The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
Because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
--Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

The Pulse Of God
The limbs of a tree reached
down and lifted me, thinking
I was it's child,
and
in the meadows
my spirit becomes so quiet
that if I put my cheek
against the earth's body
I feel the pulse of God,
"tell me the way you
do that birds....
enter the private chambers
of my Lord?"
and they all sang,
they just SANG.
I gathered it was time
to become a musician,
and I did.
Years passed, and the
sky reached down
one day and lifted
me
and the birds noticed and spoke,
"how do you enter
the sun like
that and
know
the
pulse
of
God?"
From Saint Thomas Aquinas

Prince Michael Angel

an original Poem by Clarlita Zarate

In Memory of Michael Jackson


In a kingdom of all colors
dwells our beloved brother.
He has made his home in heaven
above where moments are made of
dreams come true.

It is where the greatest power is love.
Michael is dancing with angels now.
They sing his songs
because, my lord,
it pleases you.

The virgin calls out to him,
"Young Michael."
Her eyes are soft and kind.
Then she asks him as she takes his hands,
"Are you lonely for something you left behind?"

Michael answers, "I miss my fans."

By Clarita Zarate
written for Michael Jackson, forever.

Los Angeles police under scrutiny in Jackson death
By LINDA DEUTSCH and THOMAS WATKINS, AP
L. Michael Jackson.Investigation

The rented home of Michael Jackson seen from the air, Monday, June 29, 2009,...


LOS ANGELES — The investigation of Michael Jackson's death is widening as questions intensify about the drugs he took, the doctors who provided them and the actions of police.

Why didn't police seal the mansion where he had been living? Why were moving vans seen at the home, and were any items removed before police wrapped up their search? Why didn't they get immediate search warrants? Why did they tow away a doctor's car right after the death but not declare the home a crime scene?

Los Angeles police say proper procedures were followed based on the circumstances officers encountered when they were called to the home at 12:21 p.m. on June 25. A doctor was attending to Jackson and stayed with him when he was placed in an ambulance at 1:07 p.m. There was no sign of foul play.

Others say police should have assumed it was possible a crime occurred and taken precautions to ensure the scene was not disrupted so evidence wasn't lost or tainted.

"If I was the chief detective on the case, I would have said, 'We don't know what's going on. We should seal the scene,'" said defense attorney Harland Braun, who has represented celebrities including Robert Blake, Roseanne and Gary Busey. "You always have to think of the worst-case scenario and you have to think fast. I would have sealed the scene just because it was Michael Jackson."

Whether the Jackson probe turns into a criminal investigation hinges on what evidence emerges involving the drugs. Charges could be brought if authorities determine Jackson had been overly prescribed medications, if he had been given drugs inappropriate for his medical needs, or if doctors knowingly prescribed Jackson medications under an assumed name.

It's still not known what caused Jackson's death at age 50. The pop star went into cardiac arrest in his bedroom and his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, performed CPR while an ambulance was called, according to Murray's lawyers. Murray has spoken to police and authorities say he is not a suspect, though his actions have come under scrutiny because his own lawyers acknowledge it may have taken up to a half-hour for an ambulance to be summoned.

An autopsy was conducted but results are not expected for several weeks. The Jackson family had a second autopsy performed and those results also are pending.

On Wednesday, The Associated Press learned Los Angeles police asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to assist in the investigation.

DEA agents participated in the investigation of the 2007 overdose death of Anna Nicole Smith at a Florida hotel. California Attorney General Jerry Brown investigated her former boyfriend and two of her doctors.

Brown handed the investigation over to the Los Angeles district attorney's office, which filed charges of conspiring to provide Smith with prescription drugs.

Brown said the suspects broke the law because Smith was a "known addict." The former boyfriend and doctors denied the charges.

The DEA also probed whether painkillers found in actor Heath Ledger's system after his death last year were obtained illegally. Federal prosecutors did not charge anyone.

Jean Rosenbluth, a University of Southern California law professor, said the agency's involvement in the Jackson case suggests authorities are looking into whether drugs came from out of state. Murray lives in Las Vegas and is licensed to practice in Texas, Nevada and California.

Federal drug regulations include controls over whether and how frequently a doctor can write prescriptions over the phone, and DEA agents could be looking to see if these rules were broken, Rosenbluth said.

"You can't just get on the phone and continue to prescribe something for someone without having seen them for a long period of time," she said.

Jackson had a well-known history of using prescription medications, especially painkillers. Following his death, Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who had worked for Jackson, told the AP she repeatedly rejected his demands for the drug Diprivan, also known as Propofol. It's a potent anesthetic used in operating rooms and it would be highly unusual to have it in a private home.

Uri Geller, a former Jackson confidant, said he tried to keep Jackson from abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs, but others in the singer's circle kept him supplied.

"When Michael asked for something, he got it," Geller said in a telephone interview from his suburban London home.

Jackson had multiple doctors and many others like Geller who came in and out of his life. Which people are being interviewed by police is unclear because the LAPD has said virtually nothing about the probe.

