With my first time living abroad being in Japan, it is inevitable that I would attempt to make parallels between my experience there and my life here. (more…)

 
It was time for a change. My best friends here, Carlos, Monse, and Jacob, had either returned to the US or were about to. (more…)

(more…)

 
There are some things you dread. With just the thought of them your entire body convulses, and your mind, for a brief moment, is overcome with fear. (more…)

 
My roommate, Jacob “the Dude” Westman, coined the term “Costa Rica, the new west” on our trip to Cahuita National Park.  (more…)

“When you write try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” (Elmore Leonard)

I started writing first as a literary translator, after spending years of dedicated study on interpreting books written by other people, experimenting with different styles and genres. Four years ago I began writing my own fiction. I was coming back from Greece where I used to work as a Black Jack and Stud Poker dealer. Expressing myself in my own voice wasn’t a choice but an irrepressible need.

Things worsened when I decided to publish what I had written. I was immediately assailed by an army of dissuaders, who kept telling me that it was going to be ‘very, but very hard’. Nevertheless I was determined to go on with my decision. I had to experience for myself the excruciating process of trying to find a publisher interested in my work.

Some American friends introduced me to the world of self-publishing and independent writers. I was to adopt a different perspective: becoming my own publisher. I did a lot of research on e-books and digital publishing and eventually found an ideal setting for my stories. What convinced me was the idea of creating a kind of text that could be adapted to different tablets, and converted into six different digital formats: Kindle, EPub, Pdf, Rtf, Lrf (Sony Reader), PDB (Palm Doc). The files had to be DRM-free in order to meet my potential readers’ requirements, and provide a wider transportability.

The overlapping of contents’ streams is an ever-growing phenomenon, each one of us is developing a personal way of experiencing digital narratives:

“We are living in an age when changes in communications, storytelling and information technologies are reshaping almost every aspect of contemporary life — including how we create, consume, learn, and interact with each other. A whole range of new technologies enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content and in the process, these technologies have altered the ways that consumers interact with core institutions of government, education, and commerce.”

(Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture)

The usual prejudice against self-publishing is that it is the result of an improvised author. Actually, the very concept of self-publishing suspends judgement. There are no filters between the author and the reader, as there is no third party involved. It’s a solitary journey where the writer needs to juggle different abilities and acquire a managerial competence. Independent writers are responsible for everything, from editing and formatting to marketing, in complete autonomy.

E-books keep floating in a virtual world until they are selected by a reader and transported into another dimension. Unlike print editions, e-books turn into digital chameleons waiting for new configurations.

I have come to a conclusion.

I want JOY even in the face of adversity.

Adversity has it’s own demonic seduction, pulling the participant down, down, down, further, which can be a dramatic experience.

To hold out for joy though, even while undergoing adversity, is to give adversity a kick in its backside, to say screw you, you don’t get to own all of me.

It is a commitment, a willingness, not to let the beautiful childlike parts of ourselves disappear.

It’s a snow angel on a stormy day.

It’s popping soap bubbles floating and casting rainbows, not to destroy them, but to be a part of a larger imagining.

There is no reason to ever disown the primordial elements of me.

How about you?

There is a particular scene in the movie, Zathura, that came as close as anything has to my mental wanderings of what it would be like if my soul and my human self were to meet each other in the same moment.

At the end of the film, the “older”, (I say that gently, older compared to an adolescent), male character that has been battling the forces with the children, reaches out and touches the one brother on the shoulder, his younger, shadow self.

I wonder, is that what it would be like? A fun house mirror reflection looking upon itself?

I’m afraid you will have to watch it to see what I mean….(actually, it is a wonderful film, so I take that back, I’m not afraid to recommend that at all.)

What it Means to Have a Majority White America Elect a Black President

Can you choose your color today, or must others still do that for you? Can anyone of us with mixed heritage be predominantly called by just one name? More importantly, what does that say about the heritage you choose (or is chosen for you), and the heritage not chosen? It appears to me that regardless of your standing in society, regardless of your accomplishments or natural talents, you still must choose a color – or one will be chosen for you. (more…)

Many times when asking for advice, some of us start out, not realizing we want our own opinion or belief confirmed.

Then, we become frustrated with the person speaking to us that we sought out to begin with, the unwitting victim.

Next time you seek advice, seek counsel from yourself first, ask:

what is it I’m hoping to hear?
what are the chances I will hear what it is I want?
Would it be better if I just recorded my own voice to play back the words as often as I desire?

-S.E.

I went shopping for food. Attempted to pull into space but every time I did, another car pulled through the spot from the other side of the aisle. Ok I thought, let me back up and take another spot. Cars didn’t seem to wait so I gunned it and cut it quick.

Got the shopping done. Very peaceful and went out to car.
Woman starts to yell: “you’re kidding me!”
Cart was against her new or maybe just clean car, (no, not my cart!).
Oooh – she looked like she wanted a fight. I ducked in my dirty car very quickly because you see – I normally park by those little cut outs in the lot where you can load up the car and ditch the shopping cart in a secure area so it won’t be running amok in the lot. Now that’s not to say I’ve never been desperate and haven’t propped the two front wheels into the worn down garden intersection, crossing my fingers, hoping for the best and leaving. But you see the lady that was mad didn’t wheel the cart anywhere secure. She pushed it away from her car and the next lady to pull in had to stop the car, get out and move the car to clear room.

I thought, this is it – its about what we do with the shopping cart and how it affects those that follow.

Life can be just one shopping cart passing hands in good moments or bad but effecting the whole.

If I were to dream but then awake
yet hovered between the two
would it be the time awake
or time asleep
that was more true?

Can I hold
The rainbow that I see
Gather it
In clumps
Shoving down to
Mix with the lint
And remains of my day
Within pockets?

If I can’t do that
Feel that
Does it mean
I or would it be,
the
Rainbow,
have failed
Or ceased to exist?

The trees began to curl into themselves

but first

color themselves in the light

of Fall colors.

The edges began to creep,

creep,

and creep further in,

and every time they did,

the Faeries,

would curl up their toes,

closer to their immortal legs,

and hide.

The ledges of time

became smaller,

the space

to hide,

smaller yet,

and the Faeries knew,

there were not too many daylight hours

left to hide.

They unfurled in the night,

becoming themselves,

unbent from the leaves,

from human eyes.

Oh,

how they thanked the darkness for the need

of most,

humans,

to sleep.

They slipped from the leaves,

stretching their limbs,

nimbly alighting hundreds of feet to the ground,

to start the next day’s work

on the century’s task.

they had agreed to.

(more later) (copyright, The Faeries, S.E.)

Today

the Earth fell from beneath my feet

but it was not

an unusual occurrence

because yesterday

the same occurred.

I woke,

I stood,

I put my feet upon the ground,

I lifted my arms,

stretched,

and looked to the windows,

where recently,

i hung scraps of cloth,

to obscure the view.

of them,

or me?

It does not matter.

I know there are times,

we belong to no one

but ourselves and God in our heart,

and those moments are

simple

pure

real.

they are the moments,

God willing,

when the rest of the world

stands back

and does

not come through our door uninvited

and we have moments

just for thanks and gratitude

that we are

in those moments ok.

It will be the harrowing moments after

of self realization

CNN or Fox News

where we may doubt our own

definition.

So long as we hold

strong

in the moments in between

we can gather courage

like beans

or seeds

kernals

in a pocket

promising a different now.

Peace to you. We send such loving thoughts your way.

Surface Earth

In my hand

I hold

the promise of today

which was the breath,

the blink,

of yesterday,

unrealized.

In my hand,

I hold,

the courage,

of a moment,

fingers curled,

ready,

palms warm.

In my hands,

I hold,

the tempo,

of a new tomorrow,

watch my fingers spread,

reaching to the horizon,

refusing to meet,

a dividing line.

In my hands,

I hold,

the spark of hope,

so tiny,

I dare not look,

to see,

if it exists,

but close my eyes,

against the

sand of time,

willing granules

to become affixed,

within my eyelashes,

so short these days.

I will,

the space of time,

to exist,

as I hold it,

in my heart,

and send to you.

Peace.

Surface Earth

What is the sound,

of one heart,

sighing?

One heart,

crying,

ripping,

tearing?

What is the sound,

can there be,

when no one outside of yourself

can hear it?

Or is sound,

an image,

something transfixed,

transported,

into gesture and face?

Can we hear the sound

of a heart breaking

in visual imagery?

Imagine this,

if you will,

falling,

through a moment in time,

when life becomes reversed,

when the difference,

between what is and what isn’t,

is no difference at all,

where there are no lines.

Imagine if you will,

having,

in fact,

the wrong look,

the wrong intonation,

the wrong laugh,

and imagine,

that is all it takes

to make you into

the other.

What is the sound,

of a heart breaking?

What does it mean,

to be the other?

Who must you be first,

where must you stand,

to call

another

of your brothers

or sisters,

the other?

May peace be with you.

Surface Earth

Where do we begin when we sit separate; yet, never apart

in this Divine Matrix

of energy?

I wonder at times,

why I write here,

and then wonder again,

why not?

I share with you to night, a small sliver from a beautiful, beautiful book:

(an excerpt of an excerpt)

Poem by Phillip Lopate

We who are

your closest friends

feel the time

has come to tell you

that every Thursday

we have been meeting,

as a group,

to devise ways

to keep you

in perpetual uncertainty

frustration

discontent and

torture

by neither lovng you

as much as you want

nor cuttng you adrift.

Your analyst is

in on it,

plus your boyfriend

and your ex-husband;

and we have pledged

to disappoint you

as long as you need us.

In annoucing our

association

we realize we have

placed in our hands

a possible antidote

against uncertainty

indeed against ourselves.

