Uncategorized

Presentation: If you live in or near Kanab, Utah….

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on Presentation: If you live in or near Kanab, Utah….

green tree
Photo by Shahid Tanweer on Pexels.com

Please join us for the talk: Season of Giving

A Forest Voices of India presentation….

Saturday, December 2, at 2 PM

At the Nomad Café – at the Port of Entry, Kanab

In the relaxing atmosphere of the Nomad Café – this is a unique opportunity to have our financial questions answered.

How do we structure our finances and develop a savings plan? How do we plan for the future?

Born and raised in southern Utah and very active in our community – attorney David Westwood specializes in the in’s and outs’ of setting up an estate plan and how to avoid probate and unnecessary costs, fees, taxes etc. to maximize your charitable giving and distributions to heirs – a unique opportunity to have our questions answered clearly.

This is for everybody and everybody is welcome!

There is no charge. There will be a donation box, and if you wish, you may donate to the 501-C-3 charity Forest Voices of India that helps protect the natural world. Thank you!

earth, nature's designs

When did the rains start?

by sharonstjoan2 Comments on When did the rains start?

photo of mountain with ice covered with black and gray cloud
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

When did the rains start

Far up in the mountains of nevermore?

There where blue moths fly

In the diminishing light,

In the mists beyond the dappled hills.

Where then was the beginning?

With no

Beginning,

How could the soft trills

Of chickadees

Arrive at last at the end?

If they had flown forever

From an infinity inclining

Deep and deeper into the past,

They would never have arrived at all –

Would they –

In the juniper trees

In the mists of early winter?

How did the ancient cart

Roll over the ruts of Malta

And down into the sea

By the lingering shore?

And so,

You see,

It’s as clear as it can be

That time itself is impossible,

An illusion,

That cannot be –

A smoke before the dawn, curling in the valleys.

Why look for a mist-bearded authority

To explain the inexplicable?

It seems we have misunderstood the nature of reality.

It is only a dream,

Not a thing.

Just an ancient scheme,

A vision,

Only a shining gleam

Flickering on the outstretched wing

Of the young raven,

Maybe a statement,

An intent,

A strange or misbegotten level,

A stilted

Statue placed high up on a pedestal,

Or just a phantom fading in the shifting shadows of the night.

Well, long ago,

Once upon a time, a drifting fellow,

An odd king of sorts,

Stumbled through pale courts,

His lies

Stemming from cowardice and a banality of weakness –

He walked with his hat askew atop his head – tilted.

Then in a blink, all of time–that illusion,

Like the seared leaves of autumn – wilted

And fell apart.

Now look beyond the shifting dust,

Beyond the rust

Of nevermore –

There gleams ahead – past the tumbled gates of time that used to be –

A mystery,

In the God-given arc of awareness,

At the owl-bright break

Of day,

The white-crowned sparrow

Dips his gold beak into the swift-running creek.

The tree trunks are black in the dripping rain of dawn.

The snow has come and gone,

All gone away

In the skies

Now can you hear the call, the cries

Of the loons

From the quiet, clear, listening lake,

Just below the meandering moon’s

Journey,

Just quite near

The startling canyons of the sunrise?

© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2023

history

Whose land is where?

by sharonstjoan3 Comments on Whose land is where?
brown grass field with green trees
Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

By Sharon St Joan

(The following is my personal view – nothing more.)

I feel that we need to see, not just the present, but to have a grasp of history as well.

First, atrocities are always wrong, no matter who commits them or what they want to call them. On both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, atrocities are committed by groups that fail to represent the great majority of the people they claim to represent.

Secondly, even if we know nothing about history, it might be good to ask ourselves – how did the people who have been living in Gaza get there?

Sometimes there is a hidden history that rarely appears across our television screens. Sometimes we are shown mostly only one side of a story.

Did two million people decide they’d like to live squashed into a small space? Where did they live before? Where did they come from?

Where was the land of Palestine? What happened to it? Why do the people who lived in Palestine for 2,000 years no longer live there?

Why do they live scattered across many lands — in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Gaza – and across the world? Some live on the Israeli West Bank under a military dictatorship. Many still live in other countries in refugee camps. What happened to their middle-class way of life – to their beautiful groves of thousand year old olive trees? To their comfortable homes? Who lives in these houses now, and where did these newcomers come from?

Palestinians call this disaster, “al-Nakba,” which means the “catastrophe.” It was and is accompanied by many decades of injustice, poverty, pain, suffering, and for some, torture, and imprisonment.

Lastly, this story is not unique to history – if we are American and if our own ancestors came willingly to these shores, we might ask ourselves who lived on our land before us? Whose land was it? What has happened to those people? Where are they now and how are they doing? Conquest is an old story, oft repeated, but knowledge of history can provide an incisive beam of light.

Reading three or four books written by Palestinians, can give us a broader perspective. You can find them on Amazon.