Fela Anikulapo-Kuti – I am not sure why I feel so astounded that The Shrine, Fela’s club, is thriving on Broadway. Perhaps it is the transportation of this very Nigerian vibrancy from the streets of Lagos to Main Street, New York? The actors were tremendous in portraying Fela’s artistic, personal and political style.

Fela was adept at speaking through his music. He was also raucous, very controversial, and highly entertaining. The play, Fela, provides a creative education that extends well beyond the stage, into the surrounding theatre and through the often-pulsating, enthusiastic audience.

The more we are able and encouraged to peer into someone else’s world, the more open we become to a wide array of cultures, values and other systems that exist in this expansive, interconnected web of human beings. When we talk to diverse people, we have an opportunity to discover the underlying stories behind narrow newspaper headlines. We learn to appreciate that ‘true’ communication is an effective means of understanding and tolerating each other.

Even if you are not on center stage, your story has something important to add to how someone else processes the world.

Speak up …

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

“All stages of life are marked by meetings under the conversation tree” – Joseph Ki-Zerbo. Every culture, every major piece of writing highlights and celebrates the vital importance of conversation – of our need to communicate with each other.

Great writings, artifacts, art and music fill museums. They are evidence that humankind has always needed and desired powerful forms of dialogue.

This past weekend, many of us extended our hands in friendship to celebrate the opening of Love Is A Mountain’s Global Women Story Circle ™. I created this ‘talking circle’ to encourage people around the world, especially women, to share a different kind of news – their own. This vehicle can open doors, cross boundaries and diminish barriers built by ignorance. We can transform the way we understand and embrace others by directly connecting to like-minded people in another part of our country or our world – having a pen pal – but with larger, more purpose-filled objectives and outcomes.

I invite you to create or join in a circle of conversation at www.globalwomenstorycircle.com.

Tell your story and share your wisdom!

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

We know that cells have their own intelligence, capable of operating in organisms in both cooperative and adverse ways.

I once read that each human being is like a cell within the body of earth and that we individually and collectively play roles similar to that of a cell in our own bodies.
Some cells feed and build … others appear like renegades with destructive intentions.

We are more connected to each other and our host, mother earth, than we act as though we realize. We typically do not think that what one cell ‘feels’ and does in one part of the body can profoundly affect another. Likewise, we do not understand that what we do in one corner of the world can actually reverberate and influence others all over our earth.

Like the huge tree root above – each part in one way or another touches the whole. Imagine if we believed that every thought, feeling and action had some important consequence to ourselves, or on someone or something else.

Think about the impact…

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

I expected to be alone for the day – touring London on the big red, open top, hop-on, and hop-off bus.
The last time I actually toured it was when I was 16; so I got a real kick out of the whole idea of again doing so in a city I visit often.

Shortly after I boarded the tour bus at Baker Street, a young Chinese woman (who has lived in The Hague for the past eight years) asked me to take a picture of her. She too was traveling alone. That was the beginning of a nine-hour journey of friendship together.

Jing and I watched the famous changing of the guards, toured Buckingham Palace, cruised down the River Thames and soaked in the other historic sites. An onlooker would have assumed we were old friends: chatting away, laughing, taking pictures together, and catching up with life. In one of the exquisite palace staterooms, she excitedly exclaimed, “Mozella, this really is a fairy tale!”

Jing is an open, warm, intelligent and refreshing reminder that friendship often begins between strangers who simply exchange hellos.

Smile at someone you don’t know!

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

Feeling your way, finding your rhythm takes time when you are facing something new. We have to propel our way forward, get some movement going, as well as maintain balance and direction. So many things can go wrong: too deep, not deeply enough, steer right to head left and left to head right…instructions can be so confusing.

We lose patience and want to understand how to be exact in what we are doing…especially if there is an audience: people are watching…expecting us to fall into the murky waters below that await the inexperienced.

The lesson I experienced whilst punting in Oxford, England is that friends and even people you don’t know are willing to support your efforts to learn and help you push away from collision when they see it coming…and that, yes, it’s okay if it takes time to gain momentum. Try in spite of the possibilities of not winning or not succeeding – imagine not making the effort at all. We may remain ‘safe’ but no action at all…gets us?

