FEATURED VIDEO

THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

A FIERCELIGHT look at the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

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FEATURED AUDIO

CONFLICT GETTING WORSE IN BURMA (mp3)

Velcrow Ripper joins CBC Metro Morning Guest host Kevin Sylvester in discussion on the situation in Burma, and Spiritual Action around the Globe.

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FIERCELIGHT WORKSHOP

The Open Center, NYC October 12th 2007

Join engaged visionary Velcrow Ripper and Redvolutionary Sera Beak on a powerful journey deep into the heart of meaning in life.

This fiery workshop on engaged spirituality offers us the tools to move from “push” to “play”, from merely surviving these challenging times to thriving. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste! Leap into your life, seize the day, and find out why you're here.

More Info &Registration

Also, don't miss:

Redvolution: Women Daring to Disturb the Universe

A spiritual firestarter workshop for women, with spiritual cowgirl Sera Beak, author of "The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Guide to Igniting Your Divine Spark."

(Women only)

The Open Center, NYC October 13th 2007
More Info &Registration

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Shambhala Sun Feature Article on Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh
by Velcrow Ripper, who traveled to Vietnam with Thich Nhat Hanh and his international Sangha, Spring 2007.

read more

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New issue of HopeDance on Sacred Activism featuring Van Jones, Andrew Harvey, Paul Hawken, Velcrow Ripper and more...

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OWN SCARED SACRED on DVD

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THE MEANING OF LIFE

What is the meaning of life for you? 

Send us your answer, in text or in video, and we will publish it on www.FierceLight.org

as part of the upcoming FIERCELIGHT ORACLE

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FIVE FRAMES OF FAME

Send us a straight on jpeg of your face and be a star, for 5 frames! We'll edit your image into the film, along with a few hundred others. You'll flash by pretty fast, but you'll be there! (Well unless you end up on the cutting room floor, which happens to the best of us...)

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Words, images, blessings, faces, donations to:

fiercelightfilms@mac.com

Welcome to Fierce Light!

Velcrow Ripper on location in Oaxaca, Mexico

I'd like to invite you to join me on an exciting, new adventure. 

Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action is our upcoming feature documentary and web project that explores the inspiring zeitgeist of spiritual activism that is exploding around the planet today.

For the last year, I've been traveling and filming all around the world, from Vietnam to Siberia, from Africa to Sri Lanka, from North America to India, taking the pulse of the planet. I've discovered a tidal wave of possibility and hope that is appearing everywhere.

All over the world people are rising up, coming from a place of compassion, and stepping forward to find solutions and alternatives to today’s vast global crisis. It is the largest mass movement in history, and it starts from within the human heart. 

A tremendous power is unleashed when Spirit Meets Action- it is what Gandhi called “soul force”, what Martin Luther King called “love in action”, and what we’re calling Fierce Light.   It is a force that nourishes and expands the lives of  all who take part. 

The Fierce Light Newsletter will feature the latest in Spirit in Action News; Voices of Fierce Light, with remarkable visionaries like Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker and Thich Nhat Hahn; Take Action suggestions on how to get involved; and Fierce Light Flashes to help inspire you to live a powerful, awakened life.

For those of you from the ScaredSacred mailing list, I'd like to thank you for making  the film such a huge success.  ScaredSacred played to sold out audiences in theatres,  television and grass roots screenings around the world, was honoured with numerous awards (including a Genie, the Canadian Academy Award), and continues to touch the hearts of thousands of people.  Thank you for supporting the film, and  spreading the word!  

I hope you'll stay aboard for FIerce Light, which we're busy editing, working towards a 2008/09 release. We’re also going to be launching the full website soon. It will be filled with resources, free audio and video content, (including full interviews with the remarkable visionaries I've met), and opportunities to join the discovery and the discussion.

I’m looking forward to exploring the incredible power of spirit meeting action with you, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Another world is possible, and it begins right now, the moment we choose to live it!

All Good Things
Velcrow Ripper
Director, ScaredSacred and Fierce Light

SPIRIT IN ACTION NEWS
Revolution of the Spirit in Burma

Velcrow Ripper with Burmese Monks on the Thai/Burma border

Today, the people of Burma are taking a stand against the repressive, totalitarian regime that has been crushing this sacred land for decades.   The crack down to their revolt has been cruel, but the people continue to rise up. Recently, horrific reports told of 200 monks butchered inside their monastery.  Over a thousand people have been arrested, and for many of them, this could be a worse fate – they will be tortured, and brutalized.

As I follow this news, I am struck with two conflicting emotions – one is a great sadness for the vast sacrifices that are being made, and another is a great sense of hope, of the possibility that is emerging now that Burma’s sleeping “Revolution of the Spirit” has awoken again.

I spent weeks in the Burmese Refugee camps in the jungles of the Thai/Burmese border, interviewing activist monks, and I was struck repeatedly by their incredible commitment, their determination to conduct their resistance in a spirit of “Metta” – the Buddhist word for Loving-Kindness.

What’s happening in Burma is a reflection of the state of the human race – we must choose, between hatred, and love.  We are at a crossroads.   Some would claim that the only way to defeat the powers of violence, is with more violence.  Peaceful protestors are dying in Burma, and this might seem an indication that non-violence cannot work.  Yet a million people can die in a war, and people still think that violence “works.”

