Critics Ecstatic at Lucy Lopez'
Debut Exhibition in Paris.
Critics were ecstatic with the debut of Lucy Lopez' work in Paris in January.
"The birth of a painter is a moving moment," writes Olivier Wahl. "Something I've had the privilege of witnessing often.
"This exhibition of Lucy López is like a baptism, because it marks the moment when an artist is allowed in the community. It's also an opportunity for for us to experience the power and vigor of her creativity. It's not improvised; it comes from the bottom of the soul. The work comes in whether we want it or not. It transforms us. So Lopez is a painter.
". . . It is the elixer of life, a promise that was always present. The light of winter, but the rustle of spring. . . .Come and see.
— Olivier Wahl, January 2013.
Thanks to Raphaelle Vivier for sending this on to SICA. Text above is a loosely translated excerpt of the complete review. Click here to see flyer and complete review in French.
SICA Spain Exhibits Five Subud Artists at annual FAIM event in Madrid
Soray Sendin writes that five major Spanish artists are exhibiting this week at FAIM, the annual Independent Art Fair in Madrid. Around 200 national and international artists take part every year. The five who are exhibiting are: Luz Guerin (Subud Alicante), Melina Nebauer (Subud Alicante), Laura-Montseé (Subud Alicante), Seila Ochandiano (Subud Madrid) and Ricardo Sabater (Subud Alicante). A sampling of Laura Montseé's work is above right. More of her work and the inspiration for her work is on her own website. The two paintings above left are by prolific Spanish artist, Seila Ochandiano. Seila is also exhbiting at Juca Claret Art Gallery in Madrid for the month of November. Download a flyer for the exhibition.
At right is Ricardo Sabater's mural of Melek Taus, or the Peacock Angel, central to the Yazidi whose beliefs contain elements of both Zorastrian and Islamic Sufi doctrine. The Yazidi, according to Wikipedia, believe in God as Creator of the World, which he placed under the care of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus. Detail of mural right.
Uraidah Hassani being awarded 2012 Rising Star Award by
Young and Powerful for Obama.
She will be give the award and the Young and Powerful Fundraiser at Chelsea Manor in New York City on October 11, 2012. This honor comes about as a result of Uraidah's outstanding work with The Women Worldwide Initiative, an organization she founded that is also a sponsored project of SICA's. Uraidah was already featured earlier this year on Melissa-Harris Perry's TV show on MSNB as Perry's "foot soldier" of the week and as a shining a light on TWWI's "Young Women Rock" program. Uraidah is a shining example of what she is constantly encouraging young woman to do; "Dream big." The Women Worldwide Initiative is also a shining example of encouraging young women to develop their own gifts and talents, and to value themselves as human beings — core SICA values. Click here to visit their website — and support their work!
SICA to Live Stream Elton John Concert launching Peace Day 2012
SICA just got great news from the Peace One Day folks in UK. As SICA, with its POEMS FOR PEACE
initiative, is part of the coalition of NGOs working with Peace One Day to celebrate Peace Day, they are giving us a link that will allow us to LIVE STREAM their Peace Day kick off concert event. They write:
"Peace One Day is delighted that Elton John will be headlining our event on Peace Day 21 September, which also features performances from James Morrison and 2CELLOS, at Wembley Arena London. Introductions will be made by Peace One Day Ambassador Jude Law, Lily Cole and I, with special contributions from around the world."
The concert starts Friday, September 21, 2012, 7:30 PM UK time. SICA will live stream the concert from its home page: www.subud-sica.org. Stay Tuned!
Brownfield Exhibition, "A Celebration of Healing," becomes a winning publication.
A Celebration of Healing: Lives Impacted by Breast Cancer – portraits by Sal Brownfield, stories by Eve Hoffman. Granite Springs Press. Hoffman book launch event in NYC is planned for October, thanks to Gloria Steinem and others of the Ms. Foundation.
The power of art to heal — and the power of this particular body of work to not only build breast cancer awareness but to give the women dealing with breast cancer the space, inwardly and outwardly, to honor their feelings and emotions — and make that beautiful — is why SICA has featured this exhibit in the Health and Healing section of its online magazine, Celebrate! Indeed, we must always celebrate healing.
Writes author, Eve Hoffman, "A Celebration of Healing is artist Sal Brownfield’s series of twenty paintings of lives touched by breast cancer. Models represent a broad cross-section – race, color, nationality, age, economic niche, lifestyle, sexual orientation, even gender, age from 26 to 92 at the time of diagnosis. The paintings are about transition from illness to healing, from chaos to calm. They provide a space for stories to be told and stigma abandoned. Together the paintings and stories affirm essential humanity and honor lives touched by illness, not just breast cancer, across all demographics. Reactions range from silence and tears to an outpouring of stories. Brownfield observes: 'Art is a non-clinical, non-judgmental, non-intellectual stimulus which resonates on a spiritual level. This is not art therapy but art itself as healing.'
