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Via Daily Dharma: The Ethics of Self-Care

We can’t live ethically without caring about ourselves as well as others.

—Winton Higgins, “Treading the Path with Care”

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#TinaTurnerBlog #TinaTurner #TinaTurnerMantras Tina Turner - Lotus Sutra / Purity of Mind (2H Meditation)

Via Daily Dharma: Powerful Compassion

Compassion is not quiet; it is an enthusiastic, active, empathetic wish to help.

—Jeffrey Hopkins,“Breaking the Habit of Selfishness”

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Via Daily Dharma: Dealing Mindfully with Difficult Emotions

We can be angry, jealous, or scared without having to act on those emotions or let them take over our lives. We can experience joy or love without becoming attached to the object that we think is the cause of our joy.

—Tsoknyi Rinpoche, “Allow for Space”

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Via White Crane Institute // 1869 - Marks the first known published use of term “homosexuality”

Noteworthy

Károly Mária Kertbeny

1869 -

Marks the first known published use of term “homosexuality” by Károly Mária Kertbeny, a German-Hungarian advocate, in a letter to Karl Ulrichs. The neologism “heterosexuality” came later. The word homosexual is a Greek and Latin hybrid. The prefix homo is not from the Latin homo "man" but from the Greek homos, which means "the same," thus giving the word homosexual its definition of "same sex relationship." 

Homosexual is not as widely accepted because it emphasizes the word as just a sexuality but not as a cultural and social attitude which gay and lesbians have and it has the overtones of pathology derived from its original usage to define it in medical terminology. Gay generally refers to male homosexuality, but may be used in a broader sense to refer to all LGBT people. In the context of sexuality, Lesbian refers only to female homosexuality. The word Lesbian is derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, where the poet Sappho wrote about her emotional relationships with young women.

Via White Crane Institute // ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

Alexander von Humboldt

1859 -

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, German naturalist and explorer, died (b: 1769); The one, the only the great. Perhaps one of my own favorite personages in this almanac. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) Alexander von Humboldt's work on botanical geography is considered foundational to the fields of bio-geography, physical geography and meteorology.

Von Humboldt is a prime example of a Renaissance man of the sciences, studying in astronomy, vulcanology, and geology. Thomas Jefferson called him, “The most important scientist I ever met.” 19th century Freethinker, Robert G. Ingersoll said, "He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama."  If he were alive today, he would be another candidate for "The Most Interesting man in the World" commercial.

In the 19th Century, Alexander von Humboldt was one of the most famous men in Europe and is remembered for not only his own scientific achievement, but for his nurturing and mentoring of young, up-and-coming scientists. The American painter Rembrandt Peale painted him, between 1808 and 1810, as one of the most prominent figures in Europe at the time. There are a dozen species names in his honor and Humboldt Bay, California, Humboldt Park (in Chicago) are among dozens of other places and schools, named after him in the U.S.

Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time in a manner generally considered to be a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over twenty-one years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). His five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge.

Among his myriad accomplishments, Humboldt is considered to be the "second discoverer of Cuba" due to the scientific and social research he conducted on the island. During an initial three-month stay at Havana, his first tasks were to survey Havana city and nearby towns. He befriended Cuban landowner and philosopher Francisco Arrango y Parreno, and together they visited south Havana, the valleys of Matanzas Province, and the Valley of the Sugar Mills in Trinidad.

Much of Humboldt's private life remains a mystery because he destroyed his private letters, but throughout his life Humboldt formed strong emotional attachments to men. In 1908 the sexual researcher Paul Näcke, who worked with sexologist and researcher Magnus Hirschfeld, gathered reminiscences of him from people who recalled his participation in the homosexual subculture of Berlin. A travelling companion, Francisco Jose de Caldas, accused Humboldt of frequenting houses where 'impure love reigned', of making friends with 'obscene dissolute youths', and giving vent to 'shameful passions of his heart'. Sounds like a man who knew how to have a good time.

To the soldier Reinhard von Haeften he wrote: "I know that I live only through you, my good precious Reinhard, and that I can only be happy in your presence." He never married. He was strongly attached to his brother's family; and in his later years formed a matrimonial bond to an old and faithful servant named Seifert. Indeed, four years before his death, he executed a deed of gift transferring the absolute possession of his entire estate to Seifert.

Edgar Allan Poe dedicated his last major work, Eureka: A Prose Poem, to von Humboldt. Charles Darwin makes frequent reference to Humboldt's work in his Voyage of the Beagle, where Darwin describes his own scientific exploration of the Americas. He went on to say, “He was the greatest travelling scientist who ever lived." – "I have always admired him; now I worship him."

