❧❧❧ Whatever you can do or dream, you can BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe ❧❧❧
❧❧❧ You were born whole, not broken. Sandra Hammel ❧❧❧
Sunday, January 6, 2013
YOUR GLOW ♫ A TRIBUTE TO THOSE AFFECTED BY SANDY HOOK MASSACRE
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013, the bus
drivers, the surviving Sandy Hook Elementary School children and staff went
back to another building to resume their school year.
The song ~ Your Glow ~ is a tribute for those affected by Sandy Hook Elementary School
Massacre. I wrote the music December 14 on the day it happened. I wrote lyrics
to the music later on December 26 & 27. Yesterday, I used Garage Band to improvise a flute and bass part along with the keyboard. It is not a polished version, only put together in a few hours.
Your Glow
by Sandra Hammel
Verse 1
Breath is no more, your bright light shines on. Oh the pain seeps so deep, grace come to me to free.
Oh our hearts entwined for eternity, Oh touch me now…fly…… Oh, angel. Love never die
Surround me now, for now, I hold you sweetly within, lighting up my way. Going on for you.
I lift my eyes to you, Wanting all the world to see your star.
Verse 2
Breathe life in me, oh, bright star that shines on. Where to go when overcome, estranged from peace and calm.
Oh our hearts entwined for eternity, Oh touch me now…fly…… Oh, angel. Love live on.
Surround me now, for now, I hold you sweetly within, lighting up my way. You left behind your glow.
I lift my eyes for you, Knowing your tender soul remains in mine.
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
When
I was still teaching in the schools, I taught 5 to 10 year olds. I was
the music teacher. So, when I picture these children and the staff, I
can picture it in my mind very personally. I think it is the wrong thing to do to arm teachers. I wrote about it here.
The second amendment has outlived its relevancy. When it was written, guns had a single bullet capacity and it took considerable time to reload it.
I don't know if I will ever change, probably not, but before I can get
myself to get moving toward bed, I want a feeling, I feeling that
something moving has touched me, it can be music, mine or others, it can
be writing down some of my own heartfelt
feelings, thoughts, reading someone else's words that touch me. It is
like the day can't end even though it is very late until I feel a
connection to something deep, beautiful, soulful....So, on that search, I
found myself listening to Tom Waits (on youtube) give a speech, sing a
few songs. What I love about Tom Waits, is that there is absolutely
nothing polished about his "singing" and he apparently has no hesitation
to sing - so many of us, me included, sing and think we are not good
enough. But if we want to sing, that is all that is important. Tom
gives us permission to sing.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson
My "to do" thing right now is to organize my room that has my computer desk (a mess), the folders that haven't been filed (due to lack of room to file them), go through the files in the drawer and hopefully find some to thin or throw out and my piano, my keyboard and music.
In the brief minutes that I have actually started, I have been distracted over and over. This is the current distraction. I found words that I had written once and loved what they say. Here is part of that.
Remember
by Sandra Hammel
Remember, don't be afraid to fail.
look around
and know eveyone is filled
with fear of unacceptance,
more, rejection.
And don't let anyone
convince you for long that
life isn't feeling.
It is.
Being happy
isn't a gift of living
but a gift you
can give yourself and others,
by working at it.
GENOCIDE IN SUDAN IS A WAY OF LIFE (AND DEATH) - THE REASON I BLOG FOR PEACE ~ #8
SUDAN AREAS WHERE GENOCIDE IS HAPPENING
BLUE NILE, DARFUR, EASTERN SUDAN, NUBA MOUNTAINS and SOUTH SUDAN
As a community leader in Rhode Island, who works with other community leaders across the USA, in order to bring needed attention to genocide, preventing and stopping it, I have worked specifically with the dire situation in Sudan.
Ethnic cleansing, genocide of about 3,000,000 bodies in South Sudan, Darfur, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan just since Bashir came into power is proof of the world, including the USA, turning a blind eye and making "never again" meaningless two words. Two words that we have used at the end of previous genocides.The current Government of Sudan supports Sudanese regional genocides/ethnic cleansings, which are focused on people who are black, have an African culture and those who've asked for government help.The victim targets' regions over the months and years have changed and multiplied in Sudan, however the strategy has not changed.
................................................................ One who worked in Sudan in a refugee camp (2005 to 2007), from 13:25 to 21:19.
John Prendergast of the Enough Project is introduced at 21:19 and speaks at 22:44 until 33:49.
