Monthly Archives: January 2022

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 46 – 1/31/2022

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Happy New Moon and Lunar Imbolc!

this new moon of oracles and omens emphasizes social and collective concerns which we are seeing abundantly in the outer world with the energy of the divine feminine and democracy rising spontaneously and organically across the planet… an excellent time to plant seeds of energy for a world that works for all and to water these seeds in under this dark moon nourishing the tap root connected to our one heart re-membering that even though we can’t see the blooms or even the sprouts yet, our collective cultivation of justice is taking root riotously while we do our work daily of being peace withe every step and waging justice for all… closing out the dreaming moonth and coming at such a powerful moment of eternity, this moon calls us to be free within which is where everything takes root… this moon enrgizes fresh starts and fledging – yes, winging our way into the land of impossible dreams coming into reality…

thanks be for our collectively pouring love abundantly into our dream seeds creating an even more activated field of peace and harmony…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 45 – 1/30/2022

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“Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something, If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however a small way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.“

~ Howard Zinn ~

in concert with the season for nonviolence which begins today on the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination and ends 64 days later on April 4th, the anniversary of King’s assassination,today, the pilgrimage begins my favorite season that’s always in season – a season of peace…

on this first day, we begin with a contemplation and practice of courage, of heart which is a LOVEly way to begin for goodness knows the way of the peacemaker takes great courage, great heart in a world of dominance consciousness… let us now light the inner flame of our one heart and invoke the beloved peace prayer of St Francis to begin this saunter – this walk on holy ground for this season of peace…

“….. make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.”

may we all begin and end each day with a prayer for peace and invoke it through our ultradian healing rhythms that ask us to pause every 90 minutes or so throughout our awake time to sustain optimal functioning…  when saying hello and goodbye to beings, may we say “May Peace Prevail on Earth…”  may we create space in our lives dedicated to praying for, meditating, singing, dancing, contemplating  and being peace… in this way, we create a cosmos of beauty and harmony built on justice, on balance and guided by love…

thanks be for helping me to live this day quietly, peacefully… to lean upon cosmic great strength trustfully, restfully… to wait for the unfolding of the implicate order patiently, serenely… to meet others peacefully, joyously… to walk all ways with wonder and wisdom…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 44 – 1/29/2022

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for the past two days, there are shepherds lighting the path i’ve wanted to commemorate in addition to what was honored and so today in this moment of eternity, i re-member a profound moment on january 27, 77 years ago when the Soviet Red Army liberated the Jewish concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenbau, in Poland… as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, this post is dedicated to all who liberate and to all of us who are liberated… yesterday marked eight years ago that Pete Seeger, the father of  folk music and a shepherd extraordinaire still calling us to embody our better angels by singing love, died and that the crew of Challenger died 36 years ago on the 28th day of this moonth…

“It really boils down to this, all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

with every breath and step on the pilgrimage, i contemplate how we all best serve the whole… i believe the bedrock of this query is understanding that all our relations prosper only when we real-eyes we are part of a greater whole and our survival, our sustainability is intricately linked in the same way we are intricately interconnected to every thread in the web of life… it is, always has been and always will be a story of cooperation… just as all the 70 trillion cells of my body cooperate to make me work, so must the 70 trillion cells to the 70th trillion power cooperate for the cosmos to expand and deepen harmoniously…

yes, Martin saw that the will to connect is our most essential impulse and how what affects one of us, affects everyone of us and how could it not since we are one body-mind-spirit-soul made up of trillions of cells to the infinite power…

since every thought, word and deed affects all our relations, may we all walk in wonder, saunter in awe  as shepherds, as lightkeepers, as sheltering arms, as beloveds all walking each other home to the frequency of right thought, right speech and right action…

i’ll close with the words of Wendell Berry, another pilgrim on a journey and  wisdom lover…

“Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are
your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,
who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,
and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike
fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing
in the trees in the silence of the fisherman
and the heron, and the trees that keep the land
they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power
or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful
when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy
when they ask for your land and your work.
Answer with knowledge of the others who are here
and how to be here with them. By this knowledge
make the sense you need to make. By it stand
in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

Speak to your fellow humans as your place
has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.
Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it
before they had heard a radio. Speak
publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
from the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
by which it speaks for itself and no other.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
which is the light of imagination. By it you see
the likeness of people in other places to yourself
in your place. It lights invariably the need for care
toward other people, other creatures, in other places
as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

No place at last is better than the world. The world
is no better than its places. Its places at last
are no better than their people…”

may we wander in wonder as shepherds singing light in the dark illuminating the path to our one cosmic heart…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 43 – 1/28/2022

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today as i witness the funeral procession and cremation of one of our foremost apostles and prophets of peace and the world, in this moment of eternity celebrating the astonishing light of his being, of ours, of life continuation, i re-member the words of the Dalai Lama about our island home desperately needing more peacemakers, healers, restorers, lovers and storytellers which reminds me of an old legend of the first peoples of this land…

passed down orally from generation to generation, it is a legend about a savior named deganawida, the peacemaker, originating over a thousand years ago during the final decades of pre-columbian america at a time like now, a time of pervasive fear and instability in the haudenosaunee world when a young virgin gave birth to a son… she was told in a dream that “your child will be a messenger of the creator and will bring peace and harmony to the people on earth.”

when deganawida came of age he told his mother, “I shall now build my canoe from white stone, for the time has come for me to start my mission in this world. I know I must travel afar on lakes and rivers to seek out the council smoke of nations beyond this lake. It is now time for me to go stop the shedding of blood among human beings.”

as deganawida began his mission, he first encountered a group of hunters who were fleeing from the bloodshed in the their own village and he instructed them: “Go back to your people and tell them that the Good News of Peace and Righteousness has come to your nation.”

the peacemaker’s mission, as the many accounts of the legend make clear, was to reestablish the natural equilibrium on which the well being of individuals, societies, and the whole of creation depends… deganawida achieved this mission by healing them—by “making their minds straight.” deganawida’s role was not that of a warrior, but a redemptive shaman—a healer… he was quite explicit about the mission: “health means peace, for that is what comes when minds are sane and bodies are cared for.”

the peacemaker, like the rainmaker, like all healers and medicine elders well knows that conflict is born of suffering and the root causes must be addressed for the village to come back into health and equilibrium where all feel they belong and are cared for and are treated with dignity… may we all breathe deeply together into the sacred space of wisdom and courageously take on the transformative mission of being peacemakers every moment of eternity…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 42 – 1/27/2022

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a day of perfect wind, spirit , breath gently rushing through the dream cave bringing a moment of lucidity on the true nature of reality, of being, of liberation coming as a lesson on impermanence, dynamism, flux, fluidity, riding the waves of life gracefully…

being deep peace of the flowing wave and boundless sky…

for you , my co- psychonauts and deep sea journeyers, a blessing for our voyage home into the present moment…

“Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.”

~ John O’Donohue ~

may we rise gracefully in each moment to weave a world of peace built on justice and guided by love…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 41 – 1/26/2022

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in this moment of eternity, i want to share another of Thay’s love letters to the earth, one i love engaging with daily – injoy…

~

Our Journey of Eons

“Dear Mother Earth,

Do you remember when you and Father Sun first formed from the dust of exploded stars and interstellar gas? You didn’t yet wear the silken cloak of freshness that you do today. At that time, Mother, more than four and half billion years ago, your robe was made of molten rock. Soon it cooled to form a hard crust. Although Father’s light was far less than it is today, your thin atmosphere captured the heat and kept your oceans from freezing. In those first few hundred million years, you overcame many great difficulties to create an environment capable of sustaining life. You released great heat, fires, and gases from your volcanoes. Steam was expelled from your crust to become vapor in your atmosphere and the water in your great oceans. Your gravity helped anchor the life-sustaining sky, and your magnetic field prevented it from being stripped away by solar winds and cosmic rays.

But even before forming the atmosphere, you endured a collision with a great heavenly body, almost the size of Mars. Part of the impacting planet became you; the rest of it, along with some of your mantle and crust, became the moon. Dear Mother, the moon is a part of you, as beautiful as an angel. She is a kind sister to you, always following you, helping you slow down and keep your balance, and creating tidal rhythms on your body.

Our entire solar system is one family, revolving around Father Sun in a joyful and harmonious dance. First there is Mercury, metallic and cratered, closest to the sun. Next is Venus with her intense heat, high-pressure atmosphere, and volcanoes. Then there is you, beloved Mother Earth, the most beautiful of all. Beyond us orbits the Red Planet, cold and desolate Mars; and after the asteroid belt there comes the gas giant Jupiter, by far the largest planet of all, attended by an assembly of diverse moons. Beyond Jupiter orbits Saturn, the spectacularly ringed planet, followed by Uranus, tilted on his side after a collision, and, finally, distant blue Neptune with his turbulent storms and high winds.

Contemplating this splendor, I can see that you, Mother Earth, are the most precious flower in our solar system, a true jewel of the cosmos.

It took you a billion years to begin to manifest the first living beings. Complex molecules, perhaps brought to you from outer space, started to come together in self-replicating structures, slowly becoming more and more like living cells. Light particles from distant stars, millions of light years away, came to visit and stay a while. Small cells gradually became larger cells; unicellular organisms evolved into multicellular organisms. Life developed from deep within the oceans, multiplying and prospering, steadily improving the atmosphere. Slowly, the ozone layer could form, preventing harmful radiation from reaching your surface, and allowing life on land to prosper. It was only then, as the miracle of photosynthesis unfurled, that you began to wear the exquisite green mantle you do today.

But all phenomena are impermanent and ever-changing. Life over vast areas of the Earth has already been destroyed more than five times, including sixty-five million years ago, when the impact of a giant asteroid caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs and three quarters of all other species. Dear Mother, I am in awe of your capacity to be patient and creative, despite all the harsh conditions you have endured. I promise to remember our extraordinary journey of eons and to live my days with the awareness that we are all your children, and that we are all made of stars. I promise to do my part, contributing my own energy of joy and harmony to the glorious symphony of life.”

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 40 – 1/25/2022

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“The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper – often only a spark – to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer – have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity – its poets, seers, and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers, and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark”  ~Plato~

~

Your Wonder, Beauty and Creativity

“Dear Mother Earth,

Each morning when I wake up you offer me twenty-four brand new hours to cherish and enjoy your beauty. You gave birth to every miraculous form of life. Your children include the clear lake, the green pine, the pink cloud, the snowcapped mountain top, the fragrant forest, the white crane, the golden deer, the extraordinary caterpillar, and every brilliant mathematician, skilled artisan, and gifted architect. You are the greatest mathematician, the most accomplished artisan, and the most talented architect of all. The simple branch of cherry blossoms, the shell of a snail, and the wing of a bat all bear witness to this amazing truth. My deep wish is to live in such a way that I am awake to each of your wonders and nourished by your beauty. I cherish your precious creativity and I smile to this gift of life.

We humans have talented artists, but how can our paintings compare to your masterpiece of the four seasons? How could we ever paint such a compelling dawn or create a more radiant dusk? We have great composers, but how can our music compare to your celestial harmony with the sun and planets—or to the sound of the rising tide? We have great heroes and heroines who have endured wars, hardship, and dangerous voyages, but how can their bravery compare to your great forbearance and patience along your hazardous journey of eons? We have many great love stories, but who among us has love as immense as your own, embracing all beings without discrimination?

