Category Archives: Dancing

Love Roars

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Some of our most vital roots lie on the African savannah. Surviving the day means listening for every noise and watching in every direction. Days and nights are filled with care for our young, mother’s milk, and tender family love. Together we search for food and safety with sweat pouring down our bodies. At times the lions pounce on us, our blood is spilt, and we cry over dear lives lost. At night, stories, new and old, are told invigorating us to live longer and be victorious together. Before resting, we make music, dance, and sing: 

Roaring lion on the African Savannah

Roaring lion on the African savannah, photo credit: Gerald and Buff Corsi, California Academy of Sciences, and the Smithsonian Institution.

“Play and get strong! We need you, we need you, we need you!
Spot the lion and bring us food! Give your life, give your life, give your life!
Run bravely through the grass and rise to the sky! Live in us, live in us, live in us!”

The Lion of Love is no idealist’s dream; it is wild and powerful. Surviving this day means rolling up our sleeves, throwing off our blinders, and abandoning the comfortable life to live with urgency for the benefit of all. Then through experiencing births, milk, sweat, victories, blood, deaths, tears, … we are caught into the organic renewability of the savannah. We embrace the giftedness and irreplaceability of each person.

One way or another, the hungry lion is focused on each of us. Every dominance, dishonesty, conceit, anger, and attachment will be laid waste. The hunt is on. The decisive siege has begun. But the lion is also a tender-hearted shepherd seeking out each needed lost lamb, “I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!” Love roars and heals!

DIVING INTO LOVE

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The call of love flows from our humanity and from all that is. Love is an endless ocean, a never-ending forest, a mountain that keeps on rising and rising. Love is ready for us and waiting. But the status quo or much of the way that our world is set up tempts us to limit our love and our humanity. Many people, however, from many cultures throughout our world and throughout our history, have called to be revolutionaries, “You have heard it in many ways, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It’s time to go make a splash and jump in, to think and climb, to play games and laugh, to trust and share, to forgive and serve, to work and win, and to dance, sing, and exchange stories.
Volunteers work to provide relief from tornadoes

Volunteers in Nashville, Tennessee work to provide water and other necessities for tornado victims, photographed May 6, 2010.

But what is Love? It’s far more than pleasant feelings concerning others. Love is a wondrous emerging reality grounded in practical and thoughtful actions that uplift and fortify our relationships with others.

Love shares food, clothing, shelter, … gifts, hugs, emails, face time, visits, … seeds, plants, skills, knowledge, services, esteem, … Love is a champion of justice and equity for all. Love demands equal access to needed goods, services, education, employment, fair pay, … Love’s priorities are those things which benefit everyone. Love would rather have poverty for oneself rather than accept injustice for others. Love generously shares and exchanges goods for everyone’s benefit. Love needs nothing more than what we already have. A few loaves and fish will be enough.

Love welcomes each person. Love is responsive, kind, attentive, understanding, and forgiving. Love strives to work out every miscommunication, every misunderstanding, and every hurt. Love reconciles and heals. Love looks out for everyone. Love does no harm, creates no violence, respects the safety needs of all, and does not return evil for evil. Love recognizes the gift, value, and role of each person, each being, and each thing. Love embraces the astonishing diversity of life, languages, cultures, and peoples, for their own sakes and for the richness that they offer us. Love esteems others recognizing their genius, goodness, and vitality. Love sees the inspiration present in others and present in their guiding visions. Love rejects no one and does not view anyone as being lesser or second class. Love would rather have the scorn from the “chosen” or the “in-group crowd” rather than participate in the rejection of anyone. Love connects everyone and everything. Love involves all of us together – trusting together, working together, sharing together, playing together, and celebrating the human family together.

Love is not short-sighted but rather looks toward the long-term benefit of all especially the needy. Love directs its works toward the present and coming generations. Love respects our common home, the Earth, and all its wonders. Love is patient, persevering in hope and in respect, even in disagreement and conflict, concentrating on much deeper agreements and common goals. Love is the person who I cannot stand. Love is humble. Love chooses trust over power and control. Love overturns the status quo beating swords into plowshares. Love is wholesome, constructive, creative, expressive, and empowering for all. Love answers needs.

Let’s dive in!

This is the second post of a series outlining where Umpteen Horizons is going. HUMANITY – OUR PATH TO VICTORY was the first post of this series. This post on love is the first of four posts on love. After love, this series will follow with other topics too.

