Hokusai says Look carefully. He says pay attention, notice. He says keep looking, stay curious. He says there is no end to seeing. He says Look Forward to getting old. He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are. He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it’s interesting. He says keep doing what you love. He says keep praying. He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient, every one of us has a body. He says every one of us is frightened. He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear. He says everything is alive -shells, buildings, people, fish,mountains, trees. Wood is alive. Water is alive. Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us. He says live with the world inside you. He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books. It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish. It doesn’t matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your verandah. or the shadows of the trees and grasses in your garden. It matters that you care. It matters that you feel. It matters that you notice. It matters that life lives through you. Contentment is Life living through you. Joy is life living through you. Satisfaction and strength is life living through you. Peace is life living through you. He says don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Look, feel, let life take you by the hand. Let life live through you. Hokusai Says, by Roger Keyes
Mikis Theodorakis - Adagio with scenes for this video taken from "The Suspended Step of the Stork" & Zorbas Suite Ballet
In this in-between place, of living then and now, now and then, and straining to see what lies ahead, exists a space where I am searching for the story of self. Nestling into a seductive space that invites remembering, reflecting, and writing, I find comfort in the gentle rocking that takes me back to the past, eases into the present, and forth to the future, only to repeat itself. The ongoing dialogue of travelling in time and place, past and future, shapes the present story. Gurjit Sandhu
Max Richter - The Nature of Daylight. it's about the bittersweetness of life that sadens you but it's also makes you feel hopeful, tender and good about life.
Bunun, Wulu and David DarlingMudanin Kata (The Way Home), recorded in the mountains of Taiwan with members of the Wulu Bunun Tribe. The recording combines traditional tribal voices, the sounds of nature, and Darling's cello accompaniment
Our biggest problem is the disappearance of social solidarity. A gross egotism is developing here, that isn't even ashamed of itself. Anyone who once naively thought that the engine of the entrepreneurs and the rich would pull behind it a long train in which the rear cars would also go forward, was mistaken. That didn't happen. The engines are moving, and the rear cars are left behind on the rusting tracks. Amos Oz
All nature is full of invisible people, those creatures seen only by children, seers and healers - and poets, of course. But there are also those other invisible creatures with whom all writers are concerned: the forgotten and the hidden, the dead, the yet to be born. Not the Little People, but the little people. Them. Us. Ourselves as through a glass darkly, magical and mysterious beings. Glimpses. Changelings.
In Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest the novelist Amos Oz conjures up a fairy story in which we may well recognise ourselves, our history and our nations, though frankly it matters not, for as in all true stories, the meaning is the story.
Oz's new work, a spare, short fable, constitutes his own "forest fairytale", his attempt to render, through this fantastical form, the collective trauma that has been the backdrop to his life and work. In a village far away there has been a strange catastrophe: every last animal has disappeared, so that for years "...it was always eerily silent... no bird chirped, no flock of geese crossed the sky, and the villagers barely spoke to each other beyond the essential things". The village adults will not talk about their loss. But for two children - Maya and Matti -this will not do and they set out in search of the truth.
Soon enough, Maya and Matti are deep in the forest, where they encounter Nemi, a boy shunned by the village ever since he disappeared and returned days later, whooping like an owl. By now Maya has applied to her mission a kind of theological argument for the brotherhood of all living creatures, concluding that "anyone who mocks or hurts another passenger is actually being stupid and hurting the whole boat. After all, no one here has another boat". Communal trauma, Oz seems to say, exerts its effect on the individual psyche in strange and subtle ways.
Earthdance Vancouver 2010
Through the eyes of a blind child, at last I could see. The problem was not with the world; the problem was me. And for all of those times I myself had been blind. I vowed to see the beauty in life, and appreciate every second that's mine. And then I held that wilted flower up to my nose. And breathed in the fragrance of a beautiful rose
It's great to feel great, but what to do when we don't? If we suppress or deny parts of our experience that don't feel good, our world gradually gets smaller and shallower, until the whole thing really isn't very satisfying any more.
Paradoxically the way to continually expand our capacity for ecstatic moments and a lighter touch in daily life, is to learn how to accept and embody those parts of us that are anything but ecstatic. The stuck, blocked, confused, spaced out, numb parts of us that stop our flow in it's tracks.
Learning to dance through our shadows is the key. That way we find freedom not through escape but through embrace and creative transformation, which gives us a road map for taking on life's shadows with a little more lightness of spirit.
Love is not just a feeling, it's an action too; emotional energies naturally become action if we follow them through. Being willing to face our fear gives us courage to move. Truly releasing into sadness we find the ability to surrender totally to life. Being full of joy we become naturally generous. And compassion simply is service. This is our map of loving: love is courageous, forgiving, surrendered, and generously in service. Bettina Rothe
David Bohm(1983) points out that light "determines itself to make particles.." and that matter "is condensed or frozen light." Furthermore, he emphasizes that light is primary and time is derived from it and that, in itself, light has no time, no space, and no speed. He stresses that light (in its full sense) is one continuous, unbroken, undivided whole "... To bring home the ultimate nature of light, Bohm points out that: "Light is what enfolds all the universe... it's the potential for everything ...the fundamental activity in which existence has its ground.."
