❧❧❧ Whatever you can do or dream, you can BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe ❧❧❧
❧❧❧ You were born whole, not broken. Sandra Hammel ❧❧❧
Sunday, January 6, 2013
YOUR GLOW ♫ A TRIBUTE TO THOSE AFFECTED BY SANDY HOOK MASSACRE
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013, the bus
drivers, the surviving Sandy Hook Elementary School children and staff went
back to another building to resume their school year.
The song ~ Your Glow ~ is a tribute for those affected by Sandy Hook Elementary School
Massacre. I wrote the music December 14 on the day it happened. I wrote lyrics
to the music later on December 26 & 27. Yesterday, I used Garage Band to improvise a flute and bass part along with the keyboard. It is not a polished version, only put together in a few hours.
Your Glow
by Sandra Hammel
Verse 1
Breath is no more, your bright light shines on. Oh the pain seeps so deep, grace come to me to free.
Oh our hearts entwined for eternity, Oh touch me now…fly…… Oh, angel. Love never die
Surround me now, for now, I hold you sweetly within, lighting up my way. Going on for you.
I lift my eyes to you, Wanting all the world to see your star.
Verse 2
Breathe life in me, oh, bright star that shines on. Where to go when overcome, estranged from peace and calm.
Oh our hearts entwined for eternity, Oh touch me now…fly…… Oh, angel. Love live on.
Surround me now, for now, I hold you sweetly within, lighting up my way. You left behind your glow.
I lift my eyes for you, Knowing your tender soul remains in mine.
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
When
I was still teaching in the schools, I taught 5 to 10 year olds. I was
the music teacher. So, when I picture these children and the staff, I
can picture it in my mind very personally. I think it is the wrong thing to do to arm teachers. I wrote about it here.
The second amendment has outlived its relevancy. When it was written, guns had a single bullet capacity and it took considerable time to reload it.
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
From New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver
About the video~
Brenton Point State Point on Ocean Drive, in Newport, Rhode Island. This
is a popular place to fly kites on Sundays, which it was on October 10,
2010. Across the road, Ocean Drive, from Brenton Point State Park is a
view of the Atlantic Ocean.
The title to the post is wrong. I don't believe the statement. It is irony.
I have always had serious issues with the wording in the Declaration of Independence. Specifically this excerpt:
The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
* See below for text that goes here.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
The indigenous people had a right to protect their way of life. After all, it is felt today, that the United States has a right to protect their way of life by those who attacked the USA on September 11.
I believe the wording which calls the indigenous people "merciless Indian Savages" is full of prejudice, ignorance and racist. And here it is institutionalized in one of the most important documents - other than all those treaties the government signed with the indigenous peoples and broke one after another.
Ironic, that the following words are what is written between the above statements. Some of the very things that the Declaration of Independence is faulting King George of Great Britain of doing to the Europeans, who landed in North America, the Europeans were doing and worse to the indigenous people already inhabiting the land being taken or stolen by the Europeans.
* He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence begins: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life...
"...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life". "Life" includes health care, health insurance. And yet, so much trouble around a health care bill that provides this right to life, even for those who can't afford insurance.
................................................ Some irony in this video.
The pledge of allegiance to the USA flag, which there was such a flurry about during the Presidential campaign ends with the words "with liberty and justice for all". There were false claims at that time, that Barack Obama would not wear a patriotic flag pin or say the pledge of allegiance.
There is a lack of "justice for all", if not all can afford health care.
....................................................... Be As You Are - Frederick Perls Uploaded by davidtheharper
An excerpt from my current journal:
August 15, 2009 1:46 p.m.
RAW PLACES
I'm one of those who goes to the raw places, To no destination on someone else's map, But a place where I feel the most. I feel the most me. Nearer to a time-free place, It's not a place you can see with your eyes, Yet my eyes show when I'm there. But only to those who can read eyes.
Raw places, where the hurt is always fresh, pain is ageless. Raw places where the moments of wholeness are as alive as the moment it showed up.
Raw places where being real is not only okay, but welcome.
You can't come to the raw places, if you don't show up real.
I only want to be with those who come to their raw place.
Otherwise, you might as well be dead, You're just living dead anyway.
Why live dead when you can live alive?
You can show up whole there and not fear rejection.
You can bring everything and feel free to open it up. You can feel, hold it, be comforted with it. You can let it unfold, you can let it envelop you. ............................................................... ............................................................... The raw place is the altar of your soul. It's where I go when I need to feel alive. It's where I live most of the time. It's where I want to be because it's where I feel real.
It's where the universe integrates with my spirit, my soul. It's where I find refuge in myself.
All those who try so hard to never go to their raw place, live with a soul that's always hungry, starving 'til mortal death moves them through.
Those who want to go there but don't know the way, find people like me and get their soul nourished by living off my willingness to live raw.
I am pulled toward other souls who want to be fearless, who are willing to open up to all that is.
