ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain - Mary Oliver

"Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts.

I want to climb some old grey mountain, slowly, taking
the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping
under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
that we have smothered for years now, forgiving it all,
and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency!  Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall."

- Mary Oliver,

"The Poet Dreams of the Mountain"

Why the Arthurian Legend of the Fisher King is Important Now...

 

 

 

From Yahoo Answers:

Before I answer the question directly, I have to comment that some of the same basic spiritual issues that we face today have been faced by seekers many thousands of years ago. So, in a way, our sense that we are at the crest of modernism and breaking new ground for the continuing enlightenment is only partially true. In many ways we may also be so advanced in some areas (such as our scientific and technical understanding of the world around us), that we have become morons on the spiritual plane. A good example of this is that western thinking barely acknowledges the reality of reincarnation. And all of those spiritual influences from the past (and perhaps the future) are at the core of who we are. This mindset (not shared by billons of non-Christian people around the world) thus shuts a major portal to self-knowledge.

So there were cultures and subcultures and people throughout history who really understood some fundamentals much better than we do even in our post-modern existence (and granted they may also have been clueless in other areas). And I have my own personal spin on the Percival legend that I haven't heard from other sources.

Music for Reflection: On the Road Again - Bob Seeger

 

 

 

Journal Assignment:  Music can be a powerful catalyst to evoke memories, moods and hidden feelings.   I have always loved what I call "Road Songs", which would include the Eagles, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and many others who sing compelling songs of the open road, of freedom, of being out on the long blue highways of the Soul. 

On Courage and Risk: Afterthoughts to What Should I Do With My Life?

 

Journal Assignment:  As you read the comments from "On Courage and Risk" below, write down the most important risk you can take right now.  If you take this risk, what is the best thing that can happen?  What would be the worst?  Do you have the courage to step into the Unknown, realizing that taking this risk could change your life forever for the better? Write Now! GO!

Po Bronson's book "What Should I Do With My Life?" is a classic - transformational, inspiring, and highly recommended if you are feeling stuck, lost, or trapped.  It is filled with encouraging stories of courageous people who woke up and demanded better for themselves, reminding us that we can demand better as well, and get it.

 

From Po Bronson: Afterthoughts to the Book: What Should I Do With My Life?

www.pobronson.com

Excerpt:

If there is a message to the book, I hope it's the message that's never stated but present in every single chapter. So often, people feel stuck. They feel trapped by inertia or by financial constraints or by a lack of experience, or the simple shortage of hours in the day. In traveling across both oceans, being welcomed into the lives of strangers, investigating so many domains I had absolutely no prior experience with, I was demonstrating that the world is a far more open book that we usually imagine it to be. The world is full of incredible, rich opportunities. If you strengthen your curiosity as you would a muscle, by exercising it regularly -- if you can empathize with the lives of others, if you are willing to see a potential friend in the face of every stranger, if you are willing to suffer some embarrassment and discomfort, and if you are patient -- you will not be stuck forever.  

 

On Courage and Risk

You can make decisions to pad your wallet. You can make decisions to maintain proper appearances. You can make decisions because they're safe or predictable. You can make decisions because it'll keep your parents off your back. You can make decisions simply to delay making harder decisions. I began this book because I was drawn, artistically, to those who've made decisions to serve none of those ends. I was interested in people who resisted those pressures and made a decision simply because it was good, or right, or true to their nature - and were willing to be challenged by the consequences. 

As I wrote in the introduction, "Nothing seemed more brave to me than facing up to one's own identity, and filtering out the chatter that tells us to be someone we're not." 

Martin Luther King Jr. - He Had a Dream - What's Yours?

 

 

He Had A Dream - What's Yours?

 

Quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.


A lie cannot live.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

A right delayed is a right denied.

A riot is the language of the unheard.


Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.


An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.


Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.


Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

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Continue for music videos celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King:

James Carr - Freedom Train

Nina Simone - Old Jim Crow is Gone

 

 

KIDS! Pacha's Pajamas - A Story Written by Nature, A Dream to Change the World

 

 

"Hero" From the Auditions for Pacha's Pajamas,

A Story Written by Nature

 

Visit the Website:  http://www.pachaspajamas.com

 

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Pacha Starts to Dream …

 

Pacha’s Pajamas is a story whose time has come. One night, the plants and animals on Pacha’s new pajamas come alive to share their own stories. Eventually, Nature takes the stage at a global music festival where the critters come together to bring balance to the planet.  

Dreams As Answers to Questions We Have Not Asked

 “Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet figured out how to ask.”

- "Fox Mulder", "The X-Files"