Pook's Hill

being a compendium of all the things that Puck lost down the back of the sofa of Time

0 notes

“Many Buddhist teachers have described compassion as the ability to react freely and accurately in any situation. Being nice or feeling sorry for someone may be called for, but so may being fierce and unyielding. When sweetness is applied indiscriminately, it is seen as ‘idiot compassion.’” - Issan Dorsey

We have a blade to draw boundaries by our will. These are necessary. And for me, a strong will = an open heart. My heart can’t be open in a truly compassionate manner if my will is strong.

Everything can be brought into the “Beloved Community” and simultaneously we need to measure our own resources, and figure out what true respect and compassion in action look and feel like. If I am carrying someone all the time, is that respect and compassion? Likely not. If I have spread myself so thin that when my family needs me, I don’t have anything left to give, is that being responsible?

We need discernment and a strong center to move from. This helps us to act ethically, which for me, is the accuracy spoken of in the Dorsey quote. Morality is a big rubber stamp, that takes away my responsibility. Ethics, however, require me to be engaged and making active choices.

I don’t want to automatically exclude someone from my field of compassion. I do want to know what my limitations are, and to discern what true compassion looks like in each moment. This is difficult, but feels necessary.

T Thorn Coyle, comment on Bishop in the Grove

Filed under Pagan compassion

1 note

This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for lands afar and mine;
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine


My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

Unitarian hymn, A song of peace, from Hymns for Living (Tune: Finlandia)

This is one of my favourite Unitarian hymns. It is often sung on Remembrance Sunday.

Filed under Unitarian

0 notes

Recipe: Spaghetti alla puttanesca

In Rome, the prostitutes used to eat this dish between bouts with clients, hence the name. It’s nourishing and quick to prepare. The original version was with anchovies, but I substituted artichoke hearts. You can use any pasta you like; it doesn’t have to be spaghetti. Recently I have been using spelt pasta, which is gluten-free and full of fibre. This dish does not require herbs or other seasonings (except salt on the pasta).

Serves two 

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 dessertspoonfuls of capers
half a jar of olives (pitted)
tin of plum tomatoes
tin of artichoke hearts
olive oil
Pasta

Start boiling your pasta in a separate pan. Drain the artichoke hearts and slice them into quarters.

Fry the garlic in the olive oil. When it’s browned, add the tomatoes, capers, olives, and artichoke hearts (or anchovies, if you’re making the non-veggie version). Stir and simmer. When the pasta has boiled, drain it and add the sauce. Eat. Enjoy.

Filed under HealthyYum Veggie HealthyVeggieYum

165 notes

myfoursouls: ayiman: bannockandbutter:   Pictured: a letter to parents from Rev O’Grady regarding Christmas break at Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1948. “It will be your privilege this year to have your children spend Christmas at home with you.  This is a privilege which is being granted if you observe the following regulations of the Indian Department.” A privilege. A privilege to spend Christmas with your children.  Never forget all of the privilege that we have today. That we can send our children to school and not be worried that they will be beaten, neglected, starved, raped, or killed there.  That we can safely assume our children will grow up with the love and guidance of their own parents, and be allowed to speak their own language.  A privilege is that we, as students, not only see school as a safe place but as somewhere we want to be.   I will never forget that my own grandmother, my own moshum and kookum where denied this privilege.  I will never forget that my own loved ones were taken away from each other to be brought to this place they called a “school”; a place that our ancestors fought to provide for us during treaty negotiations, but a place that the Canadian government and the Catholic Church did not deem us worthy of having, in a true sense.  Rather than to schools, my family was sent to a place, as children, that sought to “kill the Indian” within them.  In a country that belongs to them, they were taught to be ashamed of who they were.  To regret the colour of their skin.  To fear “God”.  That they were less than human.   And it was called a privilege.  I will never forget the day my dad drove me to where St. Henri Indian School used to stand. “Jess, I know your grandpa’s pretty rough, but you have to understand…” …and I don’t think I ever will.  Not fully, but I’ll be damned if I ever forget, and I’m not sure I’ll ever have it in me to forgive.   God this fucking tears me up. Chilocco Indian School. That is the reason my family fled Oklahoma. Can you imagine what it would feel like to get a letter like that? Can you imagine writing a letter like that? It’s hard to get your head round the mindset that allows someone to write a letter like that. But in some places, indigenous people are still being treated this badly. Forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, killed, beaten up, and “educated”. Check out Survival International, which advocates for the rights of tribal peoples.

myfoursouls:

ayiman:

bannockandbutter:

 

Pictured: a letter to parents from Rev O’Grady regarding Christmas break at Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1948.