Dear Mother, you have given birth to countless buddhas, saints, and enlightened beings. Shakyamuni Buddha is a child of yours. Jesus Christ is the son of God, and yet he is also the son of Man, a child of the Earth, your child. Mother Mary is also a daughter of the Earth. The Prophet Mohammed is also your child. Moses is your child. So too are all the bodhisattvas. You are also mother to eminent thinkers and scientists who have made great discoveries, investigating and understanding not only our own solar system and Milky Way, but even the most distant galaxies. It’s through these talented children that you are deepening your communication with the cosmos. Knowing that you have given birth to so many great beings, I know that you aren’t mere inert matter, but living spirit. It’s because you’re endowed with the capacity of awakening that all your children are too. Each one of us carries within ourself the seed of awakening, the ability to live in harmony with our deepest wisdom—the wisdom of interbeing.

But there are times when we have not done so well. There are times when we have not loved you enough; times when we have forgotten your true nature; and times when we have discriminated and treated you as something other than ourself. There have even been times when, through ignorance and unskillfulness, we have underestimated, exploited, wounded, and polluted you. That is why I make the deep vow today, with gratitude and love in my heart, to cherish and protect your beauty, and to embody your wondrous consciousness in my own life. I vow to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before me, to live with awakening and compassion, and so be worthy of calling myself your child.”

From Love Letter to the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh (2013). By permission of Parallax Press, the publishing house of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 39 – 1/24/2022

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for the fourth day of re-membering Thay, i want to share another of his calligraphies and one of my very favorite poems and this one is written by Thay and brings us to membering again the wisdom that there is only one of us here and opens our one heart to greater compassion… as we read this poem, let us re-member our mindful breathing… breathing in, re-member Thay is life without limits… breathing out, re-member that Thay has never been born and never died…

~

Please Call Me By My True Names

“Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.”

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 38 – 1/23/2022

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just as this beautiful creature began as an independent single imaginal cell and ran to meet and connect with other imaginal cells to form a cluster resonating at the same frequency and becoming an interdependent multiple imaginal cell, may we join together as beloved communion of imagination  to transform and meet these challenging times…

~

“If you are mindful enough you can see the Buddha in anything, especially in the sangha. The twentieth century was the century of individualism, but we don’t want that anymore. Now we try to live as a community. We want to flow like a river, not a drop of water. The river will surely arrive at the ocean, but a drop of water may evaporate halfway. That’s why it is possible for us to recognize that the presence of the Buddha is the here and now. I think that every step, every breath, every word that is spoken or done in mindfulness—that is the manifestation of the Buddha. Don’t look for the Buddha elsewhere. It is in the art of living mindfully every moment of your life.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

~

after spending so many precious moments of eternity with thousands of beings celebrating the life of Thay and honoring him in ceremony and in being peace in every moment, it comes to me this morning what a gift that we have the gift of spending 8 days together being peace in a volatile and turbulent time on the planet; thank you Thay for bringing so many relatives together being peace, the essence of love, may this catalyse the revolution of love to flow like a mighty river pulling all relatives to roll with the rhythms of life everlasting…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 37 – 1/22/2022

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perhaps because i have spent several moments of eternity of this one wild and precious life in Vietnam today in ceremony for laying Thay;s body in the casket, this poem of his feels oh so right for this second day of honoring and celebrating this astonishing and beloved being of light…

Oneness

“The moment I die, I will try to come back to you as quickly as possible. I promise it will not take long. Isn’t it true I am already with you, as I die each moment? I come back to you in every moment. Just look, feel my presence. If you want to cry, please cry. And know that I will cry with you. The tears you shed will heal us both. Your tears are mine. The earth I tread this morning transcends history. Spring and Winter are both present in the moment. The young leaf and the dead leaf are really one. My feet touch deathlessness, and my feet are yours. Walk with me now. Let us enter the dimension of oneness and see the cherry tree blossom in Winter. Why should we talk about death? I don’t need to die to be back with you.”

Published in Thich Nhat Hanh, Call Me by My True Names (1993)