Look At Love

look at love

by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Nader Khalili
Original Language Persian/Farsi

look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life
why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known

why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

The Purpose

I believe that God has a purpose for everyone. I believe regardless of who you are or where you are they is a purpose behind your existence. There's a reason why a life comes to this earth. No matter the circumstances in which one is born, I still believe it is for a reason. I know God has a plan for me, He also has a plan for you. How do I know? Well, the Bible tells me so.

I believe if everyone lived their purpose in life then the world would be a happier place. People who live their purpose are generally happier. Not because they have no challenges, no. In fact living your purpose may even create more challenges for you but that doesn't matter because when you have found your purpose you don't feel the workload. Your work becomes your pleasure. You find enjoyment in what you do.

Work is only work when you are not enjoying it. Otherwise work becomes a pleasure. It is important that everyone finds a purpose for their life. No only will this bring satisfaction to them but they will also be living the life that God intended for them. They will be serving God who created them with such purpose.

Living a purposeful life has a way of serving others either directly through what you do for other people or as a role model and inspiration that you become in many people's lives. Either way, you add value into humanity. Find your purpose in life and serve your God and humanity with it.

How do you find your purpose? Well, for some lucky people they know what's their purpose in life. Some have known since childhood and others through life experiences. I believe the start of the search should be the bible. Who knows the creation better than the Creator? Know your Creator, know His purpose for human kind and discover your role in all that. It takes wisdom and great understanding to do this and Who better to ask for wisdom than the Giver of wisdom?

@PowderBlaq

Live like the is tomorrow because chances are, there will be...

There's a popular say that goes like "live like the is no tomorrow". It is a catchy saying that in most cases it is poorly applied and if you are stupid enough it can result in devastating results. This is not to say that this popular 'saying' is wrong, no, this is to highlight that like many other things in life the saying is not universal. It has its application.

We all don't know when are we gonna die. For most of us we prefer it that way. God forbid but my time to die could be now as I write this blog. My time on earth could come to an end at any given time or place. People who watch "Thousand ways to die" will understand what I'm taking about.
Not knowing when are we gonna die is no excuse to live carelessly and recklessly. No, we must still be responsible for our today and also plan for tomorrow because the chances are, me and you are gonna be here tomorrow.

It is important that when making decision today we take time to consider where we would like to see ourselves tomorrow. This is not to guarantee that we gonna be where we want to be tomorrow, no but it is a responsible act that help to shape one's future. We all don't know what tomorrow will bring but we cant try to plan and try to influence our destination by investing time and thought in every decision we make today.

It doesn't matter where you want to find yourself tomorrow, the decision to reaching that destination starts today. It starts with the choices you make today. Your age doesn't matter as well, you must decide what you want to achieve and when you would like to achieve it, visualize it and plan for it; you then implement it by decisions you make on a daily basis.

If you want to go on holiday in December then you find the place you want to visit, get the quotes and start saving for it today. This applies to whatever plan you want to achieve in life. Whether it's a dream job, that first car, or that degree you hope to achieve, you must start taking decisions towards making that dream a reality. The best time to start is now (After reading this blog of course).

Planning for tomorrow doesn't only apply to reaching our dreams or goals. It applies to preparing for the unforeseen events like death, one's or family member's. I am mentioning this because remember that death is one of the inheritance we receive from birth. When  you were born they were few things guaranteed to you in this life. On top of the list is your death. Don't ignore it, but at the same time don't live in fear of it. Plan for it. Have a funeral cover for you and your spouse or those you are responsible for. Have a life policy for those you live behind.

Life has many unforeseen events and one can not simply plan for all of them but you can plan for some. You can plan for sickness by having a medical aid, you can plan for loss of property by having insurance. Have a savings's account for that day when you will need cash in a emergency situations. I wish no one any bad thing but that's life, bad things happen to good and also happen to bad people. Thank God for future planning.

Plan your estate for when you are gone, and plan for retirement in case you are still around. Don't be a burden in your presence and even bigger burden in your absence. The time to plan starts now, not tomorrow, not any other day or hour. It starts now. I'm @PowderBlaq and thanks for reading.

Greetings in the name of the New year

It's 2015, and if you are reading this then YES we made it. 2014 is now past and 2015 is our new present moment. I believe there's a reason why me and you made it this far. I don't know you and probably will never get the opportunity to, but I thank God for you. And NOT just because you are reading my blog right now but I strong believe there's a purpose behind ever life. I also believe this purpose if not properly cared for can easily become corrupt.

