Wednesday, December 16, 2015

With Each Stroke




Swimming In the Ocean
Goosebumps on my skin

I stared at the mountain
King Kong

I compared shades of Grey between Sea and Sky


                                                                   With each Stroke
I Affirm
With Each Exhale
I Affirm

My movement forward
Air passing out of my lips
They Say

I am Effervescent


I am Intuitive

I am Strong

I am Sensual

I am Creative

I am Magnanimous

I am Independent

I am Successful

I am Beautiful

I am Smart

I am Divine

I am Goddess

I am Sacred

I am Love

I am Healing

I am Powerful

I am Boundless

I am Water

I am Earth

I am Fire

I am Air

I am Space

I am Ocean

I am Stars

I am Sun

I am Magical

I am Playful

I am Fun

I am Inspiration

I am Infinite


She sat on the beach
She told me

When She hikes
With each step she takes

She does the same

Please do the Same

Sunday, September 13, 2015

My Body is A Garden: Reflections on Working with the Shadow Self





Tonight

I dig.
Dig deep
within
my soul.

I am  digging
into
my body
shoveling out
piles of dirt.

Dig more
dig more
dig more.

I cry
I sweat
I am dripping in the sun
I lean on my shovel
tired
worn.

Inside the garden of my soul
There
I find gold.

Out of the gold,
blooms
a red rose.

Love

They tell me

Now
You don't have to dig
Any more.

Now
it is
just time
to water
the rose.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Ocean Blessings



Today I Sang to the Sea




Today I sang to the Sea. I told it how I loved thee. 

I leaped to the top of a wave "I'm a mermaid". Again I did this Again. "I'm a Mermaid. I'm a Mermaid. I'm a Mermaid. 

A wave bigger than me, moved toward me and before diving under I opened my mouth "I'm beautiful". 

Seven big waves in a set, diving under, leaping above.

She settles. I  look at my friend and say "Isn't the ocean the best. Isn't the ocean so beautiful." I twirl around in the sea, the warm water moving in-between each of my fingers, my hair wrapping around my shoulders. Clinging to me.

He asks me what he should. Say goodbye?. I say, "Ask the ocean," and take another dive under. 

I come home, Yes I Wrote Home, Pua licks the salt of my face. Lick, Lick, Lick.  

I think of opening a business for cat tongue facials. She rests her head on my shoulder below my ear.

I am un-showered and carry the sand into my bed. I leave traces of sand where I go. There is blessed by the ocean. 

My organs absorbing the salt on my skin. Dive in. Dive in. Dive in.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Sunrise and Sunset, Today it will be Sunrise



   



     Whenever I watch the sunrise or Sunset, I know that I have at least done one good thing with my day. More so with sunrises because they are at the very beginning. If the rest of the day goes to sticks I know that at least I watched the sunrise.






 











   The Sunrise is a celebration of the birth of the day.  The animals, the sky, our environment all gets revealed for the start of a new day. Natures celebrations are always open for visitors.

    One winter, my cousin Jaina Bee and I watched the sunrise from our lanai every morning for several weeks. We would sit, drink tea and coffee, talk not talk, I would snap lots of photos, documenting every change of light, every change of red, orange and yellow.

    At the time, this wasn't an easy thing for me. I wasn't fond of getting up earlier than I absolutely had to, yet and at the same time my spirit didn't want to sleep, even if my body did.



 



















      Later on in life I would arrange my bed to face the east. I heard from someone that east was the directions yogi's faced when they slept. At the time I don't think I knew what a yogi was but it sounded smart and so I did the same thing. A couple of years later, I would open my blinds so that I would purposely be awoken early to the bright ball of fire rising up through the sky. Sometimes I would wake up for just a moment, look at a pink cloud or the glaring fire ball, breath out a feeling of beauty and peace and then go back to sleep, other times it would be the beginning of the day. An early start to witnessing beauty.




   








     Lately, I've been waking up at extremely irrational times of the morning. 3am, 1am, stuff like that. One day, I was so frustrated that I found myself walking in the wet grass to the car and then getting in it and driving to the nearest beach even though I wasn't sure how to get there.  My mind and body were stressed from lack of sleep and my soul knew that I needed to witness something beautiful to lift my heavy spirits towards the light.  The sky was black and for the 2 minute stretch of highway I saw only 1 other car. I found my way down a hill and to a secluded bay.



