Seeds of Peace

At a Peace walk I attended in Los Angeles about five years ago

“Is is the responsibility of all people with an aspiration to spiritual perfection to help develop a deep recognition of the value of other faiths …”  

- The Dalai Lama

Professor Suwanda HJ Sugunasir with the Dalai Lama at the University of Toronto. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1893 the first formal gathering of representatives from eastern and western spiritual traditions met in Chicago at the World’s Congress of Religions.

One hundred years later the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions was formed when two monks from the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago suggested organizing a centennial celebration. Itsaim

to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.

At the first modern CPWR in Chicago in 1993 the keynote speaker was the Dalai Lama.

• In 1999 in Cape Town, South Africa  7,000 people from +80 countries heard Nelson Mandela speak.
• 2004 in Barcelona, Spain.
• 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.
• 2014 will be held in Brussels, Belgium. For more information click here

Photo credit Wikimedia Commons

Last weekend I attended the second annual conference of the Southern California Committee for a Parliament of World Religions at All Saints Church in Pasadena: 

“Seeds of Peace: Meditation and the Engaged Life”

At the opening ceremony a conch shell was blown like a trumpet in all four directions – its got a hauntingly beautiful sound – and was followed by “Tata Appolinario Chile Pixtun”, a Guatemalan Mayan Elder who recited an indigenous blessing. Miranda Rondeau did the musical invocation.

She opened the ceremony by blowing on the conch shell

Indigenous blessing by “Tata Appolinario Chile Pixtun”, a Guatemalan Mayan Elder

Musical invocation by Miranda Rondeau

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In the first workshop we had to choose one of these meditations:

• Isha Kriya Meditation
• Labyrinth Walk
• Vietnamese Cao Dai Meditation
• Kabbalistic Jewish Meditation
• Sat Nam Rasayan
• Vedanta – Meditation to Increase your inner Peace
• Vedanta – Guided Meditation on the self
• Mindfulness Meditation – Vipassana Support International
• Meditation on Cosmic Awareness – the Twelve Blessings
• Color Science Meditation
• Ignation Awareness Exsmen
• Raja Yoga Meditation
• Stillpoint – Christian/Buddhist Meditation
• International Society for Krishna Consciousness
• Lotus Sūtra Chanting
• Shumei Philosophy and Spiritual Practice
• Seven Pillars Journey of Wisdom
• Zen Meditation
• Meditation on Peace from a Mayan Perspective
• meditation led by Darakshan Farber

Who knew there were so many ways to still the mind, I wish I could have taken them all.

During the lunch break we were entertained by the talented Taiko Drummers.

Taiko Drummers

a moment to catch his breath

the drumming is done in pairs

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Marianne Williamson gave the Keynote speech:

“We’re living a time of evolving consciousness with humanity ready to apply love as an agent of healing on every wound – personal as well as political.”

Marianne Williamson

She’s a brilliant speaker, who speaks from the heart with no notes.

After lunch there were social action workshops. I met Jodie Evans one of the co-founders of “Code Pink“

“A woman initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.”

I loved the sound of this drum that looked like a “wok“

The day ended with a concert of “heart healing Rumi poems set to transformational music”

This post is part of WordPress weekly challenge: Culture

Wordless Wednesday: Found Turtle

“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.”
- Korean Proverb

 

This post is part of Cee’s Wordless Wednesday

 

 

earthday 2013

I met this 800-year-old tree in Galicia, Spain

A short post for this year’s Earth Day.

The bad news according to Environment California 

There are 100 million tons of trash in the North Pacific Gyre.

In some parts of the Pacific, plastic outweighs plankton six to one.

The good news:

Nearly sixty cities in California have banned throwaway plastic grocery bags.

Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to approve the ban (which will take effect at the end of the year)

To see what happens to your junk, please watch this four-minute movie taken earlier this year by Chris Jordan on Midway Island, an uninhabited, isolated spot about two thousand kilometers from any other land.

 

Next year I hope to tell you that all of California has banned plastic bags.

A statewide ban could keep 123,000 tons of plastic bags out of the waste stream each year.

Why this love of tattoos?

I wept when I looked at the close-up photo of a number tattooed on a woman’s arm at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.

When I stepped back to blow my nose and allow a group of teenagers to see the photo, one of the girls lazily chewing on a big wad of gum nudged her friend, “Hey don’t you think that’s a cool tattoo?”

“Ohmygod I love it!” said the friend.

So many things I wanted to say, and wished I’d said, but I was speechless.

Arm of a survivor from Nazi Germany I photographed in L.A.