But since our Thursday nights

have brought us

to a community

of purpose

rare in itself

with your as

the natural center,

we feel hopeful you

will continue to make unreasonable

demands for affection

if not as a consequence

of your disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective.

For the absolute beautiful narrative leading up to and including this piece, pick up and read:

Anne Lamott

“Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life.”

Peace to you.

What is the story that you have not told?

Is there only one?

Is it the story that creeps upon you in the darkest part of the night,

or the one,

in the full light of the Sun,

that glares at you,

on your way to work,

daring you to deceive it?

Do you have a story untold?

One that would free your heart,

if only,

for a moment,

you were the breath

of air

that lit

the

embers

of the fire?

Sometimes
there is nothing
left to say
you go hollow
empty
beyond reason.

Yet,
is it a bad
place
to be?

The space in between?

Have you ever felt
the moments
when they stretch
when time defies logic
in fact
when “time” is not
even present?

When it, you, life, just is?

Life does not stop to hold us

We only grasp

Fingernails etched

Against the matrix

of continuing energy

I saw a sign this morning in front of a small church:

God forgets the past-

Imitate Him

I smiled.  How simple.  How profound.  If you do not naturally know how to forget the past, you can pretend you do. 

Wait, imitate?  what do they mean imitate?  how do I imitate “God”?  I don’t even know if God is pure light or someone that looks like me and you.  How do I imitate that which I can’t see?

Ah, I imitate the action.  But is it action or is it non-action when you forget the past?

I decided to vote in favor of action, because for many of us, forgetting the past is in fact action, it requires “something”, clearing our mind, focusing on a simple picture in our minds, but certainly, navigating ourselves from visiting past paths that cannot be changed.  The only thing you can do by visiting the past is effect the present and the next present and so on.

Ok, so I began to get a handle on this…then I thought “imitate”, as in copy?  I felt the need to look up the word imitate…not sure I really  understood.

Dictionary.com on “imitate” lead me to a variety of similar definitions, the majority of which referred to copying a person or image.

Well ok then, I was not feeling quite so foolish for my desire to look up the word imitate and take the simple six word message I saw earlier today and turn it into a voluminous meandering post.

As I continued to read the definitions, the word “act” jumped out at me, to strive to copy an act.

Ah………..long breath. 

Now, I can put this to rest, I can live with that interpretation of the word “imitate” and thereby live with the wording of the message.  I don’t know need to figure out what form God takes in order to follow the message.

So copying the Divine, I am presently, forgetting the past and signing off of the last few hours of thought.

You must have heard them, haven’t you?

The almost, indescribable sounds of night.

Not the ones that keep you waiting on your next breath,

the ones removed,

silent,

peacefully exhaling.

You wonder sometimes,

how it can be,

that the same darkness

can breed such separate sets of emotion,

but it happens,

doesn’t it?

Just like in the day.

I was touched this evening,

very touched,

by words in a book,

I found,

in a dollar store today.

I mean no disrespect to the author,

paying such a slight amount.

Is it an excuse that it is all the vendor asked

and I did not bargain down further?

Without further ado, I share:

“Don’t you know she is the one who came out of her mother’s womb, leaving her mother dead?

Do you know who brought her from the hospital? Her mother’s brother, who didn’t even cry that night. Not one teardrop? No.

Unknown to them, you see what they say.

Will you keep your back turned, angry and hurt? Or will you put on a smile, walk straight into their waiting arms, into their trap of pity? I don’t know.

All I know is that in this city of twelve million, if six or seven, even ten people, say words that hurt, they are a speck in the ocean. Wait for a while, the moon will slide into the right place, the clouds will gather, there will come a tide and with it a wave that will wash this speck away.”

-The Blue Bedspread, by Raj Kamal Jha

I say to you then, namaste, in your deepest moments of the night, “the moon will slide into the right place.”

I have seen

the bottom

of tomorrow

it looks

not much

different

than

today

The sweet smell of freedom

the chorus

of unrehearsed melody

Today,

I had a day “off”

I sifted through “old” writings

I sifted through “old” drawings

and

I threw them out

I feel lighter.

See?

Hear?

Feel?

I don’t end.

It hit me like a ton of bricks tonight, an 18 wheeler when I was looking left rather than right.

I simply
Do
Not end.

I can give you verbatim
Transcripts
Of this ordinary; yet, unusual mind of mine
Or I can stay silent
And give
Pieces
Bait at the
End of the string_

Regardless,
I remain
As
Do
You.

Meme, again?

What six words define me? If you are anything like me, often beyond definition even to yourself, there is only one way to do this….what six words define me in the moment of that thought?

Let me give you the outline of the meme and then my answer:

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the web.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

My six word memoir:

The dawn before the day remains.

Now tagging….

1. Ronnie at Outofmyhead

2. Gypsyheart

3. Tumel

4. Sorrow

5. Tobeme

Justice Denied

She remembered the day clearly, looking up on the wall and seeing a D+ on the line next to her name for Constitutional Law. She also remembers years later seeing that same professor in Passaic County, Chancery Division.

She remembered his almost bald head on his too thin frame, smug, supporting the public interest group that would bring democracy to the mountain. She knew in that moment the right answer to his mantra.

But it was years before that, he said to her, “You’re like a monkey on my back.” And she sat there staring at some cheap print of constitutional parameters sitting on the wall, looking at this man who had placed a D+ on her efforts. She packed up her book bag, slammed her blue locker and called her father and told him that was it, she was leaving. And why not? Why wouldn’t he understand? When she handed him the entry she had done of the suicide note narrative, submitted after typed at 3:0O a.m. at the urging of her roommate, “there’s a fiction contest, deadline’s in the morning, submit something.” So she sat at the computer, a dot matrix printer, and typed a two page note and put it in an envelope and her roommate took it and placed it in a slot. A short time later she received a call, she had received second place. Only she knew that she hadn’t really tried. Then again, maybe she had, maybe she just let it go.

She stood in the kitchen of her father’s home sometime later, facing the end of her college stint, and showed her Dad the piece she had written that got a second place, her father read it and said, “Anyone can practice law, not anyone can do this.” He encouraged her to get a Masters in Creative Writing or Journalism, but she didn’t. Now it was eleven years later plus three years of law school, plus one year off, ok, so it was fourteen years, and she still had done nothing about it.

She was an idea girl without definition, she could complete nothing. She liked to believe it was because she saw all the sides of the same story, and on a good day, a charitable day, that would line up and be true but within the parameters of normal society, that would be procrastination, the inability to complete, to have true vision, to see and produce.

So she packed up her bag and was ready to head to the train station, the rest of her grades were absolutely fine for the first semester where she was one of the only day law students actually working on what was perceived as a cutting edge law brief of economic loss rather than sitting there and reading her text during the study break before first semester finals. The overnight stints at the diner with the student drunks were an afterthought.

She picked up the phone in the hall before heading out, managing to actually get her father on the phone, she wonders today how much he remembers, does he remember what she does? But she pictured him there, behind the glass topped desk, set on a slight angle, flanked by two windows in a nondescript but expensive town out in the boondocks as other lawyers would later describe it and rue the day they had. Had by the country bumpkin. But she saw him there, his cuffs still battling with his wrists, fasted tight by cuff links, he had not as yet lost the gold plated Mickey Mouse cuff links she and her brother had bought him on a long ago trip to Disney World, so she saw him sitting there, pages thrown in front of him, lines holding, other attorneys at that time working for him, hanging on his word, envious and contemptuous at the same time, they knew they didn’t have his essence but wanted to be around him all the same, and she saw the secretary, one of them walk in to get his attention, waiting silently as he pontificated on the phone, gesturing, she must not have had to try so hard because after all he actually picked up the line, she wasn’t put on eternal hold, told to try again later. She told him, choking, to the master, the man who aced night law school with two small children working in a garden apartment and working three jobs, part-time in Newark without gloves in the dead of winter following the Newark Riots, a white man sent to do was it a dirty or a clean job, he had a breifcase full of checks. It is only now she realizes that she never asked him if they were given what they were due. He reached for the phone and there she sat captured, how would life panned out if she had not dialed him first as she always did? Years later, faced with an even more prophetic situation, his wisdom she would regret to the end of her days when she felt he was more than human and had all the answers. She would wonder how life would have played out differently if she could have stood on her own two feet. If she could have blown air into the soles of her Doc Martens-if she could have for a moment pretended she was Marilyn Monroe and not cared who watched. But she called him as she did then and continued to do for more than a decade until she realized it was no longer fair to either of them.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I got my grades.”

“And?”

“I got a D in constitutional law.”

“How about the rest?”

“I did fine.”

“Ok, it’s first semester, this is what the books are written about, it happens.”

“I’m leaving this isn’t for me, I’m going.”

“No,don’t.”

“But you don’t understand, a D, I did the best I could, I studied, I was interested.”

“No, you don’t understand yet, it’s subjective.”

“Subjective?”

“It depends what mood he’s in, what’s going on.”

“What?”

“A D is not a D, a D is only a reflection of a moment.”

Ok so that’s not how he actually said it, but that’s how I now take it to mean… is that I was no Lady Liberty, torn between the law of liberty and the perversion of truth.

Ok, ok, so now what? I want to leave, I don’t fit in here, yes, I listened to you, I didn’t shave my head like I wanted to before entering law school, you said, wait, you will be different enough.

I did not yet understand the mortar of those walls, the pacts made between generations to keep the money in the family no matter what the means, I should have understood, we were not wealthy, we were not poor, we were that weird blend of still new Irish immigrants that knew what it was to come from nothing.