Each painting is both representational and abstract, designed to create a sense of sanctuary using a contemporary stained glass motif. The series consists of twenty-one 5′ x 4′ oil and shellac works on canvas and accompanying narratives.
What Others Say:
"While I was waiting for my wife to have a biopsy, the Celebration of Healing painting and story in the waiting room of the university cancer center wasn’t just art, but an expression of life, of hope, of encouragement for a novice spouse in the world of breast cancer clinic visits." — David Schechter, A CNN Senior National Editor
"Although the Celebration of Healing paintings are about women and breast cancer – fear thereof, survival therefrom, living with, triumphing over – they are more about the beauty of human life. Artists through time have used the human body, especially the female body, to celebrate creation. Not many (none that I can think of with the possible exception of Goya) have used illness and even disfigurement in the service of beauty. Celebration is one of the most powerful platforms for education about breast cancer that I have encountered, dramatically encouraging prevention and resoundingly affirming the fullness of life attainable after cancer, including after cancer surgery." — Paula Lawton Bevington, First Woman President, Rotary Club of Atlanta; Past Chair, Georgia Human Relations Commission
Eve Hoffman comments and quotes from Eve Hoffman's site.
Eve Hoffman, a sixth generation Georgian, began writing poetry six years ago. RED CLAY is her first book. She’s worked with poets at the Paris Poetry Workshops, Idylwild Summer Poetry Workshops, Hambidge Writers’ Workshops and Cecilia Woloch’s Atlanta workshops. She’s been published by the Georgia Humanities Council, Emory University Center for Ethics, New Southerner, Southern Women’s Review, online, and her work is included in performances of the Academy Theater Senior Ensemble. Eve Hoffman has been an elected official, a public education and environmental advocate. She founded non-profits and served on numerous not-for-profit boards, has been identified by Georgia Trend as one of the most influential people in the state and has been honored by her alma mater Smith College as a “Remarkable Woman.”
PATINA'S "Moving On 2012" Parade Shines Again in Lewes, UK
PATINA — Parents and Teachers in the Arts — is dedicated to inspiring creativity in their community. Each year they organize a big carnival parade involving children from up to 16 primary schools in the Lewes District. It marks and celebrates the transition of children moving on from primary school into secondary school — and has become known as the Moving On parade. It's become a huge and immensely poplular community event, and this year's parade was no exception.
Its success may also have a lot to do with creative director and Artists Coordinator, Raphaella Sapir. Her fresh creative inspiration is visible everywhere. What she and her team have achieved together is not just a parade. They have become an ecosystem of parents, teachers, artists, and volunteers working together — and effectively so.
Together they are opening doors for children and teachers to work directly with local professional artists, and creating a celebratory arts events that benefits the whole community. More about Patina here.
International Subud Poetry Anthology
call for submissions 
I’ve been reading and listening to poetry by my Subud brothers and sisters for years and there’s no doubt in my mind that we are getting better and better at it. I’d like to celebrate this by putting together an anthology of poetry by Subud members from all over the world. I invite you to send me three of your best poems along with a brief bio. I hope to have the anthology sequenced, edited, checked, designed and printed some time next year, well before the World Congress in Mexico.
Please email your poems to me at: emmanuelriddlemaker@gmail.com. Deadline: End of 2012.
Thank you,
Emannuel Williams (Read some of Emmanuel Williams' poetry here.)
Lucas & Peter Mark Richman together at the Mann Center in Philadelphia
Lucas Richman just guest conducted An Evening of John Williams Music, celebrating Williams' 80th birthday with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on July 20, 2012.
Award winning actor, Peter Mark Richman, Lucas' father, hosted the event.
John Williams has amassed five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, and seven BAFTA Awards for some of the most majestic and memorable music in cinema history. He has had a long association with director Steven Spielberg, composing the music for all but two of Spielberg's major feature films, including the Star Wars saga, the Indiana Jones series, the first three Harry Potter movies, and Schindler's List. In this exciting salute to the maestro, The Philadelphia Orchestra will present selections from Williams’s most famous hits. Word has it, that Williams himself asked Lucas to conduct.
Lucas Richman has served as Music Director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 2003 and as Music Director and Conductor for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra since 2010. Mr. Richman received a GRAMMY Award (2011) in the category of Best Classical Crossover Album for having conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Christopher Tin’s classical/world fusion album, Calling All Dawns.
Subud members have enjoyed Richman's own Seven Circles of Life, conducted in Spokane and again in Innsbruck with the Tiroler Kammerorchester InStrumenti of Innsbruck. (recorded.) And audiences the world over have enjoyed Peter Mark Richman on stage, in film, and on television for years. Click here for an interview with Peter Mark. What a treat for them to be together on this occasion. Click here for more on Lucas and his music.
