The Power of Love

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two “old lovebirds” — pajaros del amor

We believe in contributing more love, more true humanity to our species’ future, instead of other choices. We old lovebirds, pajaros del amor, turn our back on fear and suspicion, renewing our vow, over and over, to work even harder to find the joy in any situation before us.

In our world, darkness is dead. Love’s Light blinds us.

Metaphysical types call this love-energy “Interwoven Past Lives,” “Destiny,” or “Unfinished Karma” — but that’s all hypothetical. There are those who even believe that all we humans have arrived at this place, at our own time, to fulfill some other need governing evolutionary forces that scientists have just begun to unravel.

The newly proven energy-commonality, the Higgs bosun, the God Particle shared by all existence is real. Finally and empirically proven by atom-smashing, persistent CERN physicists in Europe, the Great Mystery of life, of love, all of IT — is approached by sciecne as well as the metaphysicians. Now we’re starting to have some long-sought-for, provable, tested answers. About things like “the Law of Attraction” and especially, this mysterious allure between two people, Love.

Separate, each of us is equal. But together, we morph into a bigger Oneness than any of us can ever have on our own. This is either feeling-wise or awareness-wise, or both.

Love gifts us with tangible and intangible rewards. Join the flow. Spread unconditional love.

Pracice compassion, which is love plus action.

Check out the Charter for Compassion — the international, non-affiliated grassroots movement that spreads all the good stuff we’re talking about.

love, your pal Lordflea, aka teZa Lord

So — Think You’re Compassionate?

This is the Sufi Prayer written backwards! See if you can read it.

This is the Sufi Prayer written backwards! See if you can read it.

(Below is a monthly reminder I send out. I want you to see how I am involved with the Compassion Movement in my hometown. Perhaps you can start something similar in your own neighborhood? Spread the Word, please!)

Hello Compassionate Friend,

You can bet ALL of us think we’re compassionate. But are we, really?

Please join us this week to discuss how we can expand our thinking about this vital subject. We talk about everything from how to be more compassionate in our own lives as well as in our circle and community. Simply by thinking more deeply about compassion we help BE the solution to life’s many challenges. Join us and help spread the growing awareness about compassion’s great healing power.

ALL are invited to an open discussion of Compassion
Wednesday evening, October 2, 2013, 7-8pm
(note: we meet EVERY 1st Weds)
At the community building of St. Cyprian’s Center at 130 Martin Luther King Ave, close to Lovett St in Lincolnville

Why talk about it?

Because the more something is talked about, the more our consciousness is affected, influenced, and changed. In the case of talking about compassion, we in the Compassion Movement believe that universally applying The Golden Rule is the solution to all the many problems that beset our fractured world today.  “Compassion is the sign of strength. Anger is the sign of weakness.” (His Holiness the Dalai Lama in May, 2013 at Youth Engaging Compassion conference in Louisville, Kentucky.)

Talk/Walk Compassion Discussion Group is an eclectic group of citizens who gather the first Wednesday of each month to discuss aspects of compassion. This is not a self-help group but rather … a Change-Maker group.

Here in St. Augustine our City Commissioners just declared ours a “Compassionate City” — the first in Florida!!and only the 20th in the entire world to take this positive leadership stand to promote inclusiveness and healing. Spreading awareness of compassion is the purpose of our discussion group. Our goal is to help heal our challenged world, one person at a time. Starting with our own selves.

Our only affiliation is with the CharterForCompassion.org
Please feel free to PASS THIS EMAIL ON to any you think might be interested.

For further information about our monthly discussion group or how you can get involved with the Compassion Movement, please respond to this email or use one of the contacts below.

Sincerely yours,
Ervin Bullock and teZa Lord, organizers of the group

(for mapquest:)
St. Cyprian’s Community Center
130 M L King Ave
St. Augustine, FL  32084

LOCAL contact:

compassionstaugustine.org

on Facebook: St. Augustine Initiative for Compassion
MAIN site for the International Compassion Movement:

How to Be Passionate about Compassion

the Tipping Point

the Tipping Point

When enough of us share with others that Compassion is the answer to our current global dilemma … the world will transform into a higher realm of understanding the diversity of our human condition. Now that so many of us are already aware of this need … we have arrived at “the Tipping Point” … the number of awakened souls already achieved, to ignite a worldwide transformation. We have done this one person at a time. YOU can help the Love Revolution already afoot by becoming more involved with thinking, and acting compassionately. Help spread the word that Compassion is needed to bridge gaps between people all across the globe: caused by political, cultural, and religious differences. There are many ways you can help.

