Billy, I loved your poem about trees, the one-leggeds.. I want to eventually publish a book of my photos of trees along with the stories accompanying them. A huge someday goal.. hope your health issues are better-so true what you said. I've been in a health situation the past year that has brought me to my knees and forced me to look at issues such as do I want to die at my post-or not--or does it truly matter. Ha! Bottom line, not my choice and doesn't matter. Please give Lynn my love and tell her I said O Si O, hello! Linda in China
Billy Howell-Sinnard Comment:I'm happy you liked my poem. Yes, we still have a ways to go to do what Martin has asked. DIscussion: Hope you will keep on writing poems and keep sharing . It's a gift you have and ohers have to strneghthen our individual, family, and community spirits. But let us also connect on "community to community basis" as we can acrooss America now as many are hurting, 13 million+ in fact. They have no jobs, and cannot find one. We can link community to community by help creating jobs, and partiipate in the workforce training such as in "Reforestation", that will help the "healing process" and put food on the table, and prepare our young ones for picking up skillis and motivation for the future. Martin Luther King was a "great mind" but so was Henry David Thoreau before him, and the Native American spiritual cultures that is linked spiritually and in action.
Billy Howell-Sinnard Comment: Thanks for honoring Martin Luther King with your beutiful poem. But we need now to go beyond that and do what Martin Luther King inpired us to do, and put food on the table for our family, and motivate our kids, especially teens + to prepare for careers of future rather than be involved in negatives such as gangs or substance abuse . You as everyone else at the Men's Lodge have recieved my pre-proposal template for a focus on "Reforestation" as "pragmatic passion" to do something now, on a indivdiual, family and community levels via a focus on "Forestry Job Creation" as is possible now. Comments most welcome !
"Do harm to nobody; pray for all; try to make your light shine in the world and let your banner fly high in the Heavens. The beautiful perfume of your noble lives will permeate everywhere. The light of truth kindled in your hearts will shine out to the distant horizon!" --'Abdu'l-Bahá
"Heal yourself - your physical and spiritual bodies. Regenerate yourself with light, and then help those who have poverty of the soul. Return to the inner spirit, which we have abandoned while looking elsewhere for happiness."-- Willaru Huayta, QUECHUA NATION, PERU
Sorry for the confusion. I think we are in total agreement. I have been studying these things for over 30 years and the main focus of my work is in the deep cultural meaning of story. In my work I have found at least three definitions of the word myth in the world. One is a myth is a lie. That's the derogatory definition used in modern times. The second is old stories that tell the origins of people and things. The Western academic world has often referred to Greek and Roman stories as myth and stories of indigenous populations have been called folk tales or legends. Even Joseph Campbell referred to the stories of Africa as the "quaint mumbo jumbo of the African witch doctor." The actual definition of myth is those stories that guide a culture's behaviors, values, and relationships toward the outer and inner world.
Is this making more sense?
What Joseph Campbell did offer, and what I believe to be true, is that the stories of our time are not doing the job of guiding us in the ways that myths (stories) are meant to.
(At this point I often go off into a discussion of how advertisers are the new storytellers and how destructive these ads are to our Kids)
There are those of us that believe that there is great wisdom in the stories from the past and it is the role of the storyteller to bring those stories forward in a way that the wisdom can be understood in the present. I was an elementary school teacher for nearly 30 years and I was stunned to realize that kids don't know the stories of their own heritage.They think video game characters are real heroes.
I feel like I am starting to ramble a bit so I will end here. I am more than willing to discuss story and all it means to humanity and I appreciate your willingness to ask the questions. my website is: a href="http://www.dougbannerstoryteller.com>">www.dougbannerstoryteller.com> there are some other articles there as well.
When I speak of myth I speak to the stories that the elders shared with us in order that we learn to live the right path with all things. Now that many of my teachers have crossed over, most recently my own father, I find that I am no longer sitting at the knee of my elders but I am becoming one. What a responsibility this feels to be. Now I must step forward and help the young ones in the same way I was taught. It is good to have so many fine brothers and sisters with whom to share this journey. Blessings in the new year.
please forgive me my friends such a long time has elapsed since i spoke to you last it is a long story but i continue to extend my hand of friendship and peace to all you my brothers of the earth i am a member of the irish indigenous travelling people who have for centuries suffered at the hands of successive irish goverments that treat us like second class citizens welcome no where wanted by none except our own people our plight is similar to you in the americas my brothers. peace to all Glenn Gannon
"The troubles of this world pass, and what we have left is what we have made of our souls; so it is to this we must look—to becoming more spiritual, drawing nearer to God, no matter what our human minds and bodies go through.” --Shoghi Effendi
“No man can attain his true station”, is Bahá’u’lláh’s counsel, “except through his justice. No power can exist except through unity. No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation.”
