iPeace.us2024-03-29T05:43:40ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOnhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/63624873?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://ipeace.us/group/anabsenceinjerusalem/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=NeriBarOn&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThe work of the UNRWAtag:ipeace.us,2009-04-17:2217368:Topic:15044832009-04-17T07:20:05.783ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
Does anyone know anything about the work of the UNRWA? Are they doing good things? Do you know anyone who works there?<br />
<br />
(UNRWA = United Nations Relief and Works Agency - they help palestinian refugees)<br />
<br />
alexander
Does anyone know anything about the work of the UNRWA? Are they doing good things? Do you know anyone who works there?<br />
<br />
(UNRWA = United Nations Relief and Works Agency - they help palestinian refugees)<br />
<br />
alexander Me and the Middle Easttag:ipeace.us,2008-12-08:2217368:Topic:6465372008-12-08T16:39:33.525ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
Today I am feeling good so I’ve decided to scribble a little about my thoughts on the Middle East. Firstly, like just about everyone, I feel the suffering of the people in this region and particularly the Israelis and Palestinians something awful. I am also realistic to realise nothing much will improve very soon and we are all going to need patience more than anything else. Being as patience is the Buddhist antidote to anger contemplating the Middle East situation serves as good practice for…
Today I am feeling good so I’ve decided to scribble a little about my thoughts on the Middle East. Firstly, like just about everyone, I feel the suffering of the people in this region and particularly the Israelis and Palestinians something awful. I am also realistic to realise nothing much will improve very soon and we are all going to need patience more than anything else. Being as patience is the Buddhist antidote to anger contemplating the Middle East situation serves as good practice for overcoming my own anger.<br />
<br />
And that’s just it really anger breeds violence, which feeds more anger and more violence. I sought advice about my own anger and was told to recognise it as it appeared in my mind and then let go of it immediately, without clinging to it. With patience I was told this was possible. I asked whether instead of just not clinging to my thought of anger if I couldn’t convert it in some way to something more useful. I was told it was possible to convert any emotion to something more positive by applying the practice of taking over the suffering of the object, using it to crush my ego and then giving back the benefits to the object.<br />
This means basically applying a bit of compassion even to ones enemy, as we recognise his suffering is ego-based the same as ours.<br />
<br />
Back then to the Middle East - it looks like what is missing there is both patience and compassion. Not surprising really as the anger and thus the violence has been building up over a very long time.<br />
<br />
I think the solution lays in those taking responsibility for peacemaking, such as those present on this very site, constantly bear in mind patience and compassion every time they act or react. There is absolutely no difference between an Israeli and a Palestinian. Both want happiness, yet both suffer. As soon as one consciously sees this suffering in another along with his wish for happiness, surely we cannot help feeling compassion for that person, whatever the harm we think he wants to do to us. OK, so he’s another religion and keeps sending rockets against me – so what? Does that mean he’s not just like me – doesn’t really know what he’s doing – suffering like mad because of it. If we learn not to cling to our anger, as it arises in our mind and use our human power of compassion that anger and the violence that goes with it will evaporate like the morning mist, which I assume appears sometimes in the Middle East too.<br />
<br />
It simply won’t do to blame the other guy – it’s me, my own ego, to blame. It’s the anger in me that is rubbing off on everyone about me. How can we love our neighbours when we are so full of hate? Where do these crazy ideas come from?<br />
