Self, Society and Sustainability

' World conditions challenge us to look beyond the status quo for responses to the pain of our times. We look to powers within as well as to powers without. A new, spiritually based social activism is beginning to assert itself. It stems not from hating what is wrong and trying to fight it, but from loving what could be and making the commitment to bring it forth'

Marianne Williamson

As I was pondering on this today. .I picked up a book by David Whyte called 'Crossing the Unknown Sea - Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity' and there is a section in there called Shaping the Self. It contains a poem. .

WORKING TOGETHER

We shape ourself
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine
and look for the true

shape of our own self
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

With much love Christine

Blessings, Gratitude, Love and the Precious Gift of Life

This week I have been 'receiving' gifts of appreciation from some people who were in Leiden. I have experienced awe, joy and been moved to tears of pure bliss. Thankyou.

The exchanges too between Sylvana Storey and Matthieu Daum were so powerful in their intensity, intimacy, connection and pure manifestation of the power of love and appreciation as a constructive action. .


Whilst this was happening I met with Kirsty Foster where we were exploring some of her reflections after working with some young men in the making from an all boys school. She was amazed at their capacity to teach each other; to hold and be together full of admiration and support; where there was a recognition that group survival was more important than the survival of the 'ego'. She said. . .

'their ability to embrace each other was awesome. .it was somehow cool to do that in that school. .they understand the magic of it'.

Yesterday, Karen Izod and I connected about doing some work together themed around 'Creativity in Humanity' - initially some gender focussed work. .and her poem that she shared in Leiden held even more resonance...

TUG OF LOVE

With your tug I am
being cast adrift.
I feel the pull
under my feet.
Vapour trails criss and cross
their ways through my consciousness.
Their mists settle upon us.

Yesterday - Zachary came to Wales, I was able to offer a hosting haven and whilst we met Karen sent through this wonderful link - blessings. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BkT6-CDIjw

And last night there was a three way connection between us and Karen shared another of her wonderful poems. .

ON LONDON'S STREETS

More black boys
More white boys
Lie, dying.
Dead even.

Bayonets through the gut, through the arm
Punctured
Head, for some reason,
over the top of some particular parapet.

Who is this enemy?
Is there some general, back straight
pondering the strategy?

Mothers watch
Fathers; eyes casting for the
Relief on the landscape.

What did we learn before
About sending our young men to their deaths?
Wasn’t it that we had to find a way to talk?

Did I miss something, or
Did we say it wouldn’t happen again?

Copyright Karen Izod 2008

Today. . . I see that the footballer Jermaine Defoe's brother, Jade, a man of colour has been killed. I am reminded of the preciousness of my life and the gifts contained within it. This links so strongly for me with Rene's earlier Facebook invitation this week regarding Appreciation and Inspiration.

I remain even more aware of the need for our collective connective to act constructively in the world. Between us we have a range of shoes, boots and sneakers , we are going to put on our Red Shoes and dance - will you too?

Thankyou for your precious gifts, blessings and much love
Christine
x

Creation Of Community

Thankyou for the loving messages and evidences of constructive actions that are beginning to emerge - a gift for our collective connective is offered.

A Community of the Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
Of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
And be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
To see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
If you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
The shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food,
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.

You moan, ‘She left me.’ ‘He left me.’
Twenty more will come.

Be emptying of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay imprison
When the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
Widening rings of being.


RUMI