Plantando semillas de amor y de vida/ Planting Seeds of Love and Life

by Nimo Patel [English below]

Nuestro mundo está bastante condicionado para celebrar lo que se ha logrado: el fruto de la perseverancia. Pero la verdadera belleza de la vida es plantar semillas y nutrir sus raíces. Aunque no soy un padre biológico, me siento bastante responsable de hacer mi pequeña parte para ayudar a criar a nuestros  niñ@s y jóvenes en nuestro planeta.

https://www.jaijagattour.com/oakland

No estoy seguro de que haya más semillas importantes que plantar para nuestros hij@s , que la transformación dentro de nosotros mismos. Para mí, la mejor crianza y la práctica más sostenible para nuestra especie es un compromiso con la purificación del propio corazón y mente. Qué significa eso? Significa comprometerse con la práctica de ser más paciente, más consciente, más agradecido, más amable, más indulgente y así sucesivamente. Pero ser más paciente en esta vida acelerada es todo un desafío. Y así, el compromiso con este trabajo interno es el paso más importante.

Esta es la raíz más profunda de una buena crianza, es simplemente practicar ser un buen ser human@. Los frutos que buscamos en niñ@s  para que se conviertan en buen@s y/o exitos@s seres human@s, y al hacer todo lo posible para facilitar ese camino de éxito y bondad, todo se encuentra en el nivel más profundo de la raíz. Nuestro propio ser. Nuestro propio espíritu. Nuestra propia práctica de nuestros valores más profundos.

Los niñ@s son como esponjas, como todos lo sabemos. Se empaparán de veneno si hay veneno alrededor, o se empaparán de agua  de manantial sagrad@  si  se encuentra alrededor de ell@s.

Tenemos la opción de profundizar y cambiar nuestros patrones de hábitos hacia la compasión y el valor. Pero no es fácil.

Que todos encontremos la compasión y el valor para convertirnos en los mejores instrumentos no solo para nuestr@s hij@s, sino para nuestro planeta.

• Nimo Patel

Planting seeds of love and life.

Our world is quite conditioned and wired to celebrate the fruits. But the real beauty in life is planting seeds and nurturing the roots. Though I’m not a biological parent, I feel quite responsible for doing my tiny part in helping in the raising of our youth on this planet.

I’m not sure there are more important seeds to plant for our children than the actual transformation we bring in our selves. To me, the best parenting and the most sustainable practice for our species is a commitment to the purification of one’s own heart and mind. What does that mean? It means committing to the practice of being more patient, more aware, more grateful, more kind, more forgiving and so on. But to be more patient in this fast-paced life is quite a challenge. And thus commitment to this inner work is the most important step.

This is the deepest root of good parenting—is to just practice being a good human being. The fruits we seek of good children turning into good and/or successful human beings—and doing everything we can to facilitate that path of success and goodness, all lies at the deepest root level. Our own being. Our own spirit. Our own practice of our deepest values. Children are like sponges, as we all know. They will soak in poison if there’s poison around, or they will soak in sacred natural spring water if that is around.

We have the choice to dig deep and shift our habit patterns towards compassion and courage. But it’s not easy.

May we all find the compassion and courage to become the greatest instruments not only for our children, but for our planet.

• Nimo Patel

Excerpt from http://www.endpain.com Introduction by Alison Hersel Párrafo extraído de http://www.endpain.com con la introducción de Alison Hersel

You can watch Nimo’s music videos and download his latest album for free here Puedes ver los videos de Nimo y bajar su música gratuitamente aquí

Jai Jagat show with 17 children from the Slums @Skyline HS Oakland: May 19th

La presentación “Jai Jagat” con 17 niñ@s de los aparcamientos de la India en
“Skyline High School” Oakland
19 de Mayo

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This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing By 1% And Here’s What Happened

by James Clear, syndicated from jamesclear.com, Apr 04, 2014

In 2010, Dave Brailsford faced a tough job.

No British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), Brailsford was asked to change that.

His approach was simple.

Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

They started by optimizing the things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training program..but his team didn’t stop. They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas that were overlooked by almost everyone else- discovering the pillow that offered the best sleep and taking it with them to hotels. They searched for 1 percent improvements everywhere.

Brailsford believed that if they could successfully execute this strategy, then Team Sky would be in a position to win the Tour de France in five years time.

He was wrong. They won it in three years.

… what can we learn from Brailsford’s approach?

It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better decisions on a daily basis.

Almost every habit that you have — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time.

And yet, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change.

So often we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, traveling the world or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.

Meanwhile, improving by just 1 percent isn’t notable (and sometimes it isn’t even noticeable). But it can be just as meaningful, especially in the long run.

There is power in small wins and slow gains. 

