tolerance
Imagination!
A quote that I came across today – and one that we educators need to bear in mind when dealing with those little characters in our school!
“Imagination is more powerful than knowledge” – Albert Einstein
The more I turn that about in my head, the more interesting it becomes, and the more I understand the importance of those words.
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In Salutation To Eternal Peace
Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.
But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,
When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.
What care I for the world’s desire and pride,
Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,
The homing pigeons of Thine eventide?
What care I for the world’s loud weariness,
Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless
With delicate sheaves of mellow silences?
Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom,
Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom,
The mute and mythic terror of the tomb?
For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee,
O inmost wind of living ecstasy!
O intimate essence of eternity!
– Sarojini Naidu
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Earth Day
Today is Earth Day 2015.
Let’s take a little bit of time to be grateful for our beautiful planet, and consider how we can contribute to making it a better place – in so many different ways.
A poem, then…
Earth Day
Making Peace
A voice from the dark called out,
“The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
– Denise Levertov
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Peace – My Beloved Country
In response to the terrible xenophobic violence in South Africa, and as a way of expressing my despair at an article that I have just read where the author is clearly trying to escalate this hatred by inciting South Africans against each other along race lines (cleverly playing the “blame game”), I have found this poem and published it below…
Somewhere an eagle flies
soaring o’er the dappled skies of Africa
Somewhere a tortoise cries
ploughing through the vast disguise of Africa.
A springbok dies and a day is born
The sun comes up to greet the dawn;
A child is sighing like a bird
And a nation is sounding a very new word.
Somewhere an apple train
waddles through the winding plains of Africa.
Somewhere a sparrow feigns
acting out the birthing pains of Africa.
A lizard leaps to his mother’s scorn:
‘Farwell, ‘ she says to her first born
A breeze is lifting a newly-fledged bird
And a nation is sounding a very new word.
Somewhere a new sunrise
burgeoning before our eyes in Africa
Has seen our children’s weary sighs
bursting into happy smiles in Africa.
An aardvark snuffles through the corn
And winks an eye at a golden fawn
A sunbird is singing like you’ve never heard
And a nation is sounding a very new word.
– Margaret Kollmer
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
– Wendell Berry
Peace
Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,
Let me once know.
I sought thee in a secret cave,
And ask’d, if Peace were there,
A hollow wind did seem to answer, No:
Go seek elsewhere.
I did; and going did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,
This is the lace of Peace’s coat:
I will search out the matter.
But while I looked the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.
Then went I to a garden and did spy
A gallant flower,
The crown-imperial: Sure, said I,
Peace at the root must dwell.
But when I digged, I saw a worm devour
What showed so well.
At length I met a rev’rend good old man;
Whom when for Peace
I did demand, he thus began:
There was a Prince of old
At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase
Of flock and fold.
He sweetly lived; yet sweetness did not save
His life from foes.
But after death out of his grave
There sprang twelve stalks of wheat;
Which many wond’ring at, got some of those
To plant and set.
It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse
Through all the earth:
For they that taste it do rehearse
That virtue lies therein;
A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth
By flight of sin.
Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
And grows for you;
Make bread of it: and that repose
And peace, which ev’ry where
With so much earnestness you do pursue,
Is only there.
– George Herbert
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Some More From Einstein…
As promised, some more quotes from that great man, who died on this day in history…
For those of us into teaching…
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
And one for the dangers that face our civilisation at the present time…
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
Arise and Shine Africa!
Arise and shine Africa for the time have come to defeat your enemies
A day have come that tears will never fall form the eyes of your people
A nation that stand as one like a single family tree of love Africa land full of culture the black treasure of the word
Oh Africa land of love land of peace the land of golden heart
Arise o Africa the time have come for change time have come for peace and unity
God of Africa look onto your people with mercy guard them with the sun by day and the moon and star by night
Send your angel to guard every single step from our feet
– Emmanuel Chibuike Ikechukwe
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When Will Africa Unite?
Down below the ground come the voices of the great heroes
The pillars of Africa in those days……..
From the west come the cries of grief
From the horizon flows the blood of Africa
Children with tattered clothes roam about the the streets
Innocent people are neglected at the mercy of death
Under the African sun, nations are fighting nations
While tribes are also fighting each other for leadership
Seemingly superior and mighty ones look down on the
seemingly inferior
Brothers bury their own relatives out of hatred and jealousy,
not to talk about chieftainship
Favoritism and nepotism is the order of the day…….
Gone are the days when the forefathers were around
Those days when they were the pillars of Africa
Theirs was a plethora of sacrifice, the kind Africa is lacking now
Africa whose hope and glory is vanishing into thin air
Africa whose own people are against each other
When will Africa unite to fulfill the promise of long ago?
When will Africa learn to love and desist from hatred?
When will Africa stop and repair the destruction caused by the ignorance of her own people
Be united and defend yourself
And know that ‘Together we stand; Divided we fall’.
– Bartholomew Arkoh Boamah Sarbah
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