Poems Like Warm Wine

Many people are like me--we have some very good friends who we've never met in person. Something happens and the conventionally abnormal distancing that the Internet can instill is warmed way up and a true friendship blossoms.

This is what happened with Anna...

I'm a poet and she's a poet. She's young and I'm old. We're both religious (in "different" Faiths). And, we're both "weird"...

Not so long ago, I was blessed by technology. There, in my e-mail, was a link to an audio file of Anna Saying one of her poems!

I get nice chills just remembering the sound of her voice mingling with the meaning of the words...

So, prepare to be positively Enchanted...

Turn up your volume and relax into the magic of Anna's poetry...

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dusting for prints

Here's a link to Anna's blog...

Blogger Interview One with Nneka

I met this woman through my use of GoogleReader (it collects feeds from news sites, blogs, etc.). I immediately sensed a sincerity about her spiritual commitment so I posted a few comments to her blog. After the second or third comment, she asked me if I'd do a GuestPost (which was an honor...). Then, I asked her for an e-mail interview. But, before that brief exchange, here's some info about her from her site:

" Hi, I’m Nneka (pronounced en-nay-kah), the daughter of a musician and a closet fashionista. That’s me singing. I was born and raised in the southern-most island in the Caribbean, Trinidad. At 8, I was taught to meditate and I’ve been experimenting with it since (present commitment to daily meditation). I was exposed and acculturalized to diverse creeds and cultures.

"I’m passionate about expressing Spirit in my life and helping you do the same. For me, right now, that means writing about spirituality and how to apply it to life on Balanced Life Center. For you it may mean composing a symphony, being a conscious entrepreneur, a magnetic salesperson, or a patient, loving stay-at-home mom....

"I believe that God is everywhere present all the time. I write this here because a lot of the ideas that are discussed here will come from that premise. When I speak of God, I speak of the Spirit/Consciousness, the essence of all that is. It courses through our lives, our being, our world. It abides everywhere.

"I believe that within everyone lies their Divinity. Since God is everywhere present, He must be within each and everyone of us. Whether or not we choose to act out of that Divinity is up to us. Whether we are aware of it or not is a matter of our consciousness. Part of my purpose is to help everyone discover this Divinity within themselves and to help them uniquely express it."

The Interview (short and sweet):

Alex: Nneka, what led you to your current Internet activities?

Nneka: My husband started an online business in 2002. In 2003 when I wanted to start writing, he suggested I start a blog. I had no idea what a blog was at the time, or what a content management site was about. I was used to old school html. Anyway, I got the domain for Balanced Life Center and intended to start an online magazine about building a balanced life. That lasted for about 4 months before I got involved in the business side of his business. I ended up having to learn a lot about online marketing, pay per click, search engine optimization, and this new thing about building community around a business online.

I left the business in early 2006 to re-focus on what I consider my purpose. I resurrected Balanced Life Center, and here we are.

Alex: Is the Balanced Life Center Site a "shell" surrounding your blog or is the blog the "heart" of the Site or neither?

Nneka: At this moment, Balanced Life Center - the blog, is the heart of the site.

Alex: Are you able to sum up your "Sense of Spirituality" in 25 words or less? How about 10 words or less?

Nneka: In 10 words or less: God is All there is.

By that I mean that God is the essence of all things seen and unseen and that we are expressions of God. We may witness God to varying degrees and see "illness" in the world because of how much of our Divinity we allow to express through us and as us.

Alex: What might you say to the oft expressed "issue" where "Spirituality" and "Religion" are discussed, sometimes as antagonists, sometimes as parts of a whole?

Nneka: I think that religion is your chosen path to know the God of your being or the way that you choose to experience and express God. Most religions come with a set customs and rules that help frame the moral and social code of a community. It also sets up a framework to learn about spirituality from a given perspective.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is about your relationship with the Divine and your experience of it. Religion can help you find what works for you, but only you will know what that is.

Alex: What would be your "best advice" for healing the Illnesses of our World? (If you need to "define" those Illnesses first, please, go right ahead.)