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Republished with permission at DailyGood.Org. James Clear writes at JamesClear.com where this article originally appeared. He uses behavioral science to share ideas for mastering your habits, improving your health, and increasing your creativity, his free newsletter shares useful ideas on improving mental and physical performance.

La naturaleza espiritual del niñ@ / The Spiritual Nature in the Child

by Richard Louv ( May 2nd) [English below]

Cuando mi hijo Matthew tenía cuatro años, me preguntó: “¿Están casados Dios y la Madre Naturaleza, o simplemente son buen@s amig@s?”

Buena pregunta.
Durante la investigación de este libro, escuché a much@s adult@s describir con elocuencia y admiración el papel de la naturaleza en su desarrollo espiritual temprano, y cómo esa conexión continuó profundizándose a medida que se hacían mayores. Much@s se comprometieron a compartir esa conexión con sus hij@s, pero enfrentaron desafíos: cómo explicar la espiritualidad de la naturaleza, o mejor dicho, nuestra espiritualidad en la naturaleza, sin tropezar con las enredaderas interpretaciones bíblicas, semánticas y políticas. Estas pueden ser barreras reales para comunicar el simple temor que sentíamos de niñ@s cuando nos tumbamos de espaldas a ver montañas y rostros en las nubes. También inhibe el progreso hacia la reunión con la naturaleza y el niñ@. Hay un camino para salir de esta zarza.

Hace varios años, un grupo de líderes religiosos que incluía un ministro protestante, un sacerdote católico, un rabino y un imán se reunieron en mi sala de estar para hablar sobre la crianza de los hij@s. En esa reunión, el rabino Martin Levin, ofreció una maravillosa descripción de la espiritualidad: ser espiritual es estar constantemente asombrad@. “Para citar las palabras del profesor Abraham Joshua Heschel, un gran maestro de nuestra época” dijo, “nuestro objetivo debería ser vivir la vida en un asombro radical”. Heschel animaba a sus estudiantes a levantarse por la mañana y mirar el mundo de una manera que no dieran nada por sentado. Todo es espectacular; todo es increíble Nunca trates la vida casualmente. Ser espiritual es sorprenderse. (…)

Por supuesto, hubo quienes consideraron este tipo de pensamiento sentimental. Sigmund Freud, ateo, consideraba tal misticismo una regresión a lo que él llamó la “experiencia oceánica” del útero. Como Edward Hoffman escribió en Visiones de Inocencia: Experiencias espirituales e inspiradoras de niñ@s, dijo “Freud consideraba la infancia como un momento en el que nuestros impulsos más bajos y más animales son más fuertes”. L@s niñ@s eran, en opinión de Freud, vehículos impulsados por instintos de anhelos incestuosos para la auto-gratificación.

Carl Jung, el aliado intelectual más cercano de Freud, rompió con él en 1913. (…) Jung creía que los seres humanos se sintonizan con la experiencia visionaria en la segunda mitad de su vida. Al final de la carrera de Jung, parecía cambiar un poco su posición, según Hoffman. Jung incluso recuerda que a la edad de siete o nueve años, se sentaba solo en una roca cerca de su casa de campo, preguntándose: “¿Soy yo el que está sentado sobre la piedra o soy la piedra sobre la que él está sentado?”(…)
La opinión de Hoffman era que incluso un niñ@ pequeñ@ lidiaba con cuestiones de naturaleza espiritual. Entrevistó a niñ@s y a varios cientos de adult@s que describieron sus experiencias infantiles espontáneas “de gran significado, belleza o inspiración … aparte de la religión institucional”. Él escribe: “Lo más fundamental es que ahora parece innegable que algun@s de nosotr@s (tal vez much@s más de lo que sospechamos) hemos experimentado experiencias cumbre, incluso místicas, durante nuestros primeros años.” Los informes que recopiló de los niños indican que una variedad de experiencias exaltadas o trascendentes son posibles durante la infancia. El resultado puede ser “un episodio visionario, una experiencia de sueño, o simplemente un momento ordinario de la vida cotidiana que repentinamente se convirtió en un punto de entrada a la dicha”.

Del libro El último niño en los bosques por Richard Louv

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When my son Matthew was four, he asked me, ” Are God and Mother Nature Married, or just good friends?”

Good question.
During the course of researching this book, I heard many adults describe with eloquence and awe the role of nature in their early spiritual development, and how that connection continued to deepen as they aged. Many were committed to sharing that connection with their children, but faced challenges: how to explain the spirituality of nature – or rather, our spirituality in nature – without tripping on the tangled vines of Biblical interpretations, semantics, and politics. These can be real barriers to communicating the simple awe we felt as children as we lay on our backs seeing mountains and faces in clouds. It also inhibits progress toward nature-child reunion.
There is a path out of this bramble.

