the extra mile

    As i have written before and will continue as a reference my childhood.  Here I am this blonde headed, little, happy, curious, playful, white, girl born into "middle class", in Houston, Texas, America.  In the beginning years my parents had built a modest life, public school is where i started my "education" and played and had friends that were black and white and we didn't realize color or status, we were innocent, we were free.
     My parents wanted a better education for my brother and i and decided to place us in a private, baptist, school with very wealthy, white people.  I was put into this school in 1st grade.  Still innocent I went to my new school with the same spirit, happiness and freedom I had always known.  Almost immediately there came a day when all of this changed so drastically that I didn't want to go to school there anymore.
     It was "Go Western Day" and we could wear what we wanted to school instead of our uniforms.  My mom tried to dress me in a cute little outfit and I insisted in picking out my own "cowgirl" outfit that i was proud and comfortable to wear.  Excited about the day I went to school and withing 30 minutes of class a boy made fun of me in front of the entire class and they all started laughing.  I left the room and went to cry in the bathroom, I was crushed.  The teacher followed me to the bathroom and tried to convince me that they were not laughing at me and to come back to the class.  I knew she was lying and had to go back to class anyway. 
     Here is what is curious how is it all those kids had an idea about what little girls outfits were supposed to look like?  How is it that 5 and 6 year olds have all these "ideas" already about what things were supposed to be... their programming was already in place from their parents and community.  This is where my innocence really diminished.  I started to become vastly aware of how different I was from all the other kids I was around.  I began to see that people want you to behave a particular way so you can "fit in" and that so much of it was bullshit and steals our freedom.  The battle began to be my free spirited self and I started to wonder "where do we come from before we are born, what are we really here for given such a short period of time, and where do we go when we die." 
     Maybe in looking back to find where we lost our innocence, our true freedom, happiness and connection to each moment can we at least begin to remember and recall what THAT feeling was.. the truth of who we are before we started allowing our fears, emotions, past experiences, programming, family, society, community to run our lives and only piece meal moments of peace and excitement to us.  Maybe in looking back we can make a beginning of realizing our true nature and happiness and that it didn't depend on our external circumstance.

 the extra mile

"If you take a look at the way you have been put together and the way you function you will find that inside your head there is a whole program, a set of demands about how the world should be, how you should be and what you should want. 
     Who is responsible for the programing?  Not you.  It isn't really you who decided even such basics as your wants and desires and so-called needs; your values, your tastes, your attitudes.  It was your parents, your society, your culture, your religion, your past experiences who fed the operating instructions into your computer.  Now, however old you are or wherever you go, your computer goes along with you and is active and operating at each conscious moment of the day, imperiously insisting that it demands be met by life, by people and by you.  If the demands are met, the computer allows you to be peaceful and happy.  If they are not met, even though it be through no fault of yours, the computer generates negative emotions that cause you to suffer.
     For in stance, when other people don't live up to your computer's expectations, it torments you with frustration or anger or bitterness.  Another instance: When things are not under your control or the future is uncertain, your computer insists that you experience anxiety, tension, worry.  Then you expend a lot of energy coping with these negative emotions.  And you generally cope by expending more energy trying to rearrange the world around you so that the demands of your computer will be met.  If that happens you will be granted a measure of precarious peace; precarious because at any moment some trifle ( a delayed train, a tape recorder that doesn't work, a letter that doesn't arrive-anything) is going to be out of conformity with your computer's programming and the computer will insist that you become upset again.
     And so you live a pathetic existence, constantly at the mercy of things and people, trying to desperately to make them conform to your computer's demands, so that you can enjoy the only peace you can ever know-a temporary respite from negative emotions, courtesy of your computer and your programming." ~ The Way To Love
    

