Response – Cathy's Blog!

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.

Mirabell – being with the wisdom of our animal friends.

Changing the shape of the box – creative thinking and response

The following poem comes from Stefan Laeng who read it at his meditation class on Tuesday. It is by the late great German comedian Hanns Dieter Hüsch (who was born not far from the birthplace of Charlotte Selver, our teacher of Sensory Awareness,). It’s his translation with the German original below.

When the soldiers come

Lure them onto the roof of the dove

Lure them into the nest of the swallow

Lure them into the cave of the lioness

Lure them into the forest of the deer.

Approach them with open hands

Full of bread, and salt, and fruit, and wine

So that they loose their way in the brushwood of your virtues;

So that they get lost in the maze of your friendliness.

Let them be amazed.

Let their generals and presidents be ashamed.

Let their henchmen run aground.

Be a lowland of courtesy

Intelligence be your weapon

Patience be your strength

Love be your narrative

Your silence be your victory

So that the governors marvel greatly.*

* Some of you may recognize this as a biblical reference. Matthew 27:14

In German:

Wenn die Krieger kommen
Look sie auf’s Dach der Taube
Lock sie in’s Nest der Schwalbe
Lock sie in die Höhle der Löwin
Lock sie in den Wald der Rehe.

Geh ihnen entgegen mit offenen Händen

Voll Brot und Salz und Obst und Wein.
Dass sie sich verlaufen im Knüppelholz deiner Tugenden
Dass sie sich verirren im Labyrinth deiner Freundlichkeit.

Mach sie staunen.
Beschäme ihre Generäle und Präsidenten
Lass ihre Handlanger in’s Leere laufen
Sei eine Tiefebene voll Höflichkeit.

Dein Gewehr sei die Klugheit
Deine Kraft sei die Geduld
Deine Geschichte sei die Liebe
Dein Sieg sei dein Schweigen
So dass sich die Landpfleger sehr verwundern.

Cathy's Blog!

Tag: Response

Imagine

How We Meet What Comes