Several years ago, a group of religious leaders that included a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, a rabbi, and an imam met in my living room to discuss parenting. At that meeting, Rabbi Martin Levin offered a wonderful description of spirituality: to be spiritual is to be constantly amazed. “To quote the words of the Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel, a great teacher of our age,” he said, “our goal should be to live life in radical amazement”. Heschel would encourage his students to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. (…)

Of course, there were those who considered such thinking sentimental claptarp. Sigmund Freud, an atheist, considered such mysticism a regression into what he called the “ocean experience” of the womb. As Edward Hoffman wrote in Visions of Innocence: Spiritual and Inspirational Experiences of Children, “Freud regarded childhood as a time in which our lowest, most animalistic impulses are strongest”. Children were, in Freud’s view, instinct-driven vehicles for incestuous longings for self-gratification.

Carl Jung, Freud’s closest intellectual ally, broke with him in 1913. (…) Jung believed that human beings become attuned to visionary experience in the second half of their life. Late in Jung’s career, he seemed to shift his position somewhat, according to Hoffman. Jung even recalls how at the age of seven or nine, he would sit alone on a boulder near his country home, asking himself: ” Am I the one who is sitting on top of the stone, or am I the stone on which he is sitting?”(…)
Hoffman’ view was that even small children grappled with questions of a spiritual nature. He interviewed children and several hundred adults who described their spontaneous childhood experiences “of great meaning, beauty, or inspiration…apart from institutional religion.” He writes, “Most fundamentally, it now appears undeniable that some of us (perhaps far more than we suspect) have undergone tremendous peak -even mystical- experiences during our early years.”
The reports he collected from children indicate that a variety of exalted or transcendent experiences are possible during childhood. The result can be “a visionary episode, a dream experience; or simply an ordinary moment of daily life that suddenly became an entry point to bliss.”

From Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

Life is the Network, Not the Self

By David George Haskell

I reach up into a sugar maple tree’s low branches and pluck a leaf. My fingers hold a seemingly unremarkable leaf, grown on a tree next to a suburban driveway. This leaf is not what it seems. A “maple” is not an individual made of plant cells, but a community of cells from many domains and kingdoms of life. Microbe-free plants likely do not exist in nature and, if they could be constructed, would quickly die for want of the vital connections that sustain life.

Living networks are ancient, perhaps as old as life itself. Models and lab experiments on the chemical origin of life show that interacting networks of molecules beat self-replicating molecules in a Darwinian struggle. Many of the first fossilized cells of life on Earth lived in integrated bacterial stacks called stromatolites. Today, all major ecosystems — forests, coral reefs, grasslands, ocean plankton — are built on conversations between interdependent partners. Cut these conversations and the ecosystems fall apart.

The first artificial cells also have a networked character. When scientists organize chemical reactions into arrays of tiny, interconnected compartments, life-like properties emerge: cycles of protein production, gradients of signaling chemicals, and the ability to maintain a steady internal state. Without the network, the homogeneous chemical soup lacks any tang of life.

The fundamental unit of biology is therefore not the “self,” but the network. A maple tree is a plurality, its individuality a temporary manifestation of relationship.

This view of life has practical consequences. If plants are made from relationships, then agricultural science can manage these relationships to increase yield and sustainability. In conservation biology, restoring ecological interactions will help species and ecosystems. In genetic engineering, the effects of manipulations emerge not from the essential quality of any stretch of DNA but from networked interactions among genes and their environments. The living communities within plants can be put to work remediating polluted soils, reducing the toxicity of agricultural chemicals applied to crops, and processing biofuels.

The colorful fungal growths swarming my Petri dishes have a lesson beyond the immediate practical benefits of managing and studying living networks. Every textbook diagram and every written metaphor shape how we imagine the world. Microbiology and genetics are calling us to expand that imaginative space. When we gaze at a maple leaf, we now see not an individual made of plant cells, but a thrumming conversation, an embodied network. The “self” is a society.

From “The Songs of Trees, Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors” by David George Haskell

El Principio de la Naturaleza / The Nature Principle

por Richard Louv (Abril 19, 2019) [English below]

Viajamos por un camino de tierra a través del adobe fundido del pueblo Puerto de Luna, Nuevo México, cruzamos un puente bajo sobre el río Pecos no muy profundo y entramos en un valle de campos de chile verde sostenidos por acantilados de arenisca roja. Jason, nuestro hijo mayor, entonces tenía tres años, estaba dormido en el asiento trasero del coche. “¿Es este turno?” Le pregunté a mi esposa. “El siguiente”, dijo Kathy. Bajé del coche rentado, desenganché la puerta y nos dirigimos hacia la propiedad de nuestr@s amig@s Nick e Isabel Raven. Ell@s estaban trabajando en Santa Fe ese año, y su granja y casa estaban vacíos. L@s conocim@s antes de que naciera Jason. Kathy y yo habíamos vivido dos veranos cerca de Santa Rosa, donde ella trabajaba en un hospital local. Ahora, después de un período estresante en nuestras vidas, regresamos por un par de semanas. Necesitábamos este tiempo para nosotr@s mism@s, y lo necesitábamos también para Jason. Entramos en la polvorienta casa de adobe. Inspeccioné la habitación añadida a la que ayudé a Nick a construir durante uno de esos veranos.