“It will be your privilege this year to have your children spend Christmas at home with you.  This is a privilege which is being granted if you observe the following regulations of the Indian Department.”

A privilege. A privilege to spend Christmas with your children. 

Never forget all of the privilege that we have today. That we can send our children to school and not be worried that they will be beaten, neglected, starved, raped, or killed there.  That we can safely assume our children will grow up with the love and guidance of their own parents, and be allowed to speak their own language.  A privilege is that we, as students, not only see school as a safe place but as somewhere we want to be.  

I will never forget that my own grandmother, my own moshum and kookum where denied this privilege.  I will never forget that my own loved ones were taken away from each other to be brought to this place they called a “school”; a place that our ancestors fought to provide for us during treaty negotiations, but a place that the Canadian government and the Catholic Church did not deem us worthy of having, in a true sense.  Rather than to schools, my family was sent to a place, as children, that sought to “kill the Indian” within them.  In a country that belongs to them, they were taught to be ashamed of who they were.  To regret the colour of their skin.  To fear “God”.  That they were less than human.  

And it was called a privilege. 

I will never forget the day my dad drove me to where St. Henri Indian School used to stand.

“Jess, I know your grandpa’s pretty rough, but you have to understand…”

…and I don’t think I ever will.  Not fully, but I’ll be damned if I ever forget, and I’m not sure I’ll ever have it in me to forgive.  

God this fucking tears me up.

Chilocco Indian School.

That is the reason my family fled Oklahoma.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to get a letter like that? Can you imagine writing a letter like that? It’s hard to get your head round the mindset that allows someone to write a letter like that. But in some places, indigenous people are still being treated this badly. Forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, killed, beaten up, and “educated”. Check out Survival International, which advocates for the rights of tribal peoples.

(via sexgenderbody)

0 notes

I forgot about the news and began to learn about how to make a sheet bend knot. The man’s name was Oscar and he started talking. About the port, about the problems people were having with osmosis on their new fibreglass shrimp boats and how the old wooden ones were better. How the new government quota system had caused two brothers to sell up and move to Rocky Mount. How the fire in the back of the café meant he had to drive five miles to buy his Cuban sandwiches for lunch. Who had gotten married and who had run off with whom and who was carrying a shotgun in his boat in case he spotted the man who cuckolded him.
Art Lester, In search of the real news, BBC College of Journalism blog

Filed under humanity

13 notes

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. Charles Darwin (Now substitute “religions” for “species” and think about what that might mean…)

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin

(Now substitute “religions” for “species” and think about what that might mean…)

Filed under Darwin science inspiration Unitarian quotes

0 notes

Religion is not something separate and apart from ordinary life. It is life—life of every kind viewed from the standpoint of meaning and purpose: life lived in the fuller awareness of its human quality and spiritual significance.
Arthur Powell Davies

Filed under Religion unitarian

7 notes

The Universe—some information to help you live in it.

The Universe—some information to help you live in it.

1 AREA: Infinite.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word “Infinite.”
Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real “wow, that’s big,” time. Infinity is just so big that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we’re trying to get across here.

2 IMPORTS: None.

It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.

3 EXPORTS: None.

See Imports.

4 POPULATION: None.

It is known that here are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination.

5 MONETARY UNITS: None.

In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.

6 ART: None.

The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn’t a mirror big enough—see point one.

7 SEX: None.

Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied.
However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now because it really is terribly complicated. For further information, see Guide Chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the Guide.

—Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

via waitingforasign

Filed under Douglas Adams SF universe quotes

0 notes

In praise of Eriugena

Top medieval philosopher - forerunner of process theology (the idea that God is the process of creation), proponent of NeoPlatonism (the view that the universe is an emanation of the Divine source) and apophatic theology (the description of God by a series of negations). He deserves to be more widely known, I reckon. He talked about God being non-existent about 1000 years before Tillich did.

Filed under non-theism Religion