The human personality needs certain "props" for the realization of its dignity. These "props" or supports of human dignity, which include such things as property, relatives and friends, freedom and responsibility, are all objects of justice. To attack a human person in his personality itself, as by hatred, is a failure against charity; but to attack him by undermining the supports of his human dignity, as by robbery, is a failure against justice. William Ferree Everybody for Everybody: Truth, Oneness, Good, and Beauty for Everyone's ... By Samuel A. Nigro
Altruism as the path for reaching the ultimate spiritual goal. I went to the Tavern last night, but I was not admitted. I was bellowing yet nobody was listening to me. Either none of the wine-sellers were awake Or I was a nobody, and no one opened the door for a Nobody. When more or less half of the night had passed, a shrewd, perfect man (rind) raised his head from a booth and showed his face. I asked him: “to open the door”, he told me: “go away, do not talk nonsense! At this hour, nobody opens door for anybody. This is not a mosque where its doors are open any moment, where you can come late and move quickly to the first row. This is the Tavern of Magians and rinds dwell here. There are Beauties, candle, wine, sugar, reed flute and songs whatever wonders that exists, is present here. (in this tavern there are) Muslims, Armenians, Zoroastrian, Nestorians, and Jews. If you are seeking company of all that is found here. You must become a dust upon the feet of everyone in order to reach your (spiritual perfection) goal” O Nezami! if you knock the ring on this door day and night, you won't find except smoke from this burning fire. Nizami Ganjavi
"Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others." John Rawls
The art of mindful living, Call Me By My True Names - Thich Nhat Hanh: Transforming the pain and difficulty of war and exile into a celebration of awareness and the human spirit.
Desert Blues, un Voyage Musical au Coeur du Mali : The unifying theme is the stories related by the poets and griot musicians in their songs: stories of love, of struggles and of heroes ... in which the natural and supernatural co-exist as a part of everyday life. It is a musical tale, combining the real and the imaginary, weaving a spell of images and stories that enchants viewers and carry them off into the heart of Malian Africa, into its landscapes, its fantasies, as well as its everyday concerns.
Naftule Brandwein-Fun Tashlach(Returning from the river)
I began composing solo violin music out of the desire to explore and push my relationship with the violin and to develop the seeds of pieces growing in my consciousness for some time... - The nuance and complex personality; sonically, rhythmically and emotionally existing in a single instrument is fascinating to me. Sarah Neufeld - Hero Brother
Desert Blues, un Voyage Musical au Coeur du Mali
Malala Yousafzai, the girl who fought for education
"I hope that a day will come when the people of Pakistan will be free, they will have their rights, there will be peace and every girl and every boy will be going to school. Send books and pens, rather than tanks, to troubled parts of the world. We must believe in the power and the strength of our words. Our words can change the world. And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness... let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world." Malala Yousafzai, the girl who fought for education Would the world have adopted Malala if she had stood up against, say, child labour in the production of iPhones, instead of the friendless Taliban? Or if she’d been wounded by a U.S. drone strike?
Kandia Kouyaté - Woulalé Kandia Kouyate is a Malian jelimuso (a female griot) and kora player. "Woulalé" which means "the distance" she sings the distance between two lovers!
Toumani Diabaté & Mangala Camara - MALI SADIO Toumanis music has an expressiveness and beauty that takes the powerful ancient traditions of Malis griots to new heights and into new territories. He is at the vanguard of a new generation of Malian griots who are constantly looking for ways of modernizing this tradition while still honouring it.
Ballake Sissoko - Nalesonko As a child, Sissoko was never formally taught how to use a kora, he taught himself just by patiently watching his father, the virtuoso Djélimady Sissoko. It’s through the power of listening that he became the master of the musical space and time that we can hear on At Peace. At a time in history when Mali is going through one of its most troubled and divided eras, At Peace is ultimately a master class on harmony and healthy community life.
What is light in the center of darkness in your soul? A royal radiance of a fantasy? The way the full moon sometimes comes up in daylight? But this is the sun itself, Shams and truth prior to soul. Human beings cannot endure such clarity. We make statues, apply paint, and use words with hidden allusions. When the eyes that has seen Shams turns to look somewhere else, what does it see? In the love-ocean clothes are an embarrassment. Do not look to be famous here, and don;t expect payment. An east wind bringing infinitesimal dust from Tabriz is the most I expect. Rumi
Infinitesimal Dust, Rumi
Reshaping Brazil... Inspired by Vegas “My philosophy is pro-capitalism, so of course the best symbols for this come from the United States. I tell people that we’re about freedom: the freedom to stay open when we choose, the freedom to work for us and the freedom to shop." Luciano Hang (proclaiming the gambling mecca Las Vegas as his ideal city)
"I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples - faraway peoples - so that Americans might better understand themselves." ‘Warfare is only an invention - not a biological necessity’ Margaret Mead
The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Real You (It Starts Now) - Alan Watts
Maybe, down the river a dove is drinking water. Or, on a distant land a little bird is washing her wings. Or, maybe in a nearby village a pitcher is getting filled with water. Let’s not muddy the water! Maybe, This running water may feed a tree and wash away sadness from a heavy heart.. Maybe, the hands of a poor man are wetting a piece of bread in the water. Maybe, a beautiful woman has come to the river. Let’s not muddy the water! And the beautiful face will get double! What refreshing water! What a limpid river! How pure are the people up the river! May their water springs remain generating! May the breasts of their cows remain full with fresh milk! I haven’t seen their village. No doubts, on the feet of their fences there is a sign of God. The moon over there lightens words. For sure, the walls must be short in there. A bud is blossoming, and they know it. What a village it must be! May its gardens and paths be filled with lovely songs! The people, up the river, understand water. They haven’t muddied it. Neither should we. let’s not muddy the water! Sohrab Sepehri
let’s not muddy the water! Sohrab Sepehri
Seamus Heaney
“I had already begun a journey into the wideness of the world. This in turn became a journey into the wideness of language, a journey where each point of arrival – whether in one’s poetry or one’s life – turned out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination, and it is that journey which has brought me now to this honoured spot.” Seamus Heaney
Regardless of a Seamus’s immediate subject matter — nature, myth ... there are continuities in his work: an awareness of mortality and the precariousness of life, and an appreciation of the virtues of “keeping going,” whether he is referring to a farmer persevering in the arduous work of wresting a living from the rocky land, or people trying to cope, daily, with the violence that escalated ..., the thrum of history vibrates close beneath the surface. Capturing Rhythms of Nature in Poems by Michiko Kakutani
As a poet from Northern Ireland, SamuelHeaney used his work to reflect upon the "Troubles," the often-violent political struggles that plagued the country during his young adulthood. He sought to weave the ongoing Irish troubles into a broader historical frame embracing the general human situation in the books Wintering Out (1973) and North (1975). "As a poet Seamus Heaney has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance," noted Blake Morrison. "Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however 'committed,' can influence the course of history." Shaun O'Connell contended that even Heaney's most overtly political poems contain depths that subtly alter their meanings. "Those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so," O'Connell stated, "though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright."