<br />
And many of us pretend we are religious too! How if it’s God’s will that we die at this particular time, we still have to bring someone else down with us? How is that going to get either of us into paradise? And if to save just one life we can save the world, what happens when we go against God’s commandment and kill instead? Why in His name to we constantly point the finger at someone else when it’s plain to see it’s ourselves to blame.<br />
<br />
And if we have lost the religion of our ancestors and pretend to practice humanism, why to we act like some crazed animal and forget we are human at all? You can’t really do anything much about the other guy’s anger, fear, ignorance, etc. but you can sure do something about your own? We evolved from reptiles that wanted to love but found they were not soft enough. We are now fully equipped with soft fingers to caress and compassionate minds to think about anyone we wish to love. What excuse can we possibly have except that we’re too busy thinking of ourselves and our own selfish needs instead of the poor guy next door we would like to love but have no time for. Noosphere Part 2 History of Concepttag:ipeace.us,2008-11-08:2217368:Topic:4194572008-11-08T01:36:35.264ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
History of concept<br />
<br />
One of the original aspects of the noosphere concept deals with evolution. Henri Bergson (1907) was one of the first to propose that evolution is 'creative' and cannot necessarily be explained solely by Darwinian natural selection. L'évolution créatrice is upheld, according to Bergson, by a constant vital force that animates life and fundamentally connects mind and body, an idea opposing the dualism of René Descartes. In 1923, C. Lloyd Morgan took this work further,…
History of concept<br />
<br />
One of the original aspects of the noosphere concept deals with evolution. Henri Bergson (1907) was one of the first to propose that evolution is 'creative' and cannot necessarily be explained solely by Darwinian natural selection. L'évolution créatrice is upheld, according to Bergson, by a constant vital force that animates life and fundamentally connects mind and body, an idea opposing the dualism of René Descartes. In 1923, C. Lloyd Morgan took this work further, elaborating on an 'emergent evolution' that could explain increasing complexity (including the evolution of mind). Morgan found that many of the most interesting changes in living things have been largely discontinuous with past evolution, and therefore did not necessarily take place through a gradual process of natural selection. Rather, evolution experiences jumps in complexity (such as the emergence of a self-reflective universe, or noosphere). Finally, the complexification of human cultures, particularly language, facilitated a quickening of evolution in which cultural evolution occurs more rapidly than biological evolution. Recent understanding of human ecosystems and of human impact on the biosphere have led to a link between the notion of sustainability with the "co-evolution" [Norgaard, 1994] and harmonization of cultural and biological evolution.<br />
<br />
The resulting political system has been referred to as a noocracy.<br />
<br />
American integral theorist Ken Wilber deals with this third evolution of the noosphere. In his work, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), he builds many of his arguments on the emergence of the noosphere and the continued emergence of further evolutionary structures.<br />
<br />
U.S. politician Lyndon LaRouche and his political organization have published many articles, pamphlets, and short books pertaining to their views of the importance of the noosphere in human development.<br />
<br />
History of this expression:<br />
<br />
* Henri Bergson's L'évolution créatrice (1907)<br />
* E. LeRoy's Les origines humaines et l'évolution de l'intelligence (1928)<br />
* Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945)<br />
* Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)<br />
* David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla An Absence in My Heart-An Invitation for Words from the Hearttag:ipeace.us,2008-10-05:2217368:Topic:1407362008-10-05T16:26:15.545ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
