Tag Archives: Poetry

Best of Intent 2013: The Hangouts from The Science of Survival to Coping with Bullying

Causes, Happiness, Healing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The creation of The Chopra Well – the Chopra YouTube channel – has allowed us to do many awesome things, but one of them that means the most to us is having been able to host several Google+ hangouts with inspiring people around the world. We did one for the launch of The Chopra Well last year, but in 2013 we tried to step it up a notch. In April the Chopras hosted a hangout series called “Aspire to Inspire” which covered an array of topics each day of the week. Mallika also stepped in to host a hangout on Mindfulness as part of another series. What we found was that these hangouts enabled us to have in-depth serious conversations with experts and people with first hand experiences to enlighten ourselves and our audience about the world around us and the capacity for the human race to do great things.

As we wind down on 2013 and reflect on the year we’ve had, some of these conversations really stuck out. If you missed them the first time around or simply want to revisit them we’ve reposted a few of them below.

1. The Science of Survival – Deepak & Sanjiv Chopra

Deepak and Sanjiv discuss the physical, mental and emotional process of surviving a trauma or deep loss. Paralympic snowboarder and activist Amy Purdy and pro-surfer Bethany Hamilton who had her arm bitten off by a shark at age 13 join in to share their stories of loss and overcoming these significant challenges.

2. How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life – Mallika Chopra

Mallika and a knowledgeable panel of experts look at the role of intention and other mindfulness practices in living a more meaningful and healthy life. The discussion will help answer questions about how to turn goals and aspirations into reality; understanding the difference between an intention and a goal; and the relationship between intention and other practices that lead to mindfulness such as meditation, prayer, service, and yoga.

3. Coping and Surviving Bullying – Gotham Chopra

Gotham Chopra is joined by poet Shane Koyczan, whose video for “To This Day” went viral due to it’s honest, heartbreaking prose about the lifetime effects of bullying. Other guests include: Martin Shervington who will offer insight from his experience in psychology and life coaching, Margot Leitman - a comedian who just released her first book “Gawky: Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase,” and Kevin Epling, the National Co-Director and Michigan representative for Bully Police USA.

4. Supporting our Veterans Overseas and When They Come Home – Mallika Chopra

Mallika Chopra is joined by Levi Newman, Rob Schware, and Rick Collins to discuss veterans and PTSD. Newman is a veteran with over 10 years of service and a writer for Veterans United and the Huffington Post. Schware is founder of the Give Back Yoga Foundation, which helps soldiers returning from duty transition back to civilian life and provides resources to deal with PTSD and other mental disorders that occur after time in the field. Collins is the founder of Vet360, a charity that gives Veterans upon their return home a 30 day program to help educate, counsel and prepare them for civilian life.

5. Coping with Loss – Mallika Chopra

Mallika Chopra hosts a discussion on “Coping with Loss.” She is joined by Todd Hartley, CEO of WireBuzz who lost both of his grandparents at the same time; Chelsea Roff, who has been featured on CNN and the Hallmark channel with her story of coping with a mother who has alcohol induced dementia; and Laurel Lewis who practices as a hospice nurse and also runs Death & Dying Dinner events in Southern California. (You may remember Laurel from 30 Days of Intent!)

Which of the hangouts were your favorites? Tell us in the comments below!

Wordplay Wedneday: Looking for Love

Love & Sex, Wordplay Wednesday, , , , , , ,

Way of the heartI have been looking for you

I have searched for you in the kiss of a stranger

I have sought you in the eyes of my child

I thought you might be hidden in the arms of my mother

Or perhaps in the songs my father sang me to sleep.

I crumble in defeat

Wishing I could have found your comfort

But you elude me

Dodging me in my quest to conquer you, to hold you and claim you as mine once more

because you are waiting…

For me to stop thinking about you, to stop hunting you

Because the thoughts of a mind cannot give you your due

They cannot define you, because you are indescribable

What word could I possibly utter that would explain you. It’s all so limited and small against your expanse

And so you wait….