So I agreed with him, I didn’t walk down to the Peninsula of Newark, that strange hub where the trains come and come and leave from anywhere and everywhere with a whole race of people, generations stuck in place with millions traveling through, finding a way in and out when the others sat there in rot with dashed dreams, graduate programs, languages, wealthy families and friends left behind. Now they had the concrete, the dirty sidewalks, the people who had so despaired that they could not even respect those that lived with them, on the same streets, sharing the same fates because none of them wanted to to resemble their neighbor.

So I agreed. I would not take the train back to Hoboken or the City, I would not. I would put my books back in the locker, “locker”, oh, I would put my books back in the locker and agree to go see my professor.

Postcript-

He asked me why I was a monkey on his back.

I had the sheer pleasure of kicking his and his colleagues’ butts years down the road.

I don’t most days know
What
The answer is
Or what
The answers
May be.

I do know
Though
That you
Have to keep on getting on.

There isn’t any easy exit
From this
Unasked entrance.

You
Have
To
Breath
And be
Because anything less
Is not as much
As you deserve.

If I take a moment

And affix upon you

My battered eyes

I will not see

If I take a moment

And

Reclaim

The eyes I used

As a child

Then

I will see

You

As you

See me

This wonderful woman, blogger, tarot girl….DoveLove.…has hit me with my ultimate enjoyment….books….

I copy here, somewhat inartfully, her post regarding tagging and books and life and love.

Let’s see what I can do…..

By Dove, www.TarotwithLove.com Found this little exercise here while blog surfing, so I thought I’d give it a go…

=====================================

01. One book that changed your life

=====================================

OK, IT’S ME HERE, S.E., ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE? ONE…………….OW, THAT HURTS, THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL HUNDRED, BUT LET ME GO WITH THE GUT…SIDDHARTHA…………..

================================================

02. One book that you’ve read more than once

============================

MORE THAN ONCE? I REALLY HATE THAT. I HAVE AN EMBARGO GOING IN THAT DIRECTION, BUT MY FIRST WOULD BE THE SAME AS NUMBER ONE: SIDDHARTHA….AND SILK AND MANY MANY BOOKS BY ELLEN GILGRIST. I’M GOING FROM THE GUT HERE, TYPOS BE DARNED.

===================================

03. One book you’d want on a desert island

==============================

ONE BOOK I WOULD WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND? THIS IS TOUGH. I TROLL THROUGH BARNES AND NOBLE AND INDEPENDENT BOOK STORES LOOKING FOR THAT TITLE AND I DON’T HAVE IT YET, I DON’T….I WOULD BE WRITING WORDS IN THE SAND, ROCKING ON MY HEELS AND PROBABLY TALKING TO THE CLOUDS CREATING MY OWN.

==================================

04. Two books that made you laugh

=================================

EASY….SOPHIA KINSELLA….SHE IS A GEM AND ALWAYS MAKES ME LAUGH AND DARN IT, SHE PUBLISHED MORE THAN TWO BOOKS.

=================================

05. One book that made you cry

=================================

ONE BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY? HALLMARK MAKES ME CRY. A PLAINTIVE BIRD ALONE ON A BRANCH MAKES ME CRY. ONE BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY…PERHAPS THE ONE I HAVEN’T PUBLISHED.

=======================================

06. One book that you wish had been written

==================================

EASY: HOW LOVE CURES ALL.

========================

07. One book that you wish had never been written

ANYTHING FOCUSING ON HATE.
======================================

===================

08. Two books you’re currently reading

HAHA: THE REINCARNATION OF EDGAR CAYCE AND THE PHARMACY OF THE SOUL.

============================

===================

09. One book you’ve been meaning to read

UM, THE BIBLE?

========================

==============================

10. Okay, I’m gonna try this taggin thing, but since I’ve been getting the number 3, I’ll do 3

===========================

Muse, CV, SurfaceEarth

ANYONE WHO WANTS TO JOIN IN. MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS. PEACE TO YOU DOVE LOVE.

==

It comes down now-or should I say they?

Dropping,
Washing,
Pouring,
Filtering,
The end of my day.

The resevoir of sound
Coats and soothes
This otherwise me
Willing it to turn to snow.

To awake at five in the morning
Tomorrow
To rush to the window
On the tip
Of
My toes
To hold
And waiver there
Here
Peeking
Leaning
Into the glass
Of the
Next moment.

Did you ever have a moment, when you have realized, there is more than what you see?

I use the word “see” expansively.

It could be a person you are talking to, otherwise regarded as arrogant, but you sense something else beneath the surface, and then without warning, the person is there, alone with you unexpectedly, a break in a meeting, telling you about what haunts them, a bad time in life, something they don’t want repeated, but for some reason are now telling you.

It could be a busy day in an urban park when your ear picks out a violin playing from an open window nearby.

It could be the scrape of the branches against the gray sky, pieces, leaves hanging on despite the seasons. Then, a sound, a movement, the branches populated by birds you would have otherwise missed.

Perhaps this is why I often enjoy silence, in order to see.

Updated below:  December 30, 2007

I had the great fortune of coming across a space in the blogosphere which I enjoy. Today, I began to skip around again as I have been off-line for a few days now and went back to visit this blog:

Jamaican Dawta at WordPress.

I found a wonderful inspirational page on the author’s blog rich with resources for anyone called to write or committed to writing despite the little voice in their heads. Check it out….I myself am going to print it and read again to further enjoy.

Another cool source:  over at The Wild Pomegranate, Grace tipped us off to another cool blog:  The Red Ravine.  I went over to take a look and found a separate page on the blog regarding writing practices.  Looks great.  Take a moment and check it out.

Peace!

The following is an assortment of stream of consciousness writing. Some of it is old. All is unfinished. I’m just wandering through pages of writing. Maybe it was Grace finding her meditation draft book, or Sorrow 11, and her beautiful fridge, maybe it was the sheer tenacity of MotherWinterMoon or the brave heart of Ruby, maybe it is the absence of Ronnie and Mystery’s voices or the sweet sincerity of ToBeMe….but I wandered through small pages of my writing, small unfinished thoughts and leave them here this evening as a tribute to your own.

May the Divine bless you.

Peace.

Thoughts on another Day (July 7, 2007)(07-07-07)

I wonder

as I meet myself on paper

thinking of the days

which I perceive

to start so early

so unrelenting.

The morning,

the Sun hung oddly in the sky

the glare

the impact

the weight

stark.

I wondered what it would be

to be wrapped in robes

trudging across a vast desert

having it as my home

easy then to believe

in a vengeful Almighty

when shade and water

would be my gold

and so often unfound

who would I be?

Let Me Ask

you,

You,

what is it,

to type from your soul,

to find,

that when you open

your eyes,

the words are gone,

disappeared,

a backstroke,

something gone awry

the words are gone

and I ask you

i plead

I beg

why?

what have any of us done

to keep the world as it is?

my children laugh,

I am like a blind man at the keys,

my head rolls,

I refuse to watch what is written,

oh yes,

I go back for typographical errors,

but not for the moments within the breath,

I don’t know you,

you don’t know me

and you wouldn’t

for the person I am

was a person trampled upon

willing always to give

to the point of self extinction

I am done

I put my hand upon the plug

to stop this mind

yet, look upon the library

I put my head down

you don’t know what

it

cost me

to earn this rug

I put my head down

The barriers of Saturday

Copyright 2007: S.E.

Collapse

Inverse

The colors drain into me

A vortex

Of sound and light

I am color

I am words

I am what I was at the beginning

And what I was at the end

I am the moments in between

I type in a fashion

That if anyone were to see

They would be so confused

I can only hear the words

See them in blank

Close my eyes and let my

Fingers decide

What is it for a soul to fly

Within this earthly existence

What is it

What is it

What is it

There is a place removed

We all know

The touch on the shoulder

Thought you heard a sound

The flash of light

Or darkness

In the corner of your eye

A military tanker banked

And flew

As if on a human road

I lifted the fingers to my forehead

Salute

I don’t agree with war

I don’t judge the soldiers

I live within

And without

I am what you call here and not here

I am within you

All of you

Tilt your head

Turn it to the sky

Hear the birds

They are actually speaking

Have you forgotten the language

Watch a bird

If you approach

Still

It will wait for you

There is a pattern to the morning

To the Seasons

To Spring

Why we go so many years without

Listening

Seeing

Hearing

Smelling

Tasting

The avenues of us

Why

We

Go

Why

We go

Why we go

Because we do

It has been

And

So

It

Shall

be

Enter: S.E., copyright, 2007

Enter

Walk along the moss

The earth springing

Between my toes

Reborn

Wrapped in gauze

Is what we called it

Wound

Fresh

Air

Flowers

Roses

No tulips

Hair thickened

Feet bare

Clear

And bare

I breath

I breath

I breath

The oxygen has a name

When it enters my body

It is not

Just is

I pause

And look at the sky

I dip my fingers into the blue

I taste it

Smile

I light the world

I sit

Cross my legs

Fold unto myself

I glow

Emanate

I draw the energy of the earth

First

Asking

Bowing my head

Namaste

I say

To the earth

The soil

The pieces I didn’t

See before

The world

I sit atop

I am the woman

On the pot

Sitting

On the fountain

Of knowledge

It moves through

Me

It whistles

It gurgles

A stream

A winter thaw

Of a mountain

The cold clear

Never touched

Never?

Water

Becoming me

I breathe

And am graced

You can see me

Feel me

Unwound

my hair is in

what you think

is your wind

See

The way your car rocked

That was me

I was breathing

The lights that flicker?