Violence never works.   As soon as you employ violence, you have already lost. Your humanity. Nobel prize winner, leader of the Burmese National League of Democracy, Ang San Suu Kyi, once said, “I do not believe in armed struggle because it will perpetuate the tradition that he who is best at wielding arms, wields power.  Even if the democracy movement were to succeed through force of arms, it would leave in the minds of the people the idea that whoever has greater armed might wins in the end.  That will not help democracy.”

As they step forward courageously into the line of fire, the monks and nuns of Burma chant the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s discourse on Loving Kindness, which goes in part:

May all be well and secure,
May all beings be happy

Let none deceive another
Or despise any being in any state;
Let none wish others harm
In resentment or in hate.

Just as with her own life
A mother shields her child,
her only child, from hurt
Let all-embracing thoughts
For all beings be yours.

The people of Burma are relying on our support – the big hope lies in China, the chief supporter of the regime,  deciding the brutality in Burma is too much of an embarrassment, especially in the face of the upcoming 2008 Olympics in China.  We havethe power to make a difference – by coming out to the rallies, by signing the petitions, by insisting that our own governments support the call of democracy and freedom inside Burma.  To support the call for a world of non-violence, peace and love.

-Velcrow Ripper

Velcrow on Burma ~ CBC Radio Interview

TAKE ACTION
For the People of Burma

A DAY WITHOUT VIOLENCE

Pick a day out of the week, and practice non-violence in action, speech, and thought, in solidarity with the people of Burma. Think how much harder it would be to practice loving-kindess with a gun pointed at you.

ORGANIZE YOUR OWN VIGIL

Choose a public place or landmark in your town, and organize friends to go there, all wearing the same maroon red clothing as the Burmese monks and nuns. Tell local media about your plans. Sync up with other actions happening around the globe.

Ask people attending your event to share their feelings on this crisis and the need for action, and then tie a red ribbon or piece of cloth around fences or trees to leave a more lasting sign of your support for the Burmese.

Hold to principles of nonviolence in support of the monks and nuns, avoid protest chants, consider a silent vigil or chant the Metta Sutta.

Global Calendar of Burma Vigils

Metta Sutta

WEAR RED AND LIGHT A CANDLE
Wear red in solidarity wtih the people of Burma. Light a candle and place it in your window, as your own personal vigil. Read the Metta Sutta, and consider how you can apply it's words to your own life.

Print this sign, and hang it in your window:

The World is Watching: Free Burma!

MAKE A DONATION
The Burma Foundation provides humanitarian aid to Burmese people of all ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs.
http://www.foundationburma.org

HELP GET VIDEO EQUIPMENT INTO BURMA
http://www.bpf.org/html/home.html

SIGN THE GLOBAL PETITION http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/w.php

STAY INFORMED

FierceLight Burma ReSources

Buddhist Peace Fellowship The Saffron Revolution

Sources: Avaaz.org & Buddhist Peace Fellowship

VOICES OF FIERCE LIGHT
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

VELCROW:
 Where do you think we are at this moment in history as a species on this planet? What message would you give to the world?

TUTU:
 I think that even though we used to be very skeptical and cynical about spiritual realities, people are beginning to think that they ought to look at it again. That in fact the best in us is when we acknowledge that we are spiritual creatures, creatures of spirit who have values of love, of compassion, of caring.  Those that we admire most of all are not the aggressive, the macho.   It’s good people, the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, people of that kind, those who have shown a spiritual attribute like magnanimity and forgiveness, like compassion and caring, those are the people that we hold up; because we realize that we are in fact those who are made for goodness and transcendence and beauty and truth and love and laughter.

Come on lets finish man!

VELCROW:
We're almost done! Just a couple more quick questions.

What is the meaning of life?

TUTU:
That it is where I learn my need of the other and that we are meant to help one another make this world hospitable to love, to caring, to compassion.   We are the result of a divine loving and ultimately we are meant for love, we’re meant asthose who will communicate love and make this world more hospitable to love.

VELCROW:
And finally, something I’m curious about, do you think that God has a sense of humour?

TUTU:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely! Just look at the creature’s God has created. I mean you look at me with a big nose and short and stumpy.... and then God has to say, "I have to love him?  Aaah!"

[Laughs]

FIERCE LIGHT FLASH
Change your life. In a flash.

WHAT WOULD LOVE DO?

Ever asked yourself that question?

See how your day is transformed when  you flash yourself awake, before you act. 

The next time the phone rings, take a breath, and ask yourself: how would Love answer? Then, let Love answer, no matter who is calling. Love always knows what to say.

 What would Love say to the people you meet today: to your family, to the dog, the bird, the people on the street? The guy who drives you crazy at work? The beggar on the corner? Love might give her change, or maybe just smile and acknowledge her as a human being - Love is not guilty or dogmatic. Love knows what to do, if you let her guide your steps.

Love is not a wimp. Love stands up for justice, for truth, for dignity, and sometimes that means being Fierce. Fierce Love, Fierce Compassion, Fierce Gentleness. Fierce Sensitivity. Don't insult Love with a hallmark imitation. We're talking about the real deal here. Love is able to remain loving, unconditionally, in every circumstance, without exception. That's fierce.

Sound like too much work to be Love all day? Then wait until it's really needed-the moment irritation or anger or fear arises. Stop for a moment before you respond. Look at what it is that's really triggering you.   Can you approach this problem with freshness, with aliveness, as it is, not with a big bundle of pre-conceptions that stops you from seeing the other as a real human being. As someone who suffers and dreams, just like you?

Before you respond to anyone or anything, ask yourself: what would Love do?

Awaken yourself to Love-in a flash.

Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action