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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Mojo Monday ~ Choosing Love



Let the people speak up 
about not wanting and not choosing war. 
Let the leaders listen. 
Love these beautiful messages that the Israeli and Iranian people are sharing and sending back and forth. 
And to think it all started with one couple making and posting a 
photo with a message of peace. 
One person can make a difference 
when they choose love.









To the Iranian people
To all the fathers, mothers, children, brothers and sisters

For there to be a war between us, first we must be afraid of each other, we must hate.
I'm not afraid of you, I don't hate you.
I don t even know you. No Iranian ever did me no harm. I never even met an Iranian...Just one in Paris in a museum. Nice dude.

I see sometime here, on the TV, an Iranian. He is talking about war.
I'm sure he does not represent all the people of Iran.
If you see someone on your TV talking about bombing you ...be sure he does not represent all of us.

I'm not an official representative of my country. but I know the streets of my town, I talk with my neighbors, my familys, my friends and in the name of all these people ...we love you.
We mean you no harm.
On the contrary, we want to meet, have some coffee and talk about sports.

To all those who feel the same, share this message and help it reach the Iranian people
-----

My name is Ronny, I'm 41 years old. I'm a father, a teacher, a Graphic Designer.
I'm an Israeli citizen and I need your help.

Lately, in the news, we've been hearing about a war coming while we, the people are sitting, watching like it has nothing to do with us.

On March 15th, I posted a poster on Facebook. The message was simple.
Iranians. We love you. We will never bomb your country

Within 24 hours, thousands of people shared the poster on Facebook, and I started receiving messages from Iran.
The next day, we got featured on TV and newspapers, proving that the message was traveling. Fast.

Please help us prevent this war by spreading this message.

We need your help raising money in order to buy media: billboards, major magazines, TV ads and finally Times Square screens. We want everybody to understand that there will be no war.



ronny edry

For more information and to donate to the cause vist this link: http://www.indiegogo.com/israeliran

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Mojo Monday ~ Wonder



won·der/ˈwəndər/


Noun:  A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
Verb:  Desire or be curious to know something.
Synonyms:  noun.  marvel - miracle - prodigy - astonishment – amazement  verb.  marvel

Recently I had the extreme pleasure of gathering with some of the Cosmic Cowgirl tribe in person.  It was a whole-hearted weekend full of such things as inspiration, fun, aha moments, emotional connection and creativity. 

One part of our weekend’s explorations together was to discuss our developing Cosmic language.  After various sessions of heart-storming, prior to the weekend long gathering, a list of words has developed.  They are as follows: wonder, identity, creativity, perspective, heart, courage (awareness), embodiment (manifestation), play, transformation, mystery, legend (legacy), revolution, community and last but not least the overarching concept of sparkle.

Here is a photo of the beautiful rendition of the exploration that Shiloh McCloud diagramed for us.


Our time together included some journaling on various words and seeing what came up for us.  We were also asked to ponder and remain aware if there were any words with which we currently identified with more strongly.  I knew that my attention was drawn to the center of the diagram where the word “wonder” was written.  When we were asked to write down some thoughts regarding wonder this is what came to me:

The beginning of a heart beat.
The birth of a child.
A smile.
The universe.
Holding a hand.
A flower.
The stars.
The smell of a rose.
Water.
A favorite flavor.
The emotional life of animals.

My fascination with wonder seem to fit in with how I have been viewing the world through a lens I can only describe as “Wow” or as Shiloh wrote on the diagram next to the word wonder “the awe ha!"

When I began my list with "the beginning of a heart beat" I was actually recalling a documentary called In the Womb by National Geographic.  During the show they show and tell the audience just how and when a heart begins.  I was left in wonder about the amazing nature of our bodies and how we humans begin.  If you want to see for yourself a brief part of the video I have included it below and you can watch the particular portion I mention if you fast forward to 5:20 and watch until 5:57.  Here also is written form of the narration that describes what might be considered a miracle of nature: 
“One of the first organs to form is the heart.  Until now the tiny clump of heart cells, about the size of a poppy seed, have been still, but after 22 days a single cell stirs, as if jolted to life.  This tiny movement sparks a chain reaction and other cells in the cluster pick up the rhythm.  Incredibly, they all begin to beat in perfect unison.  The new cells divide, dance to the same beat and will grow to form the embryo’s heart.”





