As the President of the Holyoke Teachers Association I plan on using this page to keep everyone informed about everything going on with Holyoke Teachers.
HARI MENON was born in Kuwait, the third and youngest of three children, where his father was working as an expatriate, initial schooling was carried out there and then returned to India, where he further did his Secondary Schooling in a Convent school and, his undergraduation in Science, switched channels and took a Baccalaureate in Commerce and so became a second generation accountant (his father being one himself). Higher professional education was pursued and qualified as a Chartered Accountant .
Work and career began at at an early age of 18 and the bulk of working life was in the middle east in various countries – UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and a short stint in Nigeria. Over two or three stints abroad. Given to the liking for the psychical at a very early age, at the age of 32 decided that the world had nothing more to offer, gave up the idea of hearth and home parents and wealth and, moved on in a very determined manner to the soul and spirituality side of life Took initiation from a lesser known person, practised for a year and then took up sannyasa as per vedic rites having been given the name of “ Swami Dhyananada Saraswati”– living in ashrams and a short sojourn in the Himalayas (really short – the winter was upsetting) returned to ashram and continued practices.
Disillusioned by the various malpractices and wrong information within this sphere of human studies, left for home as a sannyasi but resident at home – The Mahabharata prescribes this method quite strongly. I was laso lucky in that both my parents were full fledged yogis unknown to others but who lived fully knowing themselves and others. It has had its effects on me also quite naturally .
Having been single and travelled extensively to various ancient civilizations much of the esoteric was instilled during his childhood and youth. Given to deep thinking on events occurring to oneself and having keenly felt the “need to know” as to “why” and “what”. Has travelled and imbibed the air and sun of Ancient Greece, Persepolis, Heliopolis, Egypt, the Mediterranean islands, Constantinople, Levant and middle east and India and the raw natural energy emanating from Africa. The excerpt (from my book) tells everything -
All these meditations may be said to have been written as a person recovering from an unwanted illness. It has been arduous not to say the least; it has taken me the better part of 20 long years of convalescence if I may be permitted to say so. Mostly written in pain and deep thought, they may seem abstruse to a reader .But these were necessary where at times the hyper use of blocked judgement and reason were involved. Someone who has not gone through a similar period of extreme agony would not have any reason to even go through these meditations. At times they have been helpful in nursing me back to my health, and at times quite surprising in themselves as to their content. Each one of these meditations has been written more in a therapeutic vein than for any open public readership. They follow a common thread, viz one of recovery which no doctor can help but one reaches into one’s own depths and reserves and pulls one out. The ideas may be familiar to readers of philosophy, but then it is understandably so as to some extent philosophy has been relied upon. It is surprising to me that I am alive at all, the intrusions have taken its toll and, sometimes I wonder at the very use of it all. The saddest part is in that, of what took place in my life or a majority of the incidents of the last 20 years have been totally unnecessary and point to a supreme lack of regard for life and its continuance within the ethos of this one country and world .
Whatever good may ultimately emerge from all these exercises , one thing is certain , one has forever lost regard for the country and world and places in which these incidents took place and nothing will ever wipe away either the pain or meaninglessness of the very violence inherent in whatever was extended as teachings of a higher nature .
“Arjuna, everything exists as an idea within me, but really speaking,
Neither am I in them nor they in me “. – Bhagavad Gita
“................and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any sophist , and that I did not waste my time on writers of histories, or in the resolution of syllogisms, or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in the heavens , for all these things require the help of the gods and fortune...........................” - Marcus Aurelius
Having been my “own doctor” and as the Upanishads proclaim - ......if so done , he cannot be set right by any doctor .........
Having started out as a youth aged 28 brimming with hope and now 53 wiser and fuller as a human being – my travails, travels, and background helped me – with help from people I know in distant lands yet unconnected physically , but only by understanding and understanding alone.
Presently I work to earn a living , do not save , at heart I am a sannyasi , I have had only one guru (myself ) and one excellent teacher and his demonstrations (which count for nothing in the light of ignorance). I have lost nothing but all my youth and productive years- the result is gratifying so one does not complain .
Most of all I am myself and know myself through and through – which is really what we all crave for . My credo “The impossibility of One Being another” . No question is too hard anymore , no answer too soft .
