Monday, June 22, 2009
The Judgment of the Birds
As I watch the news from Iran and reflect upon the role Twitter is playing in the shaping of world events, I remember the news images of the hotel bombing in India last fall...the images of flocks of birds flying back and forth in front of the cameras...the bombed hotel in the background. It was reported that Twitter posts played the first alert role regarding that tragedy too. And I am remembering another story about birds which comes to us from the journals of that keen observer and faithful chronicler of our long evolutionary journey, Loren Eiseley, as he wrote in his most poignant The Immense Journey about the songbirds' protest in the face of imminent danger. He called it "the judgment of the birds"...
I have said that I saw a judgment upon life, and that it was not passed by men. Those who stare at birds in cages or who test minds by their closeness to our own may not care for it. It comes from far away out of my past, in a place of pouring waters and green leaves. I shall never see an episode like it again if I live to be a hundred, nor do I think that one man in a million has ever seen it, because man is an intruder into such silences. The light must be right, and the observer must remain unseen. No Man sets up such an experiment. What he sees, he sees by chance.
You may put it that I had come over a mountain, that I had slogged through fern and pine needles for half a long day, and that on the edge of a little glade with one long, crooked branch extending across it, I had sat down to rest with my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly.
The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep. When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak.
The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling's parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties, drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.
No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death.
And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.
The sighing died. It was then that I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painfully fluttering, another took the song, and then another the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Til suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death. (Loren Eiseley in The Immense Journey, 1946)
Today, under brooding shadow and countering any prediction of doom, one voice after another lifts to remind us that a new world is being built within the hearts of people all over the world. These singers of life, while listening to the lovely promptings from the deep within, and laboring to prove the validity of their cries through the study of sciences, systems theories, and a profound spiritual awakening, are swelling in number as the chorus begins to resound throughout. With such a gathering of voices, if, as many physicists say, the world is truly built on sound, then a new and better world is about to be born. It is our hope that our efforts here will blend into the swelling chorus of those "singers of life."
Barbara Smith Stoff
Sunday, September 13, 2009
GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC
GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUS422108559020090706
“Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.” I think we should be thankful to Google and Eric Schmidt, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.
Upon reading the above article "Google's Dark Day"...I just want to say that I appreciate what Google is doing with rare books. I actually see this effort as a way of making accessible the "akashic" if you will. Here is a story which illustrates what I mean, and how Google can work for us.
This story is from our recent work with "The Western Book of Crossing Over...." ...I will quote from pages 82-83 …Lorraine has transmitted from the other side the following fragment of a poem. Sheldon has written it down exactly as it was given to him and included it in his writing of the book. The fragment:
For see, there nothing is in all the world
But only love worth any strife or song or tear.
Ask me not then to sing or fashion songs
Other than this, my song of love to thee.
--From the Arabic, “The Camel Rider”
"As a brief aside, we share the following: When the copy editor set us searching for a source for this poem fragment, we were at first dismayed and then amazed at what we [Sheldon and Barbara] uncovered. Sheldon said, “Where to look? I have never heard of this poem, nor of any reference to it. This just came from Lorraine, and I wrote it down.”
After I [Barbara] spent a couple of hours looking for the proverbial needle in that haystack we call the World Wide Web of information now stored in cyberspace, I did find the poem from which the lines are taken. I found By Thy Light I Live: The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt, selected and arranged by W.E. Henley and George Wyndham. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1898, and printed by Ballantyne, Hanson& Co. of London and Edinburgh. The lines are found on page 273, taken from the last stanza of “The Camel Rider.” Looking further, I discovered that Wilfrid S. Blunt was born in 1840 and died in 1922. All this certainly leaves me with some deep thoughts about the memory bank in the Akashic Field.
It is not only remarkable that Sheldon was able to record this from Lorraine’s transmission, but also that I was able to locate the source. This book is digitized by Google from its resting place in the Library of the University of Michigan. I found the Google commentary rather lovely and poetic in itself, and worthy of reproduction here:
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world’s books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary from country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations, and other marginal”ia present in the original volume will appear in this file—a reminder of this book’s long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. –Google
“Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.” I think we should be thankful to Google, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Posted by Boie at 10:04 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Reflections in the Pond
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUS422108559020090706
“Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.” I think we should be thankful to Google and Eric Schmidt, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.
