by Ed Gurowitz
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer
Mitakuye oyasin! “All my relations” or “all are related.” We say these words when we enter the lodge, but our work in MKP is permeated by what the words represent. None of us got here alone; we stand on the shoulders of those who went before us, and those who come after us will stand on our shoulders.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the MKP USA timeline highlighting important since 2008 when we undertook reorganizing, but if you haven’t take a minute and click on the link to see it. It’s only a page long, but every line represents the work of countless dedicated men, starting with the Stanford Alumni Consulting Team’s studies in 2009 and 2010 that resulted in the formation of MKP USA.
As I have read and re-read this timeline, I think of those men, and I’m reminded of a poem
I Think Continually
by Stephen Spender:
I think continually of those who are truly great.
Who, from the womb, remember the soul’s history
Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious, is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through the rocks in the worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasures in the simple morning light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog, the flowering of spirit.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky,
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun, they traveled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
In my time in MKP I’ve met such men, and learned of others, some of whom are now gone, and I am deeply grateful for them. Beginning with Rich, Bill, and Ron those 30 years ago, and continuing down through the 60,000 or so men who have joined, right down to the men who were in the NWTA I staffed on last week, they are those who fought for life, and left the vivid air signed with their honor. I am humbled and grateful to be part of their lineage.
AHO!
Ed G.
Till next time, Aho!
Out with Gratitude,
Ed Gurowitz
