V'achalta - Grateful Satedness

 Teapot no. 557 ~ Grateful satedness

 V’achalta, v’sa-va ta oo’vay-rach-ta

A Blessing After the Meal 

by Hannah Tiferet

"We ate when we were hungry and now we're satisfied.

We thank the Source of Blessing for all that S/He provides.

V'achalta v'sa-va-ta oo-vay-rach ta....

Hunger is a yearning in body and soul.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit make us whole.

V'achalta v'sa-va-ta oo-vay-rach ta....

Giving and receiving we open up our hands.

From Seedtime through Harvest we're partners with the land.

V'achalta v'sa-va-ta oo-vay-rach ta....

We share in a vision of wholeness and release

Where every child is nourished and we all live in peace.

V'achalta v'sa-va-ta oo-vay-rach ta.... "

* * *
 
A joyous way of acknowledging the food that we eat by saying Birkat HaMazon, the Blessing After Meals.

The Bodhisattva Path

May I be the doctor and the medicine,
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger,
And during the eon of famine
May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute.
May I turn into all things they could need,
And may these be placed close beside them.

Without any sense of loss or attachment,
I shall give up my body and enjoyments
As well as all my virtues of the three times
For the sake of benefiting all.

By giving up all, sorrow is transcended,
And my mind will realize the sorrowless state.
It is best that I now give everything to all beings
In the same way as I shall at death.

May I be a protector for those without one,
A guide for all travelers on the way.
May I be a bridge, a boat, a ship
For all who wish to cross the water.

May I be an island for those who seek refuge
And a lamp for those desiring light.
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,
Powerful mantras and great medicine.
May I become a wish-fulfilling tree
And a cow of plenty for the world.

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always support life
Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain,
May I always be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the ends of space.

~ Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 

The Invitation

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me

what you do for a living.

I want to know

what you ache for

and if you dare to dream

of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me

how old you are.

I want to know

if you will risk

looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me

what planets are

squaring your moon...

I want to know

if you have touched

the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened

by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know

if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know

if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations

of being human.

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear

the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know

if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me

who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me

where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know

what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know

if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like

the company you keep

in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,

from the book The Invitation

published by HarperONE, San Francisco,

1999

My favorite day

“What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.”

Thank you, Shirley...

 Seal heads are dark corks
dozens bobbing above the golden mirror
of the sea, reflecting me too
in their calm unworried eyes

As sky deepens to indigo, then purple,
bodies and drift wood merge into black silhouettes.
Star-silvered waves leave their footprints
and talk to me in quiet hisses
i listen. i listen.
"We are sisters of the sea" they say

~ Shirley Tudor

*  *  *
[written sometime in 2003]

They sing and dance

Listening to the letters

We need space, they say.
That's why we do not touch.

....Alef-Bet-Gimmel-Hay....

We need to be close enough --
To whisper in your heart

All day.

As you breathe, we breathe
in the white spaces
Where all color forms.

~ Nicole Raisin Stern

The Seven of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,

if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,

if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:

reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.

This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

~ Marge Piercy ~

from the Universe this morning

"The top 10 things dead people want to tell 
living people, Nicole, are:

1. They're not dead.
2. They're sorry for any pain they caused.
3. There's no such thing as a devil or hell.
4. They were ready to go when they went.
5. You're not ready.
6. They finally understand what they were missing.
7. Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of the moment you arrive.
8. Don't try to understand this now, but life is exceedingly fair.
9. Your pets are as crazy, brilliant and loving, here, as they were there.
10. Life really is all about love, but not just loving those who love you...

In their own words,
    The Universe

 They also wanted you to know that they really do show up as orbs in some of your photos, Nicole, but so does water. Quite a talkative bunch."

A Lotus for You, Sea Turtle

Thank you, Shirley, for teaching me this song and for singing it with me. What a precious gift to have sung it with you.

*
Whenever I wake up
I feel happy,
aware of my eyes
I feel happy,
aware of my health
I feel happy,
because I have learned to look deeply.
whenever I walk 
I feel happy
whenever I sit
I feel happy,
whenever I rest 
I feel happy,
because I have learned to look deeply.


~words by Thich Nhat Hanh





from ~ A basket full of plums: Songs for the practice of mindfulness
*

 Shirley finishing up one of her sketches at Morgan's where we stopped to have tea and hot cocoa during our "Sketch Crawl" day in Monterey, December, 2005.

From my flickr journal, January, 2006: "My friend, Shirley, and I went to Pho King in Seaside last night for dinner. While we were waiting for our pho to arrive, I took out my ball point pen and began doing a contour drawing on the white paper placemat. I see white paper, I draw. At home, I colored it in with my colored pencils. The arc marks on her face are from my pho bowl."

 Shirley on the steps of the Osio Theatre on Alvarado St. in Monterey showing off our 2nd sketches of the day of a "Sketch Crawl", December 2005.