It was me

Playing

Smiling and not smiling

We grin

The paths

The corrals

You humans

Have drawn against our creation

You have fenced yourselves

In

Welcome

to free will

Sheer Walls Copyright, 2007 Surface Earth

I have gone from you

There is silence

Space

A canyon

I have gone from you

And you didn’t falter

In your step

So convinced in your anger

You missed

The opportunity

For me

Not to go

I have gone from you

A bird from the North

Flying South to Sanctuary

I called for you

Cried for you

Screamed for you

Ceramic crashing to the ground

Did you hear me?

Nothing

The silence of righteousness

Of anger

Followed the shards

There on the ground

Left alone

Extreme emotion

Unwelcomed

Without attention

I have gone from you

Somewhere on the bottom of the canyon

Unable to scale the walls

I won’t come back this time

I have told you

There are no handholds

No crevices

Within which my hands or feet will fit

Blue: SmallThoughts on Being Woman

Copyright, SE, 2007

She crawled across the floor, the blue of her dress dragging onto the wood which had not been waxed in years. Her arms extended in front of her, hands clawing at the ground, then sliding to catch air.

They had sucked too much from her, believing she could either take it or was blind.

She looked toward the window sill, the worn wood, wondering if it was a dog that scratched the molding, there were claw marks darkened with age. She lifted herself with her knees drawn up beneath her, her head against the molding , chin down. Her eyes lifted through the level of the trees, looking out to the road below.

How many years had she sat in this position within her mind without knowing it? When did she first begin to cower and why? She was transfixed with what she did not know about herself, either what others had never told her or what she had not told herself. She rubbed the dirt from beneath her nails, she wasn’t grotesque, quite the opposite, she was told she was beautiful. Every once in a while, she would catch a glimpse of herself in a store window and be startled by her reflection, the angle of her cheek bones against the background and realize with a gasp that she was the woman reflected and she was indeed, in that moment, with that set of eyes, beautiful.

She has always been surrounded by people who tell you its black when its white.

Who are they protecting?

Certainly not her, lying through their teeth to serve their own motives. Is there a time when that is acceptable?

Pieces: Copyright 2007, surface earth

Broken

Pieces

Do you see

There upon the floor

Your heel grounds onto

The piece of otherwise me

Singing

A thousand

Hawks circling

Prey

Already dead

Or gone

Soundless

Yet with weight

There upon the air

Can you sense it?

My heart

Crying to you

Affirmation

Turned

A dead stare

Were you ever

Really there?

Steps

SurfaceEarth, 2006:

I feel like I’m walking in Heaven Lord

And there’s no other way to say it

I feel like I’m walking in Heaven Lord

Doesn’t matter where you put me

Where I land

Because now I get it

I see what

You have given me

And Lord

I feel like I’m walking in Heaven

I see the ceiling

In the room

Where I sit

But Lord

I hear the music that is ours

If we could but listen

I hear the sound

Of a saxophone

Wishing me a very Merry Christmas

I recall a funny card I saw the other day

“Happy Birthday to Me”

“And Oh, Merry Christmas to You”

Jesus surrounded on the front

I feel like

I’m walking in Heaven Lord

There are no lines

No forms to fill out

Which country I’ve come from

Or where I may go

I don’t need to keep up

With the Jones

Because the Jones are right here with me

I’ve got it all

You know

Right here inside of me

I feel like I’m walking in Heaven Lord

And thank you

For what you have given me

I am not the water.

I am not the rocks.

I am not the silt on the bottom of the bed of the creek.

I am not the edge of the creek, the moss meeting the edge of the water.

I am not the floor of the sky.

I am not the ceiling of the earth.

I am not limited

I am not defined.

I am no more not of the water and the earth and the rocks and the sky then I am of them.

I am all or I am nothing.

I am.

And so is love.

Today

I ask

why it is

we spend

time

wondering

what anything means.

I wonder

what it is

that

makes awake each day,

knowing that we don’t know.

Gratitude comes in many shapes and sizes.

Gratitude can be as simple as looking at the trees covered in snow and being thankful for the warmth of a home.

Gratitude can be as astute as thanking God for the ability to see the snow covering the limbs of the trees.

Gratitude can be using your full sense to smell the crispness of the air.

Gratitude can be sensing both the isolation of self surrounded by the snow and the trees and the connection with all living things.

Gratitude is a powerful state of being.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, or simply a time removed from the now we know, the humans began to be ruled by the being known as “It”.

“It” had all of the answers.

“It” determined how to live.

“It” held the power as to whether to grant or deny fevered prayers.

The people woke and worked and slept.

They managed to love, smile, cry, hug and laugh in times in between.

They didn’t notice slowly the less time spent beneath the Sun or the less time there was when they were exposed to the Sun.

They did not notice when time sped up despite what the clocks illuminated for them.

“It” on the other hand, watched everything with great mirth.  “It” sat back, hands folded on a large belly and peered beneath its folds, looking down at the “people”.

“The people have begun to ask too many questions,” said “It”.

“Give them ‘jobs’”.

“Give them ‘aspiration’”.

“Give them ‘hope’”.

Now that didn’t seem so bad, giving the people jobs, aspiration and hope.  No, not so bad at all.  The people went along with it, waking up and sinking into the parameters of their days without a thought.  Well, maybe one or two, but the rest of the words kept them so busy, they had to abandon their thoughts.

“It” chuckled, knowing it had just begun.

Well, I’m hoping this falls under the Fair Use Doctrine, I’m pretty convinced it does. So I’ll share just a quote of one of the four books I got myself today, because, to be truthful, I’m always reading more than one book at once and as many as I can get my hands on.

So without further ado, a slight excerpt, a cut-away…I give you:

“As I look back over my life, as my mind wanders freely over how I’ve lived and loved and protested and questioned, I realize that aging well isn’t about the search for happiness, but more about quietly feeling content with what I’ve experienced. Loving without caring too much, you might say. And more than anything, I’ve come to appreciate the value of conflict. Everything isn’t always meant to be light and love. The dark times, the conflicts, that’s where real learning can happen.”

-Shirley MacLaine, Sage-Ing While Age-Ing; Atria Books, p. 4, copyright 2007.

Update:  November 19, 2007:  O’Reilly & Ms. MacLaine square off on this flat planet

Exuberance.

How many times in our life are we within these moments?

Sheer joy?

Glee?

Unfounded, unlimited happiness? Moments within which we feel neither the finality of morality, nor the limit of our beginnings?

I read today, or was it yesterday, on The Naked Soul: To Whose Beat Are You Marching To…, about stripping ourselves bare of the expectations of others that we carry, the expectations that have become our own.

I see a lost girl in a train station, too many bags too carry alone, no idea as to what is packed within them, but all stamped “necessary”.

Now I wish I could give you the visual of this, that I had the acumen of some of my fellow bloggers to insert the proper pictures within the proper space of the words, and someday I will, but for now, believe, that there is a space between the words where only visuals can be captured and then there is yet a larger space, although often undetectable, where only the emotion without words or pictures exists. In that space, only faith of heart exists.

Don’t we ask ourselves this?

Even those of us that embrace stream of consciousness writing?

Yes, stream of consciousness writing can mean different things to many people, but I’m not sure I ever knew that until this moment.

I never took the time to think that stream of consciousness, as pure as I believed it to be, save correcting typographical errors, was in fact subject to many filters.

You may have filters that I don’t that edit less or more.

Does that make your writing any less pure?

I have spent much time the last few months, but more so, the last few days, enveloped in silence within sound.

Silence within sound? What kind of message is that?

Silence within sound, in this moment, to me, means, not feeling the need to infuse the moment with words.

I became lost within a group of people these last few days.

Simple communication gone awry, left on a corner in a remote town, I began to walk. But you see, I was not “left” by these people around me, we just used our words differently, yes, the same string of words. They watched me walk to a store, and when asking if I wanted a ride, I said, no, I like to walk. So when I came out and could not see them, I walked, assuming they thought my words, I like to walk, meant I would walk…and walk…all the way back to the hotel.

So I did, I walked.

They found me, a block from the hotel, flabbergasted and worried, thinking they had lost me.

I reflect now on that walk, how some blocks looked longer than others, but how as I walked, there was nothing pressing on me, you see, my Blackberry had an unfortunate encounter with a toddler and a garden hose weeks ago, and I still have not replaced it. Unheard of in my day to day profession, but, I wanted it to happen, I think now, I willed that garden hose to to hit my Blackberry.

I am now listening to Pandora, having searched for Diana Krall, and I did indeed get one selection, but what came next?

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

I am still the child that walks alone, singing to the clouds and clicking my heels, as I told RubyShooz moments ago….serendipity? or mere chance?

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,

there’s a land that I heard of….

Well, on this walk, the walk of the lost, I heard this song, and I heard God, and I said, ok, so this is what it is to be connected to the eternal, to be without worry, this is it, isn’t it?

Now any one else seeing it, may have seen a mad woman dressed in black with bottles of wine in brown bags wondering what had gone wrong in the world.

Yet, the crazy thing is…everything had gone right.

I was where I was.

And that was ok.

I also provided endless laughs for the crowd over the next several days…the best version, how does a woman get lost in a liquor store within only three aisles?

I smile.

I have not stopped.

At the same time, I hear a litany playing in the back of my mind, another childhood memory:

“Lamb of God,

You take away the sins of the world,

Have mercy on us.”

Over and over.

I veered today out of the way of a shadow on the road, but it was the shadow of a chipmunk, do you know how small the shadow of a chipmunk is on a country road where you are permitted to go fifty miles an hour?

But I saw it, and no, I didn’t hit the chipmunk. Thank God.

So, why do we write or not write here?

I have no clue.

All I know, is I did it my way this time.

Born

into this world

blessed

we crawl

we walk

we speak

years later

we find

we ask

are the words,

our words?

what we don’t question

is whether the feelings

are our feelings.

