Instead
of boxing in our hearts, loving only me, me, me—the smallest box—we
must try to slowly expand that box till we’re able to love all humanity,
all sentient beings.
—Interview with Nawang Khechog by Mark Matousek, “Elevated Music”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Expanding Your Heart
Via White Crane Institute // ARI SHAPIRO
Journalist Ari Shapiro
1978 -
ARI SHAPIRO is an American radio journalist who was born on this date. In September 2015, Shapiro became one of four rotating hosts on National Public Radio's flagship drive-time program All Things Considered. He previously served as White House correspondent and international correspondent based in London for NPR.
Shapiro began his NPR career as an intern to legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg in January 2001. Following that assignment, he worked as an editorial assistant and an assistant editor on Morning Edition. After working as a regional reporter for NPR in Atlanta and Miami and five years as NPR's Justice Correspondent, Shapiro began covering the White House in 2010. In 2014, he became NPR's correspondent in London. In July 2015 NPR announced that Shapiro and Kelly McEvers would join Audie Cornish and Robert Siegel as hosts of NPR's All Things Considered program
Shapiro's work has been recognized with journalism awards, including the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, the Daniel Shorr Journalism Prize, a laurel from the Columbia Journalism Review, and the American Judges Association's American Gavel Award. Shapiro was the first NPR reporter to be promoted to correspondent before age 30.
In February 2004, Shapiro and longtime boyfriend Michael Gottlieb were married at San Francisco City Hall. Gottlieb is a lawyer who worked at the White House counsel’s office from 2013-2015.
Since 2009, Shapiro has been a regular guest singer with the band Pink Martini. He appears on four of the band’s albums, singing in several languages. He made his live debut with the band at the Hollywood Bowl. He has performed live with them frequently since then, including at such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Beacon Theater in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Olympia in Paris, Kew Gardens in London, and the Lycabettus Theatre in Athens.
In May 2010, the pop-culture magazine Paper included Shapiro in an annual list of "Beautiful People," saying he "must have a clone. No one man could have so many talents and be in so many places at once."
In December 2010, MSNBC's entertainment website BLTWY placed Shapiro 26th on its "power list" of "35 people under 35 who changed DC in 2010," calling him "one of NPR's fastest rising stars."
In 2016 and 2008, LGBT-themed magazine Out included Shapiro in the "Out 100", a list of "the year’s most interesting, influential, and newsworthy LGBT people." Shapiro was also included on a list of openly gay media professionals in The Advocate's "Forty under 40" issue of June/July 2009.
In February 2004, Shapiro and longtime boyfriend Michael Gottlieb were married at San Francisco City Hall. Gottlieb is a lawyer who worked at the White House counsel's office from 2013 to 2015.
Via White Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History: RUMI
This Day in Gay History
September 30
Born
Jalal Al-Din Muhammad Rumi
1207 -
JALAL AL-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI, Persian mystic and poet born (d. 1273) also known as Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, but most famously known to the English-speaking world simply as RUMI.
Rumi was a 13th century Persian (Tajik) Muslim poet, jurist and theologian. His name literally translates as "Majesty of Religion", Jalal means "majesty" and Din means "religion." Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he died in Anatolia which was part of the Byzantine Empire two centuries before.
Rumi was born in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan), then a city of Greater Khorasan in Persia and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey). His birthplace and native language/local dialogue indicates a Persian (Tajik) heritage. His poetry is in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and in translation especially in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the US, and South Asia. He lived most of his life in, and produced his works under, the Sejuk Empire. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. Throughout the centuries he has had a significant influence on Persian as well as Urdu and Turkish literature. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages in various formats. After Rumi's death, his followers founded the Meylevi Order, better known as the "Whirling Dervishes," who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the sema.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on November 15th 1244 that changed his life completely. Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company." A voice came, "What will you give in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jalal al-Din of Konya." On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is believed that he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.
Rumi's love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance and lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:
Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
For more than ten years after meeting Shams, Mawlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals, and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir. Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Salaḥ ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favorite student Hussam-e Chelebi assumed the role. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside of Konya when Hussam described an idea he had to Rumi: "If you were to write a book like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it."
Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi, beginning with:
Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings of separation...
Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi to Hussam. In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which begins with the verse:
How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs.
He died on December 17, 1273 in Konya; Rumi was laid to rest beside his father, and a splendid shrine, the Yesil Turbe "Green Tomb" (original name:قبه لخزراء), was erected over his tomb. His epitaph reads:
"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."
Via INDY 100 // Homophobic people have a higher chance of being gay, according to science
Picture: ISTOCK / SVETIKD
Today marks 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales.
On 27 July 1967 the Sexual Offences Act was changed and legalised sex in private between two men.
Despite this being a huge milestone for the LGBT community we still have an enormous way to go when it comes to true equality.
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - September 30, 2020 💌
- Ram Dass -
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