In Zen painting, we may not be given color, only the single hue of ink. The intention is to bring forth that we each see color differently, so for each of us, there is a different interpretation of the range and layers in each stroke of black. We zero in on light and shadow, and receive our mood, perception, integration and need of contrast, light, time and space.
I just finished reading Jacinda Ardern’s book A Different Kind of Power.
Even as a child, she asked “Why?”
On March 15, 2019, in Christchurch, New Zealand a terrorist attacked a mosque killing forty-nine people and leaving others in critical condition. He had acquired his weapons legally. Following the response of Australia in 1996 to a mass shooting, where the conservative prime minister of the time, John Howard, moved quickly to ban “pump-action, semiautomatic, and automatic weapons”, New Zealand responded by reforming their gun laws in ten days.
And here we are in the U.S, not responding but instead reversing on the orders of a man who has not fought in any wars, and now decides to change the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War.
Tom Hanks was to be honored by West Point for his work supporting veterans. Thanks to Trump, that’s cancelled because Hanks supported Biden, not him.
Responding to Trump, West Point recently rehung a 20-foot portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate who fought to preserve slavery for the Confederacy.
Asking ourselves why, perhaps we can reverse this daily travesty changing history, ethics, compassion, understanding, kindness and morality.
A friend shared that she’s been feeling “like a feeling painting”, with tears flowing easily, and then said as she reaches to receive and honor her inner knowing, “It’s something about being pulled up out of the mud and placed vertically on the earth.
May her words guide us as we align, and listen to Peace Train by Cat Stevens and Imagine by John Lennon.
Robert B. Hubbell today:
The killing and wounding of schoolchildren as they knelt in devotion at a Catholic mass weighs heavily on the hearts and minds of most Americans. The evil is unspeakable on so many levels that it is difficult to know where to start. So, let’s start with first principles: The foremost duty of any civilized society is to protect, love, and educate its children. Any society that refuses to do so is depraved.
Guns kill more children than any other cause of death. That sentence speaks volumes but also contains answers. Guns kill children. Guns.
We must ban assault rifles. We must restrict access to guns. We must impose liability on those who fail to secure their guns. We must permit families of victims and survivors to sue gun manufacturers who commercialize weapons of war intended to maim and kill humans with frightening speed.
We can do all of the above, and more. Republicans have proven their ability to ban children’s books and literary classics because they might affect the hearts and minds of children trying to make their way in the world. Republicans should be willing to ban weapons that kill and maim those same children. Their children. Our children. America’s children. America’s future.
Shunyru Suzuki:
In the Beginner’s Mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.
Today as I was folding sheets, I remembered going through radiation treatment in 2006. The man who handed us our robe always made sure it was warm and said a prayer for each of us. I think of how we do anything, is how we do everything.
In that, is fulfillment and completeness, wholeness.
Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Don’t hold on, that is all. The world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours. Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you.
Trees need space for light and air to move through just as we do.
I admire the men who climb up into trees and cut branches by hand.
Today I read Wislawa Szymborska’s poem “Miracle Fair”.
The poem begins with:
The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.
And she begins a list, a way for each of us to view, expand, and embrace what comes to us as we meander through night and day.
A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s got more than four.
A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.
An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
I balance that with the Israel attack on a Gaza hospital killing 20, including journalists and medics. One needs fingers and toes to count the number of dead. One needs a see-saw to balance joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief, as we center in the heart that holds it all.
My son sends me photos of his friend, a red-shouldered hawk, he sees on his morning walks.
Today I read what E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker after watching Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon on July 21, 1069.
E.B. White:
The moon, it turns out, is a great place for men. One-sixth gravity must be a lot of fun, and when Armstrong and Aldrin went into their bouncy little dance, like two happy children, it was a moment not only of triumph but of gaiety. The moon, on the other hand, is a poor place for flags. Ours looked stiff and awkward, trying to float on the breeze that does not blow. (There must be a lesson here somewhere.) It is traditional, of course, for explorers to plant the flag, but it struck us, as we watched with awe and admiration and pride, that our two fellows were universal men, not national men, and should have been equipped accordingly. Like every great river and every great sea, the moon belongs to none and belongs to all. It still holds the key to madness, still controls the tides that lap on shores everywhere, still guards the lovers who kiss in every land under no banner but the sky. What a pity that in our moment of triumph we did not forswear the familiar Iwo Jima scene and plant instead a device acceptable to all: a limp white handkerchief, perhaps, symbol of the common cold, which, like the moon, affects us all, unites us all.
Today in my meditation, I saw and felt the day turn to light as the earth turns on its axis and we move around the sun. Yesterday, I got my hair cut and asked my hairdresser why one side flips up and the other side curls under. I learned that our hair spirals in a circle around our head, each of us with a swirl as individual as our fingerprint.
I’m swirling in movement today, anchored in the cord of impermanence, change.
Sometimes life feels like a bunch of pick-up sticks. Clasped together in our palm, we let go, either willingly or with a push from outside, and the sticks fall, so we’re given the opportunity to put them back together again in a whole new form.
I read about humans needing to adapt to increasing heating patterns on the planet. Impermanence. Change, and how do we meet what comes?
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