The first is visit the Charter for Compassion’s website and add your “click” (your voice) to affirm the idea of a compassionate world. The Charter for Compassion is the worldwide grassroots movement, originally sponsored by TED (after Karen Armstrong won the “wish” of 2008). The Charter’s work is dedicated to spreading the word and educating others about the necessity of living more compassionately. Affirm the charter (no obligation!) then come back and read how to further spread the word by starting a discussion with your family, your neighbor … your community. Right below here I’ve included the guidelines by which we’ve started a group to discuss how-to-live-compassionately in our own community.

Start a compassion-discussion group in your neighborhood or community

These guidelines can be used to start a discussion group in your circle, your town, church/ temple/ synagogue/ tent/ living-room/ basement, organization, or within your own family. Each topic can be a focus of conversation for a group. The following is a summary of Karen Armstrong’s book, “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life.” Armstrong’s book is a more thorough explanation of the Charter for Compassion, which we’ve already discussed here on Lord Flea.

Read the synopsis of “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” aloud, to begin a discussion.

1. Learn About Compassion –Study first how compassion is expressed in our own traditions, then explore similarities with other traditions. Understand that, Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, is the future of humanity.

2. Look at Our Own World – Begin in our own family and community to practice the Golden Rule. Daily, make sure not to do to someone what we wouldn’t want done to ourselves.

3. Begin With Self – Love your own Self first, then you can love someone else.

4. Empathy – Learn to feel empathy for our own struggles, and then we will feel it for others.

5. Mindfulness – Cultivate wholesome states of mind. Change destructive thinking and behavior patterns to positive thinking. Observe, then choose to change by using the Awareness–Acceptance–Action method.

6. Action – Build new habits of mind-body-spirit by practicing repetitively the Golden Rule.

7. How Little We Know –Seek to understand rather than be understood, letting go of certainties and judgments. Recognize the unknown and unknowable.

8. Communicate with Others –Ask questions of others; listen intently and sympathetically; allow possibilities to expand our convictions. Accept that it’s okay not to have all the answers.

9. Concern for Everybody – Let go of certainties and believe in the absolute equality of human beings, knowing we are all part of the web of life, and our creed is the Golden Rule.

10. Knowledge –Recognize the dangers of habitual thought patterns. Open to understanding others throughout the world. Study other cultures and traditions with an impartial attitude.

11. Recognition –Look at another and see that we are the same; there is no us and them. Relate our own suffering to the distress of others.

12. Love Our Enemies – Acknowledge it’s difficult to love our enemies. Transcendence occurs when we learn how. This happens by recognizing the sanctity of all life. Now we can find compassionate solutions to all global problems.

How this group can succeed

Start a discussion group based on the points above, a good way to locally take action and help our world heal. In addition, while discussing the12 Steps for Living Compassionately privately or publicly, create a safe environment for heartfelt sharing by respectfully listening when others speak. Cross-talk, whispering or joking with someone else while another is sharing, muttering or making faces, countering or commenting on another’s point-of-view do not create an atmosphere of safety so essential to the process of discussing how meaningful change occurs.

In discussion, we strive to express only our point of view and truly hear (listen) to the others who speak by turn. In countering another, too often a cordial discussion can escalate into an argument. Sharing, then, is expressing your own view, not denying anybody else’s.

To clarify group’s intention, read this after the 12 Steps

These twelve steps to a compassionate life are neither aligned with any political movement or party, religious or social affiliation, nor any outside influence other than the Charter for Compassion.

We are self-sufficient and do not accept contributions from outside sources, relying solely on our members’ support. Our purpose is to help bring about peaceful change so the world can live more compassionately.

(The above two paragraphs could be read aloud at the beginning of a compassion group discussion meeting, passing the basket if funds are needed for space or refreshments. This format is copied from the successful manner in which anonymous meetings are run. Please begin a group in your community, as we have in ours. Share with us here at Lord Flea how your group is going, its successes, its challenges. Thanks!)

Love to you all from your pal,

Lord Flea aka teZa Lord

What do YOU Occupy? Shout about the Big Heart!

A month now, it’s been since the OCCUPY demonstrators first gathered in New York City’s Wall Street, spreading quickly out into many other American cities, and now I hear, the movement is rippling throughout the entire industrialized-complex world. This post I’m dedicating to sharing my personal approach to activism, about how I am very involved with the HUGE tidal wave of transformation that is sweeping the entire planet.

As some of you who’ve been reading Lord Flea know, I am a spiritual warrior, not a political animal. My revolution is called “Love” and my comrades are multitudes of others (we connect via Twitter & Facebook) who believe that positive change is already occurring. We spread the news and share the positive results of the already ongoing transformation everyday in many ways. My beliefs, as these millions of others who, like me, are committed to the spiritual transformation of all humanity (as opposed to the more political-flavored “Occupy” that seems to focus on corporate greed, the fallibility of capitalism, and gross acts of industrialized nations against Nature herself) — my beliefs and consequent activism rests firmly on the knowledge that there are unlimited possibilities for success that reside within each and every person’s Big Heart, aka, the human spirit.

