Here’s the second Evolve Love Story: LOVE VERSUS THE G-20. In the last week of June, 2010, the leaders of the G-20 nations gathered in Toronto, Canada, behind a 6 kilometre long security fence, to make decisions that would affect us all. In response, there was a week of activities counter to the gathering, including a People’s Summit, an indigenous march, a toxic tour of toronto, a queer “kiss-in”, prayer vigils, humour and more. Unfortunately, a small minority of protestors used the tactic of property damage to send their message, and the media focussed almost exclusively on that story. Behind the smoke screen of burning police cars and smashed windows, lies the stuff of a great love story, a story of people coming together in the name of peace, justice and compassion. The video features appearances by Maude Barlow, Kimia Ghomeshi, Judy Rebick, John Greyson, Mary Walsh, Jasmine Thomas and more.
EVOLVE LOVE STORY 1
EVOLVE LOVE STORY ONE
I’m thrilled to release the first in a series of short “Evolve Love Stories” we will be releasing over the next few years, throughout the production of EVOLVE LOVE. This first one features the wonderful Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth International at the World People’s Summit on Climate Change, in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Gaviotas: Village of Hope by Seth Biderman and Christian Casillas
One of the locations we are considering for my upcoming feature documentary, EVOLVE LOVE: The Meaning IS Life is the eco village of Gaviotas, in Colombia. EVOLVE LOVE asks the question: how could the climate crisis become the greatest love story on earth? This article from the inimitable YES! Magazine chronicles a recent journey to this remote eco-shangri la.
Gaviotas: Village of Hope by Seth Biderman and Christian Casillas.
Krishnamurti On Love and Meditation
Thanks Alan Muskat for bringing this lovely excerpt from the work of Krishnamurti to my attention…
“In the space which thought creates around itself, there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me. Then relationship has quite a different meaning, for in that space which is not made by thought, the other does not exist, for you do not exist.
Meditation then is not the pursuit of some vision, however sanctified by tradition. Rather it is the endless space where thought cannot enter. To us, the little space made by thought around itself, which is the me, is extremely important, for this is all the mind knows, identifying itself with everything that is in that space. And the fear of not being is born in that space. But in meditation, when this is understood, the mind can enter into a dimension of space where action is inaction. We do not know what love is, for in the space made by thought around itself as the me, love is the conflict of the me and the not-me. This conflict, this torture, is not love.
Thought is the very denial of love, and it cannot enter into that space where the me is not. In that space is the benediction which man seeks and cannot find. He seeks it within the frontiers of thought, and thought destroys the ecstasy of this benediction…
If you set out to meditate, it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower. If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be. Meditation is the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear…
It had rained heavily during the night and the day, and down the gullies the muddy stream poured into the sea, churning it chocolate-brown. As you walked on the beach the waves broke with magnificent force. You walked against the wind, and suddenly there was nothing between you and the sky, and this openness was heaven. And that evening, walking there on that wet sand, with the seagulls around you, you felt the open freedom and the beauty of love that was not in you or outside you but everywhere. You felt this suddenly, like a great wind that swept through you and over the land. There you were denuded of everything, empty and utterly open. The beauty of it was not in the word or in the feeling, but everywhere about you, inside you, over the waters and in the hills…
After the rains the hills were splendid. Still brown from the summer sun, and now all the green things would return. It had rained all night and the beauty was indescribable. The sky was still cloudy and in the air was the smell of sumac, sage and eucalyptus. It was splendid to be among them, and a strange stillness possessed you. Unlike the sea far below, the hills were completely still, and your mind too was washed empty. All through the night it pursued you, love’s stillness, and when you woke, long before the sun, it was still there in your heart, with its incredible joy, for no reason whatsoever. It was there, causeless, and it would be there, all through the day, without your ever asking or inviting it to stay.”
Krishnamurti, Meditations 1969
NEW YEARS EVOLUTION
Happy New Years!
I love this transition time – it’s a great time to shed old snake skins, and move into new possibilities. A great time to renew commitments and abandon the ones that no longer fit. A great time for looking back, with gratitude, on the past year. My dear friend Carly Stasko loves to ask herself: what are the three things I am grateful for today? She does this at meal times, but on New Years, she looks back over the year and asks – what are the three big things I’m grateful for this year? We shared this practice at a dinner party together this week, and it was very moving.
Don’t tell Carly, but after she left we did a round of complaints – just one each. That was kind of satisfying in a different way, but left me feeling like I had eaten too much MSG or greasy foods or something. :)
May your coming year be blessed, blissed, and rampant with possibilities, transformation, and joy. And may you have the wisdom to catch those curveballs the universe throws us on occasion, hold them as long as need be, then throw them right back, with glee.
It’s also that time of year when we’re supposed to be making a bunch of New Years resolutions that we’re never going to keep and that are just going to make us feel bad about ourselves for the next year.
Well my first New Years Evolution is to stop feeling bad about myself for any of my shortcomings – just let that go. But first I have to do a very un-male thing and accept that I actually have a shortcoming or two. Let me have a peek….yikes! I do. I gots some. Damn. So much for that mask of rigid perfection I thought I had to wear.
Hey – its actually kind of relaxing to drop that. Let’s you breathe a little easier. So- I herby accept my weak spots, I hereby see my blind spots, I hereby love my broken bits. I accept them, love them, and love myself. It’s okay ego – you aren’t perfect. You got spots. You got dots. You got some work to do.
So my next New Years Evolution is to shine a light into my shadows, light a torch into my unconscious, and see all of me, the dark and the light, the good, the bad and the ugly, and allow myself the room to grow. I hereby renew my fierce commitment to evolution. Spiritual evolution.
I renew my commitment to moving from a place of Love – and letting that Love come from the deepest well of my being, from a place of absolute freedom – freedom for myself, and freedom for everyone who comes into my path.
I want to give from my heart, and receive with my heart.
I want to continually ignite in myself a lived understanding of the true masculine, the loving masculine, the giving masculine, the healing masculine, the empowering, powerful, free, connected and spacious masculine. Free me from Glen Beck, George Bush and Osama Bin Laden as male role models.
I want to become aware of my power – stepping into my true power that never needs another’s power, or needs to power over another.
I ask to be free from the hypnotizing lies of domination and destruction, of fear and manipulation, so we can reclaim our souls, our selves, our lives and our planet and walk again in creativity and wonder, in collaboration and delight, in hope and inspiration, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, for this incredible world.
This Space Free.
I commit to inspiring and awakening the highest truth in myself and those that care to join in, to being a solar powered bio fueled love bug bringing light and wonder to this world of turmoil and transformation.
I commit to stop using the phrase “in this world of turmoil and transformation” all the time.
I commit to clearing, and re-clearing, to creating true spaciousness so I can to allow the divine in, moment by moment, day by day, year by year. I commit to serving with all my power, from a place of loving power, helping to be a source of radiance in this world of turmoil and… (damn! I almost broke that one already.)
I commit to loosening up, to laughing a lot more, to not making so many commitments all the time, especially on New Years, when it’s such an obvious thing to do, instead to cover it all in one foul swoop and say: I commit to coming from the deepest place of authenticity I possibly can, at all times, and when I forget and my ego takes over, to bouncing back as soon as I notice, or until someone I love tells me to wake the f~ck up. I commit to saying, “thank you” when they do, unless it gets over the top and too damn much in which case, in the interests of self love, I commit to walking away, with my heart full of love, from any situation, relationship or scenario which is just not good for me.
I commit to opening my heart wide, to being truly spacious, to letting go, to not holding on, to not taking, to not grasping, to not clinging, to allowing what is to be, and what isn’t to not be, to allowing what wants to be to manifest without trying to outthink, double think, or triple think the divine, to getting out of my own way so the universe can do it’s part, to doing my part, to loving the process, to seeing it all as a process, to not obsessing on the goal, to lighting my bonfire and burning down the house, till there’s nothing left but love and ashes, and building it all up, over and over again, each beautiful castle nothing more than a glittering wedding cake to the divine, offered with love to the whole party, no guest list needed, with fearless surrender and profound willfulness, secure in the knowledge that all is good, all is good, all is good.
I swear I’m not just making idle promises here, but really laying it on the line – the time has come to let loose the full potential that I was gifted with here on this earth, to really live it, to dare to stare into the sun with my eyes glowing fierce and uninhibited and reverently irreverent, fearless and truthful, joyous and mournful, tasting the agonizing ecstasy that is life on earth with every pore of my body, mind and spirit sizzling, sizzling, sizzling. Let nothing stop me, not even the cynics and the killjoys who would piss on my parade, not the gatekeepers who have locked their own gates, not the gates I myself have locked, let me blow up them all to smithereens with divine inspiration, smash down the old altars, tear down the walls, gleefully, lovingly, unstoppable. Sizzling, sizzling, sizzling.
~Velcrow Ripper, New Years 2010
(Updated – first released in 2009)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Few phrases are more powerful, more freeing, more transformative than those two simple words – Thank You. Try using these words with someone you are having a conflict with. Whether you speak it to yourself or to the person, it will have a powerful effect.
I was recently in a conflict with a dear friend. One of the speakers from the Living in the Fire of Change conference, the wonderful Mary Tidlun of the Tidlun Foundation, gave me a Mala – a set of prayer beads – and explained that they were “gratitude beads”, hand made and given to her as a gesture of thanks from a group of women in Kathmandu who had been recipients of her activist work. She in turn passed them on to me, with the suggestion – “do a round of thank-you’s on these beads for all your friend has given you, send thanks for the gifts you are receiving in this conflict, for what it is teaching your soul.”
And so I did. The effect was tremendously powerful. It helped me move from a place of contraction, to a place of expansion. From a place of the armoured heart, to a place of appreciation and deep compassion.
Today I find myself constantly doing rounds of “thank you’s” on the beads, for different people and situations, as a regular part of my contemplative practice. It awakens my true heart, and frees me from isolation, from fear, from closing down. Being grateful can be tough – you don’t get to hide behind the victim role. But who really wants to be a victim anyways? Just your ego, which relishes the job. Surely we can do better than that!
Making up my own prayer of thanks has been a powerful tool for me. It changes to meet the needs of the day, but there is always something or someone to thank. Especially those who make life – shall we say – interesting.
You could try it yourself: find a set of prayer beads, and using your thumb and fingers, count through each bead, pausing to say “thank you” as they move through your fingers. Direct your gratitude to whoever or whatever feels right at the moment.
Mala’s – or prayer beads – are available in any spiritual store. Or you can order them on-line at places like The Dharma Shop.
GRATITUDE PRAYER
Here is a gratitude prayer by Native Elder Seqouyah Trueblood, a new friend and companion on the path, which I filmed recently at the Living in the Fire of Change Conference. You can listen to this as a meditation, as part of a morning or evening ritual, or at any time. Take these words to heart, and carry them with you. You could use his words as an inspiration to create your own gratitude prayer. Any sentence that begins with the words “Thank-you” has the power to become a sacred prayer.
LIVING IN THE FIRE OF CHANGE
CONFERENCE ON SACRED ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
http://www.livinginthefireofchange.com
MORE GRATITUDE RESOURCES:
DAILY GRATITUDE:
http://www.dailygratitude.com/
GLOBAL GRATITUDE:
http://www.worldgratitude.com/
GRATITUDE AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE:
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices.php?id=11
__________________________
ON THE ROAD WITH FIERCE LIGHT
Well it’s been an exciting year of travelling around the world, helping Fierce Light shine. The responses have been so tremendous, and moving. Every audience is different, but again and again people are deeply transformed by the film. Last weekend I was in Charleston, at the Sophia Institute. On Friday night the packed screening at the American Theater offered up a standing ovation. The next day, the SHINE YOUR FIERCE LIGHT workshop was charged with energy and compassion. The insitute has been host to many of the great spiritual wisdom keepers of this age, and it was an honour to form a fierce light circle there.
Sunday, I took the plane to Atlanta where a wonderful group called “Evolver” hosted my workshop in an intentional community. Appropriately, the space we were in was called “Soul Shine.” Again I was moved by the depth and openess of the participants, and the feeling that there truly is a zeitgeist of compassionate action spreading around the globe, that people are ready for this synthesis of spirituality and action. The time has come!
As I write this I’m in New York City, where the Village Zendo is hosting a Fierce Light screening on Saturday night, Oct 10 at 7pm. Then, on Sunday, Evolver NYC is hosting a SHINE YOUR FIERCE LIGHT workshop, from 1-5 pm.
Please join us or spread the word if you can!
Check out the facebook group for more info.
Obama on the Death of Senator Ted Kennedy
I just got this email from President Obama – he drops me a note on occasion (well, I’m on his mailing list :) – on the loss of Ted Kennedy. What a legacy that Kennedy family has left us.
Velcrow — Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy. For nearly five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives — in seniors who know new dignity; in families that know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including me. In the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle. His seriousness of purpose was perpetually matched by humility, warmth and good cheer. He battled passionately on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintained warm friendships across party lines. And that’s one reason he became not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy. I personally valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency. And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I’ve benefited as President from his encouragement and wisdom. His fight gave us the opportunity we were denied when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us: the blessing of time to say thank you and goodbye. The outpouring of love, gratitude and fond memories to which we’ve all borne witness is a testament to the way this singular figure in American history touched so many lives. For America, he was a defender of a dream. For his family, he was a guardian. Our hearts and prayers go out to them today — to his wonderful wife, Vicki, his children Ted Jr., Patrick and Kara, his grandchildren and his extended family. Today, our country mourns. We say goodbye to a friend and a true leader who challenged us all to live out our noblest values. And we give thanks for his memory, which inspires us still. Sincerely, President Barack Obama
Revolution of the Spirit
I’m excited to show you this new video I’ve just completed, featuring Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma. It’s also one of the DVD extras on the new Fierce Light DVD, launching in Canada this Monday, August 24, with screenings in Toronto and Vancouver. http://www.fiercelight.org/events
LANTERNS OF MEMORY
Lanterns of Memory
Featuring Hiroshima survivor, Kae Goh Ogura
With text by Martin Luther King Jr.
Directed and photographed by Velcrow Ripper
Filmed in Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 2001
Here’s a short film I did called "Lanterns of Memory" about this day, August 6, sixty-four years ago, when we dropped the Atomic bomb on HIroshima.
This film became part of my feature documentary about my journey to the ground zero’s of the world, Scared Sacred.
Fierce Love 