In his poem Punishment, which draws, for both material and metaphor, on the body of "little adulteress" pulled from the peat bed in 1951. The author's musing on the details of her body and her history leads him to dredge up memories from the swamp of his own experience of Ireland's conflict with Great Britain. Heaney's words become yet more sympathetic, describing her as "beautiful" and "undernourished"; a "poor scapegoat"-for where is the man who shared in her sin? And now we begin to see the author's own sin, we become privy to an equally intimate "moral nudity." His understanding has enabled him to "almost love" her, yet he confesses that he would have acceded to her death, at least by the consent of "silence." The author describes himself in terms yet more damning: he is a "voyeur." His consideration of her is not unsullied by personal interest; she is material for him to craft.
He then shows us that his hypothetical assent to her death was not mere sentiment, because he has already committed an equivalent sin of omission. When Irish women were punished by being shorn and smeared with tar, then handcuffed in public- their own adultery was political: having relationships with British enemies of Irish independence- he too "stood dumb." His disapproval is weakened by being alloyed with insincerity. Yes, he would later speak of his "outrage," but this was "conniving," a nod to the "civilized" establishment. (Is this poem itself an example of that disingenuous impulse? After all what could be more "civilized" than turning his condemnation into literature?) Bone deep, he understands (and therefore-to some degree-sympathizes) with this "tribal, intimate revenge." He is a collaborateur, yet who among us could say different?
Samuel Heaney
Cultivating new connections and new models of engagement with artists, audiences and the community: PUBLIC WORKS is a new initiative of The Public Theater that seeks to engage the people of New York by making them creators and not just spectators. Working with community partner organizations in all five boroughs, PUBLIC WORKS will invite members of diverse communities to participate in theater workshops, to attend classes, to attend productions, and to become involved in the daily life of The Public. Under the leadership of Public Works Director Lear deBessonet, PUBLIC WORKS will deliberately blur the line between professional artists and community members: it will create theater that is not only for the people, but by and of the people as well.
PUBLIC WORKS exemplifies The Public Theatre commitment to community engagement and the idea that theater is a place of possibility, where the boundaries that separate us from each other in the rest of life can fall away. It seeks to create a space where we can not only reflect on the world as is, but where we can actually propose new possibilities for what our society might be.
.Cultivating new connections and new models of engagement with artists, audiences and the community
"Through care taken over trends, the desire to be novel and affectation knowledge, we repudiate our art, our instinct, our own way of doing things; it is absurd and stupid" - Giuseppe Verdi
Vivian Maier ( Decidedly unmaterialistic & intensely guarded and private), Photographer(An alert watchfulness, compositional clarity, sureness of vision, tactility)
Showing how other people experience being alive; how humans deal with the everyday dramas – made more meaningful by their ordinariness – of love, loneliness, rejection, second chances, friendship, heartache, happiness and loss. Johanna Schneller
Michael Winter - Minister Without Portfolio Henry is a man torn between escaping a past tragedy, and embracing its implications fully within his own life. Set in rural Canada, where the reverberations of world events can both shatter livesand offer the potential for redemption. (a novel of shifting facades, of uncertain loyalties and broken promises. It peels back the surface calm and reveals the roiling, cold depths beneath, the currents that threaten to pull one down)
Michael Winter - Minister Without Portfolio
Joseph Kanon - Istanbul Passage (Istanbul's twisting walkways and teeming souks far simpler to navigate than its inverted moral universe!)
Women Without Men “I know if I let go I may find my way, but now that I am here I feel lost. All that I wanted was to find a new form a new way to freedom, a home with a community where mutual support and friendships are built.” Here Shirin Neshat’s explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of five women in Iran as they meet in a metaphorical garden, where they can exist and reflect while the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping their world linger in the air around them. These stories allow us to see the larger picture and realize that the human community resembles different organs of one body, created from a common essence. This might be a good place for us to start a conversation!.
Women Without Men
Endowing sound with the same emotional intensity as pictures. “To be an inventor, you have to be willing to live with a sense of uncertainty, to work in the darkness and grope toward an answer, to put up with the anxiety about whether there is an answer.” Ray Dolby
