When I left a screening of the movie, The Prophet, two weeks ago in Los Angeles, my first wish was that I had taken my daughters to watch it with me. I was inspired by the lyricism of the film, and as thoughtful as ever about the contemplations that the book had stimulated for me during my many readings. Continue reading
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
2. How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life – Mallika Chopra
3. Coping and Surviving Bullying – Gotham Chopra
4. Supporting our Veterans Overseas and When They Come Home – Mallika Chopra
5. Coping with Loss – Mallika Chopra
Which of the hangouts were your favorites? Tell us in the comments below!
I 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.
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.
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.
“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.
If you have a video that you think should be featured in our Video of the Day column tell us in the comments below!
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:
See more at http://sticksandstories.com/no-reason-to-think/
Among 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.
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.
On 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.
