Month: February 2020

“The Outdoor Care Retreats let nature give a valuable boost in creating a respite from the sterile and stringent hospital environment. “

Norwegian hospitals add woodland cabins and forest-play for healing

For Broken Trust
by John O’Donohue

Sometimes there is an invisible raven
That will fly low to pierce the shell of trust
When it has been brought near to ground.

When he strikes, he breaks the faith of years
That had built quietly through the seasons
In the rhythm of tried and tested experience.

With one strike, the shelter is down
And the back yoke of truth turned false
Would poison the garden of memory.

Now the heart’s dream turns to requiem,
Offering itself a poultice of tears
To cleanse from loss what cannot be lost.

Through all the raw and awkward days,
Dignity will hold the heart to grace
Lest it squander its dream on a ghost.

Often torn ground is ideal for seed
That can take root disappointment deep enough
To yield a harvest that cannot wither.

Today, I want to lift up this important and timely organization that is applying sacred activism principles to our work for the earth mother.

The Order of the Sacred Earth

From author and peace and justice activist Deborah Santana: In our church, we joined with others who wanted to eradicate racism peacefully.  It was our mission, as people of color who follow Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to stop racist oppression through peaceful protest and working together to change politics of persecution.  The idea and vision to have a spiritual order to celebrate, heal, and protect Mother Earth is a gallant one.  To dedicate ourselves to this community will require deep prayer and the practice of nonviolence as we witness the destruction of our planet.

I hear the Earth crying for people to rise up and act as if every decision we make will either destroy or protect the planet….In order to stand in unity with the Order, I must sit in silence, and in prayer.

When I am quiet, the wind whispers loving songs through tree leaves, birds whistle sweet melodies that soothe my soul.  The ocean waves remind me of nature’s power, and each sunrise is a promise that I have been given another chance to make choices that preserve and replenish the gifts for Mother Earth. The Order of the Sacred Earth is asking us to serve, give back, to become part of a spiritual order.  They ask us to hope.

This will be a special pre-valentine love fest!

From sister N’Shama:

Dear Dancing Friends,

Please join us this Wednesday on the cusp of Valentines’s Day as we clear space in our hearts and prepare to meet the Beloved.

Alia Calendar and N’Shama Sterling will be co-leading the evening, inviting the qualities of love and compassion into our circle, opening to deep caring for all sentient beings.

We look forward to dancing with you.

N’Shama

Dear friends,

My last class for my Master’s program was a preaching class of all things! I have no intention of becoming a preacher, but I truly enjoyed the class and the skills gained will definitely help in my work as a social and earth justice activist.

I wanted to share this last sermon with you because it is meant as a message for my community, as you’ll hear in the introduction.

In this talk, I begin with the Sufi invocation and then speak to how we might truly aspire to recognize our place of Oneness, as the Only Being. I reference some of the new earth sciences that tell us there is only one forest, as an example of how this reality is manifest in the only true scripture, the scripture of nature.

When you have 20 minutes to spare, I invite you to enjoy it, and I welcome any feedback or thoughts in case I ever have the opportunity to deliver this to an actual audience!

We are so honored to have this dear friend in Portland, Arifa Byron. The work she is doing and has done is phenomenal and important. These powerful words reflect the person she is and the passion and beauty she brings to our Sufi Ruhaniat community and our world.

Fashion, turn to the left,

Fashion, turn to the right.

Oooooh Fashion.

We are the goon squad

and we’re coming to town.

–David Bowie

And so it goes.

What can we do when dignity falls out of fashion?

Merely turn to face what’s next, passively entertained?

Revel in the artistry without questioning the art?

How do we turn to notice the steady barrage of atrocities,

spreading like an oil spill, sullying our sacred waters,

gluing our feathers down, tacky, hampering flight,

silencing our songs of connection.

Whose responsibility is it to wave the flag of memory,

and demand a re-awakening to humanity?

Whose flag do we wave, as we steep

in this bath of humiliation?

Self-satisfaction is in fashion now, the bigger the better.

All of the safeguards, the scaffolding of democracy,

have turned out to be made of cheese,

folding and melting into a sour soup.

Peace has become a foreign object,

unseen, ignored, easily trampled

into broken pieces, fragmented pottery shards,

awaiting future archeologists to piece it back together.

I wonder what tomorrow’s fashions will bring,

what seedlings can be planted for future harvest, in such uncertain soil?

Will there be farmers to pull nourishment out of nothingness?

How might dignity bloom? Sprouting amidst the dirty tangle of brambles?

Scanning the horizon for signs of promise.

Seeking dignity’s return on the fluttering wings of peace,

sung in a cacophony of birdsong,

bringing balance.

BIO

Amanda Smith Byron is a social justice educator with over 30 years of experience working with diverse communities to heal trauma and transform conflict. Dr. Byron is an Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, where she directs the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project, and focuses teaching and research on unsettling the role of identity in conflict, understanding enmification and hatred as root causes of violence, and developing peacebuilding strategies to effectively address ethnoreligious conflict. Her current research interests are focused on the restoration of dignity in the aftermath of atrocity.

Sharing this wonderful and important quote that seems especially poignant in these times of such despair and delight :