Saturday, March 5, 2016

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I have mentioned before, a conference I attended in Ireland in 1992 where I met a good number of my scholar/humanitarian heroes and felt my inner world stimulated like never before. One presenter who was new to me was a Catholic priest, Father John ODonohue whose demeanor and intellect was so beneficent that I attended all his lectures and then had the pleasure of meeting him. Recently my daughter came across one of his poems and sent it to me.   

In Praise of the Earth 

Let us bless
The imagination of the Earth,
That knew early the patience
To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm,
Ready to welcome the emergence
Of things dreaming of voyaging
Among the stillness of land.

And how light knew to nurse
The growth until the face of the Earth
Brightened beneath a vision of color.

When the ages of ice came
And sealed the Earth inside
An endless coma of cold,
The heart of the Earth held hope,
Storing fragments of memory,
Ready for the return of the sun.

Let us thank the Earth
That offers ground for home
And holds our feet firm
To walk in space open
To infinite galaxies.

Let us salute the silence
And certainty of mountains:
Their sublime stillness,
Their dream-filled hearts.

The wonder of a garden
Trusting the first warmth of spring
Until its black infinity of cells
Becomes charged with dream;
Then the silent, slow nurture
Of the seed's self, coaxing it
To trust the act of death.

The humility of the Earth
That transfigures all
That has fallen
Of outlived growth.

The kindness of the Earth,
Opening to receive
Our worn forms
Into the final stillness.

Let us ask forgiveness of the Earth
For all our sins against her:
For our violence and poisonings
Of her beauty.

Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.

That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the Earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit, and light.
 
 John O'Donohue

After all isn’t this how it really works?




And just look at what Mother Earth has gifted us with! Not my pics.






 Along with these gifts came our intellect in order to appreciate it even more by UNDERSTANDING it and giving us the capacity of discernment so as not to be led astray.

Brain interior, pathways beyond comprehension


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It is now believed that The Vikings actually did have a Sun Stone  that was used to navigate the ocean.

 

Imagine their awe at what we now know of gravity waves, plate tectonics, galaxies etc.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/gravitational-waves-groundbreaking-discovery-could-let-us-hear-from-the-very-darkest-and-strangest-a6867056.html

Alert – there is now an albino humpback in my area. I haven’t seen it but some of my neighbors have as well as a bunch of people on the Pacific side. What a treat that would be to see it!



Well I have just a few pages left of Vol.IX of Durant’s The Story of Civilization. One volume to go. It will be very difficult to find a piece of literature that will be as welcome and comfortable a companion for my evening read as these books have been. At some point I will address an entire blog post to comments regarding this monumental and brilliant work.

Check out this interview from a few weeks back


Yahoo!! Pygmy right whale thought extinct but.....

Real touching read
https://www.facebook.com/notes/lyla-june-johnston/the-story-of-how-humanity-fell-in-love-with-itself-once-again/10153756971166007