CHOOSING TO LIVE VULNERABLE

Living Outside As I Feel Inside

I don't like what life throws my way at times. It makes me struggle through. But there have been times of disharmony, or pain when I have also known right then and there that I am feeling a beauty with the disharmony, the pain. Why? I think maybe because it is in those moments that I feel very alive. Not dead inside. But vibrantly alive.

We, as a part of life, surely undulate - affected by all forces, elements of the universe. Chords in music fall into two classes: concords and discords. I love disharmony in music placed among the harmony. It makes it feel more real to me, the music richer. It would feel pretentious if only harmony was concordant.

For those who use their courage and heart to be on the journey of understanding, there is a chance Life will meet itself and feel abundance if only for fleeting moments. These are my moments of harmony. Exhaling and inhaling, the tide coming in and going out, rich joy and deep hurt - opposing forces maybe not dissimilar to harmony and disharmony. I want to feel alive. In a way that I am riding high on the awareness of it. And hopefully, on the dark days I can muddle through enough so that I not let the darkness swallow me up.

From a poem I wrote ~ The Power Of Beauty ~ Higher Than Reason

It is important that we open
ourselves
to our vast resource of emotions and passion,
and that we
give with feeling, from a soul
that has felt its depths
pushed out into
an infinite realm.
~ By Sandra Hammel

I strive for an open-ended approach to life. No one knows or has the fixed end-all answers. We can, each one, choose to take the road to journey on that is more vulnerable, one of integrity, discards the pretense and opens himself or herself to the possible hurts that others spend their whole lives pushing down, running from or denying.


I choose vulnerability. I can't live outside of who I am inside. So, since no one has the answers that I can live by, I try to trust my own sense of what feels to fit the universe's calling for me. That is the best that I can do.

I was inspired to write these words from a post at Shekhar Kapur's website, Shekhar directed a movie I very much like ~ The Four Feathers

fan video of The Four Feathers

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friend, don’t be a perfectionist.
Perfectionism is a curse and a strain.
For you tremble lest you miss the bull’s-eye.
You are perfect if you let be.

Friend, don’t be afraid of mistakes.
Mistakes are not sins.
Mistakes are ways of doing something different,
Perhaps creatively new.

Friend, don’t be sorry for your mistakes.
Be proud of them.
You had the courage to give something of yourself.
It takes years to be centered; it takes more years
to understand and to be now.
Until then, beware of both extremes,
perfectionism as well as instant cure, instant joy, instant sensory awareness.

Until then, beware of any helpers.
Helpers are con-men who promise something for nothing.
They spoil you and keep you dependent and immature.

Frederick S. Perls

.................................................
The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran
Uploaded by KathrynCassidycom

A LOVE ONCE NEVER FORGOTTEN

.............................................

.............................................
My plan is to go through my multitude of personal journals written since the early 1970's and also my mountain of other writing and write a book or a series of books. My subplan is to write about my life in categories which will be chapters. Each chapter enough to be a complete book on its own. One on my wrestling with my internal dialogue which was born in my immediate family, one about all the maleness...you know boyfriends, male friends. Other chapters, too. I have been reading some of my journals the last couple of days. And wow. Just wow. Sometimes, what I am reading just hits me in the heart. Sometimes, tears well up in my eyes. I am quite sure I lived many lives before this one. I have always been an "old soul". My writing has always been introspective, deep and full of yearning to arrive whole.

It is just unimaginable how much energy, time and mulling over I did with the "boys". When I revisit the writing that I did on each one, I can tell which ones were buried deep in my experience and which ones I was just trying too hard to make real. The perspective is awesome from the place I am now in.

I was married just once in my life. And it was a mistake. It was in 1972. And six months after the wedding, we started divorce counseling. Or so it turned out. I won't go into the details, now. And the book may never get published. But it for sure feels like the better place to expose my heart.

I have lived in a committed relationship since. It lasted 15 years. That is the last relationship I have had. And we still "relate" if it could possibly be categorized as that. We adopted a son together. We are cordial.

He is African American. I am not. Although, that may open the question as to why I mention it, I will leave it open for now.

My marriage should have never taken place. But I don't regret it anymore. We were young. I had already had my heart broken.

And since then... there has been so much breaking of my heart, that maybe that is why I am so content just the way that I am. Single. I checked out that eHarmony. And I can't possibly put myself there. If I were to meet someone in real life, I would be willing to tenderly go down that road. But assertively pursuing a relationship is not of any interest to me.

Reading my journals just underscores that for me.

One thing I have never been good at is saying "it is over". When it is me that is not feeling fulfilled, then I find it difficult because I can't bear seeing the pain that is in the man's eyes. And many times, I haven't known it is over when it really has been. I think now, that the pain has been so deep and too many times for me to be mindless and senseless in the present.

I found lovely feelings never go away for a love that was bright. The warm and real feelings are alive when reading the words that were created from what was felt so dearly before. In 1977, such a love shone so brightly. It was a mere couple of weeks. And then he was forever gone. But the feelings were radiant. A rare experience. Rare, because often loves have resurfaced. This one never did. He was stationed here for a brief time as a Marine. The only service man I ever...well except for one time in Florence, Italy...but that one doesn't count really. ...ever dated.