"Absence in My Heart" is a place where you are invited to give expression to the absence- or the heaviness of your heart as I tried to do in my first post below.<br />
<br />
This "absence" is like a hole, a vacuum or, perhaps more strongly put, like rift cutting through the heart, like a geographical (and ethical) fault.<br />
<br />
The "fault" that one feels, the lack of completion and perfection, is a way out of complacency and an opening to understanding. It is an opening to feeling for the Other; thus the…
"Absence in My Heart" is a place where you are invited to give expression to the absence- or the heaviness of your heart as I tried to do in my first post below.<br />
<br />
This "absence" is like a hole, a vacuum or, perhaps more strongly put, like rift cutting through the heart, like a geographical (and ethical) fault.<br />
<br />
The "fault" that one feels, the lack of completion and perfection, is a way out of complacency and an opening to understanding. It is an opening to feeling for the Other; thus the beginning of our fulfilling our responsibility to the him/her.<br />
<br />
These posts may not be the words of "hope", "light and love" that we often want to-hear but words from the pained heart that yearns, not for its own Peace, but for Our Peace.<br />
<br />
The comments added and empathy we feel towards each other are not only a consolation, but are actual steps in that direction.<br />
<br />
In Peace,<br />
Myron<br />
<br />
-----<b>An Absence in My Heart</b> #1------------------------------<br />
<br />
Twice daily I cross the Green Line ..<br />
Morning morning i leave my Kibbutz/settlement for work in "Israel proper"<br />
and in the afternoon..i make the climb back to the hilly occupied/disputed land of two Peoples.<br />
<br />
Today on the way home i was giving a lift to three Jewish/Israeli high school girls-one was getting off soon, before we hit the Green Line, and two needed to get to the town/settlement of Efrat, on the Jerusalem-El Quds/Hebron-El Halil road.<br />
<br />
At sunset we passed the T-Junction in Emek HaElah (Elah Valley). There stood two Palestinian day workers (with permits to work in Israel), who were in need of a "hitch" to their villages perched in the hilly land ahead of us. I only had room for one...so I passed them by to let off the first of the three girls. "I will turn back to pick them up afterwards" I told myself.<br />
<br />
Having let off the first girl I "asked permission" of the other two to go back and pick up the two hitchhikers- figuring that not many Israeli cars would stop for them. I felt stuck, trapped...needing to "ask permission" to pick up the two strangers.<br />
<br />
The first response was silence..a very uncomfortable silence for me. It was the silence of shock and maybe fear.<br />
<br />
Finally one uttered "Are they Jews?".<br />
"Off course not ! I answered..They are from Jabba or maybe from Nahalin. I think i know the one with the big smile. Maybe i gave him a lift before. The second one is totally unfamiliar to me."<br />
<br />
Had these girls been adults..or perhaps had they been male..I may have ignored their fear- their recoiling from doing the good deed. But I was trapped..feeling i owed them a sense of "security" as they were my guests..and so, i left the two Palestinian day workers standing at the T-Junction..in the Valley of Elah where David met Goliath..<br />
<br />
and i felt and Absence in my Heart. Triptych -- Three Poems About Jerusalem, the Conflict, Etc.tag:ipeace.us,2008-10-01:2217368:Topic:1253022008-10-01T06:27:20.728ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
Triptych<br />
by John Wilmerding (for the displaced and oppressed peoples of the world)<br />
Completed May 12, 2006<br />
<br />
[A triptych is three works of art of the same type, meant to be appreciated together.]<br />
<br />
I. 'I Am Still Here', or 'Intrepid Interlopers and Civilized Cannibals'<br />
II. Ora, The Dream<br />
III. What Has Gates Must Also Have Walls<br />
<br />
<…><br />
<br />
I. 'I Am Still Here', or<br />
'Intrepid Interlopers and Civilized Cannibals'<br />
by John Wilmerding (dedicated to Homer St. Francis, direct descendant of…
Triptych<br />
by John Wilmerding (for the displaced and oppressed peoples of the world)<br />
