Blossoming, the hum from Banyen Books - March '10

Directions to Banyen

Seeds to Plant

“We are all born children. The trick is how to remain one.”

– Picasso

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“Creativity is God’s will for us and should be practiced like any other spiritual practice—a day at a time.”

– Julia Cameron
from The Artist’s Way, Every Day

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“One of the ironies of the history of ideas is the way that so many cultural themes that first surface in avant-garde intellectual circles are dismissed out of hand by the grandparents of those who will one day treat them as obvious facts. Modern nationalism, to cite one example out of many, began with the romantic visions of a few European poets, spilled out into the world largely through music and the arts, and only then turned into a massive political force that shredded the political maps of four continents. This is the intellectuals’ revenge on an unreflective society: the men of affairs who treat the arts as amenities and dismiss philosophy as worthless abstraction spend their workdays unknowingly mouthing the words of dead philosophers and acting out poems they have not read on the stage of current events.”

– John Michael Greer

from The Ecotechnic Future

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“Compassion does not grow from ideals of perfection, but from the recognition and acceptance of our human fallibility. The basis of compassion is a deep, empathic resonance with how vulnerable, fallible, and imperfect we are as humans, despite our efforts. If we can allow fallibility in ourselves without judging ourselves for it, we can begin to do so with others.”

– Rob Preece
from The Courage to Feel

A Practice to Try

Images, however sacred

Images, however sacred
they may be, retain
the attention outside,
whereas at the time of prayer
the attention must be within—
in the heart. The concentration
of attention in the heart—
this is the starting point of prayer.

– Theophan, 19th century Russian Orthodox monk, from For Lovers of God Everywhere by Roger Housden

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I think this is the fundamental issue—not how to transcend, transform, or control desire, but to know the full significance of desire, and knowing it, to be completely motionless, silent, without any action with regard to it. Because, when the mind is confronted with an enormous problem; any effort to grapple with it makes the problem petty, shallow. Whereas, if the mind can look at this enormous problem of desire without any movement, without any denial, without accepting or rejecting it, then I think we shall find that desire has quite a different significance, and that one can live in this world without contradiction, without struggle, without this everlasting effort to arrive, to achieve.

– Krishnamurti

from The Revolution From Within

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The specific energies and correspondences of months can also be used to create and empower affirmations. Here are some examples, to use as guidelines for creating monthly affirmations of your own. March affirmation: “I am brave. I have courage to change my life. I can achieve (or maintain) success.” This can be repeated daily throughout the month, as many times as needed, perhaps while holding an image of Athena or the Morrigan.

– Eileen Holland

from The Spellcaster’s Reference

Blessings or Poems to Share

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH

Every year without knowing it
I have passed the day
When the last fires
will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as
in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing
after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing
and the falling cease
And bowing
not knowing to what

– W.S. Merwin
from Migration

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HAPPINESS

So early it’s still
almost dark out.
I’m near the window
with coffee,
and the usual
early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
when I see the boy
and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and the one boy has a bag
over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything,
these boys.
I think if they could,
they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early morning,
and they are doing
this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs
pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond,
really,
any early morning talk about it.

– Raymond Carver
from Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley

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A MORNING

I have carried it with me
each day: that morning I took
my uncle’s boat
from the brown water cove
and headed for Mosher Island.
Small waves splashed
against the hull
and the hollow creak
of oarlock and oar
rose into the woods of black pine crusted with lichen.
I moved like a dark star,
drifting over the drowned
other half of the world until,
by a distant prompting,
I looked over the gunwale
and saw beneath the surface
a luminous room,
a light-filled grave,
saw for the first time
the one clear place given to us when we are alone.

– Mark Strand
from Penguin’s Poems for Life
selected by Laura Barber

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I offer my eyes to the Earth
So that it can have
my perspective
Offer all my senses
So that all that I see
from this place
The Earth can see

– John Seed

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I turn off the light—
my heart a precipice
before the moon.

– Shuson Kato
from Love Haiku
edited by Patricia Donegan

Astrological Highlights this Month

NEW

Monday, March 15th,
14:01 PST at 25º Pisces

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SPRING EQUINOX
March 20th, 10:32 PST,
Sun enters Aries

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FULL

Monday, March 29th,
19:25 PST at 9º Libra

Best Sellers for
Last Month

Hardcover:
(1) Wisdom from the Four Agreements
by Don Miguel Ruiz
(2) The Biology of Belief
by Bruce Lipton
(3) The Fifth Agreement
by Don Miguel Ruiz & Don Jose Ruiz

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Paperback:

(1) Anastasia Book 1: Ringing Cedars
by Vladimir Megre
(2) The Four Agreements
by Don Miguel Ruiz
(3) The Way of the Superior Man
by David Deida

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Music:

(1) Heart Full of Soul
by Krishna Das
(2) The Essence
by Deva Premal
(3) Eckhart Tolle's Music to Quiet the Mind
compiled by Eckhart Tolle

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DVD:

(1) Dreamhealer Visualizations
by Adam Dreamhealer
(2) The Living Matrix
by Becker & Massey
(3) Awakening in the Now
by Eckhart Tolle

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