Remembrance in the Naked Kingdom

This is Remembrance Day.

Sometimes called Armistice, this day commemorates the War Dead.

Through my progression of life, it has meant different things. As a child, it was simply a holiday from school; perhaps a day imbued with ritual dour parades and gatherings in the auditorium – something we all fidgeted and complained through, waiting impatiently for that half-day of freedom that followed.

Later in my adult life, it was a creative photo-op, a chance to watch human expression, a chance to take in the curious and fantastic actors in the Human Movie.

Now I watch it with different eyes. Now, that means – in a literal sense – that my body cells have been largely replaced over the past year, and indeed, these eyes are different eyes. But this also means that my perceptions, values, realities, neuronal network, has all transformed, evolved, shifted. I see and feel, not only the pulse, the longing, the full and empty cups inside of me, but the same in all the humans around me.

Begging for Peace

On my recent journey to Israel, one of the oddities of Tel Aviv was the sighting of the occasional beggar on the street. These seemed to take 3 forms: old women sitting beside lamp-posts, elderly hasidic pan-handlers with a bit of a crazy edge, and young penitents who situate themselves in a state of frozen prostration, on the leeward side of walkways.

This is an strange sight to see.

In North American cities, begging and pan-handling are synonymous – considered by the more cozy financially to be one of society’s major blights, sore spots.

The poor and the beggars have always been with us, in one form or another — at least in the so-called “civilized” societies of the post-tribal world. One imagines that in “tribal” times, all people had meaningful roles to play in societies where life wasn’t measured by accumulation and prestige.

The Road to Tel Aviv

It is the end of another business day, school-day, peace-keeping day. Soldiers, school children, a handful of tourists, Hasidic Jews all pile on and empty off the bus in drips, droves, coughs and sputters, as the bus navigates the stew of the afternoon rush.

Soldiers are everywhere in Israel; more pronounced in Jerusalem, less visible in Tel Aviv. They are all young. College young. Just- out-of -high -school young. A period of military service is a mandatory part of the young Israelis’ journey into adulthood, for both men and women. This rite-of-passage speaks of the reality of a societal burden as old as the stones in the temple walls here.

Life

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There is a feeling, it begins within;
It feels like a place, that there is no sin:

There can be no feeling, but a feeling of love;
It is the feeling, that takes us above:

Above what we usually, feel as high;
It is the feeling, where we become part of the sky:

The sky my friend, and our earth below;
A part of all life, a part of the Flow:

A part that can enjoy, the exuberance in life;
the part that can enjoy, the absence of strife!

So if you want to enjoy living, which is what we do;
Go within yourself, that is a wonderful clue:

To go within, some of us needed a Key;
it was given by a boy, it was given free:

Now this boy is 50 years old;
and my love for him, springs from my very soul!

The gift of the soul, is given by him;
The boy with the Gift, The boy without sin:

The stars above, that shine with light;
Are dull in comparison, compared to our own inner Light!

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Death of a Maori Poet

Tree let your raised arms fall
nor extend your vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade winds blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies…. for this
is no ordinary sun

– HONE TUWHARE 1922-2008
published this poem “No Ordinary Sun” about nuclear testing in the pacific, in 1964, in his first volume of the same name. It was re-printed 10 times. I can’t help thinking he was one of the spearheads of the nuclear free movement that defines New Zealand’s foreign policy today .

Let us allow peace to reign from the natural radiance within us all.
I used to have a little badge from friends of the earth ” World peace begins at home”. My 16 year old daughter wears it now. Where there is life there’s hope.