   
 







      Watching the Sunrise is a meditation of sorts, it is a process that takes much longer than the time that it actually takes to happen. For starters the sky turns from a dark to a twilight color to a lighter blue, more details of the environment then come to life, then the clouds start to change color, a peak of sun begins to appear spreading a bit of orange light across the horizon, then more bright fire, the sky turns red, highlights are cast around the edges of clouds, and its light casts everything in a warm glow. I found myself sitting there knowing that I was witnessing something absolutely amazing and at the same time witnessing something very simple. Something that happens EVERY day.




 




















     Even though the sun rises every day, to me, witnessing it is a celebration and a source of healing. It casted away the anxiousness in my heart from nightmares and I walked away knowing that the rest of the day could go to hell, and yet, because I got to attend this magnificent occasion, today was already beautiful.





























































Sunday, June 7, 2015

Its Been a while

The Best Right Now

The best thing about the past is that it's in the past,
The best thing about the people that never showed up is that they never showed up
The best thing about this moment is that it's already gone
The best thing about loving them was when I realized how much more I really loved me
The best is yet to come
The best is yet to come

This poem was powered by my inner teenager angst child turned sage inspired by being cooped up in a hot city while not feeling well and engaging in way too much social media of people enjoying the outdoors. I'm going to go watch the sunset from the roof now.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Cat Call Response Sing a Long by Mississippi Jones

   The other day I was having dinner with my dear friend, talented artist and overall awesome woman Mississippi Jones.  We're both feminists and were having a discussion about woman's history month and something else that I will share at some point in the future. Over yummy Thai food, she protected me from the chili peppers, we drifted off in the direction of street harassment.

   I mentioned to her that I don't respond when people harass me on the street, that I often don't know what to say. She told me she's a big responder and shared with me a selection of things to say back to someone who is cat calling or street harassing.

   I asked her if it was ok if I wrote a blog post about it and she said sure. Then this Sunday, I was totally excited when I found out that instead of doing her weekly song, which she has been doing for almost two years minus a couple of Sundays, she put together a Call and Response Song on what to say to street harassers.

I urge you to participate, not only is it fun and empowering but practicing can prepare you better for what to say the next time you get harassed if you want to respond back and of course if it is safe to.





                                                            
                                                               and remember!

Mississippi Jone's Response for Street Harassment
                                                             

                                                                  1. Really?!
                  
                                                                  2. I don't care what you think!

      3. I'm not here for you!

  4. Stop harassing me

                                                                  5. Go Fuck Yourself!

Also please share in the comments any response you have for street harassment.

I Have Compassion for you and Commit to You




   On the inspiration of my friend and teacher, Yeshe Mathew, I decided to follow forth and engage in this ritual, "women's history month daily practice". It's been an interesting practice. I think of every element, my self, other women throughout the world, the earth, and when I have created enough imagery, ideas, emotions, I get the chills and then either say "I compassion for you and commit to you self." or "I commit to you women" or "I commit to you Mother Earth" Each day I say all three. When I think of myself, I look at a picture of me when I was about two I think, It's a happy photo but one that took me some time to like. About a year ago, when I first started putting pictures of my past in my apartment, I brought this one out and showed this to my therapist, I said "This girl, I don't feel like she is me, this girl is not me" My therapist told me that she was me and that it was my job to look at that photo and realize that that was me. By the time the "women's history month daily practice" began. I had already realized that that little girl was me and all the pain she went through is a part of me. Sometimes I think she is still inside of me. Although I do know it is me, I sometimes think she looks like an old wise asian man.


   It seemed important to put that photo on my altar. I look at it an I say "I have compassion for you and commit to you self" and writing this now I realize that there has been something missing. I haven't been thinking about the challenges that I am facing, the ways that I am trying to grow, the mythic patterns that live inside my story. These are things that I will now think about when I look at this photo. When I have looked at that photo I could feel them and in hindsight acknowledge the power of adding vocalization to this practice.

   Then I think of women. I think of the women who are my friends, the women who dislike me, the women who have hurt me, the women who are going through hard times whether they are financial, emotional, psychological, a mother who can not feed her children, a woman struggelig with getting pregnant, the women that can not show their faces, the women that are beaten, raped, the women who have to fight for equality in the work place and still struggle to get it, and when my body trembles with chills I say "I have compassion for you and commit to you women."






