem of courage — and of a woman who refused to let fears and adversity ground her dreams…  let’s take this moment to be inspired by her words to let our hearts soar…

~

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Everyone has oceans to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?

No borders, just horizons – only freedom.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

~

freedom forever…

 

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 182 – 6/16/2017

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You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

– Buddha –

~

in this moment, this beautiful moment,

greet yourself with elation

as you arrive at the threshhold, the doorway home…

smile and breathe in this wondrous stranger…

embrace yourself, reverence yourself, open your heart as wide as you can to yourself, to the whole youniverse…

sit, feast, luxuriate, dance your radiance

diving ever deeper into the ocean of love…

~

This contemplation is a gift of love that I AM giving back to source in appreciation for the gift of life more abundant… I accept and know that this gift blesses all our relations and that it will expand and return a thousand thousandfold with the highest and deepest good for all…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 181 – 6/15/2017

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children of the waters flow home to deep blue sea

where we dance with dolphins throughout infinite eternity

and we undulate with seahorses in the waves of light frequency

creating ever widening arcs of iridescent harmony…

~

a magical day in the metaphorical sea, in the timelessness of eternity stretching across the cosmos infinitely… contemplating, contemplating, real-eye-sing… circulating, circulating, ambulating… children of the waters flowing home to deep blue sea… return, return to be beloved’s breath and weave her threads into seamless blessing tapestry…

~

walking in beauty on the path today

breathing it in, i’m carried away

by whispering winds demanding their say

to behold the wonder of each moment this day

~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 180 – 6/14/2017

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“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”

~ Gandhi  ~

in these turbulent times, it is incumbent on us to trust the journey, to answer Einstein’s question about whether we live in a friendly universe in the affirmative… when we come from this place, we can keep our hearts open to the door of compassion and love…  namaste’