Encendí la electricidad y el agua (las tuberías interiores finalmente habían llegado a la casa de l@s Raven), entré en la cocina y abrí el grifo. Un ciempiés de pie largo saltó del desagüe, y su cola batió hacia mi cara. No sé quién se sobresaltó más, si el ciempiés o yo, pero yo era el que sostenía el cuchillo de carne.Más tarde, cuando Kathy y Jason estaban tomando una siesta, caminé afuera al calor, encontré la silla plegable oxidada de Nick y la puse a la sombra de un árbol al lado del adobe. Nick y yo habíamos descansado debajo de las ramas de ese árbol después de períodos mezclando adobe en un pozo lleno de paja, arena, tierra y agua.

Pensé en Nick, en nuestras discusiones políticas, en el estofado de chile verde que Isabel calentaba en una estufa de leña y servía en cuencos de hojalata, incluso en las horas más calurosas. Ahora me senté solo y miré por el campo hacia una línea de álamos lejanos que bordeaban el río Pecos. Vi como las nubes de tormenta se elevan sobre el desierto alto hacia al este y las capas de arenisca a través del río. El campo de chile se estremeció en el Sol. Encima de mi, las hojas se agitaban y las ramas de los árboles se rasguñaban. Mis ojos se enfocaron en un solo álamo en el río, sus ramas y hojas superiores ondeaban a un ritmo lento por encima de todas las demás.

Pasó una hora, quizás más. Me subió la tensión hasta que salió de mi. Parecía cómo si se hubiera torcido en el aire sobre el campo verde. Luego se fue. Y algo mejor tomó su lugar. Veinticuatro años después, a menudo pienso en el álamo a la orilla del río, y momentos similares de maravilla inexplicable, momentos en que recibí de la naturaleza justo lo que necesitaba: un algo escurridizo para el que no tengo nombre. Hemos pensado en mudarnos a Nuevo México desde entonces. O al Vermont rural. Pero todos los días se nos recuerda que ese algo también ocurre donde ya vivimos, e incluso dentro de las ciudades más densas, donde lo salvaje en las zonas urbanas todavía existe en los lugares más inesperados. Puede ser restaurado o incluso creado donde vivimos, trabajamos y jugamos. No estamos sol@s sintiendo ese deseo.

Extracto del “El Principio de la Naturaleza, Restauración Humana y el Final del Desorden del Déficit de Naturaleza” por Richard Louv, autor de “El último niño en los bosques”.

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We traveled down a dirt road through the melting adobe village of Puerto de Luna, New Mexico, crossed a low bridge over the shallow Pecos River and entered a valley of green chili fields held by red-rimmed sandstone bluffs. Jason, our older
son, then three, was asleep in the back seat. “Is it this turn?” I asked my wife. “The next one,” Kathy said. I got out of the rental car and unhooked the gate, and we drove onto the land owned by our friends Nick and Isabel Raven. They were away working in Santa Fe that year, and their farm and house were vacant. We had come to know them before Jason was born. Kathy and I had lived two summers in nearby Santa Rosa, where she had worked in a local hospital. Now, after a stressful period of our lives, we were back for a couple of weeks. We needed this time for ourselves, and we needed it for Jason. We entered the dusty adobe house. I inspected the room addition that I had helped Nick build during one of those summers.

I turned on the electricity and the water (indoor plumbing had finally come to the Raven homestead), walked into the kitchen, and opened the faucet. A foot-long centipede leapt out of the drain, its tail whipping toward my face. I don’t know who was more startled, the centipede or me, but I was the one holding the steak knife.
Later, as Kathy and Jason took naps, I walked outside in the heat, found Nick’s rusted folding chair, and set it in the shade of a tree next to the adobe. Nick and I had rested under the branches of this tree between bouts of mixing adobe mud in a pit filled with straw, sand, earth, and water.

I thought about Nick, about our political arguments, about the green-chili stew that Isabel heated on a wood stove and served in tin bowls, even in the hottest hours. Now I sat alone and looked out over the field toward a line of distant cottonwoods that rimmed the Pecos. I watched the afternoon thunderheads rise above the high desert to the east and the layers of sandstone across the river. The field of chili shivered in the sun. Above me, leaves rattled and tree limbs scratched. My eyes settled on a single cottonwood at the river, its branches and upper leaves waving in a slow rhythm above all the others.