   Then I look at a photo of the earth taken from outer space. I think of the pollutants in the ocean, the threat of extinction of animals, the packaging of our food that creates waste, the poison that is put into our foods into our earth, into our water, into our bodies, I think of emissions, pollutants, fracking, oil, the hunting of whales, I think of all the things that I can do to make this world heal. I think of all the ways we can heal the earth: keeping pollutants out of water, keeping pollutants out of our food, keeping pollutants out of our trash, reducing the seen and unseen effects that humans have on the oceans, eating locally, refuse, reuse, recycle, protecting wildlife areas so that there may still be space for all that is wild, participating in activist acts for the earth whether they are done on a personal day to day level or with others, and when i get goosebumps and my body trembles I say "I have compassion for you and commit to you Mother Earth."




  In one way I was able to witness a direct effect of this practice was in analyzing abuse. One of the women who I stated I had compassion for was someone who really hurt me and verbally and emotionally abused me.  I still know that she is a wonderful person. Having compassion for her made me think of how she lacked the skills to engage in challenging conversations in other ways, how maybe someone had treated her like this. It also made me look at myself, I had been emotionally and verbally abusive in the past. It was something I learned. When threatened come out with guns blazing. I was able to acknowledge that its been a long time since I responded this way.  That I have been digging within to find alternative ways to respond. Whether that response has to be disengaging from an abusive situation, calling it out, or not communicating with someone when I have become irate.  I don't have to hit below the belt because someone else does, although I may want to. Being abusive from fear, anger, love or dislike is not ok.  This is something that I chose to withdrawal from so that I don't make the same choices. I think about the people that have lied, cheated, deceived and the awful circumstances that they have come from that has led them to respond in abusive ways. I have compassion for their pain,  for their history, for the feelings that they feel even though in my heart I feel that their actions are wrong. I have deep compassion for all those affected by abuse.

Daily I have compassion for myself and commit to myself. Daily I have compassion for women and commit to women. Daily I have compassion for Mother Earth and commit to Mother Earth.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The Whale and the Massage

    I began writing by describing what has passed over the past couple months because it seems like the thing to do. That's not what brought me here today though. What brought me here today is the thought "I can't remember the last time I had a good dream." That sentence has come up a couple times as I haven't been having any good dreams just nightmares. It's been like this now since February I think. Night after night dead relatives would show up in my sleep, painful stories from the past would play over and over and I would wake up in a state of dread, horror and anxiety, wondering what sort of doom would be coming warranting these nightmares. I've grown more accustomed to them. They don't rock my day and spin me into a state of fear. I had another one last night. Instead, I just sit here with my heart aching a little bit.

    I keep on saying that "I can't remember the last time I had a good dream." Last night I noticed that whenever I have said that or thought that, in the depths of my memory is the dream of the whale. I don't remember if it is officially the last good dream I had, it is the one that I remember though. I was in Hawai'i at one of my favorite spots, the ocean was calm and the day was beautiful.  On the reef was a big humpback whale. I can see the grooves of its throat so thick and so pronounced. Somehow I manage to be by the humpback, its not in danger even though its out of the water, it's just chilling there. The humpback whale has migrated thousands of miles and is oh so tired and would love so much if I gave em a massage. The humpback whale asks me for a massage. I explain to the humpback how I would love to give em a massage but that e is so big and I am so small and if e just moved even a little bit that e would crush me.  The humpback reassured me that he would hold perfectly still and would not even move a bit. I remember touching em, I think e giggled a bit as e was tickled. I wondered if this massage thing was actually going to work out. That was the dream, hanging out with a whale negotiating a massage on one of my favorite spots in the world. I LOVE whales.


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Rainbow Cat Unicorn

   
Last week was a very challenging week. There were some things that had me quite triggered, bad nightmares, bad anxiety  and migraines as well. After waking up from a bad nightmare one of the days, my outlook on the day and life just starting off at the morning was very negative. My thoughts were negative. I was finding only the negative in my environment around me.