Venture out, take a chance … go on, you can do it!

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

In my travels, I have seen many historic sites that chronicle the rise and fall of great civilizations – sometimes we know what happened, other times we speculate. Do we go “too far” causing us to begin again, forcing us back to square one?

We enjoy our technological advances and especially revel in the modern ways in which we communicate with each other. Perhaps it is the old fashioned in me that looks back on the good ole’ days when we called each other!

I feel we have lost something very important – actually many things. I am not totally convinced that what we have replaced the old ways with is capable of nourishing our souls. Perhaps this is part of our problem. The customs of people naturally connected to themselves and our earth draw the interests of many of us. We gravitate toward some of their simpler and deeper ways of being and doing.

We may not want to replace any of our modern day conveniences or new ways of doing things. However, is there a genuine substitute for the ability and privilege of touching, and hearing one another?

Just reflecting,

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

I do not claim to be a photographer, though I have a newfound pleasure in capturing nature, odd pieces and the simple and exotic experiences as they appear in my book of life. Sometimes pictures trigger my writing, other times a picture I took before stands ready to complement my thoughts.

Real, not photo-shopped pictures of life can reveal so much. Like nature, music, art and words, pictures can touch a nerve in us and unravel a myriad of thoughts and feelings that otherwise would be hidden from view.

Soooo, I’m walking down the path, set to enjoy a sunrise on Aquia Creek (before the start of my Girl Scout – Camp CEO morning) and on the way down I see this beautiful leaf hanging by a mere thread, suspended right in the middle of the path. I wonder what that industrious spider was thinking.  Striking – click, click, this I must share, it will not be here for long.

Think of all the terrain you have covered in your lifetime. How do you choose to express it all?  Look at something today; savor it, then try to save it.

In the flow,

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

I have never been a Girl Scout…until last week, well, sort of!

Many of us volunteer our time – year round – to make a difference in someone else’s life.
It’s only when you get in the dirt and play, especially with our young people, that you realize what a huge impact sharing stories and exchanging ideas can actually have.

Camping out, (that’s my cabin!) creating and learning together, laughter, songs, the good outdoors and even surviving ‘being without’ all bring invaluable lessons and real life skills. Imagine if every 16 year old could talk with and ask an adult (other than their parents of course!) questions about the ins and outs of life’s journeys. Imagine enriching your own life by participating in a young person’s education.

If you are not an active volunteer somewhere, someone in your own backyard needs YOU (not just your money). We can do so much to help and it begins with asking the ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions.

Go on … earn your badges,

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

It was a beautiful, striking sight – and because the sun does look like it is falling, I could hear a panicked Chicken Little declare, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”.

We cause our earth to ooze thick black muck and we dump mounds of refuse on a daily basis like cancer cells spreading throughout a warm body … and many of us wonder how She holds it all.

I am grateful our sky has not fallen – that our moon still remembers her rhythmic cycle and that Earth’s astounding beauty bursts forth in spite of us. We string together words and ideas like “environmental clean-up” and “garbage disposal” – but where do we really put it all? What part of our earth ‘deserves’ our growing debris?

Yet, our sun rises in the east and sets in the west even in New York, Lagos and Hong Kong!
I sometimes wonder, is She holding her breath…waiting to exhale?

Do what you can to help…

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)

Take a good look at the word “mindlessness” – does it have a negative or positive ring to you?
Imagine for a minute a space or place where you have no agenda: you simply empty out and do no thing… nothing.

We perform countless tasks throughout our day, many of them leaving us emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted…how do we sustain our pace without any real breaks?

Then, I think, how shortsighted we can all be by not creating the space we need right where we are, not just on annual vacations. We can claim the opportunity – every day – to stop the madness, slow down, close our eyes, be grateful and simply breathe: each of us can create our own ritual.

Shut the computer down, recycle the newspaper, cut the live feeds of all the bad news on television and let go…it is more than a notion, I know…and you know too. However, this week, twice each day, try giving yourself a mini-vacation at your home…something, anything small – make it special.

Take a break, now…

Mozella Perry Ademiluyi

www.mozellaonthemountain.com (blog)

www.loveisamountain.com (website)