Are these my emotions?

My way of seeing the world?

Then we read too much, we write too much, we See too much,

we learn

our thoughts

our words

our emotions

may not be ours.

We turn,

and look around,

where next?

Sometimes, it is ok to write for the sheer pleasure of writing, what I otherwise call the unleashing.

It is then also ok, to step into the quiet space.

When I studied Kabbalah, a huge portion of what I studied was to be in a place of no judgment.

Intellectually, I could not grasp it, isn’t having an opinion always a judgment?

Or is it what you do with that opinion?  If you breath life into it, if you fuel it without regard for where the recipient may be standing?

Do we have an underlying obligation to understand our audience before we judge?  Before we opine?  Before we cast the sword of unilateral intent?

I believe we do.

I know the power and the damage of words.

I know the importance of standing up, not just for oneself, but for countless others.

I also know, words are like stones cast, they are sure to land somewhere, and who are we at the end of the day, to dictate what someone else should feel?

I don’t know.

I know it is unfair to suffocate another’s heart, another’s opinion, I wonder, can we suffocate in reverse?  By not adding more words, timber, to the fire, do we suffocate those who need that interaction?

Perhaps.

Where is the balance then?  How do we learn to not judge?  How do we learn to not judge in our not judging?

Take One. The Additive Factor of Morality: Those that feel that they have lived a blameless life, have not examined the spaces in between the moments.

-copyright 2007: S.E. Designs

I ask myself, no, I hesitate as I type this, do I really ask myself?

I think not. I think I know, no, I know I know, what enrichment is….

It is a day not long ago, a trying one, and just when a pause interspersed itself, Louis Armstrong came on, singing Hello Dolly and I heard my grandfather singing, singing like Louis. Yeah, I know, no one sings like Louis, but if you heard my grandfather, you too would shake your head.

I read Ronnie’s post on The Door to the Universe is You and it fit, it resonated, and I said, damn, I thought my landscape was limited, I thought, with my headlamp, flashlight, and pickax meandering through the labryinth of my mind that I could find the creased bits of parchment to give me the map to the treasure chest, but you see, in my mind, in my search, the treasure chest had boundaries…I read Ronnie’s post, the door to the universe is you, and my heart exploded.

Let me add, as I wrote this, my husband, that beautiful man, was trying to get us ahead, up on a stool, changing lights and before I could type the word “exploded”, well, the bulb crashed to the ground, and yes, it exploded everywhere.

So am I enriched? More than I can describe. It is the hug of a child, slippery from the bath, throwing him upon a deep comforter to cushion the fun, the giggles, the sheer delight in the moment.

We are what we decide, no matter what life hands us. And yes, I have been handed lemons, but heck, it’s easy make lemonade. The thing is, I can’t help the lemons I have been given, so what choice is there? I’m in charge of me, I decide how I feel.

I have learned, I have many hats, I decide which ones I wear and when, and sometimes, just sometimes, I wear them all at once.

Enrichment?

Who decides?

You do.

Namaste.

I sit within a section of time

I have placed myself in the center

the bottom

of a yet unfolded cardboard box

I follow the arrows

further the crease at the folds

lifting

one by one

the four sides

around me

I am sitting

within my slice of time

unaware as to the continuum

the cardboard

my barrier

the rain falls against the air

creating a curtain

drawing light from within

the appearance of morning

it glows within in its own making

the box has a lid

I attempt to draw down

there is no handhold

there is no way

to close and seal

the last piece

against time

We are all writers here, we all sit before our screens and compose words onto these pages, not knowing who may come across the pages.

I have met and encountered fellow bloggers here who take great care in how their words will be received.

I can almost see them there, fingers hovering above the keyboard, the pause filtering the mind, wondering, how will this be received?  How will it impact?

I bow my head to all of you who put such words on this virtual paper, caring what those words will do to us.

“I can only be my own present vision of myself.”

It is a simple proposition to recognize that many of us spend time, either in the past or in anticipating the future, striving to be who we are not.

If we gave ourselves one task today, it could be to repeat to ourselves: I am my own present vision.

We can then avoid wasting our moments of today on issues of the past, as far as I know, there is no easy way to recover or change the past.

As for the future, contemplating it too deeply and with anxiety only wastes the gift of the moment, which is the only true time we can live within.

So few are these moments, listening now, late at night, work tomorrow, Opera, a silence again within the spaces, rivers of words find themselves upon the page, three pages to be exact, untitled…

1.

Holding onto children

the fear they will grow

away from you

remote

is as if

stuffing

spun cotton

sugar

into your pocket

to save for another

cold day

2.

I want to hear your words

as pictures

translated

visual

then I can see

your thoughts in between

where your mind stutters

stammers

filling in the gaps

between our language

my hair

now falling

pieces on my arms

I mistake such occurrences for insects

only

age

3.

What happens

when your stories

of stories

have become more familiar

to me

than

to you?

Open Letter to God (original)

Hi God.

It’s me, again.

I know that you hear me everyday, chatting, begging, pleading, reasoning-asking for faith. You would think the mere fact I turn to you is faith itself, wouldn’t You?

But I know me, and You know me, and I am wrestling with my ego, unwilling to give it up, unwilling, because I think I will lose me, and my faith in You in the process.

Is that what they call, a paradox?

My “second” letter to You I started in a small, discounted, bound leather brown book, gold edged pages, a piece of fabric to mark where I left off. Small enough to go with me wherever I choose, anywhere but in my pocket. I will get back to that, that the book I choose to speak to You within could not fit within the smallest spaces. But not yet God, not yet.

I started my book, the first page, like this:

“To any who may enter here, turning the pages – remember – this is my journey – my perception of the world. Without collective consciousness, you may find yourself lost and without understanding as to my wording, my intent, my context and that will be as it is.

Namaste.”

But I continued God, I turned the page.

Another day I said to You:

I am unsure whether it is truly a grand awakening or as we stumble step by step, we find ourselves in a new place of thought.

I desire in these pages to embrace my voice, my connection with God, to truly hear the voice of God and live with that knowledge.

We know so little, barely skimming the surface of this Earth. What can I say as to how much I know of ultimate Truth or knowledge?

I long to amass, piece by piece, a web, a ladder, a matrix of higher learning. Why is there so much unknown? It came to me that with a shift in the energy fields, a rebalancing, we could accomplish anything. We could form energy barriers to prevent destruction of humanity along shorelines. Energy bumper fields to prevent cars, trains and planes form impact and consequent calamity.

On some level, answers are known. At the point it becomes realized, we will have most likely also have abolished the need for mechanical transport.

The hardest part is breaking out of the self created barriers. The nine to five of the imposed Society.

I no longer have any aspiration to remain a lawyer. None. I find it distasteful and I resent people’s refusal to move toward resolution.

I want to cry. Big, tearing gulping sobs. It is my own own inaction that keeps me stuck in place.

Hi God. Yup, me.

Here I sit. In a “County”, a seat of justice. I drove down the highway, a torrential rain pour. I was lucky I even brought myself to drive 50 mph and the other people, flying by, driving so fast, do they wonder what would happen if they hydroplaned?

Same day, later than who I was this morning. So much later that I must try three times to flip the pages of this journal, so thick the leaf edge, I don’t dare believe I bought this for myself to speak to God. I throw down my old glasses, they fall from my nose anyway, so stretched the arms have become. I don’t need them to read these pages.

So, anything new?

There is so very much I write in my head, between the moments – now and before – it never gets on the page. For now, I will put aside this journal, this memorable me, put it aside and read the book I bought on Gandi. I so passionately want to continue reading and I will slip inside the realm of semi-consciousness sleep state, when I dream in guarded dreams of tomorrow.

*If they ever obliterate tactile writing and reading, I will elect to ascend, immediately.

Siting outside today, another day without a blackberry. How much more peaceful. Sitting outside, a small diner, with tables set out on brick pavers. Small sign says: ‘sorry, we do not accept credit cards’.

Quickly I ask, how much for a cup of coffee and a toasted english muffin? $2.25, plus tax. I check. I have a five and some change, fair enough for a decent tip, I order.

I sit across from the courthouse, another case where settlement negotiations will change and the mood of the equity judge, King of all Kings, or as Alice said, the King of nothing, all at once, is less predictable than a storm at Sea.

I had a dream last night, I’m sure of not many things, but this I recall…a bird coming to land on my shoulder, momentarily frightened as I am not sure if it will claw me; then my fear becomes less and I began to worry of the bird relieving itself on my back. It begins to sing with me. I ran around to show people the miracle, but another bird, a small sparrow, flew into my mouth.

I’m tired now God. I will go, there is never a moment You don’t hear me anyway.

***Hey God, as an afterthought, I sound like I’m just stamping my feet.

***Upon further thought God, I need to say, although You know this already, I was in fact stamping my feet.  I complain about the justice system, about being a lawyer, and the simple fact is, I simply wish we lived in a world where we needed neither a justice system nor lawyers.  My acts of complaining about it, poking at different sectors of the system, does nothing to change the whole and only adds negativity.  So thanks for listening.

Monteray, Chapter One has been moved to a new page, entitled:  Monteray, The Book.

Excerpts of Monteray have been transferred to a new page:  Monteray, The Book

Excerpts of Monteray have been moved to a new page, entitled:  Monteray, The Book

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Truly.

I believe there may be very real enlightened persons, mystics, etc. that may have a clue about tomorrow, but I don’t.

I am like an ant, burrowing, carrying, following, content in my habitat, believing it will happen again and again.

But really, I have no clue if I will even be on Earth tomorrow.

Because of that I wonder, should I take more risks or less?

