A Random Selection of Favorites . . .
CONNECTIONS
TO EXPLORE
The Institute for Circlework
www.instituteforcirclework.org
Light on the Hill
www.lightonthehill.org
Creativity for Peace
www.creativityforpeace.com
Millionth Circle Initiative
www.millionthcircle.org
Peace x Peace
www.peacexpeace.org
Center for Nonviolent Communication
www.cnvc.org
Rowe Conference Center
www.rowecenter.org
www.gratefulness.org
Eckhart Teachings
www.eckharttolle.com
Network of Spiritual Progressives
www.spiritualprogressives.org
Helena Cooper - Artist
www.helenaart.com
WORDS TO PONDER
Click here to read:
Letters from Women to the Women of the World
I am the one whose praise echoes on high.
I adorn all the earth.
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am led by the spirit to feed the purest streams.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.
I am the yearning for good.
Hildegard of Bingen
Oceans
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing... Silence... Waves...
Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
Juan Ramon Jimenez
How Did the Rose
How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.
--Hafiz
The Valley Spirit never dies,
It is named the Mysterious Female
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while.
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.
--Lao Tzu
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our foud bodies!
Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
--Kabir/Robert Bly
Talking to Grief
Ah, grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog.
-- Denise Levertov
All are nothing but flowers
In a flowering universe.
--Nakagawa Soen-Roshi
All night I could not sleep
because of the moonlight on my bed.
I kept on hearing a voice calling:
Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes.”
--Zi Ye, 6th-3rd century B.C.E.
The Heart's Counting Knows Only One
In Sung China,
two monks friends for sixty years
watched the geese pass.
Where are they going?
one tested the other, who couldn't say.
That moment's silence continues.
No one will study their friendship
in the koan-books of insight.
No one will remember their names.
I think of them sometimes,
standing, perplexed by sadness,
goose-down sewn into their quilted autumn robes.
Almost swallowed by the vastness of the mountains,
but not yet.
As the barely audible
geese are not yet swallowed;
as even we, my love, will not entirely be lost.
-- Jane Hirschfield
The Earth is Looking at Me
The earth is looking at me; she is looking up at me
I am looking down on her
I am happy, she is looking at me
I am happy, I am looking at her.
--Navajo chant
The Limping Goddess: She-Who-Survives
She limps into the room
bent with the cargo of rape, battering,
single-parent mothering and bureaucratic neglect.
If she is fat or gay or nonwhite orJewish
the pains multiply;
She has carried them all.
Her lotus feet have trudged this planet
for aeons; torn tennis shoes tell
how far she’s traveled. She hunches
against the winter wind, her second-hand
coat like a blanket she wraps around
her golden body. Occasionally, she flies
over buildings, lands on tree tops,
is mistaken for a fat bird.
And occasionally, she falls,
intensifying her limp. But make no mistake;
that golden skin was mined in the black earth,
her feet, though limping and calloused,
are the lotus feet of She-Who-Survives.
A broken yet shining forgotten deity
returning, and there are millions
like her, multi-colored, limping
Goddesses returning to lay down our cargo
and reclaim our own.
—Pesha Joyce Gertler, 1983
MUSIC TO ENJOY
I love hearing about wonderful new (and old) music, so pleasecontact mewith your recommendations!
All Albums by Samite of Uganda.
Baayo by Baaba Maal
Welela by Miriam Makeba
Rhythms of the Chakras by Glen Velez
The Goddess Workout by Dolphina
South African Rhythm Riot
Disco Partizani by Shantel
Trance Union by Layne Redmond
Radio Tisdas Sessions by Tinariwen
Drum Sex by Brent Lewis
Raku by PC Davidoff
el-HADRA by Klaus Wiese
The Eternal OM by Robert Slap
ReTURNING by Jennifer Berezan
Praises for the World by Jennifer Berezan
Shamanic Dream II by Anugama
Colors of the Heart by Amit Chatterjee
Rivers of One by Oruc Guvenc
Alina by Arvo Part
The Yearning by Michael Hoppe & Tim Wheater
Sun Spirit by Deuter
Kerala Dream by Craig Kohland
En Mana Kuoyo by Ayub Ogada
Gula Gula by Mari Boine Persen
Radiant Warmth by Mari Boine
Vox De Nube by Noirin Ni Riania
Axiom of Choiceby Niya Yesh
Moon Rise over the Silk Road by Ghazal
Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters Collection Vol. 2
Alcantara by Amina Alaoui
Dasi: Prayers by Women by Karnamrita
The Mandé Variations Toumani Diabaté
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