Poets (and stories) for Peace

Ancient Sufi Prayer I offer you peace. I offer you joy. I offer you friendship. I hear your needs. I see your beauty. Our wisdom comes from a Higher Source. Our wisdom comes from a deeper source. I honor that Source in you.

The following are some things to think about over the holidays. I find it interesting that on the news today there were the new style hippies. They have given up on all material things, are avid tattoo flaunters, go to concerts, skate board, don't want to work, don't go to churche (but think that through out the day, as they do, is equarl to church. The only difference is that this young people are pro-life and pro-war. Personally, I have a hard time with how the two things can go together. Since this thought was on my mind, it was not surprising that I stumbled on the following, which no matter what your belief system is can keep you considering things throughtout the holiday and into your New Year's Resolutions. The trolley problem The problem is this: A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch which will lead the trolley down a different track ...

'Its A Wonderful Life' is one of the most loved Holiday Stories. No matter what your spiritual persuasions are, the story has everlasting timeliness. It is the story of a dark night of the soul of the hero, who thinks his life has no value. Below is a link to a comic 30 second version that was sent to me that is really cute, but it made me pull out my old copy of the movie to show at my season party tomorrow night. I think it will bring a few extra smiles for the holidays. I wish you joy for the season. http://www.angryalien.com/1204/wonderful_lifebuns.asp

These snow dinosaurs were made in Japan at the Snow Festival that happens every year. It is definitely one of the sites in Japan I regret not seeing. Since it is the first day of snow here in Minnesota and they just found the hugest dinosaur bones ever in Spain, I thought it was a good photo to put up.

(To the left is a frost photo by Lida--see more below) (This graphic to the left is public domain, and I thought appropriate to winter's long awaited face this year.) I was looking learily out the window at the falling rain which promised a frozen sheet of glass to come. Nudged to go to the window seats and have a look, I found that frozen puddles already lined the sidewalk and the trees were covered in icicles that, though beautiful, had ominous predictions about the condition of the roads. My knee bandaged from a recent sprain, I decided this was a day to stay home. I returned to my seat in front of the computer and was sitting there for no more then five minutes, when I turned my head to find heavy flakes of snow pouring down from the sky. The trees and sidewalk were already covered with the snows illuminating whiteness, and it brought a lightness to the room that had been deprived by several days of gray skies. It amazed me how quickly all was covered in white, and it ...

Santa Is Alive & Well - And We Are On His Team I remember my first Christmas party with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!" My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go." "Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second cinnamon ...

Christmas 1968 by Rose-Roberta Pauling It was the holiday season 1968. Over thirty years ago, but it seems like a hop, skip and a jump away or maybe a huge leap into a space, so long gone that no one really remembers what we were all about then, unless one lived it. I was going to the New School for Social Research—registered in a Human Awareness certificate program--mixed in with all these radical thinkers, free thinkers and anarchists--some of whom thought that it would be a good idea to destroy the government. As naïve as I was in those days, I used to ask this question, “Well, what will you do afterwards.” No one had an answer. You weren’t supposed to ask them. But, it was a good time. People were learning to communicate, to express oneself, to step out of their boxes that they were hiding in, ask the right questions (most of the time anyway), seek new truths and meditation was the new vogue. Amongst my teachers ...

I took the below description of Kwanzaa from this site: http://www.tike.com/celeb-kw.htm I hope they don't mind, but I could not find a way to contact them. I was thinking about diversity and the different holidays that are represented during this season. I was interested in seeing what Kawanza was. It is really a impressive holiday with each day having a different value, which has real beauty for oneself and the world one lives in. Personally, I have never been fixed on one holiday. Though I was raised with Hanukkah--which is the Jewish festival of lights and lasts eight days--while my Mom was sick and in the hospital, an Italian woman and her son came to live with us. During that time, we celebrated X-mas and had a Christmas tree. So X-mas became part of my life really early. In high school, though I lived in a prevalently Jewish neighborhood, we were off from school on Christmas. Christmas became a time of giving and sharing, and I often went to Christmas parties and ex...

Did you know that wolves mate for life? (public domain Photo) The Lone Wolf’s Cry by Rose-Roberta Pauling Was it a narcissistic enterprise that was my endeavor to find the you in me? I look at you now— your face strained from too much others Softened And, I know I know that feeling you have half closed inside of you longing yet, standing in its loneness like a wolf crying out in the wild for it’s mate long gone yet, remembered with no place in memory. Just a seed of thought unsprouted whole unjoined. That Lone Wolf call you recognized in me is it a good thing? A dream? And is it better left in dream? I stand alone unseen I touch an unentered space and turn back facing the entryway facing the past Known Unknown Where does it lead? On top of this ridge I’ve chosen I look down Across Out Behind me Openness in front of me. Those others who never hear the l...

I found the below quotes online and went to see who this person is. It seems he was an interesting fellow who followed the principles of having a positive mental attitude. His site is selling a lot of stuff in his name, but there is some interesting information there. He was very influenced by W. Clement Stone's book Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, which from what I have come up with was written together with Napoleon Hill, and the book was dedicated to Andrew Carnegie ("Anything in life worth having is worth working for!") Og Mandino Quotes Act now. For now is all you have. Action is the food and drink which will nourish my success. Action will destroy your procrastination. All men must stumble often to reach the truth. All nature is a circle of moods and you are a part of nature and so, like the tides, your moods will rise; your moods will fall. All your problems, discouragements, and heartaches are, in truth, great opportunities in disguise...

Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore Poem by Tagore (Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta) Where the mind is without fear ... Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Where knowledge is free, Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, Where words come out from the depth of truth, Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action, Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. " I do no not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I do know how the Fourth will: with sticks and stones. " - Albert ...

I am happy to have found Jasmin Cori's poems on the Internet. She reminds me so much of the Poetry of Rumi. New Eyes Running through the village embracing everyone she meets, she laughs in ecstasy. People call her mad. "New eyes!" she cries. "I have been given new eyes!" And it is true. For the scales which had previously blinded her are gone now, erased revealing such utter glory that her mind took flight, leaving only a rapturous heart in an old, weathered body racing through the streets on fire with love. © 1996 Jasmin Lee Cori Freefall to the beloved: mystical poetry for God's lovers (Boulder, CO: Golden Reed, 1996), p. 111. THE INTEREST WITHOUT THE CAPITAL The lover's food is the love of the bread; no bread need be at hand: no one who is sincere in his love is a slave to existence. Lovers have nothing to do with with with existence; lovers have the interest without the capital. ...