Completed May 12, 2006<br />
<br />
[A triptych is three works of art of the same type, meant to be appreciated together.]<br />
<br />
I. 'I Am Still Here', or 'Intrepid Interlopers and Civilized Cannibals'<br />
II. Ora, The Dream<br />
III. What Has Gates Must Also Have Walls<br />
<br />
<…><br />
<br />
I. 'I Am Still Here', or<br />
'Intrepid Interlopers and Civilized Cannibals'<br />
by John Wilmerding (dedicated to Homer St. Francis, direct descendant of Greylock)<br />
[Written at one sitting September 17, 2003, upon waking from a dream]<br />
<br />
Abenaki<br />
Whose name meant<br />
'Eaters of the Bark of Trees'<br />
to the Iroquois<br />
who admired their survival skills<br />
in these green mountains<br />
of their Ndakinna<br />
<br />
Spirit comes to me in the night<br />
'I am still here', it says<br />
'Why do you put me in a museum?<br />
Why do you memorialize me<br />
when I am still here?'<br />
<br />
I read about the school's mascot<br />
the 'Indian'<br />
The funny dolls and costumes<br />
at the football games<br />
There's a controversy<br />
Someone is saying<br />
'I am still here<br />
'Why do you poke fun at me?<br />
Why do you make me your mascot?'<br />
<br />
I read about Greylock<br />
About his raids and forays<br />
From Abenaki summer hunting-grounds<br />
South through Ndakinna<br />
(though I have no right to speak that name<br />
Ndakinna means 'our land'<br />
but this is not my land<br />
but rather land stolen by my ancestors)<br />
<br />
South-east through Wantastiquet<br />
'River that leads to the west'<br />
where I live today<br />
Came Greylock<br />
Over and over again<br />
on raids and forays<br />
living off Ndakinna<br />
trying to drive the settlers<br />
from Ndakinna<br />
from Wantastiquet<br />
from Connecticut<br />
<br />
'I am still here'<br />
This is Ndakinna<br />
Our piece of grandmother Earth<br />
where she nourishes us with her fruits<br />
her game<br />
... Why do you take her away?<br />
<br />
I read about colonist reprisals<br />
Intrepid bands of settlers head north<br />
Through Connecticut<br />
(now called western Massachusetts<br />
or Vermont, for the Green Mountains)<br />
Through Wantastiquet<br />
Through Ndakinna<br />
to the Abenaki summer hunting grounds<br />
They find the women and children<br />
and they kill them<br />
but they cannot live off Ndakinna<br />
the way the Abenaki can<br />
<br />
So they spare some Abenaki children<br />
and they kill them as they go<br />
South through Ndakinna<br />
South-east through Wantastiquet<br />
They kill them and eat their flesh<br />
<br />
They pass near here<br />
where I live today<br />
this 'Brattleboro'<br />
Named after a British officer<br />
who won it in a card game<br />
but who was never here<br />
<br />
They pass through here<br />
these Englishmen<br />
with their chunks of child-flesh<br />
drying on their belts<br />
<br />
'I am still here', says the voice<br />
waking me in the night<br />
<br />
We are a peculiar people<br />
we who walk these green mountains today<br />
or drive over them with our SUV's<br />
who stretch our covered bridges<br />
across Wantastiquet<br />
<br />
We come and build our towns<br />
our churches and meeting-houses<br />
in someone else's 'Ndakinna'<br />
<br />
We fancy ourselves special<br />
Our 'chosen peoples' come<br />
to someone else's 'Ndakinna'<br />
We pay dollars for part of her<br />
and name our land trust 'Abenaki'<br />
but then the voice comes in the night<br />
'I am still here'<br />
and we have to name them something else<br />
<br />
We know upon whose land we walk<br />
We seek to assuage the spirits<br />
We journey to the summer hunting grounds<br />
There, we buy souvenirs<br />
Maybe we tie them to our belts<br />
as we go back south<br />
through their Ndakinna<br />
through their Wantastiquet<br />
<br />
We visit Homer St. Francis<br />
hereditary chief of the Abenaki<br />
direct descendent of Greylock<br />
for Greylock lived to a ripe old age<br />
and fathered many children<br />
whose descendants are still here<br />
<br />
We speak with this great man<br />
Homer St. Francis<br />
now dying of cancer<br />
who tells us about something called<br />
'eugenics'<br />
who shows us papers proving<br />
that his bloodlines were<br />