"I am not going to make any comments on the investigation," Commander Patrick Gannon, the designated police spokesman on the Jackson case, said by e-mail Thursday.

Any evidence would be turned over to the district attorney's office, which has final say on criminal charges.

One of the key questions is why it took four days for police to issue a search warrant and remove medications from Jackson's home.

Although the home wasn't declared a crime scene, police did tow Murray's car the evening of the death to look for potential evidence.

Vernon J. Geberth, former commanding officer of the Bronx Homicide Task force in New York, said police should have known they were dealing with an extraordinary situation.

"If it's a high-profile person, you have to do more than you would do ordinarily," he said.

Still, Geberth, who now acts as a private forensic consultant, said he believes the LAPD acted appropriately.

"Having a doctor present altered the equation. It was not a homicide scene. It was an emergency medical scene," he said.

Police spokesman Lt. John Romero declined to comment when asked if the LAPD was reviewing its handling of the investigation.

Rosenbluth said if the case ends up as a criminal prosecution, any defense attorney would seize on the LAPD's failure to immediately seal Jackson's home.

"If you can get even one juror think, I don't know, maybe somebody fiddled with the medicine before the police came in and collected it, that's reasonable doubt," she said. "All that the defense attorney needs is one juror."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

It brings Joy to my heart to hear that Michael Jackson wills complete and sole custody of his children to his mother!!!.
I am grateful to him for the beautiful music and for leaving a third of his great fortune to charity. I pray that it goes straight to the needy children he wants it given to.
RIP dear Michael
I know you are with angels!
Clarita

Whatever My President decides is ok with me. It is the first time in my life I have ever trusted and felt affection for a president and his family!
May they always stay blessed!

Since I was six months old, I was a fan of Michael Jackson. He was the best. I just can't describe how I felt when I heard the news of his death...............

opama .. and The pyramids and sphinx

The Scorpion and the Frog

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"

"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.

"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"

"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"

"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.

"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back.

"I could not help myself. It is my nature."

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

Self destruction - "Its my Nature", said the Scorpion...
An Interesting article regarding this fable

The frog is altruistic I read somewhere and that is you and I. But we also need to be pragmatic and realistic. It is the nature of people to act as who they are. People do not change their basic character and it is not always easy to identify the scorpions as they disguise themselves very well. So you do what President Reagan said about the Russians when they agreed to dismantle their nuclear arsenal. You trust but verify. You never give strangers access to money or decision making with out a long time of proving themselves, that you always have two signatures and you have a board of directors approve all decisions. That is how NGO’s and business operates. You can trust with small things. If someone does not justify, explain, show proof in details, or defers or deflects and does not answer, that is not ethical, professional, in any culture of the world. People have different customs, but if they are sincere they will prove it that is culturally appropriate but they will show they are friends and trustworthy. Trust your instincts. You have a rare ability to see where so many are blind. Trust the sight that comes from your heart and not your eyes alone.

The Calf-Path

by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

All the teenage members out here, how many of you would like to write for a new online literary e-zine? Please reply back. I have got a plan....................and even those who write for teenagers but are adults themselves , please reply.

Creating a lot of sensationalism and news stories on so called epidemics
is a way of overthrowing a government. A couple of hundred deaths worldwide from this disease is hardly a reason for global panic. It is an old military tactic that puts fear in people and causes discrimination. Dividing them is a trick they use to put a corrupt government in power through the use of fear, control, isolation, intimidation of present leaders[ by making them look incapable of taking care of the people], and creating great financial difficulties that threaten their society. It has been going on for ages. If people buy into these dirty tricks they will be very sorry afterwards. What comes to them once the corrupt regime has established itself, by creating chaos, is far worse than anything they could ever have imagined.

At Cal, global poverty minor's hot, humane
Reyhan Harmanci, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, April 10, 2009

UC Berkeley senior Emma Shaw-Crane is graduating in May with a degree in interdisciplinary studies and a Fulbright scholarship that will take her to Bogotá, Colombia. But she says that if it weren't for the university's newly established global poverty and practice minor, she might not have made it through her four years of study.

"I came into Cal thinking I'd fail out. I was partly schooled in Mexico, and I didn't know how to read and write in English," says Shaw-Crane, 23. "The minor was really, hugely important. I don't think I would have cut it if I hadn't been able to take classes based on what I was interested in and absolutely love."

Led by city and regional planning Professor Ananya Roy, who is curriculum director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and bolstered by 21st century service ideals, the global poverty and practice minor has become the school's fastest-growing minor. Sixty students will graduate with the credential this spring, as opposed to seven in 2007-08, its inaugural school year. Roy says that the fall's enrollment is 210, which could make it the campus' most popular field of secondary specialization.

At the heart of the curriculum, which includes the mandatory class Global Poverty: Challenges & Hopes in the New Millennium, is "the practice" - an opportunity for students to take their learning into real-world situations. The practice has led students around the globe, from South America to Africa to the Caribbean to Oakland, where they work on a wide range of issues: housing, health care, urban planning, infrastructure and gender equity.