If you are reading my blog then I would like to believe you are not a corrupted seed; in a matter of fact i believe that you are a non-corruptible seed.
A new season is  a time of joy for most; a chance for a new start or time to complete what one has started. However, from personal experience I know it is not so for everybody. For some it is a very difficult time in their lives. Some are anxious about what comes ahead while for some they still remain in the past.

Today in South Africa school opened for the year for the grade R to grade 12 pupils. For some its a time of joy and reunions but for some it's a depressing moment in their lives. This is so far all grades. For the 1st time school goers it's a beginning of a new adventure. some kids will adapt easily while some may struggle a little but will eventually get there.

Its amazing how I don't remember much about my 1st day at school doing Standard 1 which is now called grade 1. I suppose my age played a role there considering I was 4 years three months at the time. Nevertheless I do remember how fun school use to be. Now looking back at my early school years I must just appreciate how naive I was because although we didn't have much then it never really mattered to be. All I cared about was new toys, sweets and new clothes for Christmas. The rest I never put much thought into it.

Now I'm grown and with age comes responsibility and most importantly wisdom. Bernard Shaw once said "Youth is a wonderful thing. It's only crime is that it is wasted on the young". This quote made me see the importance of one's youth and the value of the old wisdom. In 2015 I seek to gain wisdom from the old and experienced and to expand the capabilities of my youth. I don't know what your goals are for this year but I can tell you one thing: If you haven't started yet then you are two weeks behind. get to work.
As from me i look forward to writing to you some more. stay blessed and happy new year.

@PowderBlaq 

A brief history of the U.S.-Cuba relations

Cuban refugees wait for U.S. Immigration aboard the shrimp boat Big Babe at Key West on April 23, 1980, after arriving from Cuba.

The U.S. and Cuba sure know how to hold a grudge. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, relations between the two countries quickly devolved into bitter arguments, political grandstanding and the occasional international crisis. And while Cuba lies less than 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Florida, the two nations have had no diplomatic relations since 1961 and use Switzerland as a mediator whenever they need to talk. But maybe — finally — things might change. On April 13 President Barack Obama announced that he would lift some longstanding restrictions, allowing Cuban Americans to visit and send remittances to their families and easing — but not removing — the 47-year-old economic embargo on the island nation. (Read "Will Obama Open Up All U.S. Travel to Cuba?")

But the U.S. and Cuba's ties go back well before Castro. In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American war, a defeated Spain signed the rights to its territories — including Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam — over to the U.S., which subsequently granted Cuba its independence with the stipulation that the U.S. could intervene in the country's affairs if necessary (later relinquished) and that it be granted a perpetual lease on its naval base atGuantánamo Bay (not). For the next half-century the two countries more or less cooperated, with the U.S. helping to squash rebellions and heavily investing in the economy of its tiny neighbor. The American mafia used Havana as a conference center in 1946. Ernest Hemingway lived there for 22 years; he wrote The Old Man and the Sea at his villa just outside the capital.

Then came the Cuban Revolution and everything changed. It took multiple years and a few attempts but on Jan. 1, 1959 Fidel Castro and his band of guerillas successfully overthrew the government of President General Fulgencio Batista. The United States — which supported Castro by imposing a 1958 arms embargo against Batista's government — immediately recognized the new regime, although it expressed some misgivings over the revolutionaries' execution of over 500 pro-Batista supporters and Castro's increasingly obvious communist tendencies. Castro visited the U.S. just three months after coming to power, touring Washington monuments and meeting with Vice President Richard Nixon, all while wearing his trademark olive green fatigues. It was a rare moment of alliance between the two countries, and one that would not be repeated.

By 1960, Castro's government had seized private land, nationalized hundreds of private companies — including several local subsidiaries of U.S. corporations — and taxed American products so heavily that U.S. exports were halved in just two years. The Eisenhower Administration responded by imposing trade restrictions on everything except food and medical supplies. Decrying "Yankee imperialism," Castro expanded trade with the Soviet Union instead. The U.S. responded by cutting all diplomatic ties, and the two countries have been talking through Switzerland ever since. President Kennedy issued the permanent embargo on Feb. 7, 1962 — right after ordering a shipment of 1,200 Cuban cigars for himself — and within a few years the country, whose economy relied on the use of American-made products, became a shell of its former self. Food consumption decreased. Telephones and televisions were harder to come by. With no way to import American cars, Cubans watched their pre-embargo sedans rust into jalopies.

