Blog No. 204: Tibetan Sound Healing Bowls, Boycotting Tool: Goods Unite Us App, Remember, Poem by Joy Harjo

Tibetan Sound Healing Bowls

Tseyang Yoga Sound Healing Bowls

Photo courtesy Earth Crystals

I am trying to focus on helping people cope right now, to remain calm and try and gather strength to continue the fight...And for that, I at least need some healing time to center myself and get back on my feet again. It is my hope that these Tibetan/Himalayan crystal sound healing bowls played by Tseyangyoga might help in that endeavor: as a stress reduction technique to help us remain grounded at times of complete overwhelm...

As I resesarched the singing bowls, I came across an interesting article by a sound healer named Guy Beider, who told the special story of what the singing bowls mean to him.

Boycott Tool: Goods Unite Us App

Get the app on your phone by clicking image above

Search for a brand, see its politics

There are very few ways right now where I can see tools we have to fight--but here is definitely one of them...GOODS UNITE US is an app and website that lets you see the political affiliations of thousands of brands and companies...and gives us the opportunity to use our power to decide where to spend our money. I grew up at the time of the Delano, California Grape Strike and I remember it pretty vividly. No one was buying grapes in my household and neither were our like-minded neighbors and friends. It was a movement. The boycott was eventually successful--it took 5 long years, but with the help of consumers, civil rights groups, and labor organizations, the UFW (United Farmworkers Union) won contracts with most California grape growers by the summer of 1970. The strike was most notable for "the effective implementation and adaptation of boycotts, the unprecedented partnership between Filipino and Mexican farm workers to unionize farm labor, and the resulting creation of the UFW labor union, all of which revolutionized the farm labor movement in America. In this day and age, it is not as simple as avoiding one product--so much of our economy is based on very large companies that are in control of so many industries. And we have all gotten totally used to and spoiled by the ease of Amazon--everything literally at our fingertips--so this is going to take some doing. Many of us have already been aware of this. But let's all double down and try very hard to commit and being conscious of putting our money where our mouth is...

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Remember
by Joy Harjo

Photo courtesy Joy Harjo and Blue Flower Arts

Click image to hear an interview with Joy Harjo

My friend Brab shared this poem with me a couple days ago and it hit the spot...

REMEMBER 

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

A member of the Muscogee Nation, Joy Harjo is "an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor." (Wikipedia)

Painting of the Week

Pam Smilow, Pink Floating House, mixed media on canvas, 68” x 40”

Charity of the Week: Bob Casey Pennsylvania Senate Race Recount

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About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow, began writing the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.

Blog No. 203: Words of Anne Frank, Satygraha, Holding Vigil by Alison Luterman

Words of Anne Frank

Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family

The words of Anne Frank from 80 years ago touched me today, and I hope they have meaning for you: “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again." Let us be reminded of what is truly important in the midst of challenging and chaotic times, maintain our ideals, strive to better understand and work with each other, and keep fighting the fight. And follow the immortal words of John Wooden: “Things turn out best for the folks that make the best of the way things turn out.”

Satygraha: An Opera

Courtesy Krulwich/The New York Times

Philip Glass Album artwork; credit: Luis Álvarez Roure: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

I spent the day after the election listening to music--I definitely need to bury my head in the sand for a while...I found solace in Philip Glass's opera Satygraha, which aside from its beautiful music and the visual feast of Julian Crouch's Metropolitan Opera production, also has a very relevant theme. Satygraha is made up of three acts, each dedicated to a key figure in the life of Mahatma Gandhi: Leo Tolstoy, Gandi's personal friend the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, and Martin Luther King. I saw it back in 2008, going two days in a row I was so mesmerized...If you ever get a chance to see it, go running...One of the best productions I have ever seen...Youtube is not the real thing but this six minute clip is better than nothing. Particularly apt today, the meaning of the word "satyagraha" according to Wikipedia, comes from the Sanskit: "सत्याग्रह; satya: "truth", āgraha: "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), is "holding firmly to truth",[1] or "truth force"--a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance.

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Holding Vigil by Alison Luterman

Alison Luterman

HOLDING VIGIL by Alison Luterman

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
 
—from Poets Respond

Painting of the Week

Lavender Tree 80” x 50” approx. 

Charity of the Week: Doctors Without Borders

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About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow, began writing the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.