John O'Donohue: A Morning Offering

A Morning Offering

I bless the night that nourished my heart

To set the ghosts of longing free

Into the flow and figure of dream

That went to harvest from the dark

Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me

Welcome the wonder of this day,

The field of brightness it creates

Offering time for each thing

To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:

The quiet loyalty of breath,

The tent of thought where I shelter,

Wave of desire I am shore to

And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today

To the invisible geography

That invites me to new frontiers,

To break the dead shell of yesterdays,

To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)


Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/A_Morning_Offering.html

10 Common Sense Principles for a New Economy

by David Korten

It’s time we the people declare our independence from the money-favoring Wall Street economy.

I find hope in the fact that millions of people the world over are seeing through the moral and practical fallacies underlying the Wall Street economy and—by contributing to the creation of aNew Economy—are taking charge of their economic lives.

Here are ten common sense principles to frame the New Economy that we the people must now bring forth:

1. The proper purpose of an economy is to secure just, sustainable, and joyful livelihoods for all. This may come as something of a shock to Wall Street financiers who profit from financial bubbles, securities fraud, low wages, unemployment, foreign sweatshops, tax evasion, public subsidies, and monopoly pricing.

2. GDP is a measure of the economic cost of producing a given level of human well-being and happiness. In the economy, as in any well-run business, the goal should be to minimize cost, not maximize it.

3. A rational reallocation of real resources can reduce the human burden on the Earth’s biosphere and simultaneously improve the health and happiness of all. The Wall Street economy wastes enormous resources on things that actually reduce the quality of our lives—war, automobile dependence, suburban sprawl, energy-inefficient buildings, financial speculation, advertising, incarceration for minor, victimless crimes. The most important step toward bringing ourselves into balance with the biosphere is to eliminate the things that are bad for our health and happiness.

4. Markets allocate efficiently only within a framework of appropriate rules to maintain competition, cost internalization, balanced trade, domestic investment, and equality. These are essential conditions for efficient market function. Without rules, a market economy quickly morphs into a system of corporate monopoliesengaged in suppressing wages, exporting jobs, collecting public subsidies, poisoning air, land, and water, expropriating resources, corrupting democracy, and a host of other activities that represent an egregiously inefficient and unjust distribution of resources.

5. A proper money system roots the power to create and allocate money in people and communities in order to facilitate the creation of livelihoods and ecologically balanced community wealth. Money properly serves life, not the reverse. Wall Street uses money to consolidate its power to expropriate the real wealth of the rest of the society. Main Street uses money to connect underutilized resources with unmet needs. Public policy properly favors Main Street.

6. Money, which is easily created with a simple accounting entry, should never be the deciding constraint in making public resource allocation decisions. This is particularly obvious in the case of economic recessions or depressions, which occur when money fails to flow to where it is needed to put people to work producing essential goods and services. If money is the only lack, then make the accounting entry and get on with it.

7. Speculation, the inflation of financial bubbles, risk externalization, the extraction of usury, and the use of creative accounting to create money from nothing, unrelated to the creation of anything of real value, serve no valid social purpose. The Wall Street corporations that engage in these activities are not in the business of contributing to the creation of real community wealth. They are in the business of expropriating it, a polite term for theft. They should be regulated or taxed out of existence.

8. Greed is not a virtue; sharing is not a sin. If your primary business purpose is not to serve the community, you have no business being in business.

9. The only legitimate reason for government to issue a corporate charter extending special privileges favoring a particular enterprise is to serve a clearly defined public purpose. That purpose should be clearly stated in the corporate charter and be subject to periodic review.

10. Public policy properly favors local investors and businesses dedicated to creating community wealth over investors and businesses that come only to extract it. The former are most likely to be investors and businesses with strong roots in the communities in which they do business. We properly favor them.

More: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/10-common-sense-principles-for-a-new-economy?utm_source=wkly20100813&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleKorten

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The values underlying our shared dream defy categorizations such as conservative or liberal values. They are deeply shared human values... It is our time to put artificial political divisions behind us and join with one another to make our shared dream a reality. ~ David Korten, from Agenda For a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

A Giant Leap for Humankind

by Pastor Don Mackenzie

Rabbi Ted Falcon, Pastor Don Mackenzie, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman, known collectively as the"Interfaith Amigos," have been learning and teaching together since 2001. They blog weekly for YES! Magazine.

The inner work we need requires every bit of the cooperation, imagination, discipline, and hope present in that first step onto the moon.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong is 80 this year. Forty-one years ago he took that famous step and said the words that moved us: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” Even Walter Cronkite had tears. Many of us remember where we were when the news came.