21st Century activists

21st Century activists

Each of us as individuals have a quest. And that is to find the meaning of our own existence. For me, this has taken the shape of dedicating my life’s efforts of making art and doing various businesses to support this “habit” of mine, creating thought-provoking work with images and words, toward the now-more-specifically-focused goal of helping others to achieve fulfillment.

each of us MATTERS

each of us MATTERS

It took me decades to achieve my own inner peace. Believe me, each day I’m working on the next tiny step to take to fulfill ongoing hurdles to achieve these personal goals. But once I discovered that it was possible to turn around the fear-oriented mistrust and anger that ruled my earlier life, and dedicate my life, my work, and all my daily efforts to helping others, everything changed for me. I have been a spiritual activists for many decades.

So yes, I do support the people who need to voice their unhappiness with the way things are so blatantly out-of-kilter with our industrialized, over-material world. However, I do not agree with many of the protestors that it’s the government’s duty to do what each and every one of us ought to be doing for ourselves. I truly believe that we, as individuals, create our reality. And if each one of us were committed to living from a higher, more spiritual perspective of life, if we could all forego the need to have have have, and consume consume consume — this entire world, even the capitalistic, democratically functioning one that the protestors speak so harshly about,WILL transform itself from within. HOW? Because change, real change, begins with individuals.And it spreads from there. The domino effect. This is the “How” of transforming society, but it begins with each one of us walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Each and every political revolution has always ended with just another regime bossing everybody around.

Sure, we can now voice our concern by participating in the Occupy movement, if we wish. And YES! corporations need to grow consciences as well as secure their monetary funds, to make available good jobs and opportunities to all of society. That’s their duty … IF they are spiritualized. Corporations are only as spiritual-mature as the sum amount of all the individuals who make them up.

Yes, it’s good that people are taking to the street to remind society that it has a duty to work FOR the people, not against them. But, essentially, it’s not the government’s job to dictate people’s morality, philosophy, or ideology. THAT happens with each and every person looking within their own heart and making a commitment to live from a higher, more “human” way.

The Love Revolution's CURRENCY

The Love Revolution's CURRENCY

That is why I have chosen to align myself to what Karen Armstrong began after winning the TED prize in ’07: the worldwide movement called “Charter for Compassion”. I am an active member, and I choose to not protest publicly with the Occupy People. Instead, I tweet and post and art and promote positive change through the international channels already formed by the Grass Roots Movement called the CHARTER FOR COMPASSION. Before I further explain my dedication to this cause instead of joining Occupy protestors on the street and shouting for change, I want to declare what WE DO in the Charter for Compassion. Right here, I’d like to explain I am committed to live more compassionately, as an individual, within my own family, and also to take the message of HOW to live more compassionately to others in my community, to my country, and the entire world (through social media: twitter, facebook, this very blog, the upcoming novel “Heart Island”, etc.)

You might want to visit the official site of this movement yourself, and make YOUR commitment, and join us. No parades, no protests, no shouting …. just a plain simple decision, right here, right NOW, to live more compassionately, one person at a time, and watch the entire world change as a result of YOUR commitment.

click here to go to the Charter for Compassion‘s official website

I’ll be sharing more about my involvement with the Charter for Compassion in the days, weeks, and months to come. Today I’m meeting with another member of our local group (which YOU can start in YOUR community … just follow the links on the above website) to work on how to set up public meetings for people to discuss HOW to live more compassionately. Change happens simply. One person at a time. Deep, meaningful change happens when clear, concise education and new ideas are presented, and reinforced, and that is what we in the Charter for Compassion are committed to doing … without screaming “Revolution,” without being angry, without demanding unreasonable reforms. Just plain simple change from each person’s deeply connected human heart. Simple steps. Do-able activism. Big Heart activism.

I hope everyone who reads this will join the Charter today. Please write me if you’d like to share anything about the above. I appreciate all views that are not mean or violent.

Also, wanted to tell you that my consort Carter and I are celebrating 20 years of sharing a sacredly-held marriage today! Yeah! Hard work and commitment has showered us with so many blessings. Carter’s kids, my “angel-kids,” whom I helped raise from ages 4 and 7, are now healthy strong mature adults, nothing like the scared little rabbits they both were when I married their single-parent daddy. And Carter and I … well, we are more deeply in love than we could ever have imagined! Even with all our many faults!

One little tiny step, act, decision at a time, and we have created a WORLD of unconditional, bliss-filled love.

I love you all, your pal,

Lordflea