Thursday, September 30, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History: JALAL AL-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI
This Day in Gay History
September 30
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 Tricycle // Improvising Faith
Improvising Faith
By Emily DeMaioNewton
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Via Daily Dharma: Being Present Is a Transformation
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Thich Nhat Hanh Quote Collectiveia Thich Nhat Hanh Quote Collective // FB
Via White Crane Institute \\ ANN BANCROFT
ANN BANCROFT, the first woman to trek to both the North and the South Pole was born on this date. Bancroft grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. She described her family as one of risk takers. It is reported that she struggled with a learning disabiity, but nevertheless graduated from St. Paul Academy and Summit School.Bancroft became a wilderness instructor and a gym teacher in Minnesota (at Clara Barton Open School) and St. Paul.
She gave up her teaching post in 1986 in order to participate with the "Will Steger International North Pole Expedition". She arrived at the Pole together with five other team members after fifty-six days using dogsleds. This made Bancroft the first woman to reach the North Pole on foot and by sled.
She was also the first woman to cross both polar ice caps to reach the North and South Poles, as well as the first woman to ski across Greenland. In 1993 Bancroft led a four-woman expedition to the South Pole on skis; this expedition was the first all-female expedition to cross the ice to the South Pole. In 2001, Ann and Norwegian adventurer Liv Arnesen became the first women to ski across Antarctica.
Her achievements led to her induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame for the United States.
She currently co-owns an exploration company, Bancroft Arnesen Explore, with Liv Arnesen. In March 2007, Bancroft and Arnesen were taking part in a trek across the Arctic Ocean to draw attention to the problem of global warming. However, according to The Washington Post, the expedition was called off "after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment."
Bancroft also received a number of other awards and honors. She is out Gay and in 2006, she publicly campaigned against a proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution to prohibit any legal recognition of marriages equality.Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - September 29, 2021 💌
Acting with compassion is not doing good because we think we ought to... It is giving ourselves into what we are doing, and being present in the moment. It is acting from our deepest understanding of what life is and not compromising the truth.
- Ram Dass
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Listen for Peace
Monday, September 27, 2021
Via Extra*
Lost during Nazi rule in Germany, one of the world’s first pro-gay films has finally been restored for modern viewers
Filmmaker and scientist Magnus Hirschfeld’s “Laws of Love” promoted his controversial views about sex
Via Daily Dharma: The Miracle of Openness
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Via FB
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - September 26, 2021 💌
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Via Daily Dharma: The Legs We Stand On
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // PEDRO ALMODOVAR
PEDRO ALMODOVAR, Spanish filmmaker, was born; Almodóvar is the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, and quirky stylings, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors and glossy décor. He never judges his character's actions, whatever they do, but he presents them as they are in all their complexity. Desire, passion, family and identity are the director's favorite themes. Almodóvar is openly – dare we say brilliantly? -- Gay and he has incorporated elements of underground and gay culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal, redefining perceptions of Spanish cinema and Spain in the process. At one time, it is believed, he owned the film rights to Tom Spanbauer’s mystical book, The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon (though we now believe Gus Van Sant has these rights.)
Around 1974, Almodóvar began making his first short films on a Super-8 camera. By the end of the 1970s they were shown in Madrid’s night circuit and in Barcelona These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack: Dos putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (Two Whores, or, A Love Story that Ends in Marriage); La caída de Sodoma (The Fall of Sodom); Homenaje (Homage); La estrella (The Star); Sexo Va: Sexo viene (Sex Comes and Goes) (Super-8); Complementos (shorts 16mm).
“I showed them in bars, at parties… I could not add a soundtrack because it was very difficult. The magnetic strip was very poor, very thin. I remember that I became very famous in Madrid because, as the films had no sound, I took a cassette with music while I personally did the voices of all the characters, songs and dialogues.” After four years of working with shorts in Super-8 format, in 1978 Almodóvar made his first Super-8, full-length film: Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim), a magazine style melodrama. In addition, he made his first 16 mm short, Salome. This was his first contact with the professional world of cinema. The film's stars, Carmen Maura and Felix Rotaeta, encouraged him to make his first feature film in 16mm and helped him raise the money to finance what would be Pepi Luc: Bom y otras cgicas del monton.
