Happy New Year

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

Merry Christmas 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

In Memoriam – Christopher Hitchens

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.

The Garden of the mind

Apartheid Israel?

via

enlightenment……..'seasy

 

http://youtu.be/8CRYmcun3tc

Kahlil Gibran – on children

 

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 

The progression of identity….

irony

 

 

via http://www.artige.no/bilde/15335

Life requires video

Such a lovely man – the Dalai Lama

essential unconditional love

glowing heart

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"

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

Flower Power

the powerful self

Shining, shining, shining

 

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

Something happens

image from Incomedia. Text  gg

the mould of experience

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

Sheltering wings

mighty oaks from little acorns grow

 

colour prejudice……

http://lo-velifemus-ic.tumblr.com/

Steve Jobs quote

"[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.

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

Freedom….01010101

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/

22711

Bano Abobakar Rashid

                                                             Bano Abobakar Rashid

                                                                     In Memoriam

The mechanisms of the spirit-001

 

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

in deep sorrow

Nelson Mandela words

Nelson Mandela 93

to be or not to be………

"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.

shape shifting

 

 

Mary Pickford

Life requires

Carpe Diem – changing the world

PLEEEEEZ…read her blog…you'll never be the same again afterwards

http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/

interdependency the key to survival

 

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

try it…….

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

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

…..?……?…….?..any answer?

the extraordinary magnificence of beauty – 001

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

Protecting the earth

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

 

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

Maya Angelou – 01

Remembrance - Tsunami

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.