Gwyllm Llwydd
Published on Jul 17, 2018
An abbreviated version of my talk from the Ashland Oregon “Exploring Psychedelics” Conference May 24-25th 2018, covering all salient points…(All Art Work From The Hasheesh Eater & Other Writings -All Original Art Work, Book Designed & Compiled by Gwyllm Llwydd)
More to come down the way!
Bright Blessings!
Gwyllm
Video: standby4story.com
Still Photo: www.wespryor.com
The 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture was delivered by Former President Barack Obama, and is more than worth watching:
Since this year marks the centennial of Nelson Mandela (Madiba)’s birth, Obama starts with an overview of all the progress and evolution which has taken place all around the world since then. He follows this with an outline of the internationalist order – including an examination of its many flaws – and the nationalistic/strongman politics that has recrudesced in reaction to that order. He then makes a series of recommendations for a way forward for those of a more liberal and/or progressive inclination.
For related thoughts check out Sullivan’s latest column on strongman politics in our own country (plus also Hungary and Israel…), and Jonathan Chait’s critique of the many serious misconceptions about Obama among today’s “conservatives”.
One thought of my own: Obama, in his charming way, elides the differences between Liberals and Progressives, even using the term “liberal progressive” as if it were one thing. For a short outline of the actual differences between Liberals and Progressives, consult Greg Weiner’s brief essay in the New York Times.
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. ~Pema Chodron
Life has its down periods: your boss is unhappy with you, your business is struggling, you get into a fight with the love of your life, your finances are tight, you aren’t getting good sleep, you get sick or have chronic pain.
Our way of dealing with this is usually to do one or more of the following:
There’s nothing wrong with any of these things. Don’t feel guilty if you do them. Sometimes, they can be soothing or helpful. Talking to someone about your problems, for example, is a good idea. Giving yourself some rest so that you are better prepared to take on the world’s problems … that’s not a bad idea too.
But trying to avoid the problem, exit from it, or even comfort yourself—these have limited effectiveness. We know that by now, because despite our best efforts, the down times keep happening. We get in a slump, we get miserable, we feel down.
Here’s a mental shift that might help: when you’re feeling hurt, sad, angry, overburdened, think of it not as a problem, but as an experience.
Stop avoiding it and just feel it. Truly allow yourself to feel it.
And as you feel it, don’t think of the difficult feeling as a problem you need to solve. A thing you need to get rid of. Think of it as an experience you’re having.
That’s all it is: an experience, a feeling. Nothing to panic about. (Unless you’re feeling panic—that’s OK too.) It’s something you’re experiencing right now, and it’s not good or bad. It’s just an experience. It might not feel good, but that’s not a problem. Not all experiences feel good, right? Sometimes we just have to experience cold, heat, storms, and pain. It’s part of the experience of life, and we don’t have to shut it all out.
Feel your difficulty fully, with as open a heart as you can muster. Allow it into your heart, as you would a good friend. And just be with it, no judgments, no need to do anything. It’s just your present experience.
Whatever you’ve done to comfort yourself—no judgments with that as well. That’s not a problem, just an experience.
You can find peace with whatever that experience might be.
From this place of peace about who you are, what you’re experiencing, you can take the next step. It might be something like:
What action to take depends on the situation, but it starts with a feeling of being at peace with your experience.
Leo Babauta is the author of six books, the writer of “Zen Habits,” a blog with over 2 million subscribers, and the creator of several online programs to help you master your habits. Visit ZenHabits.net
By Maria Popova (BrainPickings.com)
“Love is the quality of attention we pay to things,” poet J.D. McClatchy wrote in his beautiful meditation on the contrast and complementarity of love and desire. And what we choose to attend to — our fear or our faith, our woundedness or our devotion to healing — determines the quality of our love. How we navigate our oscillation between these inescapable polarities is governed by the degree of courage, openness, and vulnerability with which we are willing to show up for and to our own hearts. “The alternations between love and its denial,” philosopher Martha Nussbaum observed in contemplating the difficulty of knowing ourselves, “constitute the most essential and ubiquitous structural feature of the human heart.”
That is what the great Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) explores in one of the most stirring passages from The Prophet (public library) — the 1923 classic that also gave us what may be the finest advice ever offered on the balance of intimacy and independence in healthy relationships.
Kahlil Gibran, self-portrait
Speaking to the paradoxical human impulse to cower before the largeness of love — to run from its vulnerable-making uncertainties and necessary frustrations at the cost of its deepest rewards — Gibran offers an incantation of courage:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
Illustration from An ABZ of Love, Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite vintage Danish guide to sexuality
In a sentiment John Steinbeck would come to echo a generation later in his beautiful letter of advice on love to his teenage son, Gibran adds:
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
The Prophet remains a timeless trove of wisdom and a mighty clarifying force for the turbidity of the heart. Complement it with Gibran on why we make art and his stunning love letters, then revisit Adrienne Rich on how honorable relationships refine our truths, Erich Fromm on the art of loving and what is keeping us from mastering it, Leo Tolstoy on love and its paradoxical demands, and this wondrous illustrated meditation on the many meanings and manifestations of love.
By JAMES MASSOLA (stuff.co.nz)
The body of the dead former Seal, Sergeant Saman Guana, who was 37-years-old and who died in cold water around 2am, will be sent back to Sattahip Naval base and then sent on to his family.
There will be a funeral in his home town in Rioet Province, in the north-east of Thailand.
Navy Seal commander Rear Admiral Apakorn Yookongkaew said that staff morale was still good despite the death.
Translators: Zoe Robinson, Alex Gambeau, Ned Henry, Heather Williams
SENSE TESTIMONY: People can be deceived
5th Step Conclusions:
