Category Archives: Spiritual

Doors Reopen

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 21, 2022- As I spoke to along-absent friend about taking some of the garden tools, I no longer need, off my hands, she said that her family wanted me to stop by, anytime. Coming from people who needed to have visitors make appointments, days in advance, this is huge. Being trusted is not something I have universally deserved, especially in the difficult years after Penny’s death; but in this case, there was no breach of trust. The family just needed time to observe me from a distance, and have decided to reopen the door of welcome.

Another person, who I love dearly, has asked me to stop by her shop more regularly. This is a soul who can do a lot to heal her community, so I will honour her wishes. Time spent with musicians and other healers, this evening, underscored that I am again welcome in that community.

I get the sense that none of this is possible, without selfless acts and dedication to serving others. The better part of this afternoon was spent bagging piles of pine needles and driving a truck around to pick up said bags. The crew of fifteen was diligent in the effort, and the area around buildings at Bellemont Baha’i School is much more fire wise than it was a few days ago. This is a process that is done every year at this time. The place will accommodate several groups of adolescents during the month of July, and my own involvement in that process will begin, almost as soon as the early summer journey comes to an end. That’s okay-it means my presence is valued.

It just goes to show that many seemingly closed doors are merely ajar.

The Hard Work of True Unity

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 19, 2022- I was raised to listen to legitimate criticism and to own my mistakes. I was taught that the only real path to peace, in a family or in a community, comes from the commitment of everyone involved to personal growth. My parents said that anyone can be unified with those who say nice things to him/her or who have common opinions and interests. It’s the differences of opinion, however, that teach us the most.

Throughout my life, there have been a smattering of nefarious people, but for the most part, those who have been a challenge have also had useful lessons to impart. Their takes on life was simply different from my own and actually have helped balance this life, often in ways I did not anticipate.

So, I see that there is little for conservatives to gain by shutting out progressives. The converse is also true. The fact is, none of us corners the market on perfection. We don’t deserve to be castigated or made to apologize for our existence nor do we deserve a free pass for actions that will only hold us back later. The same is true with mindsets. Looking at things through different lenses, as long as it does not result in overthinking, or mental paralysis, can help us make more complete decisions.

The other thing about unity is that it never gets very far along, if a decision-maker assumes that his/her way of thinking entitles unilateral action, from a place of privilege. Witness the recent, supposedly informed decision to close an infant formula plant in Michigan. This appears to have been made in haste, based on unverified reports of contamination-which subsequently proved unfounded. Such errors in judgement, especially by government agencies which have scant oversight, only feed concerns-and conspiracy theories, that government is running amok. This is a rough parallel to concerns about police actions that seem to have been done in haste-though it is a fair point that the police are often under far more pressure to decide quickly than are the overseers of public health.

True unity recognizes the dignity, the worth of every soul. It does not excuse wrongdoing, nor does it invite self-serving individuals to subvert the process of consultation for their own ends. Rather, it sees that each one who does make such misguided efforts actually ends up hurting selves as well as the rest of humanity.

So often, it is easy to be fooled by glitz, by sweet promises or by appeals to one’s own long-cherished beliefs. In reality, there is no substitute for rolling up one’s sleeves and getting the hard work done. We’re in this together, and for the long haul.

Adjustments

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 18, 2022- I arrived back at Home Base, early this afternoon, to a message that my semi-annual chiropractic evaluation is tomorrow afternoon. This pre-empts any errand of assistance to Phoenix, for at least a couple of weeks. Laying low tomorrow is actually a good thing, since a double charge at last night’s motel won’t be fixed for a few days-per bank protocol. Besides, my constant travel is raising a few eyebrows around here, as it does every so often.

There does seem to be a lot of spending, across the country, and in response, the financial markets are selling off as much as they can-partly to dissuade said spending, which I suppose is the markets’ way of cooling inflation. My own policy, with regard to money, is much like the one I have towards water: Use, minimally as possible, what is needed to achieve my purposes, and turn the spigot off, when I am in the scrubbing, or working, process. As long as the well is not totally dry, I’m good.

