In my dreams
I fly
Way up in the sky
I explore
Mysteries of the Creator
watch the stars winkle
 around my ankle
like diamonds
scattered on the ground

Flowers blossom in a day

(c) Mayflower

 

Listen to the wind

It's singing a song

It speaks of travelers

Pilgrims that walked on this spot

On their way to eternity

It repeats their stories

To enlighten those who follow

The wind holds many secrets

It's out there in the universe

But you must be tuned in

And you must listen

(c) Mayflower 2008

How to Change the WorldWe all want to change the world, want to make a difference, make the world a better place. Changing the world is a mammoth task that we can accomplish by working together and also individually.
All the pundits and religious sages will tell you that the change must start with you and me. We are the world. Each and every one of us stands as a sentinel within the collective population. We are the forest and we are the trees, what affects the forests affect the trees and vice versa.
When we are serious about changing ourselves we have to start living consciously and in synchrony with our values and beliefs. We have to be conscious of how we spend our energy (money), how we treat the environment, how we treat each other and how we treat ourselves. When we change the ways we do these things we will see changes that matters.
Whatever is out there is our perception of what it is. Whether it is real or not does not matter. What matters is what we see when we look inside of our personal worlds. If we see the world as a benevolent place that benevolence will be reflected in our lives and if we see the world as a chaotic disastrous place that too will be reflected in our personal world.
As individuals we are like little worlds inside a bigger world, we live in our individual bubbles and create the universe according to our state of mind. For those of you who have watched “What the Bleep do we Know” will have learned how to create our own reality by creating the conditions we want.
I have no great understanding of quantum physics but according to specialists who have made this study their life’s work, they tell us that nothing is really solid, they say quantum physics is a physics of possibilities, when we look at an object it’s like we take a still picture of it and as soon as we look away it’s no longer there. Freaky I’d say but I am choosing to believe it.
Therefore, if we are serious about changing the world, let us begin with ourselves. If each one of us lives consciously, responsibly, share, be generous with each other, only take what we need from our abundant and benevolent universe, living as simply and fully as possible, we will be the change and we will see the desired changes we want to see in our world. We will change the world.

It is wonderful to be able to wish you this wish. Whoever came up with the idea for Earth Day did us a great favor. It forces us to focus our attention on mother earth and the way we treat her.  The way we treat her reflects on us on what's going on for us in the inside and I challenge each of us to think of how we treat our mother earth and how we can be gentler, how we can walk lighter so that our footprints does not dig too deep into her belly.

     Here is Manitoba, the government has just announced that it will open temporarily some e-wasted depot for people to take their old electronic garbage for disposal.  We all have a responsibility to do our share and so are our businesses, inventors and such like. People who develop new products obsolescing others must be responsible for their disposal. I think we are creating too many new stuff without trying to update what we already have so that we will not need to be throwing out good stuff all of the time. When businesses are accountable for the disposal of their products I believe we might see some movement for the better.

   I have taken to cloth bags for grocery shopping. Sometimes I forget and have to use the plastic bags but I am getting more and more conscious of the impact of my forgetting to take my cloth bags.

   Calgary Alberta I understand has passed a law abolishing Styrofoam cups.  Bit by bit we are becoming gentler with mother earth and we need to celebrate our accomplishments and dedicate ourselves to doing more on whatever level we can.

     A cleaner earth means a healthier earth and a healthier earth means healthier inhabitants of the earth.

 

What a journey and what high stakes they each carry for America.  No one can question that America wants change and appears to be voting for change. While the Republican nominee appears to have gone through relatively unscathed, the same cannot be said for Barack and Hilary.

   A mean-spiritedness that has taken on very personal overtone has crept into the debate that has divided the nation and may indeed cost the Democrats a chance in the White House and place America yet again in the hands of the Republicans.

   Throughout the debate Barack's credentials have been questioned and scrutinized more than any other Presidential candidate in the history of United States of America Presidential nomination.  Is this just accidental or does it have something to do with race and/or gender. Is it because Barack is a black male?

   I think it is. Race is at the heart of everything America does. Barack, it seems has managed to transcend race and touch the hearts and imagination of the ordinary American people. This is a big coup.  This is progress and we ought to applaud the people. Not surprisingly most of his support comes from the younger generation, a new and different and more diverse generation.  This should signal hope for the future of a United States of America.

   All this could be lost if the nasty fight continues between the two contenders. I have nothing against Hilary Clinton but I feel she has not been playing fair and I believe that she has been giving the American people subliminal messages about Barack's ability to be president.  She is not attacking his position on issues but appear to be saying he is not smart enough. This  panders to the older American sentiments of Blacks being inferior to Whites.