Stefan Freedman's Keys to Peace Launches in Norwich
Keys To Peace is an 11 day series peace-themed workshops and concerts co-ordinated by Stefan Freedman in collaboration with other Subud musicians and facilitators. The program incorporatea practical tools for supporting peace through the arts.
Entertainments include a Gypsy and Klezmer concert featuring two bands (13 July), An evening of candlelight songs and acoustic music raising funds for Susila Dharma (18 July), and a Diversity Night with live bands, displays of Salsa, Tango and African Dance (22 July) The concerts and workshops take place in Norwich.
Full information is here. (Thanks to SICA UK site for lovely image and more news).
SICA's 5x7 Art Exhibit a Big HIt in Vancouver
SICA's first 5 x 7 art exhibition was totally awesome! People sent work from all across the globe! So amazing. So very generous of our artists. Thank you, thank you. And kudos to the amazing Elfrida Schragen, Chair of SICA Canada, (pictured center above beside one of her own paintings) and her team for setting up the whole exhibition.
SICA had initially planned for the 5X7 event to be a stand-alone event and party, but space and time limitations mandated that the 5x7 event be held in the same space and at the same time as the opening reception for the Art Exhibition for the Gathering. However, thanks to the cleverness of Elfrida Schragen, it all went very well.
We hope that this will be the first of many. As with anything one does for the first time, there are always improvements we can make the next time. (Like it would be nice for the artists to know who purchased what. And we don't have that information — And buyers were genuinely thrilled to discover the artists behind their purchases.) But we could not improve on the delight the event gave to all — and the outcome!
SICA's first 5x7 art exhibition raised $1000 for the SICA Grant Fund. Oo la la!
Farah Karapetian at Vincent Price Art Museum's HOY SPACE in East Los Angeles
Los Angeles-based artist Farrah Karapetian is the fourth artist to engage with VPAM’s HOY SPACE, a new project gallery featuring artists who address current and active contemporary topics in their work and whose practice may extend across media.
This spring, Karapetian has been an artist-in-residence working with East Los Angeles College (ELAC) student photographers to create a site-specific artwork for the HOY SPACE called Los Angeles Times. This work is part of “Student Body Politic,” Karapetian’s national investigation of issues of representation in politics and image making.
ELAC’s students examined a number of kinds of images that constitute a visual lexicon of unrest and considered their own artistic and personal relationships to issues of social concern. The work exhibited in the HOY SPACE engages the photogram to reconsider one such iconic image of protest, combining techniques of cameraless photography with performance to produce a multi-layered photographic installation. May 22 - August 17, 2012. More.
Erica Sapir's designs reprised for Award-
Winning Puppet Show in International Festival
The award-winning puppet show for children and families, "Grandma Knitting," —with sets and props designed by Erica Sapir—is being reprised by Train Theater Company for inclusion in Israel's International Festival of Puppet Theater in May and June of 2012. Centered around a Grandmother who knits everything, including her children, "Grandma Knitting" is a show about the courage to create, the power of imagination, and a huge love for books and stories that bring the generations closer to each other. You can see more here. Be sure to click on the video, all in Hebrew, to see Erica's work in action. (Erica is a wonderful puppeteer in her own right and heads her own NGO, Puppeteers without Borders. Her story about becoming a puppeteer, in midlife, is in the Inspiration section of this site, under STORIES.
Talent for Humanity Launched
Thierry Sanchez and his team have launched an impressive nonprofit, Talent for Humanity, with an awesome mission: recognizing, celebrating and supporting individuals whose talents had, and still have, a positive impact on humanity, and are a source of inspiration to others. They are celebrating the human spirit. AND they have announced some exciting competitions YOU can enter now! Click here for details.
There is a fascinating back story to all this that goes back to the Subud enterprise Thierrry Sanchez snd Maya Bernardes (now Korzybka) were doing in the 1980s with a lot of young people and heavy metal rock in the current edition of Subud World News which we have reprinted in Celebrate's Music and Performing Arts Section of this website.
The Brush and The Lens, a collaboration, opens in Miami, QLD, Australia
Collaboration of works with JOY FRENCH, ARTIST
and DOMONIQUE WISEMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
Opening Reception May 25, CAFE CULTURAL FUSION, MIAMI, QLD
In my photography, writes Domonique, I draw my inspiration from the people around me, telling their stories through images with the intention to show the essential "oneness" of Humans "Being". My ambition is to communicate the intricacies of the Human Condition and in doing so foster a sense of connection and compassion to self and to others.
It is with gratitude and respect that I was given the opportunity to share some of my images with Influential painter, Joy French, and a natural collaboration has evolved.
