The Discerner's Trial

What do you do when your first love is God?
When total beauty is all you know?
The love that the ever-intangible brings is
Realer than any seen friend or foe?

Do you give up human sex and romance?
The way the great ascetics and mystics do?
But my primal desire is much more sacred than that,
As natural as any clear sky should be blue.

Is it a waste of a woman, a limitation to bloom?
Into a vow meant for seclusion—but peace?
I simply have much more to offer in life
But the appeal, I know, too, will not cease.

What do you do when human love’s still not enough?
Do you travel and seek out for more?
But the journey has – and always will be – within,
Making any great ocean a shore.

What do you do when a soul mate arrives?
Bringing gifts that satiate every desire?
No matter how whole I finally become,
It’s God’s memory that dims every fire.

How can I be a monogamous lover?
When all I can think of is God?
Where am I lonely? Where am I happy?
There are no questions with the infinite bond.

What will I do when I birth my first child?
Will I care for it as much as I know?
But if I can barely get my suitors straight,
Then what can the child receive but a show?

Whose love will prevail? I will not cease to ask;
This burden, gift, drama I carry.
What do you do when your first love is God?
I’ll never know, yet never can bury.

Upwardly Global

A nonprofit organization that helps immigrant professionals find jobs in their field and socio-economic level.

Most, if not all, of my family's immigrant struggles rooted from this subject matter. If only my parents (and parents of many of my friends) knew of an organization like this when I was growing up...


www.upwardlyglobal.org

"What Teachers Make", T. Mali

A riveting and inspirational ode to the most noble profession of our time. ;) I had the pleasure of meeting Taylor in NYC when I did my open mic "tour" last year.

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

Comedian, Louis C.K., in his interview with Conan O'Brien from 2008. A great display of wit regarding the ungrateful, cynical society we live in today.

Money

Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now


MichaelMoore.com


Rich Germans Demand Higher Taxes

A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.


BBC.co.uk

H1N1/Flu/Cold Recommendations*

Don't take the vaccine! Only in very rare circumstances is it actually recommended. Honestly, I've never taken the shot, and for those of you who know me well, know that I haven't gotten sick since tonsillitis in the 7th grade.

Here's what to do instead. :D

1. The usual prevention practices:
-Eat right, sleep well, exercise
-Basic hygiene (wash your hands, but don't be a hyper-germophobe)
-Cover your coughs and sneezes (with your arm, not your hands!)
-Minimize being in public if you're sick

2. At the early signs of a cold or flu:

a. A couple of Chinese herbs (if you're still sick after 3 days, see #3)...
-If you're the type that's really in-tune with your body and recognize really really early when a cold or flu's coming, take 5 GAN MAO LING, 4x/day, for 2-3 days.
-If you're the type to wake up and realize you're already sick, already at the heat-level if illness, take 4 YIN CHIAO SAN, 4x/day, for 2-3 days.

b. Along with...
-Plenty of REST!
-Lots of FLUIDS (so much, in fact, that you have to pee like every half-hour):
--Miso soup, in a vitamin-packed vegetable broth (green onion, carrot, cabbage, beet, etc.), along with a few blades of ASTRAGALUS ROOT (Chinese herb)
--Tea (i.e., "Throat Coat", Elderberry)
--Citrus juices (the actual fruit juice, not "ascorbic acid" or "citric acid")

3. During more difficult times...
-2 tablets of "Wellness Formula", 4x/day

To say a little about the H1N1 sensationalism, don't be scared! I'm only going to mention these so that you realize how little of a hype it really is! Note that:
-The vaccine does not yet have sufficient research.
-It's only killed a couple hundred people within the past year, compared to the few thousand that the regular flu kills.

In hopes nobody has to do anything past #1..!

*Most of this info, I got from:
-Sally LaMont, ND, LAc: www.naturodoctor.com
-Meg Jordan, Ph.D., RN: www.megjordan.com

Help Typhoon Ondoy Victims in the Philippines

Please mail checks to:

Catholic Relief Services
P.O. Box 17090
Baltimore, Maryland 21203-7090

MEMO: Typhoon Ondoy Victims-Phillipines

Kseniya Simonova

This piece depicts the Soviet drama so poignantly... Winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent". I remember seeing her work on colleagues' mobiles in Kazakhstan.

A Manageable Okay-ness

...is what I learned - and needed most - from the "Nature and Eros" retreat-course. And instead of posting about it myself, I thought I'd post my colleagues' work instead.

Facilitators:
Cosmology, by Brian Swimme: www.brianswimme.org
Soul Work, by Kerry Brady: www.unfoldings.com
Nourishment, by Cathryn Couch: www.kitchencosmology.com

By Paul McNees:

I woke to the symphony of birdsong.

In the next few moments the now familiar and happy sound of R__ unzipping his tent made me smile.

Two reasons for this:

1. This friendly being was up and around and
2. Coffee would be bubbling up within moments.

I was reminded of how R__ has held us during this weekend of discovery.

A steaming cup of coffee sat on the table next to me as I read of the magicians of Indonesia and David Abrams’ transformation in their midst.

At one point I looked up at the distant line of trees and saw two ravens chasing a hawk from the ridgeline.
They looked playful and at the same time deadly serious in their pursuit, their task, their game...
I can’t claim to know what it is for them.

I suddenly had a picture in my mind of my soul chasing away the “predatory thoughts” from my mind--
The raptor thoughts that have captivated me for so long; held me in their spell.
Tears jumped to my eyes as I envisioned telling my wife what I was choosing to sacrifice/dedicate to the ceremonial fire.