On another note, the three weeks ahead, as mentioned earlier, have a lot of cleaning, getting rid of stuff and generally pitching in with whatever service activities come up. One such involves helping with fire-wise clean-up, at our Baha’i camp, on Saturday. I am also keeping one eye on the fire and hurricane situation. Things are quiet now, but lulls tend to not last long. Time and money always ask for adjustments in their use.

The Soft Desert Landing

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 17, 2022, Indio- Time was, that I would bull my way on back to Prescott, in either heat or cold, from a visit along the southern California coast. While I could still have done that, this afternoon, staying the night in this Colorado Desert town that has become something of a resort , in the style of Palm Springs, seemed prudent. It does my heart good to see Indio do well. The Coachella Music Festival, and a subsequent makeover of the area, have helped along those lines. Indio is not pretentious or hipster-like, in its relative prosperity, and most of my overnight neighbours are campesinos, looking for field work or whatever they can find.

Still, the eastern California desert is a fine place to rest, before the final alley-oop to Prescott, tomorrow. The rest of the week, once I get back, is full of activity-and includes service in Phoenix and near Flagstaff, as well as online activity around Home Base.

It was a pleasant stay, last night and this morning, at House of Trestles, in San Clemente. I could easily stay there again, especially as there are few hostels that would abide my joining a Baha’i online gathering, sans earphones. Dana Point, where I met longtime friend, J, for lunch, is also an ever-welcoming place. I enjoyed a cup of “Killer Dana” coffee, at CJ Beans, in the town’s central business district, then J and I had a nice meal at Harpoon Henry’s , along the harbour. There are proposals to “expand’ the harbour, owing to a shortage of boat slips. This would probably result in some shops and restaurants being closed and any remaining establishments being “upscale”, so as to generate revenue that would pay for the harbour expansion. I hope that doesn’t happen. More is not often better, when it comes to adding to already considerable material wealth.

Besides, with the rapid sequence of events, that occur without respect to wealth or social status, (i.e. the Laguna Niguel house fires), I get a feeling that too swift a move into scaling up, in either size or level, may be a fool’s errand.

The First Nation and the People of the Future

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 15, 2022, San Diego- Today saw two focuses: First was a pair of meetings-one on the Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah, brief, but profound thoughts on spirituality and morality, which He intended to serve as instructions to those who were undertaking independent investigation of truth; the second, in mid-afternoon, was a presentation of two children’s books, each written about a powerful Black woman.

The people of the future will, perhaps after a fair amount of suffering and changes in society, recognize both intellectually AND emotionally, that mankind is one human race. That today’s presentation comes a day after a deluded young man drove two hundred miles, specifically to kill Black people (of whom eight were killed, along with two Whites, and three seriously wounded.), is no real coincidence. There is no real future for the philosophy of racial supremacy. The unity of the human race means that there will be no replacement of one group by another. Nor will there be a return to the oppression of one group by another.

After resting for a while, upon the conclusion of the second meeting, I made a return visit to Old Town San Diego. My focus this time was on the recognition of the area’s First Nation: Kumeyaay, formerly known as “Diegueno” and on the art of the Mexican people, prior to California’s passing into U. S. control. Here are some scenes of this visit.

Description of Kumeyaay view towards land.
Kumeyaay view of the San Diego River bed
Puppet display in Casa de Reyes, Old Town San Diego
Estudillo Museum
Descriptions of hornos and estufas
Fertility figure- Pepper Tree

The above scene honours the Pico Family, one of the San Diego area’s more prominent Mexican families of the early Nineteenth Century.

Below are two Mexican ollas, or water jugs, each with its own colours and designs.

Aztecan-influenced olla
Asian-influenced olla

I needed a change of pace for dinner, after enjoying a visit with friends at Harbor Breakfast, this morning and planning to return there again tomorrow. There was no better place than Cafe Gratitude, a vegan establishment, which titles its offerings with affirmations. Here is a description on the eatery’s window.