Upon reading the above article "Google's Dark Day"...I just want to say that I appreciate what Google is doing with rare books. I actually see this effort as a way of making accessible the "akashic" if you will. Here is a story which illustrates what I mean, and how Google can work for us.
This story is from our recent work with "The Western Book of Crossing Over...." ...I will quote from pages 82-83 …Lorraine has transmitted from the other side the following fragment of a poem. Sheldon has written it down exactly as it was given to him and included it in his writing of the book. The fragment:
For see, there nothing is in all the world
But only love worth any strife or song or tear.
Ask me not then to sing or fashion songs
Other than this, my song of love to thee.
--From the Arabic, “The Camel Rider”
"As a brief aside, we share the following: When the copy editor set us searching for a source for this poem fragment, we were at first dismayed and then amazed at what we [Sheldon and Barbara] uncovered. Sheldon said, “Where to look? I have never heard of this poem, nor of any reference to it. This just came from Lorraine, and I wrote it down.”
After I [Barbara] spent a couple of hours looking for the proverbial needle in that haystack we call the World Wide Web of information now stored in cyberspace, I did find the poem from which the lines are taken. I found By Thy Light I Live: The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt, selected and arranged by W.E. Henley and George Wyndham. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1898, and printed by Ballantyne, Hanson& Co. of London and Edinburgh. The lines are found on page 273, taken from the last stanza of “The Camel Rider.” Looking further, I discovered that Wilfrid S. Blunt was born in 1840 and died in 1922. All this certainly leaves me with some deep thoughts about the memory bank in the Akashic Field.
It is not only remarkable that Sheldon was able to record this from Lorraine’s transmission, but also that I was able to locate the source. This book is digitized by Google from its resting place in the Library of the University of Michigan. I found the Google commentary rather lovely and poetic in itself, and worthy of reproduction here:
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world’s books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary from country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations, and other marginal”ia present in the original volume will appear in this file—a reminder of this book’s long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. –Google
“Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.” I think we should be thankful to Google, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Posted by Boie at 10:04 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Reflections in the Pond
Friday, September 11, 2009
ICARUS REMEMBERED
ICARUS REMEMBERED
By Barbara Smith Stoff
It’s September 11th again, and I look at images of the memorial park with the benches, each one cantilevered over water. To me, those benches look like the wings of Icarus downed—ever so many wings reminding us of earthly flights suddenly cut short in the splintered morning of what started out as just another ordinary day.
I am reminded of Brueghel’s painting, "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" where only the white clad legs of Icarus can be seen sticking up from the water, if one looks closely. Those wings, crafted from imagination, inspiration and courage, have not served.
Auden's poem "Musee Des Beaux Arts," describes that painting...pointing out how the world turns away from disaster and private suffering and moves on. In another poem about that same painting, this one by Charles F. Madden, "The Fall of Icarus," we read “none has seen the silent fall of Icarus/ through the riotous wind and the shadows of the coming evening light/nor do they hear his sigh, both of pity and delight/of his remembered waxed and winged flight.”
Musee des Beaux Arts
W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
1940
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus
[Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Pieter Breughel c. 1558; Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73.5 x 112 cm; Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels]
As I gaze now across the landscape of benches, it is comforting to see those ethereal feathers of hope made concrete, anchored in earth, yet hovering as if in flight over the waters…the soul flies on, but leaves a reminder for us.
And we have not turned away. We remember in public the private sufferings. With these wings we remember and we may pray, as individuals, for our collective humanity to continue. We may pray as with James Joyce, as he stands on the shore contemplating his own flight over the waters toward maturity:
"Amen. So be it. Welcome, O Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race…..Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."
Each of us privately forges some contribution to all life. Perhaps in those concrete wings, something of the essence of each departed soul has been distilled and offers back, for all to see, a symbol of hope for humankind--a more benevolent evolution.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
By Barbara Smith Stoff
It’s September 11th again, and I look at images of the memorial park with the benches, each one cantilevered over water. To me, those benches look like the wings of Icarus downed—ever so many wings reminding us of earthly flights suddenly cut short in the splintered morning of what started out as just another ordinary day.
