Why I’m so pumped about Andy Grammer

This is from the Fruit Tree Blog

http://fruittreeblog.com/2015/06/23/why-im-so-pumped-about-andy-grammer/

I recently rode in my boss’s car for the first time, which was kind of a big deal. Somehow when you get in someone’s car, you’re invited into a uniquely personal space, and you’re able to get a glimpse into that person’s life that you probably wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. A car has its own smell, its own little dashboard ornaments, its own leftover Burger King cups. It’s the antithesis of the office, really, a place where we spend hours on end with our coworkers and yet never really seem to get to know them.

So we get in, and on our drive to a conference a couple miles from my office, it turns out my boss is really into pop music. I’m talking about stuff on the radio right now, artists whose names I barely recognize and I presume only teenagers are fans of. Stuff that makes

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James Taylor perfectly describes the purpose of the Baha’i Faith, by accident

Originally posted on the Fruit Tree Blog

This post has nothing to do with economics, governance, business, finance, etc. So if you arrived at this site hoping for some discussion about that sort of thing, don’t feel bad if you end up closing this window and going here.

Instead, I wanted to break the routine and share some personal reflections on what I think the Baha’i Faith truly is and its purpose. I don’t plan to provide a discussion of its teachings, a supremely useful exercise but one that has been done impeccably well already by many others. (If you’re looking for that, a great website that does this simply and eloquently is here.) Rather, I thought I’d share a song that on its surface might seem completely unrelated to the Faith, but in my opinion captures its essence better than anything I’ve encountered.

A few years ago some Baha’is I knew were hosting a…

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The Singer

A beautiful piece by Peter Hulme.

Everybody Means Something

For source of image see link.

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And the Secret to Life Is …

Welcoming Avrel to the compilation and many thanks for the permission to reblog. Avrel writes on many topics, including philosophy, photography, spirituality – and one of my great loves the guitar.

The Trailhead

[This essay was originally published in four parts on BahaiTeachings.org as “The Universal Secret to Success.”]

Many people have floated theories about the secret of life: Woody Allen said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. James Taylor sang that the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time. Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, proposed that the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, was … 42. Unfortunately no one knows what the question is, and so an enormous planet-sized organic supercomputer was designed to ferret out the question over a period of 7.5 million years, and the computer was named “Earth.”

On some level, I could get behind all of those theories. But I now have one that, after my own forty-something years, I’m completely convinced of. I hasten to add that I have not discovered it…

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Vulnerability

Owen's Meanderings

As with 15 million people worldwide, I have been so taken with the 2010 TED talk by Brene Brown on her research on ‘vulnerability’, that when I heard her TED Radio interview recently, I had to take notes. The TED Radio Hour is great because it takes several TED speakers and interviews them around a consistent theme . The theme for this podcast is about ‘Making Mistakes”. Apart from Brown’s interview, I enjoyed the interview with Jazz player, Stefon Harris, a vibraphone player whose interpretation of the non-mistake of Jazz seemed to have a lesson for many aspects of problem solving in life. The joy of podcasting is being able to replay to really listen and contemplate about something being said, especially the various gems that came from Brene Brown. So here are the gems I found in that interview. A little paraphrasing.

Shame is the fear of disconnection. “I’m…

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5 Days Left!!!!

Helen has a passion for knitting, but also blogs on other aspects of her life and interests.

Knitting & whingeing in Abalama-ding-dong

“For what?”  I hear you thinking.  I’m so glad you asked!!

2002 Harvest Tour – Wilmette, IL

One Human Family is going on tour in the beginning of August for the first time since 2005, & this tour marks the first time that OHF is using online “crowdsourcing” to help defray the costs of the tour and we have 5 DAYS LEFT in our campaign. Always the leadership has tried to keep the costs of the tour as low as possible to encourage as many people to participate in that transformative experience called the Harvest Tour. To keep costs low, the organization has often chosen to go into debt; this time it is different and you can help make this difference.

More and more, we see people the world over struggling to overcome all kinds of difficulties brought about by longstanding prejudices & hatreds, lack of communication, understanding & education…

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Dizzy

I like to write poems about Baha’is who excelled/ or excel in their creative field, and very briefly met Dizzy Gillespie at a Baha’i youth conference when I was a teenager. Here is the poetic tribute I wrote about his life.

Ripple Poetry

fs999 – Flickr Creative Commons

I saw you blow the trumpet
On Sesame Street
Tee, Arr,You, Em, Pee, Ee, Tee.

Your balloon cheeks
Transferring your spirit into The Sounds of Bebop.
My cheeks look funny, but they don’t hurt

This they made your epitaph
On the evening news
That’s all they could say

But you
You did more Dizzy
You loved that Cat God.

You were a Herald
Bringing Unity
Blending a trumpet
With a Didgeridoo.

What did you do?
You loved that Cat God.

When you played at Carnegie Hall
Your music
Blew a portrait of
The Spirit of Olinga;

Servant of Baha’u’llah
Hand of the Cause
An inspiration to you.

Joyful all you trumpeters rise
Dizzy is coming to the skies.

Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk
John Coltrane and Miles Davis
Glory to your bebop King.

Peace in heaven and music’s child
Mr Goh will wait awhile
To hear…

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Review of ‘Mapping the Heart’

I like covering what Artists of Baha’i background are doing out in the wider community. This is an article on Omid Master working in collaboration with a poet.

Conversations with Creative Souls

A Program

There was a lot to take in, as the sign above indicates. But it was not just a poet spouting the words on the page and seeking only the treasury of words and metaphor. She chose to enlist others talents and add dimensions of dance, song, photographic imagery.

Of the performance I remember of the photography backdrops an image of aeriel landscape and river groove, a bunch of hearts. There was much more but I didn’t always remember to look – perhaps with a larger screen I would have taken in more of the photographs, but the space offered some limitations as well as benefits to the performers. The benefits being ‘pull in the audience from the shops and mesmerise them with art. ‘ Take art to the people.

Of the words I remember that the poet’s persona or is it the poet Helen Ramoutsaki ‘doesn’t do domestic’…

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