Cafe Gratitude, Little Italy, San Diego

It was a most wondrous day, starting with the bright faces of Melissa and Maria, at Harbor, continuing at San Diego Baha’i Center (the site of Penny’s and my wedding, nearly forty years ago), continuing with the delightful stories of achievement this afternoon, the vibrance of Old Town and the healthy fare of Cafe Gratitude.

Luck

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 13, 2022, Blythe- This morning, I joined a Baha’i study circle which is concerned with the thirteenth book, in a series published by Ruhi Insititute, a social-centric academy in Colombia. Since 1985, R.I. has published study books, in text and workbook form, focusing on topics from “The Life of the Spirit” to “Marriage and the Family”. This particular session, in which I am now involved, is studying the Baha’i approach to Social Action. As it happens, we began with Section 13 of this Book 13 ( Unit 1), on Friday the Thirteenth.

I will have more to say about the Baha’i approach to Social Action later. Suffice it to say, we take all points of view into account, distilling the most useful of ideas into programs that benefit everyone.

Cosmic advisor Elizabeth Peru notes that today is the only Friday the 13th of this calendar year. Some will breathe a sigh of relief, as a common superstition in medieval Europe, that 13 is an unlucky number, has carried over into contemporary life. There is still no 13th floor, in many public buildings. Friday the Thirteenth is often the stuff of anxiety, and even has its own horror movie series.

My day was quite one of good fortune. Besides the rich and informative study circle, a package I was expecting arrived right at Noon; packing for a brief trip to southern California took less time than expected; the smooth drive itself showed good gas mileage and I settled into a remodeled Relax Inn, my go-to stop in this desert town, on the Arizona border. My needs are fairly simple, and truth be known, Friday the 13th has never been unlucky, in my experience.

It’s a tough world, I know, and my work will continue, to ease as much pain as possible, for those who suffer. Removing superstitions from our lives is one way to help.

Stay With the Energy

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 12, 2022- Today was likely my last full day assignment for the 2021-22 Academic Year. A couple of half-days remain, the week after next, but with the year winding down, my focus shifts to Faith-based conferences, focusing on such themes as Building Vibrant Communities and Fostering Social Transformation; to making a commitment to cleaning out the remaining clutter in Home Base; to making my customary visits with friends and family and branching out to new areas.

The energy, which has been quite erratic, this Spring, is evening out just a bit. Though there are challenges each day, I feel more confident in meeting them, “in the moment”. Working with emotionally disabled special needs children can often feel like walking up a funicular, whilst carrying a sack of rocks, but it is one of those necessities in our society- at least as long as we struggle with the imperfect science of integrating the mentally ill into this mix.

Communication, never easy, is also subject to constant revision and repetition, as needs, moods and other conditions change, seemingly with the wind. Patience, forbearance and fortitude are certainly life-saving virtues! Still and all, this is a good life.

Transitions

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 9, 2022- The child kicked and screamed, at the moment that transport from school to home arrived. He had to be restrained, and carried bodily to the vehicle, all the while saying that school was his home now. The vehicle left, with him and his older sister in it, after the ten minute transition.

This raised more than a few red flags in my mind. Why would anyone, even a special needs child, so resist going home? There was one other occasion when a student refused to get on the bus, but that one looked at us, mischievously, and said “As long as I stay off the bus, YOU guys can’t leave, either!” His aunt came and got him, so it meant an extra thirty minutes of time on campus. This felt different, and will bear monitoring, when I go back there, later this week.

People tend to resist change, quite often. I have to wonder, though. What is so great about a particular situation, way of thinking or practice that ALL other possibilities are treated as “off the table”? I do have an understanding of inertia. To some extent, getting up in the morning requires a fair amount of resolve-especially during the months when it’s dark still, well into the morning. The understanding, that it’s not really good for my health to stay in bed too long, has helped-as well as the fact that I am in a warm home, and fairly comfortable.

Bigger changes, though, still have that aura of adventure, so I guess I am a bit of an outlier, in both enjoying routine activities while they run and being glad for even the most seismic of twists and turns as they happen. Maybe it’s a matter of seeing both as the means to personal growth.