Nneka: "Physician heal thyself."

We cannot heal the world until we heal ourselves. Then we can take up the yoke to heal our families, our schools, our churches, our communities, and the world. Ironically, we will find that once we heal ourselves, the world around us will take on a different hue. Much of the heavy lifting that we do to "make" things happen in our world today either won't be needed or will be done with different intentions.

Dangerous Blogging

{ image credit }

Blogging can be dangerous ( Check out two and three posts before this one...) .

Just this morning, on the way to a religious party with my best friend, the topic of blogging and controversy came up--the tact necessary, especially when one steps into the arena of Spiritual Commentary On Current Events...

The other day, as I responded to a discussion post on a spiritually-oriented site (mentioning my Faith), I was met with extreme prejudice--"How in the world can you believe that?!" I responded with as much tact and gentleness as I could muster and will lay low for a bit in that particular discussion thread...

I want to mention our B.I.D.E. Global Blog Feed again (down the sidebar on the left).
I found the meat for this post there: Free Kareem: Egyptian Bloggers Speak Out.

A blogger being jailed (if the appeal doesn't work) for speaking his mind. . .

Here's a snippet of a very interesting blog post:

"Once again a religious institution is confusing itself with God: instead of seeing that they are part of the problem, they interpret any criticism of the institution as criticism of Allah, whereas Karim only did what Allah has told every Muslim to do: [Qur'an 4:135]: “O you who believe! be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness of Allah’s sake, though it may be against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives; if he be rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow (your) low desires, lest you deviate; and if you swerve or turn aside, then surely Allah is aware of what you do.”

Reprise

Tomorrow's my guest post on the Balanced Life Center's Blog. The title will be The Great Spirit and the content's about my personal experiences with Native American Spirituality.

Even though I was raised by two Christian ministers (Mom and Dad), my Indian experiences were much more "spiritual" then what our family did...