If I believe in Heaven, and a very mean, ogre or troll like God under the bridge, will it keep me on the straight and narrow?

Or is it enough for me to know who I want to be and who I don’t? Without the fear of an all powerful, vengeful God?

I have to admit, I have always thought God is all good, and in being all good, he could not be vengeful or judgmental. He could not issue empty threats. Only man does that for his own means. No gender discrimination intended, I am of a certain age and background where I learned God is “he”; consequently, my language patterns naturally fall back on this preconceived notion. I now believe God can be anything.

So, where am I going? What stones do I intend to step on in this meandering path of life with few markers or sign posts?

I talk about not knowing if I will be here tomorrow. When does tomorrow begin? Is it after midnight? Is it the next moment which transcends the moment of this thought?

I heard today of two children, thirteen year olds, fit, athletic kids, loving families, diagnosed with leukemia. It broke my heart.

I thought again, hours later, of how I believe negative energy and a lack of cleansing creates physical disintegration and I realized, I cannot believe that is true for our children.

To believe that negative energy leads to sickness connotes that there is a responsibility to think positively, to clear out and unburden the negative….how does this apply to the young?

Are there theories of Soul DNA or Soul Karma, something carried over? If so, why should it be that the young of this Earth should be so burdened to undo what many of us adults cannot?

I struggle looking for the book of Truth. The one book. I amass uncontroverted facts, ones tested and true, time and again, which remain true despite the tests, to compile what someday may be my personal book of Universal Truth. The pages are more empty than full.

Is that because I am pessimistic? Maybe. It is also though because I have not been able to amass enough signposts on this road of life and continue to wonder, after so many centuries, why have we not handed down to each other the true “Bible”, the Bible of Humanity, well being, love and life?

If I had a choice, I would remain within the afternoon light, the moments that remain in the sky before full evening, bright enough to be daylight; yet, not glaring into the room…filtered, soft, casting dimensions of leaves across the teal spun walls

I would stay here and never enter into night again

When did night hold promise and not fear?

As a child awaiting the fireworks, secure within my place in the world, afterthought, nowhere else to go

no way to reach beyond where you are, child, so the obligation to continue, as if, never yet arose

you could be mad, angry, sad, frustrated, violated

the dimensions, parameters remained fixed

You did not realize you had the obligation,

the duty,

to look for a new place to be.

I wouldn’t now have given up morning…

the safety at the end of the night, the beginning of dawn of the sun rising yet again.

The safety brought when the dark bowed again to the light, enveloping…allowing us to see.

If we knew of vision that would make the nightime clear,

would we have sat upon it,

for profit?

Would it have been so oppressive, so fearsome, perhaps,

a slightly different,

backdrop,

a different hue,

but not within a canvas,

so saturated in color,

there was nothing left to see?

Helping to heal, a global humble effort to bring all of us together, some call it the sixth dimension, some collective consciousness, others, simple human kindness.

Humanity’s Team is scheduled for a U.S. event. In light of the unspeakable tragedy in Virginia, Anne Alba and other volunteers, have committed to offering students free housing and admission to this weekend’s Humanity’s Team “We are all One”, with Neale Donald Walsh in attendance.

Obviously, this leap of faith to make this gesture for the students can only come from one place, contributions from those that care and want to see this Society advance.

Any interested: go to Humanity’s Team helping the students in Virginia

Bless you all.

I tried to write this post twice before, but started off with “hey”.

Not your choice of greetings?

God, I have to be honest, because whether I am or not, I have a feeling you will know.

I went into spiritual depletion.

I toured and trolled this virtual earth for the right answer to you.

I checked out raw diets and it was only days later, I noted there was little reference to you. Don’t eat sugars because they rot your teeth.

Ok. I’m old enough now to see the wisdom in that.

Yet, you intended for us to have this free food, no?

I don’t eat meat God. Just can’t get the hang of it. Don’t know how to divorce the picture of an animal that has family tendencies from what lands on the plate. Yet I will cook it, for anyone that visits, that needs meat.

I eat seafood. And yes, I stuggle, because there is a huge contradiction in what I believe and what I do. But I have to admit, there were moments in my life where I stuggled eating vegetables because I thought I heard them scream.

I read in one of Sylvia Brown’s books that we don’t have to eat when we pass on, and I resisted that. Now, I’m not so sure why I did as I was afraid that eating vegetables I could hear them while I chewed.

Mark it down to mental deficiency.

Fine by me.

God, I spiraled.

So convinced I was anti-religion that I began to actually seek comfort in what I grew with, Catholic doctrine.

I did something new this week though. I spiraled and crashed and then gave it to you.

I lost a case in Court and I was baffled that no one in the room cared that what occurred was improper and I got in my car, developed a migraine and then stopped…..I had promised to give it to you, no matter what, to guide me. Once I realized that and handed it over again, I smiled and I remembered to thank you for my smile.

So God, I don’t know what to follow. I’m not even good at being faithful to my belief in you. But I’m telling you what you already know, aren’t I?

I need you.

I know that much.

It is reported that “The Vatican and Science agree on a miracle”. The title caught our eye reading the Sunday edition of the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

A meeting of the minds?

A point of commonlity targeting simple truth?

The news reports on a miracle prganancy. In Brazil, a woman was deemed unable to carry a baby due to a wall of tissue diving her uterus. Grossi de Almeida carried her baby boy in a space half the size of an ordinary uterus, and at seven months, he was delivered by Caesarean section.

See

Free Republic online

News Saints Faith Web online

The mom claims the miracle of her son’s birth is attributable to a “paper pill”, wrich had a prayer written upon it. Now the 18th century Franciscan monk, Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao, is proclaimed a saint by the Vatican. This was one of two proved miracles needed for the creator of the prayer pill to be canoized a saint on May 11th.

The pill is claimed to have cured thousands in Brazil. The pill has a prayer:

“After the birth, the Virgin remained intact / Mother of God, intercede on our behalf.”

The pills are made in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where local women reportedly get together every afternoon in a room above a cathedral. It is also noted that the pills are made by cloistered nuns at the Convent of Light in Sau Paulo.

In the Star-Ledger version of the story it was written that “believers” take these pill. Miracle healings cannot always be proven. There is a growing trend of thought that the healing which occurs rests in part in the faith of the one asking for divine help. It is tricky to term it that way, because no one wants to blame a person in pain, i.e. you would have received a miracle if you could have just believed a bit stronger.

Science can in fact meet faith it appears.

Other interesting sources and articles on the power of faith and healing:

Dr. Willard Fuller

Ron Wilding: absent healing

Energy Field Therapy

Dr. Zhi Gang Sha

Thought for the day:

Some artists leave us no room to create in between their spaces, the spaces between the notes are so full.

We must just sit and listen and if God or the Universe graces us, we must put up our feet and listen, yes, listen and hear.

There are other artists that leave us room to fill in the spaces, words are never divorced. Do you know what that is, to tilt your head to hear the music of words before they hit the page, a waterfall flowing? How can words ever be separated?

To edit or not to edit?

Stream of consciousness writing is an integation of emotion and energy without ego……

Here we go.

Here we go.

Here we go again.

Trolling Virtual Earth.

This time, we have to admit, we had to depart the Matrix and enter the physical world. Actually had to park a car, walk, heavy footed on concrete ground and enter—-gasp—an independent bookstore. Yes that’s right. An independent beautiful world affirming bookstore. Shucks, to think we aren’t even gonna tell you where this gem is….ok….we might…but not today.

“Confessions of a Rogue Novelist“….

back cover sent to you via virtual earth compliments of surface earth, the liason of virtuality meeting physicality……..

“A Word

Confessions of a Rogue Novelist takes a hard look at the world of Commercial Book Publishing-a world of shock, shlock, and celebrity.

The catchword of this depraved New World is: ‘quality is taboo’. Claiming that good books don’t sell, [let's not forget, Harry Potter's unfortunate trips through slush piles], too many agents, editors, and publishers have driven quality away from the marketplace.

Dedicated to the Unpublished Novelist and The Unhappily Published Writer, Confessions of a Rogue Novelist suggest an alterantive route to breaking into print. This route is not without peril and is definitely not for the timid. But if the ourtcast is to win his own world–if quality is to find its long-deprived audience–it is a path worth taking.

A.J. Liebling once remarked, “There is Freedom of the Press if you’re rich enough to own one.” And so you won’t find anything like Confessions of a Rogue Novelist in what passes for New Grub Street today.

But Confessions, having been published away from the marketplace,away form the rubbish heap of the big commercial houses, raises some disturbing, even revolutionary questuions about the current book scene. And it does this with style and penetrating insight.”

The author of “Confessions of a Rogue Novelist” is identified as I. Yevish.

Once upon a time

A long, long time ago

(I think)

there was a peach tree

and a village

which grew

around it.

Many

Many

Many Grandmothers

and

Grandfathers

grew up around the peach tree.

The peach tree watched

the children’s birthdays.

Watched them grow.

Marry.

Have babies.

Who

would

have

babies.

Birthdays

around

the peach tree.

The peach tree

watched

friends grow

who did not know they

were friends.

The candles lit

in the homes.

It sighed.

The candles flickered

through the night.

One night,

a cold wind blew.

And blew,

and blew.

The peach tree

shook

in its roots.

It shivered.

He remembered,

seeding.

Little seed.

Placed in the ground.

Furrow.

drawn into

and apart

from

the earth.

dry

arid

dirt.

red

against the sky.

brown limbed fingers

dropping

uprepared

alone

yet

joined

fingers

dropping

me

into the ground.

The darkness

sitting

time

lost

no meaning

finding how to breath

within the dirt,

time passed.