I am reminded of Brueghel’s painting, "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" where only the white clad legs of Icarus can be seen sticking up from the water, if one looks closely. Those wings, crafted from imagination, inspiration and courage, have not served.
Auden's poem "Musee Des Beaux Arts," describes that painting...pointing out how the world turns away from disaster and private suffering and moves on. In another poem about that same painting, this one by Charles F. Madden, "The Fall of Icarus," we read “none has seen the silent fall of Icarus/ through the riotous wind and the shadows of the coming evening light/nor do they hear his sigh, both of pity and delight/of his remembered waxed and winged flight.”
Musee des Beaux Arts
W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
1940
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus
[Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Pieter Breughel c. 1558; Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73.5 x 112 cm; Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels]
As I gaze now across the landscape of benches, it is comforting to see those ethereal feathers of hope made concrete, anchored in earth, yet hovering as if in flight over the waters…the soul flies on, but leaves a reminder for us.
And we have not turned away. We remember in public the private sufferings. With these wings we remember and we may pray, as individuals, for our collective humanity to continue. We may pray as with James Joyce, as he stands on the shore contemplating his own flight over the waters toward maturity:
"Amen. So be it. Welcome, O Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race…..Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."
Each of us privately forges some contribution to all life. Perhaps in those concrete wings, something of the essence of each departed soul has been distilled and offers back, for all to see, a symbol of hope for humankind--a more benevolent evolution.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Friday, September 4, 2009
COMMUNITY AT THE TOWN HALL MEETING
By Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff
We have attended a “town hall” meeting. It was a long evening. There was much noise and emotion, seemingly no understanding, and little reasoning. Positions seemed to have been firmly taken even before anyone had spoken. We had innocently thought that there would be an honorable presentation of thoughts and facts and that this meeting would offer an opportunity for deeper understanding of the healthcare reform issues. This was not to be. If only for our own self-therapy, we are writing about our thoughts about this experience, while still recovering from a kind of sick feeling.
There were three wonderful speakers...don't know who they were. One was a man who stood up to share with us the reading he had been doing of the actual bill. The crowd laughed at him, and the congressman interrupted him to call for a sudden expression of yays and nays from the entire assembly. Exactly what they were yaying and naying about, I was not sure. Once the shouting subsided, the man was allowed to continue. At this point I began to feel some anger that this man, who had attempted to do his homework and become informed, was laughed at and basically prevented from speaking. Another was a man who brought a five year old girl with him "to see how democracy works"...He spoke of our need to learn to care for each other. And then there was a woman who spoke movingly of her feelings in response to the irrational fear and selfishness stirring in the crowd. Other than that...the atmosphere was just plain toxic and irrational. We have tried to write something of value to counterbalance...a feather in the wind.
The Republican congressman who had called for this town hall meeting presented his position, but did not present “the other side of the argument” for rebuttal or even discussion. There were posters, signs and slogans, and even loud cat-calls by some attendees. Those supporting President Obama were in the minority, and seemed more reasonable in their behavior. Those siding with the congressman seemed absolutely sure of themselves, and their opinions and were very passionate in their spontaneous vocalizing. Very few seemed to take notice of the realities, or points of view, of the others. There was no meeting of minds, no reconciliation, no understanding—just a hardening of positions. It was an experience in futility.
That night both of us had a very restless sleep. Even our dreams seemed to be invaded by all those wildly gyrating placards… “What would Jesus do?” … “No socialized medicine.” …”Healthcare is a right.”… “Don’t take away my freedom!” Often, in our meditations, as we ask for clarity, our inner guidance somehow offers an answer. This morning, after some time, it came:
“You are responsible to your brothers and sisters. Let that responsibility guide you on this path.”
So, for us, this is the answer. This is a moral responsibility, a mutual and communal responsibility. We need to join quietly together, as a nation, to forge a new path toward Healthcare Reform. It must meet the test of responsibility to our brothers and sisters. We emphasize responsibility to…Responsibility includes responsiveness to our brothers and sisters. There is a difference between responsibility for and responsibility to. There is a difference between giving the man the proverbial fish and the proverbial teaching him how to fish.