Mohamed Yahya speaks at United Nations on the UN Webcast, Mohamed is from west Darfur, Sudan. His introduction and his comments are from 33:49 to 48:40.
51:48 begins the section of various contributions of "What You Wish For" book.
At 53:27 is a German author introduction via streaming by Skype at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium , followed by the introduction of each of the authors to speak.
At 1:00:13 the first author is supposed to be heard, but the audio is not audible for a while anyway.
Here is the explanation of the video above from the United Nations webcast ~
What You Wish For, a short story and poetry anthology for youth.
17 October 2011
Authors join Darfur experts and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) at the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium from 3-5 PM in celebration of the launch of What You Wish For, a short story and poetry anthology for youth.
The event co-hosted by the United Nations Office for Partnerships will feature Darfur experts John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project and author of Unlikely Brothers: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption, and Mohamed Yahya, co-founder of Damanga. The Director of UNHCR’s Executive Office in New York, Udo Janz, and Senior Policy Advisor Grainne O’Hara will also speak.
Running time: 02:02:05
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"They Bombed Everything that Moved"
Aerial military attacks on civilians and humanitarians in Sudan,
Since this report and data spreadsheet were originally released on May 6, 2011, the Sudan Armed Forces---at the direction of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum---have continued their aerial onslaught against civilians in various regions of North Sudan. This savagery has now spread from South Kordofan to another northern border state, Blue Nile. At the same time, civilian villages in Darfur, without any military presence, continue to be targeted. I have argued that in aggregate, these many hundreds of confirmed, deliberate aerial attacks on civilians and humanitarians---going back more than a decade---constitute crimes against humanity. So, too, does the widespread, systematic denial of humanitarian access on an ethnic basis, something the UN first reported in Darfur in 2003 (in South Sudan the Nuba Mountains this had begun over a decade earlier). And yet these tactics, which have defined the military strategy of the Khartoum regime for so long, show no signs of being curtailed. Nor is there any sign that these atrocity crimes will confront meaningful action by international actors, who know full well their deadly consequences---and hence the consequences of their own acquiescence.
In South Kordofan the bombing continues to be particularly intense in the Nuba Mountains, and for months has prevented planting and tending of crops; continued bombing now endangers even a meager harvest. Khartoum has prevented all international humanitarian access to a vast population that is now squarely facing starvation. Many people have made the dangerous trek to South Sudan, some 8,000 as of mid-September, and the UN High Commission for Refugees estimated at the time that there were some 500 new arrivals per day.
Civilians in Blue Nile---another region with a long history of marginalization, violence, and tyranny at the hands of the NIF/NCP regime---are consistently reported as enduring daily bombing attacks. Civilian casualties have been high and the number of civilians displaced by bombardment is enormous. Elected governor Malik Agar estimates that half of Blue Nile's 1.2 million people are now on the move. This is harvest season and it appears increasingly unlikely that those forced from their lands by aerial military violence will be able to survive without international humanitarian aid---which Khartoum has again denied categorically.
Lacking food and humanitarian assistance, and facing increasing violence, civilians from Blue Nile have begun to pour into neighboring Ethiopia, with no end to the exodus in sight:
"The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says 27,500 people have fled the conflict in Blue Nile State to nearby Ethiopia since early September. The agency is due to open a second camp 200km from the border with a capacity of 3,000 people, as fighting and SAF aerial bombardments continue." (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [IRIN] [dateline: Kurmuk], October 13, 2011)
In South Kordofan, the SPLA/M-North leader Abdel Aziz el-Hilu reports that as many as 500,000 Nuba have been displaced, and he has assembled locality data to support this claim. The actual figure for displaced persons can't be known, but now---after more than four months of intense bombings---it is almost certainly more than 300,000, and the number of conflict-affected civilians much greater. Khartoum's military assaults on Abyei (May 20), South Kordofan (June 5), and Blue Nile (September 1) may now have displaced 1 million civilians.
