Research

Research
Reflective Musings
I spent several days in the second week of July at Yale Divinity attending a conference on "Practical Wisdom." The conference was intended for academics as well as CEOs. It was wonderful to experience the passion with which the presenters spoke about the wisdom of including wisdom (i.e.spirituality) in their business practices as well as developing courses for MBA programs that deal with spirituality and culture in the workplace. More on that in the months to follow.

From Yale onto, of course, Manhattan where i was able to catch Tony Award Winning actress.Cicely Tyson on Broadway in The Trip to Bountiful.

And yes,I love traveling, but I have to admit that I was ecstatic when my plane landed me safely at LAX. It was the next day that I heard, as everyone else did, the verdict of the Zimmerman-Martin trial. From my desert oasis, I just sighed and went online to catch the rhetoric that I knew would be coming from media giants as well as FACEBOOK friends. And I felt tired. Not deflated or angry or sad just tired. I read many op-eds that said familiar things like what if the white man had gotten shot and the black man arrested, would the verdict have been different?

Then it dawned on me. Everyone, myself included, was looking at this one trial as a source justice, but justice for different causes. What was this trial representing? Stand your own ground? How far or not far race relations have come in America? What is the value of life? Is one's life value reflected in one's skin tone?

If the verdict had been guilty would the value of African Americans have been increased? Would the value of Anglo Americans have been decreased? Can this one event actually answer these questions?

America is a country that was built on genocide and slavery and it thrives on systemic racism. This is America's karma. And I guess if the Buddhists are correct we, all Americans, will continue working on this karma until we have worked it out. And it will take more than one trial. it was awesome to have the President speak out about racism and even more enlightening to see Senator McCain actually agreeing with President Obama. We've come a long way, baby. But there are miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep... to paraphrase Robert Frost. This is just another opportunity to take inventory on what is still to be done.

...Kundalini Rising: Queen of Sheba Wisdom, the Tree of Life and Multidimensionality