Karen Doonan is an author, channel and spiritual counselor who works to reveal TRUTH to the human race through her channeled messages and expansive information channeled through GOD. ALL JUST IS and WE ARE and the human race are now moving from Ascension into Evolution and Karen works to translate this process into everyday human language in order to help the human race understand what this evolution involves. Karen is here to help birth the New Earth which has always existed but was hidden from the human race by the lower dimensional frequencies which Karen refers to as the old 3D earth. We now move into a new way of living and being and we do this through validation of personal physical experience. Karen has walked this process and shares this process in order to physically show TRUTH at a human physical waking mind level. "LOVE is the answer, no matter the question" - (c) Karen Doonan.
Karen Doonan
Author, Channel and Spiritual Counselor
"LOVE is the answer, no matter the question" (c) Karen Doonan
2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
Why I Am On Gaza Freedom Flotilla 3 | By Ann Wright
I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and retired as a Colonel. I was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.
In my 2003 letter of resignation from the U.S. government in opposition to U.S. President Bush’s war on Iraq, I cited the “continuing unbalanced policies of the United States in Israeli-Palestinian issues” as one of my major concerns on U.S. foreign policy.
I had had an assignment in the Middle East. My first experience in Palestine was in January 2009 when I travelled to Gaza and saw the brutal destruction of much of Gaza by the Israeli attack and the deaths of over 1400 persons. Afterwards, I helped organize 5 delegations to Gaza in 2009, including the Gaza Freedom March with 1300 participants from 30 countries. I returned to Gaza in 2011 as a part of an international parliamentary delegation and again in 2012 after the Israeli attack on Gaza. I was a passenger on the Challenger 1 boat in the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla in which the Israeli commandos executed 9 persons on the Mavi Marmara (a 10th person has now died from his injuries) and wounded over 50 and beat up passengers on each of the six boats in the flotilla. I was an organizer for the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, in the 2011 Gaza Freedom Flotilla and an initial organizer for Gaza’s Ark.
I am horrified by the brutal 55 day Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014 that left over 2,200 dead and 10,000 wounded and much of the country in ruins. I am equally horrified by the lack of international assistance for the people of Gaza during this past year and by the impunity that Israel has in the international community for the criminal acts it has committed on the people of Gaza and the West Ban.
I am participating again in another Gaza Freedom Flotilla because I am totally and completely opposed to the continuous Israeli naval blockade of Gaza and the U.S. complicity in the frequent massive Israeli attacks on the people of Gaza. Without the approval of the United States and the military weaponry from the United States, Israel would be unable to continue its military destruction of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. As a concerned citizen of this planet, the least I can do is challenge Israel and my country, the United States, by this flotilla.
October 05, 2016
Zaytouna-Oliva taken in International Waters: Whereabouts of Participants Unknown
For the most up-to-date information, follow Women's Boat to Gaza on Twitter or check their website for ongoing updates.
Update: Women to be "deported"/Details Emerge About Capture.
This afternoon, the Women's Boat to Gaza was making good progress to the shores and the women were emotional about meeting all the people in Gaza who were waiting for them. Some of the Palestinians had spent the night at the beach to greet them.
At 9:58 (EST) organizers lost total contact with the Zaytouna-Oliva. The US embassy confirmed that the boat was intercepted. At this time organizers do not know where occupants of the boat are being held.
It is important to know that this happened in international waters and it is not only illegal but sets a bad precedent in giving a greenlight for other nations to attack civilian ships in international waters. The Zaytouna-Oliva was carrying no material aid. This was by design because Israel, as a premise for their attacks, would claim that weapons and contraband were on board. The owner of Zaytouna-Oliva is Israeli.
Ann Wright is a decorated former US diplomat, a member of Veterans For Peace and on our Advisory Board. On board with her were three parliamentarians, an Olympic athlete and Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire. They were committed to nonviolence as much as they were committed to breaking the blockade.
Ann has traveled thousands of miles and made a great sacrifice for human rights.
Unlike other nations that have women on the boat, we Americans provide military equipment to Israel that may very well have been used against Ann and our international friends. The blockade on Gaza must end!