My mind, and heart, is also in awe of our universe.  This image to the right is from the Hubble Telescope and has been nicknamed The Galactic Rose.  If you have never really explored the images from the Hubble telescope I encourage you to do so.  The images are amazing.  Here is where you can locate the Hubble web site: http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/


When I gaze at such photos taken in deep space I am in awe.  I experience feelings and thoughts that encompass and contemplate being humble, miniscule, and yet also expansive and connected.  In the scheme of how grand the universe is we are a speck in the dark night sky.  We are these tiny bunches of cells and molecules that are alive and running around on the surface of planet Earth.  Dr. Seuss even contemplated such a state of being in his classic Horton Hears a Who.  

Star Woman painting by Michelle Fairchild
The fascination with the stars also connects with the amazing fact that we humans are really made of cosmic stardust and this really isn’t just some California “woo woo” idea.   The late astronomer Carl Sagan once stated “The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”  What he knew when he made that remark is that the same elements that make up the stars in our universe are the very same elements that came together to create our planet and our very bodies. 

According to Chris Impey, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, “Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies, as well as atoms of all other heavy elements, were created in previous generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago. Because humans and every other animal — as well as most of the matter on Earth — contain these elements, we are literally made of star stuff.” 

Here again is a beautiful video I shared just last week.  Listen to Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse, and understand why he feels big, not small, as part of the universe. Something we should all remember when we feel alone, insignificant, or disconnected. This video is a result of when he was asked by TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

The Most Astounding Fact from Max Schlickenmeyer on Vimeo.


Then there is water. When I read the book Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls I was intrigued to read the following section about water.  I loved how she so poetically explores the amazing, and almost magical qualities and history of water.


Photo by Michelle Fairchild
“Sometimes over supper, when Jim got home after a storm, the kids would describe their escapades in the water and mud, and Jim would recount his vast store of water lore and water history.  Once the world was nothing but water, he explained, and you wouldn’t think to look at us, but human beings were mostly water.  The miraculous thing about water, he said, was that it never came to an end.  All the water on the earth had been here since the beginning of time, it has just moved around from rivers and lakes and oceans to clouds and rain and puddles and then sunk through the soil to underground streams, to springs and wells, where it got drunk by people and animals and went back to rivers and lakes and ocean.

The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole.  Genghis Khan or Saint Peter or even Jesus himself might have drunk it.  Cleopatra might have bathed in it.  Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it.  Sometimes water was liquid.  Sometimes it was rock hard—ice.  Sometimes it was soft—snow.  Sometimes it was visible, but weightless—clouds.  And sometimes it was completely invisible—vapor—floating up into the sky like the souls of dead people.  There was nothing like water in the world, Jim said.  It made the desert bloom but also turned rich bottomland into swamp.  Without it we’d die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it.  Never take water for granted, Jim said.  Always cherish it.  Always beware of it.”

What comes to you when you contemplate the word "Wonder?"

What makes you think or say WOW?

What leaves you in awe?


One more thing that also leaves me in awe is the emotional lives of animals that share our planet.  There are actually many books written on the subject.
I am frequently so touched and moved by photographs of animals that portray their obvious connections to one another.  I have always been drawn to animals, but it wasn't until recent years that I really, really began to see them.  Have you ever really stopped and considered that animals bodies have organs and bodies that in many regards are much like our own. The have hearts, lungs, brains and blood.  They are born and they die, just like we humans.  
It was partly my awe and wonder in regards to my four-legged, feathered and finned friends that led me to adopt a vegan diet about four years ago.






Lastly, for your enjoyment, a beautiful song by Miten and Deva Premal called Inarticulate Heart.  The lyrics include the words "I am a soul in wonder."

Monday, March 12, 2012

Mojo Monday ~ Remember Your Wow-ness


Remember Your Wow-ness by Patricia Lynn Reilly
(Poem appears in Patricia's book called Words Made Flesh.)

Remember Your Wow-ness

Verse 1
Do you ever look up at the night sky and say WOW?
Well you're made of the same WOW-ness as the night sky.

Verse 2
Do you ever get lost in it's bigness and say WOW?
Well you're made of the same WOW-ness as the big sky.

