DESTINY UNFOLDS WHEN A HEART EMBRACES IT

Sunset at Sachuest September 2009
Middletown, Rhode Island

meditate

Photo credit: Sandra Hammel

I love to write in my journals. I only have 3 blank pages left, so journal number 21 is about to begin. I write a lot to gain clarity, process personal pain, write about social injustice, the needs of children. And my son. Many books from past years are full of relationships that now as I read those pages, I realize I tried too hard to make something work that wasn't destined to work.

Today I wrote to my son in my journal...

September 20, 2009

1:45 p.m.

A stray sentence once in a while in the times we have been together over the years, I have heard you say or merely mention your saxophone, your clarinet, heard you recently read your own poetry that you obviously felt drawn to do –

Please bear with me so I can say to you – it seems to me to be apparent that your playing music, your writing, is a way for you to feel more yourself, lets you feel your soul in a way that is uniquely you.

Be aware of this specialness. Always be aware, the gift of doing these things, where art can be a “home” for your spirit, your heart, your soul. Don’t let the busyness of life cheat you out of being in your art, whatever it is – music, writing, drawing, creating. “Being” in these art moments will bring you more joy, peace, depth of feeling than the business of life can ever mimic.

You are your destiny. The universe is unfolding you and for you. Be mindful of it. It will be a source of joy, contentment, sustenance and freedom from anxiety.

Always be listening for the destiny’s voices. The destiny happens when we let it.

In a way, it is our job to be happy, to be kind. All else is a form of waiting for these moments.

End of Journal entry

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The Four Feathers - DVD Special Feature segment 4 - 8:15

At 4:13 " Eastern philosophies fundamentally say that ... human beings are stronger if they embrace their destinies. They believe that destiny is given. And therefore, your strength, your honor, your dignity, your purpose in life lies in your embracing your destiny." Shekhar Kapur, Director of The Four Feathers

Uploaded by springrose147

I encourage my son to follow his dreams. I hope that he will.

I haven't always followed mine front and center. But I have always been nearby the dreams. Never completely off the track. I have followed my heart, confused as it has been, at times. I have been honest with myself.

Recently, I had a "SoulProfile" done. A Soul Profile lists lifetimes lived before, where my soul originated and other places I have visited and the gifts that I have gained from those places. Whether others believe in such things, is a personal thing, like other beliefs. When I was in my early twenties and taking a required course in philosophy at an extremely conservative fundamentalist Christian college, it came to me that believing is a personal thing, in that, where we choose to draw the line of what to live by is arbitrary for the most part. As someone who was raised to be a fundamental Christian, including the dos and don'ts of my parents' beliefs - I was searching for my own principles of what to live my life by.

I threw out the don'ts of don't: dance, wear make-up of any kind, go to movies, wear jewelry, conservative everything... and the limitations of what a female should and shouldn't do. The don'ts of what is acceptable got a major overhaul by me. In my family, I am the odd one out. I am okay with that because I have no other choice. I have followed my destiny. I am at "home" with my music, my writing, my creating. I am most alive at times that I am in touch with my rawest and deepest parts of my spirit. It is a time of communion with my destiny, my universe.

We are breathing energy and the fact that the universe is like a big complex energy field, makes it acceptable for me - to believe we are part of the universe of energy. And just because we are life forms as human beings, that doesn't mean that there aren't other life forms that manifest differently from our physical forms.

The centering thought for me

I think the most important thing is to be kind. Kind to ourselves and kind to others. Kindness is always welcome.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

I have found pretentious people repelling. Always.

People who are closest to being themselves are the ones I want to be in the presence of.

I like this story...

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

Read the full story: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html

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The Four Feathers is probably my favorite movie with Heath Ledger. And that is saying a lot. Although he lived a short life, he played his roles with such realness. Such authenticity. He let the characters come through him as he was their vessel. This movie's story has such depth. It is about destiny and finding yourself with the willingness to do what it takes to do so.

