2018

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Jo Beall

and, what a day of traveling the way of the heart beginning with re-membering love winning as in three years ago, the Supremes ruling for marriage equality all over the USA and moving on to re-membering on that very same day President Obama delivering balm for the soul of our nation at a memorial service in Charleston, SC including his singing “Amazing Grace” which reminds me of a daily practice I’ve followed for almost three years which tunes one into the frequency of grace as well as grounding one into the wellspring of joy that is always bubbling in the deepest core of our being…

yes, what a joy to travel the way of the heart, what a healing balm as we meet each moment as fully as we are able and meet it as a friend, as we experience each moment as a moment of peace, as life sings us filling us with loving kindness and more and more compassion…

namaste’

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 191 – 6/25/2018

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Jo Beall

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

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i circle around, i circle around, the boundaries of the earth…

i have loved Rilke’s poem and this chant for so many moons, the feeling of expansiveness and liberation… for a quintessence of moons while deepening in stillness, i’ve also been deepening my practice of the three tenets of the Order of Zen Peacemakers – not knowing, bearing witness, and taking action and this poem sings these tenets inspiring moving into them on a day when impermanence is rocking my everyday world reheartening me to take action by being lovingkindness in ever-widening circles… join me – the still waters are clean-sing…

~

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~

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May every moment of our holy meandering unfold in harmony, gathering place for nomads of the heart, awakening to the illumination we be…

~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 190 – 6/24/2018

Posted on June 24, 2018 by Jo Beall

in honor of the astonishing light of being…

A Community of the Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
~Rumi~

“When I run after what I think I want,
my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety;
if I sit in my own place of patience,
what I need flows to me
and without any pain.
From this, I understand that what I want
also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me.
There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it”

~Rumi~

shanti shanti shantihi…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 189 – 6/23/2018

Posted on June 23, 2018 by Jo Beall

“There was a startling recognition that the nature of the universe was not as I had been taught… I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it.… I was overwhelmed with the sensation of physically and mentally extending out into the cosmos. I realized that this was a biological response of my brain attempting to reorganize and give meaning to information about the wonderful and awesome processes that I was privileged to view.”

in the quotation above, astronaut Edgar Mitchell shares an epiphany from outer space travel, a shift in consciousness that has been called the overview effect… after many days/moons/turns around the sun of inner space exploration, the overview effect is living me leaving me feeling i have crossed the rubicon and sit perched in a nest high in the heavens and deep in the buoyant sea with telescopic vision empowering a 360 degree view of the cosmic web in that field out beyond right and wrong doing floating in grace…

namaste

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 188 – 6/22/2018

Posted on June 22, 2018 by Jo Beall

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… our interesting times are 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 injustice and joy in this moment, in every moment, in every wild precious moment…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 187 – 6/21/2018

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Jo Beall

When there is no more separation between “this” and “that”, it is called the still-point of Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle, one sees the infinite in all things.

~ Chuang Tzu ~

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on soulstice, we stand in stillness with brother sun, welcoming you smiling with folded hands, honoring your radiance breathing through our one heart, greeting you as beloved and opening our heart to you…

today, the veil between the worlds is so thin, a magical day to see through the mists… to return to the isle of Avalon on a metaphorical journey of transformation on this day the sun stands still for the divine union between heaven and earth, masculine and feminine, electricity and magnetism to occur… a sacred moment when divine feminine spirit pours the luminous light of love all over the cosmos… may we all feel this fluid energy of light flowing, a loving compassion that frees us to enter the vast unknown, to stand still with the sun…

how i love this day of standing still withe sun and

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 pachamama 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 5 – Day 186 – 6/20/2018

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Jo Beall

“Refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, with the same hopes and ambitions as us—except that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.”
~ Khaled Hosseini ~

Today is the 18th annual World Refugee Day. The United Nations Refugee Agency sponsors this day recognizing and raising awareness about the world’s obligation to welcome and shelter refugees—those forced to flee violence or disaster in their home land.

On 4 December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 55/76 decided that, from 2001, 20 June would be celebrated as World Refugee Day. In this resolution, the General Assembly noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

World Refugee Day reminds us that all human beings are valuable, we all deserve protections, and we are all personally obligated to care for one another.

Now More Than Ever, We Need to Stand with Refugees…

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

~ MLK ~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 185 – 6/19/2018

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Jo Beall

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. 2016…

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 5 – Day 184 – 6/18/2018

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Jo Beall

The true character of society is revealed in how it treats its children.

~ Nelson Mandela ~

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“The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child,” spokesperson for the U.N. human-rights office.

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Basta! Enough!

outrage continues to grow with the US’s inhumane zero tolerance policy of separating families at the border…

we are required to act… please shout out your concern for children, children are not political pawns… we must safeguard their lives and earn the honor of being their protectors…

Call your senators and representatives daily, even hourly.

Call the Whitehouse: Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414. Send an e-mail to the President.

our hearts are all braking as we witness families trying to start a new life only to have their families torn apart… we can do better than this, we must do better than this… our actions matter – let us support those yearning to be and breathe free…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 5 – Day 183 – 6/17/2018

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Jo Beall

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

Abundance Created Together (ACT)

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess. – Rainer Maria Rilke –

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