This is an excerpt from my personal journal number 7, about this blazing love

Claire

I am saying “Good Bye.”

My tongue has tried to put words on my heart’s singing and I have unveiled a relatively large part of my spirit’s soul to you,
in our brief time.

Your presence
has given
me
more than words
deserve to steal from.

With an inevitable appearance of boldness
I say:
You
are
beautiful
because
I
say
you
are…

You are worthy
and deserving
of being
loved
for my soul
reached out
to yours
and found
itself
loving
you.

Needs
need not know their reason
for being.

My vast need to love –
simply found joy
and fulfillment
in loving you.

If I had
to mark a time
in space
to say
good-bye,
I would never choose
the present.

For –
planting seeds, then
never reaping that “just right” feeling
that lingers for a moment
at a harvest
forbids us
tomorrows
of
mellowness.

Our “today-relationship”
began a season of spring,
but is denied its other seasons.

Will we ever know a relationship, in each of our lives,
for all seasons?

My hopes acknowledge
such dreaming as a possible happening,
And why not?

Well, yes, I’m rambling,
but it serves me well.

The time and space
we have shared,
hopefully, is too unique, too precious,
to have a form.

The Force will always be with you…

“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 is to build a bridge between yourself and everything worth being one with.

To believe in God is to have a somebody who knows you through and through and likes you still and all.

To believe in God is to lay down together our minds to rest a while, while we mind one another’s thinking.

To believe in God is to be one of those kids who just refuses to grow up and get older and older and die forever.

To believe in God is to drink wine, it is to eat bread, not by yourself but by some other magic.

To believe in God is to be able to die and not to be embarrassed.

To believe in God is to know the thing you are shall make you live and it will never make you do anything less.”

Remember and listen to this voice inside you, carefully.

“We cannot live forever outside each other – who still dream of mansions.”

(All the above quotations from Joseph Pintauro’s little book To Believe in God)

“… and what is supposed to be gone and past
is often more real than ever.
Through the sculpture of experience,
that part of ourselves which survives,
resolves continuously.
This is the spirit of my hope
and religion.”
(from Cedric Wright’s Words of the Earth)

This is my “Good Bye”.

“We must learn to celebrate life where we find it.”
(From McMahon and Campbell’s book Please Touch)

“The days of our lives must become precious.
Human life must know ecstasy.
Intense beauty is liberation.
Here again,
as everywhere,
the great river passing –
I passing,
you passing…
…forever flowing down through time,
flowing through many channels,
fading out of the embraces of its names…
…simple as the voice of a child and never to be quite known.
In this light and breeze are resurrection echoes.
Suddenly one becomes aware one lives in an eternity,
and hears strange footsteps ascending anciently trodden pathways.”
(from Cedric Wright’s Words of the Earth)

……..7 pages later in the same journal…

This summer, Claire, I was proven through the delightful discovery of feeling for you, that my heart could give and was ready, was willing to risk again. For this – your heart is treasured by my heart and my love of you, I know, is immortal.

Cherish the thought.

Be my harbour

Habour: A place of security and comfort, a refuge. To shelter. To give a refuge to. To indulge, to cherish a thought or feeling.

I Believe In You

"Oz never gave nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have.” from the Wizard of Oz

We met July 9, 1977 and he left July 23, 1977
................................................

................................................
If You Go Away

If you go away
On this summer's day
Then you might as well
Take the sun away
All the birds that flew
In the summer sky
When our love was new
And our hearts were high
And the day was young
And the nights were long
And the moon stood still
For the night bird's song

If you go away
If you go away
If you go away...

But if you stay
I'll make you a day
Like no day has been
Or will be again
We'll sail on the sun
We'll ride on the rain
And talk to the trees
And worship the wind

But if you go
I'll understand
Leave me just enough love
To fill up my hand


If you go away
If you go away
If you go away...

If you go away
As I know you will
You must tell the world
To stop turning
'til you return again
If you ever do
For what good is love
Without loving you?
Can I tell you now
As you turn to go
I'll be dying slowly
'til the next hello

If you go away
If you go away
If you go away...

But if you stay
I'll make you a night
Like no night has been
Or will be again
I'll sail on your smile
I'll ride on your touch
I'll talk to your eyes
That I love so much

But if you go
I won't cry
Though the good is gone
From the word goodbye

If you go away
If you go away
If you go away...

If you go away
As I know you must
There is nothing left
In this world to trust
Just an empty room
Full of empty space
Like the empty look
I see on your face
And I'd been the shadow
Of your shadow
If you might have kept me
By your side

If you go away
If you go away
If you go away...

If you go away
If you go away...
Ne me quite pas

Uploaded by nycgirl4

Julio Iglesias can be heard singing this song by clicking on the post title.

Another version here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Genocide Ends

When Enough of Us

Stand Up Against It

JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

www.miafarrow.org


Write President Obama
www.whitehouse.gov
You can also call or write to the President:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments to President Obama: 202-456-1111

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IF NOT,

THEN,

YOUR SILENCE

CONTRIBUTES

TO

ANOTHER

GENOCIDE.

www.savedarfur.org/content