Hey all — I found some old journal pages today, with some poems I wrote about the process of remembering who we are.

Be gentle with yourself today, and every day.  Enjoy. Write a few poems of your own.

Spirit Awakens

In the word
In the breath
is all of God – all fullness, all Spirit,
all that is good
The very soul of creativity and love.

So speak boldly with your whole heart
and deeply breathe out kind words
and let love flow within you and through you.

All Possibility

Thoughts are the kernels of all goodness
if you resist evil and let God’s mind and love
be as it is – as you are – perfect in every way -
unpossessing and free and accepting -
full of all possibility.

Thief of Thoughts

These thoughts you hear do not belong to you.
You are a thief if you take them outright.
So consider them, with care, borrowing each day the ones
that serve God – and so produce only good in your life and others’.

All Choice Is Yours

It seems that God wants us to use Him completely
to suck in his unending love
To let it simmer and percolate
and not be able to help that it overflows into others’ lives.
So be filled over and over again. All choice belongs to you -
It’s your God-given right. Choose well. Be bold. Take God and
possess Him for all that He is – all fullness, all joy.

Delay

Delay and so deny your good. God is alive in the
very minute of your soul.

More to come soon… *smiles*

From the Earth -

Consider this — “Take one world: A globeful of people, most of whom are victims; A handful of people passionately committed to justice; A God overseeing and supervising without usurping total control; An exemplary human life, in which the globeful of people and the handful of people and the overseeing God are united, so that the particular human life is uniquely transparent to the divine; A healthy respect for the past and a healthy skepticism about institutions that have an unhealthy respect for the past; Human hearts in which anger and love are two sides of the same coin; A willingness to risk judgments that might be wrong; And an ultimate optimism combined with a provisional pessimism. Mix well, and see what happens!”

Peace Poster proceeds benefit needy in Haiti

A poster which carries those words was inspired by one of the 20th Century’s most encouraging and prolific prophets for peace and social justice: Robert McAfee Brown (1920-2001). Based on Brown’s ecumenical recipe for peace, a company called Reach And Teach commissioned Khalil Bendib to create graphics for the poster and Innosanto Nagara to create the stylized text.

Robert McAfee Brown was a theologian, prolific writer, and worked for the causes of peace and social justice. In the later years of his life, he found his spiritual home at First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto.

The team at Reach And Teach remarked: “We have been blessed to know and work with Robert McAfee Brown and we continue to work for peace and social justice with Brown’s wife, Sydney. We decided to honor Bob’s memory with the creation of this poster. During 2010, all sales of this poster will benefit the people of Haiti, who continue to suffer after a horrible earthquake.”

The “Take One World” poster is 24 inches by 13 inches and is printed on recycled paper using soy inks by a worker-owned cooperative. It costs $5 and can be bought here.

Reach and Teach: An educational company with a worthy mission

Reach And Teach is a peace and social justice learning company “dedicated to transforming the world through teachable moments.”  Its co-founders, two high-tech standouts, Craig Wiesner and Derrick Kikuchi, launched Reach And Teach in 2004 as a subsidiary of their award-winning educational consulting company, WKMN Training, LLC.

The road to launching Reach And Teach weaved through Silicon Valley, Mexico, El Salvador, Israel/Palestine, New York and Afghanistan. While running their multimedia education consulting company, Craig and Derrick became increasingly involved in peacemaking and social justice issues.

Transforming the world through teachable moments

Reach And Teach creates and distributes books, games, puzzles, toys, curriculum, posters, music, DVDs, and other products “that help to transform the world through teachable moments.”

The founders describe the company as a ” treasure hunter,” searching the planet for that special something that mainstream bookstores won’t promote. They write: “Whether the products come from a non-profit or a small publisher, we see our job as making sure that great content can be found under one virtual roof.  We’re dedicated to helping parents, teachers, grandparents, community organizers, youth leaders, and all people, from infants to raging grannies, to know that they can make a difference in the world and to provide them with the tools to do so.”

More about Derrick Kikuchi

Co-founder Derrick Kikuchi is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara (BSEE/CS) and Stanford University (MSEE). As one of Hewlett-Packard’s first firmware and software engineers, Derrick spent nearly two decades at HP, including HP Labs. Intrigued by emerging distance learning technologies in 1991,

Derrick founded the HP Media Applications Learning Lab (MALL), helping the company move away from purely classroom education (Same Time, Same Place) to an Anytime, Anyplace paradigm. Derrick co-founded WK Multimedia Network Training in 1994, developing the first interactive e-Learning CD-ROM for 3Com Corporation. Derrick designed additional e-Learning for Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM.

Derrick has been deeply involved in peace and social justice issues through his work as a Presbyterian Elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto. He has been on the board of directors for Northern California Presbyterian Homes and the Council of Churches Santa Clara County. He was an editor for Open Hands, an ecumenical quarterly journal on LGBT inclusion in communities of faith. He has traveled to El Salvador, Mexico, and Afghanistan on peacemaking and solidarity delegations and often lectures on theology, church history, economic justice, and peacemaking.