On, May 6th 2009, according to a press release forwarded by GayWisdom reader David Kerlick, (himself a Humboldt Fellow in Germany, 1975-1977), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation officially commemorated its name-giver on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of Alexander von Humboldt:

“Together with Humboldt University and the Office of the Governing Mayor of Berlin, the Humboldt Foundation is holding a ceremony in the Senate Hall at Humboldt University. Following a welcome address by the State Secretary for Cultural Affairs in the Office of the Governing Mayor of Berlin, André Schmitz, the President of Humboldt University Professor Christoph Markschies, the Ambassador of the Republic of Chile, Professor Álvaro Rojas Marín, and the President of the Humboldt Foundation, Professor Helmut Schwarz, will read from Humboldt’s writings. The ceremonial address, “The Brightness Of The Stars – Alexander Von Humboldt Narrating The World & The Universe,” will be held by the Honorary President of the Humboldt Foundation, Professor Wolfgang Frühwald. “

Virtually every time you see the name "Humboldt" on something, it is named after this man who loved men.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - May 6, 2020 💌

"The path to freedom is through detachment from your old habits of ego. Slowly you will arrive at a new and more profound integration of your experiences in a more evolved structure of the universe. That is, you will flow beyond the boundaries of your ego until ultimately you merge into the universe. At that point, you have gone beyond ego. Until then you must break through old structures, develop broader structures, break through those, and develop still broader structures."

- Ram Dass -

Via Triccycle / Never Again An Interview with Duncan Ryuken Williams by Ashoka Mukpo

Duncan Williams, a Soto priest, Buddhist scholar, and leader of a Japanese-American activist group that has been protesting mass incarceration at the border envisions an American identity built on diversity and interdependence.

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Via Daily Dharma: Investigating Feelings with Loving Attention

When we are willing to investigate, with loving attention, the difficult feelings that come up in relationship to others, our happiness or unhappiness is less conditioned by how others behave.

—Narayan Helen Liebenson, “Questioning the Question”

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Via Daily Dharma: Undertake a Vital Task

The great spiritual masters believe that the capacity to love our enemies is one of the vital tasks of human evolution.

—Kevin Griffin, “May All Beings Be Happy”

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Via White Crane Institute / ROGER REES

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Roger Rees

1944 -

ROGER REES, British-born actor, born (d: 2015); A Welsh born American actor, Rees created the title role in the original production of the play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, winning both an Olivier and Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1982 for it.

He also starred in the original production of The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard in London in 1984. Rees became an American citizen in 1989, and in the 1990s, continued his work in the theatre, both as an actor and a director. He did some television work in the 1970s and began his film career in the 1980s.

From 1989 to 1993, he appeared intermittently on the long-running American TV series Cheers as the dashing, feckless English tycoon “Robin Colcord." He then played an antagonist to a different Robin as the Sheriff of Rottingham, in Mel Brooks’ 1993 film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Later television appearances include My So Called Life as substitute teacher "Mr. Racine" and British Ambassador Lord John Marbury on The West Wing. He was awarded an OBIA for his 1992 performance in the off-Broadway play The End of the Day, and in 1995, he was nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Indiscretions.

In November 2004, Rees was named artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, only the fourth person to hold the post in its half century.

Rees married his partner of thirty-three years, playwright Rick Elice, in 2011. Rees and Elice also collaborated professionally, including as co-playwrights of the comedic thriller Double Double. Elice co-wrote (with Marshall Brickman) the libretto for The Addams Family musical, the cast of which Rees had joined in March 2011. In 2012, Elice and Rees received Tony Award nominations for Elice's stage adaptation and Rees' co-direction of Peter and The Starcatcher.

After a diagnosis of brain cancer in October 2014, Rees focused his energy on his commitment to playing opposite Chita Rivera on Broadway in The Visit, the final musical written by John Kander and Fred Ebb. While undergoing two brain surgeries, two courses of radiation and ongoing chemotherapy, Rees managed to rehearse, preview and open in The Visit in April 2015. By the middle of May, it had become too difficult for him to speak, and he left the show. Rees died of brain cancer at age 71 at his home in New York on July 10, 2015. On Wednesday, July 15, 2015, the marquee lights at all the theatres on Broadway were dimmed in his honor.

Via Daily Dharma: Anchoring in a Web of Connection

Religious traditions—at least ones that are vital—anchor individuals in a meaningful collective life. They provide a framework that links individual spiritual aspirations to communities extending deep into the past, far into the future, and outward into the long present.