Now that I'm in my 60's I can see the value in all Spiritual Traditions.

~~~~~~~~~

Since I wrote that guest post for Balanced Life Center, I've begun reading Black Elk Speaks
--had to; couldn't help it even though I had other, more "important" things to read...

So, here I am in a rather contemplative mood--a Caucasian with a love for Indians, a blogger who's actually a poet, a man who has his feminine side well-honed, a Baha'i who loves all religions, an American who's striving to be a Global Citizen...

And that Global Perspective brings me back to a focus in this blog's recent past:

Please check out the post, Be The Change.... It's only a couple days old but, in the Blogosphere, that's ancient.

I really want to shift from the Personal Commentaries to a more Global Perspective but I'd really rather have some of You steer me in the direction of the stories or topics or issues You'd like Spiritual Commentary on...

Blogospheric Response To Egypt's Action

Amazing speed of supportive action for the blogger arrested by the Egyptian Government!

He's being nominated for the 2007 Index Awards Ceremony.

Plus, the folks who created FreeKareem.org had this to say:

"This campaign is our way of fighting to further the cause of brave people who continue to practice their right to freedom of expression even when such rights are not recognized.

"Kareem is a writer who always found the courage within him to keep speaking his mind freely in the name of not only freedom of speech, but the freedom to think in an otherwise sheltered society. Because of that, he was interrogated and arrested this morning, but apparently not for the first time. We stand by and fully support Kareem through these difficult times and will continue working on this campaign until he is freed."

They also created a Forum to discuss his case.

Independent Investigation of Truth is sorely lacking in our world-at-large. Without this important principle in place, censorship and blind imitation of the past can unleash rank oppression:

"One of the main sources of conflict in the world today is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow various traditions, movements, and opinions. God has given each human being a mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood. If individuals fail to use their reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human beings. Moreover, when people act in this way, they often become attached to some particular opinion or tradition and thus intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments can, in turn, lead to conflict. History has witnessed conflict and even bloodshed over slight alterations in religious practice, or a minor change in the interpretation of doctrine. Personal search for truth enables the individual to know why he or she adheres to a given ideology or doctrine."

Bahá'í International Community

The Truth Shall Set You Free..

Dave Lucas published "Egyptian Blogger Sentenced to Prison" today.

I haven't checked out the facts to assertain the guilt or innocence of the blogger in question, but the posting made me remember a link off the site I've recommended here a few times, GlobalVoices ( Dave likes it, too!) .

The link takes you to a "Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents" which helps those under governmental oppression get their words out to the world.

After this foray into the story's context, I went to GlobalVoices itself and found Much More Coverage...

This in turn reminded me of the oppression of a religious group in Egypt. Here's that story...

"Be The Change..."

"Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace, to be real, must be unaffected by outside circumstances."

Mohandas Gandhi

I'm sure you can see the connection between the quote from Gandhi and the picture of the children...

Three posts ago, our E-Mail Reporter, Sandy, had some provocative questions about "starving" children. Those kids over there sure aren't starving; at least not physically (and their spirits look pretty bright...)

The post just before this one concerned our Vision and how it shapes our action.

Here's Sandy once more with her take on that post:

Alex,
This, what you say here, is to me, an extremely important thing to be said!!! I think it's also one reason why Abdu'l-Baha exhorts us to BE HAPPY!! BE HAPPY!!! I mean, not to be of such good cheer and so giddy that all good sense goes out the window, but to be on a level of happiness, because of detachment from this material world, that our wings don't become helplessly and hopelessly stuck in the mess on the ground! God's guidance has always been here with us and always will be. The quote below that came in yesterday on quote-a-day says it perfectly, I think.
~ Sandy

"It behooveth him who is a wayfarer in the path of God and a wanderer in
His way to detach himself from all who are in the heavens and on the earth.
He must renounce all save God, that perchance the portals of mercy may be
unlocked before his face and the breezes of providence may waft over him.
And when he hath inscribed upon his soul that which We have vouchsafed unto
him of the quintessence of inner meaning and explanation, he will fathom all
the secrets of these allusions, and God shall bestow upon his heart a divine
tranquillity and cause him to be of them that are at peace with themselves."

Baha'u'llah, Gems of Divine Mysteries--Javahiru'l-Asrar, pp. 25-26, para 33

"...be of them that are at peace with themselves."

Starting with this post, I'm going to veer in the direction of Spiritual Commentary on Global Events; and, I certainly pray you'll help me out...

The posts recently have dealt with our personal spiritual perspective, which is crucial for any attainment in the global arena!

So...

I'll begin by pointing to GlobalVoices once again: the site that pulls together blogs from all over the world (sort of a global perspective on many individuals' spiritual quests). If you scroll down the sidebar aways, you'll see the B.I.D.E. Global Blog Feed. It's from GlobalVoices.

Next, I want to bring your attention to a global "news" site that stresses reporting on the areas of maximum activity that aim at making our World a better place to live on: getting it back to a self-sustaining state (which includes a whole lot of inner spiritual strength...). The site is called OneWorld. This site is extremely dense with ripe information!