Like me, Joy is fascinated with people and her art, contemporary portrait, is the vehicle to communicate, connect and to gain a deeper understanding of herself and others, and the pains desires and passions of the human condition. Joy's ambition is to "connect" and communicate these interpersonal struggles of life through the eyes of the soul, from all walks of life. Rather than painting with absolute precision, Joy's artistic expressions is to use exaggerated facial aspects, to display the subject’s physical features, and the manifestation of one's personality from the soul.
On a personal level, Photography is my safe place much like Painting is for Joy, and simply allows a transformation to take place and a deeper understanding of ourselves to evolve.
This collaboration is fused together with a series of images and art / painting to form the collection "THE BRUSH AND THE LENS" "US, the human race, the collectice whole, we give deep gratitude to. The opening reception is a fundraiser for Building Futures, building schools, in Cambodia.
Veda Hille and Bill Richardson's hit show
to play Toronto in 2013!
For next season, Toronto’s Factory Theatre has picked up the most buzzed-about show from the start of the new year in Vancouver: Do You Want What I Got? A Craigslist Cantata, written by CBC Radio 2 host Bill Richardson and composer Veda Hille.
Here is what Colin Thomas wrote in his review for the Georgia Straight, in January:
"The tone of Cantata is approximately two parts absurd hilarity and one part potent loneliness. CBC Radio host Bill Richardson, who wrote the show with songwriter Veda Hille, combed Craigslist for oddities, and he’s come up with some doozies: “Need Sarah Palin look-alike for adult film”; “Children’s guillotine… Only been used once.” Without losing the characters’ eccentricity, Richardson and Hille also reveal the posters’ humanity. Take the woman trying to give away her collection of cat hats, for instance. They belonged to her pet, Snowman, who is now deceased. As the poster sings, in absolute earnestness, about how some of the hats are cute and some are more formal, it’s impossible not to laugh—especially when Snowman’s ghost starts to sing back. But Craigslist Cantata isn’t about ridicule. The woman is nutty, but she’s also grieving.
And she’s lonely—like a lot of us. That’s the genius of this piece: it recognizes that in a culture in which we’re trained to believe that we’re primarily consumers rather than citizens or members of a community, when we reach out for connection, many of us do so in the language of commerce.
Hille is an expert at finding the poetry and musicality in mundane speech. Sometimes that exploration is bare-bones: she speaks one passage while accompanying herself on piano, accentuating the rhythms and melody of her words. And sometimes Hille expands the musicality of speech into full, fantastic numbers, including “Hi, My Lady”, in which performer Dmitry Chepovetsky sings an intoxicatingly rhythmic song about being infatuated with a black-clad woman. Hille also layers her musical motifs beautifully: snatches of songs—and therefore stories—float up in other pieces, reminding us of the commonality of their themes.
It’s fantastic that Factory Theatre has picked up the show, co-produced with Acting Up Stage Company, for a February-long run in 2013. For further details, click here.
Adhara —
One of the Brightest Stars in the Sky
By Osanna Vaughn, Reprinted from Subud World News
The Geiger family first became involved with outstanding silversmith and jewellery designer, Torun (Vivianna Bülow Hübe), back in 1978, when Mansur Geiger set up a silver workshop in Jakarta with her. Later on they were joined in the undertaking by Mansur's wife, Utami, and for many years had a thriving enterprise, producing, among other items, jewellery for Georg Jensen.
In more recent years, a variety of factors led to a significant decrease in the workshop's business, but now Mansur and Utami's eldest daughter, Lalita, has taken up the challenge of reviving it for a new era. She has given the project the name Adhara:
"It is one of the 25 brightest stars in the sky, and, if human beings could see ultraviolet light, it would be the brightest. So it represents all kinds of a metaphors for the workshop: a lot of potential that is still invisible!"
ADHARA's mission
We believe that organic growth is the key to success. Our aim is to continually reach for higher standards in quality, elegance and comfort in our designs, whilst nurturing a loyalty towards our heritage, our environment and all people involved. We pursue creative expression through the purest form of jewellery craft, and we aim to spread and share our passions throughout the world. Through this, we continually strive to achieve full international and local customer satisfaction, flawless ethical business standards and harmony between the two.
ADHARA's vision
Our vision is to represent Indonesia's cultural spirit and creative ingenuity in the global fashion market through leading quality standards and ethical community developments.
Click here for the background story that evolved into Adhara today. Including beautiful photos.
Green Oak Carpentry Receives Its Third Gold Award 
Managing Director, Andrew Holloway writes: (Reprinted from Subud World News)
The Green Oak Carpentry Company (GOCC) Ltd. have won their third Gold Award – the prestigious 2011 National Wood Awards of The Worshipful Guild of Carpenters, for the Rothschild Foundation's new Archive Store and Study Centre at Windmill Hill Farm near Aylesbury.