discipleship 3 of 3

   
     what if we were able to live without attachment.  what if we were able to hear our thoughts as thoughts and past experience didn't so often color our perspective of what is here and now.  what if we were able to have an experience so profound it shifts our entire reality?  what if we actually have constant opportunity and ignore the subtle nudging of our inner voice, intuition, gut instinct whatever you want to call it.. (that doesn't mater.. not the point) that is constantly our true north trying to direct us in the way of our hearts.  the point is what if we stopped being in fear and felt connected to ourselves, to life, to love, to .. dare i say it.. "God". * i use the word God for simplicity it has no association with religion to me at all.*
     it is so easy to get caught up in the five senses... it's so easy to allow ourselves to operate on an "autopilot' that is a build up of fear, thoughts, feelings created from fear, past experiences, people and familiarity.  what if we could experience life as if no experience was happening to us.. like we view a sunset, sunrise, sky, a flower, a plant, a tree, a creature, a critter, an animal in nature, we are merely experiencing it.  what if everything that happens even acts from humans was a neutral experience and that we attach all meaning to it for ourselves.  we either see hope, pain, hurt, love or we experience fear.  fear.. this grief so deep within us that the thoughts attached to it we actually believe are real.  we attach ourselves to anything or anyone that makes us feel good and usually at some point conscious or unconscious we decide we like this so much we need it to remain that exact way to find happiness in it, always.
     so there is this idea that we are searching for some wholeness, connection, peace, joy that is outside of ourselves.  when in truth we are born in a state of innocent neutrality and it becomes distorted and how do we find our way back to the present moment where we are as connected to life all by ourselves as we will ever be.  we have all been born and... we will all die and no matter the connection to any human being or possessions or success we will experience it alone.  so why not confront the fear associated with dying so we can really live.  why not confront the underlying belief we have about that part of this life?  we will die alone.. no one gets to go with us.  so what then are we?  are we our physical bodies?  are we this reality we experience with our five sense?  or are we something more... if we are something more then why place so much importance on the fear that physical distractions and attachments can create? 
      i have personally been subject to a reality in which i needed, wanted, enjoyed.. people, events, situations in my life so much so as to let them define my happiness and unhappiness.  i have allowed family, friends and strangers, events and situations, possession and "position" in life to affect my sense of well being and happiness.  i've been living in large by having my external reality dictate my happiness.  learning to go within and let go of needing anything to be any certain way for me to be happy.  seems so simple yet has been a huge start of transformation that involved lots of pain felt by confronting and tracing thoughts and fears back to the origin within myself... to see it and then let it go. 
     i love my family and my friends and i am grateful for all the love we share together it's just that today i am learning how to detach myself from needing them or our relationships to look any particular way.  i am learning how to love people, allow them their own experience, and me my own.. keep an open hand, open mind, and open heart.  to allow myself to continue to know and share in love whether they are in my life or not or whatever capacity happens naturally.  i will not allow myself to people please anymore.. you don't like what i say or do?... well that's about you and i love you, do what you need to do and know the love we share is always real. 

discipleship 3 of 3 

"So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other.
     Father and mother: nightmare.  Wife and children, brothers and sisters: nightmare.  All your possessions: nightmare.  Your life as it is now: nightmare.  Every single thing you can cling to and have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without: nightmare.  Then you will hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even your own life.  And you will so easily take leave of all your possessions, that is, you will stop clinging and thus have destroyed their capacity to hurt you.  Then at last you will experience that mysterious state that cannot be described or uttered-the state of abiding happiness and peace.  And you will understand how true it is that everyone who stops clinging to brothers and sisters, father, mother or children, land or houses... is repaid a hundred times over and gains eternal life." ~ The Way To Love

discipleship part 2 of 3

     the day we buried Dee, we went back home the home was filled with loving family.. friends.. all one in the same.  the home was full of light and warmth and LOVE.  the love found in awe of Nature... we were all in the moment of being the sunset together.  My energy was low and all i knew was i was following myself to the bedroom and just wanted to curl up and rest.  then the thought "you shouldn't go rest in the middle of this gathering, all these people, for a funeral." i was able to walk right past that bossy little thought and give myself permission to just do what i needed, to rest, deeply.      i say this because it has been one of the tiny gestures, in the last 6 weeks, of allowing myself to be ok to take care of me, one tiny gesture in learning "i'm not broken or separate from anything", i'm always connected, i no longer need to "feel" (or think rather) that i am alone.  that my actions in taking care of the LOVE in me allows me not to be married to me needing to be a certain way so that people will remain happy with me, like me, or love me.  there is a fear that resides and tells us that our lives need to be a certain way for us to be safe, happy, and loved and so often we taylor our choices around making the people we love happy with us so we don't have to feel unloved, unliked, unhappy and alone.  yet, in truth no one makes us feel anything.. our experience is generated from within us not without.  we clip our wings, our freedom and happiness not actually fulfilled because we are afraid of being free and "alone".  the idea that we are alone is this lie and the truth.  we are always connected to LOVE no matter if someone is 1000 miles away or right next to us.  the LOVE that is shared is always real for every one in every moment. 
     all i know is that i am only scratching the surface to a new practice of redirection and it is yielding a freedom in my heart, body, and mind.  LOVE with an open hand and an open heart.  there is nothing to forgive, only to be willing to sit and listen, follow the moment.  i do not believe we can shove things aside in our selves or bury them or push them down and experience the happiness we long for behind all that fear.  i do believe it's a more simple process than what most of our egos are telling us... it's as dark and scary as we make it.  we can move into and through our unhappiness to a place of real freedom and that while it takes a conscious choice and it is painful beyond belief at times.. it's worth it to fly.. i'm just now jumping out of the nest ;)
     