I know tattoos weren’t invented in Nazi Germany – concentration camp inmates were simply branded like cattle – but I don’t understand, and I can’t explain why tattooing has become such a popular worldwide form of expression that people willingly spend thousands of dollars, suffering many hours of torture to cover their skin with some very carefully selected illustrations they can never remove.

The word tattoo [from the Tahitian word ‘tatau’ meaning ‘to mark something’] was brought back from Tahiti in 1769 by Captain James Cook!

Tattooing, for spiritual and decorative purposes, dates back thousands of years across Europe, China, Japan, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Samoa and New Zealand.

• The Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Japanese tattooed criminals as a visible mark of punishment.
• In 54 BC when Julius Caesar invaded Britain he described seeing long-lasting decorations pricked on the skin of the inhabitants.
• During the Middle Ages, Christian Crusaders identified themselves with the mark of the Jerusalem cross on their foreheads so that they could be given a proper Christian burial if they died in battle.

a flower

Some people (as I show in these two photos I took at the Hollywood Bowl) choose one or two small tattoos such as butterflies, flowers, or designs…

…a tattoo crept out of Jolly’s shirt

But many people prefer to cover large portions of their skin.

• If you cover the upper arm it’s called the ‘half-sleeve‘
• the ‘full-sleeve‘ includes the upper and lower arms.

When I met Max in San Diego, he was happy to explain his tattoos to me.

• The tattoo on his forearm is of a flapper from the Great Gatsby
• in the middle is a Homage to James Elroy, with the Crest of Montenegro above it
• on the right, “To mine own self be True”
• the watch: “All dogs go to Heaven“. The time is at 11:11 “The Wishing Hour“.
  

a flapper from the Great Gatsby

a Homage to James Elroy, with the Crest of Montenegro above it.

To Mine Own Self be True

“All dogs go to Heaven“. The time is at 11:11 “The Wishing Hour“

I met Adrian at my cash register. She told me there’s a lot of synchronicity with birth dates in her family: both her father and her father-in-law were born on 02.03 and her grandson was born on 02.03.04 and the numbers are in the tattoos.

The first tattoo is of her grandson,  the fisherman is her husband, and she spent a long time making sure I understood the tattoo on the right:

• Purple is the color of cancer.
• Radiation is purple.
• Many people in her life have died from cancer: her mother, her father, mother-in-law, father-in-law, aunt, uncle and a good friend. All their initials are on her arm.
• Even though she’s taken them all the girl is pretty, because there’s always hope …

Her grandson

her husband

Angelina (below) told me:

“Most people can only take three hours of tattooing pain at a time.  Each one of my tattoos took about six to nine hours.”

“When you’re tattooed it feels like a razor blade digging in you,”

“Each tattoo gun has six to nine tiny needles working at a time.”

OMG that sounds far worse than childbirth!

She has a cherry blossom on her back, a peacock on her arm, and the Japanese Great wave inside her arm.

Angelina’s cherry blossom

Peacock on her arm

This is Emory from Vancouver, Canada whom I met at the Museum yesterday.   She told me that the Borneo Rose (on her right leg) guards the wearer from evil spirits, and is usually tattooed on a young man’s shoulders.

Rosie the Riveter on the left leg, and the Borneo Rose on the right leg

The above is just a small sampling of the hundreds of tattooed arms and legs that walk past my cash register.

For more information you can check out Camila Rocha’s site. She’s a tattoo artist from Brazil who came to my cash register two weeks ago.

*

Have you seen the book The Japanese Tattoo by Sandi Fellman?  It was difficult for the American photographer to meet the Irezumi

”an extreme and secretive group of people living in the underworld of Tokyo and Osaka who have transformed themselves into living works of art through tattooing…”

and she had to spend a long time gaining their trust before being permitted to photograph them.

front cover of “The Japanese Tattoo”

“These are people who have chosen to suffer years of torture and perhaps even shorten their lives* to make their bodies look unnatural.“

* tattooing shorten lives when too little free skin is left to breath or perspire.

* * * * *

I’d love to hear what you think of tattoos. Can you explain why they’re so fashionable? 

Friends

To say I’m horrified and “rocked off my moorings” by the violence at the Boston Marathon this afternoon is an understatement. I’m stuck on Why?  When I think of the victims I weep …  no more words…

along the Camino in Northern Spain

When I walked along the Camino I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many men and women who walked the entire 750 km French Way to Santiago de Compostela were older than me, and many were walking in spite of a severe illness like cancer.

In my first post about the Camino I told you about Kurt,  a teacher from Germany.

