Myfamilycallsme Pancho and I'd like you to know that I love you all... including hermanas Gurita and Pavititita who are today more present in our hearts.
The passage and the insights shared in the circle brought to my heart/mind a conversation I had recently with and inspiring teacher. It could be told as a single "story-telling" but I'd like to split it in 3 points:
1. Keeping an Open Mind/Heart.
2. Humbled by the Purity of Silence.
3. The Ultimate Perfection: Wholeness.
1. Keeping an Open Mind/Heart. Everything serendipitously started at a place where the motto reads: "growing in generosity". The Karma Kitchen. Indeed, you'll never know how our hearts will be touched by the ripples of kindness. Our dear brother Richard Witthaker, who runs the gift-economy magazine Works & Conversations, has a special skill to connect with people at the SOULlular level. So he did it once again. This time he connected with sister Susan Schaller.
If you, beloved reader, would be willing to be touched beyond the world of words (literally, pun intended ;-)), I invite you to read the whole conversation between siblings Richard and Susan. It is called: Leap of Faith, the Story of a Contemporary Miracle. Take your time to read it. I predict that, in some degree, it will enrich your spirit.
Sister Susan was told by academics that if you haven't learned language by three or four years old, you can't really learn it the same way. Some people say you can learn it up to about the age ten.
But sister Susan kept an open mind/heart, she cultivated her critical thinking/feeling and when she met a 27 year old deaf languageless man, Ildefonso, her truly scientific spirit was rewarded:
"He did not know sound existed! And he was never exposed to a visual language, and he's a visual person. When I met this man he was twenty-seven years old. Because he didn't know there was sound, because he didn't know he was deaf, he didn't know there was hearing and deafness. He studied lips and mouths. He knew something was happening. He's a very smart man. He'd be staring at lips. He'd stare at your mouth and he'd stare at this person's lips and he thought he was stupid. He thought he was stupid because he thought we had figured this mouth movement stuff out visually. Why can't I get it? He thought he was stupid. He had no idea we were making sounds... He didn't know what language was. All of his life he had survived by copying people (by miming)."
If you read the whole interview you will have a glance of the magic of sister Susan to communicate with hermano Ildefonso. After 27 years, she and her open mind/heart facilitated the learning of Ildefonso's first language.
In the Bay Area inspiring stories spread fast, so I was aware of this part of Susan's story when she decided to show up at the Metta Center's Hope Tank.
2. Humbled by the Purity of Silence.
Once brother Ildenfonso started learning sign language we wanted to learn the sings for everything!
What follows is one of the most touching stories I've heard in my 34 laps around the Sun. It is a story of hope; a story of a celebration of the human spirit; a living evidence of the Grand Human family.
At the Hope Tank, I asked sister Susan how she explained to him history and the non-sense borders humans draw in the dirt. She said:
"He couldn't understand the concept of 'country' though. One day, he was excited and very confused, so he rolled his sleeves and mine to show the contrast of the color of our skins, and he signed: why in 'dark skin land' I starve but in 'light skin land' I don't?
I was humbled by the wisdom of this migrant brother. I am humbled by the purity of silence. What a blissful state to be shielded from prejudices and divisions! No need to go to church or to live in an ashram or to write a best seller book or to live the revolution or to meditate for hours or to live in a tree or to protest with a hunger strike or to win a historic presidential election... he didn't need anything of that, he was already there. Since day one.
27 years in silence kept intact the soul of this man, and his oneness nature flooded my eyes with tears of joy.
Many of us, not as lucky as brother Ildefonso, need to Be in Receptive Silence a few hours a day to connect with this oneness source. That's what we're doing in these magic Wednesdays.
3. The Ultimate Perfection: Wholeness.
This story of hermano Ildefonso humbled my spirit and reminded me to strive for the soul of life in perfection, in ultimate perfection. Ultimate perfection has a way of protecting itself by always showing us there are a few more details to finish.
Are we capable to educate the hearts of our children with the music heard by hermano Ildefonso?
