This wonderful image of playful, fiery activism just landed in my in-box. It's from a friend who embodies the love of our earth in ways that have inspired me for several decades. Sharon's inner beauty shines as clearly as does her Jack-o-Lantern. But it is her willingness and innate ability to show others how to sparkle as well, that aligns her, in my mind at least, to Andrew Harvey.
One of the things Andrew Harvey suggests in his new book, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, in an early chapter called "Ten Things You Can Do Right Now" is to daily write down one thing that made you happy, that filled you with joy. One thing that makes you grateful to be alive.
My "one thing" that particular day was receiving this pumpkin. Sharon and I share our concern for the success of the "350" movement knowing it's only one of many aspects of healing Mother Earth craves. But a crucial one. When I opened that e- mail I said to myself, "Here's someone who knows how to spread the light!"
I needed this glowing hopeful image because I often feel that our best intentions to solve national problems get reduced to their lowest common denominators and our most noble global hopes can so easily be quashed by leaders who don't understand what we face right now as a planet. The projected outcomes of December's gathering around climate change in Copenhagen may leave many of us wondering if our passion for justice can be extinguished as readily as Sharon's golden candle.
Harvey's fifth chapter is called "The Voice of Fire." In it he describes hearing an inner voice reminding him, among other things, that "the world is burning to death in the fires of greed and ignorance. All of animal and human life is now threatened."
He realized at that moment that everything he does from that point on must be to help others to take up the challenge of the Divine and put the fire of Divine Compassion into radical action in every arena of the world: economic, political, social, religious.
The voice went on to say that the only questions we'll be asked when we cross over will be: "What did you do while the world was burning?"
Harvey suggests finding a prayer that really resonates with you and repeat it often. He uses this one daily from Rumi:
O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now
Be all; worlds dissolve in your endless stainless radiance
Frail living leaves burn with you brighter than cold stars
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.
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