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Greatness is not a destination, but a journey. What do you do for your family, career or community that you’re most proud of?
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"Let's raise children who don't have to recover from their childhood" ; That's a Pam Leo quote and anybody who has had the good fortune to meet that Lady knows that she is a gentle legend where children are concerned. http://www.connectionparenting.com/

I have worked in profound ways with children through decades, through years as a hospital play therapist, and years as a family counselor, but the weekend I got to spend with Pam Leo, I had at least five breathless wonder moments at what just walked out of her mouth! Now I will name "Pam" 3 times(!) as an embodiment of what I have taken to heart as central to my life purpose; to really listen to the children, in all the ways they are able to communicate, to honor their presence and purpose in OUR lives, to be moved and changed and softened and shaped by them.

Buckminster Fuller once said (at Lynne Twist's dinner table!) "Remember, your children are your elders in universe time"; (they will live to see more than you can imagine but also they come with their own raw wisdom).

So here's my big Love Song for Valentine's!

LOVE THE CHILDREN

Love the children, give them room to grow,
feed them, teach them, always let them know,
that the power that made the thunder and the rains
is in their bones and running through their veins,
is in their bones and running through their veins.

Show the children beauty in the skies,
beauty in the darkness, beauty in their eyes,
joy in its moment, sadness when it starts,
Let the children fill their boundless hearts,
Let the children fill their boundless hearts.

Listen to the children, what they have to say,
the world is changing faster every day,
but still the sacred Mystery goes on.
Help the children listen to its song,
Help the children listen to its song.

(by Mary Buckley, 1995, printed in Songs for Earthlings, published by Emerald Earth http://www.emeraldearth.net/. Mary said: "This was one of those songs that wouldn;t leave my head in the middle of the night until I got up and wrote it down. Several hours later I was invited to be interviewed for a New Dimensions Radio program on single parenting. I took it as a synchronicity and sang it for the music break in the radio program."

Love,

Corrina

"I can feel a powerful leveraging of Energy in being more deliberate about my thoughts" Abe

I post below excerpts of an open letter from Rick Ulfik, Founder and Director of We, The World
Rick was beloved of our WomenRise for Global Peace Centenarian, Eleanor Wasson, who wrote a letter to Presidential Candidate, Senator Barack Obama on April 4, 2008, two days before she died..

 

Dear Senator Obama:
      Thank you for your wisdom in planning to appoint Al Gore as a member of your cabinet
 when you are elected our President.

      Extending such wisdom, I hope you will gain millions of votes by contacting my friend 
Dennis Kucinich, asking him to become Director for the Department of Peace when you are elected...

 ..My thanks and every good wish as you take our country and the world 
into peace and justice.

                                     Sincerely,              

                                     Eleanor Wasson

 

NOTE:: This is one of 2 letters that Eleanor Wasson wrote and mailed directly prior to her death in April, 2008.

She got up and sat on the edge of her bed one last time, calling for pen and paper, and wrote her final letters;
one to presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, and one to Representative Dennis Kucinich.

Eleanor Wasson, lifelong activist-citizen, founder of WomenRise for Global Peace, and author of
28,000 Martinis and Counting: A Century of Living, Loving & Learning,
was renowned for her poignant and lucid letters to members of Congress.
It was her firm belief that Barack Obama, along with his wife Michelle,
represents a new paradigm in this experiment in Democracy, unprecedented in the history of the world.

Rick writes:
"Going home at 1:00AM after seeing Obama's acceptance speech at an election night party, the streets of New York City were like New Year's Eve, or maybe when the NY Yankees won the Baseball World Series! People were jubilantly screaming and cheering, bus riders were excitedly talking to each other.

A police car was driving around playing Obama's speech over its loudspeakers! It was symbolic of this historic time.

This is a moment when great change is possible......

........ To make the shift happen, we need "an irrepressible public mandate.....” Social researcher Paul Ray estimates that there are 50-60 million people in the USA and 80-90 million in Western Europe who are what he calls Cultural Creatives who would love to see such a shift happen. But they don't know that there are so many others with their values.

