today, we get to belatedly celebrate an important day in herstory/history as it’s three days after the day in 1920 (that’s ninety nine years ago) of the certification of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage… it’s a perfect day to celebrate all women of peace, all people of peace making herstory/ourstory with being peace on this eve of the virgo new moon, the being one in herself, sovereign moon, a perfect moment to plant seeds of peace… yes, today is a lovely moment to honor and celebrate the inspiration, the mother of this journey, someone being this peace pilgrimage every moment… peace pilgrim, in her late forties, committed to walking the planet being peace and in so doing, she planted and spread peace across the world demonstrating that a life lived trusting in a world of lovingkindness reaps an abundant harvest… never once did she lack for a ride or a meal or a place to sleep finding abundant generosity always surrounding her every step, her every breath… thank you for joining in the peace pilgrimage and making her story, our story, history… thank you for the astonishing light of your being, a beacon shining so brightly and helping to guide all of us home… may we place our hands on our heart sending love to our relations… when we find peace within ourselves, we are the kind of beings who live in peace with all our relations – may we all be peace… om shanti shanti shantihi…
today is the quintessential dreamy day, so much so that i don’t even real-eyes until the eleventh hour tonight that this dreamy, floaty day is the fifty sixth anniversary of the iconic ” I Have A Dream” speech… ~ “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” ~ may our dreams of freedom and peace come alive today…
home sweet home, it feels good to be here and, with my eyes feeling so much better, it’s icing on the cake… the re-treat at the hospital-ity center with eyes closed so much of the time affords communing with the invisible realms in deep conversation about walking, dancing, re-joy-sing the pathless path with heart… ~ “Loving activism is not just sitting back and saying, “Oh it’s great, just ruin me or kill me.” Loving activism can be quite harsh in some cases, in actual action like getting arresting, or bluntly saying, “You’re crazy,” or, “You’re wrong.” Something with force, but more like the force of a martial artist. Like good old Grasshopper [from the TV series “Kung Fu”], he would throw the cowboy out the window with a smile on his face in a relaxed manner. So that’s loving activism where, even though you’re opposing this policeman or this person and you’re in front of them, you are not thinking that they automatically have to be evil. You are seeing the opponent not as an object of hatred, but as an object of concern – you want them to be better off, and you feel to oppose them is helping them getting better off in a particular case. The Pussy Hat thing, those marches were happy occasions. And this is the key, I think. Try to find the sources of happiness within yourself and around you, and then help the people who are unhappy, and therefore causing evil. You may have to share that happiness with someone who’s about to do some terrible thing, to help stop them from doing it. You may even have to be forceful sometimes, like a mother will be forceful with a child who’s hurting itself or going to hurt something else in some careless way. But they don’t hate the child. They just love the child. But you can have fierce love. You can have fierce compassion.” ~ Robert Thurman ~ ~ namaste
one of the things that breaks my heart is the image of children imprisoned in detention centers and their families trying to touch them through the glass walls… one of the things that breaks my heart wide open as i contemplate 15,000 migrant children being jailed by the usa as of last december is the two girls in california, Kaia and Lily,who decided to take action to raise awareness about each and every one of those children by painstakingly crafting 15,000 paper butterflies, each one representing an individual migrant child… let’s grow a movement that closes all child prisons and ensures every being coming here is treated with dignity and respect… https://butterflyeffectmigration.org/
Aloha Astonishing Light of Being Day! For a little more than two years now, beginning back on August 14 2017, i’ve been posting weekly segments on the astonishing light of being… even though i’ve followed doctor’s orders and spent another day in the dark to help my eyes, i can still feel the abundance of light pouring in today and so enjoy the presence of so many angels of light calling for an honoring of divine light consciousness… a quest-ion i’m asking everyone is, are you noticing even when your eyes are totally shut and you are in darkness, you are still feeling so much light? it’s as if our eyelid veils are lifting and light is everywhere… let’s turn now to a favorite poem on how to paint this light, how to be a shining being of luminosity… ~ I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets how to paint sunlight on the face of life Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous as if they were all guarding trade secrets Whereas it seems to me all you have to do is conceive of the whole world and all humanity as a kind of art work a site-specific art work an art project of the god of light the whole earth and all that’s in it to be painted with light And the first thing you have to do is paint out postmodern painting And the next thing is to paint yourself in your true colors in primary colors as you see them (without whitewash) paint yourself as you see yourself without make-up without masks Then paint your favorite people and animals with your brush loaded with light And be sure you get the perspective right and don’t fake it because one false line leads to another And then paint the high hills when the sun first strikes them on an autumn morning with your palette knife lay it on the cadmium yellow leaves the ochre