targeted for extinction<br />
We invite him to come<br />
to tell his people's story<br />
in our Quaker meeting-house<br />
<br />
Chief Homer of the Abenaki<br />
retraces Greylock's steps<br />
down through his Ndakinna<br />
down through their Wantastiquet<br />
comes the hereditary chief of the Abenaki<br />
to the Putney Friends meeting-house<br />
built on the almost-Abenaki land trust<br />
now called something else<br />
because someone said<br />
'I am still here'<br />
<br />
Homer tells his people's story<br />
in Putney congregational church<br />
because our meeting-house<br />
is not big enough for all the people<br />
<br />
'You say you worship the great spirit'<br />
he says<br />
'Why do you do this thing indoors<br />
when the Great Spirit is outside?<br />
Come out-of-doors<br />
Come to grandmother Earth<br />
Come to grandfather Sky'<br />
<br />
'I have told you our story today<br />
Just remember this one thing about me<br />
Even though today I am dying<br />
I am still here'<br />
<br />
I sleep in the open-air shed<br />
Spirit comes to me in the night<br />
'I am still here', it says<br />
<br />
Dawn breaks on Indian Brook Camp<br />
at Farm and Wilderness Camps<br />
Quakers camping in 'Ndakinna'<br />
in Homer St. Francis' land<br />
It is said that Quakers own the camps<br />
How is this so?<br />
How, when spirits come in the night<br />
saying 'I am still here'?<br />
<br />
We start our worship indoors<br />
We become quiet, then we talk again<br />
someone says<br />
'Let's try an experiment<br />
let's move outside<br />
for meeting for worship<br />
with a concern for business'<br />
<br />
We sit in the sun on the porch of the lodge<br />
a grand lodge that can hold a hundred people<br />
at the so-called 'Indian Brook Camp'<br />
We few, we thirty or so<br />
We have our meeting for worship<br />
with a concern for business<br />
It goes well<br />
sitting on Grandmother Earth<br />
worshipping under Grandfather Sky<br />
<br />
At the end, the Clerk thanks those Friends<br />
who made the supreme sacrifice<br />
of shading their eyes<br />
with pieces of white paper<br />
from the sunlight<br />
<br />
I speak to the other Quakers<br />
before we rise<br />
I remember Homer St. Francis<br />
now passed into the great beyond<br />
who came down his Ndakinna<br />
who traversed his Wantastiquet<br />
in the steps of his valiant ancestor Greylock<br />
this man Homer St. Francis<br />
whose bloodlines were targeted for extinction<br />
who bid us worship out-of-doors<br />
who nevertheless said 'I am still here'<br />
<br />
Spirit comes to me in the night<br />
'I am still here', it says<br />
<br />
I cannot sleep; I arise<br />
I go to the computer<br />
Someone wants the map<br />
The 1946 map of Palestine<br />
now called something else<br />
her people herded into captivity<br />
Alas, there are no more hunting-grounds<br />
into which they can retreat<br />
<br />
I send the map<br />
'Please tell me if it works for you', I say<br />
'It's a little over 1.5 megabytes<br />
takes about five minutes to download<br />
on a 56K modem<br />
<br />
Then I wonder ...<br />
Will there someday be an Arab mascot?<br />
Will someone build a bedouin museum?<br />
Will someone name their land trust 'Muslim'?<br />
Will Jewish Quakers worship at Camp Palestine?<br />
Will they sleep well at night<br />
Or will voices come in the night<br />
saying 'I am still here'?<br />
<br />
<...><br />
<br />
II. Ora, The Dream<br />
by John Wilmerding (dedicated to Ora Wise of 'Jews Against The Occupation')<br />
[Written at one sitting February 24, 2004, upon waking from a dream]<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
O Israel<br />
O Jerusalem<br />
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem<br />
May my right hand lose its cunning<br />
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth<br />
Jerusalem<br />
Foundation and Heritage of Shalom<br />
How different are you than al Quds, the holy?<br />
How different than Islam herself?<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
O Israel<br />
You bear witness to rapine<br />
Your clothes are torn from you<br />
Your breast exposed<br />
Your body violated<br />
A fence, nay a wall, laid before you<br />