Almodóvar's subsequent films deepened his exploration of sexual desire and the sometimes brutal laws governing it. Matador is a dark, complex story that centers on the relationship between a former bullfighter and a murderous female lawyer, both of whom can only experience sexual fulfillment in conjunction with killing. The film offered up desire as a bridge between sexual attraction and death.
Almodóvar solidified his creative independence when he started the production company El Deseo, together with his brother Agustín, who has also had several cameo roles in his films. From 1986 on, Pedro Almodóvar has produced his own films.
The first movie that came out from El Deseo was the aptly named Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo). The film has an operatically tragic plot line and is one of Almodóvar’s richest and most disturbing movies. The narrative follows three main characters: a Gay film director who embarks on a new project; his sister, an actress who used to be his brother (played by Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (played by Antonio Banderas).
The film presents a gay love triangle and drew away from most representations of gay men in films. These characters are neither coming out nor confront sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated, like the homosexuals in Fassbinder’s films. Almodóvar said about Law of Desire: "It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond."
Almodóvar's films rely heavily on the capacity of his actors to pull through difficult roles into a complex narrative. In Law of Desire Carmen Maura plays the role of Tina, a woman who used to be a man. Almodóvar explains: "Carmen is required to imitate a woman, to savor the imitation, to be conscious of the kitsch part that there is in the imitation, completely renouncing parody, but not humor".
Elements from Law of Desire grew into the basis for two later films: Carmen Maura appears in a stage production of Cocteau’s The Human Voice, which inspired Almodóvar’s next film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; and Tina's confrontation scene with an abusive priest formed a partial genesis for Bad Education.
Via Tricycle -- Understanding Equanimity: The Secret Ingredient In Mindfulness
By Sharon Salzberg
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Via Daily Dharma: Let Awakening Come to You
Friday, September 24, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Active Listening
Via Daily Dharma: The Core of Our Being
Thursday, September 23, 2021
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
– His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - September 22, 2021 💌
I invite you not to cling. I invite you to open to the next moment and
allow it to have its own richness. Nothing will kill the glow faster
than clinging.
I was with Aldous Huxley years ago, and I didn’t know him well, but when
we were together there were just a few words he kept using:
“Extraordinary,” “How curious,” and “How odd.” I realized that
everything in life is extraordinary if I just want to look. It’s true
there’s nothing new under the sun, and yet it’s all fresh. - Ram Dass
Via Daily Dharma: Discover an Ancient Secret Inbox
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—Phakchok Rinpoche, “Dealing With Your Jealous and Competitive Mind”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // Toward A Gay Ecological Perspective: the Gay Experience and Ecology
In 1992 White Crane #15 looked at The Wild Man, Robert Bly and Gays, and included a spirited debate among Harry Hay, Mark Thompson, and Arthur Evans on the origins of the Faeries. J. Michael Clark issued a call to ecological reflection:
Toward A Gay Ecological Perspective: the Gay Experience and Ecology
One important theme in Gay liberation is the realization that we cannot wait for others to sanction our efforts in theology or spirituality. We must instead find our own prophetic voice and assume our own authority to speak in theology and spirituality. Ultimately, neither Gay men and Lesbians, nor Native Americans, nor the poor, nor any other oppressed people can afford to wait for an external conferral of authority to speak. Moreover, the shared nature of oppression means that as we create our own liberation, so also are we obliged to seek the liberation of other people, and of the Earth itself, from objectification, disvaluation and exploitation.
Gay spirituality and theology, borne out of our experience of oppression, can contribute something unique to ecological reflection. While we would not expect the so called deep ecologists and other straight male writers to include our particular perspective, it is surprising that the majority of feminist writers also do not include Gay/Lesbian oppression as part of their analysis of human and ecological oppression and exploitation. Even when women, African Americans, Native Americans and Third World [sic] peoples and their environments are acknowledged and examined, Gay men and Lesbians are consistently absent and invisible. The extension of rights to Blacks, to women, and in a limited extent to some endangered species and the environment, conveniently passes over certain groups which, therefore, remain disenfranchised — most Native Americans, the poor, the homeless, and Gay men and Lesbians. These groups of people are all too much of the biosphere as well as invisible, even to so-called liberals, and treated as disvalued and disposable.
