See No Stranger. Wonder is where love begins...

7/23/2020

Group Mind card from Divine Muses Oracle

“It is easy to wonder about the internal life of the people closest to us. It is harder to wonder about the people who seem like strangers or outsiders. But when we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those we see as part of us. We prepare ourselves to love beyond what evolution requires…
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“Wonder is where love begins, but the failure to wonder is the beginning of violence. Once people stop wondering about others, once they no longer see others as part of them, they disable their instinct for empathy. And once they lose empathy, they can do anything to them, or allow anything to be done to them. Entire institutions built to preserve the interests of one group of people over another depend on this failure of imagination.” —Valerie Kaur, from See No Stranger, A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

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Maree Bento is a collage artist and practitioner of the mystical and healing arts.

As a tarot reader and deck creator, she also enjoys studying the stars and using astrology in her work.

Maree is a licensed massage therapist of 20 years and has practiced various holistic modalities for body, mind, and spiritual well-being.

Her background in the healing arts deepened her intuitive abilities and inspires her approach to tarot, creativity, and divination. When necessary, she brings these healing tools to her readings to address the specific needs of her clients.

She is Portuguese-American and loves to travel and connect with fellow seekers around the world.

singhg

10/9/2020 05:58:33 pm

naccurate And Misleading
alarie Kaur’s book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, is “foranyone who feels breathless.” She first thought her breathlessness revealed her weakness until her wise friend told her, “Your breathlessness is a sign of your bravery.” The memoir narrates her discovery of revolutionary love on her journey of awakening. The memoir's formulation rests on what is moral and strategic for her. Her moral paradigm is a liberal worldview, and her strategic is what advances her personally and professionally.
The memoir’s catchy title entices a potential reader’s interest with the understanding that thememoir deals with infinite compassion and unconditional love in times of crisis that can be used to solve America’s well-known social, economic, cultural, environmental, and politicalproblems. The memoir does not offer innovative and compassionate solutions; rather, it suggests replacing conservative ideals with liberal ideals. Valarie’s compassionate worldview excludes conservatives, tea party activists, racists, misogynists, traditionalists, and all others who fall outside her worldview.
The memoir does not seem to be meant for Sikhs; and has successfully targeted primarily thebroad spectrum of the well-educated, white liberal, progressive, and left segments of thepopulace. Still a potential Sikh reader who has heard of Valarie and her work, may expect tolearn from her experiences in putting compassion, one of the core tenets of the Sikh faith, inpractice. She not only fails that Sikh reader but raises fundamental questions and doubts about the Sikh faith, its divine foundation and practices, and the Sikh faith’s relevance in thecontemporary world. Regardless of her intentions, the memoir represents her narrow version of the Sikh faith to both Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike. It lacks the reverential and devotional vibe one might expect in such a memoir.
Valarie gives an impression that her memoir is driven by an intense compassion emanating from a bleeding heart, but it is a calculated, philosophical masterpiece. Every letter, word,punctuation, and metaphor is marvellously woven into a dream-like tapestry. She interweaves the story of her personal evolution, her relationship with the Sikh faith, and her professional growth in a unique style that deludes the common reader. She discloses partial facts on most issues dealing with the Sikh faith and makes her own conclusions based thereupon, which results in inaccurate representations about the Sikh faith.
In the memoir, she omits any inquiry into the appropriateness of her choices throughout her life, and avoids accepting responsibility for her actions, a hallmark of western culture and a core value of the Sikh faith. She downplays her own privilege and overplays her and her family's sacrifices.
Valarie is likely to mesmerize her liberal readership and to lose a dispassionate and independent reader’s trust due to her self-righteous and self-absorption. For Sikh readers, it is going to be a challenge to cope with perplexing representations of the Sikh faith. She makes efforts to create an ideal image of herself as a Sikh warrior-sage, without adhering to any Sikh religious practices.Her memoir has a potential to create doubts and disbelief in the realm of faith. Despite herefforts, the memoir shows her inability to see no stranger at all; in fact, she tries and falters, and she sees only strangers in the group of likeminded people that fit her scheme of personal,professional, and spiritual ambitions. There is a logical disconnect between the title of thememoir and its carefully crafted content.
Her memoir is not a required read for Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike, but they may choose to read it. For young Khalsa daughters in particular, it will give them a point of reference to see Valarie’s spiritual compass in depth and compare themselves within the context of the Sikh faith and their inner journey. Other than that they won't learn anything new that they are not already aware of. For independent non-Sikh readers, it represents only her version of the Sikh faith, and may give misconceptions of widely accepted aspects of the Sikh faith, particularly her representations of prominent Sikh Divine figures and her interpretations (or lack thereof) on common Sikh practices. The memoir more appears to be a manifesto of her political and professional aspirations, which undoubtedly is her prerogative.

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