I discovered a wonderful young classical guitarist on YouTube. Iva Kosić is a Serbian musician studying classical guitar at a German university. She recently graduated with a Masters degree in music. She performs concerts, teaches online, and is active on social media where she creates and posts her own YouTube videos. This performance of Mariage D’amour – Paul de Senneville played by Iva Kosić is so beautiful I had to post it. On Dec 24, 2023, Iva Kosić gifted her followers with this YouTube video and holiday message: “For Christmas Eve I am sharing with you my performance of this well-known ..read more

This blog post is thanks to Ellen Metropole for telling me that Markus K, a busker I follow on YouTube, attended the 10,000 course in Hyderabad, India! I didn’t know he was a TM-er. He wrote a song about the course while he was there and premiered it when he went to Morocco. It’s a catchy tune and tells the story of why everyone from so many countries attended. He performed the song on Feb 21, 2024 in Casablanca at his first Moroccan busking session. Enjoy ‘Consciousness is All there Is’ written by Markus Koehorst, aka, Markus K, during an international Peace Project in Hyderabad, India c ..read more

Friends emailed me to see the premiere episode of Season 3’s NCIS: Hawai’i. NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) is a popular TV series. I was able to stream it on Paramount+ and now watch new episodes each week. Here’s how they describe the show. NCIS is more than just an action drama. With liberal doses of humor, it’s a show that focuses on the sometimes complex and always amusing dynamics of a team forced to work together in high-stress situations. From murder and espionage to terrorism and stolen submarines, these special agents investigate all crimes with Navy or Marine Corps ties ..read more

Trinis join global peace mission in India NEWSDAY | FEATURES | JANELLE DE SOUZA | Feb 25, 2024 Some of the Trinidadian participants of the 10,000 for World Peace Assembly (standing) and their facilitators. Photo courtesy Shelley Hosein. – Concerned by the state of the world, eight Trinidadians joined over 10,000 people in India to try to bring about a decrease in the level of conflict around the world. From December 29, 2023-January 13, over 10,000 people gathered at Kanha Shanti Vanam outside of Hyderabad, India for the 10,000 for World Peace Assembly, organised by the Global Union of Sc ..read more

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai* (1760-1849). The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a woodblock print by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. Aka, The Great Wave or The Wave, the print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large, cresting wave forming a spiral in the centre and Mount Fuji visible in the background. The print is Hokusai’s best-known work and the first in his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, in which the use of Prus ..read more

When I saw this clever New Yorker cartoon by William Haefeli it reminded me of the one by Karl Stevens. Both humorously emphasize the need to be present—to learn to live in the moment, in the now. Karl’s cartoon deals with the existential angst of dandelions in their fluffy white seed head phase, where the wiser one advises the worried one: “The wind, the wind, that’s all you think about—you gotta learn to live in the moment.” William’s cartoon shows a wife’s frustration with her husband’s memory loss, and his clever way of dealing with it: “I’m not losing my memory. I’m living in the now.” I ..read more

There has been a wave of publicity before, during, and after the largest group of 11,000 TM meditators from 139 countries who gathered at Kanha Shanti Vanam near Hyderabad for 14 days to help create world peace. Here is a sample of some of that news coverage starting with The Week, which came out in their print issue on Sunday, February 4, 2024. January 28, 2024: Why did 10,000 practitioners of Transcendental Meditation come together in Hyderabad? It was organised by the Global Union of Scientists for Peace. IN EARLY 2005, security checkpoints at the Abu Ghraib prison complex in Iraq―not ..read more

BBC Studios and Global Wellness Institute created short informative client videos for their In Pursuit of Wellness Series (GWI Series 2). Three videos featuring Transcendental Meditation (TM) were produced for the Dr. Tony Nader Institute, one for each chapter on GWI: Nature, Self, Community. This first video (6:05) features Dr. Tony Nader at Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa talking about the need for TM in today’s stressful world. The video opens with students meditating with Dr. Nader. Using EEG, Dr. Fred Travis demonstrates the increase in brainwave coherence of a ..read more

In her poem, Sometimes (pt 4 of 7), Mary Oliver teaches us how to live a life — especially as a poet — in 3 short, powerful sentences. 4. Instructions for living a life:Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. “Sometimes” by Mary Oliver from Red Bird. © Beacon Press, 2008. Mary Oliver exemplified this essential message in her poem, Mindful. EverydayI see or hearsomethingthat more or less kills mewith delight,that leaves melike a needle in the haystackof light.It was what I was born for —to look, to listen, to lose myselfinside this soft world —to instruct myselfover and ove ..read more

Mary Oliver’s poem, Swan, asks us if we see, hear, and feel what she does, drawing rich references to the beautiful aspects of a swan, culminating in two powerful questions. Swan by Mary Oliver Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air — an armful of white blossoms, a perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling a shrill dark music — like the rain pelting the trees — like ..read more