    Unfortunately Ms Clinton comes off as a desperate woman out of control who wants to win at any cost. As a woman I find this very uncomfortable to watch. It is adopting the old boys strategy and this tells me that if Hilary Clinton should win the nomination and go on to the President of the USA, the hardcore feminist should not expect her to act like a feminist but like a man. This is not my view of feminism. This is a case of women using feminism conveniently to get access to power. 

I felt sad listening to people from either side of the Hilary/Barack divide promising not to vote for the other if their candidate did not get the nomination.  Have you ever heard anything like this before? Is this a fight between a Black man and a White woman or is it between the Democrats and Republicans?  This whole thing is so messy and disappointing that it tears my heart.  Yet we all know and understand that in politics it really does not matter who wins "the government always gets in".  This is supposed to be a joke but it's true. Governments never make radical changes with any handover in power. As soon as they win, things slow right down and the thinking starts.

I urge the American people to vote for change without regard for race or gender. People want to dream again, they want to bridge the divide and to work together, let us give unity and diversity a chance. Barack Obama /Hilary Clinton cannot do much worse than what America has right now. Anything should be better. May the best person win?

Hey, how's everybody doing?  Why not come in and take a load off for a moment. It's new year!  In the western world we celebrate this point in time as a year, a new cycle, a new beginning of things.  In other parts of the world different times are celebrated as the new year, for example, there is Chinese New Year, Arabic New Year, Orthodox Christian New Year, Baha'i New Year (Naw Ruz) etc.  So new year happens all the time but it really does not matter when we celebrate this event, there is one thing they all have in common. It's a celebration.  People see this as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start fresh again. It is renewal of hope, of love, of live and of possibilities.  I love new year. I love thinking about possibilities, resolutions and I love writing them down faithfully and also try as hard as possible to work towards accomplishing something during the period. 

Like most people, I start off vigorously but by the end of January, I sort of slip back into the old ways and soon forget about my resolution.  I think it will be different this year, because of my friends at Zaadz.  You all inspire me to be better each time I come on this site.  There are so many positive things about it that I strive to live in the moment and to live each day to its fullest.

This blog is to let you know how wonderful you are and how special you are.  You must be to have joined a site such as Zaadz, you want to do better, you want to change the world to make it a better place as much as I do and that is why I fee this year's resolution will be different because I will have a lot of help and encouragement.

I want to thank you for being who you are wherever you are, I know our hearts collide and collapse into one at times and together we can and we will change the world, our world and we will make a difference.

May the force continue to be with us, inspire us and guide us throughout this season of love and light. I love you.

 

Today is Grey Cup in Canada and everywhere there are parties and excitement routing for our favourite team. I am sitting in front of my Television watching the game as I write this and I marvel at the wonders of modern technology.  How wonderful it is that I can do this.  While watching alone at home I am on the phone with a friend and we are cheering on our Winnipeg Blue Bombers whenever there is a touch down. It's like I am alone but not.  The other day I read in the news that it is now possible to use google earth and actually zero in on places and people in various locations around the globe.  It is mind boggling. I am not sure it actually zeroing and seeing people. The world is shrinking before our eyes. We are so interconnected and in touch with people who only touch us with their ideas. All of you who would read this blog I interact with and you may share your thoughts with me and I feel as if I know you because I know your thoughts and through that a mental or spiritual image of you becomes more defined as we communicate our thoughts with each other. This is so powerful. Where does this wisdom come from? How did we get here?  According to Baha'u'allah, this knowledge comes from the Great Spirit, the Creator through His Messengers, the Prophets of God who infuse new knowledge into the world  and raise humanity to new heights in the arts, science, technology and spirituality.  If you would check the coming of a new messenger you would see how the rise in civilization coincides with these appearances.  Each of these Messengers came with their own portfolio, so to speak, from establishing brotherly love, uniting warring tribes, establishing nationhood and establishing a sense of universal justice.

   So as our knowledge of the universe soar and we understand more of our humanity through the medium of modern technology, we have to be thankful to the Creator.  Sitting on my couch, a tear dropped from my eyes and my heart because our Bomber team lost to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I shared that immediate disappointment reflected in the faces of our Bomber team.

Robert Dzikanski with his mother Zofia Cisowski in Poland, before she emigrated to Canada.