According to deep ecology, human self-centeredness has led to environmental problems. According to feminism, masculine privilege and social structures have devalued and exploited both women and nature. A Gay perspective would insist that not only are women, nature and the Earth devalued, but our society, with its fear of diversity, disvalues anyone (Gays, Lesbians, Native Americans, the poor and homeless, etc.) and anything (the environment, the Earth) designated as “other.” What we see is not just a devaluing which leads to domination and exploitation, but a disvaluing which strips away all value leading to exclusion, to being disposable, to being acceptable for extinction. This insight is one unique contribution to ecology which Gay people can offer, Gay thinking must move beyond the issues of domination and exploitation to those of disvaluation, exclusion and expendability to radically celebrate diversity and the intrinsic value of all that is, the human, the biospheric, the geospheric. Gay people must work against the disvaluation and exclusion of self and world as disposable, worthless commodities in a society that disdains diversity and eliminates the unnecessary — that which has no utilitarian value.
As Gay men and Lesbians look out on our disposable society of planned obsolescence and throw-away consumerism, we cannot help but be aware of the growing trash heap, the over-burdened landfills, the industrially polluted water and the wastelands of deforestation. We are able to see out society throwing away our Earth, our home, because we are also aware of how often human beings themselves have been treated as disposable and expendable. Historically, African-Americans, Native Americans, the poor and the homeless, the physically and mentally challenged and virtually all Third World [sic] peoples have been treated as either expendable after use (in slavery or minimum wage work) or as totally useless.
In the history of our own community, never has our expendability been so evident as in the rising incidence of anti-Gay violence and in the AIDS health crisis. Our government continues to spend money in the pursuit of protocols and vaccines, while ouor politico-medical system drags its feet in regard to approving treatment protocols or to finding a cure. Gay men, IV-drug users, people of color, and Third World [sic] communities where AIDS rages heterosexually are still devalued and/or disvalued. Our expendability becomes an example of our society’s attitudes toward all the Eart. Hence, our Gay ecological perspective must adamantly oppose any disvaluation and exclusion that leads to dispensing with diversity and disposing of life. Neither Gay men and Lesbians, nor the biosphere, nor the geosphere, nor any of the great diversity which god/dess creates and delights in is expendable.
An ecological perspective will also address our own lives as Gay men and Lesbians. We must be held accountable whenever we accede to or cooperate with the forces of oppression, exploitation and expendability. We must challenge any Gay/Lesbian assimilation which mitigates our diversity. Gor Gay men in particular, we must also examine our socialization as men. We must discern how we as men have been conditioned to accept exploitation, disvaluation and expendability — worthlessness — in our lives. If the typical masculine socialization process of our society works against a compassionate, caring, empathy for nature, spiritual Gay men who escaped that socialization may be able to demonstrate, for all men, a male-embodied love and care for nature.
As we (re)confront the abuses that imperil the environment, we can begin to create a Gay ecology that discloses that our Gay and Lesbian existence is not only a mode of being-in-the-world, but also a way of being-with-the-world, as co-partners in the process of healing and liberation throughout the Earth. Granted, in some respects Gay men and Lesbians, as a larger community, may lag behind other groups in wrestling with ecological issues and environmental causes because our energies are so consumed with dealing with AIDS, homophobia and other forms of oppression. Even with our considerable in-house agenda, which absolutely must not be forsaken, groups such as the various faerie circles and Gays United Against Nuclear Arms have pursued ecological concerns, while individuals have worked within local neighborhood groups on similar issues. Developing a broader, ecological perspective can help us see the connection among all forms of oppression, exploitation and disvaluataion and can facilitate liaisons to confront all of these. Not through co-option, but through cooperation, working together to achieve liberation for all peoples and the Earth itself, will we find out own liberation achieved as well.
Michael Clark is the author of Beyond the Ghetto: Gay Theology in Ecological Perspective, Pilgrim Press 1993
Via Tricycle // Helpless, Not Hopeless
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