But not of you<br />
Dividing your mind from your heart<br />
The exposed breast a sign from G-d<br />
How sad she is so few of us can see<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
O Israel<br />
Your thousand-year-old cloak rent from you<br />
Your natural grace torn asunder<br />
Concrete and concertina wire, razor sharp<br />
Rend the skin of your children<br />
They cannot reach your breasts to nurse<br />
Where is the milk of human kindness<br />
Where is the message in your breast<br />
The message that says 'I am a gift'?<br />
Only hiding, perhaps, driven inside<br />
By those who rape you, who plunder you<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
O Israel<br />
You reached me with a message unintended<br />
You slaughtered my heart so I'm sacrificed<br />
Your bosom cried out to me<br />
'Tear open my shirt ... expose my breasts'<br />
Yes, beautiful, I said to myself<br />
And watched the grace of the model on the platform<br />
Watched the eyes and the curl of the mouth<br />
The shape that only a woman's thigh can have<br />
The gentle curve of her roominess for children<br />
But I missed the message<br />
Until the dream<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
G-d came to me in the dream and explained<br />
Ora is Israel, He said<br />
Ora is struggling to be born<br />
Ora is Homo Sapiens Sapiens<br />
Ora is charismatic Jew<br />
Ora is of the blood of the Christ<br />
It is Israel's breasts who are exposed<br />
In the act of birthing her children for the future<br />
She is Israel ... Ora is Israel<br />
Yiis-roe-el<br />
Al-Llah YHWH, Abba to all<br />
Told me this<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
Explained 'Jews Against the Occupation'<br />
For the cradle, the mother of humanity<br />
Cannot occupy the father<br />
Only the other way around<br />
Only this will bring the children<br />
If the man rapes the woman<br />
Tears open her robes, exposes her breast<br />
Occupies her in a fit of power and rage<br />
Her body will go fallow<br />
Yet she will return in all her glory<br />
The wall against intimacy and tenderness will fall<br />
The wall is anathema<br />
Know that the wall is anathema<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
Can the woman thrive without the man?<br />
Only subsist<br />
Some say a woman without a man<br />
Is like a fish without a bicycle<br />
But in this case, it doesn't apply<br />
Out of her mother's womb<br />
In the city of Jerusalem<br />
The girl-child of Israel is born<br />
Reaching out to love the world<br />
Saying to all the people 'You are mine'<br />
Living for her destiny, this Jewish Christ<br />
Clothed in the body of a woman<br />
Bearing witness to her own rapine<br />
Praying only for our salvation<br />
As she fears her own slaughter<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
Never fear<br />
G-d has not forsaken you<br />
G-d reaches you and comforts you<br />
In your travails for Shalom, for Salaam,<br />
The foundation and heritage, Jerusalem<br />
Ye-ru-sha-la-yim<br />
Know that this name is of YHWH<br />
Whose name all should fear to speak<br />
Yet the One we must address regardless<br />
Though we cannot see G-d's face<br />
It is fated that a few will know<br />
G-d looks something like you<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
Told me what we do<br />
Told me what we must do<br />
For too long, we play the man<br />
Taking from the Earth her spoils<br />
The false man, the soldier, the killer<br />
The rapist wrenching what he wants<br />
From the body of the Earth, of Israel<br />
For too long, we carry walls<br />
Fences, barriers, keeping out<br />
That which we cannot recall<br />
Yet that which we must recall<br />
The known emerging from the hidden<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
It told me that it's woman's turn<br />
It's your turn<br />
We, humanity, have long awaited you<br />
For life, human life, is but a game<br />
Women and men take turns<br />
And now it is your turn<br />
State your piece, make your peace<br />
Share your bridge-builder nature<br />
Gates are not enough<br />
Strands of shiny wire will rust away<br />
Pancakes of powdered Earth will fall<br />
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust<br />