 Shirley, the ever-curious nature lover, botanist, with a fallen giant saguaro at Saguaro National Monument in Tucson on her trip to visit us (me, dog Yuki and cat Jesse) in Tucson, December, 2002.

L-R: Anna, Nicole, and Shirley in front of the President's Office at Monterey Institute of International Studies. Spring, 2005

*

Shirley and I met at a six-day Thich Nhat Hanh Meditation retreat in August of 2002. We were roommates at the retreat, and dharma sisters.

*

Shirley Tudor

September 1, 1962 ~ December 10, 2011

Hey there!

Teapot no. 56 (556) of my 6th Set of "100 Teapots"

Beautiful soft rainy day today

We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat. ... There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is. 

 

Brother David Steindl-Rast

 

(from today's Word for the Day, December 12, 2011: Gratefulness.org)

 

* * * 

And as Thầy (Thich Nhat Hanh) always reminds us, let's be grateful for our non-toothache.

Contemplating Community

Building Your Bond Community

From Lynn McTaggart 

(http://www.lynnemctaggart.com/blog/154-raise-a-barn-and-reclaim-your-life): 

A task of the week to rebuild your own community

Group goals

• Begin with a model of community unity—a society in which all members are working toward collective and unified good. Once you truly understand that you are all one, the decisions you have to make must always be for the good of all, and not simply for the people in charge, or those you like, or even those who think the way that you do.

• Try to frame every decision in terms of its impact on your community and environment as a whole. If someone wishes to clean up something in the community, will it beautify the community as a whole? Does your work enhance or detract from your community? Are you educating your children to ‘give back’ or just ‘take’?

• Create a list of each your group’s ‘Resources’ and ‘Needs.’  What talents, supplies or general resources do each of you have available to the community?  What specific needs do you believe your neighborhood or the community has? Can you see which talents and resources could prove most useful?

• Invite different groups — doctors, members of your local police force, educators — to visit your group. Explore with them ideas of reinforcing the Bond.

• Apportion a certain number of hours per week with your group toward working on improving your community. Volunteer to work in your local school, or visit other companies based in your community, exploring these ideas and how organizations can adopt them.

• Study yourself and your true needs and invite your group members to do the same. How much do you really need? How many new gadgets, how many new cars? What else can you do with your money?

• Vow as a group to avoid individual ostentation.  Take a leaf from the success of Roseto, which had one of the lowest heart attack rates in America.  Such was the sense of solidarity that ostentation was strictly discouraged and jealousy consequently minimized. Although rich and poor lived together, side by side, the rich did not flaunt it.  Roseto was flushed with a clear sense of common purpose.

• Also vow to avoid competition with people in your community (unless on the sports field or bowling alley). Does it really matter if someone makes more money than you do? Chances are, they still face similar challenges to you. Also refuse to engage in schadenfreude—taking delight in someone else’s misfortune—and replace it with the Buddhist idea of mudita, or happiness in someone’s good fortune.

Peace Is the Way

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way" ~ A. J. Muste

Toasting those dancing plants and pets

If It Is Not Too Dark

Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.

Get some fresh air, try to smile.

Say something kind

To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.

Always exercise your heart's knowing.

You might as well attempt something real

Along this path:

Take your spouse or lover into your arms

The way you did when you first met.

Let tenderness pour from your eyes

The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.

Play a game with some children.

Extend yourself to a friend.

Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants --

Why not let them get drunk and wild!

Let's toast

Every rung we've climbed on Evolution's ladder.

Whisper, "I love you! I love you!"

To the whole mad world.

Let's stop reading about God--

We will never understand Him.

Jump to your feet, wave your fists,

Threaten and warn the whole Universe

That your heart can no longer live

Without real love!

~ Hafiz

(I Heard God Laughing: Poems Of Hope And Joy

Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Sukkah life

 I have copied and posted the following article from Union for Reform Judaism for my reference/archive for future writing and artwork that I will do. I have much first-hand experience in living within a sukkah and with great faith and trust that I am always Divinely supported. We all are.

"During the days of Sukkot, tabernacles, our tradition calls us to leave the security and comfort of our homes and to live in transitional and fragile huts in memory of the journey of the Israelites through the Sinai desert on their way to the Promised Land. The sukkah is an intriguing symbol of faith; as we sit in the sukkah, with only leaves for a roof, exposed to the wind, the rain and the cold, we become aware of our fragility in the face of the forces of nature and our dependence on it."

* * *

The Sukkah: An Intriguing symbol of Faith
By Yehudit Werchow
 Discuss on Our Blog

“You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens of Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I the Lord your God”. (Leviticus 23:42-43)

During the days of Sukkot, tabernacles, our tradition calls us to leave the security and comfort of our homes and to live in transitional and fragile huts in memory of the journey of the Israelites through the Sinai desert on their way to the Promised Land.

