If you know any homeless artists who would like their poems, photos or art featured on under1000skies, on our social media accounts and through our email list, please pass on our information. Thank you!
To sign up for our email list, please fill out our page, “Contact.”
We’re also always gratefully accepting photos, art, poems or quotes or any Gems anyone might want to share. Special thanks today and always to everyone who has shared these so generously over the years since we began.
Have a great weekend.
♡. under1000skies
☼ A “Giftivism” Initiative ☼
We are photographers,
writers, artists & advocates
serving and connecting
homeless creatives.
“Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere – be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
I love this quote because it celebrates being alive and present in every moment. My beautiful friend and soul-sister Liz Stevens (Liz Stevens Illustrations) painted this lovely scene of a young woman doing just that. Perhaps preparing for a dance, or starting a new class. Alive and joyful to be so.
A Story from the Street
As promised, I’ll share stories about what it’s like to live on the street where life expectancy was reported to be about 30 years less than average. Millions of Americans are one paycheck away from the street according to this January 2018 report.
Jerome Murdough, 56, a homeless Marine veteran, was arrested for trespass in New York because he was found sleeping in a public housing stairwell on a cold night. The New York Times reported that one week later, Jerome died of hyperthermia in a jail cell heated to over 100 degrees.
Mr. Murdough’s death provoked outrage among the city’s elected officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, and focused media attention on the conditions at Rikers Island, where inmates frequently endure severe abuse and neglect.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi
How Can I Help?
Asking today for healing, light and love to be sent to any homeless Marine vets you may know. If you know none, perhaps you could send your intentions to any homeless person who might need healing (which is pretty much every single one, in one way or another).
Thank you so much. ♥
Healing Intentions
These stories of the street are not brought to you the way news is. They are brought to bring your awareness to a person who has experienced hardship in homelessness and to ask you to open your heart and send good thoughts or prayers or whatever you believe in.
There is a beautiful Hawaiian tradition called ho’o’pono pono which was used over a course of time to heal every inmate in a mental hospital for the criminally insane. Joe Vitale, after a skeptical journey into what he thought was an urban legend, wrote extensively about this powerful tool. It’s really easy to use and takes very little time compared to more traditional healing meditations.
Since about mid-2010 I’ve been doing healing meditations for anyone needing it at Noon EST for an hour a day when I can. I’ve been inconsistent but it still is, and always will be, my favorite thing to do at mid-day break. So, if you aren’t busy, please join me for a few minutes. I’ll see you on the “innernet” as my beautiful friend and mentor Nipun Mehta calls meditation. =)
I hope you have a beautiful weekend.
♡. under1000skies ☼ A “Giftivism” Initiative☼
We are photographers, writers, artists & advocates serving and connecting homeless creatives
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
_____________
Did you know that three days in the Celtic Otherworld is three years here on Earth? I learned that recently while watching Myths and Monsters narrated by Nicholas Day. I find the thought very comforting.
There is a new page here on under1000skies called Missing Benjamin. All updates about Ben will be kept here from now on. All links from past updates to will be here, as time allows, in chrono order.
Have a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. See you Tuesday.
♡. under1000skies ☼ A “Giftivism” Initiative ☼
We are photographers, writers, artists & advocates serving and connecting homeless creatives.
I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡ Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤
“This past Saturday my wife, Rebecca, was taking my son Jonah and a few friends put-put golfing for his birthday party. On the way there he saw a man with a sign asking for help. Jonah, feeling concerned for the man, immediately asked Rebecca to do something. She could read between the lines that it didn’t feel right to him that he’d be off celebrating with his friends while this man seemed unsupported…” -Ariel Nessel. Continued here: Jonah’s Birthday Wish by Ariel Nessel, on ServiceSpace.org
☼ Happy Birthday Jonah! ☼ Thank you for sharing from your heart on your birthday and, no doubt, every day. You are a very cool kid and an inspiration. ^_^ ♥.
♡. under1000skies ☼ A “Giftivism” Initiative ☼
We are photographers, writers, artists & advocates serving and connecting homeless creatives.
under1000skies 