An hour, perhaps more, went by. Tension crawled up and out of me. It seemed to twist in the air above the green field. Then it was gone. And something better took its place. Twenty-four years later, I often think about the cottonwood at the river’s edge, and similar moments of inexplicable wonder, times when I received from nature just what I needed: an elusive it for which I have no name.
We have thought about moving to New Mexico ever since. Or rural Vermont. But we are reminded daily that it also occurs where we already live— and even within the densest cities, where the urban wild still exists in the most unexpected places. It can be restored or even created where we live, work, and play. We’re not alone in feeling this hunger.

Extract of ” The Nature Principle, Human Restoration and the End of Nature Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louv, author of the “Last Child in the Woods”.

A Heartmindfulness [r]Evolution

by Pancho Ramos-Stierle (April 12, 2019)

Some people say the longest path we will ever walk is from our head to our heart. What i call the path of Heartmindfulness.

Here’s a story that I love very much which I learned from one of my teachers John Dobson. John was a scientist who was part of the Manhattan project too, but he was able to stop cooperating with it before the atomic bomb was built. Then, he became a Vedanta monk but lasted little in the monastery because he used to escape at night to wow people with the beauty of the Moon, the planets, nebulae, globular clusters, the Milky Way and galaxies, by using simple handmade affordable telescopes. He is the one who created the Dobsonian mount telescope. He started what he called the Sidewalk Astronomers just a few blocks from here. Here’s the adapted story:

There was a king who had a very large kingdom and he decided to visit every part of it. Every time he arrived with his caravan to any of the hundreds of cities and villages, everybody greeted the king with gun-salutes, reverences and more. So it happens that the king was approaching the edges of his kingdom as he arrived to a remote village.

It was Spring so there was a vibrant feeling in the air and one could hear the children playing and laughing, the birds chirping and, –in what seemed to be the entrance to the village– there were colorful flowers, fruit trees and one could even see in the distance a group of multigenerational meditators who seemed to be having a circle of sharing under a Banyan tree. As the moments passed by, the king started to get more and more upset, angry and even outraged, until he exploded and yelled: “How is this possible?!” 

A young wise woman who happened to be around the so called entrance heard the complaining and, out of compassion, started to walk towards the king, and as she was about to ask “How can I serve you?” before she could even finish the question, the king interrupted and yelled furiously: “How is it possible that everywhere I go, all people great me with gun-salutes, reverences and more, but here I don’t even get a single gun-salute! How come? what’s going on here?”

The wise woman gently smiled and approached the king and kindly said: “Oh! your Majesty! That is easy to explain” by then she was close enough to the king to gently hold his shoulder. “Good! I wanna know why.” he said as the anger seemed to have diminished just a little bit.

“There are 3 main reasons why you were not greeted with gun-salutes.” “The first one”, she said, “is that we don’t have guns in this village.”

“Never mind the other two reasons!” 🙂

So, similarly, there are 3 main reasons why an unbalanced mind disconnected from the heart is harmful. The first one is that you cannot be a happy-loving human being. Never mind the other two reasons! 😉

The story of the young wise woman gave us a glimpse of heartmindfulness as the learning to live in constant contact with the infinite peace within ourselves, so that it can be manifested outside and vice versa. In other words, heartmindfulness is a practice for activists to become more spiritual and spiritual people to become more active to embody the total (r)evolution of the human spirit! Heartmindfulness then becomes as the courage to live in harmonious communities so strong that make police obsolete and where there are no guns.

Part of the other “two reasons” are the many forms of disconnection we are experiencing these days. As my dear brother Nipun Mehta said at the Gandhi 3.0 retreat in the part of the Planet we call India: “By losing connection to Nature, we have created an ecological divide; by diluting connection with each other, we have manifested a social divide; and by ignoring connection with ourselves, we have deepened our spiritual divide.” All these divisions are the same division just manifested at a different magnitude in the fractal of reality. Heartmindfulness is an antidote for them and it has a decentralized emergent movement of everyday Gandhis with personal transformation at its core.

The smiles of the happiest people I’ve met are not conditioned by phantom wealth –cars, houses, bank accounts, latest clothing, number of friends in social media–, No. the happiest people I’ve met have considerably strong alignment with their head, heart and hands, what they think, what they say and what they do is pretty much the same.