I would call out,

a voice,

remembering,

my mother.

growing inside of her.

celebration.

of.

light.

the Sun.

Worship.

harshness,

the hands,

plucking to be fed,

the teeth.

Searing into

my skin.

“Momma?”

“Momma?”

not even the gift of silence.

pure.

remorseless.

drenched into me,

not yet born.

greed.

Yachts,

slapping at me.

I must stop this now.

this torture.

I was taught,

to reach,

toward light.

I call out.

Again.

Cry.

Sing.

Murmer,

last breath,

against,

the red sky.

I grew,

without breath,

taller.

I hold on,

for Mother.

I stood beneath

the ground

waiting.

I can see.

Light.

Mother?

I look around

trees

cut upon

thatched

adorning “homes”.

flattened

against the sky.

Mother?

Hi.  I’m just one voice like yours.

Slightly different with similarities.

I’m wondering something very basic.

Why do we all stand still and allow the world to be what it is?

I don’t do anything, mind you, I don’t picket, send letters to Congress, yell at the Pope.

I sit and think.

How about you?

What do you do?

Anything the rest of us might join in on?

copyright 2007

Mother

I ask You

to tell me

I know nothing

suckle sweet

the milk

my mouth turning

in its innocence

you cannot

see or hear me

I am a gnat

buzzing at your skin

not drawing blood

annoying

nonetheless

I turn

my head

my lips

my life

to you

copyright 2007

I find my way to You

between the shrilling

ringing of the phone

the blare of horns

the hum

of the computer

I close my eyes

clear away

the veil of darkness

descended

since waking

hooking my smallest finger

into the edge

of the fabric

closest to my right eye

tugging

a sliver of light

paved stones

trees blanketing

vision to the left and right

blurring

the apex

You stand

glowing

arms outstretched

I remain

tugging

at the fabric

my finger grown tired

the light fades 

copyright 2007

If I could

dip my hand

into the dimensions

cup my hand

right and left

feel the surge

of energy

right what is wrong

with this world

If I could 

dip my hand

into time and space

and but see

the particles

shift and dance

a part of me

If I could dip

my hand

across the sky

scoop up 

peace

I could sift

parallel worlds

sit them side by side

upon the ground

If I could

dip my hand

within the sky

stop seeing with my eyes

stop breathing with my brain

If I could dip

my hand

within the sky

forget what I have been taught

and find the child in me

If I could dip 

my hand within the sky

would I

could I

feel what it is to create

the love of creation

bathing over me

Which movie do I need to cite?

Which news article?

How many crying children does it take?

There are more of us than “them”.

There are multitudes of us that would not harm another like the harm we see on television, in the newspaper, on the internet, in the blogs—-there are more of us………..how can we figure it out?

POST, COMMENT, DO WHAT YOU WILL, BUT SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS….one of you might yet make the difference.

Your children are his expression

I can’t even speak about this

go to cnn.com

that’s all you have to do

what’s the difference in what little ms. sunshine taught us?

Dear Lord.

It’s me.

I’m back.

Right, I know, kidding you, yes?

As if you do not know me before my moments of realization.

I laugh out loud God.

I have doubted you, I have doubted you and doubted you.

I doubt you today.

Yet, I always come back to where I think you are, my second voice, my second skin, myself outside of knowing.

I look around Lord, I don’t know what I am seeing.

I don’t know what I am doing.

I watch the news and I cry and I don’t know how to stop.

There are many that would say, buck up kiddo. Get on with it. Maybe I have walked in shoes I don’t wish upon others. Maybe I don’t know how I wound up in such shoes only ever wanting to make others happy, to be a law abiding American.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Here I am.

There you are.

It’s temporal.

It’s me the girl child climbing the highest tree, not sure how to get down, but unwilling to let the neighborhood boys beat me at it. Above the kitchen window of my home, establishing, hey ma, here I am.

Dear God,

I ask for you everyday, every morning upon waking. I see the news headlines of you in the sky, is there a media conglomerate? I see the Virgin Mary, not so Virgin, spread against the sky. I see the celebration of life, tribulation, I see the jokes in the sky. The Celestial Jibjab on-sky.

I see you.

I feel you.

I know.

So what?

Now what?

Yesterday, I had a comic relief day.

Many of you may not have wanted to click on the links I provided yesterday, as to be frank, many could consider much of the language or messages objectionable; yet, there is a madness to some of the messages conveyed, we reap what we sow.

So, what is marriage?

Do people today marry for love?

Is it real?

Do people marry for love today?

Coffeegrounds.wordpress.com has had many posts dealing with the state of war and our reaction as to the troops of the war.

NPR had a linguist on board yesterday describing that the word troops is dehumanizing and one of his least favorites.

CNN shows us today a wife and a mother wearing a headscarf.

I am a mother, I am a wife, I am a litigation attorney, I am not a captured woman, wife, mother in Iran.

CNN presents:

“– Expressionless, smoking a cigarette and wearing a black head scarf that masks her blond hair, video of captured British sailor Faye Turney shows a soft-spoken mother — one of only 12 women in the British navy trained to drive inflatable patrol boats.

The 26-year-old mother was driving the Royal Navy’s boat Friday when armed Iranian troops seized her and 14 others, accusing them of crossing into their territorial waters and unleashing a diplomatic crisis. (Full story)

A week before her capture, she told the British Broadcasting Corp. she understood the risks of her work.

“You’ve got to have it in the back of your head that sometimes you may be called upon and, when you are, you have got to get on with it,” she said aboard the Navy Frigate HMS Cornwall in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq.”

I hate war.

I have no desire for conflict.

Sitting at a deposition the other day, legal fees mounting into the hundreds of thousands, a party said something about the state of war.

I said, “This, here, is where war begins.”

Conflict begins in the smallest moments, the ones we feel are vindicated, “I believe you hurt me; therefore, ….”

Therefore, what?

I now hurt you?

I spoke to a dear friend the other day, upset with events in her life, seeking legal advice and retribution…I wanted to say, I needed to say……..stop……….meditate……..breath……..because negative energy and retribution leads to things beyond our control. And she is the dearest and best of ladies, believe me you. But sometimes when people are hurt and attacked, they have only one habit, retribution.

I’m not suggesting you all sit still and shut up, matter of fact, there is only one thing I am suggesting, take a look at this CNN article, take a look at this one person, divorced and shut off from the world she knows, beyond ability to help herself, at least as far as we know.

Ask yourself, how did we contribute to her getting there?

Yes, yes, I know, most of us are not the politicians or the moneymakers, the freemason power wheelers of the world, but to sit back and let them take all the blame, is for us to admit we have no voice, no say, in how this world evolves.

Namaste.

May God bless you all.

Or, if you are of the Einstein version of God, may you find your answer in the yet unknown expansion of the universe.

I applaud and welcome the many spiritual teachers, motivators that walk around us. What happens though when theory is simply not enough?

Many of us understand the power of language, that if we say “I can”, rather, than “I might”, we carry greater power into the universe, we ask for positive strength to be returned.

Suppose, though, that there are moments or days when changing our language does not change our lives?

When despite what we might say, there are still people starving, there are people abused and attacked, there is such a well of despair, that merely changing language will not change lives?

Is it reasonable that in moments like that, lives like that, people clammor and demand a formula? A tried and true, no returns necessary formula, a simple number: 1-800-fix-us-now………….a solution that works immediately?

Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears

Candace Feit for The New York Times

“Long after the civil war, Sierra Leone diamond miners remain impoverished.”

Today’s New York Times shows us a picture of Diamond Miners. The photograph above gives a good enough depiction at what is presumed to be backbreaking work.

The irony is what does that backbreaking work cost those fellow human beings, and what profit does it give to others of us?

Where is the scale of morality?

Is it completely divorced from the realm of economics?

Within the article written by Lydia Polgreen is a photograph of two hands, a small piece of paper between the hands, and a dot within the hands upon the paper. The sheer smallness of the gem within the hardworking hands, made us stop and wonder how something so small could gain more on the market, than the larger hands portraying its alleged worth. 

“An industrial grade gem, above, can bring $1 or so for days of work.”

“I don’t have choice,” Mr. Kamanda said, standing calf-deep in brown muddy water here at the Bondobush mine, where he works every day. “This is my only hope, really.”

How many of you earn more than a dollar a day?

The riddle of arrival.

Who are we now, at anytime, and why?

There are those that would argue the why is unnecessary. We are here and from here we go on to the next moment, the next “here”.

Where did I read recently that it is acceptable to use the term “woman” in the news, in scholarly articles, in politics, but often, it is not accepatable to use “female”?  Now I have no statistics to know the average of occurrence, haven’t thought about that a lot in detail, but found the observation thought provoking.

Who are today’s “girls”? Who were yesterday’s girls?

There is no division, today’s girls will become yesterday’s girls and tomorrow’s women. We can talk of being in the moment, but moments shift, and our role in those moments shifts also. It can be seismic movement, but happens to the unattendant observer, including the observer of self, in such a seemingly slow manner, that it is suprising to find yourself or a loved one or a neighbor as this different “person”.

There is much discussion on what girls must deal with and learn, the vulnerability to “strangers”. Yet, we place them approvingly in environments day after day that don’t always teach them to be strong, but teaches them to adapt, to deal, to quiet their passions. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen with boys, but for a variety of reasons, that would be a separate topic. (And for a variety of reasons, it can be easily argued that it should be within the same topic).

I posted earlier that I recently picked up a book, Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolsecent Girls, by Mary Pipher, Ph. D.

Earlier this evening I wrote:

I am on page 28, and the book has resonated at this point.

In reading this book, I hope to understand the next generations of decision-makers. The book suprises me though, it may yet teach me how I got to where I am, in the exploration of adolescence.