Origins and character of conflict in Blue Nile
Violence in Blue Nile was initiated by Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on September 1, 2011 in yet another well-prepared assault. Such an assault was predicted in a previous iteration of this update (July 15, 2011), as it was by the elected governor of Blue Nile, Malik Agar. Malik insisted to all who would listen that the longer conflict and ethnic targeting of civilians continued in South Kordofan, the more likely it was that Blue Nile would be drawn into the fighting. Unsurprisingly, Malik's residence in Damazine was the first target of SAF shelling. Such shelling has now extended southward toward Kurmuk as Khartoum increasingly engages in "stand-off" military actions against the forces so effectively led by Malik (the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement-North; SPLA/M-N). Large-scale, long-range, and indiscriminate shelling has many of the same effects as aerial bombardment by Antonov aircraft, which are inherently incapable of achieving bombing accuracy sufficient to be militarily effective. It is now the greatest fear of many on the ground in Blue Nile. UN IRIN reports from Kurmuk (October 12, 2011):
"The priority is to move patients from the hospital as quickly as possible, either back home or across the border to Ethiopia where other aid agencies can care for them. 'The fear that an Antonov might bomb [the hospital] is terrible,' [Dr. Evan] Atar said, adding: 'Most of the people who were injured are people who were running. The bomb usually explodes upwards in a conical form, so if you keep down you are fine.'"
But fear in such circumstances can be extremely difficult to control; and the fact that Khartoum is notorious for its deliberate bombing of hospitals is widely known among the people who endured more than 20 years of civil war (see original May 6 report, pp. 14 - 15, 23 - 24). Moreover, as Dr. Atar also notes:
"'In the [civil] war, there was peace in the villages; now they [the Antonovs] bomb even the villages---that's the problem; and the increasing accuracy of the bombing is leading to rising patient numbers as the weeks go by.'" (UN IRIN [dateline: Kurmuk], October 12, 2011)
While still not sufficiently accurate to be militarily effective, there have been repeated reports of Antonovs increasing their accuracy through crude bomb-sighting mechanisms, and their destructiveness by using bombs with greater explosive power.
Atar, who is the only doctor in Kurmuk, notes the connection between bombing and shelling by Khartoum's SAF and the looming food shortages: "Food would also become a problem [ ]. 'First of all the war will continue and the second thing is, now, hunger will come and it is not going to spare anyone unless the people go and become refugees to be helped, but for the people left within, it is going to be a big problem.' Artillery fire directed at rebels could be the last straw. 'For now it is the Antonov bombing, but I don't think I would be here if there is shelling ... and no patients could be brought here,' Atar said" (emphasis added) (UN IRIN October 12). And even now, a major SAF force is on the move toward Kurmuk. A highly alarming report from the Satellite Sentinel Project (September 23), based on substantial satellite photography, indicates a massive formation of armor, troops, and military aircraft: "heavily camouflaged, mechanized units comprising at least a brigade---3,000 troops or more"; "these forces appear to be equipped with heavy armor and artillery, supported by helicopter gunships." Once they are in artillery range, they will likely engage in annihilating shelling, which will compel the SPLA/N to withdraw or risk large numbers of casualties among civilians who have remained (a rapidly dwindling number).
"Anima's eyes flicker and weep as the doctor sews up the stump of his left arm, before he rolls back on the hospital bed, one of the latest victims in Sudan's relentless bombing campaign in Blue Nile state. Dr Evan Atar says he has done seven amputations since war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and fighters loyal to the SPLM-North in Blue Nile state last month. He has treated more than 600 others for shrapnel wounds. 'We are really now running out of supplies. We have been running here and there and crying.... But now where to get it from is really an issue,' he said. President Omar al-Bashir has blocked foreign aid agencies from entering Blue Nile and nearby South Kordofan state, where a separate conflict between the army and SPLM-North rebels has raged since June."
"Kurmuk's is the only hospital between neighbouring Ethiopia and Damazin ... and Dr Atar is the only doctor. He says the hospital will run out of vital supplies such as saline solution, cotton and gauze this week if no aid arrives, after using up six months' supplies in one [month]. In another hospital bed, 65-year-old Altom Osman is recovering from a deep shrapnel wound in his back and one in his arm after a bomb hit the village of Sali an hour north of Kurmuk. 'I was taking some sorghum flour to my wife. We were passing our farm and then the Antonov came immediately and bombed,' Osman whispered."
The song The Impossible Dream was sung beautifully by Brian Stokes Mitchell Friday night at Ted Kennedy's memorial service. The sound had some technical difficulties. Here is another time Mr. Mitchell sang The Impossible Dream.