And human hope will rise again<br />
Human Spirit, Israel, rises again<br />
Seeking Zion<br />
<br />
Ora<br />
The dream<br />
G-d cannot guide you<br />
Only tell you who you are<br />
You are destiny, you are fire<br />
You are the raging of the mother, child lost<br />
You are the olive branch<br />
Writhing on the ground beneath the hot sun<br />
Her life-blood seeping into the Earth<br />
Dying, yet in death alive<br />
Promising fruit one day once again<br />
Emerging from the holy soil<br />
You are showing your charisma<br />
You fly the flag on high<br />
Yet it does not have to be blue and white<br />
It does not have to bear a star<br />
For you are the star<br />
Borne from on High, given to Earth<br />
<br />
<...><br />
<br />
III. What Has Gates Must Also Have Walls<br />
by John Wilmerding (dedicated to Matthias Göring, a relative of Nazi official Hermann Göring)<br />
[Written at one sitting May 12, 2006, upon waking from a dream]<br />
<br />
"I want you to guard the gates of Jerusalem ..."<br />
That's what the man says G-d told him.<br />
Yet what has gates must also have walls ...<br />
Is Jerusalem a gated community?<br />
<br />
If justice is a function of community,<br />
must communities mean apartheid?<br />
Must we always name that which we love<br />
as opposed to what we hate?<br />
Must we always choose a loyalty?<br />
<br />
What does it mean to love your enemies?<br />
Does it have to begin with enmity?<br />
We say we love Jerusalem,<br />
Foundation and heritage of Shalom ...<br />
but others simply call it 'the holy' ...<br />
Must such a place have a name?<br />
<br />
Jebus, from the Jebusites<br />
state the earliest scriptures<br />
Then the Hebrew immigrants<br />
Took it over and renamed it.<br />
What was it called before?<br />
Before even the Jebusites?<br />
<br />
Sut Nam! What is your true name?<br />
You! Smith! Or Jones! Or Wilmerding!<br />
What is there about you that really matters?<br />
<br />
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,<br />
May my right hand lose its cunning,<br />
May my tongue cleave<br />
to the roof of my mouth.<br />
Where is the roof of the world?<br />
Must a roof keep us from heaven?<br />
Must we fix the hole<br />
Where the rain gets in?<br />
<br />
We shit near where we sit.<br />
We eat near where we think.<br />
Our eyes look out in one direction,<br />
not from the back of our head.<br />
Whether we are deaf or not,<br />
Do we have ears to hear?<br />
What is there to listen to?<br />
Everything!<br />
<br />
What is your true name?<br />
Not the one your mother gave you.<br />
Not the one your father bore.<br />
How can I call you?<br />
What makes you respond?<br />
How do you feel what's real?<br />
<br />
Today the children of Nazis say<br />
'Jews are the real heroes'.<br />
Yet Muslim Arabs in Palestine say<br />
'Jews are the real Nazis'.<br />
Must one read between the lines<br />
To see the truth?<br />
<br />
Why do we need heroes?<br />
Or is everyone famous now<br />
for fifteen minutes?<br />
My clock is ticking ...<br />
What about inflation?<br />
With oil a hundred bucks a barrel<br />
Maybe we only get five seconds now.<br />
<br />
What is there about being human<br />
that makes us separate?<br />
Or are we?<br />
Are we?<br />
<br />
Ben and Jerrys make a Vermonster<br />
A bucket of ice cream, twenty scoops<br />
A quart of chocolate fudge syrup<br />
No one person can eat one<br />
But is Vermont, Ndakinna<br />
What the Abenaki called 'our land'<br />
The whitest state in the union<br />
Is Vermont the real monster?<br />
Is Vermont a gated community?<br />
<br />
Today we see the Abenaki<br />
Tomorrow we don't<br />
Recognition comes and goes<br />
People of the dawn<br />
People of the new day<br />
Wampanoag, Wabanaki<br />
I love to feel<br />
the warmth of the sun on my skin.<br />
My pinkish-beige skin.<br />
<br />
Do we care if the state sees us?<br />
Do we care if they spy on us?<br />
Or is below the radar better?<br />
I bet we care when they torture us!<br />
TV cameras in town squares<br />
Do we like being seen?<br />
Do we love to feel<br />
The eyes, the stares, of others?<br />
<br />
My intention is ...<br />
My intention is ...<br />
My intention is ...<br />
What do you say after you say hello?<br />