I Learned Heart From My Mother

As some of you know, my mom had an unexpected death when she recently passed away on her sleep due to an aneurysm. But these are some things she taught me about the heart. Here’s a story:

I went to a pre-school and elementary school founded by an anarchist, so we have no tests, no grades, no homework, no uniforms, no need to ask for permission to go to the bathroom. To learn was really fun, as i sense is around here. But in middle school I went to a more traditional school where I started to get grades. I remember showing the grade report card to my mom filled with the equivalent of A+s and As in the part of the Planet we call Mexico. “Look Mom!” very proud I would show her the card –of course, overlooking the back of it which had any number of complaints from teachers. With an unwavering attention my mother would look at me in the eye and said something like: “Your A+s don’t mean anything to me. For me, you are failed because you keep teasing your sister, bullying your classmates and disrespecting your teachers. In my world you got F-s. Get out of here with your grades and come back when you have cultivated more humankind in you.”

Of course, I was too cocky and too immature to understand the wisdom of her energy and words. Only many years later I understood her. She was addressing at the root of what Mahatma Gandhi called the most dangerous issue after the independence of the part of the Planet we call India. He said it was: “Heartless intellectuals.” The clear advice of my mom was: don’t be a heartless intellectual.

She was evokingheartmindfulness as the real possibility to constantly align the head, heart and hands to be coherent with what we think, say, feel and do, and thus be able to spread this energy with every thought, with every heartbeat, with every word, with every single small and big act. Gandhi planted the seeds of heartmindfulness as “the eradication of the education that ignores the culture of the heart and the hands, and confines itself simply to the head”, understanding fully well that the “education of the heart cannot be imparted through books. It can only be done through the living touch of the teacher.”

[Taken from the transcript of the commencement speech offered to the San Francisco Waldorf High School class of 2018.]

“Some people say the longest path we will ever walk is from our head to our heart. What I call the path of Heartmindfulness. –Pancho Ramos Stierle”.

Follow Pancho’s present Pilgrimage at  https://earthfamilia.org/  with a purpose to dissolve borders (physical, intellectual, cultural, among many others) and to plant seeds of oneness in our planet/communities.  You too can participate: click here to support this pilgrimage.

Si tuviera mi vida para volver a vivirla / If I Had My Live to Live Over Again

–por Nadine Starr (Abril 5, 2019) [English below]

Si tuviera mi vida para volver a vivirla, saldría para cometer más errores la próxima vez.

Me relajaría.

Calentaría mis músculos.

Haría más tonterías de las que he hecho en este viaje.

Me tomaría menos cosas en serio.

Me arriesgaría más.

Haría más viajes.

Subiría más montañas y nadaría más ríos.

Comería más helado y menos frijoles.

Tal vez tendría más problemas reales pero menos problemas imaginarios.

Verás, soy una de esas personas sensatas y juiciosas,

hora tras hora,

día tras día.

Oh, he tenido mis momentos.

Si tuviera que hacerlo de nuevo,

Tendría más de ellos.

De hecho, trataría de no tener nada más.

– Momentos, uno tras otro.

En lugar de vivir tantos años por delante de cada día.

He sido una de esas personas que nunca va a ningún lado sin termómetro, una botella de agua caliente, un impermeable y un paracaídas.

Si pudiera hacerlo de nuevo, viajaría más ligera de lo que lo he hecho.

Si tuviera mi vida por vivirla de nuevo,

Empezaría descalza a principios de la primavera y me quedaría así hasta el otoño.

Iría a más bailes,

Montaría más carruseles,

Recogería más margaritas.

Atribuido a Nadine Starr, compartida cuando tenía 86 años.

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If I had my life to live over again, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.

I’d relax. 

I’d limber up. 

I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip. 

I would take fewer things seriously. 

I would take more chances.

I would take more trips.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. 

I would eat more ice cream and less beans. 

I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones. 

You see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane, 

hour after hour, 

day after day. 

Oh, I’ve had my moments. 

If I had it to do over again, 

I’d have more of them. 

In fact, I’d try to have nothing else 

– just moments, one after another, 

instead of living so many years ahead of each day. 

I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere 

without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. 

If I could do it again, I would travel 

lighter than I have. 

If I had my life to live over, 

I would start barefoot 

earlier in the spring and 

stay that way later in the fall. 

I would go to more dances, 

I would ride more merry-go-rounds,

I would pick more daisies.

-Attributed to Nadine Starr, shared when she was 86 years old

Notes on Belonging

by Brene Brown (Mar 29, 2019)

If you look [at belonging] from the lens of neuro-biology or even evolutionary biology: as a social species, to not be wanted and to not belong to the tribe or the clan or the group meant death. We are wired for this. John Cacioppo, who does this incredible work on loneliness, says that the only real biological advantage we have over most other species is our connection, our belonging, our ability to collaborate, plan, be in relationship with in special ways. And so that desperate need to belong is not a neurosis. It’s not an ego-driven thing. That need to belong and be a part of something greater than us is who we are in our DNA.

