My first blog friend, M.A. Rauf

-

-

I am one who knows how this blogging experience can change a person, for I have been profoundly changed. Later this month it will be six years since I began synch-ro-ni-zing. While it is my spiritual practice to write, and my creative play to take photographs, is it also an act of rapt listening to sit in the blog "theater" where you, my blog friends, share your own explorations. I evolve, much as a result of our engagement with one another.

Within just a couple of months of starting synch-ro-ni-zing, my outlook was transformed by one blogger. When I had just a couple of family members reading my blog, including my sister Ginnie who explained to me the ways of blogs, having published at In Soul for a year already, M.A. Rauf stopped in from India for a warm and welcoming visit. Ginnie had taught me to reciprocate blog visits as part of bloggy etiquette, and so I visited Rauf's Daylight Again after that first greeting from him. ("Rauf" — or "rauf" as he prefers — is pronounced "rah-oof.")

There isn't a way to summarize Rauf, or his blog! But I can say that he is a stunning photographer with heart, a writer with compassion and deep respect for those who are "untouchable" or otherwise downtrodden (you will see this for women in his photography), a lover of science, and a fervent lover of his India, with all her complex layers and intricate arts. He opened my eyes to atrocities; he encouraged me to think for myself. His humor, honesty, irony and sometimes outrage over what humans do to each other—including at home in India, and in the U.S.— shook me out of comfort. His love and compassion taught me to see people differently. He took over where my big brother Bennett left off when he passed away, whose worldview had shaped my own, environmentally and politically. He teaches me tips about photography, too, like Bennett.

Rauf doesn't blog much now, a real loss to me and his many followers from all four corners of the world. But he still takes photographs on his travels around India, and he still rages against agri-businesses that threaten not only all of our health, but the very lives of farmers in India who literally cannot survive financially and consequently commit suicide as families. When you watch this YouTube slideshow I made of a sampling of Rauf's images (please watch, it's just six minutes), observe the faces of his subjects, who cannot resist his charm: even Mother Earth smiles when Rauf lifts his camera.

Today is Rauf's birthday (January 8; it's already the 8th in India). Even though he and I have never met in person, and may never meet (though I hope that one day Don and I will get to India to meet him!), he is my brother. Happy Birthday, Rauf! This is a small "thank you" for the gift you are to all who know you. Watch full screen to be wrapped in the photos, and listen to "Time Remembered" by the Bill Evans Trio.

Photos by Rauf

 -

-

Assistir Filme »

Poem: Winter blur

-

-

Winter blur

I
How strange suddenly
to read the word ermine
and think of a
woman’s neck,

warmed, blurred
with white fur, and not
to see the long stoat’s
winter skin—alive, bounding;

II
O marquise winter moon,
rustle of skirt on the balcony,
and the agony to fly;

when a man feels your whiteness,
he soars; toward what, I wonder:
the sun’s reflection, or some
other light, conquering within?


January 2012

Poetry should be heard.

Notes:
stoat: mustela ermenia, or ermine
marquise: this shape, a cut of a diamond 

-

-

Assistir Filme »

A new blog in a new year: sparks and mirrors

 for a -

-

“Go into yourself and see
how deep the place is from which your life flows.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke 

Some of you found me, with Lorenzo (of The Alchemist's Pillow blog), at our year-long blog where we posted readings from the book A Year with Rilke in 2011. It feels impossible to summarize the year there, much as it did after I finished RUMI DAYS, another such blog of soul and spirit the year before. I know that I have been changed as a result of those daily readings, and the interactive commentary from readers. It was deep and wondrous, opening doors and windows onto light I had not imagined existed. Sometimes I think we created light, together, following Rilke on his path. And now, I can't recall what or who I was before these transformations.

In a letter to Witold Hulewicz Rilke wrote:

All the worlds of the universe plunge into the Invisible as into a yet deeper reality. Certain stars increase in intensity and extinguish themselves in the angels' endless awareness. Others move toward transformation slowly and with great effort, and their next self-realization occurs in fear and terror.

We are the transformers of Earth. Our whole being, and the flights and falls of our love, enable us to undertake this task.

Because of that power of transformation, and the joy of community Lorenzo and I found with our friends at AYWR, we have launched another such blog called sparks and mirrors. We didn't want it to end, that daily dive into waters of discovery, truth and beauty. We want the practice to continue. We will post at our new blog every few days, mostly passages from authors who have themselves opened windows onto the universe within and without, with a few words about how and why they have inspired us. We would love for you to dive in with us there, with a hearty and warmly welcoming splash. (Swimsuits optional.)

I will, of course, continue here with poems, photos, art, music, and whatever else wants to be shared. I am so very grateful that you are in my life, and how we learn from one another.

May the year ahead be awake and alive for you!

-

-

Assistir Filme »