Grow Food Party Crew - Ventura
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GROUP DETAILS
Created: Jun 06, 2008
Updated: Aug 10, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Peace
If the One Was not Many
If the One was not Many
consciousness of Oneness
will never have been...
The person of Oneness
is a person of Peace
who, whilst welcoming all change
refrains from changing a thing
Narda Azaria Dalgleish - 1 September 2009
A Little Peace with Myself
Afghanistan 1970 – 2001
i.
It is autumn again and the plane trees are turning to gold
along the shores of Uskudar
The road east has a sadness this year
Tonight they are bombing Kabul and Kandahar.
Once more the dust of Afghanistan is mixed with blood
This old lion which refuses to be tamed
is dying slowly.
What will they build there in its stead
when all the little stone villages have been pulverised
and the streets of Herat and Mazar-i-Sherif
have all lost their names?
When the deserts and mountains are finally uninhabited
will Burger King reign over the wasteland
of ICRC tents and rows of tanks?
Will young Afghans return one day
in jeans and baseball hats
hold hands
kiss on corners
and wonder
what happened to the culture of Babur and his gardens
the painting of Behzad, the poetry feasts of Ali Shir Nawa’i?
ii
In Kabul, 19 years old and fresh from the crowded plains of Hindustan
I bought a hat of wolfskin and Persian lamb, sewn together,
and an embroidered coat to shield me from the winter cold of the Hindu Kush.
A hungry Chingiz Khan heading west in search of conquests.
In Kandahar
we slept in a mudbrick caravansarai in the town centre
a crossroads with a few shops for tools, stores, tobacco
the essentials
a restaurant selling mutton stew
and naan bread wide as elephant ears
there was no street lighting
we ate by oil lamplight
and departed before dawn
there was not much else in Kandahar
we passed through as if it was a village.
We came by the place they call the Desert of Death
the only thing that dies here is otherness.
This desert is the beauty of the wild untenable places of nature
where we must learn to become un-civilised
be native again
of the place
if we are to survive.
We pray by the roadside at sunset
black tents and flocks are scattered to the horizons
infidels and true believers are one here
In death all identities are returned to their source.
Herat has a river
and pine trees line a straight way
to the office of the Persian consulate.
He is, naturally, a gentleman
and he invites us to drink tea and discuss our journey
the cultivated interest in travellers.
This is the town of Jami
mystical poet
mystical scholar
a man who wrote of the unity of love, lover and beloved
and beauties beyond convention
he never doubted the true value of being human
What happened in five hundred years?
Where did the rains go?
What happened in 30 years?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Will we ever be left alone in beauty?
In the little border post
the Afghans smoked a pipe of peace with us
before applying their beautifully hand-calligraphied signatures
to our visas
scripted as decorously as a Sultan’s tugra
we drank tea and were laughing
as we entered Persia and the night.
iii.
The only smoke rising now is cremation
someone has come with evil ways
and taught them to smash the image of God
immured in the stones of Bamiyan
someone an antiprophet preaching
the polytheism of the apartheid
that man is not also woman.
How else would God remember His Beauty
while dressed as human
if not in the Beautiful?
As fires burn still on Manhattan’s shore
The pyres of Kabul and Kandahar
signal too a war
that rages deep in my heart.
I would be a lion again
and roam these desert wastes
searching out my prey
I would take flight too on eagles’ wings
and soar in the abyss
the mountain tops
and down
cleaning out my quarry
from the hidden quarters of my heart
Then I would cry the same cry
of the world’s dawn
the demon lover’s call
and die to be reborn
I would
but I too must stand and wait
and pray again by the roadside
while the fire passes.
When the light returns
it will not be unexpected.
Christopher Ryan - 16 October 2001
I See a Person of Peace
I see a person of peace
sitting in my chest…
…I am sitting…
and when I walk,
peace walks
and when I light the fire
peace lights the fire…
I closed my eyes and saw
- be it good, bad, high or low –
peace was always my chest… waiting…
By the eye which opened mine,
that person sits in their chest
all the chests
from the first of them
to the very last…
By the eye, which rendered mine blind
that person is mankind…
peace is mankind… in waiting…
Narda Azaria Dalgleish - 6 March 2007
Comments (1 - 2 of 2)
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By ; Saint Agustine Late have i love you,you were within me, And i outside, I sought you outside and in my ugliness, fell upon those lovely thing that you have made, You were with me and i was not with you, You called and Cried to me and broke open my deafness, You shone your beams upon me & chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrance upon me and i drew in breath and do pant for you. I tasted you and now hunger and thirst for you, You touched me and i have burned for your peace.
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Afghanistan 1970 – 2001
i.
It is autumn again and the plane trees are turning to gold
along the shores of Uskudar
The road east has a sadness this year
Tonight they are bombing Kabul and Kandahar.
Once more the dust of Afghanistan is mixed with blood
This old lion which refuses to be tamed
is dying slowly.
What will they build there in its stead
when all the little stone villages have been pulverised
and the streets of Herat and Mazar-i-Sherif
have all lost their names?
When the deserts and mountains are finally uninhabited
will Burger King reign over the wasteland
of ICRC tents and rows of tanks?
Will young Afghans return one day
in jeans and baseball hats
hold hands
kiss on corners
and wonder
what happened to the culture of Babur and his gardens
the painting of Behzad, the poetry feasts of Ali Shir Nawa’i?
ii
In Kabul, 19 years old and fresh from the crowded plains of Hindustan
I bought a hat of wolfskin and Persian lamb, sewn together,
and an embroidered coat to shield me from the winter cold of the Hindu Kush.
A hungry Chingiz Khan heading west in search of conquests.
In Kandahar
we slept in a mudbrick caravansarai in the town centre
a crossroads with a few shops for tools, stores, tobacco
the essentials
a restaurant selling mutton stew
and naan bread wide as elephant ears
there was no street lighting
we ate by oil lamplight
and departed before dawn
there was not much else in Kandahar
we passed through as if it was a village.
We came by the place they call the Desert of Death
the only thing that dies here is otherness.
This desert is the beauty of the wild untenable places of nature
where we must learn to become un-civilised
be native again
of the place
if we are to survive.
We pray by the roadside at sunset
black tents and flocks are scattered to the horizons
infidels and true believers are one here
In death all identities are returned to their source.
Herat has a river
and pine trees line a straight way
to the office of the Persian consulate.
He is, naturally, a gentleman
and he invites us to drink tea and discuss our journey
the cultivated interest in travellers.
This is the town of Jami
mystical poet
mystical scholar
a man who wrote of the unity of love, lover and beloved
and beauties beyond convention
he never doubted the true value of being human
What happened in five hundred years?
Where did the rains go?
What happened in 30 years?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Will we ever be left alone in beauty?
In the little border post
the Afghans smoked a pipe of peace with us
before applying their beautifully hand-calligraphied signatures
to our visas
scripted as decorously as a Sultan’s tugra
we drank tea and were laughing
as we entered Persia and the night.
iii.
The only smoke rising now is cremation
someone has come with evil ways
and taught them to smash the image of God
immured in the stones of Bamiyan
someone an antiprophet preaching
the polytheism of the apartheid
that man is not also woman.
How else would God remember His Beauty
while dressed as human
if not in the Beautiful?
As fires burn still on Manhattan’s shore
The pyres of Kabul and Kandahar
signal too a war
that rages deep in my heart.
I would be a lion again
and roam these desert wastes
searching out my prey
I would take flight too on eagles’ wings
and soar in the abyss
the mountain tops
and down
cleaning out my quarry
from the hidden quarters of my heart
Then I would cry the same cry
of the world’s dawn
the demon lover’s call
and die to be reborn
I would
but I too must stand and wait
and pray again by the roadside
while the fire passes.
When the light returns
it will not be unexpected.
16 October 2001