September Deepening and a book recommendation

Dear Blog, What a beautiful day! A gorgeous early fall day here in the NorthEast part of the US. I am praying for peace, trying to BE peace, and remembering we are all ONE, Enjoyed some of my garden's bounty for lunch and shared some with co-workers. I am blessed with so much in my life. And the yearning to be more, give more, feel more continues. To find the stillness, and the silliness, too. The joy and the surrender to life's sweetest impulses in the middle of my work-a-world day! May we all find a way to truly be our authentic vulnerable and powerful selves as we go about our day, serving this lovely planet and its beings. May I be able to make lemonade when lemons show up in my life. I am grateful to the ALL and to all of you, out there, making this world a better place. Sometimes I like to share a book, film, or music that has lifted my spirits. Long ago, I read a book called "An Unexpected Light" by Jason Elliot. I was taken by the compassionate exchanges Elliot had with the people he met, and they reminded me that we are citizens of one home, no matter how foreign our cultures may be to one another. This is a poignant and otherworldly travel memoir that takes us to Afghanistan in the 1990's. Elliot is gifted in conveying the unique generosity that weaves the various subcultures of the Afghanisti people together. His accounts of his travels away from Kabul, deep into the vividly described mountain regions are truly transportive. I often felt like I was there right next to him sharing food out of a bowl with fellow traveling strangers. To be able to see an unblemished view of a people whose humanity shines through in their intreractions with Elliot, is refreshing and serves as a much needed balancing perpective in a time when the western media has done more than its share to reduce Afghanistan's culture into a faceless, nameless mass of terrorists (extremists) Islamists. Certainly, their have been heinuous things done there, particularly to women, in the name of Islam. Zealots of any religion can have a deadly impact on their culture and others, when they find their way to power. Their is much to mourn about the destruction of culture in Afghanistan, some at the hands of colonial powers like the USSR, and the USA, but even more horrific in ways, is the destruction caused by those religious extremists whose idea of holiness is so narrow that it warranted the destruction of many of the world's most beautiful mosques and temples because the depicted the human form which is forbade by some of the extreme Islam followers. May Peace prevail on Earth. Namaste Elena