DEEPEST NEED IS TO FEEL CONNECTED

Much of the personal writing on this post has been removed. I know it is probably cached but I felt it may be a mistake to leave it here.

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I believe the deepest need we have is to feel connected. The best that I can do is to open up. I know there have to be others out there who are looking to connect and just haven't found the words, the understanding or someone to confide in their deepest feelings and tenderness.

We are by nature fragile beings.

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Aside from looking at my own vulnerabilities, I have become interested in Heath Ledger recently. I have come late to the admiration of his work, but also I am trying to understand what is so connectable about him for me. The best parts of his movies' dvds are the special features and commentaries. I like those on A Knights Tale, The Four Feathers and Brokeback Mountain. He isn't fidgeting in the interviews of A Knights Tale and The Four Feathers, but calm and introspective. There is a wonderful segment just about him on the dvd of A Knights Tale. I used some of it in this video.

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In Brokeback Mountain's dvd special feature - The Making of Brokeback Mountain - he says that he always likes to bare his soul a little bit...that it is theraputic.

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Making Of Brokeback Mountain
Uploaded by LoveLeeR. -

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Shekhar Kapur and Deepak Chopra talk about Heath

Ang Lee talks about Heath

It is apparent that when Heath was creating, he was most at home and comfortable. There had to be some internal struggle. The drugs, legal or not, didn't serve him well. What he could convey through the lens of a video camera came across as genuine and connected to my heart. Except for the joker in A Dark Knight and Ned Kelly. The humility, down-to-earth conversation, shyness and restlessness that came across in interviews couldn't help but show a side to Heath that showed him to be a mystery of complexity. I'll never understand Heath.

I do have keys to my soul.

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Self-Knowledge ~ Kahlil Gibran

And a man said, "Speak to us of Self-Knowledge."

And he answered, saying:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

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Having a Voice

by Sandra Hammel

I’ve found my voice

Never to be stilled again

Not going to live voiceless anymore, especially when it comes to you

The small kernel of courage to live out loud has emerged

and

It feels right,
it feels good,
it feels like home.

You’ve kept me quiet with nothing but my need to have you love me.

And now something has been unleashed within me

and my voice must speak
its truths

braving your total disregard

which seems nothing more than what’s been my lot anyway.

Nothing really to lose

but to gain,
oh,
I can’t even begin to imagine
what I have to gain.
But I anticipate the possibilities with no more sadness.
Excited.

In my life’s garden, I expect gladness, gratitude and shining bright colors blooming inside

BURSTING to get
out

This is where I have always wanted to be.

Now,
I’m here.

It’s great to be here,





home.


Written January 13, 2006

IT’S TAKEN A LONG TIME TO BE ME

THIS IS WHERE I AM – THIS IS WHERE I LIVE

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I love my life.

I am so alive.

I walk around my house, feeling so fulfilled and grin. I can’t keep from bursting outloud “I love my life”.

It has not been this way a lot of my life.

I’ve been “here” before. But this time, I’m so fully conscious of it and why.

There were people in my life that kept me from me.

Trying to please them took me away from being pleased with myself, my life.

My mother for one.

I had to find how to think about the mother that has openly judged me as a failure of a Christian, and a success of living a sinful life - my entire adult life. My mother is a bottomless unpleasable pit for me. She’s unhappy with me,

even though I am so thoroughly happy with myself and my life.

Even a mother can be a stumbling block.

And mine was.

Until August 8, 2006.

It is like I found myself born finally.

Finally able to know what I felt about her behavior toward my father. And toward me.

Finally able to face her and not let her twist my insides with her manipulating ways.

Finally able to separate what I believed about myself from what despicable person she said I am.

I found I couldn’t please her and me with the same life, the same me.

So I have gone with the woman that I want to be and am . . . and left her view of me - with her.

I have been happy ever since.

My last relationship with a man:

For fifteen years we lived together.

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We met in Bermuda just after I was leaving an abusive relationship. The kind that involves physical abuse cycled with profuse, seemingly heartfelt apologies and promises to stop.