In 2006, Green Oak Carpentry won Gold for the Savill Garden Visitors Centre Grid Shell Roof on the edge of Windsor Great Park, which was built for the Crown Estates. In 2002 the company won its first Gold Award for the Weald and Downland Open Air Visitors Centre Grid-shell which was, and still is, a truly pioneering building, the first timber grid-shell in Britain, which went on to develop the ideas of Frei Otto the brilliant German Engineer and Inventor.
The Rothschild Foundation commissioned this latest award-winning building as their new family archive and study centre. The Architect was Stephen Marshall who wanted to build a modern reinterpretation of the traditional timber barn, hence the open volumes of space and proportions of the building.
Read Andrew's full article to learn more and to see some beautiful images.
Randall Melnyk's O World Project Now Online
Encompassing arts, sciences, and religious/spiritual traditions, O World is a multi-media initiative ecnomapssing the arts, sciences, and religious/spiritual traditions. Its mission is to celebrate the diversity of human culture and to add another voice of inspiration for a ew paradigm of global community consciousness. Randall Melnyk, Subud Vancouver, is its visionary producer. Lucas Hille, with daughter, Veda Hille, and grandkids, Stevan and Bianca Jauca, were one of the first of many artists to record for Melnyk's O World project. Click here to hear them sing their version of the piece, "O World."
Dahlan Simpson's Creative Enterprise, Sentimental Bloke Publishing, Now Online
Sentimental Bloke Publishing features books, greeting cards, poems, short
stories. It also features lovely, specially designed cards illustrated by
Hideo Tsubono with Dahlan's poems inside. Dahlan Simpson began this journey with the vision that all peoples may embrace positive and joyful feelings together ~ whoever and wherever they may be ~ whether a close family member or a new friend the other side of the world.
Editor's Note: 'Bloke' is an informal British and Australian word for a man, and Dahlan considers himself a sentimental one at that. It's sheer serendipity that the company name is also the title of an iconic Australian silent film which was itself inspired by the 1915 "verse novel," The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis. Hence Dahlan's "apologies to CJ Dennis" on the site. Am sure no apologies are needed when one is following on in a great tradition.
Gregory Gudgeon and The New Factory of The Eccentric Actor to perform
Chekhov's A Jubilee in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic this June
The New Factory Of The Eccentric Actor (based on a 1920's Russian group) 
does large scale Free Theatre in unusual spaces. No-one gets paid and the events are free. Well....they have just been invited to perform at the very first Souladĕní Festival in S. Bohemia in June 2012. They will do an exciting new translation of A Jubilee by Anton Chekhov — and document the the trip and the production on film. They successfully raised the funds on Euro crowdsourcing site, Sponsome. Bravo! See their funding video here. Be sure to read all the text under the video about the company and this exciting project.
Farrah Karapetian's Representation3
at Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles
Farrah Karapetian's first comprehensive exhibition, and her first show with Roberts & Tilton, examines representation in both political and artistic terms. For Karapetian, these forms of representation are inseparable from abstract processes, particularly contemporary forms of media and their effects on our perception of material reality. Through four monumental works, Karapetian models a distinct mode of political and artistic address.
Each piece is inspired by a specific image culled from the news over the course of 2011; the original representation is then restaged according to the artist's processes of constructing negatives from re-enactments; finally, these sculptural negatives and darkroom performances result in unique photograms, a third stage of representation.
The images Karapetian mines reflect moments in our lived history at which overwhelming circumstances place the human character at the heart of a tragi-comic narrative. In the elaborate staging and exhibition of these prints, the artist returns to the position of the photograph as an a-factual object: color, markmaking, and time spent are revealed as the products of both choice and chance here, and the print itself is what one sees first, rather than its subject.
By working with hyperanalogue processes and at the scale of everyday life, the artist shows us that re-representation offers the possibility of deeper, slower experience of potent moments in our lived history than is afforded by the fleeting jpeg disseminated online.
Pictured above: Farrah Karapetian Riot Police, 2011, unique chromogenic photograms from performance, five prints, 8 x 13 feet total, Farrah Karapetian, Exhibition is co-organized by Justin Gilanyi, and will include programming that will enforce the educational dialogue within Karapetian's work. April 14 - May 26, 2012, Opening Reception Saturday, April14th, 6 to 8pm
Canberra's National
Folk Festival April 2012
Sebastian Flynn, Australia's former SICA Chair and a boardmember of SICA (i) is managing director of this award-winning festival. Celebrated every Easter, it has become Australia's festival flagship.
The 'National', draws together people from all around Australia and the world. They come to share in the songs, dances, tunes, and verse that have flowed through the ages from many communities into Australian folk culture. Have a taste of last year's festival here.