Quartz and Titanium

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 7, 2022- The small peak was still 1.5 miles away, when we first saw it glistening, on this breezy late morning. I had been here, three times before, but this was my Hiking Buddy’s first such visit. Quartz Mountain is unique in this area, and is one of the off-track places I enjoy showing visitors and fairly new residents. It is a moderately difficult hike, though, up and down three ridges of the intervening Wolverton Mountain (not the place made famous by Claude King). There is then a spur trail, that winds around to the west and southwest. Then, we were close to this:

East ridge, Quartz Mountain

Discretion is always the better part of valour, though, and we headed back, for the sake of HB’s well-being. As I said, Wolverton’s ridges are butt kickers.

The evening was a different sort of affair. A Galactogogues concert starts slowly and lets the energy build, until just when it seems it’s time to call it a night, the foot stomping and staccato hand clapping burns away any fatigue.

Meg Bohrman has been part of the Prescott music scene, as long as I’ve been here. Her family band, Galactogogues, takes its name from the items which help a nursing mother to best feed her child. Meg and family are all about nurturing the community, so the name is perfectly apropos.

The songs and the singers were fierce-unafraid to call out aggressors, both domestic and foreign-misogynists, racists and those who seek to dominate other countries. They included rousing Ukrainian folk dance tunes, for good measure, around a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”. There was also a pensive offering that looked back on the life of an uncle of Meg’s daughter-in-law, Abi, who is the band’s co-lead vocalist and songs that celebrate life in a nurturing community.

Thus was the day spent surrounded by quartz-and titanium.

The Force

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Posted by on in impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

May 4, 2022- I spent a good part of last night, and today, going back over posts from 2011-13. The first purpose was to restore photographs on several posts, which had been removed, prior to my upgrading to a business account on Word Press. A bonus was that small errors in spelling and punctuation also were corrected. Anyone going to those sites now would see the photographs which had “disappeared”, although many of them leave something to be desired.

The whole purpose of going to this plan was so that I could have unlimited storage, which has been achieved. A fair question is: “What happens to my blogs when this life is done?” They will be, along with the Flickr albums and collections, handwritten journals and anything else of possible intellectual and social worth, given over to my family, with the possibility that the items of redeeming value might go on to serve as educational tools.

That said, there is a fairly long road ahead on this planet. It just makes sense to plan well ahead, in this area, as with any other matter of tangible assets.

Many have adopted a punning reference to May 4- borrowing a line from the Star Wars series of films and books: “May the Force be with you!” This fictional force has a real life counterpart, an actual spiritual/physical energy that, according to ‘Abdu’l-Baha, itself has

 "a mysterious power, far, far, far away
from the ken of men and angels. That invisible power is the cause of all
these outward activities. It moves the hearts. It rends the mountains. It
administers the complicated affairs of the Cause. It inspires the friends.
It dashes into a thousand pieces all the forces of opposition. It creates
new spiritual worlds. 
 This is a mystery of the Kingdom of Abha." 
                                'Abdu'l Baha.
                        - SW, Vol. 7, p. 34  

(SW refers to "Star of the West", a Baha'i Magazine of the Twentieth Century, in which the Writings and Speeches of 'Abdu'l-Baha, as well as the Writings of Baha'u'llah, were printed.)


People of Faith have recognized this power from the dawn of the human race.  Many have called it "magic".  Some physicists refer to it as the "God Particle".  None of us can completely understand the actual Force that, essentially, brought Creation into being.  We give the names God (and all linguistic variations of His Name), Supreme Being, Creator, Unknowable Essence and add our own spiritual energy towards bringing about desired outcomes in the affairs of this world-and for our loved ones who have passed on. 

So, when our attempts to explain the Force come up short, we turn to George Lucas, George RR Martin, JR Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, even (gasp) HP Lovecraft to explain it all.  As entertaining as the above writers and filmmakers may be, in the final analysis, only the Force Itself can make things clear. 

Thus, the Divine Messengers appear and do Their best to explain such matters.  Happy Fourth!