Statement by the Parliament of World Religions

I've been so overwhelmed and exhausted the past month that I've not had much time or energy to write, but there are articles of great merit by others I feel I would like to post, so I will begin with this sent to me by the Parliament of World Religions.  We are living in a time when there is great fear and division, but also the breaking of the crust of American complacency and denial, along with the heavy hand of neo-fascism, seems to be bringing things to visibility.  Maybe that's good, I've thought often on this.  As the poet Leonard Cohen said,  "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

And as the prophet Leonard Cohen has always been, he released his last, and many say best, album "You Want It Darker", and died on the day Trump became president of the United States.

Parliament Executive Director Dr. Larry Greenfield's Statement on the Exclusionary Actions of the U.S. Government.

From: Dr. Larry Greenfield Executive Director The Parliament of the World's Religions  To Our Friends in the Interfaith Movement Around the World: We who are your colleagues in the interfaith movement living in the United States pray that you will not forsake us because of what some of our political leaders are doing in our nation’s name. We need you to understand that these political leaders do not speak for us, that they are not acting on our behalf, that, yes, they represent a part of our nation’s past, but not the best of our past. In fact, they represent the worst part of our national history. They do not stand in the lineage of one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who in a time of great national division, asked that we draw on “the better angels of our nature.” Another of our presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, told the nation in a time of testing that “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” But even that president created internment camps and imprisoned our sisters and brothers of Japanese decent for many years. That was a blemish on our nation’s reputation. Now we are being blemished again, this time by our current president. He is using fear to rally our fellow citizens to demonize people from particular countries and a particular religion and to keep them from entering our country – a country, as you no doubt know, is a nation mostly of immigrants. It is true that all of us across the world are mindful of dangers of terrorism and the need for security. But we together cannot meet that challenge by maligning and excluding one another. So we want you to know that we oppose this tactic and this policy. We want you to know that we honor people, like you, who come from other nations and other faith traditions. We want you to know that we want to be in solidarity with you, when you are here with us in this country or with us, in spirit, when you are not here. We want you to know that we need you to be patient with us while we fight the evils of fear, of xenophobia, of suspicion, of hate. Don’t give up on us. As one of our great leaders assured us: We shall overcome. In friendship, Larry Greenfield Executive Director Parliament of the World's Religions

The Curse of the Morrigan

 

I wrote this for a performance 15 or 20 years ago, and I still think it may be the finest poem I ever wrote, because I sometimes think She Herself was there with me when I wrote it.  It honestly was a moment when I felt like I was a channel for a voice greater than my own.  I never told anyone that before, but feel I should now.  It was a gift.

I love it because the Morrigan, Celtic  Goddess of Justice, and honorable Battle, and honorable Lamentation,  speaks in the poem with the circular and expanded  wisdom of a Goddess, the one who  speaks far from the limited view of  "revenge" and "consequences", but speaks rather from the wide spiral  perspective of the evolution of the soul.  

I also love the poem  because I think it's so important now to open a way for the Warrior Goddesses, for the Morrigan, to come into our hearts and into our world, before too much, far, far too much, is lost.  The next human evolution, I truly believe, is one of empathy, which to me means living within the Circle of life, feeling and sensing our connections on every level.   We see the cycles, we see the ripples, we see, and gain the  capacity to Circle, and Circle, and Circle, until, at last, we 

"find our faces before we were born,

and drink from deep, deep waters."

 

The CURSE OF THE MORRIGAN

 
You who bring suffering to children: 

May you look into the sweetest, most open eyes, and howl the loss of your own innocence.

You who ridicule the poor, the grieving, the lost, the fallen, the inarticulate, the wounded children in grown-up bodies:  

 May you look into each face, and see a mirror.  May all your cleverness fall into the abyss of your speechless grief, your secret hunger,  may you look into that black hole with no name, and find....the most tender touch in the darkest night, the hand that reaches out.  May you take that hand.  May you walk all your circles home at last, and coming home, know where you are.

You tree-killers, you  wasters:

 May you breathe the bitter dust, may you thirst, may you walk hungry in the wastelands,  the barren places you have made.  And when you cannot walk one step further,  may you see at your foot a single blade of grass, green, defiantly green.  And may you be remade by it's generosity.

And those who are greedy in a time of famine: 

 May you be emptied out, may your hearts break not in half, but wide open in a thousand places,  and may the waters of the world pour from each crevice, washing you clean.

Those who mistake power for love: 

 May you know true loneliness.  And when you think your loneliness will drive you mad, when you know you cannot bear it one more hour,  may a line be cast to you,  one shining, light woven strand of the Great Web glistening in the dark.  And may you hold on for dear life.

Those passive ones, those ones who force others to shape them, and then complain
if it's not to your liking: 

May you find yourself in the hard place with your back against the wall.  And may you rage, rage until you find your will.  And may you learn to shape yourself.

And you who delight in exploiting others, imagining that you are better than they are:

May you wake up in a strange land as naked as the day you were born and thrice as raw.  May you look into the eyes of any other soul, in your radiant need and terrible vulnerability. 

May you know your Self.  And may you be blessed by that communion.

And may you love well, thrice and thrice and thrice, 

and again and again and again, 

may you find your face before you were born.  

And may you drink from deep, deep waters.