Anxiety, The Illness Of Our Time, Comes Primarily From Our Inability To Dwell In The Present Moment.

“Because to suffer for love is good. The pain all sweet somehow. In the end.”

-Sandra Cisneros [[Woman Hollering Creek]]

The fact that they were three Muslim students, I think, has had something to do with the muted – relatively muted response we have had and I think that it’s time to say all lives matter.

Geraldo Rivera on The Chapel Hill Shooting (via themindfulmuslim)

There’s red on the ceiling and red on the floor, red dripping from the window sills and red globules splattered across the walls. It looks like the artist Anish Kapoor has been let loose with his wax cannon again. But this, in fact, is what the making of Christmas looks like; this is the very heart of the real Santa’s workshop – thousands of miles from the North Pole, in the Chinese city of Yiwu.

Our yuletide myth-making might like to imagine that Christmas is made by rosy-cheeked elves hammering away in a snow-bound log cabin somewhere in the Arctic Circle. But it’s not. The likelihood is that most of those baubles, tinsel and flashing LED lights you’ve draped liberally around your house came from Yiwu, 300km south of Shanghai – where there’s not a (real) pine tree nor (natural) snowflake in sight.

Christened “China’s Christmas village”, Yiwu is home to 600 factories that collectively churn out over 60% of all the world’s Christmas decorations and accessories, from glowing fibre-optic trees to felt Santa hats. The “elves” that staff these factories are mainly migrant labourers, working 12 hours a day for a maximum of £200 to £300 a month – and it turns out they’re not entirely sure what Christmas is.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/dec/19/santas-real-workshop-the-town-in-china-that-makes-the-worlds-christmas-decorations

So beautiful you are Inti-Sun-Sol. Painting the canvas of my life with bright colors and pure light. Your stillness aids me to quit the aching from the memories and the mind. I am aware of your light for its essence and beyond without attaching any label to it anymore. I now see your light like no other time before. I feel your light. O, shine upon me! Cover me in your pure light, Sol And become one. Here, Still, Now. I Am Your Light. I Am Light. I Am Now. I Am.

From #SunsetPark to #Ferguson. #InSolidarity

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Millions March NYC: 12/13/14

#IndictTheSystem

So the first time I saw this mural I was happy to see some art in my neighborhood (that wasn’t removed by the authorities) but two nights later I found out this had been put up by the #Flatbush and Nostrand Junction #BusinessImprovementDevelopment or #BID. I have had bad experiences with #BIDs across #NYC so my thoughts are biased but damn it sucks that nobody in the Junction community (that I asked) knew that this was unfolding in our neighborhood —many of us did notice some construction work and new lam posts, but no idea of the reasons behind it. So my question is how can the unknown key players actively involved in the decision-making process of the Flatbush/Nostrand Junction BID intend to improve and ‘beautify’ my community if they haven’t even asked me or non (or very few) of my fellow neighbors what that means for us?!! -_-’ I just hope I don’t see any of the long-time businesses or tenants pushed out of their locales&homes. #rantsaboutthechangesinmycommunity (at The Junction - Flatbush/Nostrand)