     It was good that I got to see my therapist that day. We talked about Opposite To Emotion Action which is a Dialectical Behavioral Skill that is based on the fact that if you do something opposite to your emotion your emotion would change.  So instead of listening to sad music while your sad one would listen to upbeat music. So for example, on my way to the therapist, when I noticed my negative thoughts to be all consuming, I switched my music selection to go for some Hawaiian music that was upbeat and reminded me of a place that I loved. This helped lift my mood and I was still struggling. My therapist also reminded me that when we do stuff for others in the Opposite to Emotion Action that it further increases are likelihood of changing our mood. I thought about how I like to send a friend funny stuff. I knew that it would be pretty hard for me to get triggered if I googled Rainbow Cat Unicorn and looked at these images that came up from that search. Yes, we found some funny ones.























































































































Hope you enjoyed those and have a nice day. Maybe do something nice for someone else or look for something that you know you will love like Rainbows, Cats and Unicorns.

PS. I forgot to say that Opposite to Emotion Action isn't there so that you don't feel emotions. Feeling emotions and validating them are important. Opposite to Emotion Action is there for when feeling emotions is causing hindrances in ones life or no longer serves the desire of the individual. I hope that makes sense.

Respective: Martin Luther King Day

 

   Its Martin Luther King day and I have a feeling that I haven't done enough. I spoke about my anxiety and issues with rallies and protests in this entry about chanting OM MANI PADME HUM.  I've been working on some grounding, some visualization that has helped my anxiety some. Basically, this idea of something that I can not do needs to be changed to something that I am willing to try to do. It may be scary, it may be unpleasant and it may lead to results that could be predictable. Then again, it could be empowering, uniting, in line with my values, supportive, important, the list of adjectives could go on.

     Today I listened to speeches of Martin Luther King while I fussed about the house, prepped veggies, and did that stuff and it filled my soul with inspiration. I found his strength, his fierceness, his compassion and his dreams as something that really spoke to my heart and maybe awakened some courage inside of me. I ended the day wishing that I had gone to a rally, that I had protested, that I had put my body and my soul out there with others. I didn't though. The one thing I did do was pass out a Prayer for Justice, that if I get permission will post here.

     Like I said in my entry about chanting, I know there is more work to be done and part of that work starts with myself. Believing in myself. Envisioning myself being successful at things that I think "I can't do" I've realized that somewhere along this life a voice crept up on me feeding me lies. This voice likes to tell me that I am not good enough to do something, not strong enough nor capable of doing it. I've been acknowledging how that holds me back in my own life and today it really made me think of how it is holding my back on my journey towards working for social justice and working within my values.

     I'll admit that in the past I have silenced my beliefs, to not disturb the status quo. It was one of the ways I was raised. I grew up in an environment where having an opinion that went against what I was supposed to think meant that I would be punished and that unconditional love would be withdrawn.
At times as well, I have turned a blind eye. I have not watched the news because of the phobias it makes me have. I stay away in an effort to find some sense of calm. My soul is very sensitive.
This sensitive soul has to also been a catalyst for change in my life.

     To all of you who took to the streets. Thank you! To all of you who speak your truth despite the discomfort it may create in your life. Thank you! To everyone out there working to make this world a better place. Thank you!. You are an inspiration to me. I see these aspects of you that I want to have in myself, that in some ways I have in myself.

     I envision a world where everyone has clean water to drink and food to eat. Where justice does not have a blind eye towards race, prestige, gender, religion or economic power. Where we all fight for each other for we realize that each of us is one. We are all humans on this earth. Some of us are more privileged than others yet that ought to not separate us from the world conscious, instead help one another

     I hope that some day soon I may share with you other ways that I have been brave so that I can contribute to this world the things that I hold dear to my heart. So that I may help myself and help others. So that this light of inspiration does not die out and instead inspires others. So that I may look past my own ego to truly see where I stand.

     Thank you for all that you do!


Monday, January 12, 2015

The Emperor

   
                    *warning, this contains a graphic meditation and also mentions abuse*
     
     Holy Shit balls! That was interesting. Quite a way to create an introduction. One of the thing that I do every morning, that is if I haven't woken up late, is I pull an angel oracle card, reflect on it, and toke notes on any information that I get from the card. Today I pulled creative writing. I knew that later on today I would be attending Michelle Blooms class Healing the Tarot:The emperor and decided that I would have my creative writing piece be about the meditation that would happen in the class. In the past on days where I have attended classes like this I would often pull The Learning and Teaching card.  It has been pretty current. I haven't ever written much about these classes or these works that I have been doing and thought that writing would be a good way of Teaching and Learning. So voila, there is how I came to decided that my writing piece would be about todays meditation.