Yes! Magazine is the publication of Positive Futures Network: "an independent, nonprofit organization supporting people’s active engagement in creating a just, sustainable, and compassionate world." Here we have the awareness of personal tools we need in our global striving.

Next is OneCountry, a publication that stresses the deeper spiritual weapons we need to Wage Peace!

Finally, I present WorldPress.Org, the most "HardNews" site of the bunch. And, right here is where I need Your help...

Just below is a string of recent articles from WorldPress. I want to bring some Spiritual Commentary to one of those articles.

Will You Help?

Leave a comment (or, e-mail me: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com) with your pick, O.K.?

In the Spotlight

'Shia Democracy': Myth or Reality? (Part I) Shiism is another Islam, with its own identity and at least 200 million worldwide adherents. Perhaps the concept of "Shia democracy" holds a ray of hope for furthering democracy in the Muslim world. By Sreeram Chaulia.

Chile Surpasses One Million Broadband Connections Leading Latin America in Internet access and use, Chile also boasts the highest broadband penetration rate and is beginning to emerge as a regional leader in information technology. By Nathan Crooks.

Congo: Prisoners Endure Appalling Conditions As they dug a grave for one of their fellow inmates, detainees in Bunia Central Prison decided to use the occasion to protest against appalling conditions in the jail. From IRIN.

Paris Journal: Hype Happens Unlike hell, the Jeu de Paume contemporary art museum is not paved with good intentions. But it is hung with them at the moment. By Brent Gregston.

Congo: Rights Groups Call for Marie Therese Nlandu's Release Nlandu was arrested on Nov. 21, three weeks before President Kabila's inauguration, when she went to Kin-Maziere Police Station to visit and bring food to six of her associates. By Ambrose Musiyiwa.

NATO: Quo Vadis? Recently as part of the on going "war on terror," however, NATO has been active well beyond its traditional area of operations—in Afghanistan, the horn of Africa, and Lebanon. By Michael Werbowski.

Return of Somalia's Warlords The Islamic regime, which had progressively taken control of much of Somalia, was overthrown in December by an Ethiopian invasion force backed—financially and militarily—by the United States. From Green Left Weekly.

North Korea Offers to Halt Nuclear Program Senior North Korean negotiators have expressed Pyongyang's willingness to reach an agreement in return for economic and financial concessions. By Rich Bowden.

Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination

Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination

WASHINGTON, DC—"By constantly reminding kids that they're human children with no magical skills, you ensure that they will live a long life", said child-safety expert Kenneth McMillan.

Some penetrating, provocative "nonsense"...

How Do You Feel? >>> What Do You See?

I've been on a path of treatment for chronic depression for the last six months. This blog is a clear therapeutic aid for me.

To focus on what's Important, to clear my Vision, to reach out for Understanding and Share what I find...

God created us to Relate!

Some would, undoubtedly, say that the Internet isn't the place to do it. Actually, finding friends in cyberspace and maintaining those friendships is , to me, like what folks call "talking to angels".

All the normal cues for a physical relationship are removed. It's down to mostly words and the meaning they can carry. I'm certainly aware of all the techno-aids that are trying to mimic real-space interaction and the only one I use is provocative pictures--I'm not trying to cheat myself and pretend I'm in the same physical space when I'm not; I want to feel like I'm talking to Angels...

I chose that picture of roses because of my cyber-friend, Alexys Fairfield. I purposely defocused most of the picture to hint at something she wrote about the other day: Eyes In The Sky.

In that blog post, she said:

"I've always felt that there were eyes watching me. Eyes that need no invitation. Eyes that emanate warmth and kindness. Eyes that remind me of my past. Eyes that guide me to my future. Eyes that said nothing, but said it all. Eyes of resplendent glory and faith. Eyes of the invisible that became very clear.

"I do know that we are more susceptible to blind spots when we are overburdened. We can decrease our blind spots by becoming more aware of their existence. By becoming aware of "another set of eyes." They have always been there. Just ask your inner spirit to show you your blind spots. To define your vision. You may be surprised at what you find.

"When we do things that keep us from achieving the best we can achieve, we are blinded by the light. When there is a cohesion of our action and spirit, we are guided by the light.

"So on your journey to your ultimate self, don't forget to pack your extra set of eyes to help you through the murkiness. You are not alone. The eyes in the sky are upon you. Now and always."

Alexys always gives me a spark of Inspiration, a nudge toward clearer Vision.

I have another Friend, my most trustworthy human Angel, a man who spent 40 years in prison for His beliefs and left this physical realm in 1921. On the topic of Vision and what brings Joy or Pain He said:

“In this world we are influenced by two sentiments, Joy and Pain. Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. But when sadness visits us we become weak, our strength leaves us, our comprehension is dim and our intelligence veiled. The actualities of life seem to elude our grasp, the eyes of our spirits fail to discover the sacred mysteries, and we become even as dead beings. There is no human being untouched by these two influences; but all the sorrow and the grief that exist come from the world of matter--the spiritual world bestows only the joy! If we suffer it is the outcome of material things, and all the trials and troubles come from this world of illusion.”

~~~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, pp. 109-110