discipleship part 2 of 3

"Anther false belief: If all your desires are fulfilled you will be happy.  Not true.  In fact it is these very desires and attachments that make you tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure and fearful.  Make a list of all your attachments and desires and to each of them say these words: "Deep down in my heart I know that even after I have got you I will not get happiness." And ponder on the truth of those words.  The fulfillment of a desire can, at the most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement.  Don't mistake that for happiness.
     What then is happiness?  Very few people know and no one can tell you, because happiness cannot be described.  Can you describe light to people who have been sitting in darkness all their lives?  Can you describe reality to someone in a dream?  Understand your darkness and it will all vanish; then you will know what light is.  Understand your nightmare for what it is and it will stop; then you will wake up to reality.  Understand your false beliefs and they will drop; then you will know the taste of happiness.
     If people want happiness so badly, why don't they attempt to understand their false beliefs?  First, because it never occurs to them to see them as false or even as beliefs.  They see them as facts and reality, so deeply have they been programmed.  Second, because they are scared to lose the only world they know: the world of desires, attachments, fears, social pressures, tensions, ambitions, worries, guilt, with flashes of the pleasure and relief and excitement which these things bring.  Think of someone who is afraid to let go of a nightmare because, after all, that is the only world he knows. There you have a picture of yourself and other people.
     If you wish to attain to lasting happiness you must be ready to hate father, mother, even your own life and to take leave of all your possessions.  How?  Not by renouncing them or giving them up because what you give up violently you are forever bound to.  But rather by seeing them for the nightmare they are; and then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of your dream at last, out of your darkness, your fear, your unhappiness." ~ the way to love       

discipleship

     what if in looking at one's life and circumstance we could keep an open heart, hand and mind.  what if we could take an honest look at our circumstance and be willing to see where we might be hindering our own happiness.  what if we can see, hear and sense the truth even when we are unwilling to do anything to change it.  what if we are given the opportunity every day to fall further and further into ourselves, our intuition, our "voice" and overcome the deceit that resides in the human ego.  what if we are able to see that in listening to ourselves.. NOT our thoughts and fears that we could live more abundantly, clearly and happily... what if this kind of LOVE is real.
     i'm at a place where there is a lot going on outside myself that is so tempting to believe and yet over and over again i hear this voice telling me to keep doing what i'm doing and be patient for everything is working out for the best.  what if there are moments where i am tempted to pull the curtains down to reveal the wizard and yet know in my heart i would be robbing others of their experience and placing myself in fears way.  experience, pain and fear have always been my greatest teacher when i refuse to believe any power rests beyond myself for my own peace.  by allowing myself and others to lie to ourselves and others about our state of being it has only shown me reward even when it brings chaos of emotion.
     if i can live each day for hours with every pervasive thought and fear creeping in and out and watch it, listen to it, not attach to it, watch it move by... i strengthen my internal world which is the only one i really have for true happiness.  people, places, things, circumstance... can't change any of it or them but like everything in life they are also always changing.  at some point when i place my happiness on other people being a certain way and they change... WHOA! my entire being can be thrown off balance if i'm attached to things being a certain way for me to be at peace and happy.  bottom line.. we are ALL HUMAN, no one is perfect and before long the way someone chews their food can hit you as annoying.  how can something so little bother us so much if we are at peace and in LOVE with each moment. 
      today i was lying in the grass for hours by myself.. just noticing all the peace, beauty and intensity that is Nature.  realizing the moments i have shared with other humans where our silence, our gazing, our laughter, our soft touches were shared like that of sitting in the presence of the moon.  i generate my feelings and connection to all of these moments in life, it isn't something or someone else.. it's inside each of us.  we each have the ability to embrace and give our light and love, we each have the awareness to be present for ourselves.  if we lie, cheat or steal some part of time or another person we will eventually have to pay for what we have taken.  within ourselves and in the end no one gets out alive so why bother with fear and the suffering it creates by trying to chase something that is a natural birthright.  LOVE.  laughter has helped me so much, in addition to hanging out around lots of different people, lots of different surroundings AND hanging out with me. whether or not society has bullshit standards for what it takes to live a happy life i can be happy being a part in a cog... not just on this planet but realizing i am a part of ALL of it.. each blade of grass, star and piece of sand.  humans, so egotistical in thinking happiness can be manipulated to suit us by external means.  let life fill us with the searing, burning, awe, confusion and tenderness that are teeny tiny parts of LOVE.

