Gratitude

".., And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world.

Oh, all that I know,
There's nothing here to run from,
'Cause everybody here's got somebody to lean on."
-Coldplay - Don't Panic

Something is working right in the cosmos today. Rwandan Hutus end armed struggle .

There are more things to be grateful for and I'll be looking for them.

Legally Blind Iowa Golfer Gets an Ace . This moment of gratitude is for my friend Terry!

Happiness is Back. This moment of gratitude is for Dr. Mark! He's got some 'splaining to do.

Update on April 11... India and China sign border deal and

UAE to use robots not children as camel jockeys!

May all beings know love and peace.

Rare and Wonderful

I’m not a big fan of poetry. I like it plain, easy-to-understand, and profound. I like Robert Creeley’s words and how he arranges them. He passed away today with his family by his bedside.


Goodbye
---
Now I recognize
it was always me
like a camera
set to expose

itself to a picture
or a pipe
through which the water
might run

or a chicken
dead for dinner
or a plan
inside the head

of a dead man.
Nothing so wrong
when one considered
how it all began.

It was Zukofsky's
"Born very young into a world
already very old..."
The century was well along

when I came in
and now that it's ending,
I realize it won't
be long.

But couldn't it all have been
a little nicer,
as my mother'd say. Did it
have to kill everything in sight,

did right always have to be so wrong?
I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.

I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home.
-- Robert Creeley



May all beings know love and peace.

Heal Me

Ain’t it crazy
For a moment there
This felt just like dying
But now I see that something inside
Is coming alive
Ain’t it crazy

No use running from a revolution
I just surrender to this evolution
Heal me lift me
Take me to the other side
Amazing grace
Has touched my face
And the sweet sound doesn’t lie
Ain’t it crazy

For a moment there
I just gave up trying
But now I see
You can let the light in
You can begin again
Ain’t it crazy

I lay me down in this sweet perfection
I am a witness to my resurrection
Heal me lift me
Take me to the waterside
Drop me in let me swim
Let everyone knowI’ll be coming home again
Make no mistake
I’m wide-awake
Ain’t it crazy

Heal me lift me
Take me to the other side
I’ll take what I’ve earned
These lessons I’ve learned
I’m ready for the ride
Heal me lift me
Take me and my soul will fly
My battered heart will make a new start
Let everyone know
I’ll be coming home again

Heal me lift me
Take me to the waterside
Drop me in
Come on and watch me swim
Let everyone knowI’ll be coming home again

-Melissa Etheridge, Skin Album


I am happy. It feels good. I am learning to go deeper into “the moment.” Plunging into these depths is exhilarating, frightening, new, and refreshing. At this stage in my education, I realize that the goal is to string together each deep moment and forge a mesh of silent awareness.

This mesh of awareness shines of beauty, of healing, of forgiveness, of acceptance and of attraction. It is weightless, stronger-than-steel, warm or cool depending on my need, and it grows. Moment to moment, the mesh breaks down and it transforms and it renews itself, stronger than ever before.

The deepest moment is art. It heals, just as it should.

Enjoy!


May all beings know love and peace.

Remove the Feeding Tube...

..from the "Culture of Life" movement.

I have known people who have refused to eat, who have refused to take medications, who have simply willed themselves to die rather than live like Terri. What did she do to deserve this hell on earth? I have a living will, signed, notarized, and ready to stop any American President, Senator, or Congressman who wants to use my tragedy to promote their “culture of life” political campaign.

It is apparent, however, that today’s legally binding document could be tomorrow’s fond memory if the Bushites continue their pre-emptive strikes against States Rights and the judiciary. This is the big issue.

An even bigger issue, though, is the continuing horror of the Iraq War. Today is the second anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq. I have not heard a peep out of the Bushites about the “culture of death” they have promoted by killing and/or torturing thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children. The same people who are castigating Michael Schiavo for pursuing a peaceful end to Terri’s ordeal are the very ones who eagerly believed and spread the myth of WMD in Iraq so they could unleash the bunker bombs on the Iraqi population.

I care about Terri’s quality of life, her responsiveness to stimuli, and her continued existence only because her story is all over the media. She’s bigger than Michael Jackson right now and I think that is the real crime behind this whole mess. Her family stole her identity and sold it to the Bush-marketing machine.

May all beings know love and peace.

WHO IS SAINT PATRICK?

He was a truly forceful (i.e., kick ass) Catholic missionary, among many other interesting things. The Druids never had a chance.

Per StevieR, "Let's all knock back a Guinness for everything Irish today."

Hmmm, wonder if they sell it at Trader Jo's.

May all beings know love and peace.

Mushroom

This is an interesting word. When it's used as a noun, it identifies a fungus that is often edible, sometimes psychedelic and occasionally poisonous. The word has endless descriptive possibilities.

Lately, it's been used as a verb in sentences trying to explain or accurately describe many aspects of our current government. I know when I hear any government person utter a phrase with the verb "mushrooming" (e.g., "mushrooming trade deficit", "mushrooming federal bureaucracy", "mushrooming prison population") he or she is sending a clear warning that non-rich Americans should get ready for a beating. I suspect the code will change soon, just to keep us off guard. I think the word is wasted in this context, frankly.

Any word that is part of the phrase, "mushroom cloud", does not deserve to be linked with the current government's domestic damage-fest. It should be reserved for the big stuff: the Bushites vendetta against Iran, or North Korea, or some other axis of blah, blah. I guess Condi has China in her sights now, and who knows when she'll be urging ol Bush to put the fear of "mushroom clouds" into the missing brains and hearts of those patriotic, red-state Americans.

Supposedly there is a "mushrooming" Republican backlash against the administration's mission to completely dismantle the world, beginning with the USA. Complete misuse of this word. Any word this noble and diverse should not be connected to the word "Republican." I shudder to hear the word "backlash" connected to the repugs as well! It gives me terrifying visions of floggings, orange jump suits and televangelist sex scandals. Maybe "Republican backlash" more accurately describes the "mushrooming self-flaggelation" these people must enjoy. Hey, some people really like pain. I didn't realize so many of them lived and voted in America.

May all beings know love and peace.

Can't Resist The Make-Overs....

“Hello. My name is Kathy and I’m a makeover-aholic.”

There should be a group for my kind of addiction. It’s insidious. I used to be able to say that I could take television or leave it, and bragged that I left it most of the time. All that has changed with the make-over shows.

At first it was an occasional “Trading Places” or “What Not to Wear” on cable TV. These shows are not damaging, yet. I still have to struggle to remember the air times and they have morphed and changed a few too many times to be a hard core “viewing habit.” Then, a couple of months ago, I began to watch HGTV whenever I had a spare minute day or night. Now, on top of all of these hooks and lures, ABC has discovered this untapped reservoir of addiction and has me hooked on their Extreme Makeovers! All it takes to put me in a makeover coma is a happy, peppy spokesperson talking about redoing, improving, making-over a tacky someone or something. It’s such a mesmerizing reality-fantasy.

Every Thursday night at 8 p.m., I hear the sad story of someone like Becky and her sister on Extreme Make Over. The makeover crews go to town and before you can finish your diet Coke, she looks like a slightly overweight Marisa Tomei! Whoa! That could be me! What the show doesn’t go into is how Becky managed to make a nice life for herself and be happy, before the make-over, but who really cares about all of that.

So, I’m now two hours away from the big TV fix: Extreme Makeover – Home Edition with mouthy hunk, Ty Pennington. Bring on the bull dozers and teary-eyed families!

Wonder why remodel and makeover shows are so fascinating. Hmmmm.


May all beings know love and peace.

To See Him Again
by Gabriela Mistral

Never, never again?
Not on nights filled with quivering stars,
or during dawn's maiden brightness
or afternoons of sacrifice?

Or at the edge of a pale path
that encircles the farmlands,
or upon the rim of a trembling fountain,
whitened by a shimmering moon?

Or beneath the forest's
luxuriant, raveled tresses
where, calling his name,
I was overtaken by the night?
Not in the grotto that returns
the echo of my cry?

Oh no. To see him again --
it would not matter where --
in heaven's deadwater
or inside the boiling vortex,
under serene moons or in bloodless fright!

To be with him...
every springtime and winter,
united in one anguished knot
around his bloody neck!

-

Today is the first anniversary of the Madrid Massacre. Bomb blasts in packed commuter trains killed 191 innocents and maimed and mangled hundreds more. Their families, their friends, their country, the world remember them in silence today.

It is a good day to think about my connection to these murdered stangers and to the murderers. I know we are all connected to the one true spirit which is love, even those that try to sever the connection. I know that spirit was there last year strengthening those that saved others and welcoming those that passed away, but I find it hard to imagine that spirit was with the bombers. I've been taught that God is everywhere at all times and with all life. Accepting this is the key to enlightenment, peace, understanding and unconditional love. It must be what Christ meant when he taught us to turn the other cheek, to move on.

It takes a big spirit to accept this truth. I must do more to stretch mine and extend unconditional love even to those that destroy and hate.

Today, Spain gave a moment of collective silence to remember the innocents who were harmed last year. Here's an mp3 of the sound of a fountain in Spain that you can listen to if you have Winamp and connect to the collective healing that silence and nature and time brings.




May all beings know love and peace.

Low Flying Clouds

Isn't Rumsfeld's dangerously tactless "diplomacy" enough gaul for one nation to spew on the world? Guess not.

Bush just appointed John Bolton as "ambassador" to the United Nations. Bolton's harsh and tactless criticisms of anyone and anything "not Bush" are famous. He's the guy banned from North Korea for his inflammatory comments about their nukes.

I guess the the President's speeches about cooperation and unity during his visit to Europe were nothing more than re-election remixes - style vs. substance. The substance of the Bush foreign policy continues to be thuggery and intimidation if Bolton is the best we can do. I guess Annan is ready for him.

Wonder if there is a multinational energy corporation on the wait list to buy the property at First Avenue between 42nd Street and 48th Street in NYC.

Something Really, Really Good....

A new, flickr friend, Kiomi in the House, sent me info about an evening of art, featuring Alex Grey. Her work will be part of this fund raising event and I want to go just to meet her.

I've heard of Alex Grey who is known to me as the artist that created the cover art for Tool's Lateralus album. I remember getting that album and feeling simultaneously mesmerized and repelled by the images. That's the way I feel when I listen to Tool's music too. It's an edgy, exciting and transforming art. Grey has created a special art installation in NYC and this event is presented to help raise money to keep the show going. Seems like a great way to spend some money and spend an evening with amazing, creative and original people.

Yay art!

COMPASSION RULES...

The prayers of millions around the world have been answered today. The Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled that executing juvenile criminals is unconstitutional and forbidden nation wide. This is a step toward justice tempered with compassion.