Dear friends, Thanks for joining us! The very first post is dedicated to a song, that has inspired us to this journey, this project and to ground where we are now. The song that was based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem Please Call Me By My True Names. “In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe. There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. Please Call Me By My True Names Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow- even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.” – From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh Lyrics song: My joy’s like spring so warm It makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain’s like a river of tears, So vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names So I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, So I can hear that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names So that I can wake up And the door of my heart could be left open. -- We also hope to send our collective energy to our beloved Thay, our families and friends, and to our brothers and sisters who despite having lived in different eras of history, are always in the here, and now within us. May us be empowered, and finally healed through the love of kindness and compassion.
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