Papa Ladji Camara passes Oct 23 2K4 By Reverend R Clark
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:27:58 -0400
Sent To: djembe-l@yahoogroups.com, floridadrumcircles@yahoogroups.com, jembe-list@lyris.wesleyan.edu, Goblet_Drumming@yahoogroups.com
Greetings & Condolences BabaAziz and ALL!
Papa Ladji Camara
June 15, 1923 - October 23, 2004
At 05:41 PM 10/24/2004, Baba Aziz Ahmadu wrote: The Master Djembefola, Papa Ladji Camara, has made his transition to the ancestors on Saturday. He left peacefully in his sleep. Your prayers and blessings will be felt. He loved you all.
Thanks for Everything!
- This news brings a tear to my eye, and I only had one class with him several years ago while visiting the NYC area. This sincerely touches me because, I found him to be such a warm and lively spirit, instantly endearing. Also he proved to be a kind and gentle teacher. When I 'got' what he needed to emphasize with me, he gave me "both thumbs up" and this expression of Joy that burned that image of approval into my memory. I treasure that.
- For those lucky enough to have had more time with him I cannot possibly estimate what an enrichment and Blessing he provided.
- I pray for Ladji to have an easy transition as I do the same for my own father who also had an easy transition a few years ago. My prayers go out to the grieving as well.
One Love, R
Drumming Peace!
Related:
Indian Funeral Prayer
Kingdom Come
Famous Last Words Department
A Hospice Experience in Central Vermont Rainbow Bridge
Psalm of Life
Dear Deer
With a large fruit orchard and twenty-five fertile acres at our disposal, the students, teachers, and myself enjoyed many happy hours of outdoor labor in these ideal surroundings. We had many pets, including a young deer who was fairly idolized by the children.
I too loved the fawn so much that I allowed it to sleep in my room. At the light of dawn, the little creature would toddle over to my bed for a morning caress.One day I fed the pet earlier than usual, as I had to attend to some business in the town of Ranchi.
Although I cautioned the boys not to feed the fawn until my return, one of them was disobedient, and gave the baby deer a large quantity of milk. When I came back in the evening, sad news greeted me: “The little fawn is nearly dead, through over feeding.”
In tears, I placed the apparently lifeless pet on my lap. I prayed piteously to God to spare its life.
Hours later, the small creature opened its eyes, stood up, and walked feebly. The whole school shouted for joy.But a deep lesson came to me that night, one I can never forget. I stayed up with the fawn until two o'clock, when I fell asleep. The deer appeared in a dream, and spoke to me:
“You are holding me back. Please let me go; let me go!”
“All right,” I answered in the dream.
I awoke immediately, and cried out, “Boys, the deer is dying!” The children rushed to my side.
I ran to the corner of the room where I had placed the pet. It made a last effort to rise, stumbled toward me, then dropped at my feet, dead.
According to the mass karma which guides and regulates the destinies of animals, the deer's life was over, and it was ready to progress to a higher form. But by my deep attachment, which I later realized was selfish, and by my fervent prayers, I had been able to hold it in the limitations of the animal form from which the soul was struggling for release. The soul of the deer made its plea in a dream because, without my loving permission, it either would not or could not go. As soon as I agreed, it departed.
All sorrow left me; I realized anew that God wants His children to love everything as a part of Him, and not to feel delusively that death ends all. The ignorant man sees only the unsurmountable wall of death, hiding, seemingly forever, his cherished friends. But the man of unattachment, he who loves others as expressions of the Lord, understands that at death the dear ones have only returned for a breathing-space of joy in Him.
- Paramahansa Yogananda in "Autobiography of a Yogi"Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away
into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone;
wear no false air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
...I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near just around the corner. All is well.
- Henry Scott Holland (English clergyman and theologian)“Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still -- real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then.”
- Roddy McDowall as Huw Morgan in "How Green Was My Valley" Twentieth Century Fox, 1941“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
- Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead.
- Book of MormonAny man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
- John DonneThe clock of life is wound but once
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time.
For the clock may soon be still.
- Inscribed on a clock in the Botanic Gardens in Durban, South AfricaFor those who made their lives an offering,
Who have laid down their bodies that others may taste life
You have become like the Sun whose radiance sustains us.
You have become like the grain cut down to feed us.
May you rise as the buried seed rises...
- Prayer from Pagan memorial service, by pele007“As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996), "Bread for the Journey"“Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.”
- Amelia Burr
“Through the clouds of midnight, this bright promise shone,
I will never leave thee, never leave thee alone.”
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Copyright © 1998-2K7 R. Clark - clark@acceleration.net .
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“One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.”
- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)“All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day”
- George Harrison (1943-2001)