Kurt began his pilgrimage alone, but ended up walking with Wolfgang and Christiane who are both also from Germany. That’s how friendships are formed on the Camino: you meet someone on the road, and you’re instantly friends, life-long friends.

Kurt (on the right) walked with Wolfgang (on the left) and Christiane

I’m not used to carrying a heavy weight and after several days of walking with my backpack I developed painful “rocks” on my back. Kurt was the good Samaritan who gave me massages along the way.

“A massage for Rosie,” he’d say…

I haven’t told you about his friend Wolfgang who’s one of the shining lights I met on the Camino: always happy and so kind.

Kurt and I are both expert yakkers, but though Wolfgang could also speak English, he didn’t talk much, preferring to listen, than to yak.

I walked with Kurt and Wolfgang several times, but I couldn’t keep up with their fact pace, and they got to Santiago several days ahead of our group.

In the photo of Wolfgang (below) taken at the end of the pilgrimage in the tee-shirt Kurt and Christiane bought him, he looks suntanned, fit and healthy.

Wolfgang in his Camino tee-shirt: “You’ll never walk alone” (photo credit Kurt)

Actually Wolfgang is a very sick man.

He set out alone on his pilgrimage after his doctor gave him six months to live.

The friendship and love from Kurt and Christiane, plus the fresh air and sun, and something about the magic of the Camino gave him a vitality and vigor so he was able to walk the entire 750 km route, and as you can see, he looked wonderful at the end.

I heard from Kurt in February: Wolfgang was really ill, and he and Christiane went to visit their sick friend.

“It was a really good decision to see him. He’s very brave. Though in a lot of pain he was very happy to see us and looked at us with grateful eyes…”

Wolfgang invited them back in the Spring for a barbecue, but Kurt’s not sure if there’s enough time in this life for him.

Keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

the three friends

As this is National Poetry Month, I end with a poem

Be a friend – by Edgar Guest

Be a friend. You don’t need money:
Just a disposition sunny;
Just the wish to help another
Get along some way or other;
Just a kindly hand extended
Out to one who’s unbefriended;
Just the will to give or lend,
This will make you someone’s friend.

Be a friend. You don’t need glory.
Friendship is a simple story.
Pass by trifling errors blindly,
Gaze on honest effort kindly,
Cheer the youth who’s bravely trying,
Pity him who’s sadly sighing;
Just a little labor spend
On the duties of a friend.

Be a friend. The pay is bigger
(Though not written by a figure)
Than is earned by people clever
In what’s merely self-endeavor.
You’Il have friends instead of neighbors
For the profits of your labors;
You’Il be richer in the end
Than a prince, if you’re a friend.

Edgar Albert Guest an English-born American poet (Born 1881, Birmingham, died 1959, Detroit) wrote more than 15,000 sentimental and optimistic verses – one a day from 1916 to 1959 – earning him the title the People’s Poet. 

  He began writing verse for the Free Press in 1904 under the heading “Chaff.”  His columns evolved into a daily feature,”Breakfast Table Chat,” syndicated in about three hundred newspapers.

Dorothy Parker said of his poetry:

“I’d rather flunk my Wasserman test*
Than read the poetry of Edgar Guest.”

[* Wasserman test is an antibody test for syphilis]

 

Change

“When you travel you take something with you and you leave something behind.”

I’ve changed every time I’ve faced personal challenges such as marriage, motherhood, living in a new country, death of my parents, but the biggest life-changing experience for me was when I walked on The Camino to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Though I didn’t have dreams like Shirley MacLaine 

Through a range of astonishing and liberating visions and revelations, Shirley MacLaine saw into the meaning of the cosmos, including the secrets of the ancient civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, insights into human genesis, the essence of gender and sexuality, and the true path to higher love.

I learned to face my fears of the unknown and to believe in myself.

I didn’t feel I’d completed the pilgrimage when I reached the Cathedral in Santiago. Though the church service for pilgrims was a thrilling experience and a proud moment for me, it was too crowded, as was the city of Santiago which is overflowing with pilgrims, tourists, and souvenirs [!].

Inside the Cathedral during the service

I needed a quiet place to reflect on what I’d achieved.

I took a bus ninety miles further west to Finisterre, a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia where the Camino ends.

In the Middle Ages those who ended their pilgrimage at Finisterre believed those rocks were at the edge of the world. It must have been a terrifying experience to go there.

Some people celebrate the completion of their pilgrimage at Finisterre with a personal ceremony where they burn their clothes or leave their boots behind.

This man is adding his blue jacket to the fire.

When I hiked out past the lighthouse onto the cliff and looked out over the huge expanse of ocean, I didn’t need to burn my clothes or leave my boots behind to know I’d completed a life-changing journey.

