Sunday, December 25, 2011

The audacity of memory

and the treasures of nostalgia

 

“Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you!” he wrote. “You shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!”

Charles Dickens

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Them Us It

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.

William Ellery Channing

Friday, December 16, 2011

In Memoriam – Christopher Hitchens

hitchens-001

to which should generally be added…."and do participate in private", or so it would seem from many 'religious leaders/concepts'.

Hence, for example, a woman in the Middle East can be 'gang-raped' in the name of religion – and then punished for it by being imprisoned and suffering 100 lashes.

In the 'hypocrisy Shoddy Globe Award' we should also not forget to dishonour the Catholic Church and the Vatican for it's en-darkened attitudes to children and truth..

Another shortlisted for the 'Shoddy Globe Award' is, of course, the State of Israel, which has managed to turn a magnificent faith into an apartheid look-a-like.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

sad lillies

Sins committed in the name of a higher good, Zmirak wrote, can “smell and look like lilies. But they flank a coffin. Lying dead and stiff inside that box is natural Justice ... what each of us owes the other in an unconditional debt.”

No higher cause can trump that obligation — not a church, and certainly not a football program. And not even a lifetime of heroism can make up for leaving a single child alone, abandoned to evil, weeping in the dark.

 

 

John Zmirak/Ross Douthat 

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Flower Power-002

"In all the world is no place hidden from the glory shed by hundreds of myriad rays from the heart of every flower of Paradise"

sunflower sprout

Shinran Shonin, the 10th century Japanese monk /Buddhist Psalms, by S. Yamabe and L. Adams Beck, [1921], at sacred-texts.com

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Shining, shining, shining

aurora-1000

 

Joseph CAMPBELL: "That is the way it feels, but this is it, this is Eden. When you see the kingdom spread upon the earth, the old way of living in the world is annihilated. That is the end of the world, The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the world of solid things but a world of radiance".

 

via

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Something happens

something happens-small

image from Incomedia. Text  gg

the mould of experience

Melting clock-Dali Salvador Dale 'The persistence of memory'

Experience is a 'time frame scenario'. The ability to extrapolate meaningful data from such a 'time frame scenario' is not dependent upon age, but upon flexibility, open-mindedness and the willingness to look as objectively as possible at 'experience'.

gg

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Steve Jobs quote

jobs-dots

"[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
-- Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.

Monday, August 22, 2011

A remarkable man.A remarkable people.

"Kindness is our greatest asset".

An excerpt from the speech given by Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, at the Norwegian National Remembrance Day ceremony 21st August 2011 – in loving memory of all who died on 22nd July 2011

you can read his full speech, in English, here

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The voice of true life

"It was better that I died trying than that I did not attempt to save her"

Eirik Høie Mortensen (16) who swam in the cold waters off Utoya island holding up two other young people, one of which had been shot whom he held for 65 minutes and the other cramped and near drowning whom he also held for 20 minutes. All three survived. Eirik does not consider himself a hero but only feels he did what was right to do.

I wonder what kind of world we could have if we could only have some of this young man's sacrificial and determined compassion.

 

Full story in Norwegian here:

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/08/01/nyheter/utoya/terror/innenriks/terrorisme/17519239/

Friday, July 29, 2011

Bano Abobakar Rashid

utoya rose

                                                             Bano Abobakar Rashid

                                                                     In Memoriam

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The mechanisms of the spirit-001

red rse cfx

 

When we are able to look beyond the pain and grief of the tragedy at Utoya, to take a transcendental spiritual view, we see that all those at the island had some common motivation and inspiration.

They were there, in their compassionate lovingness, because they had the desire to improve Norway, improve the world. To use part or all of their life to make it a better place, create a greater sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, and felt that politics was a pathway to achieve this desire. They wanted to show us the value of every human being for that is what a desire to make the world better means.

When we look at the reactions in Norway and the world in these last 6 days, who amongst us is not left with the deep sense that they have changed Norway and the world?

As Ghandi, Mandella and many more have done with their lives.

As Islam Kardekov did in Beslan.

As Christ did.As the Buddha did. As Mohammed did.

"You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?" Kahlil Gibran

We do not know their soul's agenda. But we can know something of their lovingness that caused them to be in that place at that time.

gg

Monday, July 18, 2011

Nelson Mandela 93

happy birthday

nelson

nelson 93

to be or not to be………

happy child

"I have found there is a place in myself that I can enter……..and there I find outbreaks of happiness for no reason.

I had never been there before and did not even know that place existed"

Bjorn Brunstad.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Thursday, June 02, 2011

interdependency the key to survival

 

penguin interdependency

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13616778

the power of love-001

"After the Farhud, life changed drastically for the city's Jews. Up to that point Haddad had had many Muslim friends.

"Suddenly I changed my attitude. I didn't feel any more Iraqi. I felt I'm a Jew and I vowed that I wanted to kill an Arab," he says.

One day, swimming in the River Tigris, he encountered a drowning man, and instinctively helped him to the shore.

"When I came home I was shook up. Not because I saved the guy but because I didn't follow my vow to kill an Arab. And when I went to see the rabbi, he said, 'You can't make a vow to kill. You can only make a vow to help.'

"That's what stimulated me to go into medicine, actually. I knew that I want to save lives, not to kill people."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13610702

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The discomfort of happiness

The mind is so used to trying to solve problems that to actually not have a problem, to just sit and be okay with what is exactly as it is, feels weird and uncomfortable to it... so it looks for (and always manages to find, have you noticed?) something to worry about just to give it something "to do."

Benjamin Smythe

Monday, May 16, 2011

re-ligio – linking back – to the real self.

"There are many in this world who have devoted much energy and time to the study of religion, comparative religion and even philosophy. They are immersed in the nuances of academia and are walking libraries of centuries of other people's thoughts. This is their pleasure.

There are others who have very simply studied love and have reached an awareness of what unconditional love actually is. Usually, but not exclusively, this dawning of awareness of their inner loving self has been signposted by the actions of some small child. For these, love is not simply their joy, it is the meaning of their life and it manifests in tolerance, kindness, compassion."

gg

Friday, May 06, 2011

the extraordinary magnificence of beauty – 001

gallnas-040511-002

the irrationality of subjectivity

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experience. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them."

 Edward R. Murrow

"It is in this recognition that we disempower them  - and empower our lovingness"

gg

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Protecting the earth

Interesting video that helps us understand exactly what we can EFFECTIVELY do to help…

 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter Sunday morning

The really great thing about this time of the year is the way in which beauty is tantalizingly revealed a little at a time.

A journey into beauty and magnificence should not be an F1 race, but a gradual ascent into ecstasy.

gg

Gallnas Easter Sunday Morning

Monday, April 11, 2011

Remembrance - Tsunami

Tsunami memory

The devastation continues to have a profound effect upon our hearts. Further news that another powerful earthquake shook the area in the past few hours reminds us of the trauma born by so many in the area.

Our thoughts are with you – and our hearts weep with yours.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Sunday, April 10, 2011

While we are talking of miracles….

mandela-001

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela

and the poem that has been his inspiration

Invictus poem

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

In Memoriam: Miki Endo

This post is in memory and tribute to a very special young Japanese woman – but is also a recognition that so many in Japan in recent weeks have given much of themselves for the benefit of others.

miki endo tribute

You may read Miki Endo's  moving and life-saving story HERE

or you can also watch a YouTube short documentary that tells her heroic story HERE

Sometimes, being true to our inner self costs us everything and it is only in that moment that we have fully defined who we are in spirit.