More about Craig Wiesner

Co-founder Craig Wiesner is a graduate of the University of San Francisco with a degree in Organizational Behavior and Adult Learning. Craig also spent several semesters at San Jose State University in the (K-12 instructional media) Masters program.

Craig spent eight years in the United States Air Force, developing and delivering foreign language education. Craig received a Joint Services Achievement Medal after his team redesigned a 47-week Korean course, resulting in a sharp rise in student retention and significant improvements in end-of-course language skills tests. Craig applied his expertise in education to the emerging computer networking industry, leading education departments for two Silicon Valley pioneers, Vitalink Communications and SynOptics (Nortel Networks).

Craig was a co-founder of WK Multimedia Network Training, developing classroom and e-Learning courses for clients including industry leaders 3Com, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent, Nortel Networks, and Packeteer.

Craig has been deeply involved in social and economic justice issues and the peace movement for the last 10 years. He is a member of the steering committee for Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice, a Bay Area interfaith peace organization.

Craig is a frequent contributor to the KQED radio perspective series and a prolific writer whose opinion writing has appeared in Tikkun Daily, CommonDreams.org, the Christian Science Monintor, and the letters sections of Newsweek, the NY Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News.

*****

Learn more about social justice on the Reach and Teach web site, which also carries a poster depicting a simple picture of  Jesus and the words: “How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday, and ignore one on Monday?” (see photo to right).

Milky Way Galaxy – Astronomers, astrologers, and NASA are all heralding a unique alignment this summer. Some are saying that “bridges between worlds” will be opened during this where/when, in one way or another. It is an opportunity for peace, a turning point to truly discuss the resolution of our perceived differences.

Heralding Peace: Changes on their Way

On June 13, 2010, six of the largest planets in our solar system will begin their procession into a balanced alignment.  Along with the Sun, their combined gravitational pull offers an enormous contribution to a phenomenal event.

What’s happening?

“The alignment of planets will appear from Earth like a straight line of six planets with the sun in the middle; Uranus, Jupiter and Mercury lined up on one side of the sun, while Venus, Mars and Saturn will be lined up on the opposite.  The Earth will thus be perpendicular to this alignment, forming a giant T-shape.”

Then, on Sunday, July 11, 2010, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses Earth’s southern Hemisphere. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow crosses the South Pacific Ocean where it makes no landfall except for Mangaia (Cook Islands) and Easter Island (Isla de Pascua). The path of totality ends just after reaching southern Chile and Argentina. The Moon’s penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering the South Pacific and southern South America.”

(More information can be found here, along with an interesting discussion on how this alignment may affect paranormal activity and ghost sightings.)

Here is what NASA has to say on these planetary occurrences.

And, here is the entry that already appears on Wikipedia about this phenomenon.

Tracking the Eclipse

On July 11, 2010, one of the most unique, special, and potentially “one-of-a-kind” total solar eclipses will occur across a long track of the Southern Pacific Ocean. Approximately half-way through this eclipse, the path crosses over Earth’s most isolated, and storied specks of land – Easter Island.

For just over 4 minutes and 45 seconds, the darkened sun will hang nearly 40° above the northwest horizon. Without a doubt, a photograph of the eerily blotted out Sun in the background, framed by one or more of the brooding, giant Moai statues that stand silently on guard throughout the landscape of this barren island, has to quality as the “penultimate Kodak Moment” for any serious photographer

One company, Twilight Tours, on Easter Island, is already promoting a trip to see the spectacle.

What The T will bring

Bill Street, who runs the Astrology for the Soul web site has this to say about the meaning and effect of the 2010 planetary alignment and total solar eclipse:

“Given historical precedence and the archetypal dynamics involved, The Saturn, Pluto, and Uranus T-Square of 2010 should coincide with a period of socio-political upheaval and destabilization, if not crisis. This alignment is arguably one of the most important astrological signatures of the first half of this century, certainly of the first three decades.

This T-Square symbolically represents a turning point in which economic, cultural, and political difficulties of the last decades come to a head and demand resolution.

Out of this alchemical vessel of 2010 should arise significantly original and unprecedented social and political movements and reform. Certainly, there is a hope that what will emerge out the tensions of this time will produce greater freedoms, tolerance, peace, and prosperity. However, to remain true to past patterns, we can only say that what will materialize we be both progressive and regressive, tolerant and fascist, peaceful and oppositional — polarities that grow stronger.

If astrology is to grant anything to collective knowledge, it is the visionary capacity to see through the contingencies of history and see into forces and energies that inform and are in dialogue with our collective evolution. Whatever the period surrounding 2010 may bring — environmental catastrophe, financial collapse, political reformation and counter-reformation (or any combination thereof) — it is best not to see the events as an isolated crisis.

Rather, astrology suggests that the events around 2010 should be seen upon a continuum in which tension and problems of the era demand and create growth and evolution. Thus, the astrological paradigm is not the province of Cassandras who intuit gloom and doom but is a way of seeing that potential greatness and maturity doesn’t come without growing pains and birth pangs.”

The position of the Planets

Follow the changes for yourself. You can bookmark this helpful web site which shows you the position of the planets for any date you enter.