Verse 3
Do you ever feel held by its darkness and say WOW?
Well you're made of the same WOW-ness as the dark sky.

Verse 4
Do you feel the tug of the full moon and say WOW?
Well you're made of the same WOW-ness as the full moon.

Verse 5
Do you ever try to count the stars and say WOW?
Well you're made of the same WOW-ness as the night star.

Voice Choir
You are composed of the same stuff as the Milky Way.
You are an exquisite dimension of the Galaxy's development.
You are a space the Universe fashioned to feel its own grandeur.
You are an individualized expression of WOW. WOW!


We ARE the stars.
Listen to Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse,
and understand why he feels big, not small, as part of the universe.
Something we should all remember when we feel alone, insignificant, or disconnected.

 This video is a result of when he was asked by TIME magazine,


"What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?"

This is his answer.




The Most Astounding Fact from Max Schlickenmeyer on Vimeo.



Image above is known as the Galactic Rose ~ Taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disc that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. The swathe of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mojo Monday ~ Mental Freedom


"Because you don't have time...you're on this earth for a dash of time really, and then that's it. 
And for some reason that reality and knowing that, it just changed everything." 
~ Viola Davis


Viola Davis played the role of Aibileen Clark in the film The Help.  Davis won numerous award nominations for the role including a Golden Globe Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild and an Academy Award.  In 2008 she had also received numerous nominations for her role in the film Doubt, that has also starred Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

She has been working as an actor for 20 years and has received other awards and recognition throughout her career. Yet in a talk with Oprah Winfrey she opens up about having battled low self-esteem for many years.  She also shares during the interview how she had to learn to receive love and how when she was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008 for the film Doubt she went through a mid-life crisis that led her to realize the only definition of success that mattered to her, was her own.

Here is the first clip where she talks about overcoming her low self-esteem.

Here is a second clip where Viola reveals why she didn't feel fulfilled, despite the fact that her dreams were coming true.
Viola's childhood was far from glamorous.  She grew up so poor that at times she knew what it meant to go hungry and her family lived in a condemned building that was infested with rats and roaches.  Despite her impoverished upbringing, Viola says, she learned to dream big from her older sister.  She credits those experiences for making her who she is today.  She shared in the first video how grateful she is for the simple things in life due to  her knowing what it is like to have so little.
What are your reactions to the video clips?
Do you feel you worry too much what others think of you?
Do the opinions of others affect you a great deal or not very much at all?
Would it bother you if someone didn't like your writing, your art, your singing, your dancing or some other form of creativity that you were expressing?
Have you allowed criticism to hold you back from doing something that interested you or that you loved?
If you answered yes to any of these questions consider what these now well-known writers faced when they were trying to get published. Dr. Seuss faced over two dozen rejection letters before he realized his dream of being published. Classic books such as Lord of the Flies, Diary of Anne Frank, War of the Worlds, Animal Farm and The Time Machine all initially met with rejection from publishers.
How about these very successful and well-known public figures: "Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because, 'he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.' After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked." "While today Steven Spielberg’s name is synonymous with big budget, he was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times. He eventually attended school at another location, only to drop out to become a director before finishing. Thirty-five years after starting his degree, Spielberg returned to school in 2002 to finally complete his work and earn his BA."
Could it be true that some of the funniest actors didn't fair so well in the beginning? "Just about everybody knows who Jerry Seinfeld is, but the first time the young comedian walked on stage at a comedy club, he looked out at the audience, froze and was eventually jeered and booed off of the stage. Seinfeld knew he could do it, so he went back the next night, completed his set to laughter and applause, and the rest is history." "Lucille Ball had thirteen Emmy nominations and four wins, also earning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors. Before starring in I Love Lucy, Ball was widely regarded as a failed actress and a B movie star. Even her drama instructors didn’t feel she could make it, telling her to try another profession. She, of course, proved them all wrong."
Here is to following your dreams, writing the book that you will love to read, painting canvases that speak to your heart and express your soulfulness, singing those songs that lift you up, dancing that lets your spirit fly and be free, creating whatever that is inside of you yearning to be expressed, all because it makes you happy.

Here is one last clip of Viola Davis speaking about learning to receive love: