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THE Be ZINE, March 2016, Vol. 2/Issue 6 ~ Theme: The Joys of Nature: Wilderness, Gardens and Green Spaces, Table of Contents with Links

March 15, 2016

With this issue, we bring to center stage a relationship in which we are all engaged in one way or another – our relationship to this Place. Call it Nature or Earth or Gaia or Creation, this is where all of us are born, where we will live our lives, and where we will die.

Does this place have a Spirit of its own? Does it have a will? How does it relate to us?

Those are some of the questions behind the pondering, the exploring, the dreaming and the planning that is communicated here in our writing, in our songs, in our art, and in our work.

Taking the lead in preparing this issue has been a great adventure for me. It has challenged me to hold the lens of Place in front of my eyes more intentionally and to listen more closely to the voices of those who look through different spectacles. It is my hope that the contents here will encourage sharper focus on this relationship for all of our readers.

I am delighted to have Michael Watson’s piece “The Gift of Relationship” to launch our journey. The essay “I Love This Place!” follows and establishes the Lead Features. John Anstie offers “An Alternative View of Nature” so that we might ponder not only joy, but also humility and personal cost in this relationship. This piece also ushers in our first Poetry section for this month. Nature provides so many metaphorical images that bloom into greater understanding as we ponder our interaction with the world. We have a marvelous cornucopia of poems from Zen-like to Romantic from our core members and newcomers to our group, a true garden of delights, broken into two sections: shade and full sun. (Can you tell I enjoy running with a theme?!)

So often the weight and depth of a crucial relationship is handled most gracefully in a good story. Naomi Baltuck is one of my favorite storytellers! She makes me feel the magic of my purest attempts to make meaning, the ones I began as a child. And she always includes great pictures! She offers a selection of her tales in our Story Corner.

Art and Photography are natural mediums for portraying this beloved Place. In this section, Michael Dickel will challenge your assumptions about the Holy Land and show you the true Nature of that country in personal photos…and then invite you to examine your perspective further in “Capturing and Interpreting Light”.

Two exceptional Essays put some real heartwood into this issue. “Staying Wild: How the Wilderness Act Changed My Life” by Annick Smith describes living the idea and practice of wilderness and illustrates a real alternative to human ‘trammeling’.  “Let’s Hear It For The Bees! (Parts 1-3)” by Tish Farrell provides some important information about a current environmental crisis – a wake-up call to the vulnerability of Nature.

Liliana Negoi next surrounds us with Green Light – two creative non-fiction essays to stimulate luminous musing.

After the Full Sun section of our Poetry garden, we offer some cool Music with tight harmony and a timeless message.

In More Green Light, we gaze on “Life in Ordinary Time”, “Unseen”.  Finally, “Who Is She?” introduces our Getting To Know You subject, the poet Joseph Hesch.

Variety, diversity, fecundity, liveliness – yep, this issue looks like Wilderness, Gardens and Green Spaces.  I hope you enjoy exploring and engaging in this small space and that it inspires you to deeper and broader and higher interaction with the larger Place where we all live. –

Priscilla Galasso
Contributing Writer/Associate Editor

c Michael Dickel
c Michael Dickel

THEME:
The Joys of Nature: Wilderness, Gardens and Green Spaces

Lead Features

The Gift of Relationship, Michael Watson
I Love This Place, Priscilla Galasso

Poetry (Shade)

An Alternative View of Nature, John Anstie
flies, Michael Dickel
Gardens, Ampat Koshy
Green Spaces, Ampat Koshy
Noctune, Sharon Frye
Rock Quarry, Corina Ravenscraft
Wilderness, Ampat Koshy

Story Corner

Monkey See, Monkey Do, Naomi Baltuck
Birds of a Feather, Naomi Baltuck

Art/Photography

Holy Nature Land, Michael Dickel
Capturing and Interpreting the Light, Michael Dickel

Essays

Staying Wild: How the Wilderness Act Changed My Life, Annick Smith
Three Bees, Two Bees, One Bee (Bees, Part 1), Tish Farrell
Let’s Hear It for the Bees – Hooray! (Bees, Part 2), Tish Farrell
Bee-ing Bee-Minded (Bees, Part 3), Tish Farrell
Nothing More, Liliana Negoi
Gardening Tools, Liliana Negoi

Poetry (Full Sun)

Haiku, Liliana Negoi
Lackadaisy, Sharon Frye
Nemeton Unfaded, Corina Ravenscraft
purple fates, Liliana Negoi
The Republic of Innocence, Jamie Dedes
Watching the World, Sharon Frye

Music

Let There Be Peace on Earth

More Green Light

Life in Ordinary Time, Virginia Galfo
Unseen, Tiramit
Who Is She, Joseph Hesch

Getting to Know You

Interview with Joseph Hesch

IMG_1750Connect with us …

Beguine Again, Spirtual Community and Practice

Facebook, The Bardo Group Beguines

Twitter, The Bardo Group Beguines

Access to the biographies of our core team contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll to your left on The BeZine site along with archived issues of The BeZine, our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.

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“The BeZine” – Table of Contents with Links to Features – Feb. 2016 “All God’s Creatures”

15 February 2016 (The BeZine)

photo 2-2“All God’s Creatures” … and what a menagerie we have, mostly dogs, cats and human beings … okay, a spider, a pig, a frog, a fly and a few birds.

This is a fun issue, though it has its inspirational moments too with the themed lead features by our premier essayists, Michael Watson and Priscilla Galasso; a lesson in detente from our resident cannoness, Terri Stewart; and with characteristic grace, good criter-loving book recommendations and a call for compassion from Corina Ravenscraft. Judith Westerfield is back for a visit with An Amnesty for Daddy Longlegs, a short piece with a double-edge.

Under humor, Mafia Cats (Roger McGough) and The Pig (Roald Dahl) should put smiles on your faces.

For the poetry lovers, there is quite a collection of poems in both the themed section and under “More Light.” Michael Dickel and John Anstie share themed poems.

Core team member, Joseph Hesch, offers two signature pieces – one poem, one flash fiction – and resident skeptic, James R. Cowels, tickles our brains with Life, Death, and the “Establishment Clause.”

Under art, check out Gretchen Del Rio’s beautiful spirit-animal paintings of my grand-kitty, Gypsy Rose.

Aprilia Zand is back – Hooray! – this time with a poem.

New in this issue with impressive bios and even more impressive work: Roger Allen Baut, Ann Bracken, Christi Moon and Judith Black.

You’ll enjoy a couple of true adventures in the Storytelling section with Judith Black in Turkey. She’s a funny lady.

Under best practices learn how Zena Hagerty and fellow artists turned the James Street area of Hamilton, Ontario from a rough neighborhood into an arts enclave where art crawls are held regularly, pulling the community together.

The featured interviews this month are Sharon Frye, Matt Pasca, Michael Dickel and Charlie Martin. All the interviews offer value added by virtue of vision and wisdom.

Many thanks to Michael Dickel for introducing Ann Bracken and Matt Pasca, to Naomi Baltuck for introducing Judith Black, and to Native American Girl for the music selection.

Enjoy! Let us know what you think in the comments section and with your likes. Thanks for joining with us in the celebration of life, love and art.

In the spirit of peace and community,
Jamie Dedes
Managing Editor

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THEME: ALL GOD’S CHILDREN

Lead Features

At the Bird Feeder, Michael Watson
All that Matters, Priscilla Galasso
Reflections on Snowy Owl and Raven, Terri Stewart
Animal Stories, Corina Ravenscraft
Campaigning for Compassion, Corina Ravenscraft
Giving Amnesty to Daddy Longlegs, Judith Westerfield

Humor

Mafia Cats, Roger McGough
The Pig, Roald Dahl
Cat v Comma, Grammerly

Poetry

A Dog’s Life, John Anstie
Snow Dog, John Anstie
Frog, Michael Dickel
Fancy Flight, Michael Dickel
Reading the Signs, Aprilia Zank

Art

The Several Faces of Gypsy Rose, art/Gretchen Del Rio, words/Jamie Dedes

MORE LIGHT

Special Feature/Best Practice

How One City’s Artists Transformed a “Rough’ Neighborhood into an Arts Enclave, Zena Hagerty

Storytelling

Welcome to Istanbul, Not Constantinople, Judith Black
Stray Dogs and Shtreimels: What Does Istanbul and Mea Shearim Have in Common?, Judith Black

Poetry

Ghost Dance, Roger Allen Baut
The Code, Ann Bracken
Transformation, Joseph Hesch
Musicman, Christi Moon
Dandelions, Christi Moon
Nyctalopia, Christi Moon

Flash Fiction

Kansas Pacific, Joseph Hesch

Essay

Life, Death, and the “Establishment Clause”, James R. Cowles

Music

Red Shift Blues, The Sweet Lowdown
Chickens Under the Washtub and Western Country, The Sweet Lowdown

Getting to Know You

Interview with Sharon Gariepy Frye, a.k.a. Sharon Frye
Interview with Matt Pasca
Educating the Teacher: Poet to Poet, Ann Bracken and Michael Dickel
Charles W. Martin and the Ever-loveable Aunt Bea

photo-1-2Connect with us …

Beguine Again, Spirtual Community and Practice

Facebook, The Bardo Group Beguines

Twitter, The Bardo Group Beguines

© 2015, photographs, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

 

 

 

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In Conversation: Poet/Musician Graffiti Bleu & Michael Rothenberg, cofounder of the global peace initiative, 100,000 Poets for Change

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You can listen to the two-hour podcast HERE. Recommended! This post is meant as an alert and also to share my two cents.

As I write, it’s just a few hours after listening to Just My Thoughts with Graffiti Bleu on BlogTalk Radio. The show started with an exploration of What does the revolution look like? with Graffiti Blue, Michael Rothenberg, and the show’s panel and callers comprised of poets involved in 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC).

Harkening back to Gil Scott-Heron and his poem, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,  part of the discussion was on technology and social networking and their roles in fostering peace, social justice and sustainability. When Heron wrote his poem in 1971, the means to formulate and distribute information and opinion were dominated by mainstream media and corporate interest, which were not in sympathy with the revolution Heron envisioned. Those interests are still dominant and still lack sympathy, but there’s something of a balance occurring – however imperfect – now that we plain folk have access to the tools of technology and social networking. Without social networking, we wouldn’t have 100TPC, which can happily be said to have gone viral since Michael Rothenberg put out a call on Facebook for poets to join in a global peace effort back in 2010. While each of us in the “100,000” has a relatively small “audience” together we touch many, many minds and hearts. We do have an agenda, but it doesn’t foment strife. We’re not in anyone’s pocket. That’s clean power. It’s power to …

On a personal level, one benefit of technology is that people who are homebound – as I sometimes am – can take part in change-making initiatives more actively than simply writing letters-to-the-editor or to our legislators, which is not to say we should give that up. I started a virtual 100TPC via The BeZine and with The Bardo Group Beguines so that disabled people and people who do not live near a 100TPC event would have the opportunity to have their say, to lend their support. Our 2015 commemorative page is HERE.

We need to do more than “talk.”  Agreed. And I think that one of things 100TPC gives us is hope … huge hope from seeing that there are people in every nook-and-cranny of the world who share our values and priorities. This helps us to keep on keeping on with our local grassroots initiatives as well as our broader advocacy. This serves to sustain our faith and commitment.

Ultimately for me, 100TPC is about breaking down barriers, crossing boarders. It leads the way in our evolutionary journey toward a sustainable peace. In the documentary film Ten Questions for the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama says “we need more festivals.”  In other words, if we get to know people, if we break bread with them or share a bowl of rice, we are less likely to think of them as “other.”  It will be more difficult to turn around the next day and do harm.  100TPC is our festival. Once we’ve shared hearts, souls and stories through poetry, how can we marginalize anyone? How can we abandon or abuse?

Can the revolution be bloodless? The question is really “will it be?” I don’t think so. I don’t think revolutions are by their very nature “bloodless.” The psychopaths will always be with us and until we stop marginalizing people and leaving them desperate and vulnerable to tyrants, we’ll never have bloodless reform. We’ll never achieve a sustainable peace. Peace is a state that takes awareness and awareness takes growth, which is an evolutionary process.  That doesn’t mean we should give up. It means that as poets we should continue to bear witness, to touch hearts, to raise consciousness and to nurture the process of growth. As poet Michael Dickel said in an interview on this site HERE: “. . . it may not be ours to see the work completed, but that does not free us from the responsibility to do the work.”

© 2016, words, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; photograph courtesy of Graffiti Bleu and Michael Rothenberg.

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Waging Peace

Thanks to many of you who read here, the December issue of “The BeZine” with its special section “Waging Peace” went moderately viral with more visits and more shares through the whole diversity of social media than ever before. It did our hearts good. It was healing to see just how many people supported the ideas and ideals expressed in this special section. For those of you who missed “Waging Peace,” do your own heart good and check it out . . .

Waging Peace
An Interfaith Exploration

You are the promise . . . the one . . . the hope, Rev. Ben Meyers, Unitarian Universalist cleric

What Have We Done That People Can Pick Up Weapons and Kill?, Fr. Daniel Sormani, C.S.Sp., Catholic Priest

With Faith In Love Beyond All Beliefs, an open letter, Unitarian Universalist clerics

Dear Non-Muslim Allies,  Sofia Ali-Khan, Muslim activist for understanding

Peace Be Upon You, شوشان – سلام عليكم, Tunisian poet, Anis Chouchène, Muslim

Mosquitoes, American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel, Jewish

Peace Steps: One Man’s Journey Into the Heart of His Enemies, Rabbi Mark Gopin, Jewish

Waging Peace, Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist

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