"The Great Being saith: The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries of consultation and compassion. Take ye counsel together in all matters, inasmuch as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth the way, and is the bestower of understanding." --Bahá'u'lláh
Bill, thanks for the comments. Actually we are leaving Show Low for Durango, CO. I drive through Lukachukai almost every week. It is beautiful there. Love driving over Buffalo Pass. Have a great day!
"...there were many universal cycles preceding this one in which we are living. They were consummated, completed and their traces obliterated. The divine and creative purpose in them was the evolution of spiritual man, just as it is in this cycle. The circle of existence is the same circle; it returns. The tree of life has ever borne the same heavenly fruit."
"How good it is if the friends be as close as sheaves of light, if they stand together side by side in a firm unbroken line. For now have the rays of reality from the Sun of the world of existence, united in adoration all the worshippers of this light; and these rays have, through infinite grace, gathered all peoples together within this wide-spreading shelter; therefore must all souls become as one soul, and all hearts as one heart. Let all be set free from the multiple identities that were born of passion and desire, and in the oneness of their love for God find a new way of life."
thank you billy,...the spirit of peace is within me and longs to be set free ,..like the eagle that soars above the mountains and the plains ,..seeing all before it will land gracefully upon this earth as long as people ,..ordinary people such as you and i will it,...then so shall it be. peace to you brother. Glenn Gannon.
Billy Howell-Sinnard's Comments
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Billy, I loved your poem about trees, the one-leggeds.. I want to eventually publish a book of my photos of trees along with the stories accompanying them. A huge someday goal.. hope your health issues are better-so true what you said. I've been in a health situation the past year that has brought me to my knees and forced me to look at issues such as do I want to die at my post-or not--or does it truly matter. Ha! Bottom line, not my choice and doesn't matter. Please give Lynn my love and tell her I said O Si O, hello! Linda in China
Dear Brother,
Just to let you know you are in my thoughts. I send you aloha.
Carol
Sorry for the confusion. I think we are in total agreement. I have been studying these things for over 30 years and the main focus of my work is in the deep cultural meaning of story. In my work I have found at least three definitions of the word myth in the world. One is a myth is a lie. That's the derogatory definition used in modern times. The second is old stories that tell the origins of people and things. The Western academic world has often referred to Greek and Roman stories as myth and stories of indigenous populations have been called folk tales or legends. Even Joseph Campbell referred to the stories of Africa as the "quaint mumbo jumbo of the African witch doctor." The actual definition of myth is those stories that guide a culture's behaviors, values, and relationships toward the outer and inner world.
Is this making more sense?
What Joseph Campbell did offer, and what I believe to be true, is that the stories of our time are not doing the job of guiding us in the ways that myths (stories) are meant to.
(At this point I often go off into a discussion of how advertisers are the new storytellers and how destructive these ads are to our Kids)
There are those of us that believe that there is great wisdom in the stories from the past and it is the role of the storyteller to bring those stories forward in a way that the wisdom can be understood in the present. I was an elementary school teacher for nearly 30 years and I was stunned to realize that kids don't know the stories of their own heritage.They think video game characters are real heroes.
I feel like I am starting to ramble a bit so I will end here. I am more than willing to discuss story and all it means to humanity and I appreciate your willingness to ask the questions. my website is: a href="http://www.dougbannerstoryteller.com>">www.dougbannerstoryteller.com> there are some other articles there as well.
Be well
Thanks Billy,
When I speak of myth I speak to the stories that the elders shared with us in order that we learn to live the right path with all things. Now that many of my teachers have crossed over, most recently my own father, I find that I am no longer sitting at the knee of my elders but I am becoming one. What a responsibility this feels to be. Now I must step forward and help the young ones in the same way I was taught. It is good to have so many fine brothers and sisters with whom to share this journey. Blessings in the new year.
Doug
"The Great Being saith: The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries of consultation and compassion. Take ye counsel together in all matters, inasmuch as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth the way, and is the bestower of understanding." --Bahá'u'lláh
Walk in Beauty
Savitri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk&NR=1
Velma
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