discipleship: first half of chapter

     "take a look at the world and see the unhappiness around you and in you.  do you know what causes this unhappiness?  you will probably say loneliness or oppression or war or hatred or atheism.  and you will be wrong.  there is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.  because of these false beliefs you see the world and yourself in a distorted way.  programming is so strong and the pressure of society so intense that you are literally trapped into perceiving the world in this distorted kind of way.  there is no way out, because you do not even have a suspicion that your perception is distorted, your thinking is wrong, and your beliefs are false.
     look around and see if you can find a single genuiniely happy person- fearless, free from insecurities, anxieties, tensions, worries.  you would be lucky if you found one in a hundred thousand.  this should lead you to be suspicious of the programming and the beliefs that you and they hold in common.  but you have also been programmed not to suspect, not to doubt, just to trust the assumptions that have been put into you by your tradition, your culture, your society, your religion.  and if you are not happy, you have been trained to blame yourself, not your programming, not your cultural and inherited ideas and beliefs.  what makes it even worse is the fact that most people are so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are-like the man in a dream who has no idea he is dreaming.
     what are these false beliefs that block you from happiness?  here are some examples.  first: you cannot be happy without the things that you are attached to and that you consider so precious.  false.  there is not a single moment in your life when you don't have everything you need to be happy.  think of that for a minute.  the reason why you are unhappy is because you are focusing on what you do not have rather than on what you have right now. 
     another belief: happiness is in the future.  not true.  right here and now you are happy and you do not know it because your false beliefs and your distorted perceptions have got you caught up in fears, anxieties, attachments, conflicts, guilt and a host of games that you are programmed to play.  if you would see through this you would realize that you are happy and do not know it.
     yet another belief: happiness will come if you manage to change the situation you are in and the people around you.  not true.  you stupidly squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world.  if changing the world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not harbor the illusion that this is going to make you happy.  what makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and people around you, but the thinking in your head.  as well search for an eagle's nest on the bed of an ocean, as search for the happiness in the world outside of you.  so if it is happiness you seek you can stop wasting your energy trying to cure your baldness or build up an attractive body or change your residence or job or community or lifestyle or personality.  do you realize you could change every one of these things, you could have the finest looks and the most charming personality and the most pleasant of surroundings and still be unhappy?  and deep down you know that this is true but still you waste your effort and energy trying to get what you know cannot make you happy." ~ the way to love.
  