A Spontaneous 
Worldwide Sharing
of our Spiritual
Experiences
SICA asked Emmanuel Elliott how this wonderful site got started. Here's Emmanuel's reply:
The new website at www.remindersofreality.weebly.com begins with the observation "This website came into being with a momentum all its own," and that is exactly what happened. It can be said, although I certainly didn’t realize it at the time, that the seed was planted back in 2008 when a Subud sister emailed to tell me about a very precious latihan experience she had received on Easter Sunday.
“This is just too special to keep to myself,” I thought, so asked her permission to share it with a few friends. She was happy for me to do this on an anonymous basis, and so began a steady progression of such exchanges which did indeed take on a life of its own. More and more Subud people – most of whom I have never met – were drawn into the network, and I found myself privileged to be at the centre of a world-wide web of sharing which continues to this day. By the beginning of this year, I was passing on these wonderful stories to well over 100 people, many of whom are in turn sharing them with their own circle. There’s just no knowing how many people get to see them today; I personally share each week’s instalment with close to 200 readers nowadays.
One of them was Sebastian Paemen, a member of the Oxford group here in the U.K., and although he now feels like an old and trusted friend, Seb and I have never actually met. He began to contribute a few of his own experiences to the mix, and after a while confided that for about ten years he’d had the idea that it would be a great idea to collect such stories together and create a permanent web site for them. Remembering how Bapak used to encourage the likes of Sudarto and Varindra to share their stories with us, and how eagerly we devoured them, I soon realised that this was indeed the next logical step.
And so, courtesy of a free web site provider and thanks primarily to Seb’s expertise, there came into being our Reminders of Reality site, so named because so many of the stories bear glorious testimony to the truth of a shining Reality waiting just behind the sometimes shadowy and often harsh appearances of our everyday world. I am now able to upload the stories each week, and Seb has taken on the running of our Gallery section, which already features an amazing collection of inwardly inspired artwork and photography.
The site has been launched to a universally positive reception, hailed by one reviewer as "a wonderful website that is so greatly needed by our Subud community." It seems to be valued as much by longstanding members as by newcomers, and our hope is that you will pass the link on within your own group and to your wider Subud circle so that, God willing, it can spread around the world and be a source of inspiration and renewal to brothers and sisters everywhere.
The plan is to continue with the present practice of circulating a fresh intake of stories every weekend, which will then be incorporated into the website within a day or so.
Seb Paemen and I remain somewhat in awe at the way this project came into being ‘of itself.’ For yours truly, this is very much in keeping with something Bapak said to Istimah Week in 1979, as recorded by her on page 167 of her book The Man From The East: “In Subud we cannot plan ahead, but we must be aware, so that, when we are meant to act, we do.”
Author Hadani Ditmars to make special appearance with
release of Wallpaper*Vancouver in NYC March 13, 2012
The third Canadian city to be included in Phaidon's prestigious international series aimed at the design savvy traveller, Vancouver and its best architecture, restaurants, hotels and attractions are celebrated with style and wit.
Vancouver born Hadani Ditmars has been a Wallpaper contributor since 2000, when she travelled to Iraq for the magazine to write about Bauhaus in Baghdad. She has since written about architecture in Uzbekistan, and paid homage to iconic West Coast architects like Dan White and Arthur Erickson. This is the second edition of her Wallpaper* City Guide Vancouver, one that documents Vancouver’s ever-changing, post-Olympics skyline and celebrates its burgeoning built environment.
Jeff Breithaupt, head of culture and communications at the Consulate General of Canada, New York, will introduce Hadani and her book, and say a few words about Vancouver. Afterwards, Hadani will give a short visual presentation on the architecture of her hometown, and will read some excerpts from the Wallpaper* City Guide Vancouver. To be followed by general celebration!
Alexandra Asseily to lead webinar on creating 
Peace for Parliament of World Religions
The webinar will address our own responsibility for war and peace and the role forgiveness plays in releasing cycles of violence.
In l997, Alexandra, who had witnessed the pain of the civil war in Lebanon, was profoundly moved by a vision she had concerning the repetitive nature of conflict—that consciously and unconsciously held grievances are received by each new generation through an ancestral “contract” that can only be released through forgiveness and compassion. This vision inspired the Garden of Forgiveness in Lebanon to which Asseily has been committed since 1998. The garden is under construction in the heart of Beirut. It lies between three cathedrals and three mosques and amongst the archaeological ruins of 3,000 years of human living and dying.
The webinar, March 13, 2012, is free to anyone who registers. Click here to register.
Hamilton Pevec on a roll with his documentary, Hanuman Airlines
Having won the Icarus Award and the Coupe Icare for best documentary, Pevec's documentary will be at the Toronto Nepali Film Festival
Tin March 2012. Quoting from the Toronto Film Festival site, the documentary follows Babu and Lakpa, two crazy but affable thrill seekers as they set out to make their debut flight of Hanuman Airlines from top of the Mount Everest on a Paraglider. This is a film about faith, determination and living dreams. It is a story about flying Sherpas.
