Category: Main blog

We just finished reading and discussing “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson in our Sufi Book Club. Such a profound work – and she ends with a chapter envisioning a world without Caste. I pray we can all work toward that world.

The following article was posted on Richard Rohr’s blog last week and is written by one of our local pastors in the Seattle Area whom I’ve had the privilege to sing with in our Seattle Peace Chorus, Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas:

Prophetic Imagination
Envisioning a New World
Thursday, March 25, 2021

One of the most prominent prophets in recent American history is Martin Luther King Jr. Like the prophets of Israel, he saw not just what was wrong with his nation, but how it might be restored to the promise upon which it was founded. The Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas writes about King’s prophetic vision for racial justice, suggesting that it was made possible by the “moral imagination” he learned through the Black church and faith. She writes:

A moral imagination is grounded in the absolute belief that the world can be better. A moral imagination envisions Isaiah’s “new heaven and new earth,” where the “wolf and the lamb shall feed together,” and trusts that it will be made real (Isaiah 65). What is certain, a moral imagination disrupts the notion that the world as it is reflects God’s intentions. . . . [It] is nothing other than the hope of black faith. Such hope trusts that the arc of God’s universe does in fact bend toward justice. [1]

In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, King’s prophetic, moral imagination is on full display:

Even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American 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 my four little 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, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls 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 shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. . . .

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. [2]

References:
[1] Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (Orbis Books: 2015), 225, 226. Italics mine.

[2] Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington (HarperCollins: 1991, 1986), 219.

This came today from the Poem-a-Day blog and made me weep. The title translates from Portugese – The Amazon is Burning

A Amazônia está queimando

by Ana Castillo

I
We sing and dance in praise of the butterfly—
translucent blue,
gilded wings,
dances—
all its life
from orchid to cacao,
ceiba to banana and fig,
tying invisible strings
that hold our home in the sky.

It must,
lest we drop
into an abyss,
or drift
where the gods won’t find us.
This place
where butterflies work
for you and me,
keep rivers full and flowing—
Amapari, Canapantuba and Feliz,
the wide and deep goddess far beyond we call the Sea,
Rain—floods and drought,
a mist or fog,
the sun finds us each dawn
after a journey home,
when the moon comes to guide
both the weary and the ready
to pounce and hide—
our home is burning.

II
Menacing fires blaze.
Moneyed Whites rid the earth
of the people,
anacondas and spider monkeys,
hawks and toucans,
cicadas and cinnamon,
glass frogs and vines,
palm and rubber trees,
tapirs and manatees.
We hear their screams
And all that dies silently.
A Amazônia está queimando.

They want our abundant lands
and to annihilate our Mother’s opulence.
They will end the dance of the butterflies
and then what?
We, too, will die
like in a story told by the ancestors
that we only imagined.
They come for our copper, gold, ore
Ranchers and loggers raze the land.
At the United Nations Bolsonaro* announced,
Don’t listen to what you hear on the news. Lies.
Nothing is burning, nothing has been set ablaze.

III
We are Waiapi.
We keep the butterflies happy.
They stay working
to hold the planet in place.
We are the guardians
of our Mother.
Each day before I go to school,
I smear the sweet juice of urucum seeds
on my body and face.
They are protection
from insects and evil spirits.
I sit in a classroom with thatched roof
and other Waiapi women.
I am the only grandmother there.
I am Chief of my people.
I will learn to write and speak
for the butterfly
to those who set fires
and to the ones who may help
save our home.

*Current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.

This really moved me this morning – “Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.”

THAT LIVES IN US

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land –
that sacred earth that is your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.

Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and the future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

~ Rumi ~

This article was posted recently on the Ziraat page on Facebook and I found it so important and meaningful that I wanted to pass it on (link below)

It includes this wisdom from Hopi elders: “You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. … Do not look outside yourself for your leader. … Gather yourselves! Banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

And I would add inspiring indigenous wisdom written by Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota/Dakota//Nakota:

“In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the crossroads: Either unite spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives’ eyes.
We are the only species that is destroying the Source of Life, meaning Mother Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources, and ownership of land, using chemicals and methods of warfare that are doing irreversible damage, as Mother Earth is becoming tired and cannot sustain any more impacts of war.
I ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the Peoples of all continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as one at their Sacred Sites to pray and meditate and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace.
To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction.You yourself are the one who must decide.
You alone – and only you – can make this crucial choice, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.
Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?
Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending!”

Here is the link to the article:

https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/ecological-civilization/2021/02/16/rights-of-nature-movement-ecological/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=YESDaily_20210320&utm_content=YESDaily_20210320%20CID_9d4cb4ff192a02a651cdbc6b1a45d2b9&utm_source=CM&fbclid=IwAR1eEh_QQLCwBcFkkmgDaqESlVXEaykWU-3AMrNpCvL9JOHKkOITdRpJvZg

With gratitude to Janet Berketa who posted this in her blog today.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even,

the miserable and crotchety-

best preacher that ever was, dear star,

that just happens to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light-

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver

This meditation comes from Fr. Richard Rohr’s blog – this week centered on the communion of saints.

The Seven Homecomings

The Seven Homecomings, a practice taught by Tibetan Buddhist Lama Rod Owens, invite us to recognize and honor our own personal “circle of care.” These instructions are just a template; let this practice change to meet your needs. Pause briefly between each section.

• Begin contemplating the first homecoming of the guide. Reflect on any being who has been a guide, a teacher, a mentor, an adviser, or an elder for you. Reflect on the beings in your life whom you’ve gone to for guidance and support. . . . Invite them to gather around you in a circle and say welcome. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by your guides.
   
• The second homecoming is your wisdom texts. [Reflect] on any text that has helped you to deepen your wisdom. These texts can include any writing, books, teachings, sacred scriptures . . . that have helped you to experience clarity, openness, love, and compassion. . . . Say welcome to your texts. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by your wisdom texts.
   
• The third homecoming is community. Begin by reflecting about the communities, groups, and spaces where you experience love or the feeling of being accepted and supported in being happy. . . . Where do you feel safe to love? Where are you being loved? . . . Say welcome to your communities. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by your communities.
   
• The fourth homecoming is your ancestors. Begin by reflecting on those ancestors who have wanted the best for you, including wanting you to be happy and safe. You don’t need to know who those ancestors are. . . . Also reflect on the lineages you feel connected to, like the lineage of your spiritual tradition, or tradition of art or activism. . . . As you invite your ancestors, remember that you too are in the process of becoming an ancestor. . . . Say welcome to your ancestors and lineages. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by your ancestors and lineages.
   
• The fifth homecoming is the earth. Begin by reflecting on . . . how [the earth] sustains your life and the lives of countless beings. . . . Coming home to the earth means touching the earth, acknowledging the earth . . . and allowing it to hold you and, as it holds you, understanding that it is loving you as well. . . . Say welcome to the earth. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by the earth.
   
• The sixth homecoming is silence. Begin by reflecting on the generosity of silence as something that helps you to have the space to be with yourself. . . Reflect on how you can embrace silence as a friend and/or lover invested in your health and well-being. . . . Say welcome to the silence. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to being held by the silence.
   
• Finally, the seventh homecoming is yourself. Begin by reflecting on your experiences of your mind and body. Consider how your experiences are valuable, important, and crucial. Invite all the parts of yourself into your awareness, including the parts of yourself that seem too ugly or overwhelming. . . . Say welcome to yourself. Relax. Inhale. Exhale and come home to yourself. . . .

Now imagine that your circle of benefactors begins to dissolve into white light, and gather that white light into your heart center. Rest your mind and relax.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger (North Atlantic Books: 2020), 87–91.

I have been listening to a profound and deeply impactful interview with Martin Prechtel, an author, mystic, indigenous practitioner, and teacher that a friend sent me.