Ironically and sadly, I don’t think that leap for humankind was a giant one after all. While the example of cooperation and hope still stands, and medicine has benefited from the research at NASA, the most dramatic consequences of the trip have been improvements in the ability of the United States military to inflict pain and death on our enemies.

But on the occasion of Neil Armstrong’s birthday and in honor of his courage, it seems appropriate to ask what a giant leap for humankind might actually look like?

As I ponder the troubles, the difficulty, the pain, suffering, and violence all over our world, I come back again and again to the reality that we—yes, I am talking about myself, too—consistently behave as if evil is somehow “out there.” If we can just somehow eliminate it, we would all be better off. But never has an attempt to kill a person or persons understood to be evil ever succeeded in eliminating that evil. That is because evil exists in a potential state in each one of us. We each have a shadow side, and even though we are tempted to look elsewhere for the source of our troubles, much of the time that source sits within us. But we must not feel guilty about this, for guilt has no power to redeem. We must instead recognize this as a feature of what it means to be human.

And here’s another feature: We have been given a spirit capable of transcending that potential for evil. But for the capability to be realized, we must do what my friend Jamal calls the “inner work”—spiritual practices that strengthen our spirits and prepare us to combat our evil potentials. And in doing so, we must find ways to release ourselves from what my friend Ted calls our“stuckness,” our imprisonments. That is a prerequisite for being in community—a state where the preciousness of relationships can nurture the growth that each of us needs.

This process might be the greatest moral need present on our planet. It’s also what a giant step for humankind would look like today.

More: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/interfaith-amigos/a-giant-leap-for-humankind?utm_source=wkly20100813&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleMackenzie

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Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. ~ Paulo Freire

Dalai Lama Asks What Makes a Mind Healthy?

by Dr. Christiane Northrup

Scientists shift from studying disease to studying health

As a Doctor, I’m often asked how to reverse a medical condition or disease state. Although I know the causes of many illnesses as well as what to do to relieve a person’s symptoms, the focus of my life’s work has been on prevention. This means adopting the habits and lifestyle you need to live a long, healthy life—and doing it as early in your life as possible. Most people believe that disease is inevitable and that they will die of something dreadful, like cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s disease. And most scientists study patients with disease to determine what contributed to the individual’s illness. So, I was thrilled to learn about Richard Davidson, Ph.D., and the work that’s being done at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin under his direction. Dr. Davidson established The Center “to scientifically determine how healthy qualities of mind develop and to investigate interventions to cultivate those qualities in children and adults.”1

In May 2010, the Dalai Lama traveled to Wisconsin for the grand opening of the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin, where some of Dr. Davidson’s research will be conducted. Dr. Davidson had been inspired by his holiness the Dalai Lama many years ago when the Dalai Lama posed an interesting question of him. The Dalai Lama had noticed that our Western culture put a lot of emphasis on studying diseases of the mind, like anxiety and depression. The Dalai Lama asked Dr. Davidson what does our Western science say about a healthy mind, and what are the characteristics of a person with a healthy mind. Dr. Davidson didn’t have an answer.

Dr. Davidson began to determine which practices encourage compassion, happiness, and well-being. Of course meditation was on the top of the list, and many studies have already been conducted on Buddhist monks to understand the positive effects that meditation has on the brain and body. The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds continues to study a health mind as defined by the Dalai Lama: “The kind of mind which can create good health, and also which can maintain calmness, and also bring more sense of community. That mind is, I think, a healthy mind.”

More: http://www.drnorthrup.com/news/news_article.php

LEARN MORE RECOMMENDED READING
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup

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Many people believe that mental and physical decline is inevitable as we age. But I don’t! My 84-year-old mother recently climbed to the Mt. Everest Base Camp at 17,600 feet. What are your beliefs? If they’re negative, and you want to have a healthy mind for life, the first thing to do is to update those thoughts! ~ Christiane Northrup

Hafiz: Now is the Time

Now is the Time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child's training wheels

To be laid aside

When you finally live

With veracity

And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy

Whom the Beloved

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,

Why do you still

Throw sticks at your heart

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.

("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Now_Is_The_Time.html

The Gulf Declaration and A Call To Conscious Evolution: Our Moment Of Choice

Climate change, economic disparity, educational inequities, geopolitical tensions - these mounting concerns are symptoms of a world that is out of balance. Together we can shift consciousness by co-creating a new way of being together.