The Earth is but ONE country and the biodiversity its citizens.
May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.
On Sep 3, 2009 Pancho wrote :
My family calls me Pancho and I'd like you to know that I love you all... including hermanas Gurita and Pavititita who are today more present in our hearts.
The passage and the insights shared in the circle brought to my heart/mind a conversation I had recently with and inspiring teacher. It could be told as a single "story-telling" but I'd like to split it in 3 points:
1. Keeping an Open Mind/Heart.
2. Humbled by the Purity of Silence.
3. The Ultimate Perfection: Wholeness.
1. Keeping an Open Mind/Heart.
Everything serendipitously started at a place where the motto reads: "growing in generosity". The Karma Kitchen. Indeed, you'll never know how our hearts will be touched by the ripples of kindness. Our dear brother Richard Witthaker, who runs the gift-economy magazine Works & Conversations, has a special skill to connect with people at the SOULlular level. So he did it once again. This time he connected with sister Susan Schaller.
If you, beloved reader, would be willing to be touched beyond the world of words (literally, pun intended ;-)), I invite you to read the whole conversation between siblings Richard and Susan. It is called: Leap of Faith, the Story of a Contemporary Miracle. Take your time to read it. I predict that, in some degree, it will enrich your spirit.
Sister Susan was told by academics that if you haven't learned language by three or four years old, you can't really learn it the same way. Some people say you can learn it up to about the age ten.
But sister Susan kept an open mind/heart, she cultivated her critical thinking/feeling and when she met a 27 year old deaf languageless man, Ildefonso, her truly scientific spirit was rewarded:
"He did not know sound existed! And he was never exposed to a visual language, and he's a visual person. When I met this man he was twenty-seven years old. Because he didn't know there was sound, because he didn't know he was deaf, he didn't know there was hearing and deafness. He studied lips and mouths. He knew something was happening. He's a very smart man. He'd be staring at lips. He'd stare at your mouth and he'd stare at this person's lips and he thought he was stupid. He thought he was stupid because he thought we had figured this mouth movement stuff out visually. Why can't I get it? He thought he was stupid. He had no idea we were making sounds... He didn't know what language was. All of his life he had survived by copying people (by miming)."
If you read the whole interview you will have a glance of the magic of sister Susan to communicate with hermano Ildefonso. After 27 years, she and her open mind/heart facilitated the learning of Ildefonso's first language.
In the Bay Area inspiring stories spread fast, so I was aware of this part of Susan's story when she decided to show up at the Metta Center's Hope Tank.
2. Humbled by the Purity of Silence.
Once brother Ildenfonso started learning sign language we wanted to learn the sings for everything!
What follows is one of the most touching stories I've heard in my 34 laps around the Sun. It is a story of hope; a story of a celebration of the human spirit; a living evidence of the Grand Human family.
At the Hope Tank, I asked sister Susan how she explained to him history and the non-sense borders humans draw in the dirt. She said:
I was humbled by the wisdom of this migrant brother. I am humbled by the purity of silence. What a blissful state to be shielded from prejudices and divisions! No need to go to church or to live in an ashram or to write a best seller book or to live the revolution or to meditate for hours or to live in a tree or to protest with a hunger strike or to win a historic presidential election... he didn't need anything of that, he was already there. Since day one.
27 years in silence kept intact the soul of this man, and his oneness nature flooded my eyes with tears of joy.
Many of us, not as lucky as brother Ildefonso, need to Be in Receptive Silence a few hours a day to connect with this oneness source. That's what we're doing in these magic Wednesdays.
3. The Ultimate Perfection: Wholeness.
This story of hermano Ildefonso humbled my spirit and reminded me to strive for the soul of life in perfection, in ultimate perfection. Ultimate perfection has a way of protecting itself by always showing us there are a few more details to finish.
Are we capable to educate the hearts of our children with the music heard by hermano Ildefonso?
The Earth is but ONE country and the biodiversity its citizens.
May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.