     First off a little introduction. Every month Michelle Bloom teaches a class called Healing with the Tarot and each month we go through, in order, one of the archetypes.  She discusses what the card means, characteristics all that kind of stuff and then everyone pulls cards to get a reading for "What does the (insert archetype of the month here, in this case the emperor) have to teach me. We then do a reading, she has always been great help for me reading the cards as tarot does not come as intuitively, I feel like that is an incorrect statement, as the angel cards. She gives ways in which we can work with that archetype through the month, how to create an altar for it, what types of stones would be good and why, and any other information. Then the guided meditation where we go and meet the archetype and and receive whatever type of information there is to receive. In the past these have all been quite magical and left me feeling upbeat and wonderful. Todays mood wasn't the case and I felt the "oh fuck here comes the shitball" when she said that when she did channeling for this it was going to be especially significant for anyone that has a dysfunctional or abusive relationship with their father. Yes, she did just mention the F word. I knew I was in for it. I thought later on, well if there is one thing that I have learned is that there are lots of people who have very hurtful relationships with their fathers.  I could feel myself getting tense, I began to doodle and I felt the urge to disassociate as people talked about their abusive relationships with their fathers.

     We partnered up and did a four card spread. The first card was to be; What does the emperor want us to focus on internally. The second card was to be what does the emperor want us to reflect on externally. The third card was to be what does the emperor want us to let go of and the fourth card was to be the theme for the month. I pulled The Seven of Wands, The Hermit, The Eight of Swords and the Six of Swords. Michelle helped me come up with a concise sentence after my partner and I tried to interpret it and the message was "I need to pull away from the world and focus within"

     Now it's time to meet the emperor. Everyone closes their eyes, and my guard drops and I lose the of I am cool and strong exterior and the tears start to fall down my face I feel myself choking up.  I will from this moment on do my best to write about the meditation.

     I am traveling in the air, my heart sends a root down to the center of the earth, up from that root energy travels to my body and there it goes to my heart and my heart blooms a gigantic flower that blooms out of my body and takes up all visual space.

     I am then walking down a staircase, it is not like the staircase in the past meditation that was one that went to a hobit hole. This one was made of marble. I could see that I was wearing elegant clothes, I might have been the empress at this time. I ascend the stairs and come to a door, the door is made of marble, crystal and rubies and some other blue stone. Engraved on the door is a cobra head.  We are to open the door and step into our sanctuary. Except when I open the door there is only a cliff there, I have a fear of heights and a fear of falling, there is nothing in my sanctuary except for fear. So I know I don't want to stand on this ledge so I use my powers and build a house, but my house is floating in air so then I build a tower of earth to meet the house but the house is still in the air, so then I build an ocean around it so there is no more this falling feeling. I do my best to try and make this place peaceful but it isn't so. I can't remember stuff that happens here either that or the order is all a mess so I am going to gloss over it. The emperor comes and he is dressed as a man of royalty and wearing a purple robe. We talk. He tells me that I am loved and that I am not alone, that I have all my ancestors and spirit guides here and they love me and will always be with me and are her to help me in my journey.

     The emperor then transforms into a black cobra, I had a nightmare about black cobras last night, I also have a fear of snakes. The cobra bites me over and over. The emperor is attacking me. This is not how guided meditations are supposed to go, they are supposed to be lovey dovey and make you feel good. The cobra kept on biting me so I had to take my sword and decapitated it. Then when it was time for me to become the emperor another black cobra entered the body of the emperor and then entered my body by going up my vagina. I think I might have began thinking about how I don't want to be here anymore, how I want the meditation to be over. More stuff happened and then she said it was time to leave our "sanctuary" and when I did, the land behind the door, where the staircase was was more like my sanctuary than the land of the emperor. There were flowers and birds and everything was happy.

     I was not so happy. I felt totally disregulated by the stories people shared, by confronting my own memories and by this super scary guided meditation. I told Michelle about it cause I didn't know what to make of it. Why was it awful and scary and terrible? I told her and she said "Sounds like you have some fears to deal with."  Also, that not all work is beautiful. Some of it is very dark and scary.

