BeautyDialogues

Death and Dappled Things

A month or so ago Deborah Goldblatt and I hosted a World Café out at Commonweal in Bolinas for a group of end-of-life practitioners. Leading up to that event everything I saw or heard seemed to relate to our subject in some way - perhaps unsurprisingly given my sister Karen's death at the beginning of this year and my friend Kay's passing in June.

To prepare, Deborah and I went to see Anna Deavere Smith's phenomenal Let Me Down Easy at the Berkeley Rep, which was obstensibly about the body and resiliance - and it was - but it was also about death and disease and how poverty (and wealth) effects people's access to health care. If that wasn't enough, the circle I meet with every week in Second Life began a 16 week journey exploring the subject of Death and Dying through the 8 directions of the Medicine Wheel.

Somehow the essence of my whole matrix of experience during this time is rendered immaculately by this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. We heard David Whyte recite it on one of his many CDs, this one about "apprenticing one's self to one's own disappearance" as we drove over the sacred mountain Tamalpais on our way to Commonweal.

It's called Pied Beauty:

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

Announcing Conversations for the 21st Century

I'm excited to share the launch of a project that my new company weDialogue has been working on for several months now in collaboration with the World Cafe. You are all warmly invited to participate, and I'm serious about that because it will take all of us...

Better World for Nothing!

from the cover of Funny Times

The Great Climate Change Hoax

It's a New Day!

Like about 300 million other Americans and countless others all over the world, I spent much of this historic day glued to the TV for the inauguration ritual celebrations. Like so many others I found myself choking up with tears and the courage to hope for a new day in America. I felt pride and a sense of gratitude towards my countrymen and women who helped elect this good man.

In his powerfully direct yet compassionate and inclusive inaugural speech, Obama didn't balk at the immense amount of work in front of us, nor did he give us false promises that it would be easy. But I couldn't help but feel if anyone can pull this self-obsessed nation together and inspire us to make the changes that are imperative for our survival, and the survival of others on this planet, he can.

Part of the excitement for me is how beautifully Obama's election is galvanizing the people and organizations I am part of. Basking in the glow of the new president's idealism, there seems to be an explosion of optimism and a feeling that this is "our time"... to have the conversations we've needed to have, to reach out to each other, work together, and begin to rebuild our country.

Just this evening, I received this video from the new Soul of Money website, revealing the silver lining in the current economic crisis that no one seems to be acknowledging yet.

"Most Beautiful" in 2008

The end of another year... 2008 slides back into history and we march forward into 2009. But before she disappears from view, I want to stop and contemplate the abundance of beauty I experienced in 2008.

Here are just a few of the those moments that provoked the "beauty response" in me this year:

~ Learning that Oprah Winfrey had produced a 10 part series on Ekhart Tolle's A New Earth and was offering it free online to the public

~ Watching the grace and power of all those synchronized bodies in the opening ceremonies for the Chinese Olympics; experiencing the pride they felt as hosts and the warmth of the hospitality they extended to the world

~ Sharing in the wave of relief and joy that spread throughout the world when Barak Obama won the election for US Presidency

~ And most recently, waking up to a Winter Wonderland in Eugene

We are so blessed! To be surrounded by all this beauty!

How about you? What was the Beauty that stood out for you this year?

Alex Grey's Obama

Here's the amazing Alex Grey's view of Obama as a truly global visionary:

Global Celebration

One of the thrills in the aftermath of this election has been the excitement with which the news of Obama's win has been met abroad. My in-box is full of jubilant congratulatory emails from friends around the world and it's so joyous to see television coverage of people dancing in the streets of Kenya and naming streets after our new president-elect.

The photo above came from Ricki Bascombe in Paris, where Barak has a 95% approval rating, reporting on the massive celebrations there - launching red white and blue balloons and drinking champagne as gospel singers sang "Oh Happy Day" and thousands of people shouted "Yes We Can" in French.

The Good News Sinks In

 

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." ~ Barack Obama

And what a path it's been..

As the election returns were coming in the other night all kinds of emotions were rising up in me. I found myself restless and unable to concentrate; it was almost unbearable to hold the uncertainty with any equanimity. I was transported back to the previous election where the fire of hope had also been strong in me, only to be worn down to a flicker by all the conflict and eventually doused altogether when the "official" decision came in. I almost couldn't stand to hope again.

The morning after the election I was talking with a close friend and sharing these thoughts, the two of us still almost dazed with the shock and delight of Obama's victory, OUR victory. I realized that it's not just me - my entire generation has experienced this frustration of hope that "good" in the way we understand it will be manifested in the world. I was a child when J.F. Kennedy was assassinated, and as an adult every one of the good men I voted for - George McGovern, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore - were defeated in the presidential elections.

So the good news is slow to sink in... but now, several days later, it's beginning to. And with it a renewed sense of civic purpose and hope and responsibility. Not the overwhelming futility of responsibility without authority that I've been feeling for so long, but a new authority that comes with the "Si Se Puede", the "Yes We Can" that brought this new administration into power.

Now let's see what we can do together.

The Rhythm of Change

This is my other favorite video from the 2008 election campaign. Written by poet Aaron Jafferis and performed by him and his friends (here are the full lyrics) with music by KronZilla, it has the strong stamp of one of the clearest blessings emerging from this campaign - the young men and women of this generation stepping up to make their voices heard.