Until I go out of my mind and finally see that you have been here all along, behind the words of wisdom, underneath the fear and doubt. Love…

***

We spend every waking minute seeking ways to experience this feeling. I have no other word in my language but love to describe it, but it just does not do it justice. From the moment I emerged from the womb, I felt as if it was ripped from my soul. Sometimes so frantic to find it I would do anything to experience the warmth of it’s caress, the never ending expansiveness of it, the gift of wholeness it would bring, wreaking such havoc in my soul, risking all that I have thinking this time I will catch it.

But this is not something to catch, there is no mind trap I could conjure that would snare it. It is just here, right here. And only when I finally stop knowing the path, when I stop chasing it, and stand still will I feel it’s arms already wrapped around me.

***

Do you have a favorite or original poem you would like showcased on Wordplay Wednesday? We’d love to share it! Email the poem to editor@intent.com, and we will feature it in the series. Click here to view past Wordplay Wednesdays.

VOD: 4 Young Poets Speak the Truth About Costume Sexualization

Video of the Day, Women's Health, , , , , , , , ,

Have you noticed when you go to buy a Halloween costume that the outfits get skimpier and skimpier? Or that it’s impossible to be something like a nurse or a police officer or firefighter without the word “sexy” on the front of the package? It’s a phenomenon that has been going on for years, but what is the message we are sending to our children?

These four girls teamed up to recite a poem called “Monster” where they discuss the problematic nature of store-bought costumes for women these days. They stand up for their own image, the right to own Halloween without showing all of their parts to the world – to decide for themselves what is sexy based on what they think is cool rather than how naked they are. They are monsters and they are heroes. Cheers, ladies.

What do you think of the girls’ performance? Do you have a suggestion for our Video of the Day column? Tell us in the comments below!

Wordplay Wednesday: To My Dear Child

Parenting & Family, Wordplay Wednesday, , , , , , , , , , ,

Submitted by Sophie Badami, from Pune, India

I love you if you reply to my mail

But if you don’t reply to my mail, I love you even more.

I love you if you acknowledge my e -message,

But if you don’t I love you even more.

I love you if you acknowledge my existencce

But I love you more if you dont

I love you if you have to say something nice about me

But I love you more if you say something not -so- nice about me.

I love you if I know that you are happy

But I love you more if I know you are unhappy.

I love you if you are successful

But I love you more if you are not successful.

I love you if you are hale and hearty,

But I love you more if you are sick.

I love you if you are physically fit

But I love you more if you are not.

I love you if you are friendly to me

But I love you more if you ignore me

I love you if you phone me sometimes

But I love you even more if you don’t.

I love you if your share your thoughts and feelings

But I love you more if you cant.

I love you if you follow my advice

But I love you even more if you cant

I love you if you achieve something in life

But I love you if you fail to do so

I love you if you help me out

But I love you even more if you overlook my request for help.

My child, I used to think that love is two-way-traffic.

But now I know, one-way is bliss.

And all my love- you-more are indicators,

That I share your pain, your hurt and your suffering like my own.

***

Do you have a favorite or original poem you would like showcased on Wordplay Wednesday? We’d love to share it! Email the poem to editor@intent.com, and we will feature it in the series. Click here to view past Wordplay Wednesdays.

photo by: legends2k

VOD: College Poet Tells the Sad Truth About Growing Up Female

Video of the Day, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“You were taught to grow out, I was taught to grow in,” Lily Myers recites at the Wesleyan University at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Her haunting poem chronicles the lessons and habits she’s picked up from her mother, passed down from the generations. Mentally she’s been conditioned to think of her self as small and that all efforts should be made to make herself smaller.

Is this a subconscious message we are sending to all young girls growing up? Is that why there’s a need for books like Lean In? It makes you take a step back and look at the messages we observe and regurgitate back out as the norm. How many times have you asked a question that started with the word sorry? More importantly, how do we empower ourselves, our sisters, our daughters and our friends to grow out instead of in?

