And the seed is sown...

Dear ones,

To whom it may concern, this blog is a collection of thoughts, ideas, learnings, pictures, poems, doodles, songs, and afterthoughts. Feel free to share this with others or to keep it to yourself; the purpose is for Nasim and I to reflect on our experiences and to share them with others. We hope you enjoy!

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We arrived about 2 weeks ago in the fantastically humid and HOT Port of Spain, Trinidad, to a torrential downpour. I thought to myself as I passed through the airconditioned airport into the wet fresh air, "Back in the tropics!" Despite the tempermentaly weather and culinary differences that may have caused more than a little intestinal grief in almost everyone's gut, we were fortunate to have each other's unconditional love and support every single day of this amazingly well organized and focused 14 day training. Thank God for songs! We may have actually sung ourselves into a coma if allowed. Luckily, the training was only 14 days or I just may have burst.

What's this training all about? Whatagwan!?

So many of our endeavors to transform society are carried out in the spirit of sacrifice and love but unfortunately do not function very systematically. Because of this lack of planning, acting, and reflecting, we are unable to learn from mistakes and advance our understanding. This inititiave is allllll about systematization: to systematically help societies advance socially, spiritually, and intellectually. Since last May two groups of people hailing from Mauritius Island, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S. and other countries had attended a training like this one to reflect on, review, and gain knowledge about the nature of their work in the Caribbean. This past training was a reunion of those folks in addition to our new group (Mercy, Philip, Nasim, Laila, Micheal, Jasmine, Nabil, Becky, Tenea, Christine, Brian, and myself)and some people indigenous to the communities throughout the Caribbean, as well as a few more experienced Counsellors and member of the International Teaching Center, Juan Francisco Mora. Mr. Mora and Counsellor Gene Andrews were only with us the last 3 days of the training. Their presence was so encouraging. "You are even as lights that shine and burn more brightly," Mr. Mora addressed us, "that when I think about seeing you from outer space I think of the illumination of the entire planet. You are not alone. The Concourse on High awaits with chalices of light to rush to your aid. We love you and pray for you every day in the Shrines. You are never alone."

The majority of our time was spent reviewing study materials from a sequences of courses called Ruhi books. These small but profound tools have been developed based on experience in the field of children's spiritual and moral education, adolescent transformation and empowerment, and other similar activities that are at once spiritually and physically unifying for many communities across the planet. By the end of each day I could barely keep my brains in my head with the heat and the overwhelming amount of profound conversations. Towards the end of this training we were all a little cracked...I spent the better part of yesterday laughing about a meatless piece of chicken I'd had at lunch and rolling around in the neighbor's hammack. Not saying it wasn't a wonderful experience--I'm eternally grateful--just really overwhelming.

With the basic understanding that as pioneers most of our learning about these activities comes from the crisises and victories of trying to do them, we realized that the training was really more about hearing what others had tried. In addition to this, we studied the love letter our dear Universal House of Justice wrote us last Ridvan until the pages were tattered and the margins thoroughly annotated. My copy became really pencilly.

Gene Andrews alluded to a celebration at the end of this year. Hopefully we can all get together for more singing and prayers and laughter next April or May.

For now Nasim and I will be spending our afternoon in the Antiguan airport at this really cute cafe eating lunch and checking emails and talking about how much we dislike dogs, love salsa dancing, and other really important things of that nature. Tonight we will be official St. Thomasians! Oh snap!

for some pictures of the training, visit:

picasaweb.google.com/bkurzius/TrinidadMay2010Photos#

from the airport with love,

Carita Feliz