Nineteen Months

I just came across an inspiring blog/website which has practical inspiration for Baha’i life and art and idea for the whole year.

It involves mainly photographers but also creatives working other forms, many of whom maintain blogs and websites.

This site is well worth a visit and I have just begun to explore the links of various contributors and add them to our sidelinks here.

“Nineteen Months values photography and writing that draws its inspiration from the Baha’i calendar. Our artistic images and practical ideas for living a Baha’i life come from a far-flung group of contributors, with different viewpoints and aptitudes. If you’re interested in collaborating with us get in touch.

Inspired by an annual month-long project called Nineteen Days, this site was founded in 2010 as a photography blog with images that reflect the essence of the name of each Baha’i month. Nineteen Months has grown since its inception to include articles on a variety of issues that Baha’is confront throughout the year.”

“Also called the Badi‘ calendar, the Baha’i calendar has 19 months with 19 days each. The months are named after the attributes of God, as are the days of the week. There are a few days in the calendar that fall outside the months, called Ayyam-i-ha.”

Autonomous

WritersDream9

We All Stand Alone, Together. Thank you dollarphotoclub

Like the fingers on the hands we are interrelated

Dependent upon one another with much in common

However we are also standing alone with our own names

This is true and for this we can not ever be berated

One finger there may be adornmed another is naked

One is powerful and capable while another is stubborn

There are many things to do with them, moves, fun and games

We are like them this for sure if only we’d see we are related

We all come from the same place and This we have deleted

We’ll return to Him and find ourselves for things done reborn

This is where we’ll be forgiven in the Kingdom of His Names

So, let’s fight our spiritual battles one day at a time initiated

           Into this realm for the purpose of…

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Writing Empowerments: Ink from Ochre Extract

Following the Crow Song

Ong argues that writing can “enrich the human psyche, enlarge the human spirit, intensify its interior life.” [1]  In other words writing can be moulded to fit those who use it, and can extend rather than diminish subjectivity and intersubjectivity.   Max Van Manen describes the power of writing:

Writing fixes thoughts on paper.  It externalises what in some senses is internal; it distances us from our immediate lived involvements with the things of our world.  As we stare at the paper, and stare at what we have written, our objectified thinking now stares back at us.  This writing creates the reflective cognitive stance …[2]

Writing has a paradoxical power that comes from its ability to objectify as ideas are placed onto paper, yet as it objectifies it subjectifies.  It can do this because writing can represent a dialogue with the self.   Even though many Indigenous women write in…

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Review: A History of Australian Schooling

Stumbling Through the Past

A History of Australian Schooling by Craig Campbell and Helen Proctor (Crows Nest, NSW:Allen & Unwin, 2014).

For over a century Australian schools have acted as future-shapers. Since the era of compulsory schooling emerged in the Australian colonies during the late nineteenth-century, every Australian child has spent a number of years in school. Children take at least some of the ideas and behaviours that are developed in the classroom and in the playground with them for the rest of their lives. As such it surprises me that education history is seen as a ‘special interest’ and not a field that is part of the core of Australian history.

A History of Australian Schooling by Craig Campbell and Helen Proctor is a chance for people to catch up on the latest research in Australia’s schooling history in one readable volume. It is long overdue. When I started exploring the history of…

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To this very day

The Terror of Conviction (1/3)

Everybody Means Something

Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.

William Blake: Songs of ExperienceAdditional Poem

In the wake of the anniversary of 9/11 and as a response, however inadequate, to the enormity of the recent beheadings of three innocent hostages by IS, I feel it is worth republishing a sequence of posts I first published several years ago. The situation in the world is at least as fraught as it was then, if not more so, making the sequence still as relevant now. Moreover, I feel that the ideas I tried to pull together continue to deserve careful attention if we are to learn how to respond effectively to those influences within and around us that might pull us into the quicksand of extremism. This is the first of three posts on consecutive days.

Terror and the Human Form

The…

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Walking the past in the present

Gumboootspearlz

Time is a culturally bound construct. We may, based on what culture we are born into, think we move chronologically, but in many cultures we carry the memory and ancestors with us in stories, songs and myths and a belief in the presence of spirits.

The past walks with present and the present with the future.

We can use our memory, past, wisdom to assist the present if only we pay attention to it.

In writing of lands I have lived and traveled through in an organic and intuitive process I find connections that make a spiral, even a circle, rather than a straight line.

Whilst we physically can’t change the past our understanding of it can dramatically change based on the patterns we find there.

I like the idea of spirals more than circles because in a spiral you can progress even as you seem to circle back to…

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Carl Seale – Eulogy

A moving eulogy.

The Trailhead

Carl Seale

Eulogy – September 14, 2014

First Presbyterian Church, McAllen, Texas

I’m Avrel, the youngest of Jan and Carl’s three sons, and I want to thank all of you for being here.

Dad enjoyed Bob Newhart, and especially the bit in his show about “Darrell and my other brother Darrell,” so I think he’s especially amused today by “Jessie and my other pastor Jesse.” Thank you, gentlemen, for everything.

Ruth, thank you for that beautiful tribute and all you and Mike have meant to our family through the years.

Dad’s decline was lengthy and difficult. My mother has been nothing less than heroic and inspirational, and I know you all will lift her up as she begins writing the next chapter of her remarkable life.

I also want to say a very heartfelt thanks to the two people who, next to Mom, did the most for Dad over many…

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The Effects of Mindfulness (3): apples in the air

Everybody Means Something

Image scanned from Marcel Paquet ‘Magritte’ (Taschen)

My much earlier post on interconnectedness included a declaration of intent – I was going to seek a deeper understanding of the concept both by reading and by the practice of mindfulness, amongst other things. So, how have things been going in this phase of mindfulness practice, drawn from Mark Williams and Danny Penman’s book on Mindfulness?

I was dreading the Mindful Movement meditation. For a start it just feels weird, standing in a room with windows to the outdoors, following softly spoken instructions to reach in the air for an imaginary apple. The other stuff simply amounted to sawn off flexibility exercises. I couldn’t see how any of that could be conducive to mindfulness. The succeeding Breath and Body exercise was bread and butter to me – it made sense and was very like what I have been practicing off and…

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Art of Movement 2

Owen's Meanderings

Here is a video clip of an impromptu contemporary to the music of orchestral didg player, William Barton.

The idea is to play with the immediacy of the music into movement. Video is a great way to review what is there and to see what is not there. My view on movement art is that, like all art, the genre and the betterment comes with persistent practice, review, and reflection. I add to my practice an attempt to see some new possibility in movement. I watch what others are doing to get ideas but don’t want to be limited by mimicry. The older dancer needs to take into account what the body can do on any day. Well, so do younger dancers, even if they can take more for granted. The dancer coming to dance as an older person also needs to recognise that the limitations have a lot to…

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