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Giving thanks and keepin' my eyes open

In the midst of a 4-day birthday & Thanksgiving retreat by the beach. I always seem to have a deep yearning at this time of the year to go solo - to listen deeply within and write and look back and notice significances that I've missed. And there are always a bunch of them.

Tears flow as I watch my people in Mumbai. I read the phrase today, "Expanding circles of Light" - it hit my heart somehow. I usually have a visceral resistance to the notion of rejecting, destroying, extinguish DARKNESS. It is partly from being a black woman of my age. But also, I know that horrific acts -too many to recall - have been committed in the name of destroying the dark. Yet, the truth of what is frequently meant is a truth that I can see and fully relate to. 'Cause I do want to increase the Light. I want to shed light on what IS. I want to wake up and see. The seeing that I want is about re-cognizing, re-membering. I don't want to ignore any acts of injustice or acts that bring beloved community into being.

HERE IS ANOTHER WAKE UP CALL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toby-barlow/how-those-indians-doing-a_b_146647.html

And its even more challenging to keep my awareness engaged - to stay alert ~ during this time of the illusion of the Information Age - you know, like before we didn't have the information to act and now we have too much information to act. The Light would show us that we have always had access to the information, to the knowing.

On this Thanksgiving, I offer thanks for every single wake-up call and acknowledge every single convenience that we indulge in to not know. I give thanks for the Light and its ever present availability and I pray for the strength to live awake. ~ Ni

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