I highly recommend The Four Feathers and watching its special features. Below are some of the special features uploaded by springrose147.

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The Four Feathers - DVD Special Feature segment 1 - 7:50

Uploaded by springrose147

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The Four Feathers - DVD Special Feature segment 2 - 8:03

Uploaded by springrose147

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The Four Feathers - DVD Special Feature segment 3- 7:58

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Embracing more than western religion

Click on post title to go to Joseph Campbell talking with Bill Moyers talking of Faith and Religion - Perspectives. Included there, is text as well as audio.

TAKING A TURN TOWARD BLISS

Why Be You When I Can Be Me?

It is not always

But it is many times. Thoughts arrive and compel me to remember them and write them down. But they escape me before I get a paper and pen or sit down at the word processor. Too many times I start to fulfill my list of things to do made the night before and put off the thoughts stirring around inside of me.

The thoughts are about my journey, mostly anchored in my struggling through the blockages rooted from my mother, justice or injustice in the world, my son or loves that have lost out in one way or another.

Sometimes I don’t know if I want to tell someone else my thoughts because it diminishes them by limiting them with words that box them in. Feelings, revelations and inspirational moments are deep, broad and tall. They make me feel alive. And that is the best thing about life. Being alive and feeling the sensation with renewed fullness never gets old. Even though I suppose I am entering the last season of my life, there has been a newness of feeling alive over the last few days. And I have been here before. Life ebbs and flows, that’s just the nature of it, do you agree?

I’m scared to do what I am doing. All those messages that speak to me without solicitation are like orders. And until now, I have carried those messages and voices inside me in the subconscious. The voices don’t want me to follow my bliss. The voices want me to live someone else’s idea of my life. I mentioned that I am scared. I am scared because to follow my bliss means I am not looking to make money, which I am soon going to be debilitatingly short of. But to be fully honest, I have put off my bliss for far too long and I have not used my time as wisely as I could have to get some of my bliss. But how will I ever know if what I have done isn’t just the path I was meant to be on? We don’t know. Nobody knows. Though there are many external voices saying how we should, what we should and when we should do whatever they think. In a way, when someone else says it and we follow whatever it is that they say, we are not thinking for ourselves.

Just in case it is the right thing to do, I am trying to walk a different life. The one that lets me create. Express myself in my writing, compose, sing and play the piano…and touch the rawness of seeing my personal truth and experience with my mother. In a way, I have been growing towards this my whole life. And spurred on by how life has unfolded for me, I have walked into the fire of my personal life consistently. Never being one to duck, cover and deny, getting this far and never feeling taller than I do now is really fine with me.

Raw is something I have always kept for myself. I connect with other people who daringly show their rawness. Do you know raw? Being real? The integrity of being you, putting yourself out there and being vulnerable without the guarded net of pretense? I wasn’t raised to be me. As I have increasingly found out, I was raised to pretend to be happy, fulfill some elusive list of the image required by my mother. And may I be honestly blunt and say that is no way to mother a child. Happiness isn’t something we can know unless we are as close to being our natural glorious selves. We are born to be ourselves. Not some cockemamy image.

I won’t be so honest here as to shortchange my momentary personal reservations, but maybe you don’t want to know too much. In real life, the one where we come face to face with other human beings, so often I find that people don’t want to know about what you really are feeling, thinking or doing. Those times when I sense another put up a shield of “I don’t want to know” or I sense them moving away even though they have taken no step yet to physically move. But I “feel” it, maybe it is in their mind and I have just felt what they are thinking. Maybe this is too much for you?

So much of what we really are experiencing is unknown to even ourselves or we know and are too guarded to let anyone else see or hear us speak what is really going on in our heads and souls.

I think if I wasn’t honest about how I feel about my mother for starters, I would be on antidepressant medication. I am one of those who believes what we emotionally bury is never buried. It will manifest itself in some way. Healthy or not. It is just a demand that the truest and most raw feelings make. We have no choice.