leaves the vermillion leaves of the New England autumn and paint the ghost light of summer nights and the light of the midnight sun which is moon light And don’t paint out the shadows made by light for without chiaroscuro you’ll have shallow pictures So paint all the dark corners too everywhere in the world all the hidden places and minds and hearts which light never reaches all the caves of ignorance and fear the pits of despair the sloughs of despond and write plain upon them “Abandon all despair, ye who enter here” And don’t forget to paint all those who lived their lives as bearers of light Paint their eyes and the eyes of every animal and the eyes of beautiful women known best for the perfection of their breasts and the eyes of men and women known only for the light of their minds Paint the light of their eyes the light of sunlit laughter the song of eyes the song of birds in flight. And remember that the light is within if it is anywhere and you must paint from the inside Start with purity with pure white the pure white of gesso the pure white of cadmium white the pure white of flake white the pure virgin canvas the pure life we all begin with Turner painted sunlight with egg tempera (which proved unstable) and Van Gogh did it with madness and the blood of his ear (also unstable) and the Impressionists did it by never using black And the Abstract Expressionists did it with white house paint But you can do it with the pure pigment (if you can figure out the formula) of your own true light But before you strike the first blow on the virgin canvas remember its fragility life’s extreme fragility and remember its innocence its original innocence before you strike the first blow Or perhaps never strike it And let the light come through the inner light of the canvas the inner light of the models posed in the life study the inner light of everyone Let is all come through like a pentimento the light that’s been painted over the life that’s been painted over so many times Let it surge to the surface the painted-over image of primal life on earth And when you’ve finished your painting stand back astonished stand back and observe the life on earth that you’ve created the lighted life on earth that you’ve created a new brave world ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti ~ ~ thanks be to great mystery for filling the air we breathe with luminous love…
we offer great thanks to our mother the earth, our father the sky, sister moon, brother sun and to all our relations for our earth walk, the way of the heart… as we (s)age into grace we return to where we began… the garden of eden, heaven on earth and we see everything as if for the first time… this present moment, this ordinary moment, this extraordinary moment all one in the same… when we rest fully in this moment, dwelling in the consciousness of the divine, we embody awe, awakened wonderfilled energy, and radiant light fills our being shining everywhere… now, we are home, we have arrived…
an angel transported me to the temple on the hill today where a priestess looked into my eye and offered healing balm and encouragement for the path ahead, and i am so grateful for the messages coming through in such a way that i could hear them and that this loving field is so overflowing with lovingkindness, yes, we can get through anything as we breathe together… gratefully, i share this heartfelt message fra angelico said to his co-hearts half a millennium ago, it expresses what i want to say today and everyday… ~ “I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not already, but there is much, very much, which though I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this precious little instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and courage in the darkness could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, and wisdom, and power. Welcome it, greet it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims wending through unknown country our way home. ~ Take Heaven! Take Peace! Take Joy! Take Love! Take Wisdom! Take Courage!
i’m going to keep this short and sweet tonight for just like last night, i’m having trouble seeing in the outer world… so much to see in the inner world which is where i am destined to be for awhile longer… it feels like such a part of the great turning we are all experiencing on one level or another with so much falling apart to come back together in a way that works in this moment… that’s my cue, this moment, to turn off the lights, close my eyes and breathe deeply from the earth mother into every wild cell and out into the vast sky sea whispering thank you…
for the past 1513 days, i have gathered daily with another in a sacred communion to invoke lovingkindness blessings for all our relatives… each evening we join to offer ourselves, everything we are, to the all that is… we envision the whole cosmos joining us and experiencing our true reality of oneness and numinous love… i love also seeing us joining in this blessing prayed every morning by the Dalai Lama… ~ May I be a guard for those who need protection A guide for those on the path A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood May I be a lamp in the darkness A resting place for the weary A healing medicine for all who are sick A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles And for the boundless multitudes of living beings May I bring sustenance and awakening Enduring like the earth and sky Until all beings are freed from sorrow And all are awakened. ~ may we all imagine and may we all be the frequency of peace, love, joy, wisdom, harmony, justice and compassion… today has been a long day working with a computer guru and my toasted computer trying to retrieve so much of my work over the last decade but seems to be irretrievable… thank you so much for your support and encouragement during this challenging and gifting time – i love knowing we are always connected whether electronic devices are functional or not… boundless love always, beloveds