And I was full of clouds, full of clouds and little else, Papercutz - Lylac (Helios Remix)
We're lost on an artificial light; a white that blinds our human forms. Take me away, from this moment on we'll be as one. But wait, I seem to recognize you. Your face reminds me of youth. Lifetime of changes taking place... taking place. We're all spinning round, letting it all go now, has never been easier. It's the change of seasons...the tree of life.
بر هر گلی خاری بود بر گنج هم ماری بود شیرین مراد تو بود تلخی و صبرت آن من
Experience creativity, movement, healing, and joy through sound, rhythm, and melody. Honor those Musicians who inspire, entertain, soothe, heal, and enliven us. Thank them for the Musical gifts they bring to our lives.
Life is too short not to put the work on the stage. You can't be afraid of incomplete sentences, unfinished realizations, unpolished stones. When you do that with an open heart, it's the only way to reflect everyday experience. Inside glimpse at life of a dancer in Toronto
Culture prevailed, post Katrina, but politics failed. Have we devolved into some latter-day Gomorrah, waiting only for the fury of the Lord's final thunderbolt?
Every tropical storm is a reminder that for nearly three centuries this place has lived on borrowed time. Yet a life force surged back with the musicians and costumed street dancers who pulse along the debris-littered streets, claiming a territory of myth and memory. But a resilient civic consciousness has emerged, people across the society determined to make a better city, with a big adrenalin shot from the musicians, artists, writers, filmmakers and chefs who have produced a renaissance, rich and deep...
Elections, we are told, are supposed to be the true expression of democratic government. But they aren't. We all watched in 2000 while the five justices on the Supreme Court suspended the hand counting of ballots, overturned the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court, and awarded the election to their own Party's candidate. In fact, the 5 justices had so little regard for the intelligence of the American people they invoked the 14th amendment, the “equal protection” clause, which had always been limited to cases of racial discrimination. They didn't care. Who was going to stop them? That was a turning point in American history. It showed that the ruling class really doesn't care what the people think anymore. This is THEIR country and they'll run it whatever way they want. To hell with democracy.
The 2008 elections was also marred by a number of controversies, including the report that was published by Ohio's top election official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. According to Democracy Now, "the servers for the computation of the Ohio vote count were in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee that houses servers for the Republican National Committee. The programmers who worked for Ken Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State, were Republicans who did websites for the Bush administration."
What part of the body-politic has been spared the ravages of corporate corruption. The Congress? The Executive? The High Court? The media? Freedom has nothing to do with pushing a colored-nob on a touch-screen computer every 4 years. Freedom has become an empty buzzword that's sprinkled through presidential speeches or used to defend the latest bloody intervention in some foreign country and continuing the apocryphal "war on terror" into infinity. It's the Great Game redux. by Mike Whitney
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba in Timbuktu This video was recorded on the terrace of a hotel Camping Touareg in Timbuktu, one block from the Peace Monument. Bassekou came in and asked if they could have breakfast. He came back with his wife Amy Sacko, the lead singer. Soon after, they came back with the BBC and filmed this clip on the upstairs terrace of the Hotel.
Ocean of Sound is a place where beauty, bliss, music, dance, yoga and community builds and flourishes. The concept is generated by Pepe Danza, which serves to uplift consciousness through music and sound. Pepe's life work has a deep spiritual underpinning in the realization of all being as vibration and light; our beings respond to music on all levels, and the external sounds are a manifestation of internal intentions and consciousness.
Joan Sutherland, "La Stupenda," Casta diva from Norma
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. Fritz Perls. The key idea is the focus on living in response to one's own needs, without projecting onto or taking introjects from others. It also expresses the idea that it is by fulfilling their own needs that people can help others do the same and create space for genuine contact; that is, when they "find each other, it's beautiful".
I am one with the infinite and perfect Spirit, the giver of all good and perfect gifts. I open my mind and my heart, and, indeed, my body, to the inflow of this divine Presence. I know that this living Presence is in every cell of my body and every function of my being. I accept it as my health of body, here and now. I accept it as that which releases me from all that is unlike the perfect expression of life. There is no doubt or fear in my mind that could reject in any way all that God is, right here and right now.
My conscious acceptance of the fullness of the presence of God flows out in joy and love to bless those whom I would help, those with whom I would share this inner joy. And I decree that the loved one I now bring into the scope of my thought is blessed and healed through the presence of good that is within. The radiance of joy in my own heart brings happiness into the lives of all those about me. The abundance that prospers me supplies everyone around me with the good things of life. The light that warms the center of my own being so shines forth that all may find guidance and warmth and comfort in its rays. This is the light that lighteth every person that cometh into the world. This is the fount from which spring the living waters. I drink, and shall not thirst again. And even as I drink, I hand the chalice of my faith to all.
Realizing that we are in the midst of an ever-present good, and believing that there is a law that brings everything of its nature into our lives, we should learn to think and act as though every wrong condition of yesterday were converted into something new and better today.
I believe that all the mistakes I have ever made are swallowed up in a love, a peace, and a life greater than I am. Therefore I surrender all past mistakes into the keeping of this ever-present and perfect life. I affirm that love is guiding me into a real and deep cooperation with life and a sincere affection for everyone. Ernest Holmes