We, The World has begun to help make the Cultural Creatives visible to each other so they can begin to act collectively! But to fully implement this, we need full participation at this stage by those, like you, who share these values. Together, you and we have the potential to galvanize tens of millions of new people. This is a collaborative effort that I have written about recently."

See www.wetheworld.org/ShiftHappens

Your participation and support now will help make the most of what We, The World has achieved over the last 10 years:

• a world-class Team - www.WeTheWorld.org/wtw2/advisors
• Strategic Alliances around the world - www.WeTheWorld.org/wtw2/GlobalOutreach
• a track record of Accomplishments that have impacted over 2 million people - www.WeTheWorld.org/wtw2/highlights
• positive responses from visionary leaders and others about the impact we are having - www.wetheworld.org/wtw2/quotes
  
• a video made by Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu for We, The World
• international organizing with 11 Days of Global Unity which now annually has more than 700 associated events in over 60 countries - www.wetheworld.org/11daysguide
  
• working relationships with Grassroots Communities/Partners around the world - www.wetheworld.org/wtw2/partners
  
• and a grand, but realistic, Vision for Change - www.WeTheWorld.org/wtw2/vision
  

How You Can Help

• Take an active role in one or more of our Tipping Point Initiatives (www.WeTheWorld.org/tippingpointinitiatives)

This is the moment that REAL change can begin.
This is the moment for full participation.
This is the moment for your participation!

Thank you for helping us all to have a Livable Future!

Rick Ulfik
Founder and Director of We, The World
www.WeTheWorld.org.
www.GlobalUnityCalendar.org

Riding Waves of Hope - This is the Moment to Begin REAL Change

29-Day Giving Challenge is a profound reminder that there is no separation really between Giving and Receiving..

"Just two years ago John McCain  himself stood in solidarity with ACORN, saying of our members, "they are what makes America special."

Dear Corrina Cop Rain, The attacks on ACORN are vicious and unfair. Losing campaigns and right wing media like Fox need scapegoats for their own  failures. ACORN is been around for many years and does crucial work in registering eligible voters and representing low-income people, when the gap between rich and poor is the biggest in many decades. Take a moment to support ACORN. Don Hazen Executive Editor, AlterNet.org

Dear Friend,   STOP the attacks on ACORN. Click here. To put it mildly, ACORN is under attack. The attack on ACORN (The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is shaping up to be the most vicious of the 2008 election. The problem is, we will have to suffer the consequences long after the election is over. We need your help, and we need it now. ACORN is accustomed to opposition. We've been educating, organizing, and empowering low-income communities for nearly 40 years. I can tell you that when you advocate with and for poor people against policies and practices that discriminate and keep communities from thriving, you make some enemies. But we've never seen anything like this. When John McCain's presidential campaign began sinking in the polls, they looked for a scapegoat. They picked ACORN. And now, in the past few weeks alone, ACORN staffers have received death threats in Ohio and Rhode Island, and offices have been vandalized in Washington and Massachusetts. Numerous threatening and racist phone calls have been made to ACORN offices across the country. And then there's FOX news, accusing ACORN of all kinds of criminal activity hundreds - HUNDREDS - of times during the past few days. You know what FOX news isn't reporting? This: Just two years ago, John McCain himself stood in solidarity with ACORN, saying of our members, "they are what makes America special." McCain's attacks have to stop. They are wrong, and the results for hundreds of thousands of people with whom we work will be disastrous. Please, take a moment today and ask John McCain to stop resorting to this deceptive, hurtful attack immediately. Click here. We hope you'll also spread the word. It will take millions of people to shut down the assault and stop the lies. Our friends at Brave New Films have made a fantastic video about ACORN, that debunks the outrageous lies, and we encourage you to share it. Thank you so very much for taking a moment to support ACORN while we're in the fight of our lives. Sincerely, Steven Kest, Executive Director, ACORN Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer, ACORN P.S. We welcome your financial support as well. This fight is costing us in every way, including financially. Thank you for your generosity. ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 400,000 member families organized into neighborhood chapters in 100 cities across the country. Since 1970 ACORN has taken action and won victories on issues of concern to our members. Our priorities include: better housing for first time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools. ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN's website is at http://www.acorn.org.

