explore and learn, deepen and care

In prison yesterday conversation about mirror neurons. Here, specifically, regarding dementia. http://drdavidhamilton.com/how-mirror-neurons-can-help-dementia-patients/

Reminded of Flip Wilson character Geraldine's, "what you see is what you get!"

Or, more currently: what you put your attention on you become.

We've got to be careful too closely observing the current president's mentality and articulation.

On the other hand, not to watch and witness might take us, without awareness, to the precipice of ugly desperation.

The men in prison with their eagerness to explore and learn, deepen and care, give me an alternative to the current administration's political circus.

Yesterday's men are hospice volunteers, meditation practitioners, college students, investigative conversation participants. Their crime is not their identity. Their current actions and intentions now shape them.

I enjoy their company.

Perhaps their mirroring neuronic diffusion will positively affect the simpering moronic confusion of our faux-DC-leadership.

(I'd best get back on my meditation cushion.)

paradise

It seems a hermit’s cell is the only safe place to be.

Or the solitude of one’s bodily environment.

The aloneness of heart and mind.

The American presidency has been frighteningly compromised.

Thank you, Bruno, for your inspiration.

until the sea can free them

The “Unacknowledged” documentary is thought-provoking.

The Disclosure Project and Dr. Steven Greer invoke questions about how private interests and wealth so often subvert common good and public innovation.

Time has come.

Things will change.

Stupid power and flaccid ignorance will no longer hold sway.

Can I hear an Amen?

after evening prayer on Hosmer dock

Yesterday, feast of Francisco de Assis, I asked friend about God.

She responded:

“When we serve all beings with care, devotion, & patience — there is God.”

Francis of Assisi, 4 October

The name Francis and the man from Assisi run through our family.

Four years of St. Francis high school in Brooklyn ny. Five years of Franciscan college novitiate seminary. A lifetime of eremetic retiro-isolamento-in-the-world attempts to mature in the calling of Francis.

Our Border Collie, Rokpa, was born on the feast day of Francis ten years ago.

The chapel/zendo was dedicated to the honor of Janet our elder and the generosity of Jim her son and Paul the builder on October 4, 2003.

The hermitage itself is named after Francis of Assisi and Dogen Eihei Zenji, those two 12th/13th century spiritual practical visionaries. We practice in their glow and example.

So, today, we step into the day with earth our guide through Francis our father and brother to serve as best we can all our brothers and sisters who also step out onto the earth to enter as instruments of peace and presences of Presence wherever eyes and feet take all of us.

Francis might well have been the guiding light of the prayer named in his honor:

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

Oración por la paz (San Francisco de Asís)

La Oración por la paz es una oración tradicional que suele relacionarse con san Francisco de Asís. San Juan Pablo II la rezó frente a los representantes de las Iglesias cristianas y las religiones del mundo cuando se reunió con ellos para rezar por la paz en 1986.

Señor, haz de mi un instrumento de tu paz.

Que allá donde hay odio, yo ponga el amor.

Que allá donde hay ofensa, yo ponga el perdón.

Que allá donde hay discordia, yo ponga la unión.

Que allá donde hay error, yo ponga la verdad.

Que allá donde hay duda, yo ponga la Fe.

Que allá donde desesperación, yo ponga la esperanza.

Que allá donde hay tinieblas, yo ponga la luz.

Que allá donde hay tristeza, yo ponga la alegría.

Oh Señor,

     que yo no busque tanto ser consolado, cuanto consolar,

ser comprendido, cuanto comprender,

ser amado, cuanto amar.

Porque es dándose como se recibe,

es olvidándose de sí mismo como uno se encuentra a sí mismo,

es perdonando, como se es perdonado,

es muriendo como se resucita a la vida eterna.

Amén.

And so: 

Grazie, Francesco/Giovanni di Pietro di Bernadone; Siamo nel tuo debito.

read we do

From cultural philosophy to ordinary philosophy, some words about Herbert Marcuse and Hugh Hefner:

But the way that the philosopher’s “joke” strikes us - simultaneously amusing and jarring - is precisely Marcuse’s point. Sexual desire is structured by social norms. Marcuse saw this as tending to objectify and commodify participants – in the case of Playboy, its readers and the women featured within it (the “bunnies”). In Marcuse’s view, this undermined the possibility of fully connecting our sexuality to our humanity.  

While Playboy has had certain cultural effects that, within a limited historical context, can be seen as positive, Marcuse saw Hefner’s philosophy as a narrow and simplistic version of “liberation”, equating “anti-puritanism” to social freedom. 

Heffner, via Playboy, did bring sexuality a little more into the open, in a context where that was sorely needed. And his contribution to various liberal causes, including civil rights, has rightly been praised in recent days. His simplistic sexual philosophy, however, is already something of a museum piece - historically significant in its way, but ultimately adolescent male fantasy. 

It was a different story for Marcuse. Former student, Angela Davis, recalls that for his work in support of radical gender equality, one of the early organisations in the women’s movement took the extraordinary step of declaring Marcuse an “honorary woman”.  

(—from, The philosopher who was too hot for playboy, by Christopher Pollard, in The Conversation)

Note: for a no-nonsense blistering ‘obituary’ on Mr. Hefner, see https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2017/10/01/o-p-recommends-speaking-ill-of-hugh-hefner-by-ross-douthat/comment-page-1/1. 

 So much to read, so much philosophy. Perhaps, rather, how little we’ve thought, how scant is wisdom!

Still, read we do!

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do we know what is needed

What is needed is kindness --

who has the courage for this?

kindness -- ​​the quality of being generous, helpful, and caring about other people, or an act showing this quality       US /ˈkɑɪnd·nəs/ (--cambridge dictionary)  noun [ C/U ]

kindness (n.)c. 1300, "courtesy, noble deeds," from kind (adj.) + -ness. Meanings "kind deeds; kind feelings; quality or habit of being kind" are from late 14c. Old English kyndnes meant "nation," also "produce, an increase."(--online etymological dictionary )

after bullets and stark realization of cowardice

Don’t ask why

Cry

Then change

light and guard, rule and guide,

Angels

they say

better our

nature

october

comes cool

at night

weeds from last

season wilt

earth receives

leaves

hospice sitting

1.
in room

sound of tired motor

flywheel grab for turnover



2.
not knowing

which goodbye is goodbye

attending each one



3.
each leaned into

one in bed

whispering