profit and loss

    the book "The Way To Love" has resurfaced in my life this past month.  years ago i had read the first chapter or two and don't remember anything other than it spoke to something inside me very clearly.  likely too much to absorb at the time or met by unwillingness to actually let go of my way of living and change, i had not gone back to the book until there was nothing left but to embrace a time to grow.  the words in the book offer a way to cross over boundaries of perception and reality that have been keeping us from ourselves, others and all of life.  it is time to uncover the LOVE of which we all are a part, rid ourselves of the fear and ego that penetrate our lives.  with the world whirling around us it is so hard to just sit in the middle of it all and find our light, our truth, the way to LOVE.
      i have always been able to sense or see things that are intertwined with what the eye sees.. that is seemingly hidden.  it is said we all have a deeper sense and knowing.  often times i can be in someones company and sense things that most people don't want others to know even exist in them.  the parts of oneself that struggle to find peace or happiness, wanting confidence, wanting acceptance, the insecure or sad parts we don't like having in ourselves, that we hide behind our smiles or declarations of happiness.  i can feel the restlessness in myself and others that comes from looking at the world and seeing no real good in it or purpose. seeing the fear that drives what we consider "bad behavior" in each other.  seeing that fear rules our thoughts, actions, and beliefs so much of the time.  i struggled to get what i wanted out of life while desperately trying to get to this state of freedom the easy way... through people, places, things and circumstance.  i was searching for someone to come along who saw things as i did so i wouldn't have to feel so alone, i wanted a validation that even if i am different in ways from others i am still okay.  the last place i was willing to go was within myself.     until now i haven't been able to have the clarity i have been in search of and the longing for this past year of something to really change...  when i lost who i was before.  i slowly slipped away from my beliefs and my light.  THANK GOODNESS because the who i was before i completely lost myself.. was actually only a tiny part of who i am.  i was still looking for my outside circumstances to change so that i could finally be happy FOR REAL.  if all these details of my life would just be a certain way i will be happy.
     so that model broke and shattered into a million tiny pieces.  i stand on new ground massively uncomfortable yet a strength and peace come from it already that give me faith that i can have my ceiling fall in, lose people, homes, things, jobs, career, friends, social circles, i can have no heat when it's 29 degrees... i can watch humans indirectly and indirectly hurt ourselves and themselves and this world around us, mindlessly destroying things that are so much a part of who we are AND STILL BE FREE AND HAPPY.
   
Profit and Loss
  
     "recall the kind of feeling you have when someone praises you, when you are approved, accepted, applauded.  and contrast that with the kind of feeling that arises within you when you look at the sunset or the sunrise or Nature in general, or when you read a book or watch a movie that you thoroughly enjoy.  get the taste of this feeling and contrast it with the first, namely, the one that was generated within you when you were praised.  understand that the first type of feeling comes from self-glorification, self-promotion.  it is a worldly feeling.  the second comes from self-fulfillment, a soul feeling.
     here is another contrast: recall the kind of feeling you have when you succeed, when you have made it, when you get to the top, when you win a game or a bet or an argument.  and contrast it with the kind of feeling you get when you really enjoy the job you are doing, you are absorbed in, the action that you are currently engaged in.  and once again notice the qualitative difference between the wordly feeling and the soul feeling.
     yet another contrast: remember what you felt like when you had power, you were the boss, people looked up to you, took orders from you; or when you were popular.  and contrast that worldly feeling with the feeling of intimacy, companionship-the times you thoroughly enjoyed yourself in the company of a friend or with a group in which there was fun and laughter.
     having done this, attempt to understand the true nature of worldly feelings, namely, the feelings of self-promotion, self-glorification.  they are not natural, they were invented by your society and your culture to make you productive and to make you controllable.  theses feelings do not produce the nourishment and happiness that is produced when one contemplates Nature or enjoys the company of one's friends or one's work.  they were meant to produce thrills, excitement - and emptiness.
     then observe yourself in the course of a day or a week and think how many actions of yours are preformed, how many activities engaged in that are uncontaminated by the desire for these thrills, these excitements that only produce emptiness, the desire for attention, approval, fame, popularity, success or power.
     and take a look at the people around you.  is there a single one of them who has not become addicted to these worldly feelings?  a single one who is not controlled by them, hungers for them, spends every minute of his/her waking life consciously or unconsciously seeking them?  when you see this you will understand how people attempt to gain the world and, in the process, lose their soul.  for they live empty, soulless lives.
     and here is the parable of life for you to ponder on: a group of tourists sits in a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country; lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers.  but the shades of the bus are puled down.  they do not have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus.  and all the time of their journey is spent in squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered.  and so they remain till the journey's end."  ~ the way to love anthony de mello
     

If

when i was 17 years old, at boarding school, in sedona we had room study every weeknight for 2 hours we had to stay in our rooms to do homework.  a teacher who identified themselves as an alcoholic decided to take some students who might want to check out a.a. meetings into town at night once a week to the meetings... as luck would have it... during room study!  naturally, myself and a few of my closest friends decided WE WANTED TO CHECK IT OUT, makes me smile and laugh to this day.  what was wrong with the teenagers who didn't want to go? haha.  we were allowed to make a stop at the convienance store AND not have room study??  how could we refuse such an opportunity? 