Co-arising with this joy came a vision of how the landscape had changed with and by our active participation in/with it.
The land now inhabited:

M__’s ghosts,
P__’s felinity,
J__’s curious night-walks,
M__’s tears of the truth and promise of fatherhood,
R__’s hope of health and T__’s dedication of ancient wisdom,
The playful spirit of Z__,
Brian’s will to happiness,
L__’s tears and L__’s burning of the pains in our collective asses and her commitment to herself;

All this side by side with Francesca’s spirit rising above humanity’s inhuman potential.

S__’s comfort in solitude,
The smells and nourishment and wisdom of Cathryn’s heart-filled meals,
Kerry’s welcoming compassionate smile and bright inquisitive eyes now inhabited the land.
The beauty that shines from L__ now shone through every tree, rock and flower.
Jason’s poetry floats on the clouds with D__’s freedom and bravery.
C__’s trickster energy who sacrificed the sacrifice danced across the hilltops and through the darkling forest...

And the whole of it was infused with the blossoming of my soul,
Playfully but persistently chasing the demons of "no-you-can’t"

From the land.

This vision was mine, but sprung from the agency of all.
I realized that no philosopher worth their salt writes to be quoted,
Writes to win some ontological argument;
They write as an act of generosity--to activate the hidden potentials in humankind.

They write so that we may become happy.

Each of us has such a unique gift to offer.
Our sacrifices infuse and add fertility to a universe whose whole purpose is

Creativity.

Birdsong never sounded so lovely.

CK, the Cosmos, & my Chart

So I'm in the process of researching/writing my paper for an archetypal astrology-transpersonal psychology course, and I decided to write about my experiences with CK from back in 2005.

The time I had dinner with DS, and CK just happened to be at the restaurant, too:


The night I played my theremin with CK, Kanye West, and David Garza:


Tomorrow night, I will see CK perform in SF:


OMG OMG OMG

"U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny"

New York Times:


LONG LIVE THE RELIGIOUS LEFT!!! My love, prayers, and support go out to all of the radicals in the Church--most especially the pictured Sr. Sandra Schneiders, Ph.D. of Berkeley!

R.I.P., Thomas Berry

"...Berry was one of the 20th Century's most probing thinkers on the human relationship with the natural world and its implications for religion."

*~*~*

"A Tribute to Thomas Berry"

Brian Swimme, Ph.D.

“I’m having coffee with Pythagoras.” This was my first attempt to identify Thomas Berry some three decades ago. The notion came to me right in the midst of our conversation in the diner. Listening to him was to be transported into another domain of soul. It was not just that his knowledge was so vast. It was the evocative power of his presence. As you listened, you regularly found yourself in what is called an “altered state”. Quite literally, Thomas’s reflections on the nature of things catapulted one into the archetypal realms of classical myths and psychedelic dreams and the greatest philosophy and art. Everything became more real. You found yourself at the very center of the universe and you were given a vision of the inner harmony of things. Suddenly you knew exactly what you had to do with your life. As all of this was happening to me I thought of Pythagoras, that great sage of the ancient world whose spiritual impulse would become western philosophy and science. I felt certain that the deep joy and wonder filling my soul were similar to what the students in Pythagoras’s mystery school must have experienced twenty-six hundred years ago.

That I would identify Thomas with a personality of the axial age – other notables would include Heraclitus, Confucius, Lao Tzu, the Hebrew Prophets, and the Buddha – that I would dare to locate Thomas in that rarefied company is easily understood as the exaggerated enthusiasm that often accompanies an initial meeting with a great person. And indeed, as the years went by and I began speaking, teaching, and writing with Thomas, I got to know him more closely, and I did in fact change my initial assessment of him. But as hard as this might be to believe, it was in the other direction. My initial impression was too timid.

I came to the conviction that Thomas Berry is not just similar to Pythagoras or to Confucius or to Lao Tzu. Amazing to say, I came to realize that he was someone who went beyond them in certain ways. He was, to my mind, a person in the very midst of giving birth to a new order of human being, an order made possible by the great teachers of history, but an order that was in crucial ways not available in the forms of consciousness found in the various world religions. A new, planetary mode of human being was emerging, one that was rooted in classical spiritualities, but one that reached back into the shamanic worlds and carried forward into the modern scientific forms of understanding. The entire human journey was undergoing a seismic shift and Thomas was aware of this and of his role in this transformative process.

In future centuries, many volumes will be written on the nature of this change in the structure of human consciousness that Thomas Berry both pointed to and in part enacted. Future scholars will have knowledge we do not have. Where today we can only intuit darkly that the transformation amplified by Thomas will lead to a vibrant Earth Community, they will know the overall effects of Thomas’s life as historical fact. But what they will not have is what many of the writers and readers of this volume have been given—the actual, ineffable experience of having been in Thomas’s presence. How they will burn in envy of us! To have actually had coffee with Thomas Berry! What amazing historic good fortune!

As an aid to these future scholars as they contemplate the significance of Thomas Berry, I would like to end by describing just one splinter of the form of consciousness Thomas awakened in us by his personal presence.

We all fell in love. With sunshine – with the rising moon – with the rainbow trout as they hover in the shadows of Chambers Creek. With everything. And certainly with each other. The awakenings took place in every imaginable event. While driving to New York City in his little Mazda. Or while sitting with some two dozen people in those uncomfortable plastic chairs of his Riverdale library, listening to a presentation. All of a sudden an energy would come sweeping into your body, filling every artery and bone until it could no longer be contained and just gushed out as radiance from our eyes. Everything, each person, is now exploding with beauty. You would find yourself simply overwhelmed with a desire to get married. With anyone nearby. Did I say with anyone? I meant with everyone. With the Great Red Oak sheltering the library. With the sky overhead. That’s just the sort of idea that made perfect sense to the form of human being Thomas awakened. That you’d marry the sky – that it would become your central devotion – that you’d dedicate your entire life to praising its nourishing beauty until everyone fell in love with it just as deeply as you did.