An immigrant women to Canada once described her life as walking in the dark like a blind person because she could not understand a word in English.  Of course someone had to translate what she was saying in Spanish so that I could understand. 
  Imagine the Polish, an unsophisticated traveller, as he was described by the reporter, ariving at Vancouver airport and waited at the wrong place for his mother to show up. He waited there for over six hours - hungry, scared, thirsty and worried - where was his mother. Perhaps he thought he got on to the wrong plane.  He was disoriented and started acting crazy.  The police came in tasered him and  he wailed like someone in terrible pain and that was the last sound he made.
He was waiting in an area that was restricted for passengers only. His mother waited on the other side.  She said kept asking workers to help her find her son. To go by the baggage area and look for him but everyone was too busy or so they said.  Perhaps that young man could have been alive today if someone had showed that woman some kindness and helped her locate her son from whom just a wall had separated them. Both of them thought the other was not there.  Instead of reuniting with her son, the woman has to make plans to bury her boy.  What a little kindness  or compassion might have done.

This weekend was the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Canada. It's a terrible time for turkeys. On most tables in Canada you will find one. It's a time to think of one's blessings and show gratitude is some way for all the good things in one's life.   I spent the evening with seven of my women friends.  We all lead single lives and this was our makeshift family dinner.  IT was fantastic.

There was a lot to eat but we were all health conscious and so the variety were all sensible foods. We had two types of salads, turkey as the main  dish, boiled potatoes, rice pilaf baked and cabbage rolls made with brown rice. For dessert we had lemon meringue pie and a very tiny pumpkin pie.

We had a delightful evening of deep conversations and for me one of the nicest times I've had. Best of all I did not leave feeling that I had overeaten thought I had a lot to eat.

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving supper and holiday. I know thanksgiving in the US is in November. This is the Canadian thanksgiving I am talking about.

I gave thanks for my health, my friends, my children and my family. I have a good job and I am so grateful for all these things.

 

Mother Teresa for me she is the real deal. She is a human saint. When I read of the dark nights of her soul's journey, I could relate to her humanity. Before then I saw her as some extra-human, a station I could never aspire to because I did not feel I could be that holy.  When I read she doubted, I saw her saintliness clearer than ever.

    Who said that believing in faith was easy; who said believing in a God that is unseen and unknowable is easy?  It is much easier not to believe because the arguments are there, strong as ever.  When someone desperately wants to believe and cannot fully commit themselves to it, it means that they are thinking, they are human and they are traveling down a path that few have traveled.

     In  an Op-ed piece that appeared in the NYT the following appeared:' , "I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe," wrote Flannery O'Connor, the Roman Catholic author whose stories traverse the landscape of 20th-century unbelief. "What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe."

Mother Teresa in one of her doubting moments told her mentor, "If the work be all human, it will die with me, if it be all His it will live for ages to come. Souls are being lost in the meantime."

Chichita Banerij a scholar, in her editorial was not so kind to Mother Teresa Mission of Charity which she felt overshadowed some of the work being done by other charities and portrayal of Calcutta as a place of starving orphans and poor people.  Don't blame Mother Teresa for the Media impulses. The fact is that Mother Teresa she furthered her mission by robbing Calcutta of its richly nuanced identity while pretending to love it.

It is my view that this statement is unfair Religious work sometimes has this effect on people. A rock star, or new age person would do the same thing without the stigma but people are generally critical of religious dogma because they have greater emotional pull for the ordinary people. Why does religion hold us in its grasp so much?  Is it because of the fear of the unknown, or desire not to be cast into hell's damnation?  The religious imprint on our psyche is so indelible that even our intellect cannot side track this compulsion to believe or pretend to believe.

Mother Teresa wanted to believe but something kept her from wholly committing herself but to the world she presented a different picture and she understood that hypocrisy. But was it? How any rational mind not question the understanding of any religious teaching that is based on faith.  If mother Teresa was hypocritical she would not have confided in any living soul about her crisis of faith but she did. She wanted someone to help her connect more.  Perhaps it was her suffering that drew her closer to Jesus, being able to relate to what he must have been going through as he headed for the cross and faced with all the problems he had with his disciples and the power structure of his day.  Moses went up in the wilderness for a long time to wrestle with his faith; Jesus wandered for 40 days and 40 nights alone in the wilderness and the Buddha as well as other prophets.  Perhaps Mother Teresa's doubts are what made her into a real saint or perhaps she was just a mentally unstable woman.  What is remarkable is the work she committed herself to which she did wholeheartedly. To do that kind of work and see beauty in poverty and that desire to help the poorest of the poor in Calcutta one must be some kind of a saint.