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Summer 2007

Fall 2007

Winter 2007

Spring 2008

Summer 2008

Fall 2008

Winter 2008

First Summer issue 2009 (somehow we missed the Spring!)

Summer II 2009

Summer issue poster

Fall 2009

Fall 2009 poster

Winter 2009

Winter 2009 poster

Spring 2010 (announcing the Red Artichoke Culinary School)

Spring 2010 poster (New Red Artichoke Kitchen Floor Plan)

Check out our video, "Welcome to Dorothy's Place" on You Tube!

and our new sequel, "Welcome Back to Dorothy's Place", featuring Youth Alive, our @risK Gallery and the Peter Maurin Work Co-op!

Archives

Map & driving directions to Dorothy's Place and @risK gallery

2008 Fact Sheet

Central Salinas Business Campaign

Franciscan Workers - Value Created

At A Glance

December 2006 Fact Sheet

Chinatown Renewal Project Plan Part I

Chinatown Renewal Project Plan Part II

Why a New Dorothy's Place (revised) (Robert Smith)

Helping at Dorothy’s Place: Inside the Immersion Experience (Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Ph.D.)

The Little Portion . . . (Robert Smith)

Justice and Hunger (Robert Smith)

What is a Wise Community? (Robert Smith)

Personalism (Robert Smith)

The Essential Maurin (Peter Maurin)

These Amazing Women! (Jill Randolph)

Roberto's Story

Soul Food

Postcards from Rumi (To Soledad Street)
by Robert Smith

What are you looking for?
Just drop your addictions for a moment,
Leave them in a pile with your doubts and fears…
Imagine: you are walking this street transformed!
Absorbed by your misery,
You’ve forgotten your freedom!
Take a shower, get some lunch.
Home is just one step
Outside of yourself…

If you won’t work the soil
Why say you want a garden?
If you won’t stop negative thinking
Why say you want a new life?
Just sit on the sidewalk
And watch your life go by…

If you think you are walking
With God in your back pocket,
Take off your pants!
If you think you know God’s mind,
You’re out of yours!
Your soul is but one flavor of Love
In an ‘ice cream shop’ of many flavors.
Only Love
Can merge you with your possibilities…

When I die
Just fold me up
And box me
With the compost mix.
But don’t be surprised
If by next spring
You see me rising
With the sunflowers
And the wild berries.

Sometimes I move like a queen,
Sometimes they cart me off to jail.
Sometimes this,
Sometimes that.
I am my own best friend.
I am my own worst enemy.
Now watch me while I torch the street!

Getting in line, following the crowd,
You’ll never find the face you had
Before you were born.
Look deep and discover
The emptiness before form.
Step outside
Your lost and lonely mind,
If you are wanting to be found…

Are you ready for your walk
Into the Garden of Endless Delight?
To enter you’ve got to be cooked
Over a slow fire of camel dung.
Why this contrast?
That too, is an illusion…
Please, just stop hurting
The one’s who cross your path…

Do you know what the blues harp says?
Don’t run away from your pain!
Sing it! Embrace it!
Your mistakes are a divine melody!
Wail if you want --- just don’t
Play the same song over and over and over…

Does someone tell stories about you?
Does gossip slap the back of your head?
Who is the deceiver
And who is the deceived?
The truth is: you came from Nothing
And to Nothing you shall return.
Get used to it…

Don’t give me that,
“I think therefore I am” crap.
To stop thinking is the trick!
To be at peace
As the eye of a hurricane, now
That is a human being!

I dreamt of a single kiss,
But you’re not satisfied with a thousand!
Where did you get such passion?
Even the moon is peeking in our window…

When my head touches the ground
In prayer, only
Your breath fills my lungs…
Only Your love
Enflames my heart…
Gardens, rivers without end,
And long legs are only excuses…

I joined the philosophy club,
But you stole my tongue.
I sat in the silence,
But you broke my chair.
Confused, I ran away from home.
You caught me, though,
On the first train out of town.

Welcome to my starvation heart!
I go to sleep,
And then I wake up,
With the very same, HUGE
LONGING. When will You
Take away the night
And feed me sweet morsels
Of Love Kisses and Everlasting Light?

You who think the Holy One
Is pleased with theology,
Dogmas, and creeds
Must have never stooped low
To get a close look
At the tiniest blue flower… 

For certain and for sure
You could stack
All the religions of the world
One on top of the other,
And they would still count for less
Than one eyelash that falls
From the face of your Beloved…

Our minds are not made like empty cups
Into which wisdom can be poured.
We are made, though, to break open
And to leak out all over the place…
Don’t try to wipe up the spills --- but
Do let go of every idea of “good and bad”…

Last night
I begged the Holy One, “Please tell me
The secret to healing broken hearts”.
Gently, almost shyly, She whispered,
“Be still.
My heart is broken too”.

Everywhere I look
There is so much pain --- so many people
Lost, lonely, and frightened
Trying anything to cling to life
Before giving up…
My heart is hidden in my chest, yet
It encircles all the suffering of the world…

Just sitting under this hat
I give freely a word here, a word there…
Each one a simple gift.
There is nothing secret
About the Way. I don’t expect
Anything in return, although
The Universe is always pleased
With every act of kindness…

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