Or why does 'hello' have to be<br />
'Hell' to begin with?<br />
<br />
The road to Hell<br />
Is it paved with good intentions?<br />
Or is that a misnomer?<br />
G-d, what is your true name?<br />
IEAOUOAEI<br />
Do I have it right?<br />
Or did someone just step on my toe?<br />
<br />
This concludes today's episode<br />
of 'Twelve Gates Into The City'<br />
Stay tuned to this channel<br />
for the next exciting episode,<br />
"Fuck Brattleboro ... where's my Wantastiquet?!" The Noosphere of Light and Life Is Here Part Onetag:ipeace.us,2008-09-30:2217368:Topic:1232902008-09-30T13:07:58.941ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
In the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere (sometimes spelled noösphere) can be seen as the "sphere of human thought" being derived from the Greek νούς ("nous") meaning "mind" + σφαίρα (sfaira) meaning "sphere", in the style of "atmosphere" and "biosphere." In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the…
In the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere (sometimes spelled noösphere) can be seen as the "sphere of human thought" being derived from the Greek νούς ("nous") meaning "mind" + σφαίρα (sfaira) meaning "sphere", in the style of "atmosphere" and "biosphere." In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky's noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements.<br />
<br />
For Teilhard, the noosphere is best described as a sort of 'collective consciousness' of human-beings. It emerges from the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. This is an extension of Teilhard's Law of Complexity/Consciousness, the law describing the nature of evolution in the universe. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, added that the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega Point—which he saw as the goal of history.<br />
<br />
The noosphere concept of 'unification' was elaborated in popular science fiction by Julian May in the Galactic Milieu Series. It is also the reason Teilhard is often called the patron saint of the Internet[1] Words Across the Gaptag:ipeace.us,2008-09-27:2217368:Topic:1145892008-09-27T18:57:53.359ZNeri Bar-Onhttps://ipeace.us/profile/NeriBarOn
I have been trying to think my way into some of the things we could achieve on this group and this is my first idea. We have here on ipeace and beyond some amazing poets who can inspire others; with their words of peace and hope, with their sorrow and pain, with their reaching out to others and their willingness to build a more tolerant and respectful world.<br />
<br />
So this is the idea here. We have this barrier built between Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine. This barrier is a metaphor…
I have been trying to think my way into some of the things we could achieve on this group and this is my first idea. We have here on ipeace and beyond some amazing poets who can inspire others; with their words of peace and hope, with their sorrow and pain, with their reaching out to others and their willingness to build a more tolerant and respectful world.<br />
<br />
So this is the idea here. We have this barrier built between Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine. This barrier is a metaphor for the barriers that exist in the hearts of humans; this terrible separation and isolation we all feel towards those that are different from us, this alienation that our leaders like to sress. WHAT IF we could build a bridge of words and ideas between the two sides that do not reflect these political differences but show that each of us has our worth to each other.<br />
<br />
I know there are amazing poets out there in both these lands that are writing some wonderful lines about their situation and about how they hope for peace and the eradication of all barriers that divide us.<br />
<br />
So here is the challenge I put to you. To write poetry about how the people on the other side might feel. Let us try to think about a bridge of words and feelings about each other.<br />
<br />
[ However let it be said here and now, that if there is any attempt to ‘flame,’ insult, threaten or any other unpleasantness, posts will be deleted and members may be removed from the group…so be positive and let’s show our respect and love for others.]