"The Blum Center had been in existence for a couple of years, and I was focused on poverty alleviation - there's a set of projects that I run - and there was a sense on campus that we should also involve our undergrads in greater numbers," Roy says of the birth of the minor. "Many people in this generation are already doing this kind of work. We wanted to support that work and possibly train them."

Don't think, though, that either the professors or the students have any illusions about ending or solving poverty. "We want our students to be useful, but this is so much about what they learn from the experience that they are transformed, particularly as young Americans," Roy says.

Developing organizations and projects that won't disappear when a practice ends is another goal of the minor. Jonathan Lee, 21, a graduating senior from Pleasanton, plans to continue work on his nonprofit. Tentatively called Community Health Development in Honduras, the nonprofit has garnered national attention and landed Lee a spot in this year's Clinton Global Initiative University program.

Lee first heard about the global poverty and practice minor from a professor in another department, who thought it would align well with his previous work as a volunteer for Global Medical Brigades in Honduras. "I did a service learning trip with a group that helped to provide health care (in 2007)," he says. "I came back from the trip very frustrated, angry and confused, but hopeful. I switched to a public health major. I was interested in medicine but felt like my major wasn't doing anything to address what I had seen in Honduras."

Lee went back to Honduras for his practice, working on a new model for providing health services to remote areas. With two other Berkeley grads, he helped train people in preventive health care methods and to use cell phone technology to form a community health network.

"The basic platform is to empower communities to improve their health care," Lee says, calling the lack of medical care a "pathology of poverty." "The probabilities of a child dying in a rural area is 1.5 times more than in urban areas."

The minor is, by design, heavily interdisciplinary. City and regional planning Professor Jason Corburn, for instance, will be taking 10 students to Nairobi this summer to work on a multifaceted project in Kenya's second-largest slum.

Because of a plan to clean up the Nairobi River, an estimated 120,000 people will be displaced and Berkeley will work with University of Nairobi students and local nonprofits to help alleviate the situation. After their trip, Corburn will lead a class on follow-up action, creating and submitting proposals to the local government and to the United Nations.

"We are in a position of privilege as UC Berkeley students and faculty coming from a rich country and we spent a year or more building trust with a local community-based organization, really listening to what their needs are," Corburn says. "What privileged people can best do is support their ongoing work - don't shape or dictate, but support."

E-mail Reyhan Harmanci at dateletters@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Creative energy brings you
to it
and it will bring you
through it.
Clarita

Not to long after my step father passed on I joined tig. The years have passed rapidly. I feel like an old member now!
Everyone in my family loved Bob, my stepfather, because he was a kind and unique individual. When he left us we knew we would really miss him. He had muscular dystrophy and it finally got the best of him. I still remember the day before he died the news had announced that Sadam Husen been captured.
I was so impressed with the way my mother told her dream I was inspired to make a piece of art out of it.
In the dream my mother was standing in a new house that Bob was showing her. She said the house was very nice and she liked it a lot. Then he led her down some stairs and she found herself in a small glass room that had a small bed and a book to read. The walls were glass and you could see the ocean on all four sides. She felt frightened in the dream but Bob told her not to be. He looked young and healthy as he stood there in front of her. He told her it was a place to rest for a while, to be calm. and that it was good. This calmed her down and she woke up feeling happy about the visit because she loved him very much!
I had a lot of difficulty searching for an image of a glass room on the internet that I could use to inspire me with the picture I wanted to make. I had never joined any internet sites and didn't plan to but there I was all of a sudden on taking it global. I don't know how I got there and why I joined so quickly, it wasn't like me! When I went back to read the fine print, which I usually read, I realized the community of artist and global matters I had joined was for young people. That was what I thought at least after reading everything carefully. I was wondering how it was that I acted so quickly and got glass house out of "taking it global". Especially after searching for hours and only finding about three pictures. None of the images were what I had in mind to use for an idea. Well, I thought, tig accepted me so I must be within their requirements, I told the truth about my age! As I got to know the community I realized that there were other people my age and that youth was the main focus. I was very happy about this. I felt so welcome by everyone and have made the greatest friends I could ever make! I have a son from Ghana now because of this site. He is wonderful and brings much joy into my life. We communicate in English. He is teaching me Dagbani and I am teaching him Spanish. I have brothers and sisters on tig that I feel as if I had grown up with. I have shared tears and laughter with them. We have helped one another.
This is my favorite site and I can only hope to meet you if you are reading this because all people who come here are pulled here by a beautiful energy.
As far as the dream....the glass walls are the directions I travel when I see all my friends [my global family] and we share our dreams. The book ......that is the story of humanity and myself. Our loves, our tears, our success, our loss, our truth....
The resting for a while....a time to reflect....
the house upstairs....our chance to work together to realize harmony and unity together on one planet as one family.
My mother/parents.....An angel who gave me the opportunity to see my humanity....my family on earth
My stepfather....An angel who brought me a message. One that I followed and found to be the most important decision I have made in my life.
This is why I am here sharing my dream with you.
May peace be with you always!
Clarita