Spring Cleaning for the sake of Love

[Guest guest]

This is a rare occasion for me, I am writing everyone I know (electronically). I

appreciate your indulgence.

 

First off, I truly hope that you are all managing to squeeze in some contagious

laughter and that your visions for the future are still quite vivid.

 

Beside the good wishes, I would like to hit you up for loose books that are

collecting dust on your shelves, and for those of you who have hoarding and

cluttering issues, this is a perfect opportunity to practice the concept that

"the world will provide for you, if you need something in the future, it will be

there", in the mean time, let me have all of your old books for the sake of the

800 requests that come in monthly at the Prison Literacy Project where I

volunteer.

 

The PLP project is fully driven on donations & volunteers. It is always at least

3-5 months behind. Imagine sitting in prison (some of these guys are in maximum

security, others in for life), beggin the world for some alternate world in form

of a book, and exercising such patience (if you could read the humble letters!).

Anyway, I am completely horrified about the criminal justice system in the US,

and hope we start moving towards the model embraced in New Zealand--side note:

look at the concept of Restorative Justice. I am not going to get on a kick

about modern day slavery, the privatization of jails or the folks who are in

there and why, I am just going to ask--if you have books to spare, hand them

over, there are minds waiting for liberation. And on a personal note…a while

back I scraped clean my library asking myself, WHY am I holding on to these

books? I decided it was to remind myself of how well read I was and immediately

put everything out on my street corner, if only I had

known of this project…

 

Speaking of liberation…maybe you know I was laid off last May from the homeless

shelter. The time has come for me to find employment again. Naturally I am

applying madly to the places where my experience dictates qualification; youth

shelters, domestic violence shelters, family shelters (anyone noticing a theme?)

and I am happy to work in these environments, because they are ACHING for

attention, but REALLY, I am hoping to move more in the direction of global

justice…self-sustainability for 3rd world women, and/or working with opposing

sides to an issue…I had a dream the other night that I was supposed to be

working with war torn nations, and that I had mistakenly been trained to work

with animals…I feel fairly confident about my search, but I would really like to

incorporate the training I received at the Summer Peace Building Institute in

the area of conflict transformation, and with that I am trying to climb up into

international populations…so if any of you happen to know of any

leads…though really I am actually only after your books.

 

I hope you all are well and that your spirits are raised.

 

Much love, Mariam a.k.a. Rohini

 

Okay, a quick p.s for ANYBODY in the east bay who has 90 minutes a week to

spare. I am also volunteering at Lafayette Middle School, as a mentor/tutor.

There are more than 40 kids on the wait list hoping that someone will come

forward and build their confidence for our future. Once again, I will not delve

into some rap on the Oakland Unified School District, nor the national rating of

education in California, but I will say there are hungry children who have SELF

SELECTED themselves as candidates for tutoring out in a lil school in West

Oakland…if anyone is interested lemme know.

 

Peace to you all,

 

Love, Mariam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Rohini ma, can you tell us more about the Prison Literacy Project? Is

it a national or regional organization? Also, where shall we send the

books? I've got some to give.

 

Also, I'm thinking about Briana's suggestion in creating a loan

circuit within our cyber satsang. Any suggestions?

 

Jai Ma!

 

Ammachi, Mariam Rohini Toorunjian

<omshivashakti108> wrote:

>

> This is a rare occasion for me, I am writing everyone I know

(electronically). I appreciate your indulgence.

>

> First off, I truly hope that you are all managing to squeeze in

some contagious laughter and that your visions for the future are

still quite vivid.

>

> Beside the good wishes, I would like to hit you up for loose books

that are collecting dust on your shelves, and for those of you who

have hoarding and cluttering issues, this is a perfect opportunity to

practice the concept that "the world will provide for you, if you

need something in the future, it will be there", in the mean time,

let me have all of your old books for the sake of the 800 requests

that come in monthly at the Prison Literacy Project where I

volunteer.

>

> The PLP project is fully driven on donations & volunteers. It is

always at least 3-5 months behind. Imagine sitting in prison (some of

these guys are in maximum security, others in for life), beggin the

world for some alternate world in form of a book, and exercising such

patience (if you could read the humble letters!). Anyway, I am

completely horrified about the criminal justice system in the US, and

hope we start moving towards the model embraced in New Zealand--side

note: look at the concept of Restorative Justice. I am not going to

get on a kick about modern day slavery, the privatization of jails or

the folks who are in there and why, I am just going to ask--if you

have books to spare, hand them over, there are minds waiting for

liberation. And on a personal note…a while back I scraped clean my

library asking myself, WHY am I holding on to these books? I decided

it was to remind myself of how well read I was and immediately put

everything out on my street corner, if only I had

> known of this project…

>