Sandra Hammel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Just You and I"
Sung by Melissa Manchester
Lyrics
When your heroes go up in a puff, There's not enough to hang on to And the ones you would count on to call They all fall down all around you
Then you've got to believe there's more It is the reason, we're put here for There's just you and I
When the legends over
And we have just begun
We can look to each other
To see us through
Just you and I
When a miracle's long overdue And there's no one who's gonna come to guide you So you keep looking up to the sky - wondering why The clouds won't hide you
At the times when you're most afraid That is the reason why dreams are made There’s just you and I
When legends all over
And we have just begun
We can look to each other
To see us through
Just you and I.
At the times when you’re most afraid
That is the reason dreams are made
There’s just you and I
When the legends over
And we have just begun We can look to each other
To see us through
Just you and I
Just you and I
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Friend, don't be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a curse and a strain. For you tremble lest you miss the bulls-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 glad for them. You had the courage to give something of yourself. It takes years to be centered; it takes more years to understand and be now." Frederick Perls
Youtube video above, inserted in Raw Places is uploaded by ilovemylifesblog I wanted to put a portion of the video below in it, but my MAC and imovie wasn't cooperating. So this is the best I could do. I also wanted to put Heath Ledger in it, but it just didn't work out with the length of the song, as well as not blending well with the other two actors that I did use. Well, he would have blended for my way of thinking, but others probably would have been confused.
............................................................... Mrs. Carrie Watts gets to finally go back home for a visit. "The Trip to Bountiful" Part 9 of 11 Geraldine Page Oscar Performance Uploaded by tlcarpenter
If you click on this post's title it will take you to my youtube of my favorite scene in "The Trip to Bountiful"
Each of us really just wants to be "home". "Home" can mean many things. This is dedicated to my dad - who just wanted to live at home in his last year and a half of life, but he didn't.
............................................................... Heath Ledger in The Four Feathers A wonderful film. Heath Ledger Uploaded by Cliffy4479
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can't help it. I am in this Heath Ledger groove. I just "watched" the most interesting radio interview with Heath done December 3, 2007 posted on Youtube in three parts.
............................................................... Part 1 Uploaded by springrose147
Stephen Schaefer:
Brokeback Mountain really was, you know, in some ways was a career peak, so, or in many ways.Did it really change things for you, in the way you looked at yourself, or, uh the way you felt what you were able to then go do? …as an actor, in terms of what Hollywood would offer you?
Heath:
Yeah, yeah, yes, it did.Um, I’d like to not to think of it as a peak (laughs)cause I’m only 28, I have a few years."
Schaefer: You can have many peaks.
Heath: Oh, okay, good.
Schaefer: There are peaks and they’re valleys.
Heath: That’s true, true.Okay, um,
Schaefer: One of many career peaks.
Heath: Hopefully.Um, but yeah, it um, I get, yeah it did on many levels, I think personally it did too.I, I um, I’d been looking, I always look for things that challenge me and, and duh, and dum and teach me and, and teach me and, and to be more understanding, accepting human being, an actor and, and, and dum and that was a real task, there were a lot of obstacles and um.
You know, I, uh, I don’t think it was, I don’t think you can say it’s being brave or being courageous.It’s just, you know, uh, I just think it’s being honest, understanding, accepting of myself, and of the story, of the character.It did teach me a lot about that.And about your power.To believe.And, and um. so-o, you know, I-I on a personal level got a lot out of it.And uh, um.And definitely, it, it, uh, um, uh, you know it opened some doors.You know, people are uh, somewhat utterly trusting me more now. (Laughs) Which, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, for them.But, um you know, it’s um..so
Included in this portion is this quote by Heath at 7:06 :
"...and dum, and then I do the Terrence Malik, movie right after that, then um The Tree of Life and then I um, and then I, I'll drop to the ground dead (laughs, Schaefer joins Heath in laughter) for a year...and duh, hybenate...um, mmm".
Transcription of Heath’s answering
The following answer begins at 7:45
Heath: Yeah, I, I guess so. I-I guess you’d… you know, I don’t know whether it’s optimism or just kind of um, I..you know, it’s...
Sometimes , you just, you-you have to kind of throw away the care, like you have to not be too conscious of what will be a success and what won’t be.Uh, cause you really – that’s out of your power.And, and, like I said, look what is success?And um, uh, so I, you know I just, I- I try to look at what I feel like…the, the
Cause for me, like, what a success is – is, I mean the only time that I’m alive, and living and expressing and feeling, and, and relating is, is, is when I’m on set and that time between “action” and “cut” and so that’s the only thing that’s really important is how that experience is, and, and how that experience will affect my life and what I have to give from my life to that experience.And everything that happens after that – is just irrelevant. You know, it’s
............................................................... Part 3
At 3:33, Stephen Schaefer chooses to follow the interview with the Bob Dylan song, "and now as we rock on out, we're going to be doing Antony and the Johnsons version of
Heath: is, is when I’m on set and that time between “action” and “cut” and so that’s the only thing that’s really important is how that experience is, and, and how that experience will affect my life and what I have to give from my life to that experience.And everything that happens after that – is just irrelevant. You know, it’s (transcription above repeated from Part 2 here on Part 3)
kind of um, if it’s a success, great, if it’s not, great, fine.You know, it’s um, it affects you, or it doesn’t.