There is no them and us, parents v. children, save v. the unsaved, Christian v. Muslim, Israeli v. Pakistinian…….there are “us”, the collective of human beings, the “earthlings”, whatever divisions we have made from there, we have made, the tribulations it has led us through are of our own making.

With life and committments intervening, there has now been a few quiet moments and I am at page 49. How much I have learned and thought of in that space of 21 pages. I am a fast reader, there is nothing I love more than ripping through books. I must read this book slowly as it not only highlights what is going on with the girls of the 1990s, the girls of today, but the woman of today who were girls yesterday.

I want to write a disclaimer, hey wait, I’m only on page 49! I can’t guarantee this book is worth the read. But you know what? That’s ludicrous. The book was worth the read at the word go.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this subject as the pages go on; however, for the moment, there is one singular thought:

What are we doing?

Go to, run to, race to, click to:

Official website of Mary Pipher, Ph.D.: check out excerpt on “Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”.

What does it mean to say:  “I matter?”

Does it convey ego?

Selfishness?

Misconception?

Saying “I matter” can be ever so simple.  It can convey only this:

I matter.

If I matter to me

There is a chance

That when you matter to me

We can do great things together.

Conversely, saying:  “I don’t matter”

means

i don’t matter to me

and if

i don’t matter to me

then nothing can matter to me

and if i give you anything

it is less

than me

less than you

so

what is it

exactly

you would ask

of me

when

even

i

don’t

matter to me?

On the flip side, I think the answer at this stage of life is quite easy:

I matter.  And in so recognizing that, there is more I can do for you.

“Eat, Pray, Love”……………………a lovely let it all hang out spiritual journey of one woman.

Within 2.5 pages, I was hooked. Ironic that I found the book while food shopping after working, more ironic that on my way to the store, I heard on NPR that Anne Lamott has a new book out and I almost made myself purposely take the wrong turn straight to Barnes & Noble to buy the book right away.

Alas, I knew something that good was worth waiting for and my family would probably prefer food over a book. (Hard to believe isn’t it? I try to tell them again and again, words are food, you must only just imagine…….by that point, they have walked out of the room and I’m not even left with a goldfish listening as alas, our last goldfish also grew tired of my soapbox and left for better waters………….).

So I did the right thing, the expected thing and headed to the foodstore…………of course I went to the foodstore that has quite a good book section, and there I found, high up on a shelf, almost daring me to see it, the book: “Eat, Pray. Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert……………….and an endorsement on the front by “Anne Lamott”. See, the Universe was working with me, it too knows that words are food.

This book is not for the faint of heart…

It is not for those that have their feet dug in to a particular religious stomping ground.

It’s a search for only one person’s truth, but I dare you to not find a bit of your own along the way.

Three Cheers for this find! Look below, I’ve pasted in some of the highlights…..

Surface Earth, copyright 2007

It is a time before now

A time well past

in this half-finished life

purgatory these last few decades

holding me silently raging

against what could have been

standing the measure of time

against the choices not made

cast as decision

Putting on the familar face

losing my breath to fit the mask

at which point am I more real?

Am I too old now

to even ask?

or too young

so long as there is even one breath

left

to ignore the pain

of pasting upon my face

knowingly curving without thought

the contours of my cheeks

to admit the smile

against the cast of my eyes

The Park Bench

Copyright 2007

Surface Earth, all rights reserved

They are cluttered on the benches beneath the trees. Again, they have left open the benches in the sun. I wonder, who gave them this right? I asked my brother the other day, “is it legal?”

He sighed, a great stirring as he lifted the air from his chest and back inward again. “Is t legal?” He closed his eyes, ruefully shaking his head. His little sister, always the same.

“Gwen, does it matter whether it is legal? Have you not heard of Darwin’s Law?”

Darwin? I have heard that word. I can’t remember. My mother, perhaps? My father? Before they were taken? My brother knew I could not recall.

“In the time before, before the laws were made, there was a test.” He stretched himself, “the birds of flight sailed above and through the skies where no one else could touch. Upon reaching ground, the birds of flight were honored for their extraordinary power, revered.” He scratched at his back, looking toward the sky.

I know this story, I can remember from the time I was young, my mother sang me a song of times before. I knew my brother would take his time, in speaking, and now as I waited he gathered his thoughts. I glanced to the benches below, all the ones beneath the trees still full. The sun was at high noon, the wood would bake beneath one’s feet.

I watched three women, in black, hobble past the sun covered benches. One craned her head, lifting her eyes from beneath her brow bone. I am sure that once she had eyebrows. I could see slight tufts where perhaps something else used to grow. The other linked her arm, “never mind,” I heard carried into the wind. I watched their backs, stooped under the weight of black, worn almost shiny by age.

“Oh no!” I cried. My bother startled.

“What is it Gwen?” His eyes opened, and he stopped mid-flight on the verge of continuing his lesson.

“Nothing brother. I saw a young boy, on a skateboard. I feared he would overtake and knock down the women.”

My brother peered closer at me. “Gwen, but that is what I am telling you. If that young boy had not chosen to steer around, he would have overtaken the women, ran them down and perhaps continued. His bones are strong, not tried by age, not worn.”

I sat mystified. Is that all? All he would say? I asked whether there was a law regarding the benches. I looked at them again but it was the same. People atop the benches in the shade, birds on the ground, hopping from the burning asphalt, playing tricks for crumbs. I shook my head, taking in the park.

Have you ever had moments, days, weeks, months, years where you find yourself in spiritual depletion?

It doesn’t matter to me what you believe in, well, as long as it’s not evil, but you find yourself with a lack of faith in God, the Universe, the Laws of Attraction, basically, in yourself.

Sometimes I wonder whether the quest for different religions or different Universal knowledge is really just a search for a quick fix. If it were though, so much truth would not resonate.

I equate spiritual depletion with a physical depletion. Anger or frustration or sadness is coursing through you, shutting down receptors to joy or to experiencing gratitude in the moment.

Then the next stage becomes, if I am so spiritually developed or enlightened, why did I succumb to this emotion?

It’s not easy always recognizing the signs, the build up of small frustrations throughout the day that bring us to a dark place of depletion. The goal is to recognize when your body is telling you something doesn’t feel good. For instance, I am at my best when I am around children in a loving manner: tuning in, smiling, joking, imagining, playing, hugging. I have no doubts as to whether what I am doing is right or if I want to be anywhere else in the world.

Fast forward: I am on the phone with an adversary. The conversation is not developing as I had anticipated. I hear the excuses mounting and need to count to ten to not shout, “Get to the point. Give me the bottom line so we can end this conversation.” I can hear in his tone and the type of words he is using that he is retreating from prior representations and I have no patience to wait out the excuses. My body begins to tighten, my brain begins to darken, in other words, I am not at my best.

I used to fight and rail against these moments of depletion, read more, talk more, jump around more, but I found a simple panacea, a bridge: silence.

Silence allows me not to beat myself up for slipping in my spiritual goals, it allows me to replenish, and another large bonus, it saves the ones around me from having to deal with my depletion.

Imagine for a moment, that you live in a world governed by different standards. Come on, it will only take a few seconds….

You are working, scattering through emails shooting at you, lines holding, documents piled for review, diary dates passing by your eyes.

Phone rings. It is someone near and dear who is meant to be within the safe harbor of your existence.

You answer, “hello?”.

“Oh, hi, who’s this?”

Who’s this? What? Did I not just pick up the phone when the other person dialed?

“It’s me.”

“Where are you?”

“Where am I? You called me. At the office.”

Now, might sound like someone, me, is without patience, a bit curt, less than the oh wise breathing one. And that would be correct. But everything in context.

The conversation ensues and after ten minutes without a pause, I hear a pause, “what’s wrong with you?”.

Wrong?

Wrong?

Well nothing truly, it’s just that you have been speaking to me for ten minutes straight without even asking if it’s a good time and the thrust of the conversation is to share your pain.

Suppose I was in a painful moment? Suppose I simply had not shared? Do I need to air my woes, pains, hurts and trials to be afforded the courtesy of not filling my basket with yours?

Now this is stream of consciousness and “pretend”; yet, we all have moments like this. When our plate is so full, there is no space to absorb another’s worries and pains, especially if it is about the weather, a sneeze or a bad meal at a restaurant.

What do you do? Preach to them, tell them, you think you got it bad?

Chances are they aren’t going to hear you and maybe they do have it bad or worse, after all, who would want to spend their time complaining most of the day?

The creator of this new blog has generously posted two of our pieces….

we like her photo of the potted plant and decided to give you a brief glimpse of her site….to learn more, you will have to go to the source…

I’m NOT a Potted Plant!

March 12th, 2007 by 100 Blogging Babes From SurfaceEarth:

“I’m not a potted plant.”

I can absorb, listen, do my “charitable” deed and remain impassive during the onslaught. But whoever said, I had to be a potted plant?

To find out more about blogging babes and if you too are a blogging babe, check out Ronnie’s newest blog!

100BloggingBabes

How do we know who we would be if we weren’t who we are?

Listen, we are old enough to not suscribe judgment.

We ask you a simple thing, you have orchestrated the formula of addiction, can you now provide us with the tool to non-addiction?

Those commercials you have been forced to make are no more than inducement for those of us inclined to go out and smoke more, because now we feel worse than ever.

But you know this right? You knew the points of our brain to addict us? Is it too much to hope you know how to truly un-addict us also?

We don’t care how much money you make, if you own a private jet or not, you can’t take it with you anyway, we just ask you to truly help us, stop making us feel bad for what you fed us to begin with- “share the secret”-you must know how to undo us, don’t you? We weren’t born wanting to be outcasts and prematurely dead.