set them free :-) to be free to be who we really are - what greater gift can there be? on this independence day the mind turns to freedom and what it has meant to me. in many ways this entire life has been a striving to be. free. free from all that divides, that limits, that defines, that constrains, that suggests you are any less than what you really are. free to love, to wonder, to dare, to create, and to share :-) this lived poem called life.
free to be truly human. to sense, to feel, to connect, to soar. to limitlessly explore. the frontiers of this love and intelligence that has been so gifted to us. without fuss :-)
this freedom too, as much of life, is a paradox, a mystery. to get you have to give. you embrace many deaths to let infinity live. know silence to hear the music truly sing. and know stillness to let the dance take wing :-) shut your thoughts sometimes (to open your heart and) truly see. and surrender much that you hold dear to be truly free :-)
and though in a fundamental way this independence is truly independent, without cause. and though no chains, no prison, no authority, no laws. no educational institution, no government, no family, no one else can really deny, or grant me. my fundamental rights to love, to be fearless, to be at peace, to be happy.
or to be always whole, whether i lose or i win. because that choice, and it is a choice, is eternally within. and it is up to me how i let the "rulers" in :-)
its taken many decades of a striving as such to understand that perhaps i am striving too much :-) and to begin to appreciate the sacredness, and freedom, of this land where i took birth. whose great teachers showed us long ago the meaning of life on earth. let me just say that the feeling that comes to me is immense gratitude. not only for those teachings that always give. but also for the hundreds of ordinary freedoms that i take for granted and that i live. this freedom to practice my faith, whatever it be; to speak my mind without fear of penalty; to travel, live and work (almost :-) wherever i want in this country; to belong even if i have no family; and to love and laugh, even in deep penury. i had to go to the land of endless opportunity. to discover, and appreciate, what my own country offered me :-) and it is precious :-)
i know that it is all imperfect, that we have a long way to go as individuals or as society. yet since i do choose and create my reality. it are the mystics and the poets who will always my guides be :-) like this poet, and poem, immortal. ever so familiar, ever so inspiring, ever so free!
Where The Mind is Without Fear- WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
- Where knowledge is free
- Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
- By narrow domestic walls
- Where words come out from the depth of truth
- Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
- Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
- Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
- Where the mind is led forward by thee
- Into ever-widening thought and action
- Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
- Rabindranath Tagore
on yet another monday morning its ten thirty three and its truly truly wonderful to be free! to grant us this freedom so many were willingly jailed. to them my deep gratitude, and to you this message: dude, you've just been monday morning emailed!
much love, d&s |
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