Looking For Treasures ..."

It's been a long, hot summer and the heat has kept me hiding indoors a lot more than usual. Nature-loving me spent a lot of time hosing down the plants and filling the birdbath. The man who faithfully comes to mow the lawn has lately been mostly raising clouds of dust out of the mottled areas of brown grass.

But I'm finding little jewels among the last vestiges of summer.  Young zinnia plants still popping up through the dry soil and then, somehow bravely producing flowers.  Birds showing up at the birdbath.  Butterflies of many colors that seemingly come from nowhere, doing what looks like the show-biz finale where all the cast comes on stage for the grand bow. Those are some of the works and wonders of Nature.  I even saw a late-season lightning bug the other evening.

In the totally human world, with politics and war news occupying so much of what we read, see, and hear, sometimes I need to just turn away from it and invest in what I'll call "hope". Hope, for me, is a supreme treasure, a rescuing spiritual vehicle ... for me it can be found in reading inspirational quotes, gazing up at the blue sky, watching the dawn climb and glide over the horizon, seeing a comical magazine cartoon, sending money to one of the many animal rescue organizations (http://animalministry.blogspot.com), spending meditative time -- at my piano or keyboard, meditative time while walking among stands of trees, and perhaps the most serious meditative time in the sanctuary of my designated meditation/breathing room.  Hope, for me, is getting the inspiration for a new song. I don't think I've mentioned my newest song "Early In The Morning", recorded at Songwriters Studio a month or two ago. It almost wrote itself one morning while I was waking up (morning is my most creative time). I put it up on Sound Cloud and Reverbnation. It's also on a CD single with a beautiful label created by Sandy. It's also on my revised personal website at www.claralandau.com. For me, that song is loaded with hope!

Anyway, hope is one of the most important by-products and treasures of love. "Peace is the vision; love is the key" is one of my original quotes; the other two are "we are all in the same cosmic canoe" and "whatever works"; I think the three of them are quite compatible. Let's look for the real treasures and help them to endure.

Ode To Harmony--Much More Than A Song

The harmony of the spheres and as above, so below.
Hear my Ode To Harmony lyric set to music on the song page of my website at www.claralandau.com. Copyright 2010 Clara Landau.

Spirit, spirit, spirit sings. Clears my mind of noisy things.
Gone now, clashings, Fears can cease.
Welcome, welcome ... sweet, sweet peace.

With compassion I will try, To ease the pain of those who cry.
When some wrongness, harm I see,
I won't turn away, uncaringly.

Make it right, I'll try my best, Til it's right I cannot rest.
Make it right, I'll do my best,
In the doing, I am blest.

Love can blossom like a flower ... Fill us with an awesome power!

Freedom, freedom, freedom rings! Spirit, spirit, spirit sings!
Wondrous harmonies release ...
Each and all to sweet, sweet peace.

My vision: A world in which the people of all races, faiths, and demographics and the animals of all species (flying, crawling, running, walking, swimming, slithering, galloping, hopping), all the flora and fauna of Nature and Creation ... will live according to the divine truism that we are all part of each other, connected at a cellular level. In the beauty of that light, we would/could/will find that love, compassion, cooperation, and respect can sustain and protect us (all).

Why the U.S. Needs Obama as President --

I encourage you to vote and to vote early, avoid the election-day lines. I voted for Obama. I voted for Obama because I feel that those of us who didn’t put Bush into office deserve an intelligent and caring president who will try his utmost to give us a chance for economic, ethical, environmental, and health-care respite, restoration, and renewal. We need him to help us rise out of the quagmire (actually a hellish cesspool) that the present administration has sunk us into; eight years of horrible damage in every category. Actually, at this point, probably almost everybody in our country deserves a respite, restoration, and renewal. I say "almost" because I still see vehicles with the "W" bumper stickers on them. These next eleven days will probably see a lot of dirt flying out of the McCain camp, more phony stunts like Joe the plumber. It is sad that a significant number of our citizens seem to fall in line behind such gimmicks to manipulate the rank and file. It would be nice (and healthy) if each of us, as Americans, could and would raise his/her self-image as a person (and realize our individual and collective potential to be part of the process of making things better). If enough of us do that, together we really can have the vision of a better country and a better world.