Today, April 14th, is International Moment of Laughter Day. This is the day to let your inner child come out and laugh away all your worries.
Prioritize joy, don’t wait for weekends or vacations to have fun and laugh together. Plan adventures, date nights and other get togethers – quality time to create more opportunities for laughter.
On International Women’s Day I must acknowledge all the different wonderful women in my life who inspire me. I am simply an apprentice wordsmith still honing my craft, so in it’s place here’s a quote from a female Indian author who is known for her way with words:
“A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow as abundantly as her laughter.
A strong woman is both soft and powerful, she is both practical and spiritual. A strong woman in her essence is a gift to the world.”
– Ritu Ghatourey
Thank you for being you, all of you.
With the moving of the Spirit, it’s inherent to our being, for where the Spirit abides there’s always unity
-Dr Barbara Holmes
One common theme that runs through my writings is the oneness of it all. A second is how limiting the English language is, working against the creation – the perpetuation – the growth of – the unbounded set that is our world. Today’s post follows those two throughlines. Enjoy.
I was born and grew up in Tanzania, East Africa. I also was schooled in an International School in my primary and secondary education. From that comes the feeling of coming home in Foli – life dancing (Foli is the Malinke word describing that all is movement – kinetic energy – from the Baro tribe), Ubuntu (in you I see me), in greeting Shikamoo/Marahaba or Sawubona. In that spirit I share the concept of Mupasi, extending and reinforcing from anthropocentric eye to community beyond.
Mupasi is an African description of the spirit that dwells within all of us – individual, but also communal. As Kuzipa Nalmaba says, “Mupasi is understood as cosmic spirit, the axis of the universe apprehended as an organic whole. The web of life was brought into being, is sustained by, and inhabited by Mupasi.” It is that voice that weaves all our lives (sentient and non) into an inseparable bond, making reailty one whole, giving kinship to all of us. The Anthropocene is let go so we experience the warm embrace of the Biocene. We are at home once more.
The concept of Mupasi is universal as we quickly travel through other cultures to more familiar Western thought. We find it in the idea of chi (qi) which will be familiar to those who engage in practices such as yoga, tai chi, qigong, and accupuncture. The Egyptians call this Ma’at, and Hindus call it prana. In the Roman Catholic faith we have the concept of God being one, yet also 3-in-1, of which one persona is spirit.
36“Teacher,* which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
37j He said to him,* “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38This is the greatest and the first commandment.
39k The second is like it:* You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
matthew 22:36-39
In the context of our current exploration these words of loving our neighbors resonate. Being relational is not just a little anecdote or possibility.
Welcome to LOVE. Welcome to the Biocene.
Some further readings in no particular order that you may be interested in if you enjoyed the above:
For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves
Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.
I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.
Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.
Choctaw elder and retired Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston offerING a meditation honoring different ways of knowing that have fed his soul
There was a time in my life, in 2008/09, when I look back, where it was touch and go. Connection with Mother Earth was one of a few critical elements that brought me back. The oneness and withness of divine belonging. And as an HSP, and really owning that on a visceral soul level these days, it reconfirms what is my way in life.
Note that I am aware that interpreting or applying the wisdom of indigenous teachings in our own context, we run the risk of “severe reinterpretation” according to our own cultural lens and preferences, and without enough regard for their traditional origins. The Catholic faith has a strong contemplative mystical tradition, connection and belonging to the natural world family, which has been sorely neglected by the majority. Reading the meditation brought me back to the time of my rediscovery of and investment in – a rebirthing in – that Catholic path and decolonialization of the soul. See for instance a name that is familiar to many – St Francis – and the language he uses in his Canticle of Creatures.
Love is the destination, joy is the path
And so what are love and joy?
Love is the non-possessive delight in the other unique particularity of the other
-James E. Loder (1931-2001)“Joy is the justice we give ourselves.”
-J. Drew Lanham, poet and ornithologist
This reminds me of what King said:
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice
And justice at its best is correcting everything that stands against love.”
And we have love when we have King’s Beloved Community, when we belong.
Belonging is NOT about fitting in
Fitting In = inclusion/integration/assimilation…
When I can be me I Belong, and when I need to be like you I fit in.