A painting hanging next to me while I type
by a VietNamese artist

I never wanted children. My own childhood gave me an adult who is full of self-doubt, unclear messages of what a good family is and love that had holes made by betrayal and the willingness to sacrifice a child for reasons that came from the parent’s unfulfilled happiness. Confusion has been the result because I was always told that I had a Christian family. A loving and caring family. Parents who have never gotten in touch with their own real selves run the risk of being found out by an adult child such as the likes of me. We are the ones who reach for the truth and are willing to live in it even if it means we have to distance ourselves from a parent.

I never wanted to bring a child into this world. I said it out loud to my mother while in sixth grade. I was eleven. The world didn’t seem a place I wanted to put a child in.

It was a huge responsibility to be the one to guide the child and prepare him or her for their destiny.

Then came a boy.

He was in second grade when I met him. Big part of my life.

There was and is Something Special here. It has been deeply painful and difficult. But life handed me Jonathan. And I accepted and received him into my life forever. But with the pain and difficulty there is also the underlying spirit connection that my now son and I have. I don’t know if he feels it. He has never told me. But on some level I believe he does feel it. We are kindred spirits. This is one of those parts of my life that has appeared without my planning, but become such an important part of this time on earth. Life unfolds and if we can look back on it and see the path of the journey, it is like someone has authored your life for you.

I can’t remember the two or three thoughts that compelled me to sit down today and write. And it felt so profound and compelling at the time. But this is what came out in its place.

I am currently doing something that I have always wanted to do. But it is the one thing that has been such a challenge because my body responds in such a way that I can’t breathe when I do it in public. I can speak in public about Darfur to hundreds of people. And I have many times. I have had lobby meetings with U.S. Senators Chafee, Reed and Whitehouse and Representative Kennedy. I have directed, composed for and produced musical presentations with hundreds of children, organized rallies, acted in college and community theatre. I drew the house plans and designed the landscaping for my current home. I won honorable mention in the very first art show that I entered a few years ago. I have traveled alone to Europe and to the southwest. Almost everything I have ever tired has been successful. I have even done this one thing as a lead in a musical years ago. But now I am daring to take this step and I have already failed in my opinion last week. And next Sunday, I am risking it again. It is singing solo in public. It doesn’t matter how much I practice or how many positive thoughts I come up with – put me in front of an audience and breathing seems impossible. I don’t know maybe, it is rooted in my childhood. Not good enough, not encouraged, seeing feelings of inferiority as a core value. They are just people looking at me, but they scare the living daylights out of me. It is not something I can pretend to overcome. Breathing and relaxing the throat muscles is my mountain to overcome. Wouldn’t it be great to actually overcome this and feel the freedom from the fear? If that day ever happens, I’ll get back to you. I would relish that I did this.

You don’t know if you don’t try.

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“Touching is wonder.
We think of it as reaching out
to know
to grow
to explore
to love
to believe.
But there is also reaching within . . .
An inside touching that comes first.

‘Satori’ is the Zen way
of acquiring a new point of view
for living
and looking.
not creating something new –
but seeing
and touching
in a different way.
it approaches religion
from the inside
letting it emerge
from man
rather than being imposed.
It finds
a revelation of the divine
within human experience,
within life itself.”

Please Touch by Edwin M. McMahon and Peter A. Campbell


“The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive” – St. Irenaeus of Lyons

“to believe in God is to know that thing you are
shall make you live
and it will never
make you do anything
less.” To Believe in God by Joseph Pintauro

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Genocide Ends When Enough of Us Stand Up Against It
JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

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One of my personal recent finds ~ I checked it out at the library . . .
Dear Frankie

A movie that is special in presentation, spirit of living and being real.

It speaks to us of a mother, father and a child.

If you see it, check out the director's commentary,
as well as deleted scenes.