But it’s, that shouldn’t in my, my mind, it shouldn’t kind dictate what your choices.Um, I, I –I just want to enjoy myself.I want to learn more.I want to work with good people.Um, creatively and as people who really just good people.
And duh, uh, so that, that, that drives me more than, then, well you know Terry had a really hard time on Brothers Grimm and you know, uh for some odd reason is finding it hard to get his next movie up and running.Oh, w-w, that’s too risky, I can’t be involved with that.No, no it’s like he’s one of the most creative, most visionary minds of, of, ever, in film history.I – I – I and a wonderful figure in my life.And had done a lot for me and cast me in The Brothers Grimm, when no one wanted to work with me at that stage of career.And, and, and uh, you know the company even once Terry brought me on boarddidn’t want me in the film and wanted to replace me and Terry said “No! I won’t do the movie without him for some odd reason.
Schaefer: Jesus, who knew?!Oh, God.
Heath: Yeah, you know, he, he’d given a lot to me and like if I can do anything to help him out then, then I will and dum, and so, you know, that’s the reason why.
Heath talks about the life of moving between staying home and working in films.
Schaefer: And final question.
And uh, this is something, you know, we ask actresses more often than actors.How do you find trying to have a balance then between your personal life and your professional life?With, you know, is it difficult, we see in the Dylan movie, the part you’re playing, that his personal life seems to really suffer from it.The celebrity.
Heath: Yeah, yeah it is difficult, but um, I mean, I can’t, I think my struggles are different to Robbie’s, I- I, but yeah, it is, but, it’s, it’s kind of heartbreaking in a sense – like having to-o, the inconsistency of your social life –
kind of clocking in, checking in with your friends, and getting back a routine with your family, and, and life and kind of doing the washing, doing the dishes, maintaining your household, uh, commuting, uh, and then that just being chopped off and having three weeks go to London and, and work through Christmas and act in Vancouver and work to Martin and go off to Austin, Texas, and work there for three months then you’re away from them and everything for seven months and then you then you come back and try to rekindle it again, only to have it taken away, a year later.And, and it can be really tiring, it can be really lonely.
It can be (exhales) all these things, but, but, but we still do it.Like it’s because, you know, it’s what we love, it’s something that drives us to it. Or away from it.Or you know, there’s a fascination, an addiction to the lifestyle as well, I think, um.It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, I believe.Um, you know. Cause part of you wants to stay home and do nothing for the rest of your life, but as soon as you’re there, you want to get out and start working.
Schaefer laughs, then Heath joins him)You know?
Schaefer, Yeah.
Okay, this is Stephen Schaefer for WPS1 Beyond the Subtitles. So long, farewell and “Thank You, Heath Ledger”.
Heath: Thank You, Stephen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This interview is precious and priceless.Heath is comfortable and relaxed in this interview.Stephen and Heath appear to be friends, here.What a pleasure to hear Heath in this 3 part interview that springrose147 has blessed us with.It is just so hard to deal with the sorrow to have him gone.Not unlike many around the world, I connected with Heath though I didn't "know" him.But Heath connected through his integrity, minus the pretense and hype.Just by being Heath.
Heath, without knowing, left many with an indelible mark. We never forget those who put us in touch with our own souls.
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.
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
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.
............................................. ............................................. 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
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
I love my life. I love where I live. And I am passionate about my passions. I love to dance. Necessary to live: music, piano, singing, writing, acting, painting.
I have been fighting for and supporting the arts all my adult life. Since 2004, I have been working with other activists to end the Darfur genocide.
I have traveled to Europe many times since my early twenties. Places I have been: many USA states including Hawaii, Montreal, Canada, Barbados, France, Spain, Luxembourg, England, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Germany - and have wonderful memories.
My last trip was in May - June 2013 to Spain.
I would like to travel to Europe and Kyoto, Japan.
I love the southwest where I have visited Hopi, Navajo, Zia and San Idlefonso potters.
Life is exciting and I intend to live it full-out to the end.
B.S. and M.M., both in music
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Khartoum, Sudan Stop Genocide Time
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Spain Time
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Melbourne Time
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Hawaii Time
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RAFA NADAL -BRING BACK LONG PANTS - SLEEVELESS TOPS
Double Click on Videos to Enlarge
Darfur - The Abandoned Genocide - a video by Sandra Hammel
Want to help? Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
"May I Suggest" by Susan Werner
Satchita - Playing for Change
Stand By Me ~ Playing for Change
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Genocide is not only a word,
it is crying of the whole human race.
There is nothing redeeming about being silent
when speaking up is the humane thing to do.
The honor and integrity of the human race is at stake.