SR. MEGAN RICE - Born in N.Y.C., a member of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus since 1950. Serving as a teacher in the US until 1962 and until 2003 in West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana). In 2005 joined the staff of Nevada Desert Experience, an interfaith Peace movement for non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons and war.
Sister Megan Rice, Freed From Prison, Looks Ahead to More Anti-Nuclear Activism
By WILLIAM J. BROAD MAY 26, 2015
From The New York Times nytimes.com/2015/05/27/science/sister-megan-rice-anti-nuclear-weapons-activist-freed-from-prison.html
For more than a year, Sister Megan Rice, 85, a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, had caught occasional glimpses of the glittering World Trade Center from her living quarters: the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal prison on the Brooklyn waterfront.
So when the Volvo she was riding in one morning last week crested the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the skyscraper came into full view, it made a strong impression.
“Oh, my gosh,” Sister Rice exclaimed. Drinking in the scenery and the panorama of New York Harbor, she added, “We’re well on our way.”
It was her fifth day of freedom after two years behind bars for a crime for which she is boldly unapologetic. In 2012, she joined two other peace activists in splattering blood and antiwar slogans on a nuclear plant in Tennessee that holds enough highly enriched uranium to make thousands of nuclear warheads. All three were convicted and sent to prison. But on May 8, an appellate court ruled that the government had overreached in charging them with sabotage, and ordered them set free.
Sister Rice and two other activists broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which holds highly enriched uranium. The government charged them with sabotage after they splattered the building with blood and antiwar slogans. Credit U.S. Government, via Getty Images
Since her release on May 16, Sister Rice, a Manhattan native, had been reconnecting with family and friends, as well as seeing doctors, lawyers and reporters. She took time to visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and she made her first purchase: peanut butter frozen yogurt topped with hot fudge.
Now, dressed in a sweatsuit that fellow inmates had given her, the nun was traveling to the American headquarters of her order in Rosemont, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. The agenda was to confer with her superiors about her future — one in which she plans to continue her antinuclear activism. One threat was that the federal government might challenge the recent ruling and try to have her thrown back in prison.
“It would be an honor,” Sister Rice said during the ride. “Good Lord, what would be better than to die in prison for the antinuclear cause?”
Her family and friends seemed slightly agog at her fiery commitment and rabble-rousing energy after so much time in jail.
“It’s unbelievable,” said a cousin with whom the nun is staying, who asked that her name be withheld to avoid unwanted attention. “I would be semicomatose.”
At the wheel of the Volvo on the drive to Rosemont was Roberta Pyzel, a New York filmmaker, who joked and bantered with her friend Sister Rice and a reporter, at one point extolling the merits of road food. She urged the nun to expand her palate: “You can’t live on peanut butter yogurt for the rest of your life.”
Sister Rice, thin but seemingly healthy, was in high spirits and voluble as she talked about her religious order, her atomic radicalization, her life in prison and what may come next.
Even before she broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Sister Rice had been arrested dozens of times for acts of civil disobedience. She and other peace activists once blocked a truck rumbling across a nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. Twice, she served six-month jail sentences.
The pacifists belong to the Plowshares movement, a loose, mostly Christian group that seeks the global elimination of nuclear arms.
The Tennessee action took place on a Saturday night in July 2012. Sister Rice, then 82, Michael Walli, 63, and Gregory Boertje-Obed, 57, cut through barbed-wire fences at the Oak Ridge complex. Making their way to the inner sanctum, full of uranium, they splashed human blood on the windowless building, spray-painted its walls with peace slogans, hammered at its concrete base and draped it in crime-scene tape.
After being convicted in May 2013, Sister Rice was sentenced to three years and the two men to five years. She was imprisoned in Tennessee, then Georgia, and in March 2014 was sent to Brooklyn, just off the Gowanus Expressway.
The nun told how a single large room at the Brooklyn prison had housed more than 100 women. Early this year, The Daily News published an article calling the prison a “hellhole.” After that, some inmates were moved. “The language bothered me,” Sister Rice recalled. “But people wouldn’t have listened otherwise.”