     So, I have the choice of working with this. I can make an altar, put a photo of my father in the center of it and work with the energy of the emperor.  I am feeling pretty hungry, zapped and like it is time to close this piece up. There is more that I learned about the emperor that would be good to share and I don't feel like doing that now. I think I've done enough work for now. If you want to learn more about the emperor and how working with the emperor if you have had a dysfunctional or abusive relationship with your father, let me know. It was pretty mind-blowing and pretty accurate the stuff I learned today.

     I feel a bit strange sharing all of that, I don't really know what the purpose was and today I wrote down in my book that I would write about my guided meditation and post it here. So there you have it. Goodnight, Good Morning, Good day, may there be some good and love in your life.

xoxo

Chrystal Brooke

Sunday, January 11, 2015

OM MANI PADME HUM



   

      Since december, The Tea & Chanting Sangha has been working to accumulate 100,000 recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM for all those affected by police violence, brutality and militarization. Yesterday, we met our goal and accumulated 101,276.  When I found out I rejoiced. With time, dedication and perseverance we had met our goal.

     Towards the end of the collection, I learned that it was ok to do recitations while walking, all this time before I was doing recitations while sitting. While I could get some done my body would get really tense and would want to move. I took my recitations off of the chair and they went with me when I walked anywhere. Often times doing more recitations was a motivation for me to walk to the store to get a shot of wheatgrass, take the time to walk to the pretty overlook of the river with trees in the distance.

     The days leading up to this I had a feeling that we were going to reach it soon and when I was faced with this I noticed there to be a certain sadness in my heart.  Doing these recitations became such a big part of my day and I knew that after we reached our goal, I wouldn't know what to do next.    It made me remember a talk I had with a cousin who is also an artist. We talked about the wonderful feeling of finishing a project and also that sometimes sadness came along with that. How one could cling to the project that had been completed for one might not know what will come yet, or if there is something to come, there might not be the attachment for it. It's interesting that of course attachment comes up in this. It is something that I have been being more mindful of since someone introduced me to the concept in December.

     Before I began collecting recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM for the Tea & Chanting Sangha, I wasn't really involved in a chanting practice. It was interesting to just dive right in. We would get together once a week online and chant for 40 minutes. I had never done that before, and we would do it at a pace that at the time I could not keep up with, but through practice became more plausible.  The amount of recitations I collected daily also grew with the discovery that chanting can get rid of anxiety! Seriosouly! This was a most amazing discovery for me for I have been struggling for a very long time with anxiety and trying to cope with it without the use of medication has been extremely challenging. It's absolutely exhausting most times. I noticed after the first 40 minute chanting session that we had together that afterwards I felt this sense of peace. Kind of like after getting acupuncture, or maybe working out for some or having sex for others. A couple days later I had been struggling with my anxiety, I remembered that moment after chanting where I felt so at peace that I thought it would be worth a try, if it doesn't work at least I will have had a break where I could get my mind off of the anxiety. I did 5 recitations and my anxiety was gone. I was so happy that I think I cried. My anxiety did come back four hours later, so I just did more chanting and then it went away again. My therapist was so happy when I shared this with her. I don't know if I would have learned this had I not just found myself engaging in the practice of the collection of 100,000 recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM.

     Being able to collect these recitations was really important because like many people I was upset about what was happening with Ferguson and everywhere else around the world were police officers were using their power in excess and no longer protecting the people they serve but rather killing and beating them without any justice.  I've only been a part of one protest (other than the ones I do on my own by choosing where I spend my money, who gets my time and how to protect the environment) and it was a really peaceful protest on a college campus.  As of today, the idea of being in a crowd protesting makes me feel incredibly anxious, maybe one day I will be able to do it without having a panic attack but that day hasn't yet come. I've had several panic attacks at Burning Man in the crowds there. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, educating myself more, and opening myself up to what it really meant to be someone of privilege allowed me to be at a space where I knew I was doing something. I was working hard at envisioning a world where police are there to love, protect and be a friend of the citizens of this planet.  With that being said, I know that this is a small step in this grand scope of social justice. I know there is more work to be done.
   
          May all beings be well. May all being find peace. May all beings receive justice.