Mandala Monday – Holiday Greetings 2018 from Artwork by Atmara

Holiday Greetings 2018 from Artwork by Atmara

Holiday Greetings 2018 from Artwork by Atmara

Great Mother Poem

And the Great Mother said:
Come my child and give me all that you are.
I am not afraid of your strength and darkness,
of your fear and pain.
Give me your tears.
They will be my rushing rivers and roaring oceans.
Give me your rage.
It will erupt into my molten volcanoes and rolling thunder.
Give me your tired spirit.
I will lay it to rest in my soft meadows.
Give me your hopes and dreams.
I will plant a field of sunflowers and arch rainbows in the sky.
You are not too much for me.
My arms and heart welcome your true fullness.
There is room in my world for all of you, all that you are.
I will cradle you in the boughs of my ancient redwoods
and the valleys of my gentle rolling hills.
My soft winds will sing you lullabies and soothe your burdened heart.
Release your deep pain.
You are not alone and you have never been alone.

-Linda Reuther

TED Talk Thursday – Let’s help refugees thrive, not just survive by Melissa Fleming

According to TED.com : “Today’s refugee crisis is the biggest since World War II, and it’s growing. When this talk was given, 50 million people had been forcefully displaced from their homes by conflict and war; now the number is 65.3 million. There were 3 million Syrian refugees in 2014; now there are 4.9 million. Inside this overwhelming crisis are the individual human stories — of care, growth and family, in the face of lost education, lost home, lost future. Melissa Fleming of the UN’s refugee agency tells the refugees’ stories — and asks us to help them rebuild their world.”

“Melissa Fleming, Head of Communications and Spokesperson for the High Commissioner at UN’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), calls on all of us to make sure that refugee camps are healing places where people can develop the skills they’ll need to rebuild their hometowns. Investing in this, she says, may well be the most effective relief effort there is. This inspires her and the teams at the UNHCR to tell stories of the individuals who are displaced.”

“Fleming’s 2017 book, A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea, was born out of the story of Doaa Al Zamel, told her in TED Talk.”

Let’s help refugees thrive, not just survive by Melissa Fleming

 

 

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

TED Talk Thursday – A Tail of Two Americas by Anand Giridharadas

According to TED.com : “Ten days after 9/11, a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker. In this stunning talk, Anand Giridharadas, author of “The True American,” tells the story of what happened next. It’s a parable about the two paths an American life can take, and a powerful call for reconciliation.”

“Anand Giridharadas is a writer. He is a New York Times columnist, writing the biweekly “Letter from America.” He is the author, most recently, of The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, about a Muslim immigrant’s campaign to spare from Death Row the white supremacist who tried to kill him. In 2011 he published India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking, about returning to the India his parents left.”

“Giridharadas’s datelines include ItalyIndiaChinaDubaiNorway, Japan, HaitiBrazilColombiaNigeriaUruguay and the United States. He is an on-air contributor for NBC News and appears regularly on “Morning Joe.” He has given talks on the main stage of TED and at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, the University of Michigan, the Aspen Institute, Summit at Sea, the Sydney Opera House, the United Nations, the Asia Society, PopTech and Google. He is a Henry Crown fellow  of the Aspen Institute.”

A Tail of Two Americas by Anand Giridharadas

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!