Each week that I teach I place on the altar a photo of Shiki, the great Haiku writer, an invalid, who dragged himself to the edge of the tatami mat, overlooking his garden, where he sat all day waiting to receive a haiku. For Shiki the act of creating entailed alert stillness. His awareness gave birth to haiku, to the alive moment when the earth falls into place. Often so subtle you don’t know what hit you.
— Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
— Alan Watts
Last evening Ben, Brian and I went to a session in Donna and Brian’s home (Donna is the one in the photo). It was a lively evening, rooted in Irish traditional music. The evening had a pulse, a heartbeat, of its own. It made me grateful to Donna and Brian, and people like them, who plant their feet firmly on living ground and make space for genuine engagement.
In whatever context true engagement occurs– where there is a conscious, collaborative creative intention– it is during these times in these places that the new, harmonious world takes form.
Too often we take for granted what our collective dream tells us is possible or impossible.
When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.
–Thich Nhat Hanh
…imagine what these places (our neighborhoods) could be if they were experiencing their full potential.
— Steve Holt, “The Spirituality of Placemaking”
The death knell of the Confederate flag and the events leading up to it have triggered a lot of pondering for me. Flags are generally the repository of meaning for a collective.
The taking down of the Confederate flag signifies that the collective of the United States is publicly rejecting what that flag stood for– slavery, apartheid, and its related violence. Some have projected other values upon it; we can be assured that these people were not African Americans.
A flag is merely a piece of cloth; it is the energetic that is projected onto it by the collective that makes it significant.
A flag is particularly strong to collective projections. I remember that during the Vietnam War the US flag held a strong projection of support for the war because supporters had flag decals on their cars. I was not one of them.
Even now, the American flag means different things for different people. I hope and pray that the bulk of the collective begins to take a good look at our country in the world, with the aim that other countries will look upon it with positive feelings because we have proved ourselves to be worthy.
One of these days there will be a world flag that a larger collective will project common meaning upon. I hope I see that happen.
In the meantime, I especially like prayer flags, like the ones in a yard in our neighborhood.
Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.
~Ortega y Gasset
I took this picture last evening. Today I looked at it for my nature meditation, because I was profoundly moved by it. I am still trying to find a word for the way I have been moved. Since I cannot find one at this time, all I can do is thank the dandelion for teaching me something that rings profoundly in the depths of my heart.