If you have a video that you think should be featured in our Video of the Day column tell us in the comments below! 

Wordplay Wednesday: Untitled; Africa

Healing, Wordplay Wednesday, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
924_RED_precutBy Victoria Michelle

Africa is a young man bathing
in blood drenched dirt
crying out for salvation
to a god willing to sacrifice
his own son.

If the divine is willing to kill his own seed,
how can Africa,
the stranger,
find sanctuary
outside of the four corners of death?

I met a man sleeping on
the side of the road
baking in the Ghanaian sun
dreams of tomorrow’s resurrection.

He knows the lies
laid down and proselytized
at the intersection of rights
to live,
to be free,
to be human.

“Oh, let me save you,”
they say.

Oh the way they deflect their own death
in the name of a life they’re not willing to die for.

Rest assured,
they will meet the sun
at the dawning of tomorrow.

Oh the way they blaspheme their bodies
breathing in good intentions
inconvertible to good deeds.

How much longer will
they fill
their lungs
with fiction?

When will they feel themselves drowning,
in their own blood,
in need of saving,
craving self-sacrifice?

Africa is a young man bathing
in blood drenched dirt
made victim by masochists.

What will they make of the moment
Africa rises from the ground,
and no longer needs cleaning?

***

Somewhere between a fond love for the double helix, a youth spent making music in various forms, and becoming an anthropologist, you have Victoria Michelle. Frequently noted as a “wordsmith”, Victoria is currently a graduate student in Anthropology at UC Berkeley who has been making her way through the Bay Area open mic scene since April 2012. Her style employs philosophy to a flow in hopes of building a bridge between academic and public discourse. But at the end of the day, her primary goal is to excavate emotion from the depths to provoke the possibility of genuine feeling and thinking. She is currently working on her first chapbook of poetry titled “She” as a reflection her journey as a young woman coming-of-age in her own skin. For more information of her written work, you can check out her blog: vmmichelle.com

Do you have a favorite or original poem you would like showcased on Wordplay Wednesday? We’d love to share it! Email the poem to editor@intent.com, and we will feature it in the series. Click here to view past Wordplay Wednesdays.

There is no reason to think

Living Your Purpose, Mindfulness, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

experience1

 There is no need to think. I said that once, I thought it often (yes, I see the contradiction here) and I stand by it.

There is never any need to think.

It is hard to accept this idea, I know. One goes straight to working, making, fixing, planning. The everyday tasks organized by mind, by thoughts, by explanations and definitions, by understanding.

I go somewhere else. I go to the place from which life is created. From which my life is being created. This place is not one of thinking, but of being. And of experiencing.

I was there when I chose to move to California. I said “yes” in jest without a minute of hesitation, yet I arrived at San Francisco airport three months later.

I was there when I realized I wanted to marry Christopher, though I’d known him only for three weeks. I thought about dolphins and whales at the time when this realization descended upon me.

I was there yesterday when, lost in pain and confusion, I could not see a way out. “Love” came the solution. Not figured out, not thought out, not devised nor contrived.

There was no thinking involved. There was never any thinking involved in the key moments of my life. The most crucial choices were not the result of a careful deliberation but of a sudden, clear and undeniable experience.

An experience, not understanding.

And if this way, this way of taking the most important steps, lead me to happiness and comfort — surely taking the smallest steps in this way will bring nothing else.

Surely there is never any need to think.

More by Pausha Foley:

It’s You.

Is happiness a myth?

Don’t give your power away.

See more at http://sticksandstories.com/no-reason-to-think/

Wordplay Wednesday: I Carry Your Heart With Me

Art, Inspiration, Love & Sex, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

e-e-cummingsAmong the voices of 20th century poetry, a name stands out which you almost certainly will have heard of. Sometimes capitalized, sometimes not; sometimes abbreviated, sometimes not, his name is, most simply: E.E. Cummings.