The early 1960s were marked by a number of subversive, top-secret U.S. attempts to topple the Cuban government. The Bay of Pigs — the CIA's botched attempt to overthrow Castro by training Cuban exiles for a ground attack — was followed by Operation Mongoose: a years-long series of increasingly far-fetched attempts on Castro's life. Between 1961 and 1963 there were at least five plots to kill, maim or humiliate the Cuban leader using everything from exploding seashells to shoes dusted with chemicals to make his beard fall out. The Get Smart-like plans never worked, and Castro's Cuba soldiered on, angry as ever at the United States.

The darkest moment in the countries' relationship came on the morning of October 15, 1962 when U.S. spy planes discovered evidence that the Soviet Union was building missile bases in Cuba. President Kennedy learned of the threat the following morning, while still in pajamas, and for the next 12 days the U.S. and Russia were locked in a white-knuckled nuclear face-off — the Cuban Missile Crisis — that ended only when Nikita Khrushchev accepted Kennedy's secret proposal to remove U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for the de-arming of Cuba. The Soviet missiles were gone within six months, but it would take a long time for America to forgive the nation that allowed them to be placed so close to the American mainland. (Read about the lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis.)

In April 1980, a downtown in the economy caused thousands of dissatisfied Cubans to seek political asylum in foreign countries. Anyone who wanted to leave, Castro announced, could do so through its northwestern port, Mariel Harbor. Over the next six months 125,000 Cubans clambered onto boats and made their way to the U.S. in a mass flotilla. Castro also released criminals and mental-hospital patients, of whom as many as 22,000 landed on the shores of Florida; Cuba refused to take them back.

The U.S. strengthened its embargo rules in 1992 and again in 1996 with the Helms-Burton Act, which applied the embargo to foreign countries that traded with Cuba and was issued in retaliation after Cuba shot down two U.S. civilian airplanes. The last decade has seen the U.S. tighten and then relax restrictions depending on the political climate. A 2001 agreement to sell food to Cuba in the aftermath of Hurricane Michelle has so far remained in place; the United States is now Cuba's main supplier of food, with sales reaching $710 million in 2008.

President Obama's announcement this week that he would lift remittance and travel restrictions for those with family still in Cuba marked a small but significant change in the U.S.'s position toward the island. Obama also agreed to let telecommunications companies — long barred under the embargo — to pursue business in the country, which still has roughly the same number of phone lines as it did in the 1950s. But the fate of the embargo rests in the sensitive hands of politicians, and no one is sure what Cuba's reaction will be. President Raúl Castro (who took over for his brother after Fidel underwent surgery in 2006) has indicated that he would like to open a dialogue with the U.S. Fidel himself, upon meeting the Congressional Black Caucus in early April, reportedly asked, "How can we help President Obama?" — although his later comments reverted to his typical uncooperative, firebrand type. The U.S. has extended a small olive twig to an ailing nation run by the brother of an ailing man, and what happens next is anyone's guess. Will Cuba respond by releasing political prisoners? Allowing free trade? Or will the 82-year-old former President and his brother rebuff the nation that has made it so easy for them to hate? This is, after all, a man the U.S. once tried to kill with a seashell.

This article was originally posted by TIME. Link:  http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891359,00.html

The end is near! What's the new plan?

Now is that time of the year where most of us start to draw up a list of new year resolution. For most of us the list is pretty much the same as last year and the year before. In fact if I still had the page I had in 2013 I would probably just change the dates to 2015. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

While most of us might have not achieved  our resolutions, some people started with theirs and some even achieved them. If you are that person and you are reading this right now; shout out to you. Too bad I don't know you personally but you and everyone like you deserve a Bell's. Whether you have achieved or still in the process, compliments for actually starting.

For those like me who due to many reasons and a bit of laziness from our part did not even start on our resolutions, thank God for 2015. We have a chance to turn things around and start something. Let's rethink our strategies and just start something. Whether we have the resources or not let's just start something in 2015. I believe starting is the most difficult part of any project. If we conquer this crucial part then we halfway to achieving our dreams.

So to all those who started something in 2015, to them that achieved their resolutions and those in the process of,  and to us how haven't yet started; let 2015 be a year of change and improvement.  Let it be a year of new goals and new heights. Let it be a blessed year for all of us.

From me @PowderBlaq, thanks for reading. God bless!

Monateng Safari and Lodge in pictures

A picture speaks thousand words