......................................................... Brian Stokes Mitchell singing The Impossible Dream with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Click on the post's title to go to the Ted Kennedy special tribute website. At tedkennedy.org/pages/video_celebration_of_life_memorial_service can be found the song Just A Closer Walk With Thee performed by the Boston Community Chorus from the Ted Kennedy Memorial Service of August 28, 2009. Using the top video on the page - slide to 2:42:35 for the song.
It was good for my soul to watch the memorial and funeral services.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A comment
Vitriol appears all over the internet. Those who leave their vitriolic words in comments show what they carry around with them on the inside. Those comments are deleted here. This blog is not a place of any speech is okay place. Freedom of speech isn't a given here. Disagreement with me is not the issue. But, comments of disagreement are required to be delivered here with a sense of respect. I figure if you want the freedom to say anything you want in any way you want, you can create your own blog to do what ever you want. Here, this is like my home. You are a guest here.
There are those who love to hate. Love to drop their anger here and there. Love to put on the outside what they have on the inside. And it doesn't take too many words to show what kind of life is going on inside. There are plenty of places on the internet for them to find their soul mates. It just isn't here.
The most important things belong first, not last, or never.
In search of a new world,
the wings of the spirit must not be clipped.
The days of our lives must become precious.
In all heaven and earth,
there is this one thing to do:
take your time
Enjoy the perfection of what you are doing.
Enjoy accomplishing it exquisitely.
Human life must know ecstasy.
Intense beauty is liberation.
…Here again, as everywhere,
the great river passing –
I passing,
you passing . . .
. . . forever flowing down
through time,
flowing through many channels,
fading out of the embraces of
its names . . .
. . . simple as the voice of a child
and never to be quite known.
In this light and breeze are resurrection echoes.
Suddenly one becomes aware one lives in an eternity,
And hears strange footsteps
ascending anciently trodden pathways.
Our lives like dreams endure
and reach out over the universe.
Nothing real is to itself alone.
There are sidestreams to rivers,
there are overtones to thought.
Great love reaches out
and is involved in the world’s
purposes.
Our loves are only symbols of
an unknown immortality.
Where communion is deep,
there exists no separation at all,
for what needs telling those we
love is understood already,
and what is supposed to be
gone and past is often more real than ever.
Through the sculpture of experience,
that part of ourselves
which survives, like cloud, resolves continuously.
This is the spirit of my hope and my religion.
Cedric Wright
Words of the Earth
As I am writing my will and the words and music that I want to be included after my mortal body dies, I went to Cedric Wright's book of Words of the Earth. I have typed a portion of the book that I love. This book includes the beautiful photography art of the High Sierra wilderness country of Cedric Wright accompanied by the beautiful prose that he wrote.
On the inside book cover which was written by David Brower, San Francisco, September 28, 1960, a quote by Cedric Wright includes this:
I have been unusually privileged in knowing intimately those wilderness areas where the intangible values sing clearly......The artist seeks fundamental beauty, the voice of concord, in a world which is presently dominates by opposite types of understanding. Beauty and understanding are the foundations not only of art, but also of a peaceful human world. It is imperative that in such times, as these the artist should use his words and his thought in addition to his art."
I love my life. I love where I live. And I am passionate about my passions. I love to dance. Necessary to live: music, piano, singing, writing, acting, painting.
I have been fighting for and supporting the arts all my adult life. Since 2004, I have been working with other activists to end the Darfur genocide.
I have traveled to Europe many times since my early twenties. Places I have been: many USA states including Hawaii, Montreal, Canada, Barbados, France, Spain, Luxembourg, England, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Germany - and have wonderful memories.
My last trip was in May - June 2013 to Spain.
I would like to travel to Europe and Kyoto, Japan.
I love the southwest where I have visited Hopi, Navajo, Zia and San Idlefonso potters.
Life is exciting and I intend to live it full-out to the end.
B.S. and M.M., both in music
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Khartoum, Sudan Stop Genocide Time
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Spain Time
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Melbourne Time
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Hawaii Time
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RAFA NADAL -BRING BACK LONG PANTS - SLEEVELESS TOPS
Double Click on Videos to Enlarge
Darfur - The Abandoned Genocide - a video by Sandra Hammel
Want to help? Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
"May I Suggest" by Susan Werner
Satchita - Playing for Change
Stand By Me ~ Playing for Change
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Genocide is not only a word,
it is crying of the whole human race.
There is nothing redeeming about being silent
when speaking up is the humane thing to do.
The honor and integrity of the human race is at stake.
