Doors open, wind whispers
Cottonball clouds drift in pale blue
Reflections on early autumn afternoons
Author: Juliana Lightle
Calling on the Muse: A Meditation for Creative Spirits by Mary Sharratt
For my writer friends out there. I have blogged about her books before.
The world at large might view artists and writers as free spirits rocking la vie bohème, but creative people know that it’s much more complicated than that, especially if we’re striving to earn even a modest living from our work. As a writer, I often fall into the trap of measuring my success or failure on factors completely beyond my control, such as the ups and downs of a fickle book buying market.
I know that I’ve often wrestled with the feeling that I’ll never be enough. Never be big enough, never be a bestseller. Sometimes it’s hard not to succumb to a flailing sense of helplessness—why are any of us doing all this? Worst of all is my fear of creative dryness—that my inspiration will turn to dust and I’ll never write—let alone publish—another book.
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Memory
“People always remember things the way they want to remember them instead of the way it was….” Mira Ptacin.
Dream
“A dream is a wish your heart makes.”
anonymous child
Racism: We Still Don’t Get It by Esther Nelson
Sometimes I wonder if it will ever end, the hatred, the racism.
I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico, this summer for several weeks, spending much of my time unpacking boxes the moving van had delivered while simultaneously trying to create an aesthetically-pleasing and comfortable home. I also went to the Unitarian Universalist church–twice! (I haven’t attended church or any other place of worship regularly for decades.) But, moving is a socially-disruptive experience and church is one place you can connect with individual people as well as with the larger community. So, I decided to visit the local UU congregation.
Unitarian Universalism has a fairly long and circuitous history in the United States. It’s roots are in liberal Protestant theology and practice, but the institution has branched out from its roots, seeking to be more “inclusive and diverse.” Some of the historical background and development of the church can be found on Wikipedia. As fascinating as this history and development…
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I Have a Dream
Fifth-three years ago today Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most inspiring and telling speeches ever given by a person from this country. Today I listened to a young man, Patrick Miller, a middle school teacher here in Amarillo, give this same speech totally from memory with no notes. I feel saddened at the extent to which King’s speech still rings true, that although we have progressed tremendously, people of African descent and others of color still experience prejudice at so many levels in their lives, frequently on a daily basis.
Here I offer other quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Life’s most persistent and urgent questions is, “What are you doing for others?”
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
Summer Blues
Remnants of summer remaining
Sunrise over canyon walls, hoot owl calling
Hints of autumn lurking
Beauty is Whatever Gives Joy
When negative sights overwhelm, look at the flowers–sharing this beauty from a blogging friend.
The Fringe is Our Stronghold by Oxana Poberejnaia
Women and historically other oppressed persons will often create their own spiritual traditions to stay sane, feel valued, survive.
Recently I have come across several stories of women’s fringe spiritual movements or practices. This made me think about the role of outsiders’ or minority views in religions and society.
Patriarchy pushes women and their issues to the margins of society and religion. It seems that there women sometimes invent their own spiritual practices. These allow women to stand their own ground in religious matters, to preserve self-respect and to keep the hope of the highest spiritual attainment.
Quite often these beliefs and practices seem shocking in their bizarreness and their stubbornness not to accept orthodox norms.
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Seed Banks–the Genetic Future
Most of us think minimally about our food, where it comes from, the seed. With a rapidly growing world population the genetic diversity of the seed from which we grow food becomes increasingly crucial.
The United States contains 20 gene banks: three in California, one in each of the following states, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Hawaii, Texas, Iowa, Arkansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio, New York, Maryland, Florida, and Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. This system holds about 600,000 varieties. The seed bank in Ames, Iowa, contains 53,000 genetic lines of maize (corn) and other crop seeds–1400 species. The Illinois bank grows more than 2000 varieties of seeds per year.
Maintaining genetic integrity can be difficult. Some crops like corn are particularly difficult because corn easily cross pollinates. Researchers use these seeds to develop certain types of new varieties, e.g. varieties more resistant to disease, to drought.
Gene banks remain crucial to the future of agriculture and food even with the current controversies over GMO. Some farmers note that any hybrid whether deliberate or by accident is genetically modified. These modifications have existed since the beginning of agriculture.
A possibly more dire issue is the lack of wild relatives of key crops. Global gene banks lack many of these. The online journal, “Nature Plants” notes 1076 wild relatives of 81 crops were insufficiently safe-guarded. Up to 300 species could not be located in any gene bank. The lack of tropical crops in gene banks is particularly worrisome. This is important for the future of agriculture and the world food supply. Seed banks create safety nets for the future.
Perhaps the most remote and “safe” bank lies in Norway 800 miles from the North Pole. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault can store seed for 25 years without power. This vault stores seeds at -18 C and contains 825,000 crop varieties.
Note: the photo is corn close to the Nile Falls near Bahir Dahr, Ethiopia
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