If Not Now, When?

Matter Is Not Fallen

Sons and Daughters of the Earth, steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters, for it is the source of your life and your youthfulness.

You thought you could do without it because the power of thought has been kindled in you? You hoped that the more thoroughly you rejected the tangible, the closer you would be to spirit: that you would be more divine if you lived in the world of pure thought, or at least more angelic if you fled the corporeal? Well, you were like to have perished of hunger.

You must have oil for your limbs, blood for your veins, water for your soul, the world of reality for your intellect: do you not see that the very law of your own nature makes these a necessity for you?

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

Obama Restaurant Watch

Richard Nixon loved cottage cheese and catsup. Ronald Reagan liked jelly beans. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Bush I hated broccoli and Bill Clinton, well, that man just liked to eat. Bush II choked on pretzels. I'm guessing that Obama's going to go down in history as the president who loved burgers.

BOZEMAN, Mont. — A Bozeman, Mont., restaurant is saluting the president's fondness for cheeseburgers by offering a "Barack Obama Burger" Friday to honor his visit to the area.
The $10 bison meat burger at Ted's Montana Grill has three types of cheese: American, cheddar and Monterey Jack. The burger comes with a side of spicy mustard along with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles, french fries and a small American flag.

The man does like his spicy mustard.

More here on bison burgers.

Picture found here.

From: The Invocation To Kali

It is time for the invocation:

Kali, be with us.
Violence, destruction, receive our homage.
Help us to bring darkness into the light,
To lift out the pain, the anger,
Where it can be seen for what it is—
The balance-wheel for our vulnerable, aching love.
Put the wild hunger where it belongs,
Within the act of creation,
Crude power that forges a balance
Between hate and love.

Help us to be the always hopeful
Gardeners of the spirit
Who know that without darkness
Nothing comes to birth
As without light
Nothing flowers.

Bear the roots in mind,
You, the dark one, Kali,
Awesome power.

~May Sarton

Picture found here.

Encounters With The Divine

Seeing god isn't just a cute name between Allison and me for having sex, like for some people it might be "catching the train" or "docking the ship" or "visiting the thatched cottage." It's literally true. Of course in some ways that's not a big deal: the divine is everywhere, and if you can't see it you're probably tryig hrd not to look. Naturally it's easier to experienc the divine in some circumstances than others. I see it more clearly, for example, in a pond, with the badkstriders and tadpoles, the gnats who spiral above the surface and the newts who come up for big gulps of air, than I do in a shopping center, airport, or skyscraper.

The former are encounters, however slight, with some others, while the latter are cathedrals honoring nothing more than ourselves. It's back to that same old masturbatory relationship.

I also don't want to say that all sex leads to experiences of the divine. . . .

~Derrick Jensen in Songs of the Dead

Picture found here.

To Be Of The Earth

To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death
and the miracle of birth


~John Soos in Earth Prayers From Around the World edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

Photo by the author. If you copy, please link back.

My Very Favorite Yoga Pose, Ever, Of All Time

I had some good doctors and some crappy doctors when I was being treated for breast cancer. Dr. M., I am looking at you.

My radiologist, the guy responsible for shooting me with not-quite-lethal doses of x-rays, was one of the good ones. He explained to me that they needed to tattoo me to show the technicians where to shoot the x-rays. I explained to him that no way was I going to carry a reminder of my time as a "cancer victim" with me for the rest of my life. He came up with some good alternatives. I don't have any tats.

He also told me, all unasked, that, v close to my apartment, there was a great yoga studio that had a class for breast cancer survivors, taught by a woman who had survived breast cancer, and that between the surgery and the radiation, my muscles were tight and rigid and, well, I should go. Oddly, since I HATE stuff for "survivors," I went. And, the class was v good and it healed my lymphodema and made me more flexible and helped me to relax.

I don't do a lot of yoga, these days, although I should. But one pose that I learned was so amazing that I'm doing it again, all these many years later. I call it, because it's what my teacher called it, Legs Up Against the Wall. OK, it's true. I also love the revolutionary sound of it.

Picture found here

A Blessing

Not with my hands
But with my heart I bless you
May peace forever dwell
Within your breast!

May Truth's white light
Move with you and possess you --
And may your thoughts and words
Wear her bright crest!

May Time move down
Its endless path of beauty
Conscious of you
And better for your being!

Spring after Spring
Array itself in splendor
Seeking the favor
Of your sentinent seeing!

May hills lean toward you,
Hills and windswept mountains,
And trees be happy
That have seen you pass --

Your eyes dark kinsmen
To the starts above you --
Your feet remembered
By the blades of grass.

~Donald Jeffrey Hayes in Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

Picture found here.