A long long time ago I gleaned that my old father had a problem with people celebrating his birthday. From my young and limited perspective I formed the erroneous belief that 'men' in general, did not appreciate having their birthdays create a stir (what my father would call 'making a fuss' or 'a waste o' money').I know better these days, including that their was something much more profound going on in my dear Sire. Nevertheless, the vestiges of this early training remain, such that I have noticed it is often far more easy for me to apply whimsical imagineering to the birthdays of my female friends and sisters then for most of the men in my sphere.

For 19 years.. James has been my brother-in-law and I have never registered his birthday day. This year though, something about it seeped into me and this is what was born..

  So to dear James let me say; I have cherished you along with your dear wife from the day I first met you. I fully celebrate the rich character that you are, the husband and father I saw when first I fell in love with your wife's brother, and the light in your eyes that plays through all the years of our changes and maturing. May you look back from the 2020s and be deeply deeply satisfied with the Summer to Autumn of our  Lives

 Happy Birthday James!

 May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You

All Love Surround You

And the Pure Light Within You

Guide Your Way On

 

And Now (if he had let me embed it I would have but you have to go there!)...

I Give You: Dance Me To The End of Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIdZ-rRnUkg&feature=related

{With special thanks to my sister Maggi who sent me the YouTube video in the first place, which succinctly coalesced my James' birthday celebrating thoughts into this!).

Lyrics (for everyone who has ever been afraid, for everyone whose Love has grown..):

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

(Leonard Cohen if you didn't know!)

We love our toilet. We always deep-down, wanted it to be ceramic, shiny, super-clean feeling/looking. But once we got tuned (back) into our local watershed, we just knew it didn't make sense to be flushing drinking water down the privy.

And don't get me wrong; I LOVED LOVED LOVED it when we finally broke through on the eco-porta pottie front (so weird to be using chemical loos at the Big Green!!). But really, we wanted home toilets like the ones at the Bronx Zoo, and we trumpeted that human creativity/fun/play/ phenomenal breakthrough. Now that the Bronx Zoo toilet is building code standard, we all know how deeply satisfying it is to have that aesthetically pleasing receptacle at the top-end and a really fine process for shoveling shit at the other (all in the fullness of time).

It took us such a long time to get the toilets right. We used to just flush millions of gallons of drinking water down the drain... And all the while there were whispers that the next wars would be not over oil, but over water..; ominous murmerings which (thank goodness) gave us a start; A Start...!: Phew; we started to realize all the big under-our-noses things about the water.... and Ancient Future started to roll.

It's about the water It's about the water It's about the water: "Basins of Relations" means "We're all in this (watershed) together!!"*:thank you Brock!!

To my mind it took a man who could dance; a Burning Man man, a man who knew how to play, really, and how to laugh, and how to plant and nurture and grow... Just like the medicine of hummingbird is JOY, which is one of the most powerful medicine's I know in the face of DIRE.

WE WERE IN THE FACE OF DIRE... that much we knew.

It's about the water It's about the water It's about the water
"Basins of Relations"* means "We're all in this (watershed) together!!"
*Basins of Relations: A Citizens Guide to Protecting and Restoring Our Watersheds, by Brock Dolman (Water Institute, Occidental Art & Ecology Center www.oaec.org ):

As Brock puts it, “The critical head-waters (human brain)
are in need of an ego-restoration project” and the 
“lifeboat in this restorative journey is our 
watershed.”  Poetically, our society must engage in a 
“Reverential Rehydration Revolution,” by adjusting our 
development and water management patterns away from the 
“problem-causing system of: Pave it, Pipe it, Pollute it” 
to a “solution-based system of Slow it, Spread it, 
Sink it.” Hope lies in world-wide “water literacy” 
and establishing a water management commitment 
to the four R’s of “Conservation Hydrology: 
Receive, Release, Recharge, and Restore.”  
As Brock likes to ask, 
“Do you know where your watershed is tonight?”