jerseymurmurs

A few years ago my cousin requested these Leonard Cohen lyrics on a prayer flag and this is what I designed. Mourning his loss and the voice that resonated like no other.

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"It is a very well worth while thing to put into words or drawings the things we cherish and love most, for when it is done, it helps us to hold those things which are best in us." (Charlotte Gulick,  founder of the Camp Fire Girls)

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For girls of all ages. A prayer that every girl has the opportunity to shine. To be who she is. To go where she wants. To pursue an education. To be able to support herself. To marry or not marry as she pleases. To love, to learn, to create, and to be free to think for herself.

The symbol is also said to represent the girl who has woven the rug. This flag represents the power of every girl to weave the tapestry of her own life.

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Isn't this toast really like a little prayer? To health. To each other. To this moment when we are gathered together. Lift your glass -- ŽIVILI! To life!

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A 14th century free-thinker, Julian of Norwich was regarded as a mystic and spiritual authority. She was also a feminist for her time and believed that God is both our mother and father. Julian said that this line came to her from God: all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

When I lay eyes on this flag, I feel calm.

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Two monks were watching a flag fluttering in the wind.

One said, "it's the wind that moves."

The other said, "I disagree, it's the flag that moves."

But a Zen patriarch standing nearby, said, "it's not the wind, nor the flag ... it's the mind that moves."

~ from The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

In 1910 Dr. Luther and Charlotte Gulick founded the Camp Fire Girls. These words are taken from the Book of Symbols for Camp Fire Girls. Each girl who joined the organization worked to create her own individual symbol based on things that spoke to her. The handbook was an encouragement "to put into words or drawings the things we cherish, for when it is done it helps us to hold to those things which are best in us."

Echoing the goals of the Camp Fire Girls, Dr. Gulick wrote: "Brush away from the everyday activities of the world and dull gray with which the oil and smoke of this machine age have covered us, to reveal the beauty, romance and adventure of all the common things of life."

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Most of our planet earth is made up of water. And the waterways of our earth provide a route to other lands, to other cultures and to other people. Croatian sailors have a saying: Put your finger in the sea and you touch the whole world. I think of this flag as a prayer for our planet and all the people in the world -- in some small way we are all connected.

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One of a series, see also ŽIVILI, PROST, SALUD!

Sláinte. A Gaëlic word. Health; soundness; a healing virtue; salvation; a health or toast. "Sláinte, and sláinte, and sláinte agin."

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"Get up and look for color, look for color everywhere" (poet Elizabeth Alexander)

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"Now, all words are pegs to hang ideas on; and as a wooden peg in the hall, on which the father and the grandfather were accustomed to hang the coat and the hat, is to the child's eye more beautiful than the most exquisite picture that could be hung on the wall, so the most common and familiar words are more powerful than any abstract and arbitrary ones." from Freedom and War, Discourses by Henry Ward Beecher

What words tell the story of you and your family?

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In his book Anam Cara, the Irish writer John O’Donohue writes: “The Celtic understanding of friendship finds its inspiration and culmination in the sublime notion of the anam cara. ‘Anam’ is the Gaelic word for soul; ‘cara’ is the word for friend. So ‘anam cara’ means soul friend. ... When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the friend of your soul.”

"One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human." [George Santayana]

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Baba Taher Uryan Hamadani was an 11th century Persian poet. A lament is a sorrow audibly expressed. A sorrow had taken hold of my heart. I faithfully repeated this phrase daily for a period of time. One day I realized that the pain and sorrow had dispersed.

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Enough. Sufficient. Full. I don’t need great quantities of anything. I just need enough. The marketing forces today try to make us think that we always need more and better and greater amounts. But don’t we just need enough? Enough is as good as a feast. I wish it for us all -- enough.

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Peace. Our gift to each other.

"If we have no PEACE, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." (Mother Teresa)

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know PEACE." (Jimi Hendrix)

"Mankind must remember that PEACE is not God's gift to his creatures, PEACE is our gift to each other." (Elie Wiesel)

Creativity. The ability to create. It’s one of things that makes us human -- our ability to bring things into existence. Whether it be an idea, a work of art, a poem, a story, a song... It can sometimes feel elusive, yet if we work at it and nurture it and pursue it, who knows what we can create? Danny Gregory, the author of The Creative License says: "As you awaken your creativity, you stir the cauldron of your life. Things are bound to bubble to the surface."

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Breathe: Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Big inhale. Big exhale. It’s a beautiful rhythm. To breathe is to be alive. The English word “spirit” comes from the Latin 'spiritus': “soul, courage, vigor, breath,” and is related to 'spirare': “to breathe.”

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Liberty and Prosperity. It’s the state motto of New Jersey. I think it’s also the perfect business motto for the self-employed. To have the liberty to work on our own terms and to make enough money to support ourselves. Liberty (personal freedom) ... and Prosperity (an economic state of growth, rising profits and full employment) for all.

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Kindness. The quality of being considerate and humane. It may be a little thing, but doesn’t it just make the world and our daily lives so much better? How good does it make you feel when someone does you a small kindness? And when you can return a kindness?

This flag features a quote that Anna Laetitia Barbauld wrote in 1811: “That humble current of little kindnesses, which, though but a creeping streamlet, incessantly flows; although it glides in silent secrecy within the domestic walls, and along the walks of private life, and makes neither appearance nor noise in the world; pours, in the end, a more copious tribute into the store of human human comfort and felicity, than any sudden and transient flood of detached bounty, however ample, that may rush into it with a mighty sound.”

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To grow vigorously. To make steady progress. To fly high and flourish. Sometimes it takes a little care and cultivation. 

“If I thrive well, I’ll visit thee again.” (Shakespeare)