July through August 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
**MOONLIGHT ON THE GANGA GOING OUT OF PRINT
**PEACE IN RESPONSIBILITY
**LAUNCH OF "RADICAL PEACE BLOG"
**QUOTATION FROM RUMI
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MOONLIGHT ON THE GANGA GOING OUT OF PRINT, JULY 30TH
There are profound experiences that happen to everyone during the course of a lifetime. One such experience for me which I'm extremely grateful for was my trip to India when I was given the opportunity to actually live, wisdoms and insights I had only previously learned about and read about intellectually. Another was returning home and realizing that I held within me stories for a book -- and I knew Ma Ganga (the Ganges River) had helped weave those days and moments into the experiences I agreed to live while in Rishikesh. Daybue Publishing, whose stated mission was to publish "...fiction and nonfiction that illuminated the mind and awakened the heart," did a grand and fine job in publishing Moonlight on the Ganga.
Unfortunately, after six years, Daybue will be closing its doors and effective August 1st, neither that entity nor Moonlight on the Ganga will be available. Officially, Moonlight will be Out of Print.
I thank those of you who have purchased and enjoyed Moonlight on the Ganga. She's been a book of simple yet profound consequence, and her publication and your support and letters have added greatly to my life.
Those of you who might want to order another copy of Moonlight on the Ganga can still do so until July 30th. Orders will be fulfilled through Daybue Publishing's website bookstore (www.daybue.com) or through amazon.com or www.bn.com (if there is remaining inventory at amazon and bn at that time).
I'm looking forward to the publication of future books, including A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew, and to a growing interest in my self-published poetry collection, entitled Rapture. When another publisher is ready, Moonlight on the Gangawill be also.
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PEACE IN RESPONSIBILITY
Several years ago, a friend received a traffic citation in Los Angeles and ended up having to take several traffic classes in order to avoid having the charge appear on her insurance. She sat in that first class along with about 10 other people. The instructor came in and asked them if they would each please share why they'd been ticketed and in this class. Each person stood up and shared their tale: one had been speeding because the kitchen coffee maker had broken and dribbled coffee across the kitchen floor so she'd had to clean it up and race for work; another person talked about the cop's attitude; another was subbing for someone who wasn't able to attend a meeting and had gotten nailed with a speeding ticket; someone else had driven through a stop sign and shared their tale. When every person had finally finished, the instructor summarized it for them all. "Let me tell help you understand why you are here: You broke the law."
Rationalizations, self-protective belief systems, excuses simply sugar-coated the bottom-line. There were laws put into affect to help protect people and keep traffic flowing in smooth order. We know the law, yet we put blinders on so we see only our own circumstances, fall into angers, fears, distraction and ignore them -- and we get nailed or we get hurt. Then, as did these people in class, we build up our protectionism walls and stories to help us believe we're vindicated. We may say, for example, that the other person is responsible and we're just defending ourselves or trying to set them straight. We may even say we were "doing it for their own good."
However, while it's easy to say such things, and, true it IS necessary to hold others to be responsible for their lives, it is most practical to hold ourselves responsible for OUR own lives and the impact we have in creating impacts on others. Peace and responsibility begin with each of us, you and me first, before we put the brunt on another.
Remember this the next time the peace of life is interrupted because you end up in an argument with someone, for example. Could it have been avoided? What underlying belief systems might you be projecting onto the other person that is helping "press your buttons?" Afterwards, we can all end up with a list of what was wrong with that person/with what they said/with their attitude/etc that made you, perhaps, feel justified getting "ticked off." Are there subjects that you know set off situations between you? Are there habitual tones of voices that trigger escalation? Were you feeling calm and good about calling them, for example, before you made the call or did you have a sense it might not work out?
The point I'm passing along is that we are all culpable for keeping the peace, for stopping at stop signs, for keeping the traffic flowing smoothly without endangering ourselves or others. We cannot have world peace and finally see the demise of a war mentality/fear/structure/process until we individually disconnect that mentality/fear/ structure/process from circumstances that arise in our own lives. Every time we stop and take a different, less fearfilled, more empathetic and empowered view and path, we are sharing it with/innoculating the populace surrounding us. Each time we stop and begin a new way, we unkink the knots in our own lives and free it up so others can breathe easier also. Moments of peace imprint the creation of a life of peace.with us. It is like innoculating
That carries over to government policy as well. What many people most feared after 9-11 (new catastrophic bombing/mass destruction and suffering) we rained down on others by launching devastating pre-emptive wars on the nationalities and populace of Afghanistan and Iraq. News reports recently announced that there have now been more innocent civilians killed in Iraq by U.S. forces than were killed in the Twin Towers (Can we leave now?).
Nothing happens in a vacuum. A person's most profound desire to change will link this desire to an understanding and acceptance of responsibility for past "errors" and the effects of those. We recognize it at last and so, help identify potentials we will avoid in the future moments. Yet, unless we accept our own responsibility for causative factors in "this moment" we won't recognize ourselves in those future moments and know to "step off that path."
Our courage to choose anew and better is dependent on our awareness of our own individual responsibility and attitude.
Choose well.
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RADICAL PEACE BLOG NOW LIVE
So, I've heard of weblogs (blogs). I've launched my own at: http://radicalpeace.blogspot.com/. It is meant to become a regular commentary on world events and an antidote for the mass media and culture viewpoint. It's just launched and formative. Keep checking back to it and see how things begin to weave, and for more - and more - and more!
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QUOTATION:
"Let the waters settle.
You will see stars and moon
mirrored in your being."
- Rumi
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Enjoy your days,
Claire
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Please contact me with any questions or comments at: claire@clairekrulikowski.com .
THE CONTENTS OF THIS NEWSLETTER IS COPYRIGHT 2004 BY CLAIRE KRULIKOWSKI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Please contact me for reprint permission)
