JOYFUL WANDERING -- 73

+ It has been nearly 11 months since I posted the last Joyful Wandering post.  My intention is to offer these posts far more often from now on.

+ The photo above is from our recent trip to Eastern Long Island.  This one is from Riverhead where my parents met and lived in the 1930s.

+ I have worked with another version of these 8 QiGong verses and this method for more than 2 decades.  I think what I found today is a more illuminating version of the 8 verses and I like the ZhiMeng method from what I have read so far.  I do believe any method of QiGong is a powerful tool of energy harmonizing and the healing which can result from it.

• https://www.qigong-for-life.com/eight-verses/
• https://www.berou.gr/zhineng-qigong/?lang=en

+ The following is from today's Bowl of Saki (August 18) which I frequently turn to for powerful inspiration and illumination > 

At every step of evolution man's conception of good and bad, of right and wrong, changes. How does it change? Does he see more wrong or does he see less wrong as he evolves? One might naturally think that by virtue of one's evolution one would see more wrong, but that is not the case; the more one evolves the less wrong one sees, for then it is not always the action itself which counts, it is the motive behind it. Sometimes an action, apparently right, may be made wrong by the motive behind it. Sometimes an action, apparently wrong, may be right on account of its motive. Therefore although the ignorant are ready to form an opinion of another person's action, for the wise it is most difficult to form an opinion of the action of another.

-- from  https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIIIa/VIIIa_2_14.htm

The Daily Bowl of Saki is always something from the writings of the great Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan who came to the USA about 100 years ago and founded a Sufi center which his son and grandson have led.

https://wahiduddin.net/ is where you will find all of the Bowl of Saki posts and far more.

+ My cousin Evelyn has told me about an upcoming workshop on "a rare mindfulness practice & teaching from the Himalayan Siddha tradition taught by meditation-master HH Swami Vidyadhishananda." Go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-breathe-and-still-the-mind-tickets-166092187203 for detailed information.

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+ SUFI WISDOM > Excerpt from the Third Thought > "There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader …. To the eye of the seer every leaf of the tree is a page of the holy book that contains divine revelation, and he is inspired every moment of his life by constantly reading and understanding the holy script of nature." < http://sufiorder.org/Sufi_Thoughts.html

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+ updated at 12:39pm EST on Saturday, January 4, 2014

+ On Facebook, Robert Reich shared: "Several of you thought yesterday's post arguing that Congess's first priority when it convenes next week should be to restore unemployment benefits for the record number of long-term unemployed was a weak palliative for what's really needed. "We don't need unemployment benefits," wrote Burr Hubbell, for example, "We need real jobs." Mr. Hubbell and others raise an important issue. In fighting for measures that alleviate symptoms of a failing system -- whether chronic joblessness, increasing poverty, widening inequality, or ever greater economic insecurity -- are we staving off more fundamental reform? Or are we taking the only humane approach available until such time as fundamental reform is politically feasible?"

+ On Facebook, J. Barrett Lee shared: (DISCLAIMER: This is in response to an anonymous commenter on my blog, not anyone I know in real-life or Facebook)
 
I think I'm going to start responding to the phrase
"Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out."
 
with:
 
"Don't be so close-minded that you blow other peoples' brains out."
History has many more concrete examples of the latter, I'm afraid.

+ Eleventh Day of Christmas
A verse from the Daily Lectionary:

May God grant your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans.”

Psalm 20:4 < http://www.presbyterianmission.org/devotion/daily/2014/1/4/

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas we are informed that today is the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint according to the Roman Catholic Church. In medieval times this was The feast of Saint Simon Stylites.

Here is the Spirituality and Practice Christmas quote for today by the great Sufi poet, Hafiz:

A Suspended Blue Ocean

There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,

For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.

They all say,

"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved's Divine
Game,

"O, in the Beloved's
Wonderful
Game."