The sukkah is an intriguing symbol of faith; as we sit in the sukkah, with only leaves for a roof, exposed to the wind, the rain and the cold, we become aware of our fragility in the face of the forces of nature and our dependence on it. Sukkot also symbolizes the moment in the agricultural year cycle when we celebrate and enjoy the fruits of our summer’s hard labor. Enjoying the fruits of our hard labor is a gratifying experience. Our society today is not primarily agricultural but we can still relate to these ideas metaphorically and drew some relevant insights for our times. This fascinating juxtaposition between feeling empowered and vulnerable creates a healthy tension that protects us from vanity and teaches us a lesson in modesty. It can also teach us how to be good hosts. While guests are an important part of the Jewish home all year round, they are even more so during Sukkot. We are commanded to celebrate with the members of our community and especially with those who are more vulnerable and deprived. Once the comfort of sitting in the sukkah is challenged by the weather, hosts become aware of their own vulnerability and the differences between hosts and guests blur. These insights are subtle reminders that the ties that could unite us are stronger and richer that the conditions that differentiate us from each other. We should cherish this message by creating together opportunities for genuine encounters. One of the rituals of Sukkot that originated from the Zohar is to host in our sukkah the ushpizin. The ushpizin (“guests”) are seven symbolic guests who come to visit us in the sukkah, one for each of the seven days of the festival: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and King David. These symbolic guests enrich our sukkah with the presence of the Jewish tradition. The presence of the symbolic and human guests in our sukkah is a vivid testament to the power of the human spirit to survive - even thrive - in the midst of uncertainty. When the Israelites traveled in the desert God protected them and “made the Israelite people live in booth”. With every gust that we welcome in our sukkah we reenact this episode thus fulfilling our Jewish calling.

“A Jewish man remembers the Sukkah in his grandfather's home.
And the Sukkah remembers for him
The wandering in the desert that remembers
The grace of youth and the Tablets of the Ten Commandments
And the gold of the Golden Calf and the thirst and the hunger
That remember Egypt.”

(“The Jews” by Yehuda Amicahi)

Sukkot is also a reminder of the journey of the Israelites through the Sinai desert on their way to the Promised Land. The sukkah is a transitional home, and as such it reminds us of our journey, its experiences, its challenges and its accomplishment, and above all its destination. How present is Israel in our experience during Sukkot?

The journey to Israel has been a spiral journey for many Jews; and with every visit we deepen our connection to Israel and its people. Like the Israelites during their journey, we experience moments of strong connection to and yearning for Israel and at times we have doubts and feel perplexed. But we know that we should always be on this journey to Israel. As Yehuda Amichai reminds us in his poem, Sukkot is also a moment of revisiting our history as individuals, allowing the history of our family to resonate with us. Through these memories and experiences, we strengthen the connections between the People of Israel, God and Israel.

Yehudit Werchow is the Central Shlicha of the Union for Reform Judaism and a student in the Israel Rabbinic Program of Hebrew Union College.

Wonderful and full of wonder

More views of Amitabha Stupa in Sedona as seen by my eyes-heart-mind. It's a fragrant location with the scent of juniper and pine, warm desert air, and the embrace of the red rocks. There are prickly pear and yellow mesquite beans, too!

Amitabha Stupa

Two new paintings of expansion and light:

I enjoyed painting these at the beautiful site of the Amitabha Stupa in Sedona.

Little yellow flowers

I enjoy taking the time to look at flowers. Looking deeply requires stopping and slowing down. When I slow down, I can enjoy anything from a still place in my heart and my heart opens up to the world all around me. Most of all, stopping and slowing down allows me to be in touch with the most essential 'form' of my/our being: Breath. Breath gives me/us life.

As I bicycled back from the Grand Canyon, I was wanting to stay very present, very aware, very safe as I rode. So, to help me stay focused and present, I sang these words: "stay with your heart". The words arose in me and I played with the sounds until it felt right. At first I said, "stay with THE heart", but it felt a little off. When I substituted "YOUR" for "the", it felt perfect.

* The photo is of little yellow flowers at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

Tree of Life

I took a lot of photos at the Grand Canyon and this is one of my favorites. I like the shimmer and shine of this pine and it is near where I met Tasha, a sweet American Eskimo-Border Collie dog, and her lovely human, Annie. I was walking along the rim trail looking for just the right spot to spread Yuki's remaining ashes. I had him in a little baggy in my shorts pocket. Now he's part of the vast Canyon. Very thankful for the presence of Tasha and Annie for the kisses and petting I was able to give Tasha and the wide open understanding smile and conversation that Annie gifted me when I burst into tears upon seeing Tasha. Tasha is a blend of American Eskimo and Border Collie. She looks a lot like Yuki, who was an American Eskimo dog. They both looked easily and deeply into my eyes, and me theirs.