Getting into relationships is easily mindless. It’s getting out of them that has always been difficult for me. Because making something work -even though it was implausible with open eyes - wasn’t something that I gave up on. And I never was able to think about my own well - being over the hurt that I saw the man in. But this last thing never seemed to bother the man in my last relationship. A hint of one of his tears would melt my heart and keep me from thinking clearly. But I could live in forced silence from him for a week or cry for hours and he would simply walk away. It is much more lonely to live in a relationship like this than to live with a beautiful relationship with myself I experience. I needed to learn the lesson that if something isn't working, it's okay to leave.

Even though, he appeared to not be confining. He certainly was. I was spiritually looking for his soul, but it was never available to me. I don’t think to him, either. I was emotionally starving. Starving to find any moment to feel a connection to him. I was dying inside.

When you are dying before your death is anywhere close, you are in trouble.

I was in trouble.

And now, I am not.

I am so vibrantly alive. I feel full, I feel excited.

When people in your life keep you from who you are – you can’t possibly be happy.

Others don’t bring happiness to your life. You do. But they can block you from your happiness.

I shed that baggage

and

have never felt so good. So completely full of emotion. So colorful.

This is a glorious place to be in my life.

I’m sad that these relationships are broken and missing,

but I give them their lives, as they choose them,

and I have not attached strings to them.

I have no control over them.

I can’t change our barren relationships.

I can’t rescue something that isn’t there - with people who are so fragmented

and living in emotional denial.

I don’t like living in denial. I never did.

I can’t stand pretentious people. Never did.

“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.

The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”

Marcus Aurelius

“When someone shows you who they are – believe them.” Maya Angelou

“When someone takes you away from you – walk away.” Sandra Hammel

Life is a spiritual experience for me.

I love my spirit.

I love the Greater Spirit I am part of.

I love all spirits

who are free to love back . . .

. . . who throw their “joy of life” out for all to walk in the glow of . . .

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radiating out all that they are, have become.

This is where I live.

In the radiance of all the good in humankind and all things good,

true and willing to find the life of celebration.

This is where I am.

Life is Music to Me

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Life is Dance to Me

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Life is Drama to Me

Life is Color to Me

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Life loves truth

This is Where I AM . . .

. . . in this glory of Life

Celebrating Life as a Good Thing

and open to abundance.

You are welcome to come sing with me,

to come share the joy and dance with me

You can see the joy, delight and contentment in my eyes.

I invite you to live in what our eyes find in one another’s eyes.

I invite you to make love with our eyes, our hearts,

our unbridled exploratory touching…

…abandon time and caged up emotions

that have kept us prisoners way too long,

once upon a time.

No one can hold me anymore from being me with all the stops pulled full out.

This is where I live my life, now.

Free of my mother’s judgments, free of fear that she won’t approve of me or won’t like me.

This is where I am.

NOW.

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You could be here, too.

But I can’t take you here.

I can only be here.

No more denying who I was born to be.

I stand tall here

in the light

in my truth.

To my mother:

Walking into your presence

still gives my breath halting, choppy breathing,

but

I am strong enough now to keep all of me

in tact

and

leave your presence with a renewed energy and self-awareness

that I am still whole upon leaving you.

You’ve stolen my wholeness in my life, until now.

Today is different

and

I stand alone, but whole.

As sorry as I am that we have no connection,

no relating between us –

I can live “here” now

and be fully alive

with or without you.

To life, I say

Thanks!

And to all who can see me

and not attempt to kill bits of me – thank you!

All in us is open

and all is open to us.

Wow.

I love my life.

It’s true.

It’s genuine.

It’s joyful.

It’s my bliss.

It is Divine.

Life meeting LIFE and complementing the other.

This is living the way I am sure it was meant to be when we were created.

What fun to be alive.

I wish you all this and more.

Be true to your self.

Only you can do this for you.

That’s the beauty in it –

It’s all within your power.

And once you have it

NO one can take it way.

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Genocide Should Be Made History

Join the "Fidelity Out of Sudan" Campaign
www.FidelityOutOfSudan.com

www.sudandivestment.org
www.ajws.org

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