—Andrew Cooper, “The Lotus of the Wonderful Law”

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Sati Center for Buddhist Studies

The Sati Center for Buddhist Studies supports the study of Buddhist teachings through:

• Daylong Meditation and Study Classes
• Online Sutta Study Courses
• Buddhist Chaplaincy Training

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Via White Crane Institute / STEVE SANDO

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Bean grower, Steve Sando

1960 -

STEVE SANDO, culinary entrepreneur was born on this date; Actually this is just a guess because no record of his actual birthday has been found, yet. So I will assume someone who, in a few short years, has taken the lowly bean from a neglected legume to superstar-status ingredient has a Taurean epicurean nature and was born in May.

Sando’s company, Rancho Gordo, grows, imports, and promotes heirloom and heritage varieties while working directly with consumers and chefs like Thomas Keller, Deborah Madison, Paula Wolfert, and David Kinch. Thomas Keller discovered Sando and serves his beans at his world-renowned French Laundry in Napa.

Sando's seed saving, bean production, and marketing efforts provide professional and home chefs with heirloom beans that would otherwise have been lost to history. The beans, along with corn, chiles, and tomatoes, have become key ingredients in the new American food revolution centered in Sando’s native San Francisco Bay Area, as well as hot sauces and various cooking tools and utensils.

Sando and Rancho Gordo were named number two on Saveur Magazine’s “The Saveur 100 list for 2008.” Bon Appetit magazine declared Sando one of the Hot 10 in the food world of 2009. Food + Wine magazine placed Steve “at the forefront of the current seed-saving movement.” Steve’s previous book, with Vanessa Barrington, was Heirloom Beans (Chronicle, 2008).

Steve Sando came to agriculture not from the 4H club but from the grocery store. As a frustrated home cook, he decided to grow the ingredients he wanted in his kitchen. At the forefront of neglected ingredients were beans. Although they are an indigenous product of the Americas, the only beans available commercially to most home cooks were pintos, navies, and kidneys. Discovering heirloom beans to be as rich and varied as heirloom tomatoes, Sando almost single-handedly created the market for these unique and worthwhile legumes. He now grows more than twenty-five varieties in California and works with small indigenous farmers in Mexico to import their heirloom beans for the U.S. market. He lives in Napa and travels frequently throughout the Americas collecting beans, friends, and adventures. His discovery and revivifying of old ways is deeply consistent with the archetypal "cultural interpreter" and "culture saver" of same-sex people.

Sando is a former web designer, Jazz radio disc jockey, and wholesaler of clothing who now runs Rancho Gordo. After burning out in his former career, Sando decided to grow heirloom tomatoes, despite having no experience in agriculture. When another farmer asked for help marketing beans, he decided to grow beans instead; Sando gathered bean seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, and found new varieties of beans in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Bean production under Rancho Gordo rose from 300 pounds (140 kg) in 2001 to 150,000 pounds (68,000 kg) in 2007, and to 250,000 pounds (110,000 kg) in 2008. Beans and other products are sourced from local growers in California's Central Valley, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Mexico, Peru, Poland, and Bolivia. Most of the dried beans produced are sold in specially labeled packages through Rancho Gordo's website, at the company's store in Napa, or directly at farmer's markets.

Sando recently made the decision to cut ties with shipping provider FedEx, due to its support of the National Rifle Association. He says that in 2017 his business spent more than $500,000 on shipping with the company but will now find another carrier.

If you are a cook, you may also be interested in his Web site, www.ranchogordo.com.

CBeebies Bedtime Stories - Tom Hardy - Odd Dog Out by Rob Bidduph 15/05/2017

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - May 3, 2020 💌

"The left hand is caught and the right-hand pulls it out. The left-hand turns to the right and says ‘thank you.’ It doesn’t work because they are both parts of the same body. Who are you thanking? You’re thanking yourself. So on that plane, you realize it’s not her suffering, his suffering, or their suffering.
You go up one level, it’s our suffering. You go up another level, it’s my suffering. Then as it gets de-personalized, it’s the suffering. Out of the identity with the suffering comes compassion. It arises in relation to the suffering. It’s part and parcel of the whole package. There is nothing personal in this at all.
In that sense, you have become compassion instead of doing compassionate acts. Instead of being compassionate, you are compassion."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Realizing Our Ever-Present Connection

No matter how despairing or cut off we can feel at any given time, we are not actually severed from the essential flow of life or from one another. If we get quiet for a while and pay careful attention, this is what we realize.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Forever Connected”

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Lama Surya Das – Awakening Now – Ep. 91 – The Golden Eternity

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