Hafiz in The Subject Tonight Is Love by Daniel Ladinsky

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+ Updated at 9:55am EST on January 3, 2013

+ Tenth Day of Christmas > I love lists.  I love the Sufi Wisdom Tradition.  And, so, on this tenth day of Christmas I invite you to check out one of my favorite lists, the Ten Principal Sufi Thoughts offered by the greatSufi teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Here is an excerpt worth pondering: "It is often for no other reason than clinging to the personality of their particular teacher, claiming for him superiority over other teachers, and degrading a teacher held in the same esteem by others, that people have separated themselves from one another, and caused most of the wars and factions and contentions which history records among the children of God."

Read it all > http://sufiorder.org/Sufi_Thoughts.html

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+ updated at 11:53am EST on Thursday, January 17, 2013

 

+

If you could get rid
of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets
Would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
Hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the
Mirror of your perception.
-- Rumi

 

I found that quote at http://www.allspirit.co.uk/sufism.html

 

+ Urgent > Deadline Monday: Fight the largest coal export terminal in the United States

Dear Friend,

As climate change wreaks havoc across the globe and scientists issue dire warnings of a 9-15 degree increase in temperatures this century, the coal industry wants to ship more than a hundred million tons of dirty coal to Asia each year and make the problem much worse.

Peabody Coal and SSA Marine are moving forward with plans to build the largest coal export terminal in the country in Washington -- the Gateway Pacific Terminal. This is one of the most important fights against coal in the country right now, because if we lose, it will seriously undermine much of the progress we've made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the amount of dirty coal burned in the United States.

The Army Corps of Engineers is accepting public comments on the outrageous Gateway Pacific Terminal proposal to determine which environmental impacts of the project it should study.

Whether or not the Gateway Pacific Terminal is allowed to move forward could be determined by which factors the Corps includes in its impact statement. A full accounting of Gateway Pacific's impact on global greenhouse gas emissions would be devastating for the project, so our public comments are crucial.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/gpt_coal_exports/?r_by=53456-10635-Cesx_Mx&rc=paste2

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+ updated at 11:38am EST on Tuesday, November 23, 2010

+ My spiritual practice of the week is Solitude.  I have a web page devoted to this discipline which I am revising and expanding this week.  At The Abundancetrek Blog, I'm posting my latest finds on this important practice in "Joyful Wandering -- 6."

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+ updated at 2:52pm ESDT on Monday, July 12, 2010

+ Link TV offers a lot of wisdom when it airs Global Spirit each Sunday night at 9pm EST.  Its episodes are also available on the website.  I particularly liked the show which aired last night on Oneness. Some of the guests stick around after the show and answer questions via the internet. You can see these at http://www.linktv.org/globalspirit/live/archive

One of the guests last night was Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee who has followed a Sufi path for almost 4 decades and has written extensively on mysticism and oneness.  He answered many questions displaying his immense wisdom and knowledge.

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+ updated at 5:21pm EST, Tuesday, January 19, 2010, another anniversary of my day of birth.

+ Democracy Now! offers “Haiti is Shaken to the Core”: Amy Goodman Reports from Port-au-Prince.  Excerpt: "And what we did yesterday is what few journalists have done: we left Port-au-Prince, and we went along the coast to Carrefour and to Léogâne. This is the epicenter. This is where the United Nations issued its statement, saying they acknowledge 90 percent of the buildings were down, that thousands of people were dead. But, they said, unless they could ensure security, they would not be providing aid there. Now, this is tremendously frightening. As we passed through the epicenter, a young man hailed down our car, and he said, 'Please, we see some helicopters overhead, but they don’t stop here. We have no aid. We have no food.'"

+ The thaw which began last week continues.  Most of the snow which fell in early January has now disappeared along much of the Erie Canal.

+ Sufi Wisdom:

My Sufi master once said: If you put the world between you and God, the world becomes a spiritual obstacle; if you use the world to remember God, the world becomes your spiritual friend. — Robert Frager in The Wisdom of Islam

"To Practice This Thought: See the world around you as evidence of God's presence." This is The Spiritual Practice of the Day at Spirituality and Practice.