I was struck especially by a quote where he says, “tumors are petrified sorrow.” His understanding and perspective from his time with Indigenous Guatemalan Shamans of grief as praise and his holding of death and life as one entity are simply beautiful and profound. He speaks of the way that in Guatemala when they plant seeds, they treat it as a funeral and pray to each seed to thank them for being willing to die to be reborn as nutrients for the people. And he said that when the first sprouts poke out of the ground, the children run in and excitedly say, “the seeds are saying their names!” – they are celebrating the rebirth.

Here is a link to the interview – it is long but worth every moment: https://newbooksnetwork.com/martin-prechtel-the-disobedience-of-the-daughter-of-the-sun-north-atlantic-books-2005

So much to learn from his teachings in this interview. After hearing the words about tumors as petrified sorrow, I went looking and found this article that I’ll share here as well:

No B.S Friday: Why Grief Could Be Great

A poem in honor of International Women’s Day:

The Marvelous Women
by Mohja Kahf

All women speak two languages:
the language of men
and the language of silent suffering.
Some women speak a third,
the language of queens.
They are marvelous
and they are my friends.

My friends give me poetry.
If it were not for them
I’d be a seamstress out of work.
They send me their dresses
and I sew together poems,
enormous sails for ocean journeys.

My marvelous friends, these women
who are elegant and fix engines,
who teach gynecology and literacy,
and work in jails and sing and sculpt
and paint the ninety-nine names,
who keep each other’s secrets
and pass on each other’s spirits
like small packets of leavening,

it is from you I fashion poetry.
I scoop up, in handfuls, glittering
sequins that fall from your bodies
as you fall in love, marry, divorce,
get custody, get cats, enter
supreme courts of justice,
argue with God.

You rescuers on galloping steeds
of the weak and the wounded–
Creatures of beauty and passion,
powerful workers in love–
you are the poems.
I am only your stenographer.
I am the hungry transcriber
of the conjuring recipes you hoard
in the chests of your great-grandmothers.

My marvelous friends–the women
of brilliance in my life,
who levitate my daughters,
you are a coat of many colors
in silk tie-dye so gossamer
it can be crumpled in one hand.
You houris, you mermaids, swimmers
in dangerous waters, defiers of sharks–

My marvelous friends,
thirsty Hagars and laughing Sarahs,
you eloquent radio Aishas,
Marys drinking the secret
milkshakes of heaven,
slinky Zuleikas of desire,
gay Walladas, Harriets
parting the sea, Esthers in the palace,
Penelopes of patient scheming,

you are the last hope of the shrinking women.
You are the last hand to the fallen knights
You are the only epics left in the world

Come with me, come with poetry
Jump on this wild chariot, hurry–

MAP

by Linda Hogan

This is the world so vast and lonely without end, with mountains named for men who brought hunger from other lands, and fear of the thick, dark forest of trees that held each other up, knowing fire dreamed of swallowing them and spoke an older tongue, and the tongue of the nation of wolves was the wind around them. Even ice was not silent. It cried its broken self back to warmth. But they called it ice, wolf, forest of sticks, as if words would make it something they could hold in gloved hands, open, plot a way and follow.This is the map of the forsaken world. This is the world without end where forests have been cut away from their trees. These are the lines wolf could not pass over. This is what I know from science: that a grain of dust dwells at the center of every flake of snow, that ice can have its way with land, that wolves live inside a circle of their own beginning. This is what I know from blood: the first language is not our own.There are names each thing has for itself, and beneath us the other order already moves. It is burning. It is dreaming. It is waking up.

From DARK. SWEET.: New and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2014) © 2014 by Linda Hogan. Used with the permission of Coffee House Press. Published in Poem-a-Day on March 6, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets

To honor and celebrate this wonderful musician and teacher here is a beautiful musical tribute: https://youtu.be/h4JRbRHz9t8