It seems that the direction of the looked-for solution to the problem is guided by the basic assumption about the nature of our human society. One thought, or assumption, is that it’s everyone for himself or herself. Another thought, or assumption, is that it’s “we’re all in this together.” Both assessments say something about the basic belief about what is possible for humankind, and whether we as individual participants have some say in the direction humankind takes for the future. Together, let us create a more benevolent path.
SUGGESTED READING:
Robert Reich's blog on the subject of these 'discussions'....
www.robertreich.blogspot.com
Wendell Potter | Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover
http://www.truthout.org/090109T?n
Wendell Potter, Common Dreams: "I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today."
Editor’s Note: Now he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the newly released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Community: Listen to the Gathering Voices. Barbara Smith Stoff, teacher, painter and poet, Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During in his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, is producer of Emmy Award winning “Poems of Wonder and Magic.”
We have attended a “town hall” meeting. It was a long evening. There was much noise and emotion, seemingly no understanding, and little reasoning. Positions seemed to have been firmly taken even before anyone had spoken. We had innocently thought that there would be an honorable presentation of thoughts and facts and that this meeting would offer an opportunity for deeper understanding of the healthcare reform issues. This was not to be. If only for our own self-therapy, we are writing about our thoughts about this experience, while still recovering from a kind of sick feeling.
There were three wonderful speakers...don't know who they were. One was a man who stood up to share with us the reading he had been doing of the actual bill. The crowd laughed at him, and the congressman interrupted him to call for a sudden expression of yays and nays from the entire assembly. Exactly what they were yaying and naying about, I was not sure. Once the shouting subsided, the man was allowed to continue. At this point I began to feel some anger that this man, who had attempted to do his homework and become informed, was laughed at and basically prevented from speaking. Another was a man who brought a five year old girl with him "to see how democracy works"...He spoke of our need to learn to care for each other. And then there was a woman who spoke movingly of her feelings in response to the irrational fear and selfishness stirring in the crowd. Other than that...the atmosphere was just plain toxic and irrational. We have tried to write something of value to counterbalance...a feather in the wind.
The Republican congressman who had called for this town hall meeting presented his position, but did not present “the other side of the argument” for rebuttal or even discussion. There were posters, signs and slogans, and even loud cat-calls by some attendees. Those supporting President Obama were in the minority, and seemed more reasonable in their behavior. Those siding with the congressman seemed absolutely sure of themselves, and their opinions and were very passionate in their spontaneous vocalizing. Very few seemed to take notice of the realities, or points of view, of the others. There was no meeting of minds, no reconciliation, no understanding—just a hardening of positions. It was an experience in futility.
That night both of us had a very restless sleep. Even our dreams seemed to be invaded by all those wildly gyrating placards… “What would Jesus do?” … “No socialized medicine.” …”Healthcare is a right.”… “Don’t take away my freedom!” Often, in our meditations, as we ask for clarity, our inner guidance somehow offers an answer. This morning, after some time, it came:
“You are responsible to your brothers and sisters. Let that responsibility guide you on this path.”
So, for us, this is the answer. This is a moral responsibility, a mutual and communal responsibility. We need to join quietly together, as a nation, to forge a new path toward Healthcare Reform. It must meet the test of responsibility to our brothers and sisters. We emphasize responsibility to…Responsibility includes responsiveness to our brothers and sisters. There is a difference between responsibility for and responsibility to. There is a difference between giving the man the proverbial fish and the proverbial teaching him how to fish.
It seems that the direction of the looked-for solution to the problem is guided by the basic assumption about the nature of our human society. One thought, or assumption, is that it’s everyone for himself or herself. Another thought, or assumption, is that it’s “we’re all in this together.” Both assessments say something about the basic belief about what is possible for humankind, and whether we as individual participants have some say in the direction humankind takes for the future. Together, let us create a more benevolent path.
SUGGESTED READING:
Robert Reich's blog on the subject of these 'discussions'....
www.robertreich.blogspot.com
Wendell Potter | Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover
http://www.truthout.org/090109T?n
Wendell Potter, Common Dreams: "I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today."
Editor’s Note: Now he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the newly released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Community: Listen to the Gathering Voices. Barbara Smith Stoff, teacher, painter and poet, Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During in his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, is producer of Emmy Award winning “Poems of Wonder and Magic.”
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