| Thursday, February 20, 2003 |  |
| Transforming Swords With Words - Poets and others for Peace |
 20 Feb 2003 @ 16:31My first Peace action was published in the Desert Sun April 4, 1964 in Tortise Tim's Times Poet Corner: IF I HAD THREE WISHES By Letecia Layson (10) If I had three wishes I'd wish the world to come to peace And all our sister countries helping Hand in hand. If I had three wishes I'd wishe for people to get well. If I had three wishes I'd wish for happiness for Everyone alike. Just think of all that would happen If I had three wishes. Poets are lifting their pens and voices again to speak for peace. On February 17 Poets Agains War took out a 1/4 page ad in the New York Times stating "over 8,000 poets have submitted poems or personal statements to register their opposition to this war." Here is an snipet from an article about the movement: Zen poet's voice of dissent heard by anti-war literati By CHRIS McGANN SEATTLE POST -INTELLIGENCER REPORTER PORT TOWNSEND -- Sam Hamill, a reclusive former Marine turned Zen Buddhist poet, is an unlikely spokesman for the anti-war poetry movement he started almost by accident. Hamill triggered a nationwide artistic uprising when he declined a White House invitation to a literary symposium Feb. 12, instead asking fellow poets to write protest poems. The article goes on to say: Hamill says he expected 400 or 500 responses, not the national outpouring that followed. In the first week, more than 4,000 poets stepped forward with statements and poems denouncing the war. The contributions came from some of the most distinguished poets in the country, including Galway Kinnel, Hayden Carruth, Phillip Levine, W.S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich and Ursula Le Guin of Portland. By Saturday, submissions to his Web site (poetsagainstthewar.org) had exceeded 10,000... Check the link for the entire :full story. For some, poetry is not just words, but living action as well, embodying their words: From Baring Witness Pictured here from Byron Bay, NSW, Australia February 8, 2003 750 women shed their clothes to express their rage against the proposed war in Iraq. A quote from the website: These actions have brought unprecedented press to the Pro-Peace movement. Our goal is the creation by local groups of similar actions in every state, leading to a large event at the March 8th Gather the Women rally in Washington, D.C. We encourage everyone to get involved and let the world know that Americans are not marching in lockstep towards war. I am a peace advocate from way back. I feel it essential/e-sensual to embody the principles we espouse. Peace More > |
| Sprites, Blue Jets and Tibetan Dakinis |
 20 Feb 2003 @ 16:31This post has been reprinted here with permission of the Author, Vicki Noble, co-creatix of the Motherpeace Tarot Deck. Dear Motherpeace Friend: As many of you know, for years now (since the spring of 1995) I have been enthusiastically tracking a weather phenomenon that scientists have named "Sprites" and "Blue Jets." These huge columnar light-shows were recorded a decade ago as they were appearing in front of airplane pilots at 33,000 feet. (I have been viewing them for the last year or two in moving video images on the Discovery website, among others.) When I read about Sprites and Blue Jets in a newspaper piece in 1995, I was floored, because for me it sounded like a physical display of giant Dakinis, as they are desribed in Tibetan Buddhism. Many people do Tibetan Buddhist dakini practices everyday to invoke and invite the Dakinis into our lives for protection, good health and longevity not only for oneself but for everyone on the planet. When Dakinis are perceived in visualization, they frequently whirl in as vase-shaped whirling tornadoes or waterspouts--in other words, in long "columnar" shapes. Scientists describe the Sprites ("red, mushroom-shaped electrical discharges") and Blue Jets ("blue electrical discharges branching upwards from the tops of thunderclouds") as if they are dancing. Dakinis are almost always depicted as dancing. Vajrayogini, Queen of the tantric (transformational) Tibetan Buddhist school known as Vajrayana, is red. Thröma, the Black Dakini who cuts llusions with her crescent knife and brings enlightenment in a flash, is described as "blazing blue-black." Mayumi Oda's painting of the Black Dakini can be seen on the cover of my book, Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World (The New Female Shamanism) which came out in 1991 from HarperSF. On Candlemas morning--Saturday, February 1st--the NASA space shuttle disintegrated on its way back into the earth's atmosphere, as I'm sure you all know. The seven astronauts on board all died. I was teaching at New College in San Francisco that morning and I heard the news on the way to my class. I thought immediately that it was an "oracle," rather than just an "accident," since it happened on one of the Goddess's holy cross-quarter days. I felt that we were supposed to rethink the space program, and that the Dakinis had somehow intervened with this message. The fact that this was one of very few shuttles that NASA sends up in space WITHOUT nuclear substances on board suggested a kind of intelligent benevolence in the delivery of the message. Clearly, the disaster could have been SO much worse. More > |