She said a gifted legal team, working pro bono, had seemingly materialized out of thin air to fight the government’s sabotage charge. The court’s overturning of the antinuclear conviction this month was hailed as a legal first.
“This action was meant to be,” Sister Rice said of the Tennessee protest. “Things fell into place — unplanned. That’s the unbelievable part of it.”
She said she had lost her access to email at the prison and learned the specifics of her release not from her lawyers or her family, but from a BBC News radio broadcast at 3 in the morning. Disbelieving, she listened again at 4 a.m.
“I started packing,” she recalled, “just in case it was true.”
A security image taken at the Y-12 National Security Complex after the break-in. Credit via Getty Images
Sister Rice occasionally paused her recounting to make or take calls on borrowed cellphones, including an old flip model.
“All is well,” she said into the phone as the Volvo neared Philadelphia. “I have too many funny stories to tell. And we’ll get together and I’ll tell them all. O.K., much love, dearie, and three cheers.”
Asked if she missed anything from prison, she spoke of the friends she had made — especially a younger woman who had tutored her on prison survival. “She was my guru,” Sister Rice said.
As the Volvo sped through Pennsylvania, she explained the purpose of her meeting at Rosemont. After Sister Rice’s conviction, Sister Mary Ann Buckley, the leader of the religious order’s American arm, had issued a statement saying the order intended to “stand behind Sister Megan” and the Catholic Church’s “clear teaching” against the proliferation of nuclear arms.
The meeting, Sister Rice said, was “to figure out what we can look forward to this year.” The order, she added, was founded on the philosophy that the nuns would meet the wants of their time.
“If you can show that,” she added, “there’s no problem. That’s why I had no qualms. I had a mission.”
Much later, on the way back to New York, Sister Rice said the meeting at Rosemont had gone well. But she was now hours behind schedule and had a television appearance set for that evening on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Asked about critics who advocate peace through strength, Sister Rice conceded that nuclear arms did have a certain power of intimidation. But she insisted that the United States, by keeping a vast arsenal, was violating its global disarmament pledges and ultimately courting disaster.
“It’s making other countries feel compelled to have nuclear weapons,” she said, going on to mimic the me, too logic: “If you have them, we have to have them.”
Ms. Pyzel, the driver, heartily agreed. “It’s madness,” she said.
Sister Rice added: “We don’t want to end the industry. We want to transform it into something that’s useful. What could be better than making something that’s life-enhancing rather than life-destroying?”
As the Volvo sped along the New Jersey Turnpike, Sister Rice joined in a conference call with the Plowshares team. A group of what seemed to be six or seven people talked for a half-hour about the opportunities that the release of Sister Rice and her two accomplices had presented and about the possibility of public activities in August marking the 70th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“To me,” Sister Rice said, “what needs to be done is to firm up the fervor and awareness that has grown, to maximize the message around this particular action.”
As it turned out, that same day brought good news. In Cincinnati, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit gave federal prosecutors more time to decide whether to challenge the overturning of the three protesters’ sabotage convictions. Their new deadline is June 22.
For now, at least, Sister Rice is a free woman.
After a long day, the skyscraper known as the Freedom Tower returned to view. Sister Rice and Ms. Pyzel breathed a sigh of relief when approaching the Holland Tunnel, certain they would have sufficient time to get to MSNBC’s studios at Rockefeller Center.
“We’re still being led,” the nun said, referring to the way things always seemed to fall into place. “It’s the universe at work.”
MICHAEL R. WALLI is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C. Roman Catholic layman currently residing in the belly of the beast, Washington D.C.
From TRANSFORM NOW PLOWSHARES
https://transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com/about/story-of-the-action/
Michael Walli(63), Megan Rice shcj (82), Greg Boertje-Obed, (57), succeeded in a disarmament action at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear facility before dawn on July 28, 2012.
Calling themselves Transform Now Plowshares, they hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly-Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF), splashed human blood and left four spray painted tags on the recent construction which read: Woe to the empire of blood; The fruit of justice is peace; Work for peace not for war; and Plowshares please Isaiah.
Under the cover of darkness they intermittently passed beyond four fences in a walk for over two hours through the fatal force zone. “We feel it was a miracle; we were led directly to where we wanted to go,” said Greg.
After navigating through the complex they came to a long, white, windowless building marked HEUMF. “It was built like a fortress,” Greg said describing the four guard towers.
Unimpeded by security, they attached two banners to pillars of the building. “Transform Now Plowshares,” read the first with a green and black icon showing part bomb part flower. A second stated, “Swords into Plowshares Spears into Pruning Hooks–Isaiah”. In addition, between the pillars they strung red crime tape.
When confronted by a guard they read aloud their statement. “He was on his walkie-talkie but he heard it,” Megan confirmed. Before receiving orders to halt they had opportunity to offer guards bread, and display a bible, candles and white roses. Though initially forced to endure a kneeling posture for an extended period, guards responded to complaint and allowed the activists to stand off and on. Meanwhile they continued singing.
At this time they have been interviewed by the DOE investigative unit and have conditional charges of two felony counts for vandalism and trespass. They spoke to supporters from Blount County Jail at 12:30 pm saying they had not been processed yet. All four are scheduled for arraignment in Blount County Court on Monday.
“We’re still opposing the filthy rotten system,” Michael said. “Jesus has no nukes in heaven and no torture in heaven.”
I, Larry Buzzell, was born in July 1968 - one of millions of incarnations here. I grew up in Alaska, spent 4 years exploring "jobs", until re-discovering the sea. Finding ocean work, did 4 years in the Coast Guard and was happy to return to my anscestral home in Neah Bay, Washington, an Indian reservation for the Makah Tribe, to which I belong. The ocean here provides sustenance, adventure, riches, unending challenge and opportunity. It can also become a trap of comfort, familiarity and fear of loss which often accompanies the struggles of reservation poverty, abuse and addictions. Neah Bay offers the entirety of worldy experiences condensed into a micro nation. Or so I thought...
Until I woke up one day, more so than any other day, and met Inelia Benz.
This is Inelia's first incarnation on any planet, so she was born without self-importance, attachments, personal agendas, or the desire for evolution and soul advancement. Yet she knew upon arrival that the planet needed to vibrate at a higher level in order to undergo a global ascension. She didn't know how to assist or communicate this need to others. In 2010 she received a request from Source to go public and become the voice of empowerment; since then, she has been fulfilling that request full time.
Now together as a couple...we find ourselves doing the things we had mainly dreamt of. The daydreams, the dream dreams...now becoming reality. Manifestations become instantly present in the moment we become clear to each other. This is what creates our shared reality. We have begun to gather; like tribes re-uniting, regaining lost clarity, and sharing our "stories"...getting clear.
Meet us, and all who are ready to gather, at https://walkwithmenow.com. Or, meet us physically at Neah Bay, where we are presently manifesting our center, our physical location; a place from which to create with clarity.
* Note from Lance White, the "Zany Mystic"...
I've been blessed to know both Larry and Inelia for a while now, and am gifted with their friendship, wisdom and humor. In addition to raising the vibration of the planet, Inelia has written two books; the first one is "Interview With an Alien", and her recent book just out is titled "Interview With a Psychic Assassin". It's an exciting and thinly veiled true story, with twists and turns to thrill. Its true gift is in its transformative power. Read it and find out why!
Franklin Garcia was elected US Representative (Shadow) for the District of Columbia on November 4, 2014. He is working to bring full democracy to more than 650,000 people in our nation’s capital by helping make the District of Columbia the 51st State in the union. He is part of a Statehood Congressional Delegation that includes two Senators and one US Representative.
Representative Garcia is the former President and founder of the DC Latino Caucus, and current President of the non-profit DC Latino Leadership Council. He has held key positions in the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, and other politicians. Representative Garcia serves on a number of Boards and Committees and served on the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington Host Committee.
Representative Garcia came to live in Washington, DC with his parents and sister at the age of 10. He attended public school in Montgomery County, Maryland where he graduated from Montgomery Blair High School. He holds an undergraduate degree in Finance from the George Washington University and a Master of Arts degree in Financial Economics for Public Policy from the American University. He is the founder of the DCiReporter TV Show, writes for a Spanish language newspaper and is a Huffington Post and Examiner blogger. He is an active member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and lives in the Woodrige neighborhood in Ward 5
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