It’s also hard to say, look, what if loneliness is driven, often, by changing who we are, being “perfect,” saying what we’re supposed to say, doing what we’re supposed to do? What if loneliness is driven in part by our lack of authenticity — that I can go to a party, and I can be the belle of the ball and come home completely disconnected, lonely, anxious, because never once during that experience was I myself? I was who I thought they wanted me to be. And so I do think — I don’t want it to be true, to be honest with you.  I think, in some ways, it kind of sucks that your level of true belonging can never be greater than your willingness to be brave and stand by yourself. I kind of hate it a little bit. But it’s just what I’ve found. It’s just — it’s how the men and women that have the highest levels of true belonging show up in their lives.

And so I love, again, Cacioppo’s definition of loneliness as being on the outside, looking in.

When I stand up alone in the wilderness and take a stand on something I believe in, or stand up for something I don’t think is right or I do think is right, I feel connected to every other person who’s made that pilgrimage through the wilderness — people I know, people I don’t know but admire. I don’t feel lonely.

And so this first practice of true belonging is, “People are hard to hate close up. Move in.” When you are really struggling with someone, and it’s someone you’re supposed to hate because of ideology or belief, move in. Get curious. Get closer. Ask questions. Try to connect. Remind yourself of that spiritual belief of inextricable connection: How am I connected to you in a way that is bigger and more primal than our politics?

I first heard the saying, “Strong back, soft front” from Joan Halifax, who’s a Buddhist teacher. I don’t like it, because it sounds hard. I’d rather have a strong front and a strong back and a strong everything. Our deepest human need is to be seen by other people — to really be seen and known by someone else. And if we’re so armored up, and we walk through the world with an armored front, we can’t be seen.

“Hold hands. With strangers.” There’s a period in there. “Hold hands. With strangers.” [People with] highest levels of true belonging sought out experiences of collective joy and collective pain. Durkheim, the French sociologist, called this experience “collective effervescence.” And interestingly, he was trying to understand the voodoo magic that he believed happened in churches: What is this thing where people seem transcendent? They’re connected. They’re moving in unison. There’s a cadence in song and rhythm. And he tried to understand what it was, and what he realized is — and that’s what he named “collective effervescence” — it’s the coming together in shared emotion… And we have that today. We have opportunity — trust me… I think we just have to get the stuff out of the way that’s stopping it from happening.

–Extract from an Onbeing podcast interview with Brene Brown

Estamos en guerra con nuestra propia estupidez

por Vandana Shiva  (Mar 21, 2019)

Permitir que los sistemas de agua, los sistemas alimentarios y los sistemas climáticos planetarios sean destruidos, esa es la estupidez que nos gobierna hoy. Nuestro reto realmente es contra la estupidez. Termine el agua, ya encontrará un sustituto, termine la comida, ya encontrará un sustituto, pero ¿hay sustitutos de las cosas reales que hacen que la vida funcione? No. La comida que dicen para la que encontrarán un sustituto es una comida falsa que está causando enormes daños a nuestra salud y, con el agua, no pueden crearla, pero pueden robarla. Entonces los poderosos van a las comunidades más pobres para desviar más agua. No creo que el Planeta vaya a morir, creo que la Tierra es demasiado poderosa. Ella ha vivido tiempos más cálidos, tiempos más fríos, ha vivido con dinosaurios, sin dinosaurios, vivirá con seres humanos,y sin seres humanos, nosotr@s somos prescindibles, Ella encontrará un camino. Nosotr@s necesitamos proteger nuestro hogar.Se dejó que las mujeres hicieran el trabajo considerado no importante. Ir a la guerra y matar era considerado lo importante. La obtención de beneficios a costa de otros se consideraba lo importante. Ahí es donde los hombres, los hombres poderosos lo diseñaron, y mandaron a hombres no poderosos para hacer su trabajo sucio. Se dejó a las mujeres hacer las cosas reales: proveer el agua, proporcionar la comida, cuidar de la familia. Los valores que necesitamos son los valores de conocimiento, de cómo vivir con la naturaleza, ese es el conocimiento de las mujeres. Necesitamos saber cómo cuidar, eso es conocimiento, aunque ahora se le llama inteligencia emocional. Necesitamos saber cómo compartir. Esa es una capacidad que necesitaremos cada vez más en el futuro, en un período de privatización, un período de extracción, por lo que las mujeres con su cuidado y participación serán las maestras de cómo ser seres humanos en el futuro.

Estamos viviendo las etapas finales de un sistema muy engañoso, que ha hecho que todo lo que es muy costoso para el Planeta, costoso para el productor, parezca barato para el consumidor. Por lo tanto, la producción de muy alto costo, con OGM, patentes, regalías y combustibles fósiles, parece comida barata. La producción muy costosa que mata a las niñas en Bangladesh en las fábricas de esclavos, también se ve como ropa barata. Este es un barato falso.