i look back on that time now with more love and appreciation than i could at the time.  well, we were required to get a sponsor as a show of dedication in order to continue to go.  sedona, a small town the meetings were filled with all older men.  i asked a man named rick to be my sponsor.  i can't recall what he looked like anymore except that he was in his 40's had short brown hair, and a small build.  this man instead of taking me through the big book and the steps gave to me a book of poems.   what i remember is that specifically in that book of poems he marked "If" by Rudyard Kipling and told me to read it everyday.  it broke my heart then and does even more today.  this poem became a benchmark for me, a reminder, a guide to living my truth and it's taken this long to even notice there have been moments i have achieved some of these ways... and A LOT more times that i haven't even come close.

rick changed my life in those few hours our paths crossed, a gift from the universe.  my eyes were open...  i hope rick is living in LOVE wherever he may roam.  i am sharing this poem because it's one of the most simple road maps to get out of ego, stop listening to fear and the mind and live fully in LOVE no matter what external circumstance brings.  we can influence reality by being the LOVE we are in truth.  We have internal "knowing", intuition... mostly we just ignore it and let the past and "programming" ( intentional or not) dictate how we view ourselves and the world around us.  we do have the power within ourselves to find the truth of LOVE, not romantic love or attachment but LOVE... it will require discomfort and times of loneliness and disconnect BUT we can strengthen these unused muscles that are our birthright and find our way home.  we can change our world and not give way to fear, we can live and breathe knowing all we ever wanted, longed for, felt separate from is always here, within us. <3 p="">
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
-Rudyard Kipling

Before I Knew Your Love

The last month has been a reckoning.  Spirit, life, body, and mind jolted from a path i had revolted for a long time.  Viewing life from ten feet behind my eyes.. sharp moments, only seconds long of being present to the silence released by my pain.. i had not known for so long, it had been in disguise.  Finally i was awake and aware of just how far i had gone.  Time passing like a dream, each second ten thousand minutes long.  Looking at a tree, watching the minutes and hours pass... it came crashing into this one moment with all the force of what always belonged.  All of it turning around me dark and cold, holding on to remain... while i sit in the eye of the storm... all has yet to pass on the other side of this old hurricane.

I remember when i was eight, a hurricane, hurricane alisha came through houston texas in august.  My parents were away and my grandparents had come up from galveston to stay.  When the news came of alicia family and friends came into our home for safety for days.  I remember sleeping on a huge pallet on the floor with all my cousins.  The bathtub was filled to the brim with water, windows were completely taped and if anyone but my grandmother opened the frig door you would have had the "fire popped out of you", all held hostage to the storm outside.. for days.  Then the eye came the sun shone bright and the sky was completely clear.  My grandfather Commander Samuel Tharp opened the door and told us to get our suits.  Everything was calm yet with our eyes we could see all the evidence and broken trees.  Our pool was filled with all the bits of nature and man that had been tossed about so forcefully it seemed obvious that nature did not care.  We swam in the pool that day around the trees and leaves, shingles, branches and dirt and there was this peace.. of truth that we could never be hurt.

What if i knew your love before i knew your name.  What if i allow others to feel their discomfort that binds them by me living, feeling and expressing the pain.  What if i remember it was the tortoise not the hare that won that race.  What if i open up freely to the pain we have all felt or will feel one day.  What if all my wounds and scars were carried with me before when we were parts of a dying star.  What if i rediscovered LOVE.  What if there is nothing in any of us that is really broken, what if we can clear our minds and realize who we are.  What if i can believe in what really is and hold that space no matter what human action brings the illusion of disgrace.  What if i can hold true to only wanting LOVE for me and you not as in anything other than the space that surrounds us and brings us LOVE.  What if i only can slowly move along, each day becoming more strong feeling the unwinding of this pain as a song.  What if these moments in time blow my mind to remembering who i've been all along.  What if i can be in LOVE in that way that only wishes for each of us to know real LOVE whether or not we got to stay or need to be gone.

The storm is passing and i am in the eye, in that still water with the trees to swim around with the sunlight shining down... realizing the other half not as strong as what's just passed.. is coming soon.  I hope I get to see the moon tonight, bathing me in the truth of all that's light.  I've seen people.  I've been witness to LOVE.  Sometimes we lose things and people only to remember who we are. Sometimes we set people free.  Sometimes it all has to happen just so we can realize we haven't been who we are meant to be.  Set each of us free <3 br="">