Again I am very interested in your thoughts about all this. Also again, this will lead toward something very practical. So what do you think about love? What do you think about love as a call and as a revolution? Please make comments here or send me your thoughts at denton2100@gmail.com. Thanks much!

The Time Machine Dream

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Often in the morning, I am blessed by several wonderful ideas that have come from my nighttime mind. These ideas sometimes come from remembered dreams and sometimes from thought processes unremembered. Cultivating a friendship between my nighttime mind and my awake mind seems to spur this on. The nighttime mind brings us many crazy dreams and many useful dreams. Some dreams even flow from our nighttime mind’s deep stirring encounters with God, our All in All. The dream I’m sharing now from 1997 is one such dream.

Jugglin on the Berlin Wall 1989

Jugglin on the Berlin Wall, photographed in November 1989 by Yann Forget.

It was evening. About five or six of us were in a meeting room with a table. Each of us was enthusiastic about the work that we were pursuing. Each of us was deeply involved with building a better future for humanity. We were also realistic about the difficulties involved in fulfilling our dreams.

Our enthusiasm was in part based upon a special opportunity we had that evening. We had a time machine in our building. First, we had to decide who would go. I guess since it was my dream, it was decided that I should go. We discussed the trip and decided that I really did not need to take anything. But as I began to enter the time machine, I realized that it would be really good to have a camera. Quickly someone ran into a nearby room and brought me a high quality camera.

I set the time machine on ready, and immediately I found myself in the future. It did not seem to be a far-off future, something like maybe 7 to 25 years into the future, but that’s just my guess, I really don’t know when it was. In the time machine, I was being transported from one part of the world to another. I was flying about 30 yards above the ground observing a particular day. I went to many places all over the world and everywhere I went there were people of all cultures and backgrounds jubilantly joining together and marching, carrying banners, singing, chanting, swaying together, spinning, and dancing in the streets. The gatherings were spontaneous and free spirited. Something utterly incredible had just been realized or had just happened and the people were celebrating the resultant oneness of humanity and thanking God for this great victory.

All the while I kept taking pictures. Then I was brought back to the present and to the meeting room. Right away I began to tell others what I saw. I was so moved by what I saw that I teared up. Everyone was impressed by my words, but it was not until someone brought in the large developed pictures and placed them on the table that everyone began to really take it in. The others in the room began to speak breathlessly about how these pictures could change the world, because people would see in these pictures a real future that will happen if we work together now. Besides speaking of how others would be affected by the pictures, each spoke of how they were now going to work much harder and in a much more directed and concerted manner to build a better future for humanity. For in these pictures, each of us saw this wonderful future reaching out to us, inviting us to live in the faith that this is not only possible but very realizable.

Two additional themes strike me from this dream. First it points to a great trial and a great victory ahead of us. Second, it points to “vivid pictures” within each of us, gifts, talents, and energy that we can bring forth to build a better humanity.My daughter, Mignon, sent me a link to the positive video on the right. It suggests something of a better world as well. Click it and enjoy it.

 

Our next Future of the Gulf – Community Brainstorm is September 30, 2010 at the Coastal Response Center – 7385 Highway 188 in Coden, Alabama. Our purpose, in light of the ongoing oil disaster, is to share community needs, resources, ideas, and opportunities with other people who care. We will brainstorm and encourage one another to act and move positively together to restore our way of life, health, and community.

 

 Nic Marks and the Happy Planet Index

 

Positive Energy

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Sharing positive energy after Hands Across the Sand on Dauphin Island, photographed June 26, 2010 by Theresa Robinson

Sharing positive energy after Hands Across the Sand on Dauphin Island, photographed June 26, 2010 by Theresa Robinson

Dauphin Island is getting a good wind right now, much more than a breeze, but not a gale – pure, positive, refreshing energy.

A good wind is just one of the many positive energies in life. Atoms spin, waters spin, the Earth spins, and we spin. Dreaming, dancing, sharing, enjoying, forgiving – fully believing in and expressing our beauty – spinning – revolving – revolutionizing – loving without end for the benefit of all. What a wind! What clean, positive, refreshing energy!

Positive energy is all around us, a revolution always in the making, never letting go of us. Francis of Assisi, a great friend of animals and a great believer in positive energy, dedicated himself to this revolution of love with these words:

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.

Let the positive energy in each of us find expression in our own words, voice, and life. Let the wind blow where it will.