The Call to Conscious Evolution was born following a gathering of global visionaries. It's a movement that fully supports that the future is not what happens to us, but rather what WE create.

Together, we can co-create a new narrative of conscious evolution by:
- Building a global community and creating a culture of peace.
- Restoring ecological balance to nourish all life, and mitigate the effects of climate change.
- Engaging in social and political transformation by calling for a more conscious democracy.
- Promoting health and healing by acknowledging the profound mind-body-spirit connection.
- Supporting research and education that optimize human capacities.
- Encouraging integrity in business and conscious media.

In this great time of uncertainty, join us in elevating consciousness to create a better world. One governed by meaning and purpose. Accept nothing less. Every voice counts -- YOUR voice counts.
Please click here to READ THE FULL TEXT
More: http://evolutionaryleaders.net/acalltoconsciousevolution/

Please go here to sign the Gulf Declaration: http://www.gulfdeclaration.com/
"We ask you to stand with us in making the Declaration that this disaster will mark the end of the era of oil and to commit to creating the legislation, oversight, incentives, and investments necessary to turn us from our damaging path... As part of this Declaration, we ask you to join with us in a single shared commitment: to create America's full energy independence by July 4th, 2020 through the accelerated development of clean, renewable, non-polluting, and sustainable energy sources and through vast improvements in energy efficiency."

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Educating for an Evolving Consciousness: Awakening consciousness is the foundation for all the change we seek to see in the world. We can work to elevate our capacity for conscious reflection and creative action in our personal lives as well as our collective lives as communities. We must support research and educational strategies that optimize human capacities and explore the nature of consciousness. ~ from A Call to Conscious Evolution

Maya Angelou: A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave And Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it

To the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms

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We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow

And the proud back is glad to bend

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

~ Maya Angelou ~

(A Brave and Startling Truth)



Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/A_Brave_and_Startling_Truth.html

Andrew Bacevich, Amy Goodman, and Norman Soloman on America and War

I had the honor and privilege this past week of seeing Andrew Bacevich, author, retired U.S. Army Colonel, and professor of history and international relations at Boston University. I have also seen Amy Goodman on numerous occasions, and have the utmost respect for Norman Solomon. Below are three articles by each of these powerful and passionate voices related to war and the path of our nation...



Andrew Bacevich: Endless War, A Recipe For Four-Star Arrogance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062502160.html
"Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government."

Amy Goodman: We Can't Afford War
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/30
"In order to make the cuts promised, Obama would have to raise taxes and cut social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Or he could cut the war budget. I say 'war budget' because it is not to be confused with a defense budget."

Norman Solomon: Unanimous Conformity in the Senate
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/01-3
"For the warfare state, it doesn't get any better than 99 to 0... Every living senator voted Wednesday to approve Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Call it the unanimity of lemmings -- except the senators and their families aren't the ones who'll keep plunging into the sea... No, the killing and suffering and dying will be left to others: American soldiers who, for the most part, had scant economic opportunities in civilian life. And Afghans trapped between terrible poverty and escalating violence."

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Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood.

T.S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday" (1930)

In Memory of David Clark: On the Death of the Beloved

For Dave, 1949 - 2010...

This is in memory of a dear sweet big-hearted friend who touched many lives ~ David Clark. I joined his wife of 40 years, Bonnie, and others today to celebrate, honor, and grieve a very special soul. This poem by John O'Donohue was read at the memorial service. This photo, taken of Dave and Bonnie in October 2009 by Becki Lowrie, was among many shared today which shine a light on someone who was loved and will be dearly missed by all who had the gift of knowing him...

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On the Death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,

You dwell in that safe place in our hearts

Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn

Brightening over our lives,

Awakening beneath the dark

A further adventure of color.

The sound of your voice

Found for us

A new music

That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze

Quickened in the joy of its being;

You placed smiles like flowers

On the altar of the heart.

Your mind always sparkled

With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,

Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look toward each other no longer

From the old distance of our names;

Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,

As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,

We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,

Smiling back at us from within everything

To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,

Where we would grow lonely without you.

You would want us to find you in presence,

Beside us when beauty brightens,

When kindness glows

And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,

Darkest winter has turned to spring;

May this dark grief flower with hope

In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us;

To enter each day with a generous heart.

To serve the call of courage and love

Until we see your beautiful face again

In the land where there is no more separation,

Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,

And where we will never lose you again.

~ John O’Donohue ~

Mary Oliver: Mindful

Mindful

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)


Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Mindful_II.html