I felt the presence of the countless pilgrims who’d sat on that windy rock before me, and enveloped by an enormous sense of accomplishment, and pride, an inner peace such as I’d never known before filled my heart.

For previous posts on my pilgrimage to Santiago, go to TRAVEL POSTS at the top of my blog, and look under SPAIN.

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is Change.

Observe times three …

FrizzText’s weekly challenge is now at “O“.

1. Observe.

I saw this guy at the Museum. He told me it takes him two hours to get his hair looking like this:

1. Flat iron
2. Blow dry
3. Hair spray
4. Hair glue called “Got2B“

I have no idea how he sleeps…

It takes two hours to get his hair looking like this

2. Observations:

Earlier this year in my post “Unique” my blogging buddy Tara at The Good Villager identified the stick-like plant on my patio as an orchid cactus (Epiphyllum)

This past winter it only produced one flower.

On March 11 2013 my heart sank when I saw these bumps on one of the unhappy looking stick-like stems. I didn’t know whether it was going to be a bunch of friendly flowers or an infestation of a nasty bug…

March 11, 2013 @1:52 pm

Two-and-a-half weeks later…

The plant is so top-heavy the only way to lift the stem off the ground was to put  a brick underneath it.

March 29 2013, @1:42pm

Last Saturday…

April 6 2013 @ 5:02 pm

Monday…

April 8 2013 @ 1:35 pm

There are another twelve buds just about to bloom.

3.  Observatory.

Mr F and I went to Julian in the Cuyamaca Mountains (156 miles south-east of Los Angeles at 4,235 feet) for the Easter weekend.

Julian’s high elevation provides clean air, blue skies and four distinct seasons.

Spring is generally mild with a profusion of daffodils  

There are several varieties of daffodils in this clump

Julian, which was founded in the 1870′s gold rush, is a well-known apple growing area. There are four bakeries in town all baking and serving apple pie.

After our three-and-a-half mile hike up to Cuyamaca Peak – [elevation 6,512 feet  which I'll describe in another post] – we treated ourselves to a shared warm piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

Full disclosure: it was so delicious that we ordered another piece, and took a pie home.

Main Street in Julian

old time soda fountain

The Julian Pie Company

blossoms

We stayed at a B and B called The Observer’s Inn,

nestled in the beautiful oak and pine-covered mountains of Julian, is a peaceful, 4.5 acre retreat for those who appreciate nature and wish to rejuvenate their spirits.

Proprietors of the Observers Inn: Michael and Caroline Leigh

It wasn’t just a peaceful place. Mike, who has been fascinated by astronomy since high school, has built an Observatory just below his house, “with a roof that slides open“, and offers tours of the night sky to guests.

The breathtaking starry nights make for the perfect location of our astronomical observatory which houses several research grade telescopes.

Mike Leigh began our tour outside the Observatory using his laser-light to point out the major stars and constellations in the twinkling night sky.

I have never seen such a clear night sky.   I now know how to find the Big Dipper, and the North Star.

Once inside the Observatory he explained that there are three types of telescopes: refractor, reflecting and optical.

He has four telescopes. His largest is a 16 inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain LX200 which [according to an article I read on the dining room wall] is the same model used in National Observatories of small countries.

He thinks his fourteen inch is perfect because “you have to know the night sky and find the star yourself” whereas the twelve-inch and sixteen-inch are computerized:  punch in the correct codes and they’ll find the stars.

When we looked through his telescopes we saw an open star cluster, a globular cluster, nebulae in the shape of spirals, and a rainbow.

To see some photos taken at the Observatory click here.

Mike speaks very fast and with much passion. A few interesting bits I picked up during his talk:

• The speed of light is 186,282.4 miles per second in a vacuüm.

• Light travels seven-and-a-half times round the earth in one second.

• Theoretically we don’t know what galaxies look like because things we see in the sixteen inch telescope took three to four billion years to reach our eyepiece.

• At the speed that the Space Shuttle flies – 18,500 mph – it would take us humans 160,000 years to get to our closest star (which is Alpha Centauri)

• There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.

• One grain of beach sand = 5,000 galaxies

• Around Thanksgiving this year we’ll be able to see the comet of our lifetimes. Called “Ison“, it is predicted to be spectacular and very bright, and so close to earth that we will be able to see it with our naked eyes.
  
  
• Ison will be much more powerful than Halley’s Comet the best known of the short-period comets, which is visible from Earth every 75–76 years.
• Click here to read NASA’s explanation.

TV room for guests

Breakfast table

We’re definitely going to go back to see Ison.