American filmmaker Hamilton Pevec has spent the last 10 years traveling the world, producing documentaries, developing film curriculum, teaching hands on production techniques and training locals. In 2009 he spent a year in India producing documentaries for the Dalai Lama's Archive and teaching the Buddhist monks and nuns filmmaking. He has also worked in South Korea as an art director for the Korean feature Lagoon and as a co-producer for the feature film Further Beyond. Hamilton also shot the documentary series, The Burning Question, at the World Subud Congress in Christchruch in 2010.
Hanuman Airlines
USA, Documentary, 2011, 29 min, Nepali w/ English subtitles
Director: Hamilton Pevec. Producers: David Aruffat and Kimberly Phinney.
Thanks to Toronto Nepali Film Festival site for the above story.
Breaking News:
The Nepali duo featured in Pevec's film just won the People's Choice Award from National Geographic for adventure of the year! Congrats to Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa — and Hamilton Pevec for documenting it all! Click here for details!
Alice at the Home Front, New from Mardiyah Tarantino 
In Providence, Rhode Island, at the height of World War II, feisty and intrepid eleven-year-old Alice, whose father and uncle are fighting in the war, is determined to make her own contribution to the war effort. Despite her mother's disapproval, Alice dreams of gaining recognition as an airplane spotter. (Google eBook summary)
“As a child I was inspired by the unity and solidarity which swept over the land during World War II,” says Tarantino. “We as children willingly joined in the sacrifices made by our parents at the home front for the soldiers at the war front.”
Tarantino revisits many of these memories through her protagonist. Her humor and persistence will appeal to readers of all ages.
Mardiyah earned her master’s degree from the University of Hawaii. Her essays, stories and poems have been published in newspapers, reviews and anthologies. Tarantino currently lives in Cathedral City, California, where she is a member of the Palm Springs Writer’s Guild and the National League of American Pen Women. This is her third book.
Thanks to iUniverse, an online self-publishing provider with titles accepted at Barnes and Noble, Readers Choice, Editors Choice designations, for this description. Order this book.
Filmmaker Nina Menkes has Major Retrospectives on Both Coasts:
Above left: Nina Menkes; Abover right: A scene from Nina Menkes’ movie “The Bloody Child” (1996), set in the Mojave Desert
At UCLA Film and Television Archive - through March 7, 2012:
"For three decades filmmaker Nina Menkes has made poetic, evocative films that have placed her in the forefront of American experimentalists," writes Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times. "She's a visionary who trusts in the power of image, movement and composition to communicate narrative, meaning and emotion." The retrospective, Nina Menkes: Cinema as Sorcery, opened at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater [Los Angeles] with Dissolution, her "most accessible but also most accomplished work."
At Anthology film archives in NYC Mar 9 - 16 2012:
"Independent filmmaker Nina Menkes has secured a distinct and indispensable position within the international film avant-garde. Her collected works, honored by international awards and critical accolades, iconoclastically and passionately map a psychic universe characterized by entropy—implicitly churning with destructive, if undeniably vital, power. Disconnectedness haunts Menkes’ work, as human figures negotiate steep slopes of trauma, self-definition and survival, against a generalized existential plane that seems unconcerned with such considerations. This tension is metaphorically figured by technical means, including precisely attenuated camerawork and sound design that invert the usual hierarchy between human subjects and their supposedly secondary backdrops. The tenuous position of subjective beings in such a universe is most superbly realized in the person of Menkes’ frequent onscreen subject (and off-screen collaborator) Tinka Menkes, whose implacable visage is a perfect riposte to a violent world. But Menkes also describes the work of filmmaking as “sorcery,” and indeed she wields a potent magic, introducing liberating mysteries: the riderless horse, the roulette wheel and the mysterious talisman constitute enigmatic and tantalizing signposts to alternate possibilities. The Archive is pleased to welcome Nina Menkes (a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television) to this survey of her momentous work."
Shannon Kelley, Head of Public Programs, UCLA Film and Television Archives, Los Angeles. http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2012-02-18/nina-menkes-cinema-sorcery
Read Dennis Lim's review for The New York Times
Podcast of Mike Plante's conversation with Menkes here.
Read Karina Longworth's review for LA Weekly
World Congress Organizing Committee Announces Logo Competition
The World Congress Organizing Committee is looking for the logo that will frame this great event. It will be the iconic symbol for the Subud World Congress 2014, and will be used on all Congress advertising, website, letterheads, posters, souvenirs, T-shirts, etc.
"We know that we have many creative Subud brothers and sisters, full of good ideas," they write. "So we are sure that one of you will design the perfect logo for the next Subud World Congress."
The winner wil have the congress registration fee waived. Complete information about the competition may be found here in English, Spanish, French, and Russian.
