This being the final Friday of the month means it’s time for We Are the World Blogfest, a day for promoting positive news.
Co-hosting the project this month, the 35th edition, are: Damyanti Biswas, Lizbeth Hartz, Susan Scott, Mary J Giese, and Shilpa Garg. Do check out their posts, along with everyone else participating, and feel free to join us here.
I’m always delighted by synchronicities and often surprised at the intersection of things. A year ago my husband traveled to Ireland, and thinking about it inspired me to pull out the art journal I kept on an earlier visit. Additionally this week, an audiobook I’ve had a hold on for months, finally became available. It was Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise. Harjo is the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, and frankly it delights me that enough people want to hear her read her poems that there is a lengthy waitlist for online library copies. But the fact that both these things happened this week, AND I discovered this story connecting the Irish people and the peoples of the Native American Choctaw nation.
Almost 200 years ago, during the Great Irish Potato Famine, the Choctaw people donated funds to assist the starving Irish population. Now, Irish citizens are contributing to a fund to assist the peoples of Native American nations who have been hit hard by the Corvid-19 pandemic. You can read the story here.
It feels especially important to me to celebrate these cross-cultural connections at this time. The unity of our world is likely more clear to all of us than ever before. We need each other, we can be of service to one another, and our love and compassion can be boundless and boundary free. Now more than ever, I find environmentalist Edward Abby’s words a profound manifesto: “My loyalties will not be bound by national borders…or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language or culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time.”
May that prove true for all of us, and may we always find the connections and the good news to share.
What a lovely story, Deborah. How wonderful that the Irish people’s memories are long and their hearts are good. And that the Choktaw people’s kind actions come back to help them in their time of need. I copied your quote of Edward Abby’s words: “My loyalties will not be bound by national borders…or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language or culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time” and pasted it near my computer screen — lovely words to look at and live by. Seeing the world as one entity is what I think we citizens of the world are being summoned by Spirit to do now.
I so agree with you Lizbeth – I think that’s exactly what we’re called to now. And it is my greatest hope we’re collectively up to the invitation.
Hari OM
I echo the comment of Lizbeth; and also wish fervently that the world will have learned a few lessons, that we can live an improved life from here… YAM xx
Indeed Yamini. May it be so!
I didn’t know about the Choctaw/Irish connection. That’s a lovely gesture then and now. I like Abby’s line: “intimations of glory to the singing stars”. So lyrical.
I like that line of Abby’s as well. I reminds me both of the ridiculousness of our collective thoughts self-importance given the insignificance of our lives in the scheme of things, and it also invites us to actually be the best we can, to live to the fullest, and to appreciate the magnificence of it all.
Hi Deborah – oddly enough I’d read or heard about it recently – so was aware … more so because I’m picking up snippets relating to indigenous peoples … and after my year in Canada, I’m now absorbing a microscopic part of their world. It is an extraordinary connection … and synchronicity is there all the time – well it seems to me! I’d also come across Harjo before too … and will remember both these: the Choctaw and Joy Harjo … to at some stage add to my melting pot of knowledge.
Good news and sharing it – an essential in life, particularly now – thanks for this – stay safe yourselves … Hilary
Exposure really does broaden us doesn’t it – and there is so much to learn, to explore, to begin to understand. Stay well and safe Hilary.
Such a lovely story!
It is, isn’t it? Thanks for stopping by Damyanti.
I remember recently hearing something of this story a little while ago and thought then how things come full circle – and especially this particular story is an expression of just that. Thanks Deborah, this is wonderfully inspiring #WATWB post.
I, too, was inspired by the full circle aspect Susan. Although perhaps I think of it more as a lemniscate – one loop giving, the other loop receiving, and both meeting in the center in balance.
Thanks for co-hosting #WATWB this month. It’s such a welcome gift each month.
I loved that story when I first read it, and needed to be reminded of it in these turbulent times. Those who have very little often give so much. I was supposed to go to Ireland this year, but then my grandchild was going to be born in May, thus I decided to stay closer to home. Little did I know…
It’s been a crooked road we’ve been traveling hasn’t it? I hold fast to the desire that we may yet create a world in which all the grandchildren can thrive without exception.
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Covid really has taught us that we need each other and can help each other. What a beautiful quote from Edward Abby.
We certainly do need each other – and may we always find ways to be of help.
It is wonderful to see acts of kindness and thoughtfulness in these uncertain times. Thanks for sharing this lovely story, Deborah!
#WATWB is such a gift – sharing feel-good stories is so helpful. Thanks for stopping by Shilpa.
There is light…out of the darkness and into the light! WE ARE TRULY ONE! LET US ALL CONTINUE TO CONVEY THAT POSITIVE MESSAGE! Thank you, Deborah for always shining your light!
Unity and light, love and compassion. May those things always prevail.