His poetry ranges from the avant garde, to the surreal, to the beautiful, to the absurd. He was in many ways destined to be a writer, producing some of his first poems as young as eight years old. Among his more controversial works, Cummings’ poems are, on the whole, lushly romantic, spiritual, and naturalistic.

All three qualities are evident in this poem, published in Complete Poems: 1904-1962. Cummings describes his love as an ever-constant presence in his life, comparing the object of his love to the very moon and sun. The modernist, stream of consciousness style is employed, perhaps bringing attention to the deeply flowing nature of the poet’s love.

Enjoy this exquisite work, and consider who this beloved person might be in your life!

~

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)]

by E.E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

* * *

Do you have a favorite or original poem you would like showcased on Wordplay Wednesday? We’d love to share it! Email the poem to editor@intent.com, and we will feature it in the series. Click here to view past Wordplay Wednesdays.

Wordplay Wednesday: Rumi’s Greatest Love Poems

Art, Inspiration, Love & Sex, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Requiebro

You might recall a choice debate over love and poetry between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:

Elizabeth: I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!

Darcy: I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.

Elizabeth: Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

Would you agree with Elizabeth’s sentiments? Does love need to exist in its entirety before a poem can lend it any strength? Or might poetry on occasion drive and ignite love, as Darcy suggests?

We are inclined to believe the latter. Poetry can help us say what regular words cannot express, inspiring passion in the hearts of readers where there was previously only a placid love. And who better to ignite such depth of feeling than the great poet Rumi?

A Persian poet and Sufi mystic from the 13th century, Rumi’s work has transcended all barriers of time, space, religion, ethnicity and language. His portfolio is monumental, both in size and scope. But here we offer three of his most poignant love poems, for all the romantics out there.

Do You Love Me?

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more
than you love me?

The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
and I live for you.

I’ve disappeared from myself
and my attributes.
I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learning,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,
but from your power
I am able.

If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself.

~

Behind the Scenes

Is it your face
that adorns the garden?

Is it your fragrance
that intoxicates this garden?

Is it your spirit
that has made this brook
a river of wine?

Hundreds have looked for you
and died searching
in this garden
where you hide behind the scenes.

But this pain is not for those
who come as lovers.

You are easy to find here.

You are in the breeze
and in this river of wine.

~

Defeated by Love

The sky was lit
by the splendor of the moon

So powerful
I fell to the ground

Your love
has made me sure

I am ready to forsake
this worldly life
and surrender
to the magnificence
of your Being

* * *

Do you have a favorite or original poem you would like showcased on Wordplay Wednesday? We’d love to share it! Email the poem to editor@intent.com, and we will feature it in the series. Click here to view past Wordplay Wednesdays.

A New Yorker’s Heart-wrenching Poem for September 11

Art, Inspiration, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Flower at September 11 MemorialOn 9/11/11, after news of the attacks surfaced, Mike Rosen didn’t know if his father would be coming home that day. In his child’s mind, all he knew was: he lived in New York; his dad worked in New York; thousands had been killed in a terrorist attack; his dad could be one of them.

Thankfully, he wasn’t. But thousands of other little boys and girls would not be as lucky. In this heart-wrenching slam poem, Rosen discusses his impressions of that day as a young boy, the collective pain that followed, and the remarkable character of New York City so highlighted in the aftermath of the attacks. This was not about “our god” or “their god,” he says, because in times like this we are all one, and the work to heal is collectively ours.

“That day no one in New York grabbed rifles, we grabbed bandanas and shovels and we started digging because our lives were underneath that rubble.”

Check it out:

Today is a solemn day for many. For those of us who are old enough to remember the events, we think back on where we were, what we were doing, how we felt when the news reached our awareness. But in addition to the pain, we may also feel a deep gratitude and compassion for the collective spirit that rose up, in New York and around the country, to affect the healing so desperately needed.

We bless the lives that were lost, those who survived, and all touched by September 11 and its aftereffects. We invite you to share your stories below.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...