Belonging is unconditional acceptance, a warm hearted demanding culture of care.
Note – To have all this one needs hope. A recognition – that despite everything and our current reality – we have the agency and are taking action in bringing about heaven on earth.
Hope = attitude in action
Let’s be clear this is distinct from optimism, the passive belief that things will turn out well in spite of the facts, the reality on the ground.
For more on hope and it’s fraternal twin, healing, see my Oct 25th post.
“There is no worse mistake in public leadership then to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away”
-Winston S. Churchill from the “Hinge of Fate”
This applies personally too. I want to be hopeful, but at the same time I need to acknowledge the brutal reality of the present.
This reminds me of what hope is to me – is an “attitude in action”.
And with Hope we have the other H word – Healing.
“Healing is not the absence of pain
It is the decision to act
In the service of your own development
Rather than your defeat.”
-Jamila Lyiscott, from the final line of her TED Talk 2053
And development comes through what Yolanda Sealy Ruiz refers to as “the archaeology of the self.” One needs to excavate, explore, understand within. Then there is flowering, blossoming and upwelling. An overflowing, an effective sustainable impelling without.
Nunc Coepi is Latin for Now I Begin
And I do -we do – over and over again…
The phrase origin is attributed to Venerable Bruno Lanteri, a Catholic priest in Italy, founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary religious order. It is found in Psalm 77:10 in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible. The words encourage those trying to do their best even with their imperfections.
“If I should fall even a thousand times a day, a thousand times, with peaceful repentance, I will say immediately, ‘Nunc Coepi’ [Now I begin],”
– Lanteri
Let us take these words to heart, recognizing that we always have the opportunity to not let the past define us, and begin anew.
Nunc Coepi
“The trouble with a rat race is that even if you win you’re still are a rat.”
-Lily Tomlin
This reminds me of the book Elite Capture where the author Taiwo shows how even if we operate in rooms defined by social structure we have the agency to do different. He illustrates what happens when we do, exploring the Guinea Bisssau/Cape Verde and Carnation Revolutions.
Link to Elite Capture book: https://www.amazon.com/Elite-Capture…/dp/B09M7Z61YC/
Note the change is brought about by changing the narrative, changing the framing. It removes the justification apparatus – see my earlier July post Moving from the -Isms Status Quo – Elite Capture. Without the justification apparatus to rely on the system of oppression can be demolished.
We can find another example of destroying the justification apparatus by looking to the American South in the 1850s. In 1857, Hinton Rowan Helper, white abolitionist, wrote The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. In the book he argued that the institution of slavery hurt the little people – small artisans and small-scale farmers – while only benefiting the rich plantation owners. It caused an uproar in the South, being banned, criticized in State legislatures and more.
Another 100 or so years later there was Martin Luther King’s speech and his I Have A Dream Speech of 1963. In it he says, “We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check…” The concept of cashing in checks, of having earned benefits such as through the GI Bill and using them, was a familiar one for the oppressors. King clearly reframes this idea for the support of the oppressed.
For help with reframing in politics, like King did, see Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff, and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. Two authors who are useful in understanding the extreme polarization happening in our world. Another book I have enjoyed on changing the world we are in is Edgar Villanueva’s Decolonizing Wealth, Second Edition: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance.
We are an intersectional, multifaceted world. It helps to better understand different facets, and especially buy-in from others if you share something pertinent to their passions. Do not hesitate to ask your local librarian to help you find more. For instance, for the feminists an interesting book I recently read is Mikki Kendalls’ Hood Feminism.
Good luck in your explorations, sharing, learning.
Buon viaggio
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”
—William Blake
The door, the threshold, the liminal.
Living, religion, spirituality.
Foli, rhythm of life, the dance.
Blue moon, bright moon, super light.
Dawn, satellite, family of deer browse into sight.
Liminal light.
A time when apparent boundaries soften.
Breath. Skin.
Where do I end and you begin?
It was time of the Blue Moon, also called by other names such as the Sturgeon Full Moon. I wake up early so capture both night and day.
ikigaidance 