En este período del fin del mundo, ¿cómo sembramos las semillas de un mundo posible? Lo primero, cada joven debería reconocer que trabajar con sus manos, sus corazones y sus mentes, y estar interconectados, es la evolución más alta de nuestra especie. Trabajar con nuestras manos no es una degradación, es nuestra verdadera humanidad: iniciar un jardín, crear un área de juegos, cultivar alimentos, guardar semillas, cocinar. Fue tratada como una actividad atrasada que tu madre cocinara, y no fue tratada como un trabajo, pero ella es la razón por la que eres sostenid@. Empieza las clases de cocina, pídele a las abuelas que te enseñen a cocinar. Crea comunidades. No somos productores y consumidores atomizados: somos parte de la Familia de la Tierra, somos parte de una familia humana, somos parte de una comunidad alimentaria. La comida nos conecta. Todo es comida. Y, por último, nunca tengas miedo del poder engañoso, deshonesto y brutal. Esa es la verdadera libertad.

Extracto de la entrevista a Vandana Shiva, física y pensadora de la parte del Planeta que llamamos India.

We are at war with our stupidity

by Vandana Shiva  (Mar 21, 2019)

To let the water systems, food systems and planetary climate systems get destroyed, that is the stupidity which rules us today. Our challenge really is against stupidity. Finish the water, you’ll find a substitute, finish the food, you’ll find a substitute, but are there substitutes for the real things that make life work? No. The food that they say they’ll find a substitute for is fake food that is doing huge amounts of damage to our health, and with water, they can’t create it, but they can steal it. So the powerful go to poorer communities to divert more water.

I don’t think the Planet will die, I think the Earth is too powerful. She’s lived to hotter times, colder times, she’s lived with dinosaurs, without dinosaurs, she’ll live with human beings, without human beings, we are dispensable, she’ll find a way. We need to protect our home.

Women were left to do the work that was considered not important. Going to war and killing was considered important. Making profits at the cost of others was considered important. That’s where men, powerful men designed it, and they sucked in not powerful men to do their dirty job. Women were left to do the real things: provide the water, provide the food, take care of the family. The values we need are the values of knowledge, of how to live with Nature, that’s what’s women’s knowledge is. We need knowledge of how to care, that’s knowledge, it’s called emotional intelligence now. We need knowledge of how to share. That is a capacity that we will need more and more in the future, in a period of privatization, a period of extraction, so women with their caring and sharing, will be the teachers of how to be human in the future.

We are living the final stages of a very deceitful system, that has made everything that is very costly for the Planet, costly for the producer, look cheap for the consumer. So very high cost production, with GMO’s and patents and royalties and fossil fuel, is made to look like cheap food. Very costly production that kills girls in Bangladesh in slave factories, is made to look like cheap clothing. This is a fake cheap.

In this period of the end of the world, how do we sow the seeds of a possible world? The first, every young person should recognize that working with their hands, and their hearts and their minds, and being interconnected, is the highest evolution of our species. Working with our hands is not a degradation, it’s our real humanity: start a garden, create a playground, in the way you grow food, save seeds, cook. It was treated as a backward activity that your mother cooked, and was treated as not work, but she is the reason you are sustained. Start cooking classes, get grandmothers to teach you how to cook. Create communities. We are not atomised producers and consumers: we are part of the Earth Family, we are part of a human family, we are part of a food community. Food connects us. Everything is food. And finally never be afraid, of deceitful, dishonest, brutal power. That is True Freedom.

Extract from an interview with Vandana Shiva, physicist and thinker from the Part of the Planet we call India.

When I Walk

By Trupti Pandya (Mar 15, 2019)

When I walk I see a line of ants crossing the path.

When I walk I wonder about the symmetry that that butterflies carry.

When I walk I see the wild flowers sprouting from the rocks smiling wide at me.

When I walk I see the wild lizard camouflaging between the dry leaves.

When I walk I breathe in the smell of the wet soil and the leaves.

When I walk I relish the wild berries fallen on the ground. When I walk I connect to the tree by touching the bark. 
Sometimes I pause to count the number of rings on the trunk.

When I walk I hear the songs of the winds.
Sometimes when I pause, the stillness in the silence helps me to connect and listen to my own breath.

When I walk I listen to the sound of the splash made by the tiny fish.
Sometimes when I pause I see the ripples in the water created by the wind.

When I walk I know if the Sun God is gentler than yesterday to me.
When I pause in the evening I see it waving good bye to me.

When I walk I am able to see, hear, touch, smell the natural world that’s enabling me to wonder, be, connect and slow down.

—Trupti and Swara Pandya are on a 1300 mile pilgrimage around the Narmada river in India. This is a blog post from their pilgrimage.