SICA Invites All Artists and Creatives to Participate in its 5x7 Art Auction
and Soirée at Subud Americas Gathering in Vancouver this summer
5 x7 Art Auctions have become the not-to-be missed fundraising — and 
funraising — events at museums and galleries in Texas. They're fun, they're inclusive, and they make art accessible to so many. And they also give the young art collector a great opportunity to begin. So we thank Sue Graze, former Executice Director of Arthouse at the Jones Center, here in Austin, Texas, for sharing with us how it works.
SICA is inviting all artists and creatives to donate works of art on 5" x 7" mat board or canvas board. But...you must sign your works on the back! All art is exhibited anonymously. And all art is sold for exactly the same price! (In our case, $30.00). So people purchase what they like, what they see. It's only after people purchase what they like that they find out who did the work.
The fun begins at the opening reception. We're calling ours the Pink Panther Soirée. We invite everyone to dress for the party inspired by the Peter Sellers films and/or the period the films represented. We'll have music and libations there as well.
And then comes the magic moment — the time for The Pull. All the art works have corresponding numbered tags beneath them. When The Pull is announced, then, and not before then, buyers pull the tag and make their purchase.
And then . . . they find out the identity of the artist. They may have bought the work of an acclaimed artist or the closet painting of a banker. It's what they liked.
Artists can send the work ahead in the mail. We will be posting information on where to send your work at a later date. Watch this spot for details.
October 2011
Facing Death
A few days ago, I was blessed wtih the opportunity to speak with Rachman Ulmer, friend, sculptor and very dear Subud brother who, as a result of lung cancer, is facing the big journey that will go from here to the next world — and facing it with love that he shares with everyone. The minister of the church they attend in San Antonio was so moved by how Rachman is — and how it is to be with him — he wrote a whole sermon about Rachman.
And then last night, the world heard the news of Steve Jobs' passing. Somehow hearing about Jobs made me even more aware of my brother, Rachman. They are both shapers. There is life in their hands and their vision. They are creators who breathe life into their work — and love doing it.
Steve Jobs also spoke of facing death and how it made him value each day, each minute. There's a link to his speaking about this on the homepage of this site.
Why do I include Steve Jobs in a Subud site? He is an example of what can happen when what we listen to our inner voice, when we follow what is inside and worry about "connecting the dots" after the fact.
I remember Bapak speaking of others —not in Subud — who were able to know and express the gifts of their inner selves. People like Pelé and Muhammad Ali. And when Emmanuel Williams sent in all the material for the magazine — more than we could use in our first issue — he had some elegant tribute pieces to Luqman Glasgow and Harold Hitchcock, wonderful Subud artists who have also passed on but who gave the world the gifts of their creativity and elegance.
What is certainly true is that when we work from our deepest selves, our gifts grace the world. Yeats, the great Irish poet, used to speak of tragedy as the ultimate renewal and rebirth — never an end.
September 2011
Now is the Time for Peace Week 2011
Here is something going on this week that everyone can join. For Free! It's a global telesummit featuring dozens of inspiring peacebuilders. There is more information about this event and similar events on the blog of the Parliament of the World's Religions' website:
This free online event, happening now, September 15-21, 2011, is the largest virtual peace summit ever created—last year more than 20,000 people registered from 152 countries. This year’s leaders will offer profound insights for you to create peace in your life, your family, your community and our world. You’ll also gain access to the full library of recordings from last year’s summit.
YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE TO PARTICIPATE FOR FREE HERE.
Presenters Include:
Alice Walker · Deepak Chopra · Marianne Williamson · Arun Gandhi Michael Bernard Beckwith · Daniel Goleman · Jane Velez-Mitchell · James O’Dea · Barbara Marx Hubbard · Avon Mattison · Kimmie Weeks · Grandmother Mona Polacca · Grandmother Beatrice Long-Visitor Holy Dance · David Korten · Aqeela Sherrills · Dot Maver · Stephen Dinan · Derrick Ashong · Steve Killelea · Sister Jenna · Dena Merriam · Rob Fersh · Rita Marie Johnson · Paul Chappell · Brother Anilananda · Kevin Quigley · Devaa Haley Mitchell · Andy Barker · Jenn Lim · Captain Richard O’Neill · Michael Furdyk · Pooran Pandey · Chip Hauss · Hiu Ng · Miki Kashtan · Rev. Bob Chase · Nurah Amat’ullah · Rabbi Justus Baird · Mary Stata · Sahar Nafal Kordahi · Tzvia Shelef · Orland Bishop · Guy Burgess · Heidi Burgess · Dr. Rick Levy · Julia Bacha · Nick Stuart · David Nicol · Belvie Rooks · Matthew Albracht · Emily Hine · Philip Hellmich
August 2011
Think again about data!
As we know, the term, Web 2.0, relates to the current generation of the internet that facilitates more interactivity, more user-centered inf